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ONE HUNDRED BOOKS Blackwell
Blackwell’S rare books CATALOGUE B180 Blackwell’s Rare Books 48-51 Broad Street, Oxford, OX1 3BQ
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Front cover illustrations: Item 4 Rear cover illustrations: Item 49 1. Adams (Richard) Watership Down. Rex Collings, 1972, FIRST EDITION, folded colourprinted map at rear, pp. viii, 413, 8vo, original terracotta cloth stamped in gilt to upper board, backstrip lettered in gilt, bookplate tipped in to flyleaf, dustjacket, fine £3,750
With a bookplate signed by the author laid in at front. A very well-preserved copy of this children’s classic.
2. Anderson (James) Works [spine title]. Vols. II-IV. Edinburgh and London: various publishers, 1776-1800, a total of 23 monographs, pamphlets, prospecti, &c (see below), manuscript title-page in vol. ii, a few plates, occasional minor foxing and browning, 3 leaves in vol. ii scorched with loss to the outer margins (not affecting text), 8vo (unless otherwise, see list below), half Russia of c.1800, spines gilt and blind tooled with a gilt wheatsheaf and a pair of agricultural tools in each compartment, lettered direct ‘Anderson’s Works’, marbled edges, joints and corners skilfully repaired, first work in vols. ii and iii with the bookstamp of George Anderson designed by John Anderson (son of James, apprenticed to Bewick), each vol. with armorial book-plate of Alexander David Seton of Mounie, and with pencil Mounie Castle shelfmark on flyleaf, good £7,500
A fine collection (though sadly lacking one of the made-up volumes) comprising most of Anderson’s most important works. Some bear corrections in a contemporary hand, possibly the author’s, or perhaps George Anderson’s; the set was subsequently at Mounie, the estate in Aberdeenshire of the Seton family. James Anderson married the heiress Margaret Seton in 1768, when he took over the farm of Monkshill.
James Anderson (1739-1808) was a leading light of the Scottish Enlightenment. He was already in line for an agricultural career, and prepared himself for it by attending William Cullen’s lectures on chemistry. Moving to Aberdeenshire he embarked on an industrious career of writing on agricultural (chiefly the improvements of the Highland and Islands), economic and political subjects. ‘He was an early adherent of the principles of political economy... He produced many pamphlets, some of them important… His Enquiry into the Nature of the Corn Laws (1777) is held to have anticipated David Ricardo’s theory of rent. His The Interest of Great Britain with Respect to the American Colonies (1782) brought him into political concerns… Anderson wrote one of the county volumes for Sinclair’s board of agriculture, A general view of the agriculture and rural economy of the county of Aberdeen and the means for its improvement (1794). This is of particular interest, for it contains an account of how the landowners of the county prevented the harvest failure of 1782 leading to famine… It seems
Item 1 Item 2
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highly probable that the whole response to the emergency was initiated by Anderson. [He] moved from Aberdeenshire to Edinburgh in 1783, but from there made visits to London. He published a weekly paper in Edinburgh, The Bee, from 1790 to 1794, at 6d. an issue, much of which he wrote’ (ODNB). He also made several contributions to the the first edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
The collection (all by Anderson unless otherwise stated) comprises:
Vol. ii: manuscript title-page, with a note as to the last work ‘This of course is not Dr. A’s’ (see below).
1. Engraved portrait of the author after John Anderson, published by Vernor and Hood, Nov. 30th 1799.
2. Free Thoughts on the American Contest. Edinburgh: 1776, pp. [ii], 59, signed at the end Timoleon. ESTC N1349, recording just 2 copies in the UK, Hornel Art Gallery and Library, and Bodley (not in NLS or BL), and 4 copies in the US.
3. An Enquiry into the Nature of the Corn-Laws; with a view to the new Corn-Bill proposed for Scotland. Edinburgh: printed by and for Mrs Mundell, 1777, pp. 60, [1, Advertisement to the Reader]. ESTC T128396.
4. A Letter to Henry Laurens Esqr., 1781. 15pp. clipping from The Public Advertiser, mounted, manuscript corrections.
5. [Drop title:] A Letter to Henry Laurens Esqr: some time President of the American Congress. Pp. 4, (printed) signature at end cropped. Possibly a separate printing, given the pagination, rather than an extract, but not recorded in ESTC as such.
6. The Interest of Great-Britain with regard to her American colonies, considered. To which is added An appendix, containing the outlines of a plan for a general pacification.London: printed for T. Cadell, 1782, pp. [i, half-title], vii, 136, 36. ESTC T603.
7. [Caption title:] Prospectus of a New Work to be entitled Recreations in Agriculture, Natural- History, Arts, & Miscellaneous Literature. [London: 1799], pp. 8. ESTC T27440, calling for 4 pp. only, perhaps in error for 4 leaves, but they are paginated.
