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.
-
[WISHART, George.]
I. G. de rebus auspiciis serenssimi, & potentissimi Caroli Dei gratia Magnae Brittanniae, Franciae & Hiberniae...
[Amsterdam or The Hague,] 1647.
First edition, rare, a fine paper copy in a handsome binding, of an account of the campaign of James Graham, Marquess of Montrose, against the Covenanters in 1644−46.
£1750
-
WITHER, George.
Speculum Speculativum: or, a Considering-Glasse; being an Inspection into the present and late sad Condition of...
London, Written June XIII. MDCLX. and there Imprinted the same year [1660].
The third of three editions in the same year, from an entirely new setting of type, with ‘Glasse’ rather than ‘Glass’ on the title-page, the errata formerly printed on L8 corrected, and the errors corrected in the caption title on p. 1
£525
-
WOLLSTONECRAFT, Mary.
An Historical and moral View of the Origin and Progress of the French Revolution; and the Effect it has produced...
London, J. Johnson, 1794.
First edition of Wollstonecraft’s eloquent analysis of the causes of the French revolution, written as an antidote to Burke’s Reflections, our copy with manuscript notes by William Michael Rossetti. The work was never completed before Wollstonecraft’s death in 1797, though the first volume...
£7250
-
‘WOODLAND SKETCHES.
With poetical Selections …
Frome. 1836’.
A delightful illustrated manuscript commonplace of uncommonly coherent design, assembling relevant quotations from Shakespeare, Milton, Byron, Cowper, Spenser, Coleridge, and others, alongside illustrations of ten British trees – Beech, Willow, White Poplar, Cedar, Elm, Pine, Oak, Birch, Yew,...
£1250
-
WOOLLEY, C. Leonard and Thomas Edward LAWRENCE.
The Wilderness of Zin ... With a Chapter on the Greek Inscriptions by M.N. Tod....
London: The Alden Press for Jonathan Cape, 1936.
Second English edition. The Wilderness of Zin originally appeared as the Palestine Exploration Fund Annual for 1914-1915, and was the first work by Lawrence to appear in book form. However, it was included in the P.E.F. series on somewhat disingenuous grounds: ‘During January and February 1914,...
£150
-
WYCHERLEY, William.
The Posthumous Works … in Prose and Verse. Faithfully publish’d from his original Manuscripts, by Mr. Theobald....
London: Printed for A. Bettesworth, J. Osborn, W. Mears, W. and J. Innys, J. Peele, T. Woodward; and F. Clay. 1728.
First edition of an important collection, comprising 308 maxims, one short essay and a large number of previously unpublished poems (the third paginated sequence), based on manuscripts acquired from Captain Thomas Shrimpton, Wycherley’s sole executor.
£850
-
[WYNNE, John Huddlestone.]
The Child of Chance; or, the Adventures of Harry Hazard.
London, T. Hookham, ‘1796’ [recte 1786].
First edition of a very rare picaresque novel in the manner of Tom Jones. Though largely London-based, there are interludes in India (where Wynne had served two years) and the West Indies. Many of the tropes of Wynne’s earlier novel The Man of Honour are present – orphans, female duplicity,...
£3500
-
XENOPHON.
De Cyri regis Persarum vita atque disciplina, libri VIII.
Paris, Andreas Wechel, 1572.
First edition of Joachim Camerarius’ Latin translation of Xenophon’s Cyropaedia, a partly fictional work on the life and education of Cyrus the Great which served as a model for medieval and renaissance mirrors of princes, including Machiavelli’s Il Principe. A beautiful...
£875
-
[YOUNG, Edward.]
The Complaint: or, Night-Thoughts on Life, Death, & Immortality.
London, R. Dodsley and [T. Cooper; –] M. Cooper, [1742; –] 1743.
The first attempt at a collected edition of the Night-Thoughts, issued by Richard Dodsley and Mary Cooper, comprising the second (first quarto) edition of Night the First and first editions of Night the Second to Fourth with a general title and preface.
£250
-
YRVEN, Marcelle.
La comédienne et le féminisme.
Paris, L. Pichon, 1914.
First edition of this feminist work on the necessity of a thorough literary and cultural education for women in theatre, by the celebrated actress Marcelle Yrven, presented to the editor-in-chief of Le Figaro’s literary supplement.
£250
-
ZACHARIÄ, Just Friedrich Wilhelm.
Les quatre parties du jour, poëme traduit de l’allemand de M. Zacharie.
Paris, J. B. G. Musier fils, 1769.
First edition in French of this proto-Romantic poem on the times of day, splendidly bound with the arms of its dedicatee, the mentally ill Christian VII of Denmark and Norway.
£1500
-
ZANCHI, Basilio.
Dictionarium poeticum, et epitheta veterum poetarum … nunc secundo trans Alpes editum.
Mons, Luca Rivius, 1612.
Scarce Mons-printed edition of Zanchi’s onomasticon from A to Z, providing a comprehensive list of deities, notable figures, and heroes and heroines from classical myth and legend, drawn from the works of Virgil, Horace, Tibullus, Ovid, and Propertius.
£375
-
ZAPPI, Giambattista and Faustina.
Rime di Giambattista Felice Zappi e di Faustina Maratti sua consorte.
Nice, Société typographique, 1781.
Uncommon Nice printing of the collected poetry of one of the most prominent literary couples of early eighteenth-century Rome, Faustina Maratti (1679–1745) and her husband Giambattista Zappi (1667–1719). First published after Zappi’s death in 1723, the collection consists of seventy-three...
£200
-
ZOSIMUS.
The New History of Count Zosimus, sometime Advocate of the Treasury pf the Roman Empire. With the Notes of the Oxford...
London, Joseph Hindmarsh, 1684.
First edition of this anonymous translation of the Historia nova, translated from the Oxford text of 1679 (an edition that Gibbon owned). Zosimus’s history of the Roman Empire covers the period from Augustus to 410 AD (the sack of Rome by the Visigoths). For the fourth century and the...
£950
-
ZOSIMUS.
Ιστοριας νεας βιβλοι ἑξ … Historiae novae libri sex, notis illustrati.
Oxford, Sheldonian Theatre, 1679.
First Oxford edition of this history of the Roman Empire from Augustus to the year 410, by the fifth-century Greek historian Zosimus. The work is an important source particularly for the period 395-410 and its pagan author attributes Rome’s decline to its embrace of Christianity and rejection...
£500
-
ZUKOFSKY, Louis.
Some Time. Short Poems …
Stuttgart, Jonathan Williams, 1956.
First edition, one of 300 copies, inscribed ‘for D. G. Bridson, Sept. 21, 1957, Louis Zukofsky’.
£500