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.
-
[CURLL, Edmund, et al.]
An impartial History of the Life, Character, Amours, Travels, and Transactions of Mr. John Barber,...
London, Printed for E. Curll …, 1741.
First edition of this obituary pamphlet on the printer John Barber (c. 1675–1741), a friend and correspondent of Swift for many years, and a friend of Pope (there are bequests to both in his will).
£650
-
CURTIUS RUFUS, Quintus.
De rebus gestis Alexandri Magni regis Macedonum opus … Accesserunt enim antehac nunquam visa … Omnia...
Basel, Hieronymus Froben and Nicolaus Episcopius, March 1545.
Handsome folio edition of Curtius Rufus’ history of Alexander the Great, edited by the German humanist Christoph Bruno (fl. 1541–1566), with extensive sixteenth-century marginal annotations.
£2000
-
DALLAS, R[obert] C[harles.]
Sir Francis Darrell; or The Vortex: a Novel ... in four Volumes ...
London, Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1820.
First edition of this epistolary novel by a friend of Byron, the first letter of which was supposedly written by him and given to Dallas (1754–1824) ‘for the purpose of inducing me to continue it’.
£1600
-
DANETT, Thomas.
A Continuation of the Historie of France, from the Death of Charles the Eight where Comines endeth, till the Death...
London, Printed by Thomas East for Thomas Charde, 1600.
First edition, an original history composed in sequel to Danett’s translation of The Historie of Philip de Commines (1596), covering the history of France from 1498 to 1559.
£1800
-
[DANIEL, Yuli Markovich,]
pseud. ‘Nikolai ARZHAK’. Говорит Москва. Повесть [Govorit Moskva. Povest’....
Munich, I. Baschkirzew for Washington, D.C., B[oris] Filippoff, 1962.
First edition, smuggled out of the Soviet Union and published pseudonymously, of this dystopian work in which the government ‘declares a “Day of Public Murders” and permits random murder’ (Terras), one of the books which led directly to Daniel’s arrest and show trial in 1966 for ‘anti-Soviet...
£150
-
[DA PORTO, Luigi.]
‘Lettere di Alvigi da Porto vicentino al Savorgnano, al Ghilini, e ad altri intorno ai successi della Guerra...
[Milan, c. 1800].
A manuscript of an influential and then-unpublished historical work by the author of the original Romeo and Juliet, copied from a sixteenth-century codex at the Bibliotheca Ambrosiana.
£950
-
DAVENANT, William, Sir.
Two excellent Plays: the Wits, a Comedie: the Platonick Lovers, a Tragi-Comedie. Both presented...
London, Printed for G. Bedel, and T. Collins … 1665
First collected edition of two plays first published in 1636, probably published to fill the revenue gap after the temporary closure of the theatres in 1665 because of the Plague.
£950
-
DAVID, [Pierre Drapeyron de].
A History of the Campaigns of General Pichegru, containing the Operations of the Armies of the North,...
London, for G.G.J. & J. Robinson, 1796.
First edition in English, printed in the same year as the French original, of this account of General Pichegru’s campaigns during the early French Revolutionary Wars.
£185
-
DAVIDSON, John.
Smith: a Tragedy.
Glasgow, Frederick W. Wilson and Brother, 1888.
First edition of a rare foray into drama by a Scottish poet who influenced T.S. Eliot and Wallace Stevens. John Davidson (1857-1909) was highly regarded during his lifetime by writers like W.B. Yeats, and later by Eliot, Stevens, and Aldous Huxley. Along with Yeats, Ernest Dowson, and others,...
£300
-
DAY, Thomas.
The History of Sandford and Merton; a Work intended for the Use of Children …
London: Printed for B. Crosby … Darton and Harvey … and T. Ostell … 1803.
First edition thus of Thomas Day’s wildly popular story for children, here in ‘a more reduced form’ as ‘the price of the original work may be incommodious to … young readers’. This was was not the same text as the ‘Abridged’ version first published by Wallis and Newbery (and by Darton...
£150
-
DE BEAUVOIR, Simone.
