Search results
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[POPE, Alexander.]
Sober Advice from Horace, to the young Gentleman about Town, As deliver’d in his second Sermon. Imitated in...
London: Printed for T. Boreman … and sold by the Booksellers of London and Westminster, [1734].
First editions of Pope’s Sober Advice from Horace and Universal Prayer.
£650
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[SWIFT, Jonathan.]
On Poetry: a Rapsody.
Printed at Dublin, and Re-printed at London: and sold by J. Huggonson ... and at the Booksellers and Pamphlet-shops ... 1733.
First edition. On Poetry, one of Swift’s most important productions in verse, was early recognized as a masterpiece and would have achieved considerable favour for Swift at court had not Lord Hervey ‘undeceived Q[ueen] C[aroline] and taken some pains to teach her the use and power of...
£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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GOLDSMITH, Oliver.
Essays … Collecta revirescunt.
London: Printed for W. Griffin … 1765.
First edition, a collection of twenty-seven essays. The other edition of 1765, more cheaply printed and with a letterpress title-page, is given priority by Temple Scott, but Rothschild suggests it is a piracy or a cheap edition printed to meet extra demand – it is certainly less generously imposed,...
£500
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ETHEREGE, George.
The comical Revenge, or Love in a Tub. Acted at his Highness the Duke of York’s Theatre in Lincolns-Inn-Fields ...
London, Printed for Henry Herringman ... 1669.
Fourth edition of Etherege’s first play, preceded by two editions of 1664 and one of 1667; this is the scarcer of two printings for Herringman in 1669, with ‘fields’ rather than ‘Fields’ in the title, and the catchword ‘hope’ not ‘the’ on A2r.
£500
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[SHERIDAN, Richard Brinsley].
The School for Scandal. A Comedy. As it is acted at the Theatre, Smoke-Alley, Dublin. [Dublin], Printed...
[Dublin], Printed for the Booksellers. 1793
First separate illustrated edition. The plates, newly engraved, are based on plates in A Volume of Plays [by Sheridan and others] performed at the Theatre, Smoke-Alley, Dublin, 1785 and following. They illustrate Act IV, Scene 1 (the Surface family portraits) and Act IV, Scene 2 (the screen scene). The...
£750
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WALTON, Izaak.
The Life of Dr. Sanderson, late Bishop of Lincoln ... to which is added, some short Tracts or Cases of Conscience,...
London, Printed for Richard Marriott. 1678.
First edition, the last of Walton’s five celebrated Lives.
£400
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SWIFT, Jonathan.
The Works … accurately revised in twelve Volumes, adorned with Copper-Plates; with some Account of the Author’s...
London, Printed for C. Bathurst, C. Davis, C. Hitch and L. Lawes, J. Hodges, R. and J. Dodsley, and W. Bowyer. 1755. [Vols. II-IX: 1754].
The large octavo first Hawkesworth edition of Swift’s works, which preceded the quarto edition of 1755, complete in twelve volumes but later expanded to twenty-five by 1779 with the addition of Letters etc. This was one of the two most important eighteenth-century editions of Swift, published in competition...
£750
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HOOKER, Richard.
Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie, eight Bookes [Bound with:] Certayne Divine Tractates … London, Printed...
… London: Printed by Will. Stansby, and are to be sold by Mat. Lownes … 1617.
Fourth edition, first issue, of the Preface and Books 1-4 (first published in 1593), third edition of Book 5 (first published in 1597), bound here with the third edition of ‘Certayne Divine Tractates’ (1631), issued with a 1622 general title-page (rather than the usual 1632).
£650
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WALLER, Edmund.
Poems, &c. written by Mr. Ed. Waller … and printed by a Copy of his own Hand-Writing. All the lyrick Poems...
London, Printed by I. N. for Hu. Mosley … 1645.
Second (but first licensed) edition of Waller’s first and most important collection, published while he was in exile, and shortly preceded by an unlicensed volume, Workes (London, Thomas Walkley, 1645) (Wing W 495) – ‘an adulterate Copy, surreptitiously and illegally imprinted, to...