8. [Drop title] Just published Volume Fifteenth of The Bee, or Literary Weekly Intelligencer ... Edinburgh, July 1793. Pp. 4, section folded in at foot to fit the volume. Apparently unrecorded. In a note at the end Anderson adverts to ‘an unexpected order for the Bee from Nootka Sound.’
9. [Drop-title:] Hot-houses on an Improved Plan. [London, Auld, 1800], pp. 2, imprint cropped at end, tear at foot entering text but without loss. ESTC T161426, Gottingen only.
10. Selections from the Correspondence of General Washington and James Anderson ... in which the Causes of the Present Scarcity are fully investigated. London: printed for John Cuming by T. Bensley, 1800, pp. viii (including half-title), 88. ESTC T47436.
11. A Calm Investigation of the Circumstances that have led to the present Scarcity of Grain in Britain ... The second edition. London: printed for John Cuming, 1801, pp. [iv], 94, with a folding table. BL (bis), Cambridge (bis, one annotated) and Guildhall only in COPAC - besides microfilms.
12. McKenzie (Murdoch) Justification of Mr. Murdoch M’Kenzie’s Nautical Survey of the Orkney and Hebrides, in Answers to the Accusations of Doctor Anderson. Edinburgh: printed for William Creech, 1785, pp. 55, 4 leaves folded in at fore-edge to accommodate pencil notes, 4 leaves scorched with loss to fore-margin of two of them (not affecting text). ESTC T133583, NLS and BL only in the UK, 4 in the US.
13. [Drop title] On a Universal Character: in a Letter ... to Edward Holme. From the Memoirs of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester. [1795], pp. 12, and a table, two leaves folded in at fore-margin to accommodate ink corrections. The only copy of this title in COPAC, at Edinburgh, would appear to be in a volume of the Memoirs, dated 1798.
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Vol. iii:
14. [Anstie (John)] A Letter to the Secretary of the Bath Agriculture Society, on the subject of a premium, for the improvement of British wool. Including observations on the report of the Highland Society, and Dr. Anderson’s memorials. London: printed by George Stafford, 1791, pp. viii, 32, last page slightly soiled, with fragment missing from lower outer corner. ESTC T38448, recording 6 in the UK and 3 in the US.
15. (Highland Society.) Report of the Committee of the Highland Society of Scotland, to whom the subject of Shetland Wool was referred. With an Appendix, Containing some Papers, drawn up by Sir John Sinclair and Dr. Anderson, in reference to the said Report. Edinburgh: Printed for the use of the Society, 1790, pp. vi, 81. ESTC T44719.
16. [Drop title] Prospectus of an intended New Periodical Work, to be called The Bee, or Universal Literary Intelligencer ... Edinburgh: printed by Mundell and Son, 1790, pp. 4, 4to, folded to fit. ESTC T46025.
17. A Practical Treatise on Draining Bogs and Swampy Grounds ... London: printed for G.G. and J. Robinson, 1797, pp. [iv], 227, with 2 pages of woodcuts and two woodcuts in the text. The 2 pages of woodcuts have each 4 figures, numbered 25-28 and 29-32 respectively, but as they are included in the pagination, which is regular and complete, this would appear to all that is called for.
18. Two Letters to Sir John Sinclair ... on the subject of draining wet and boggy lands. Edinburgh: printed for G.G.J. & J. Robinsons, London; and J. Guthrie, Edinburgh, 1796, pp. [i, half-title], 33 (last page misnumbered 32), original front wrapper preserved, inscribed ‘To Mr Brouponet of Paris from ?James Anderson.’ The forename is indistinct, and doesn’t really look like James, and the surname has been gone over a second time.
19. Pallas (Peter Simon) An Account of the different kinds of Sheep found in the Russian dominions, and among the Tartar Hordes of Asia. Illustrated with six plates. To which is added Five Appendixes tending to illustrate the natural and economic history of sheep and other domestic animals by James Anderson. Edinburgh: Printed, and sold, by T. Chapman, 1794, first plate partly hand coloured, pp. [xiii, irregularly paginated, or misbound], 185 (i.e 179, [16, including Index, half-title and Directions to the Binder.
20. A Practical Treatise on Peat Moss ... printed for Rob[i]nson and Sons, 1794, pp. xxvi, 150, original front wrapper preserved, inscribed ‘For George Anderson.’ This appears to be in the same, poor, hand as the inscription in item 18. ESTC T6117, scarce, no copy in the US.
Vol. iv:
21. (Union Magazine.) James Anderson ... with a Portrait. [London: J. Walker, May 1802], pp. [283-] 286 (the Anderson Memoir occupying pp. 283-4) with an engraved portrait after John Anderson. A few pages seem to have between excised between the portrait and the text, and the text on 285-6 being irrelevant - though not undiverting - On the Pleasure and Advantages of Reading.
