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.
-
D’URFEY, Thomas.
The Progress of Honesty: or, a View of a Court and City. A Pindarique Poem …
London: Printed for Joseph Hindmarsh … 1681.
First edition of an allegorical poem inspired, like Dryden’s Absalom and Achitophel, by the Exclusion Crisis of 1681. ‘Honesty’ describes to ‘Error’, ‘Faction’ and ‘Beauty’ the court of Charles II (‘Titus the Second … the joy of human kind’), and the malign effects of Treason...
£300
-
[D’URFEY, Thomas].
Butler’s Ghost: or Hudibras. The Fourth Part. With Reflections upon these Times …
London, Printed for Joseph Hindmarsh … 1682.
First edition of D’Urfey’s sequel to Samuel Butler’s burlesque poem Hudibras, the most celebrated satire of the seventeenth century, published in three parts in 1663-78. Written in hudibrastic metre, the two cantos of Butler’s Ghost follow the progress of Butler’s eponymous hero from an interrupted...
£325
-
D’URFEY, Thomas.
Wit and Mirth: or Pills to purge Melancholy; being a Collection of the best merry Ballads and Songs, old and...
Pearson for J. Tonson, 1719 [– 1720].
The first complete edition, second issue of volumes I–V, and first issue of vol. VI, of the most famous songbook of its day, the first edition with titles altered to the familiar Wit and Mirth from Songs Compleat, 1719 (a change at the time of the publication in 1720 of volume VI,...
£2250
-
DURRELL, Lawrence.
Collected Poems.
London, Faber and Faber, [1960].
First edition, inscribed ‘For Geoff from Larry Durrell 1962 / “too much tape [?]” Eliot’.
£400
-
DYMENT, Clifford.
Poems 1935–1948.
London, J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd, [1949].
First edition, inscribed ‘For Geoffrey and Joyce, with best wishes plus, from Clifford Dyment and Marcella. October 1950’.
£200
-
ELLIOTT, Mary [née Belson].
Simple Truths, in Verse; for the Amusement and Instruction of Children at an early Age …
London: William Darton, sold also by Harvey and Darton … and John Harris … [c. 1825].
‘Fourth edition, corrected and revised’. Elliott was an extremely prolific author for Darton. These poems are settings of Anna Letitia Barbauld’s Hymns in Prose for Children (1791).
£200
-
FAGNANI, Giovanni Marco.
De bello Arriano libri sex.
Milan, heirs of Pacifico da Ponte and Giovanni Battista Piccaglia, 1604.
First and only edition of the sole published work by the Italian nobleman Giovanni Marco Fagnani (1524–1609), an epic poem recounting Ambrose of Milan’s campaign against local Arians in late fourth-century Lombardy.
£900
-
FERRARI, Giovanni Francesco.
Le rime burlesche, sopra varii, et piacevoli soggetti; indrizzate à diversi nobili signori.
Venice, heirs of Melchior Sessa, 1570.
First edition of the only work published by Giovanni Francesco Ferrari (d. 1588?), a Renaissance court poet of whom little is known, including poems in macaronic Spanish, several Italian dialects, and in lingua zerga, or furbesco, derived from the jargon of criminals.
£1250
-
FLORIAN, Jean-Pierre Claris de.
‘Stella a pastoral Romance … Translated from the French’.
[?England, early nineteenth century.]
An apparently unpublished manuscript translation of Florian’s popular romance Estelle (1788), a pastoral set in the Cévennes in the fifteenth century; it is in prose but regularly interspersed with poetry. There were two published English translations: Stella, a pastoral Romance...
£950
-
[FORD, James, editor].
The Suffolk Garland: or, a Collection of Poems, Songs, Tales, Ballads, Sonnets, and Elegies, legendary and...
Ipswich: Printed and Sold by John Raw; Sold also by Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown; and Rodd and Son, London. 1818
First edition of a miscellany of verse, much of it ephemeral, selected by the antiquary James Ford (1770-1850), perpetual curate of St. Laurence, Ipswich. In the preface Ford provides an outline of the history of ballads, drolleries, and penny literature and of how they have been collected by Pepys and...
