English Literature
Contact Donovan Rees or Zach Larsen
British literature and history from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, with an emphasis on poetry, fiction, and drama.
We usually have a selection of literary works from the STC and Wing period (i.e. before 1701), and a broad range of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century fiction and poetry, particularly the Romantics. We also have a selection of historical manuscripts, prints and broadsides, and works in translation.
Among important works which have passed through our hands are the editor's presentation copy of Milton's Lycidas, Swift's Modest Proposal, the autograph draft of Byron's She walks in beauty, the autograph manuscript of Jane Austen's only play Sir Charles Grandison, Dickens’s copy of Vanity Fair, Trollope's classical library, and, over the years, some fifty Shakespeare First Folios.
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MITCHISON, Naomi; Wyndham LEWIS, illustrator.
Beyond this Limit …
[London,] Jonathan Cape, [1935].
First edition. This was Lewis’s only collaboration with Mitchison but she arranged for the publication of his Left Wings over Europe the following year, and they remained friends until his death. 32 designs by Lewis served as the inspiration for Mitchison’s narrative.
£75
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[MONTEMAYOR, Jorge de, and Gaspar GIL POLO.]
The Troublesome and Hard Adventures in Love. Lively setting forth, the Feavers, the...
Alsop ... 1652 [but 1651].
The rare second edition of a text of 1594 known in a single imperfect copy (STC 153.3).
£7500
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MORRISON, Arthur.
Tales of Mean Streets. Lizerunt, Squire Napper, Without Visible Means, Three Rounds and Others …
Methuen & Co. … London, 1894.
First edition of Morrison’s second book. Born into a working-class family in Poplar, Morrison was first employed at the People’s Palace in Mile End, and then as a journalist for the evening Globe. His first book, The Shadows around Us (1891), comprised supernatural tales first printed...
£250
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[MURDER.]
A Warning Piece against the Crime of Murder: or, an Account of many extraordinary and most providential Discoveries of...
[London,] Printed for Wiliam Owen … ; and R Goadby, in Sherborne. [1752.]
First edition, very scarce, a fascinating compendium of grim crimes both real and clearly fictional, many ‘providentially discovered’ in a dream, revealed by returning ghosts, or uncovered ‘after many years concealment’, published in the context of the Murder Act of 1752 which introduced...
£300
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NICOLAI, [Christoph] Friedrich.
The Life and Opinions of Sebaldus Nothanker. Translated from the German … by Thomas Dutton,...
London: Printed by C. Lowndes, and sold by H.D. Symonds, 1798.
First edition in English, very scarce, of Nicolai’s Das Leben und die Meinungen des Herrn Magister Sebaldus Nothanker (1773–6), ‘probably the literary bestseller of the German Enlightenment’ (Selwyn), translated into many languages and much re-printed. It is sometimes considered...
£2750
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[O’BRIEN.] NA GOPALEEN, Myles. [Pseud.] Brian O’Nolan.
The Hard Life … An Exegesis of Squalor.
London: MacGibbon & Kee, 1961.
First edition. A short comic novel described by O’Brien’s biographer Anthony Cronin as ‘a small masterpiece’, The Hard Life recounts the turn-of-the-century doings of a nameless narrator and the characters around him, with a remote, disdainful calmness and clarity. Set in the same turn-of-the-century...
£250
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OHNET, Georges; Lady GODOLPHIN OSBORNE, translator.
The Battles of Life. The Ironmaster. From the French of Georges...
Authorized Translation … London, Wyman & Sons … 1884.
First edition in English of this bestselling novel intended for a female readership, translated from the French by Lady William Godolphin Osborne, printed amidst the translator’s contentious copyright lawsuit against the publisher Henry Vizetelly, who had issued a rival translation in the same year.
£450
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[PEACOCK, Thomas Love].
Gryll Grange. By the Author of ‘Headlong Hall’ …
London: Parker, Son, and Bourn … 1861
First edition in book form, following serialisation in Fraser’s, of Peacock’s final novel, perhaps his most witty and urbane. At a convivial house party at Gryll Grange the eccentric guests debate a whole range of mid-Victorian issues from the pretensions of science and the zeal of the reformers...
