A[RNOLD, Matthew].

The Strayed Reveller, and other Poems. By A.

London: B. Fellowes …1849

First edition of Arnold’s first book, apart from the Rugby and Oxford prize poems Alaric at Rome and Cromwell. To conceal his authorship as ‘A.’ suggests a certain reticence about the volume, even though it contains a number of his finest early poems, including ‘The Forsaken Merman’. Only 500...

£600

BEARCROFT, Philip.

An historical Account of Thomas Sutton Esq; and of his Foundation in Charter-House …

London: Printed by E. Owen, and sold by F. Gyles … W. Hinchliffe … J. and P. Knapton … J. Stagg … and S. Birt … 1737.

First edition. Thomas Sutton (1532-1611) was an Elizabethan civil servant who made an enormous fortune from leases of land rich in coal in Durham. In 1611 he bought Howard House for £13,000 from the Earl of Suffolk; the building acquired its more familiar name, ‘Charterhouse’, after the order of...

£250

BENTHAM, Jeremy.

Plan of Parliamentary Reform, in the Form of a Catechism, with Reasons for each Article. With an Introduction,...

London: Printed in the Year 1817. Re-printed and Re-published, with Notes and Alterations, by Permission of the Author, by T. J. Wooler … 1818.

First edition thus of an inexpensive reprint of Bentham’s Plan of Parliamentary Reform (1817), the style adapted by Thomas Wooler, with Bentham’s permission, to ‘render it more easy of comprehension to the popular reader’. In this form it first appeared in instalments in Wooler’s radical...

£225

[BERKENHOUT, John].

Clavis anglica Linguæ botanicæ; or, a botanical Lexicon; in which the Terms of Botany, particularly those...

London: Printed for the Author. Sold by T. Becket, and A. de Hondt … and Mess. Hawes, Clarke, and Collins … 1764.

First edition, dedicated to John Hope of the University of Edinburgh, and written with the assistance of Arthur Lee of Virginia, winner of the Hope Medal in 1763.

£325

BLOUNT, Sir Thomas Pope.

Essays on several Subjects …

London, Printed for Richard Bently … 1692.

Second edition of seven essays of ‘considerable merit [that] display the easy scepticism and solid good sense and learning of the author to good advantage’ (Pforzheimer). They deal with self-interest; the mischief of learning; education; respect for antiquity; the virtues of modern men; passion;...

£500

[PRAYER-BOOK.]

The new and complete Family Prayer-Book, or Church of England Man’s Divine Library: being an universal Illustration,...

London: Printed for Alex. Hogg … [1784-5.]

First edition thus, rare, published in 36 weekly parts, each originally accompanied with an illustration, and now correctly bound according to the complicated ‘Directions to the Binder’ at the end. Wright’s exhaustive compilation, with notes and commentary on each page, assembled calendars,...

£950

BOLTON, Robert.

Letters and Tracts on the Choice of Company and other Subjects. The second Edition.

London: Printed for J. Whiston and B. White … and R. and J. Dodsley … 1762.

Second edition; a reissue of the sheets of the first edition with a cancel title-page and advertisement replacing the original title leaf A1. As well as the title tract, the volume includes essays ‘On Intemperance in Eating’, ‘On Intemperance in Drinking’, ‘On Pleasure’ and ‘On Public Worship’,...

£325

BROWNING, Elizabeth Barrett.

Poems before Congress …

London: Chapman and Hall … 1860.

First edition of a slender collection of seven poems on the cause of Italian independence, and one attacking slavery in the United States (‘A Curse for a Nation’). The Congress of the title had been planned for Paris in January 1860, but Austria withdrew on learning that Napoleon III meant to use...

£200

[BUTLER, John].

Some Account of the Character of the late Right Honourable Henry Bilson Legge.

London: Printed for J. Almon … 1764.

First edition. Henry Bilson Legge (1708-1764), three times chancellor of the exchequer between 1754 and 1761, attracted both respect and censure. To Pitt, he was ‘the child, and deservedly the favourite child, of the Whigs’. Horace Walpole, on the other hand, thought him a man ‘of a creeping, underhand...