The Mandarins. A Novel …
Cleveland and New York, The World Publishing Company, [1956].
First edition in English, signed by De Beauvoir on the limitation leaf, one of 500 unnumbered copies, of which only 275 were for sale.
£750
-
[DEFOE, Daniel.]
[Incipit:] Ye True-born Englishmen proceed …
[London, 1701.]
One of a number of editions (at least seven) in 1701, priority not established, of this popular poem attacking Parliament for its failure to support the Dutch against the aggressions of Louis XIV of France. The texts ‘vary considerably’ (Moore) across the printings, which all appeared without...
£1000
-
[DE LA COSTE.]
Voyage philosophique d’Angleterre fait en 1783 et 1784.
A Londres. Et se trouve à Paris, chez Poinçoit … 1787.
First edition, second issue, with cancel title-pages redated 1787 (first 1786) – an interesting and detailed sociological discussion of England and in the English on the eve of the French Revolution, in the form of discursive letters. The author deals with London’s institutions and buildings, taverns...
£250
-
[DELAMARCHE, Alexandre, cartographer; Bernard COUDERT, lithographer.]
‘Atlas’.
Paris, Legay, [c. 1889].
An attractive set of large educational jigsaw maps showing the world, Europe, and France, preserved in its original allegorical box.
£875
-
DENNIS, John.
The Grounds of Criticism in Poetry, contain’d in some new Discoveries never made before, requisite for the Writing...
London, Printed for Geo. Strahan … and Bernard Lintott … 1704.
First edition. Published as a ‘preliminary’ to a proposed, but never completed, masterwork, The Grounds of Criticism in Poetry comprises a Preface, Proposal and ‘Specimen’, the latter being an essay substantially on Milton, ‘one of the greatest and most daring Genius’s that has appear’d...
£1250
-
[DENNIS, John, and George DUCKETT?]
Pope Alexander’s Supremacy and Infallibility examin’d, and the Errors of Scriblerus...
London, J. Roberts, 1729.
First edition, very scarce in commerce, of an exhilaratingly spiteful attack on Pope in the wake of the publication of the Dunciad variorum, comprising seven different satirical texts, three in verse, issued in quarto to match ‘the least pompous Edition of the Dunciad’.
£3250
-
DE QUINCEY, Thomas.
Autograph draft of two passages from his autobiographical essay ‘Oxford’, first published in Tait’s Magazine...
Undated, c. 1835.
An interesting autograph fragment with numerous authorial revisions. The essay as a whole is an ‘account of the system of Oxford life and education during the five years of De Quincey’s connexion with the University, with glimpses of himself’ (Masson, II, p. 2). The passages here form the...
£1750
-
DESENFANS, Noel Joseph.
Les deux Hermites, dédié a mylord Lyttelton …
A Londres; chez R. Davis … J Ridley … W Owen … 1773.
First and only edition, uncommon, of an epistolary novel by the future art dealer Noel Joseph Desenfans. The scene is Paris in the 1680s, the theme is Enlightenment, and the author’s aim was to inspire ‘l’horreur de l’oppression, sentiment nécessaire à l’harmonie de la Société, & vertu...
£650
-
DESFORGES, Pierre Choudard.
Tom Jones a Londres, Comédie en cinq actes et en vers, tirée du roman de Fielding … Réprésentée,...
Paris, Chez Prault, Imprimeur du Roi … 1789.
Later edition, first published 1782. Desforges’s dramatic adaptation of Fielding’s novel was followed in 1788 by an apparently inferior sequel, Tom Jones et Fellamar.
£95
-
DIBDIN, C[harles], the younger.
Mirth and Metre: consisting of Poems, serious, humorous, and satirical; Songs, Sonnets, Ballads,...
London: Printed for Vernor, Hood, and Sharpe ... by W. Wilson. 1807
First edition of the first collection of verse by the manager of Sadler’s Wells, including a section of songs from his ‘most approved’ pantomimes and ‘scenic’ productions. The ticket of a Newark bookseller makes it likely that the stamp ‘Newstead’ refers to Byron’s ancestral home, Newstead...
£225