22. Miscellaneous Observations on Planting and Training Timber-trees; particularly calculated for the climate of Scotland. In a series of letters. By Agricola. Edinburgh: Printed for Charles Elliot, Edinburgh, and Thomas Cadell, London, 1777, pp. [viii], 230, internal splits to half-tile without loss, poor impression on p. 4 and this and the next 2 leaves spotted and slightly browned. ESTC T137335.
23. General View of the Agriculture and Rural Economy of the County of Aberdeen with observations on the means of its improvement ... Edinburgh: 1794, pp. 181 (i.e. 182), with a folding engraved plate, Advertisement folded at fore-margin to fit, likewise pp. 123/4 (A Table), and the last 2 unnumbered pages, the last torn at the top (apparently before binding) with slight loss.
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Michael Sadleir’s copy, inscribed by the author 3. Belloc (Hilaire) Cautionary Tales for Children. Designed for the Admonition of Children between the ages of eight and fourteen years. Pictures by B.T.B. Eveleigh Nash, [1907,] FIRST EDITION, illustrations to the majority of pages, pp. 79, 4to, original illustrated boards stamped in red and dark blue to upper board, borders a trifle darkened and usual browning to free endpapers, custom box, near fine (Cahill 24A) £1,500
Michael Sadleir’s copy with his bookplate to pastedown and a pencilled note with his initials beneath the inscription (recording that the British Museum copy was not received until February 1908). The author’s inscription to the flyleaf reads: ‘To Mr and Mrs Mead. Their obedient servant, H.B. 29th of November 1907’.
4. (Binding.) BARTLEY (Glenn, binder) Mansfield (Katherine) The Garden Party and other stories with coloured lithographs by Marie Laurencin. [Officina Bodoni for] The Verona Press, 1939 [1947], LIMITED EDITION, 672/1200 copies, title printed in red and black, with 16 coloured lithographs in the text (10 full-page) by Marie Laurencin, publisher’s printed note tipped-in after title-page, pp. [x], 315, [3], 4to, full red Harmatan goatskin with recessed onlays of embossed goatskin, coloured edges (simulating grass) and grey suede doublures, gold tooling using a floral tool, housed in a felt lined buckram drop back box, with a recessed parti-coloured lettering piece on the spine, by Glenn Bartley, with his ticket, fine (Kirkpatrick D6) £3,000
A most attractive binding by one of the leading Designer Bookbinders (the description of the binding above is the binder’s own). Glenn Bartley says ‘My designs do not make a personal statement as such, but I feel it is important to relate to the typography, design and theme of the text which, combined with the book’s protective box, create a unified whole. Also, the challenge for me is to produce bindings that have a link with the past in their style and make up and which still arouse the simple visual/tactile pleasure and “warmth” of handling a well bound book.’
A selection of 14 of Mansfield’s stories, only five of which had also been included in the earlier collection with the same title. Though printed in 1939, the Second World War delayed actual publication of this book until 1947, when it was distributed by William Collins.
5. Blake (William) Songs of Innocence and Experience, shewing the two contrary states of the human soul. W. Pickering, Chancery Lane, and W. Newbery, 1839, FIRST PUBLISHED EDITION, issue without the leaf containing ‘The Little Vagabond’ but with a half-title to ‘Dedication of the Poem of the Grave’, some light browning and finger-soiling, stitching strained in places, pp. xxi, [iii], 74, [2, blank] 8vo, original purple grained cloth, boards blocked with a frame in blind, front board also lettered in gilt at centre, somewhat sunned and rubbed, white paint flecks to lower corner of rear board, yellow chalked endpapers, label removed from front pastedown, good (Keynes 135; Bentley, Blake Books, 171B) £5,500
Usually called the second issue, although priority is disputed: either the penultimate poem was omitted by mistake and added in by a cancellation, or originally included but removed following criticism from the Church.
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The editor, J.J.G. Wilkinson, had seen a copy of Blake’s original version - produced as a small number of individual collections of engraving by Blake himself - and arranged for publication, the first time these poems were set in type. It was the first effort to revive Blake’s reputation after his death, and ‘is of much bibliographical interest, but the edition was probably a small one, and the book is now somewhat rare’ (Keynes).