£200

[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

CADOGAN, William Bromley.

The Felicity of God’s Children, considered in a Sermon, preached upon the Death of a Lady, in the parish...

Reading: Printed and Sold by Smart and Cowslade; and sold by J. Rusher, Reading; Messrs. Robinsons, V. Griffiths ... & J. Matthews ... London;...

First edition, a funeral sermon by the popular preacher William Bromley Cadogan, a friend of John Newton, for the local widow Maria Littlehales, printed at the request of her children.

£75

CAMPBELL, Thomas.

Autograph letter, signed, to the novelist and socialite Lady Morgan, explaining why he cannot join her party.

‘Wednesday Morning’, no date, but late 1840.

‘I have been dying also several times during the last six months – I hope however to survive a few weeks when I shall be nearer to you when, in my new house in Victoria Square, I shall hope to see you frequently.’ Campbell suffered increasing ill health towards the end of his life, but continued...

£175

[CHINESE HELL.]

YU LI BAO CHAO [The Jade Guidebook].

c. 1859.

An attractive edition of the Jade Guidebook or Jade Alamanac, a guide to the ten kingdoms of hell with origins in folk Confucianism and Buddhism of the 10th-11th centuries.

£1250

COWLEY, John.

The Candidates Guide: or the Electors Rights decided. Shewing the Resolutions of the Honble the Commons of Great...

London: Printed for J. Brindley ... and sold by Mrs. Dodd ... and by the Booksellers of London and Westminster: likewise in most great Towns...

First edition of a guide to electoral rights ‘from the controverted Election for New-Castle-Under-Line, in April 1624, to that of Weymouth in May 1730’.

£450

CROMARTY, George Mackenzie, Earl of.

An historical Account of the Conspiracies by the Earls of Gowry, and Robert Logan of Restalrig,...

First edition, dedicated to Queen Anne, ‘and to all the Princes who share in her royal blood’. The Vindication of Robert III was first published in 1695.

£150

D’ISRAELI, Isaac.

Romances …

London: Printed for Cadell and Davies … Murray and Highley … J. Harding … and J. Wright. 1799.

First edition, a collection of three prose tales by the father of the novelist and Prime Minister, with an introductory ‘Poetical Essay on Romance and Romancers’. The longest piece is ‘Mejnoun and Leila, the Arabian Petrarch and Laura’, which has echoes of Beckford and draws on the learned orientalism...

£950

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

[JUVENILE.] DAY, Thomas.

The History of Sandford and Merton, abridged from the Original. Embellished with elegant Plates … Third...

London:

Third edition of Richard Johnson’s abridgement of Day’s most famous and most enduring children’s book (1783, with sequels in 1786 and 1789), first published in this form in 1790. ESTC shows three copies of the first edition; five of the second; and BL and UCLA only of this third; Roscoe adds a...

£200

DENNIS, John.

The Grounds of Criticism in Poetry, contain’d in some new Discoveries never made before, requisite for the Writing...

London, Printed for Geo. Strahan … and Bernard Lintott … 1704.

First edition. Published as a ‘preliminary’ to a proposed, but never completed, masterwork, The Grounds of Criticism in Poetry comprises a Preface, Proposal and ‘Specimen’, the latter being an essay substantially on Milton, ‘one of the greatest and most daring Genius’s that has appear’d...

£1250

DIBDIN, C[harles], the younger.

Mirth and Metre: consisting of Poems, serious, humorous, and satirical; Songs, Sonnets, Ballads,...

London: Printed for Vernor, Hood, and Sharpe ... by W. Wilson. 1807

First edition of the first collection of verse by the manager of Sadler’s Wells, including a section of songs from his ‘most approved’ pantomimes and ‘scenic’ productions. The ticket of a Newark bookseller makes it likely that the stamp ‘Newstead’ refers to Byron’s ancestral home, Newstead...

£225