£275
-
[FRASER, William Augustus, Sir.]
Poems by the Knight of Morar.
London, Whittingham and Wilkins, 1867.
First edition, privately printed, a presentation copy inscribed on the title-page ‘From the Author. Paris. 1867.’
£350
-
FREEMAN, Arthur.
Catullus Carmen 17.6 and Other Mysteries. A Study in Editorial Conflict, Eccentricity, Forgery, and Restitution....
London, The Author, 2020.
This partly historical, partly philological essay offers a general account of the early preservation, post-medieval recovery, and Renaissance evolution of the text of Catullus, with specific reference to one speculative reading in Carmen 17 (‘De Colonia’), and certain humanist twists and forgeries...
£15
-
GAMON, Christophe de.
La semaine, ou création du monde du sieur Christofle de Gamon, contre celle du Sieur du Bartas.
[Geneva,] Gédéon Petit, 1609.
Unauthorised second edition, scarcer than the first, of this poem on the creation of the world by Christophe de Gamon, this copy containing an early example of the use of the formula ‘collated and perfect’ by the librarian to the eighth Earl of Kinnoull.
£950
-
GAY, John, and Gordon ROSS (illustrator).
Rural Sports, together with the Birth of the Squire and the Hound and the...
New York, William Edwin Rudge, 1930.
Limited edition, numbered 94 of 200 copies for sale, signed by the artist. A handsome edition with hand-coloured illustrations by the sporting watercolourist Gordon Ross (1873–1946).
£160
-
[GOETHE.]
REICHARDT, Johann Friedrich. Goethe’s Lieder, Oden, Balladen und Romanzen mit Musik von J.F. Reichardt. Erste...
Leipzig, Breitkopf & Härtel, [1809–11].
Very rare first complete edition of Reichardt’s musical settings of Goethe’s poetry, comprising 128 settings of which thirty-nine appear here for the first time.
£6500
-
GOETHE, Johann Wolfgang von; Thomas HOLCROFT, translator.
Herman and Dorothea. A Poem, from the German …
London, Biggs and Cottle (Bristol), for T. N. Longman and O. Rees, 1801.
First edition in English of Hermann und Dorothea (1798), translated into verse by the radical, novelist, and friend of Godwin, Thomas Holcroft. Goethe’s epic, set against the background of the French Revolutionary Wars, was immensely popular in its day; Goethe praised Holcroft’s rendition...
£350
-
[GRANVILLE, George, Baron Lansdowne].
Poems upon several Occasions.
London: Printed for J. Tonson … 1712.
First edition; containing ‘all the Poems which have been written by the Right Honourable George Granville Lord Lansdown, very few of which have been ever before printed’. Granville (1666-1735) wrote his first play, The She-Gallants, at age 15, and his adaptation of Shakespeare, The Jew...
£350
-
[GUARINI, Giovanni Battista.]
Il Pastor Fido.
‘In Parigi, appresso Tomaso Iolly, 1706’.
Scarce Parisian edition of Guarini’s immensely popular ‘pastoral tragi-comedy’, charmingly illustrated by Antonio Luciani.
£175
-
HALIFAX, George Savile, Marquis of.
Miscellanies … viz. I. Advice to a Daughter. II. The Character of a Trimmer. III. The Anatomy...
London: Printed for Matt. Gillyflower … 1700.
First edition, the issue without the two rows of ornaments to the title-page, and with Q4-R3 uncancelled. Defoe’s Letter to a Dissenter (first published 1688) rather than Halifax’s was printed in error on leaves Q4-R3, and these leaves are cancelled in later issues (in the present copy Q4 is torn...
£450
-
HALLAM, Arthur Henry.
Remains, in Verse and Prose …
[London,] Printed by W. Nicol, 1834.
First edition, a presentation copy from the editor, the historian Henry Hallam, to his late son’s friend and fellow Cambridge ‘Apostle’ James Spedding. The prefatory memoir by Hallam senior includes a long letter from Spedding (‘one of his most valued friends’) (pp. xx-xxvi), here...
£5000