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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FLORUS, Lucius.
Lucii Flori rerum ab urbe condita liber primus [– quartus].
[Venice, in aedibus Aldi et Andreae Soceri, March 1521.]
Florus’s epitome of Roman history, extracted from the Aldine edition of March 1521 which comprised an epitome of Livy, Florus, and Niccolò Perotti’s translation of Polybius.
£750
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[FOPPA, Giuseppe.] Francesco PANORMO, translator.
Aci e Galatea, a pastoral Opera, as represented at the King’s Theatre...
London: Printed by C. Clarke … 1795.
First edition, very rare, of the dual-language libretto for Foppa’s Acis and Galatea (première Venice 1792) – in Italian verse and English prose. The translation was by Francesco Panormo, the eldest son of the instrument-maker Vincenzo Panormo.
£650
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[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
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FORTUNE, Thomas.
A concise and authentic history of the Bank of England. With dissertations on medals & coin, bank notes and bills...
London, Boosey, 1802.
Third edition, ‘with considerable additions’. The first two editions of 1797, says Fortune in his ‘advertisement’, were written to defend the bank against the calumny it received from the public after the financial scares in that year, when the bank was forced to suspend specie payments. This...
£275
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[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
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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
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FROST, Robert.
A collection of five Christmas Poems 1953, 1959, 1960, 1961 and 1963, all in the issues printed for distribution...
1953-1963, see below.
One more Brevity. New York, Spiral Press, 1953. Pp [12]; illustrations by Philip Grushkin; small stain to one page, else very good, stapled in the original wrappers, booklabel of D. G. Bridson, inscribed ‘To Geoffrey Bridson from Robert Frost after the pleasantest sort of encounter Dec 13...
£2000
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[FRYER, Michael, editor.]
The Trial and Life of Eugene Aram; several of his Letters and Poems; and his Plan and Specimens of an...
Richmond: Printed by and for M. Bell … 1832
First edition. The unfortunate Yorkshire schoolmaster Eugene Aram, implicated with the shoemaker Daniel Clark in fraud in 1745, and twelve years later accused of Clark’s murder, was convicted and hanged in 1759. While in prison in York, without books and papers, he produced the Plan and Specimens published...
£100
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FRY, Theodore.
A brief Memoir of Francis Fry, F.S.A. of Bristol. By his Son … Not published.
[London, Printed by Barclay and Fry,] 1887.
First edition. Francis Fry (1803–1886) of Bristol, the preeminent student and collector of English Bibles in his time, was also an active partner in the Quaker family firm of chocolate and porcelain manufacturers and type founders. Among his publications were a facsimile of the first complete...
£850
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FULBECKE, William.
An Historicall Collection of the continuall Factions, Tumults, and Massacres of the Romans and Italians during...
London, Printed for William Ponsonby. 1601.
First edition. Fulbecke’s Historicall Collection ‘was a narrative history of the last years of the Roman republic and it is significant as one of the very few attempts by a Renaissance Englishman to write such a work … An interesting attempt to weave together such often-contradictory...
£5250
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GADESBY, Richard.
A new and easy Introduction to Geography, by Way of Question and Answer, divided into Lessons. Principally designed...
London, for the Author, and sold by S. Bladon, 1783.
Second edition, very rare, published following the success of the first edition (1776) and its use ‘in many principal boarding schools, particularly those for young ladies’. Gadesby, ‘private teacher of writing, accounts, geography, &c.’, laments the neglect of geography, a very necessary...
£550
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GALLICO, Paul.
An archive of thirty-four scrapbooks compiled by Gallico.
1928–1972.
A lovingly and meticulously compiled archive of the writing career of the novelist Paul Gallico. The scrapbooks are arranged chronologically and by book/film with letters, telegrams, publicity materials, photographs and ephemera neatly intermingled with copies of reviews and reactions from local,...
£5500
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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
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GARDINER, John Smallman.
The Art and the Pleasures of Hare-Hunting. In six Letters to a Person of Quality …
London: Printed by R. Griffith … 1750.
First edition, scarce, of this eloquent and amusing account of hare-hunting, the first monograph on the subject in English, comprising letters on the superiority of hare-hunting to fox-hunting (less dangerous, less laborious), on the best types of dogs, of trailing and starting hares, &c. Gardiner’s...
£1250
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GAY, John.
The Distress’d Wife. A Comedy. By the late Mr. Gay, Author of the Beggar’s Opera.
London: Printed for Thomas Astley … 1743.
First edition, the issue with no press figures on pp. 8, 39, press figure p. 56: 3 (no priority). Gay’s comedy of the sexes revolves around Sir Thomas Willit’s attempts to inveigle his wife to leave London for the country, in order to reign-in her expenditure. Lady Willit abhors the idea, ‘Sure...
£350
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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
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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
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GENUINE ACCOUNT (A)
of the Life and Actions of James Maclean, Highwayman, to the Time of his Trial and receiving Sentence at the...
London, W. Falstaff, [1750].
First edition, the scarcer of two contemporary pamphlet biographies of the ‘gentleman highwayman’ James Maclaine (1724-1750). The son of a Scottish Presbyterian minister, Maclaine, having squandered an early inheritance and his wife’s money, joined up with a down-at-luck apothecary, William Plunkett,...
£1250
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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
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GIOVIO, Paolo.
Elogia veris clarorum virorum imaginibus apposita. Quae in musaeo Ioviano Comi spectantur. Addita in calce...
Venice, Michele Tramezzino, 1546.
First edition of Giovio’s biographies of illustrious men, with several marginal corrections, remarks, and comments by a contemporary reader, whose knowledge of biographies of the past encompassed several authors, including Erasmus.
£3000