£850
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[JOHNSON, Samuel].
The Prince of Abissinia. A Tale. In two Volumes …
London: Printed for R. and J. Dodsley … and W. Johnston … 1759.
First edition of Johnson’s only novel, written in the evenings of a single week to pay for his mother’s funeral. Its rapid execution is said to have been due to the fact that he had been pondering its chief topics all his life. It soon became his most popular work. Although now inevitably called...
£1600
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[DODSLEY, Robert, editor].
A Collection of Poems. By several Hands. In three Volumes.
London: Printed for R. Dodsley … 1748.
First edition, the most influential poetical miscellany of the eighteenth century. Dodsley’s avowed aim was ‘to preserve to the public those poetical performances, which seemed to merit a longer rememberance than what would probably be secured to them by the Manner wherein they were originally published’....
£450
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WALTON, Izaac.
The Lives of Dr John Donne, Sir Henry Wotton, Mr Richard Hooker, Mr George Herbert … to which are added some Letters...
London, printed by Tho. Newcomb for Richard Marriott … 1670.
First collected edition of Walton’s celebrated lives of poets and divines. ‘If its rarity was as great as its merit it would be one of the most coveted books of the period’ (Pforzheimer). The biography of Wotton was published as part of Reliquiae Wottonianae (1651); Walton’s life of Donne first...
£850
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DRYDEN, John.
Religio Laici or a Layman’s Faith. A Poem …
London, Printed for Jacob Tonson … 1683.
First edition, second issue (with a few minor corrections; Macdonald located only two copies of the first): ‘a defence of the Anglican position, which shows his singular power of arguing in verse’ (Leslie Stephen, DNB). The inspiration for the poem was the translation of Richard Simon’s Histoire...
£400
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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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JOHNSON, Samuel.
Letters to and from the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. To which are added some Poems never before printed. Published...
… London: Printed for A. Strahan; and T. Cadell … 1788.
First edition. Mrs Piozzi, when she was Mrs Thrale, was Johnson’s principal correspondent for a decade; her edition of Johnson’s letters is the ‘first publication and canonization of a large body of his correspondence’ (Oxford DNB). The Letters sold well, notwithstanding some complaints of manipulative...
£650
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[SMOLLETT, Tobias].
The Adventures of Roderick Random … in two Volumes … The second Edition.
London: Printed for J. Osborn … 1748.
Second edition, with ‘major imaginative changes’, and frontispieces which appear here for the first time. Even though there were only a few weeks between the first and second editions, Smollett found time to make a number of significant corrections in the text, on average about one substantive change...
£500
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ROSCOMMON, Wentworth Dillon, Earl of.
Poems … to which is added an Essay on Poetry, by the Earl of Mulgrave, now Duke of Buckingham....
London: Printed for J. Tonson … 1717.
First edition of this collection, notable for Richard Duke’s unfinished Review, a vehement satire in response to, and in the allegorical manner of, Absalom and Achitophel, and featuring Dryden as one of the figures satirised. According to Tonson in the preface, it was written ‘a little after the...
£400
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PRIOR, Matthew.
Poems on several Occasions.
London: Printed for Jacob Tonson … 1709.
First authorised edition, preceded by Curll’s pirated collection of 1707. In the preface Prior complains that in Curll’s edition poems by other authors have been misattributed to him and that some of his own poems are ‘transcribed … so imperfectly, that I hardly knew them to be mine’....
£400
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POEMS ON AFFAIRS OF STATE:
from the Time of Oliver Cromwell, to the Abdication of K. James the Second. Written by the greatest...
Printed in the Year 1702
Fourth edition of this popular collection of witty verse and political satire, with the second edition of State-Poems continued (1697). Much of the poetry collected here was initially circulated in manuscript because of its political subject matter (which includes the Dutch wars, the Popish Plot, and...
£425