6. [Bland (James)] An Essay in Praise of Women: or, a Looking-Glass for ladies to see their Perfections in. With Observations how the Godhead seem’d concern’d in their Creation: What Respect is due to them on that Account: How they have behaved in all Ages, and especially in our Saviour’s Time. Our modern Ladies prov’d no less virtuous and industrious than those in King Solomon’s Time: Those in and about London no less so than those in the Country… The Whole being a Composition of Wit and Humour, Morality and Divinity, fit to be perused by all the Curious and Ingenious, especially the Ladies. The second edition, with an edition of Nine Poems. Printed for the Author, and sold by J. Roberts [and 6 others], 1735, FIRST EDITION of the Nine Poems, 2 parts in 1 vol., woodcut head- and tail-pieces, some foxing, and browning round the edges, pp. [u], [xiv], xi, [12-] 271, [1]; 16, 8vo, contemporary calf, double gilt fillets on sides, rebacked preserving original spine, contemporary ink ownership inscription inside front cover of Mary Ann ?Twin (a pencil inscription on the flyleaf opposite seems to read Mary Ann Tween), numerous marginal marks in pencil, sound (ESTC T143699, BL & LoC only) £2,000
The rare second edition, a reissue of the 1733 edition with a cancel title-page, and the first edition of the nine poems at the end. The title-page as transcribed in ESTC finishes ‘By J. Bland, Professor of Physic’, but adds in the note that the publication is ‘anonymous’, so this must be an interpolation (the attribution is also not present in this copy). Bland’s profession is also apparent from internal evidence, but there is no medical content here, rather a celebration of the inherent moral and religious superiority of the fair sex, a defence of the Tea-Table, elaborate hairdressing, the wearing of jewelry, &c, as well as considerable detail on how to counter the wiles and ruses of dishonest, scheming, men; the whole not without ‘Wit and Humour’, as per the title-page.
‘The book contains nine chapters, so there is a poem suitable to each chapter, which will be bound at the latter end of the book, and the poems to be had single at 4d. each’. The Poems separately are ESTC N52548, Foxon p. 66; BL, Illinois, and, according to Foxon, LoC as well, but not in their on-line catalogue: Foxon hadn’t seen the title-page of the main work as he states that it was only ‘possibly’ available separately.
7. Boswell (James) The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. [Two vols.] Henry Baldwin, for Charles Dilly, 1791, FIRST EDITION, engraved frontispiece in vol. i, two engraved plates in vol. ii, line 10 on p. 135 of vol. i reading ‘give’, some foxing (heavier at beginning and end), several marginal manicules in pencil, a small paperflaw to one leaf (H2) in vol. ii repaired with early paper, a nineteenth-century manuscript index on one leaf of blue paper bound in at end of vol. ii (linked to the pencilled manicules), pp. xii, [viii], 516; [ii], 588, 4to, nineteenth-century brown morocco by Hodgson of Liverpool, boards with a gilt border made up of a single then a triple gilt fillet enclosing a further frame made from a dentelle tool, elaborate floral cornerpieces, spines with raised
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bands, second and fourth compartments gilt-lettered direct, the rest with a triple gilt fillet border and small triple-leaf cornerpieces, somewhat rubbed at extremities, marbled endpapers, edges gilt, armorial bookplates of the Earl of Derby, good (ESTC T64481; Pottle 79) £4,000
‘Macaulay says that the preeminence of Homer as an epic poet, of Shakespeare as a dramatic poet, of Demosthenes as an orator, and of Cervantes as a novelist is no less indisputable than the preeminence of Boswell as a biographer. And then he says that all those eminent names owed their preeminence to their talent and brilliance, and that the odd thing about Boswell is that he owes his preeminence as a biographer to his foolishness, his inconsistency, his vanity, and his imbecility’ (Borges, ‘Class 10’ in Professor Borges).
8. Brant (Sebastian) Stultifera Navis, Narragonice profectionis nu[m]q[uam] sat[is] laudata Nauis ... Atq[ue] iampridem per Jacobum Locher, cognomento Philomusum: Sueuu[m]: in latinu[m] traducta eloquiu[m]: Et per sebastianu[m] Brant: denuo seduloq[ue] reuisa: felici exorditur principio. [colophon:] Strasbourg: Johann (Reinhard) Grüninger, 1st June, 1497, with 116 woodcuts in the text, G1 with what appears to be a paperflaw, just affecting 1 letter on the recto and with minute loss to the woodcut on the verso, a few headline shaved, repair to lower outer corner of P1 (not affecting text), a tendency to browning, a few spots and stains, 112 leaves numbered 1-116, with errors, 4to (200 x 145 mm), early nineteenth- century dark green straight-grained morocco by Jno (i.e. John) Clarke (according to a neat inscription on the fly-leaf, probably the binder’s signature), quintuple gilt fillets on sides with an ornament of concentric circles at the corners, spine richly gilt in compartments, lettered in gilt direct in 2 compartments at the top, place of printing (‘Argêtina’, as per colophon) and date at the foot, gilt edges, neatly rebacked, armorial bookplate of E. Horrn Frost inside front cover, his signature (with initials) on the fly-leaf, and full signature ‘Elias Henry Frost’ at the foot of yiiiv dated from Charleston So[uth] Ca[rolina] April 185, good (ISTC ib01089000; Goff B1089; BMC I 112; PMM 37 for the first edition) £25,000
This ‘curious and amusing droll old book’ (as per an old bookseller’s description tipped onto the inside front cover) first appeared in German in 1494, and in Latin at Basle, 1 March 1497, of which this a reprint with different woodcuts. There was another Strasbourg reprint (Strasbourg being Brant’s native city) by Johann Schönsperger, 1 April 1497, which included the Basle colophon. Brant spared no-one in his satire, and the book immediately became immensely popular, in fact an unprecedented bestseller, with numerous authorised and unauthorised editions. ‘The Influence ofThe Ship of Fools was extensive and prolonged ... [It] was the first original work by a German which passed into world literature ... Brant’s book played an important part in European literature, and helped to blaze the trail that leads from medieval allegory to modern satire, drama and the novel of character’ (PMM). See item 36 for an important commentary.
