English Literature
Contact Donovan Rees
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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[BROWN, Thomas, M.D.].
The Bower of Spring, with other Poems … Edinburgh: Printed for Archibald Constable and Co. and Longman,...
Edinburgh: Printed for Archibald Constable and Co. and Longman, Hurst Rees, Orme and Brown, London. 1817
First edition. Brown was professor of Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh and a prolific versifier (‘among the few Classical Writers of this scribbling generation’ according to the Edinburgh Review – for which Brown was a regular contributor).
£225
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BUQUOY, Georg Franz August de Longueval, Freiherr von Vaux, Graf von.
Anregungen für philosophisch-wissenschaftliche Forschung...
Leipzig, Breitkopf & Härtel, 1825.
First edition, rare, of a comprehensive discussion by the author of his personal philosophy, with c. 50 pages of his poetry thrown in at the end for good measure. Samuel Hahnemann refers to the work in Die chronischen Krankheiten (1828–30), calling Buquoy a ‘deep-thinking, many-sided scholar and...
£950
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BUTLER, Samuel.
Hudibras, in three Parts, written in the Time of the Late Wars … with Annotations and an Index.
London, Thomas Maiden for Vernor & Hood [and others], 1802.
An illustrated pocket edition of Butler’s Hudibras, the most celebrated satire and one of the most influential poems of the seventeenth century, owned by a young Siegfried Sassoon.
£450
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[BYRON, George Gordon, Lord].
Lara, a Tale. [and] Jacqueline, a Tale [by Samuel Rogers].
London, Printed for John Murray …, 1814.
First edition, Randolph’s fourth variant (with the crooked roman numeral on p. 82 and the fallen period on p. 20). By 1814 Byron was heavily pressed by debts, having previously refused payment for his poems. For Lara, the fourth of Byron’s Levantine poems, published on the back of The...
£400
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BYRON, [George Gordon Noel], Lord, and Thomas MOORE, biographer.
The Works of Lord Byron, with his Letters...
London, [A. & R. Spottiswoode for] John Murray, 1832 [– 1833; – 1837].
A handsome set, attractively bound in Art Deco green morocco, of the collected works of Lord Byron, accompanied by Moore’s life of the poet.
£850
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[BYRON, Pseudo-.]
Don Leon, a Poem by Lord Byron … forming Part of the private Journal of his Lordship, supposed have...
London, The Fortune Press, [1934].
No. 3 of 1000 copies printed (many subsequently destroyed) of a famous Byron forgery. Don Leon, not by Byron, though written by someone familiar with his life and exploits, was an important early plea for the toleration of homosexuality.
£500
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[CAMBRIDGE.]
Tract volume of nine scarce works of poetry, including two installation odes on the occasion of HRH William Frederick...
London and Cambridge, 1765-1823.
A sammelband of Cambridge poetry, including:
£1200
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CAMPBELL, Duncan.
A Poem upon Tea. Wherein its Antiquity, its several Virtues and Influences are set forth; and the Wisdom...
London, Mrs. Dodd, J. Roberts, J. Wilcox et al., 1735.
First and only edition, very scarce, of a series of poetical sketches in praise of tea over alcohol, dedicated ‘To the Fair Sex’ and with an unusual double preface to the masculine and then the feminine reader. Tea had arrived in Britain in the 1650s, but its expense made it very exclusive;...
£2500
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CARLI, Paolo Francesco da Montecarlo.
La Svinatura di Barbigi Mezzabarba (Paol Francesco Carli da Montecarlo) resa a miglior lezione...
Campobasso, Stab. Tip. Del Progresso, 1878.
Rare edition of a satire by poet and abbot Paolo Francesco Carli (1652–1725) ridiculing the work of his nemesis, the Tuscan priest and schoolmaster Giovan Paolo Lucardesi, who made a tremendous theological blunder in a sonnet in which he describes Christ as ‘crucified and triune’, thus undermining...
£150
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CARO, Annibale.
Rime del commendatore Annibal Caro. Col privilegio di N.S. PP. Pio V. et dell’illustrissima signoria di...
Venice, Aldus Manutius the Younger, 1569.
First edition of the poetry of Annibale Caro, offering a scathing yet humorous critique of his greatest poetic rival, Ludovico Castelvetro.
£650
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CARTWRIGHT, William.
