English Literature
Contact Donovan Rees or Zach Larsen
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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DICKENS, Charles.
The Personal History of David Copperfield … With Illustrations by H. K. Browne.
London, Bradbury & Evans, 1850.
First edition, an early issue, with both title-pages dated 1850, the corrected reading ‘screwed’ on p. 132, but otherwise first issue points as listed by Eckel and Smith.
£750
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DICKENS, Charles.
The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club … with forty-three Illustrations, by R. Seymour and Phiz.
London, Chapman & Hall, 1837.
First edition, first issue. The Pickwick Papers was serialised in twenty parts from April 1836, the novel reaching its conclusion in November 1837, when it was also released as a three-decker. It was both Dickens’s most popular work and the launch of his relationship with Hablot K. Browne (‘Phiz’),...
£2000
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DICKENS, Charles; Hablot Knight BROWNE and George CATTERMOLE, illustrators.
Master Humphrey’s Clock.
London, Chapman and Hall, 1840–41.
First edition in book form, of Charles Dickens’ weekly periodical, featuring a collection of short stories and his two novels The Old Curiosity Shop and Barnaby Rudge.
£175
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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
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DONLEAVY, J. P.
The Ginger Man: the sixtieth Anniversary Edition.
Dublin, The Lilliput Press, 2015.
Deluxe issue of the sixtieth anniversary edition, no. 59 of 226 copies signed by the author.
£500
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ELIOT, George.
The Writings …
Boston and New York, Houghton Mifflin and Company, 1908.
The Large-Paper edition of Eliot’s complete works, no. 184 of 750 sets.
£2500
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‘ELIOT, George’, pseud. [i.e. Mary Ann EVANS]; F[rançois] D’ALBERT-DURADE, translator.
La famille...
Strasbourg, G. Silbermann for Paris, E. Dentu, and Geneva, H. Georg, 1863.
First edition in French, exceptionally rare, of George Eliot’s celebrated semi-autobiographical novel The Mill on the Floss, translated with her approval by her friend and correspondent François d’Albert Durade, with whom she had lodged in Geneva from October 1849 to March 1850, and who painted...
£3500
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FAULKNER, William.
Requiem for a Nun.
New York, Random House, 1951.
Limited edition, no. 248 of 750 copies signed by Faulkner. His first publication after winning the Nobel Prize, Requiem for a Nun employs a partly dramatic form to take up the story of Temple Drake from his earlier novel Sanctuary.
£1000
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[FÉNELON, François de Salignac de La Mothe.]
The Adventures of Telemachus, the son of Ulysses. In twenty-four books. With the...
London, M. Matthews; A. Bettesworth; T. Bickerton; W. and J. Innys; and J. Wilford, 1721.
First illustrated edition of the first English translation of Francois de Salignac de La Mothe-Fenelon’s speculum principis, with twenty-four engraved plates and a map of Telemachus’ journey through the Mediterranean.
£550
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FERNÁNDEZ, Jerónimo.
The Famous and delectable History of Don Bellianis of Greece, or, the Honour of Chivalry. Containing his...
London, Francis Kirkman, 1673, 1671, 1672.
First complete edition of Francis Kirkman’s version of the chivalric romance of Belianis of Greece, a continuation of Amadis de Gaul first published in Spanish in 1547.
£3750
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FIELDING, Henry.
The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling …
Paris: Printed by Fr. Amb. Didot the eldest, and sold by J. N. Pissot, and Barrois Junior … Booksellers. 1780.
The first French edition in English of Fielding’s masterpiece, only the second English edition to be printed abroad (after Dresden, 1774). Here the text benefits from critical attention by Didot, who collated Murphy’s edition of Fielding’s Works with the last separate English edition.
£425
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FIELDING, Henry.
The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling. In six Volumes …
London: Printed for A. Millar … 1749.
Second edition, although not so designated, the errata corrected and the errata leaf in volume I omitted (the ‘Contents’ extended to c8 recto to fill the gap). The first edition (2000 copies) was almost completely subscribed before publication when this second edition (1500 copies) was ordered....
£1350
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FLEMING, Ian.
You only live twice.
London, Jonathan Cape, 1964.
First edition, first impression, first state of what is ‘perhaps the most bizarre and doom-fraught of all James Bond’s adventures’ (p. 1), set in Japan and inspired by Fleming’s visits to Japan for The Sunday Times, the title taken from a poem by Bashō: ‘You only live twice: once when...
£850
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FLEMING, Ian.
The Man with the golden Gun.
London, Jonathan Cape, 1965.
First edition, first impression, of the last Bond novel, published eight months after Fleming’s death, here with the binding in the second state, without the golden gun blocked to the upper cover (deemed too expensive after the first 900 copies).
£650
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FLEMING, Ian.
The Spy who loved me.
London, Jonathan Cape, 1962.
First edition, first impression, of the only Bond novel narrated in the first person by the twenty-three-year-old Canadian Vivienne Michel, a lover of Bond’s.
£1250
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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, national,...
£5500
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GISSING, George.
The Unclassed, A Novel … in three Volumes.
London, Chapman and Hall, 1884.
First edition of Gissing’s second novel – and Bernard Shaw’s favourite of his novels – in the single-volume remaindered issue in red cloth.
£950
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GLAISTER, Elizabeth.
The Perfect Path. A Novel … in two Volumes …
London, Smith, Elder, & Co. … 1884.
First and only edition, scarce. The novel opens among a group of English expatriates in Mentone on the French Riviera, where Colonel Ashby wastes money at Monte Carlo. His spirited, ‘slangy’ and distinctly wayward daughter, Cordelia, is invited to live with her aunt in rural England, where her greatest...
£450
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GODWIN, William.
Fleetwood: or, the new Man of Feeling … In three Volumes …
London: Printed for Richard Phillips … 1805.
First edition of Godwin’s third novel, like Caleb Williams a psychological and philosophical tale intended in some measure as a criticism of Rousseau. Casimir Fleetwood announces at the outset: ‘The proper topic of the narrative I am writing is the record of my errors. To write it, is the act of...
£650
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GOFFE, Thomas.
The Couragious Turke, or, Amurath the First. A Tragedie.
London, Bernard Alsop and Thomas Fawcett for Richard Meighen, 1632.
First edition of this violent Near Eastern tragedy influenced by Marlowe and Shakespeare, this copy with rare and unrecorded issue points.
£3000