9. (Broadside. Ballad Sheet.) COWPER (William) The Negro’s Complaint. Written by Mr. Cowper. No place or publisher, c. 1788, single sheet, printed in a single column on one side only, ‘Am I not a Man and a Brother’ at head, below this a woodcut after Wedgwood, below this the title, approx. 375 x 95 mm, laid down on card (part of an engraving of the seals of the kings of England), a little browned, good £4,000
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Item 9 Item 10
An unrecorded version of this famous Abolitionist poem, graced with a woodcut after Josiah Wedgwood’s anti-slavery medallion (first made in 1787). Cowper was commissioned by the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade to write this poem, and they must have been pleased with its instant popularity, a popularity evinced by its appearance in ballad sheet form. ESTC records 4 broadside versions (but not this one), 3 of them known in just one location, and the fourth in 2. This is a very early printing, with ‘Fetters’ in line 30, and ‘ye’ in the last line.
10. [Brontë (Charlotte)] The Professor, a Tale. By Currer Bell. In Two Volumes. Smith, Elder & Co. 1857, FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE, with 2 pages of adverts. at the end of vol. i and 16 pages of adverts. at the end of vol. ii dated June, 1857, with half-titles, pp. viii, 294, 2; iv, 258, [2], 8, 16, 8vo, original embossed damson cloth by Westley’s, backstrips and extremities sunned, wear to lower joint of vol. i, a vertical mark to backstrip of vol. ii, modern bookplate to front pastedown, very good (Smith 7; Parrish p. 96; Wise 18) £3,500
Charlotte Brontë completed The Professor on 27th June 1846, ‘transforming her Brussels experience into an exploration of a happier teacher-pupil relationship... [with her sisters’ first books] the three manuscripts were hawked around various publishers for a year and a half, always travelling in the same reused wrapper that betrayed the signs of previous rejection. Finally in July 1847 Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey were accepted for publication by Thomas Cautley Newby. But The Professor suffered repeated rejection.... [it] was never published in Charlotte Brontë’s lifetime, although she often returned to her first novel during her literary career, in an effort to revive what she referred to as her “idiot child”’ (ODNB). In 1857 Smith, Elder & Co. finally published it but despite Brontë’s previous successes it was not an immediate hit; the first edition sheets lasted through several bind-ups with different advertisement sections as well as a one-volume issue at a reduced price. The first issue, as here, is consequently scarce.
11. [Carroll (Lewis)] THE TRAIN: a first-class magazine. Vol I. - from January to June, 1856. [- Vol.V. - from January to June, 1858. All published.] Grombridge. 1856-58, full-page wood engraved illustrations, and vignette woodcuts, all within pagination, 1 gathering in vol. i with a kink at the top, pp. iv, 384; iv, 384; iv, 384; iv, 380; iv, 384 (recte 380, pp. 61-64 omitted from the pagination), 8vo, original blue embossed cloth, minor wear to extremities, good (Willams [Crutch] 14) £3,000
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Item 11 Item 12
A monthly magazine started by Edmund Yates and friends, with contributions from Frank Smedley, William Hale, G.A.Sala, Frederick Arnold, et al. The magazine is noteworthy for containing eight contributions by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. The first of these, a poem entitled ‘Solitude’, is the first published work to bear Dodgson’s famous pseudonym, ‘Lewis Carroll’. He made three contributions to volume one, three to volume two, and one each to volumes three and four. Very scarce in the publisher’s cloth. Loosely inserted is an invoice from Pickering & Chatto made out to D.N. Crutch, that is, Denis Crutch, reviser of The Lewis Carroll Handbook.
12. Carroll (Lewis) Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. [together with:] Through the Looking-Glass, and what Alice found there. With forty-two [and fifty, respectively] Illustrations by John Tenniel. [Printed by R. Clay and Son for] Macmillan and Co., 1866-72, FIRST EDITIONS, 2 vols., occasional very slight foxing in first vol., one page in the second dog-eared,pp. [xii (including half-title and frontispiece)], 192; [xii (including half-title and frontispiece)], 224, 3, 8vo, uniformly bound in crushed burgundy morocco by Riviere & Son, double gilt fillets on sides, spines gilt in compartments with tools of playing cards and a rabbit, gilt edges, original covers bound in at end of each vol., the original covers a little faded and soiled, at the end of vol.i also bound in is an original pale blue end-paper with the inscription ‘Mary Freeling, Xmas 1865’, contemporary signature of C.M. Cobb at head of title in vol. ii, minimal wear to foot of spines, cloth slip-in case, very good (Williams [Crutch] 46 and 84) £8,000
With the inverted S in the final line of the Contents in the first vol., which is thought to be a feature of the earliest state of the edition, and the incorrect reading ‘wade’ on p. 21 of the second vol., which certainly does indicate first issue. Strictly speaking,Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is the second (first published) edition, following the cancellation of the Clarendon Press printing at the behest of Tenniel, backed up by Dodgson. This edition was re-set by Clay, and although dated 1866 on the title was published for the Christmas market in 1865 - as evidenced here by the inscription on an original end-paper. Likewise, Through the Looking-Glass appeared at the end of 1871.