Comedies, Tragi-comedies, with other Poems … the Ayres and Songs set by Mr Henry Lawes, Servant to his late...
London, Printed for Humphrey Moseley … 1651.
First edition of the witty and elegant drama and verse of a celebrated ‘son of Ben’, who said ‘My son Cartwright writes like a man’. According to Evelyn, Charles I reckoned The Royall Slave ‘the best that was ever acted’ after he saw it as the main entertainment on the royal progress...
£1750
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[CASTILLO Y SORIANO, José del.]
Amor á la creacion. Poesia dedicada á la Sociedad Madrileña Protectora de los Animales y de...
Madrid, Sociedad de Tipógrafos, 1879.
Very rare survival: a poem in twenty-four stanzas each of five lines devoted to the celebration of animals and plants, dedicated to the Madrid Society for the protection of nature, and publicly read by the actress Carolina Civili on the occasion of the May 1879 exhibition of plants and birds....
£375
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CHALKHILL, John.
Thealma and Clearchus. A pastoral History in smooth and easie Verse. Written long since by John Chalkhill, Esq;...
London: Printed for Benj. Tooke … 1683.
First edition, with the corrected state of the title, designating Chalkhill as ‘an acquaintant and friend of Edmund [originally ‘Edward’] Spencer’.
£1850
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CHAMBERLAYNE, William.
Phraronnida: a heroick Poem …
London, Printed for Robert Clavell … 1659.
First edition of the physician-poet William Chamberlayne’s best-known work, a long poem (14,000 lines) in heroic couplets blending Ariosto, Tasso and Greek romances. It deals with the tale of Argalia, a sort of knight errant rescued from the Turks and threatened with execution, and his love for Pharonnida,...
£2500
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CLAUDIANUS, Claudius.
Claudii Claudiani Alexandrini, poetae illustriss. quotquot nostra hac tempestate extant opsucula, ad series...
Paris, Simon de Colines, 1530.
First Colines edition of the major works of Claudianus Claudius, known in the English-speaking world as Claudian, a Greek-speaking Latin poet best known for the unfinished epic De Raptu Proserpinae. It is printed in the same attractive italic type Colines used for his octavo editions of...
£850
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CLEVELAND, John.
Clievelandi Vindiciae: or, Clieveland’s Genuine Poems, Orations, Epistles, &c. purged from the many false and...
London, Printed for Robert Harford ... 1677.
First edition, the issue with Robert Harford’s imprint. This ‘vindicatory’ text was prepared by Cleveland’s former students John Lake and Samuel Drake from authentic manuscripts to restore true readings to poems that had degenerated through six editions of The Character of a London-Diurnall...
£950
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COLERIDGE, S[amuel] T[aylor].
The Watchman. No. I [III, IV]. Tuesday, March 1 [17, 25], 1796. Published by the Author …
Bristol: and sold by the Booksellers and Newscarriers in Town and Country.
Three (of ten) issues of The Watchman, Coleridge’s first journalistic endeavour, very rare: published in March to May 1796.
£750
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COLLECTION (A)
of Poems: viz. the Temple of Death: by the Marquis of Normanby with several Original Poems, never before printed,...
London: Printed for Daniel Brown … and Benjamin Tooke … 1701.
Fourth edition of the important ‘Temple of Death’ miscellany of Restoration poetry, retaining most of the poems from the third edition (1693) and adding much material, including all the poems on pp. 172-282 – with contributions from Stepney, Arwaker and Congreve – and the poems at the end (pp....
£500
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CORBOULD, Henry (illustrator).
[Cover title:] Illustrations to Theodric, by Thomas Campbell, from designs by Henry...
London, Edward Lacey, 1829.
Unrecorded, a suite of five engravings for Thomas Campbell’s Theodric (1824), though seemingly not intended for inclusion in any particular edition.
£650
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[COTTLE, Joseph.]
Poems, containing John the Baptist. Sir Malcolm and Alla, a Tale, shewing to all the World what Woman’s Love...
Bristol, Printed by Bulgin and Rosser, for J. Cottle, Bookseller … and G. G. and J. Robinson … London, 1795.
First edition. The Bristol bookseller Joseph Cottle (1770-1853) had been introduced to Coleridge and Southey by Robert Lovell in 1794 when the two poets ‘were in Bristol courting the Fricker sisters and preparing for Pantisocracy (as they called their scheme to marry and set up a community on...
£6000