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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ADAMSON, Andrew.
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‘Cliftonhall 1777’ [–1808].
An unusual Scottish commonplace book of sententiae and moral sayings on over 150 topics taken from various sources, not always credited but carefully indexed. Evidently compiled for Adamson’s own edification in a small format for ready consultation, it seems to have been employed over a period...
£1750
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AIKEN, Conrad.
Thee.
New York, George Braziller, 1967.
First trade edition, inscribed ‘For Geoffrey and Joyce [Bridson] / this little hymn of love / from Conrad / 1968’.
£250
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AIKEN, Conrad.
Selected Poems.
New York, Oxford University Press, 1964.
Second printing (first 1961), inscribed: ‘For Geoffrey from Conrad and Savannah with a Hosanna 1968’. Born in Savannah, Georgia, Aiken spent winters there later in his life. It was in Savannah in April 1968 that Bridson recorded the unbroadcast interviews which provide a valuable insight into the...
£150
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AIKEN, Conrad.
The Collected Novels … Introduction by R.P. Blackmur.
New York, Holt, Reinhart and Winston, [1964].
First edition, inscribed: ‘For Geoffrey and Joyce [Bridson] con amore but o at what a distance from Conrad 1964’.
£150
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ALBEMARLE, Arnold Joost van Keppel, Earl of; WILLIAM III, et al.
A substantial archive of autograph letters, on European...
June 1699–November 1701.
A fascinating archive, covering, among many things, the construction of the new baroque palace and gardens at Hampton Court, the political jostling of the closing years of the reign of William III, and the negotiations towards the Treaty of the Hague in 1701.
£17500
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[ALBUM.]
The Conversational Album. For recreative Instruction and Amusement. London, Simpkin, Marshall, & Co.,
[and booksellers in Birmingham, Brighton, Boston, Liverpool, and Manchester], [c. 1873].
An amusing late-Victorian book of printed conversation starters for both ladies and gentlemen, completed in manuscript by members of the Backhouse, Mounsey, Richardson, and Barclay families of Darlington and Sunderland. Darlington had a particularly high Quaker population, especially active in banking...
£1500
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[ALDERLEY EDGE.]
Alderley Edge and its Neighbourhood.
Macclesfield, J. Swinnerton, [1843].
First edition of this locally printed collection of legends, people, and sites of interest around Alderley Edge, Cheshire, with an inscription to the library of the (later Royal) Archaeological Institute from the Institute’s principal founder Albert Way.
£175
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ALFIERI, Vittorio, and Charles LLOYD, translator.
The Tragedies of Vittorio Alfieri; translated from the Italian...
London, Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown … 1815.
First edition of this translation of Alfieri’s (1749–1803) tragedies into English, undertaken by the poet Charles Lloyd ‘on the suggestion of a friend whose judgement I highly respect’, likely Robert Southey, whom he addresses as his ‘sponsor’ in the ‘Dedicatory Sonnet’.
£450
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[ANON.]
Quia Amore Langueo.
[Colophon:] Chiswick, Caradoc Press, 1902.
One of 250 copies on paper (there were also 20 on vellum), printed from a fifteenth-century manuscript at Lambeth Palace Library.
£75
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ARISTOPHANES.
The Frogs, a Comedy. Translated from the Greek of Aristophanes, by C[harles] Dunster, A.M …
Oxford, J. and J. Fletcher; London, Rivington, Payne, Faulder, Cadell; Cambridge, Merrill, [1785].
First edition in English, and the only separately published translation of The Frogs in the eighteenth century. ‘It is … somewhat surprising that in an age so studious of ancient literature as the present, and which so much abounds in translations of the Greek and Latin classics, we have versions...
£500
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ARISTOPHANES, and Henry Francis CARY, translator.
The Birds … with Notes.
London, Printed for Taylor and Hessey … 1824.
First edition of the first metrical translation of Aristophanes’ The Birds into English by Henry Francis Cary (1722–1844) – perhaps best known for his blank verse translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy.
£350
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ARNOLD, Edwin, Sir.
Enfin: A Poem, hitherto unpublished ...
New York, Thomas Perry Stricker for Julian Biddulph Arnold, February 1936.
First edition, one of only fifty copies hand-printed by the self-taught printer Thomas Perry Stricker, presented by the editor – the author’s son – and accompanied by his autograph note regarding the printing and planned circulation of the poem.
£350
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A[RNOLD, Matthew].
The Strayed Reveller, and other Poems. By A.
London: B. Fellowes …1849
First edition of Arnold’s first book, apart from the Rugby and Oxford prize poems Alaric at Rome and Cromwell. To conceal his authorship as ‘A.’ suggests a certain reticence about the volume, even though it contains a number of his finest early poems, including ‘The Forsaken Merman’. Only 500...
£600
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AUDEN, Wystan Hugh, and Christopher ISHERWOOD.
The Dog beneath the Skin or where is Francis? A Play in three Acts.
London, Faber and Faber Limited, [1954].
Sixth impression. When Bridson had reviewed the play on its first publication in 1935 (along with two other works), he thought it ‘very good fun … as slick, symbolical and smart-Alecky as The Orators’, though the versification of the choruses was ‘on the slack side’. In 1965 Bridson...
£100
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[AUGUSTINE, Saint, attributed author.]
The Meditations of Saint Augustine, from the Latin Original. By the Rev. J. Martin,...
Dublin: Printed for the Author, by H. Fitzpatrick … 1798.
First edition of this rare translation of the pseudo-Augustinian Meditationum Liber, an eleventh-century devotional text very popular in the Middle Ages.
£1250
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AUSTIN, Alfred.
‘The Poetry of the Period: Mr Browning’ [and] ‘The Poetry of the Future’, from Temple Bar,
London, October 1869.
A fascinating and characteristic tract volume from the library of William Michael Rossetti, collecting publications and articles relating to the Rossettis and their circle.
£1500
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BACON, Francis.
Historia vitae et mortis.
Amsterdam, Johannes van Ravesteyn, 1663.
Pocket-sized Amsterdam editions of three works by Francis Bacon (1561–1626), uncut and unopened and bound, exceptionally, in the original drab boards.
£975
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BALZAC, Jean-Louis Guez de.
Aristippus, or, Monsr. de Balsac’s Masterpiece, being a Discourse concerning the Court … Englished...
London, Tho. Newcomb for Nat. Eakins and Tho. Johnson,1659.
First edition in English of Balzac’s Aristippe (first published posthumously in 1658), a treatise on wisdom in political administration and on the nature of life at court, dedicated to Queen Christina of Sweden, who was an admirer.
£750
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[BARCLAY MOUNTAIN, PENNSYLVANIA.]
Archive of over 200 letters, maps, accounts, and reports sent to Robert Barclay and later his...
Mostly Philadelphia and London, 1794–1854.
A large and coherent archive relating to a tract of 21,000 acres of coal-rich land in Pennsylvania, later known as Barclay Mountain, from its purchase in 1794 by the London brewer and merchant Robert Barclay (1751–1830) until its sale in 1853 by his son Charles Barclay (1780–1855). It takes in the...
£32500
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BARDUZZI, Bernardino.
A Letter in Praise of Verona [1489]. In the original Latin Text with an English Translation by Betty Radice.
Verona, [Officina Bodoni,] 1974.
First edition, No. 34 of 150 copies: an elegant facsimile reprint of one of Verona’s rarest incunables. Barduzzi’s eulogistic letter to Giovanni Nesi was first printed in 1489 by Paulus Fridenperger. The Latin text is followed here by an English translation and a biographical postscript by Giovanni...
£375