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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[JOHNSON, Charles].
Caelia: or, the perjur’d Lover. A Play. As it is acted at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane, by His Majesty’s...
London: Printed for J. Watts … 1733.
First edition. Caelia, Johnson’s last theatrical production, is an attack on the fashionable libertinism of the day. As the Preface explains, however, he refused to take Barton Booth’s advice and expunge the vivid brothel scenes, and a fastidious audience answered with their pockets. The play,...
£200
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[JOHNSON, Samuel].
Rasselas.
London: J. Bretell for Hector McLean, 1819.
Third Smirke edition, ordinary-paper issue. ‘All travel has its advantages,’ the lexicographer, essayist and critic Samuel Johnson (1709-84) wrote in his Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland. ‘If the passenger visits better countries, he may learn to improve his own, and if fortune...
£300
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[JOHNSON, Samuel].
The Prince of Abissinia. A Tale. In two Volumes …
London: Printed for R. and J. Dodsley … and W. Johnston … 1759.
First edition of Johnson’s only novel, written in the evenings of a single week to pay for his mother’s funeral. Its rapid execution is said to have been due to the fact that he had been pondering its chief topics all his life. It soon became his most popular work. Although now inevitably called...
£1600
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[JOHNSON, Samuel].
A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland. London: Printed for W. Strahan; and T. Cadell … 1775.
London: Printed for W. Strahan; and T. Cadell … 1775
Unacknowledged second edition. Two thousand copies of the first edition were printed as far as sheet R when Strahan, sensing the demand, decided to increase the press run to four thousand. The 2000 overrun sheets, T-Z and 2A-2B, and a reprint of the earlier sheets A-D and F-R, may be identified...
£350
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[JOHNSON, Samuel.]
The Prince of Abissinia. A Tale …
London: Printed for R. and J. Dodsley … and W. Johnston … 1759.
First edition of Johnson’s only novel, written in the evenings of a single week to pay for his mother’s funeral.
£4500
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JOHNSON, Samuel.
Mr. Johnson’s Preface to his Edition of Shakespear’s Plays.
London, Printed for J. and R. Tonson [and eleven others] … 1765.
First separate edition. ‘The separate Preface seems to be scarce. It is possible that the publishers were reluctant to let people read Johnson’s preface without paying for his edition … and while unable in decency to resist the public demand – or the author’s request – protected...
£1500
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JONSON, Benjamin.
The Workes …
London, Will Stansby, 1616.
An excellent set of the canonical Ben Jonson, the first collection of English plays in the proud format of a folio and the direct fore-runner of Shakespeare’s folios, here found with both the first (1616) and the corrected second editions (1640) of Volume I, and the first edition of Volume II[-III]...
£21000
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JOURNEY TO EMMAUS (A).
A sacred Dialogue ...
Dublin: Printed and sold by Oliver Nelson ... 1751.
First edition, dedicated to Frederick, Prince of Wales, as Chancellor of Trinity College.
£650
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JOYCE, James.
Giacomo Joyce … With an Introduction and Notes by Richard Ellman.
New York, The Viking Press, 1968.
First edition.
£125
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[JOYCE.] ROTH, Samuel [Edits.].
Two Worlds – A Literary Quarterly Devoted to the Increase of the Gaiety of Nations.
New York: Sign of the Mockigrisball, 1925.
First edition. Unnumbered, one of 500, of which 450 numbered copies were designated for subscribers. Between September 1925 and September 1926 Two Worlds published installments of Joyce’s ‘Work in Progress’ (Finnegan’s Wake), reprinted from European publications (in this case from Criterion,...
£150
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JUSTINUS, Marcus Junianius, and Lucius FLORUS.
[Epitome historiarum:] Justini historici clarissimi in Trogi Pompei historias...
[Venice, Bartolomeo Zani, 3 February 1503].
A thoroughly annotated copy of a greatly influential compendium of Trogus’s monumental forty-four-book Historia of the world from Babylon to the Augustan era.
£3800
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JUVENAL.
The Satires … translated: with explanatory and classical Notes, relating to the Laws and Customs of the Greeks and Romans …
London, for J. Nicholson, Cambridge; and sold by S. Crowder and J. and F. Rivington, 1777.
Third edition of this parallel-text translation edited by Thomas Sheridan, first published 1739. Contemporary annotations (one is dated 1779) provide succinct summaries of the subject of each satire. Satire II for example ‘scourges the Hypocrisy, Effeminacy, & Bestiality of his Countrymen,...
£1250
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JUVENAL, Decimus Junius, and Aulus Persius FLACCUS.
Satyrae.
London, J. Brindley, 1744.
First Brindley edition, edited by the Irish classical scholar Usher Gahagan (d. 1749). John Brindley began to publish his series of well-printed duodecimo classics in 1744, for which Gahagan edited eleven works before his arrest and conviction for high treason, having become embroiled with a...
£650
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[JUVENILE.]
Preliminary lessons on the history of England, originally compiled for private use, and now adapted to the junior...
Taunton, J. Poole, 1821.
Later edition of this uncommon Taunton-printed sketch of English history for use in primary schools, which first appeared in 1809. After brief notes on Julius Caesar, the Saxons, and notable pre-Conquest kings, the book offers a short overview of the character of each monarch (and monarch substitute)...
£135
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[JUVENILE.]
A Token of Remembrance from a Mother to her absent Children, comprising simple Tales, Dialogues, and easy Poetry, adapted...
London, William Darton, 58, Holborn Hill, 1822.
First edition of this collection of moral tales and poetry for children, compiled by a mother for her young daughter, from the lending library of the newly established Coast Guard.
£350
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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 (1868).
£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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[JUVENILIA.]
Racconti per gli adolescenti. Con tavole miniate.
Trieste, ‘Sezione Letterario-Artistica del Lloyd Austriaco’, 1857.
First and only edition, extremely rare, of these cautionary tales for adolescents, featuring inter alia debates among children on the ethics of taxidermy, a brawl in Latin lessons, arrests for embezzlement, and the unjust incarceration of a schoolboy.
£350