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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. 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

  2. COLERIDGE, Samuel Taylor.

    Biographia Literaria; or biographical Sketches of my literary Life and Opinions … Vol I[-II].

    London: Rest Fenner … 1817.

    First edition. Coleridge’s estimates of contemporary German poets and philosophers are justly celebrated, and the long autobiographical passages and critical analyses of Wordsworth and of Lyrical Ballads are of primary interest. ‘Though maddeningly unsystematic in structure, the book is a touchstone...

    £450

  3. COLERIDGE, S[amuel] T[aylor].

    The Statesman’s Manual; or the Bible the best guide to political Skill and Foresight: a Lay Sermon,...

    London: Printed for Gale and Fenner … J. M. Richardson … and Hatchard … 1816.

    First edition of the first of Coleridge’s ‘Lay Sermons’, written in Highgate at the house of James Gillman, to whom Coleridge had come as an in-patient for his opium addiction.

    £200

  4. 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

  5. [COLLEGIO DEI NOBILI DI MODENA.]

    Il buon’ uso della vittoria, ossia Publio Cornelio Scipione nella nuova Cartagine: azione accademica...

    Modena, eredi di Bartolomeo Soliani, [1776].

    First edition. A scarce play with music and ballet, prepared and performed by the Collegio dei Nobili di Modena for celebrations of the birthday of Francesco III d’Este, Duke of Modena. The work comprises a play in three acts on Scipio Africanus by Alessandro Guinigi, three short ballets drawn...

    £450

  6. COMIDAS DE CARBOGNANO, Cosimo.

    Primi principi della gramatica Turca ad uso dei missionari apostolici di Costantinopoli ...

    Rome, stamperia della Sac. Congr. di Prop. Fide, 1794.

    The first complete Ottoman Turkish grammar published in Italian, compiled by the Catholic Armenian dragoman Cosimo Comidas de Carbognano (translator to Count de Ludolf, minister of the Two Sicilies to the Ottoman Porte in the late eighteenth century) and published by the Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda...

    £1500

  7. CORNEILLE, Pierre.

    Nicomède tragedie.

    Rouen, Laurens Maurry (and Paris, Guillaume de Luyne), 1653.

    Second edition (first 1651) of Corneille’s tragedy of sibling rivalry and the conflict of political and aristocratic ideals, set in Rome in the second century BC. It was written after Corneille moved to Paris in 1647 and was first staged at the height of the Fronde rebellion, after which he wrote nothing...

    £750

  8. [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

  9. [COTTON, Charles].

    Scarronnides: or. Virgile Travestie. A Mock-Poem. In Imitation of the fourth Book of Virgils Æneis in English,...

    London, Printed by E. Cotes for Henry Brome … 1665.

    First edition of the second part of Cotton’s famous burlesque, an imitation of Aeneid book IV.

    £250

  10. [COURTESAN.]

    Les confessions d’une courtisane devenue philosophe.

    ‘London’ and Brussels, Le Francq, 1784.

    First edition (another appeared in the same year with a 'Londres et se trouve à Paris' imprint) of this anonymous novel describing the ascent (or perhaps descent) of a courtesan into the world of the philosophe.

    £850

  11. [COURTILZ DE SANDRAS, Gatien de.]

    Les dames dans leur naturel, ou la galanterie sans façon. Sous le regne du Grand Alcandre.

    ‘A Cologne’ [but Netherlands], ‘chez Pierre Marteau’ [Elzevier?], 1686.

    First edition, uncommon, of this story, ‘found in a cabinet, long after it had been written’ by the French novelist and pamphleteer Gatien de Courtilz de Sandras (1644–1712), nowadays best known for his semi-fictionalised Mémoires de Mr. d’Artagnan, which heavily influenced Dumas’...

    £685

  12. CRAWFORD, F. Marion.

    Saracinesca ... in three Volumes ...

    William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh and London. 1887.

    First edition. The prolific American novelist F. Marion Crawford, born in Italy and for most of his life resident in Rome, enjoyed a phenomenal success both in England and America. Saracinesca is the first novel of his Roman tetralogy (with Sant’ Ilario, Don Orsino, and Corleone: a Sicilian Story),...

    £280

  13. 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

  14. [CUMBERLAND, Richard.]

    Arundel. By the author of the Observer.

    London, Printed for C. Dilly … 1789.

    First edition. Richard Cumberland (1732–1811) was the grandson of the great scholar Richard Bentley, and great-grandson of the Bishop of Peterborough; he had already made his name as a playwright in London, and was also the author of a periodical paper the Observer when he published this,...

    £1500

  15. [CURLL, Edmund, editor.]

    Impartial Memorials of the Life and Writings of Thomas Hearne, M.A. by several Hands.

    London: Printed in the Year 1736.

    First separate edition (based on John Bilstone’s hostile preface to Hearne’s Vindication of those who take the Oath of Allegiance, 1731, and first printed in this form as part of volume III of Curll’s edition of Mr. Pope’s Literary Correspondence, 1735).

    £450

  16. [CURLL, Edmund, et al.]

    An impartial History of the Life, Character, Amours, Travels, and Transactions of Mr. John Barber,...

    London, Printed for E. Curll …, 1741.

    First edition of this obituary pamphlet on the printer John Barber (c. 1675–1741), a friend and correspondent of Swift for many years, and a friend of Pope (there are bequests to both in his will).

    £650

  17. CURTIUS Rufus, Quintus. 

    De rebus Alexandri Magni, cum commentario perpetuo & indice absolutissimo Samuelis Pitisci, quibus accedunt...

    Utrecht, Franciscus Halma, 1685. 

    First Halma edition of Curtius’s history of Alexander the Great, with a series of accomplished etched illustrations by Jan van den Aveelen. 

    £375

  18. CURTIUS RUFUS, Quintus.

    De rebus gestis Alexandri Magni regis Macedonum opus … Accesserunt enim antehac nunquam visa … Omnia...

    Basel, Hieronymus Froben and Nicolaus Episcopius, March 1545.

    Handsome folio edition of Curtius Rufus’ history of Alexander the Great, edited by the German humanist Christoph Bruno (fl. 1541–1566), with extensive sixteenth-century marginal annotations.

    £2000

  19. [DA PORTO, Luigi.]

    ‘Lettere di Alvigi da Porto vicentino al Savorgnano, al Ghilini, e ad altri intorno ai successi della Guerra...

    [Milan, c. 1800].

    A manuscript of an influential and then-unpublished historical work by the author of the original Romeo and Juliet, copied from a sixteenth-century codex at the Bibliotheca Ambrosiana.

    £950

  20. DAVENANT, William, Sir.

    Two excellent Plays: the Wits, a Comedie: the Platonick Lovers, a Tragi-Comedie. Both presented...

    London, Printed for G. Bedel, and T. Collins … 1665

    First collected edition of two plays first published in 1636, probably published to fill the revenue gap after the temporary closure of the theatres in 1665 because of the Plague.

    £950