A presentation copy, inscribed by the author ‘For Nina’ 13. Carroll (Lewis) The Nursery “Alice”. Containing twenty coloured enlargements from Tenniel’s illustrations to “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”, with text adapted to Nursery Readers. The cover designed and coloured by E. Gertrude Thomson. Macmillan, 1890, PRESENTATION COPY,
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SECOND (FIRST PUBLISHED) EDITION, first issue, 20 colour illustrations, a little light finger-soiling in places, pp. [xii], 56, [8], 4to, original cloth-backed pictorial glazed paper boards, a touch of professional repair to backstrip, light scratching and soiling overall, corners worn, good (Williams et al.[Crutch] 216) £10,000
The author has inscribed (in characteristic purple ink) to the half-title, ‘For Nina, from the Author. Mar. 25, 1890’. As with the original Alice in Wonderland, the first set of sheets Macmillan printed of this adapted edition for children were rejected, and a number of them later found their way to America with a new title page. After an adjustment of the colouring and a second print run, which Carroll approved (calling the sheets “a great success”), it was published around Easter 1890, with 100 presentation copies - of which this is one - being inscribed on March 25th.
14. Chesterton (G.K.) The Wisdom of Father Brown. Cassell, 1914, FIRST EDITION, light foxing to prelims and ultimate pages, pp. [viii], 312, crown 8vo, original dark blue cloth blind-stamped to upper board and sunned through dustjacket overall, backstrip lettered in gilt with some very faint spots and rubbing at tips, slight lean to spine, top edge a trifle dustsoiled with light foxing to areas of fore-edge, bookplate tipped in to flyleaf with contemporary newspaper review laid in, rear hinge strained, dustjacket with some rubbing, creasing and light chipping, a few short tears with spots of internal tape repair and a small greenish stain at head of rear panel, price to backstrip panel inked out, good (Sullivan 32A) £17,500
Very scarce in the dustjacket of which this is a nice, bright example.
15. Clement of Alexandria. Ad Corinthios epistola prior. Et laceris reliquiis vetustissimi exemplaris Bibliothecae Regiae, eruit, lacunas explevit, Latine vertit... Oxford: excudebat Iohannes Lichfield Academiae Typographus, 1633, LARGE PAPER COPY (24.5cm tall), complete with initial blank leaf and disjunct privilege leaf (here printed on smaller paper and bound at the end), pp. [xxvi], 76, [48], [2], 4to, wholly untrimmed in contemporary limp vellum, spine lettered in ink, vellum soiled and a little rumpled, blank corner of flyleaf torn, pencilled shelfmarks to pastedown, ownership inscriptions of ‘Mo: Coe, Mag. Coll. Camb.’ and ‘J. Mendham, 1809’ to flyleaf, good (ESTC S108071; Madan 1633/10) £2,000
A rare large-paper and wholly original copy of this edition, severally important in the history of scholarship, printing, and both of those matters in Oxford. Charles I had been presented with the Codex Alexandrinus in 1628, and these significant letters by the early pope Clement I were preserved on a few damaged leaves at the end. William Laud, from 1629 Chancellor of Oxford (and later Archbishop of Canterbury), wanted to establish a Greek press in Oxford but this volume, edited by the King’s librarian Patrick Young and printed by Lichfield using Saville types lent to him by the University, was the most he was able to achieve.
It was nonetheless a significant effort: Barker calls it ‘one of the first works of modern textual scholarship to issue from an Oxford press’; Carter says ‘This book... was the learned press in being’. It also demonstrates a major typographical achievement, since the text had numerous lacunae and it was decided to print all the editorially-supplied text in red. As a result most pages feature printing in two
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colours, so carefully aligned that often a single red character has been placed perfectly in the middle of an otherwise black word.
Although the book is not vanishingly rare, large paper copies are very scarce indeed; this copy is at least 1.5cm taller than any copy measured in COPAC (and a full 4cm taller than the presentation copy in the Macclesfield Library).ESTC does not mention a large paper issue, although Madan was aware of ‘some’ large paper copies. The privilege leaf, a singleton also found only in ‘some’ copies according to Madan, is here on smaller paper (i.e. the paper of the regular issue) and may have only been printed in that size.
