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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[JUVENILE.]
The Weasel Family.
London, Edinburgh, and New York, T. Nelson and Sons, [1860s?]
First edition, rare, of a rather charming Victorian picture-book, from ‘The Funny Animal Series’, later collected in Comical Creatures: a Picture Book for the Nursery (1867).
£375
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[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
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KAVAN, Anna; Karl Theodor BLUTH.
The Horse’s Tale.
London, Gaberbocchus Press, [1949].
Uncommon first edition of this novel authored jointly by Kavan and her psychiatrist and friend Karl Theodor Bluth, written from the perspective of an ex-circus horse trying to find a place in postwar society and artistic circles, a criticism of prevailing trends in 1940s psychiatric treatment.
£850
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KIPLING, Rudyard.
The Horse Marines.
Garden City New York, Doubleday, Page & Company, Inc., 1910.
This story is based on a fictitious parliamentary report that army recruits were being trained to ride horses using rocking horses. It is the sixth instalment of the Pyecroft series.
£85
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KOTZEBUE, August Friedrich Ferdinand von.
The Guardian Angel. From the German … A Story for Youth.
London, J. Wright for Vernor and Hood, and J. Harris, 1802.
First edition in English (and the first separate edition in any language?) of Kotzebue’s novella ‘Der Schutzgeist’.
£800
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KOTZEBUE, August Friedrich Ferdinand von.
The Constant Lover, or William and Jeanette: a Tale, from the German … To which is...
London, John Bell, 1799.
First edition in English, rare, of ‘Geprüfte Liebe’, a romance first published in Kotzebue’s Die jüngsten Kinder meiner Laune (1793–7), and then published separately in 1799, prefaced here by a summary translation of his literary autobiography.
£1600
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LE SAGE, Alain René.
The History of Vanillo Gonzales, surnamed the merry Batchelor. In two Volumes. From the French …
London, printed for G.G. and J. Robinson, 1797.
First complete translation of Le Sage’s Histoire d’Estevanille Gonzalez, surnommé le garcon de bonne humeur (1734), itself a loose French adaptation of Vida y hechos de Estebanillo Gonzalez (1646), preserving only a few episodes of the Spanish original.
£1250
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LEWIS, Wyndham.
Tarr.
London, The Egoist Ltd., 1918.
First English edition, published in an edition of 1000 (of which 87 distributed gratis). T. S. Eliot thought the book ‘remarkable’. Set in pre-war Paris, Tarr pits its eponymous English artist (‘a caricatural self-portrait of sorts’) against Kreisler, a self-destructive German Romantic...
£300
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LEWIS, Wyndham.
The Wild Body.
London, Chatto & Windus, 1927.
First trade edition, first issue binding; there was also a special edition of 85 signed copies. A collection, in a much reworked form, of some early sketches written in Brittany, some of which had been published in 1909.
£250
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LEWIS, Wyndham.
Snooty Baronet.
London, Cassell & Co. Ltd., 1932.
First edition, first issue binding, the first of three books Lewis published with Cassell, and the first of his novels not to find an American publisher.
£400
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LEWIS, Wyndham.
The Revenge for Love.
London, Cassell & Co. Ltd., [1937].
First edition, very scarce in the dust-jacket, of ‘one of Lewis’s finest novels … a brilliant novel of character’ (Bridson, The Filibuster), set in pre-Civil War Spain and centred on an incident of Communist gun-running on the border. ‘Here for once, Communism is accepted as a fact of...
£1250
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LEWIS, Wyndham.
Rotting Hill …
London, Methuen & Co. Ltd., [1951].
First edition, inscribed ‘To Geoffrey / Benedictions / Wyndham Lewis’. Rotting Hill was a collection of stories, ‘no more political than “some of Charles Dickens’ books, and all by Mr. Shaw”’ (Bridson, The Filibuster), in that ‘today our lives are saturated by’ politics. It was...
£750
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LEWIS, Wyndham.
Unlucky for Pringle. Unpublished and other Stories … Edited and introduced by C. J. Fox and Robert Chapman.
[London,] Vision, [1973].
First edition, inscribed by the editor ‘To Geoffrey and Joyce Bridson with warmest good wishes Cy Fox’. Seven of the fifteen stories were first published here. Fox’s postcard thanks Bridson for a letter ‘which was terrifically gratifying – especially from one who did so much to get the monumental...
£100
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LEWIS, Wyndham.
The Roaring Queen. Edited and introduced by Walter Allen.
London, Secker & Warburg, [1973].
Limited edition, no XXVII of XXX copies not for sale, signed by Mrs Wyndham Lewis, Michael Ayrton & Walter Allen, with a signed etching by Michael Ayrton. A further 100 numbered copies were for general sale at £30 each.
£500
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LEWIS, Wyndham.
The Human Age. Book Two, Monstre Gai. Book Three, Malign Fiesta. Illustrations by Michael Ayrton.
London, Methuen & Co. Ltd., [1955].
First edition, inscribed ‘To Geoffrey Bridson – you who did so much to make the completion of this book possible, and who was chiefly responsible for its translation into Radio drama – I salute you. / Wyndham Lewis’.
£1750
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LEWIS, Wyndham.
Mrs Dukes’ Million.
Toronto, The Coach House Press, 1977.
First edition, Lewis’s first novel, written in 1908-10 but never before published.
£75
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LEWIS, Wyndham.
A Soldier of Humour and selected Writings. Edited with an introduction by Raymond Rosenthal.
New York & Toronto, A Signet Classic, 1966.
First edition, inscribed by the editor: ‘Geoffrey I thought you would be interested in this new anthology’.
£75
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LEWIS, Wyndham.
The Roaring Queen. Edited and introduced by Walter Allen.
London, Secker & Warburg, [1973].
Second (but first published) edition, regular copy.
£50
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LEWIS, Wyndham.
The Childermass … Section 1.
London, Chatto & Windus, 1928.
First edition, no. 74 of 225 copies of the special edition, signed by Lewis, additionally inscribed, in c. 1951, ‘To Geoffrey Bridson (through whom I am enabled to finish this book) – deepest thanks and friendliest greetings / Wyndham Lewis’.
£2500
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MADDEN, Dodgson Hamilton.
The Diary of Master William Silence: A Study of Shakespeare & of Elizabethan Sport.
London, New York, & Bombay, Longmans, Green, & Co., 1897.
First edition of Madden’s reimagination of Elizabethan sport, derived from passages from Shakespeare. Though a legal writer and prominent jurist, being appointed attorney-general of Ireland in 1889, the best known publication of Dodgson Hamilton Madden (1840–1928) remains the Diary of Master William...
£120