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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KELLY, James.
Poems.
Glasgow, Printed by Aird & Coghill, and sold by John Menzies & Co, 1888.
First edition, a presentation copy, of a collection of poems many of which were written ‘before the age of nineteen’. There are a number of sonnets, as well as devotional and nature poetry, some folksongs, and topographical works on e.g. the Isle of Arran.
£100
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KIPLING, Rudyard.
Mesopotamia.
Garden City, New York, Doubleday, Page & Company, 1917.
American copyright edition. A poem lamenting the losses of the First World War and calling for justice against the military and political leaders whose decisions and actions sent so many to their death.
£120
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KIPLING, Rudyard.
Great-Heart.
Garden City, New York, Doubleday, Page & Company, 1919.
American copyright edition. In this poem, Kipling casts the recently deceased Theodore Roosevelt as the character Great-Heart from A Pilgrim’s Progress.
£120
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KIPLING, Rudyard.
A Kipling Note Book, No. 2.
New York, M.F. Mansfield & A. Wessels, 1899.
Contains notes on Kipling’s early works, and suppressed editions, and extracts from prefaces to a number of his works. The supplements comprise copies of the cover illustrations for Kipling’s earliest works, as published by the Indian Railway Library.
£25
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LACTANTIUS.
Opera.
[Venice,] Vindelinus de Spira, 1472.
Magnificent incunable edition of the works of Lactantius, a fine product of the first Venetian press, established in 1469 by Johannes de Spira and continued by his brother Vindelinus from 1470 until 1473. This was the fifth impression of the works of Lactantius, the hugely successful North African...
£25000
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LAING, Alexander.
The True Hero and Other Poems …
Glasgow, Morison Brothers, 1893.
First edition, scarce, a presentation copy, inscribed in a shaky hand ‘To Wm J. Robertson / with author’s regards / Alex Laing / 8-4-19’.
£375
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LAMB, Charles.
John Woodvil a Tragedy ... to which are added, Fragments of Burton, the Author of the Anatomy of Melancholy.
London: Printed by T. Plummer ... for G. and J. Robinson ... 1802.
First edition. John Woodvil was Charles Lamb’s first play (or dramatic poem), regarded by him at one time as his ‘finest effort’, a ‘medley (as I intend it to be a medley) of laughter and tears, prose and verse, and in some places rhyme, songs, wit, pathos, humour, and, if possible, sublimity’...
£1250
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LEWIS, Wyndham.
One-Way Song. With a Foreword by T. S. Eliot.
London, Methuen, [1960].
Second edition, ostensibly an unaltered reprint of the first edition of 1933, but in fact with some changes. Eliot’s foreword is new to this edition. Bridson had reviewed the original edition uncharitably as ‘versified pamphleteering’ in Poetry XLV: 3 (Dec 1934), accusing it of being a satirical...
£150
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LLOYD, Mary.
Brighton a Poem. Descriptive of the Place and Parts adjacent. And other Poems …
London: Printed for the Author. Sold by J. Harding … and by all the Booksellers at Brighton, Worthing, and Eastborne. 1809.
First and only edition of Mary Lloyd’s paean to the attractions of ‘Beauty, and fashion’s ever favourite seat’. The poem vividly portrays Brighton’s dazzling social round: the races, dances at the Assembly Rooms, plays at the theatre, and acrobatic shows at the circus. Particular attention...
£350
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LUCRETIUS.
Titi Lucretii Cari de rerum natura libri VI. Ad optimorum exemplarium veritatem exacti. Quae praeterea in hac...
Padua, Giuseppe Comino [for Volpi], 2 January 1721.
First Volpi–Comino edition of Lucretius’s famous materialist and Epicurean poem, the most notable Italian edition of the eighteenth century. The present work is the product of the long-running and fruitful collaboration between the printer Giuseppe Comino and the scholars Giovanni Antonio...
£450
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MACDIARMID, Hugh.
Stony Limits and Scots Unbound and other Poems ...
Edinburgh, Castle Wynd Printers, [1956].
First edition thus, including some poems that were excluded from the original edition of Stony Limits (1932) over libel fears, and the title-poem only of Scots Unbound (1934), correcting the printers’ errors from the first edition. Bridson had reviewed the first edition of Stony Limits...
£100
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MACDIARMID, Hugh.
Three Hymns to Lenin …
Edinburgh, Castle Wynd Printers, [1957].
First collected edition, inscribed ‘With love and best wishes to my friend Geoffrey Bridson from Hugh MacDiarmid 17/3/63’. The poems published here had originally appeared separately between 1930 and 1955.
£200
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MACDIARMID, Hugh.
Poems to Paintings by William Johnstone 1933 …
Edinburgh, K.D. Duval, [1963].
First edition.
£25
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MACDIARMID, Hugh.
Direadh I, II and III …
[Stamperia Valdonega for] Frenich, Foss, Kulgin Duval & Colin H. Hamilton, 1974.
First edition, no. 29 of 200 signed copies on Magnani paper.
£175
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MACDIARMID, Hugh.
A Lap of Honour.
[London,] MacGibbon & Kee, [1967].
First edition, published to coincide with MacDiarmid’s seventy-fifth birthday.
£40
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MACDIARMID, Hugh [i.e. Christopher GRIEVE], and Valda TREVLYN GRIEVE.
Three Christmas cards, signed from Christopher...
undated.
Three Christmas cards to Douglas Geoffrey Bridson, BBC radio producer and long-time friend of MacDiarmid, and his wife Joyce. The two cards signed from both Christopher and Valda (but in her hand) carry generic messages, the third evidently sent after Christopher’s death, laments ‘I don’t...
£100
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MACLEISH, Archibald.
Conquistador.
Boston and New York, Houghton Mifflin, 1932.
First edition, signed ‘Archibald MacLeish / Conway, Mass’. This long poem won MacLeish his first of three Pulitzer prizes.
£300