Morris Parrish copy 16. Collins (Wilkie) Antonina; or, the Fall of Rome. A Romance of the Fifth Century. Richard Bentley, 1850, FIRST EDITION, 3 vols., half-title in vol. i a trifle soiled,pp. [xvi], 295. [1]; [viii, including initial blank], 321, [3, 2 of them ads]; [viii, including initial blank], 338, [2, ads], 8vo, original white embossed cloth, the covers blocked in blind with a double-rule border, within which a honey- comb border, spines blocked and lettered in gilt between ornaments, covers slightly discoloured and spotted, spines darkened, bookplate of Morris Parrish in each vol., very good (Parrish pp. 11-12; Wolff 1344; not in Sadleir, but listed 13th in the Comparative Scarcities) £6,000
Collins’s first novel, the success of which ‘was the deciding factor in [his] determination to make a career as a writer, though he never wrote another historical novel’ (ODNB). This copy once belonged to the renowned collector Morris L. Parrish, whose bibliography of Collins (and Reade), published in 1940, is still the standard work.
Presentation copy 17. Collins (Wilkie) The Woman in White. Sampson Low, 1860, FIRST EDITION, pp. viii, 316, 16 (ads, dated August 1st, 1860); [ii], 360; [ii], 368, 8vo, early twentieth-century half dark green morocco by Riviere & Son for Sotheran’s, gilt ruled compartments on spines between raised band, lettered direct, top edges gilt, vol. i inscribed at head of Dedication ‘From Wilkie Collins August 15th, 1860’, and with an ALS tipped in on the same page (see below), preserved in a green morocco backed folding box, very good (Parrish pp. 39-40; Sadleir 605a; Wolff 1377 - erroneously referring to Sadleir 905a) £25,000
A rare presentation copy (conceivably the dedication copy) of the first and probably the best ‘sensation novel’, regarded
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by Collins as his best work, an instant best-seller and of undiminished popularity. The actual date of the the publication of the first edition ofThe Woman in White, and even the precedence of the English edition over the American, was long a matter of uncertainty and dispute, but it has now been established that the date was the 15th of August, and that the English edition preceded the American by a month - rather than the other way round, as Parrish had it. See Andrew Gasson, Wilkie Collins, An Illustrated Guide, and its on-line equivalent www.wilkie-collins.info. The inscription in this copy lends credence to this. The fact that the inscription is on the dedication page, and without the recipient named, is suggestive of it possibly being intended for Bryan Waller Procter (‘Barry Cornwall’), the dedicatee. If this is indeed the dedication copy, the ALS, with the salutation ‘Dear Madam’, tipped in is quite likely to be addressed to Procter’s widow Ann Benson (née Skepper). Her ‘tremendous energy and genius for gossip made her a hostess of distinction’ (Thackeray), so that the Procters’ parties became a long-lived institution of literary London: she continued the salons after Procter’s death n 1875. The letter expresses regret at being prevented from ‘taking my place at your hospitable table’; one can infer that the ‘hospitable table’ was one at which Collins was a regular guest. It is dated from 90 Gloucester Place, May 13th 1875 - the 7 is smudged - 1 page, 8vo, folded twice with a slight tear at one of the folds.
Collins was sparing in his presentation copies, and this is the only inscribed copy of the first edition of The Woman in White that we are aware of as having appeared in commerce.
18. Collins (Wilkie) No Name. In three volumes. Vol. I [-III]. Sampson Low, Son, & Co., 1862 FIRST EDITION, with half-titles in vols. i & ii (all called for), ragged closed tear at foot of title in vol. ii, some finger- marking, a few spots, pp. ix, 339; [iv], 363; [ii], 408, 8vo, original orange cloth stamped in blind, spines decorated and lettered in gilt, spines slightly darkened, neat repairs to hinges, russett cloth folding box, contemporary ownership inscription on fly-leaves of Fanny Barker, of The Edge, and lozenge shaped armorial bookplate of Agnes Barker inside front covers, good (Parrish pp. 45-46; Sadleir 601; Woolff 1371) £2,000
Parrish gives priority to the US edition, which was probably pirated. The colour of the binding is hard to pin down: it is somewhere between orange and scarlet, the latter in Parrish, and orange-scarlet in Sadleir. Following the runaway success of The Woman in White, Sampson Low printed 4000 copies, and all but 400 were sold on the day of publication. The Victorian critics frowned on the subject matter (illegitimacy), but the public had no such reservations.
