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English Literature

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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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  1. [MACARTNEY EMBASSY.]

    Archive of letters and documents from the Macartney Embassy to China.

    Britain and China, 1792–1833.

    A remarkable and largely unpublished archive from Lord Macartney’s embassy to China of 1792–4 – a pivotal moment in relations between China and the West – including a diplomatic autograph letter signed by Macartney, autograph correspondence between him and other leading figures of the mission,...

    £75000

  2. BALBUS, Johannes.

    Catholicon.

    [Strasbourg, The R-Printer (Adolf Rusch), not after 1475.]

    Third edition of the earliest printed lexicon, a monumental piece of printing from one of the earliest presses in Strasbourg, containing the thirteenth-century Latin dictionary and grammar of Johannes Balbus, the ‘greatest of the medieval encyclopaedic dictionaries’ (Chamberlin, p. 136); his...

    £65000

  3. GAZA, Theodorus.

    Grammatica introductiva; De mensibus; Apollonius Dyscolus: De constructione; Herodianus: De numeris.

    [(Colophon:) Venice, Aldus Manutius, 25 December 1495.]

    A beautiful example of early Greek printing, containing the editio princeps of the grammar of Theodorus Gaza, and one of the first texts to be printed entirely in Greek.

    £45000

  4. [ROZIER.] 

    Le rozier historial de France contenant deux roziers.  Le p[re]mier rozier contient plusieurs belles rozes et boutons...

    Paris, [Gilles Couteau for François Regnault,] 26 February 1522 [i.e. 1523]. 

    First edition, the very handsome Fairfax-Murray copy, of the Rozier historial de France. 

    £25000

  5. 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

  6. AUGUSTINUS, Aurelius.

    De civitate Dei.

    Venice, Nicolaus Jenson, 2 October 1475.

    A tall copy with some deckle edges of the only Jenson edition of the City of God, Augustine’s influential treatise written in the wake of the Sack of Rome by the Visigoths in 410. Augustine sought to justify why a Christian state, with the support of God, could be defeated in this way;...

    £24000

  7. SMITH, Albert.

    A large archive of printed and manuscript material, including drafts of shows and lectures, including portions of...

    [1820s to 1860s.]

    Albert Richard Smith (1816–1860) trained as a surgeon but shortly afterwards turned to the world of letters, becoming a regular contributor to Bentley’s Miscellany and Punch; he adapted works by his friend Dickens for the theatre and edited The Man in the Moon (1847–9). ‘During...

    £15000

  8. GIBBON, Edward.

    The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

    London, W. Strahan & T. Cadell, 1776–88.

    First editions of all six volumes of Gibbon’s ‘masterpiece of historical penetration and literary style’ (PMM). The first volume here is of the second variant (of two), with the errata corrected as far as p. 183 and X4 and a4 so signed. The first edition of volume I (1000 copies, published...

    £14000

  9. DONNE, John.

    Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, and severall Steps in my Sicknes ...

    London, Printed for Thomas Jones … 1627.

    Third (and last lifetime) edition of Donne’s most familiar prose work, composed during his convalescence in 1623–4 from the ‘spotted Feaver’ which nearly killed him. It consists of twenty-three ‘Stationes, sive Periodi in Morbo’, each comprising a meditation, expostulation, and prayer.

    £13500

  10. [SWIFT, Jonathan.]

    Some Observations upon a Paper, call’d, the Report of the Committee of the most honourable Privy-Council in...

    Dublin, Printed by John Harding … [1724].

    First edition of the third of Swift’s Drapier’s letters, bound with other works including two further pamphlets on Wood’s coinage (Remarks upon Mr. Wood’s Coyn and Proceedings by Sir Michael Creagh, and A Word or two to the People of Ireland, concerning the Brass Money),...

    £12500

  11. MARKHAM, Gervase.

    Cavalarice, or the English Horseman: Contayning all the Art of Horse-manship, asmuch as is necessary for any...

    London, Edward Allde for Edward White, [1616 –] 1617. 

    A beautiful copy of the second edition, ‘corrected and augmented’, of Markham’s Cavalarice, exceptionally well-preserved in a contemporary binding, from the library of the antiquary Sir John Marsham.

    £9750

  12. [MONTEMAYOR, Jorge de, and Gaspar GIL POLO.]

    The Troublesome and Hard Adventures in Love. Lively setting forth, the Feavers, the...

    Alsop ... 1652 [but 1651].

    The rare second edition of a text of 1594 known in a single imperfect copy (STC 153.3).

    £7500

  13. WOLLSTONECRAFT, Mary.

    An Historical and moral View of the Origin and Progress of the French Revolution; and the Effect it has produced...

    London, J. Johnson, 1794.

    First edition of Wollstonecraft’s eloquent analysis of the causes of the French revolution, written as an antidote to Burke’s Reflections, our copy with manuscript notes by William Michael Rossetti. The work was never completed before Wollstonecraft’s death in 1797, though the first volume...

    £7250

  14. MÜNSTER, Sebastian.

    [Melechet ha-Dikduk] מלאכת הדיקדוק Institutiones grammaticae in Hebraeam linguam FR Sebastiani...

    [Basel,] Johann Froben, 1524.

    First edition of Sebastian Münster’s (1488–1552) important Hebrew grammar for students, bound with the first Latin edition of his translation of Elia Levita’s Composita verborum, both critical to the Christian scholarly reception of Hebrew grammatical works and here enhanced by extensive...

    £7000

  15. [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

  16. AESOP. 

    The Fables …  With a Life of the Author: and embellished with one hundred & twelve Plates … 

    London, Printed for John Stockdale … 1793. 

    Second Stockdale edition, a paginary reprint of the first with the text reset using a short ‘s’ throughout; the translation was that of Samuel Croxall.  Stockdale’s Aesop was notable for the extensive suite of illustrations, with plates by some thirty engravers including Stothard and Landseer,...

    £6500

  17. K[IRKE], J[ohn].

    The Seven Champions of Christendome. Acted at the Cocke-pit, and at the Red-Bull in St. Johns Streete, with a...

    London, J. Okes, and are to be sold by James Becket, 1638.

    First edition of this play based on Richard Johnson’s popular romance of 1596, characteristic of the spectacle-dramas staged at the Red Bull, where John Kirke was an actor.

    £6500

  18. [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

  19. OVIDIUS Naso, Publius, and Pedro Sánchez de VIANA, translator and commentator. 

    Las transformaciones. 

    Valladolid, Diego Fernández de Córdoba, 1589.

    First edition, a copy of notable provenance, of perhaps the most successful early Spanish translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, by Pedro Sánchez de Viana (c. 1545–1619), a physician by training, published along with his substantial commentary. 

    £6000

  20. PERRAULT, [Charles].

    Tales of passed Times by Mother Goose. With Morals. Written in French … and Englished by R. S. Gent. To...

    London: [but The Hague?] Printed for S. Van den Berg … 1764.

    First parallel-text edition of Perrault’s famous fairy tales, in English and French, with fine illustrations after Hendrik Immink. Perrault has long been eclipsed in fame by that of his stories – ‘Little Red Riding-Hood’, ‘Blue Beard’, ‘Sleeping Beauty’, ‘Puss in Boots’, ‘Cinderilla’,...

    £6000