£400
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PONSONBY, Emily, Lady.
De Greville’s en de Lorimers. Twee Familie-Tafereelen, naar het Engelsch ...
Amsterdam, P. N. Van Kampen, 1851.
First edition in Dutch of ‘Susan Grenville; or Irresolution’ from Pride and Irresolution (1850), translated by J. Oudijk van Putten; ‘Walter Lorimer’ is a much shorter sketch at the end of vol. II.
£250
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PORTER, Jane.
Duke Christian of Luneburg; or, Tradition from the Hartz … in three Volumes …
London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green … 1824.
First edition. One of the earliest exponents of the historical novel, Porter enjoyed enormous popularity during her lifetime. Duke Christian of Luneburg was her sixth book, which she modestly described as ‘a little traditionary [sic] sketch of an illustrious hero’. Set in sixteenth-century...
£650
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PORTER, [Jane].
Thaddeus of Warsaw. In four Volumes … by Miss Porter. The fifth Edition.
London, Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, 1809.
Fifth edition of Jane Porter’s famous first book. The book, which led to a friendship between Porter and General Kościuszko, quickly became a best-seller (a new edition every year to 1806, eleven by 1826). The ‘Advertisement to the Second Edition’, commented at her pleasure at ‘totally...
£500
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PORTER, Jane and Anna Maria.
Coming out; and the Field of Forty Footsteps … In three Volumes …
London: Printed for Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green … 1828.
First edition; the first two volumes comprise ‘Coming Out; a Tale of the nineteenth century’ by Anna Maria Porter, the final volume is her sister’s ‘Field of Forty Footsteps; a Tale of the seventeenth century’. ‘Either would have made a three-decker all by itself’ (Wolff).
£650
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POUND, Ezra.
The Literary Essays … Edited with an Introduction by T. S. Eliot.
London, Faber & Faber, [1954].
First edition, first impression.
£75
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POUND, Ezra, and D.G. BRIDSON.
‘An Interview with Ezra Pound’ in New Directions 17. Norfolk, Conn.,
New Directions, [1961].
First edition, printing the majority of the interviews recorded in 1956 and broadcast in 1959. Other contributors to this issue included Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Williams.
£100
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POWYS, John Cowper.
A Glastonbury Romance.
London, John Lane The Bodley Head Limited, [1933].
First edition of Powys’s monumental sixth novel. Though we cannot trace a direct link between Powys and Bridson, Bridson certainly knew Powys’s friend James Hanley - they worked together for the BBC during the war. The centrality of the Grail legends to A Glastonbury Romance would...
£175
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PRIESTLEY, J. B.
Angel Pavement …
London, William Heinemann Ltd, 1930.
First edition, the deluxe issue, no. 308 of 1025 copies signed by the author.
£150
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PYNCHON, Thomas.
Gravity’s Rainbow.
New York, The Viking Press, [1973].
First edition of Pynchon’s magnum opus, ‘literally indescribable, a tortured cadenza of lurid imaginings and total recall that goes on longer than you can quite believe’ (Michael Wood).
£900
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REEVE, Clara.
The Memoirs of Sir Roger de Clarendon, the natural son of Edward Prince of Wales, commonly called the Black Prince;...
London: Printed for Hookham and Carpenter … 1793.
First edition. After several novels with contemporary settings, Reeve returned here to the past, though it is less gothic than her Old English Baron. The historical setting is a foil for a commentary on contemporary post-Revolutionary French politics. Reeve had been an initial support of...
£2750
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REEVE, Clara.
The Exiles; or Memoirs of the Count de Cronstadt …
London: Printed for T. Hookham … 1788.
First edition, a gothic romance by the author of The Old English Baron (1777).
£2400
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REXROTH, Kenneth.
An Autobiographical Novel …
Garden City, NY, Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1966.
First edition, inscribed ‘In friendship / for Geoffrey Bridson / Kenneth Rexroth SF June 66’.
£300