19. [Cornwallis (Sir William)] The Miraculous and Happie Union of England and Scotland; by how admirable meanes it is effected; how profitable to both Nations, and how free of any inconuenience either past, present, or to be discerned. Imprinted for Edward Blount, 1604, FIRST EDITION, woodcut ornament on title, woodcut initials and headpieces, small hole in B1 (possibly a paper flaw) affecting 3 letters, a little worming towards the end without significant loss, verso of last leaf dust-soiled, small repairs to inner margins of first 2 leaves, 19 leaves (of 20, lacking A1, blank except for signature-mark ‘A’), 4to, bound with a similar number of blank leaves in eighteenth-century calf, single gilt fillet on sides, lacking lettering piece, a little worn at extremities, good (ESTC S108707) £2,000
Sir William Cornwallis the younger (c.1579–1614), essayist, was, towards the end of Elizabeth’s reign, for a time in Edinburgh,
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where he introduced Sir Thomas Overbury to Robert Carr. On James I’s accession in 1603, Cornwallis became a member of the king’s privy chamber. ‘Cornwallis vies, with Sir Francis Bacon, for the distinction of being the first familiar essayist in English and, with his friend John Donne, for that of being the first English paradoxical essayist. In each case it is impossible to tell who wrote first. He was a pioneer in using Montaigne. Popular in his own time, he is rarely noticed now, obscured by his more famous and older contemporaries. However, the essay tradition, as it re-emerged in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, is nearer to Cornwallis’s method than it is to Bacon’s’ (ODNB).
There were 3 editions in 1604. STC lists this one first, the text ending ‘ceiued it.’ Another Blount edition has the text ending ‘ued it.’ The other edition was in Edinburgh, printed by Thomas Finlason. None of these is particularly abundant in ESTC holdings, the present edition recorded in 6 copies in the UK and 3 in the US.
20. Dahl (Roald) Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Illustrated by Joseph Schindelman. New York: Knopf, 1964, FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE, pp. [x]. 161, 8vo, original red cloth blind-stamped to both boards, backstrip lettered in gilt, top edge dark brown, bookplate tipped in to flyleaf, dustjacket with slight fading to backstrip panel, a very short closed tear at foot of front, a publisher’s sticker at head of the rear panel and very light dustsoiling overall, near fine £4,000
Published three years before the first English edition, the first issue is identifiable by the 6 lines (rather than 5 in the second issue) of publishing information on the colophon page.
The Bradley Martin copy, inscribed by the author to Elbridge Adams 21. (de la Mare.) RAMAL (Walter) Songs of Childhood. Longmans, Green, 1902, FIRST EDITION, sepia frontispiece by Richard Doyle, tissue-guard present, pp.vii, 106, foolscap 8vo, original quarter vellum with vertical gilt rule, blue cloth sides with publisher’s device stamped in gilt to upper board, light soiling to top edge, backstrip lettered in gilt and darkened with light rubbing at tips, t.e.g., others roughtrimmed, bookplates to front pastedown, quarter dark blue morocco slipcase and blue board folder with Bradley Martin bookplate and one other, very good £2,500
The author’s first book, inscribed by him on the flyleaf: ‘Walter de la Mare, for Elbridge Adams with his best wishes. “...I had a secret laughter,/ I laughed it near the wall:/ Only the ivy & the wind/ May tell of it at all.” February 1929’. The verse is taken from ‘The Buckle’, in this volume.
Adams was a New York-based lawyer and bibliophile, whose Fountain Press would publish - in conjunction with Faber - de la Mare’s Desert Islands the following year.
22. [Defoe (Daniel)] The life and most surprising adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, mariner: Who lived eight and twenty years in an uninhabited island on the coast of America, lying near the mouth of the great river of Oroonoque: having been cast on shore by shipwreck, wherein all the men were drowned, but himself: as also a relation how he was wonderfully delivered by pirates. The whole three volumes faithfully abridged. The Sixth [abridged] Edition. Edinburgh: Printed by R. Fleming, 1758, with 4 engraved plates (1 as frontispiece), pieces missing from fore- edge of frontispiece (without loss on engraved surface), a few scattered spots, pp. [i], 311, 12mo, modern half calf, ownership inscription on recto of frontispiece ‘John Lennox 1770’, good (ESTC T168459) £1,800
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Item 23
Item 22
First Edinburgh edition of the abridgment, and a rare book. ESTC records NLS only; WorldCat adds Cambridge. Edinburgh editions had reached their 20th by 1786, after which they became simply a ‘new edition’.
The author identified 23. [Denison (William Joseph)] Bonaparte’s Reverie: A Poetical Romance. Second edition, with alterations. Printed by H. L. Galabin; sold by W. J. & J. Richardson, 1800, unevenly browned, red library stamp on title and 2 other pages, last leaf almost loose (due to adhesion to the flyleaf),pp. xii, [13-] 106, 12mo, new 2-tone boards, printed paper label, old flyleaf inscribed ‘A Present from the Author Will. Jos. Denison Esqr. to Mr. Wilkinson’, small book label of J.O. Edwards inside front cover, good (ESTC T125049) £1,200
The second edition, considerably augmented from the first edition of the previous year, which was only 65 pages in length. The first edition has Buonaparte’s name spelled correctly on the title. The Reverie, in verse, is vehemently anti-Napoleonic - ‘The reader will please to observe that Bonaparte’s character is here drawn after the conqueror of Italy had degraded himself into the free-booter of Egypt’ (Introduction). The ESTC, recording just the BL and McMaster copies, does not assign an author. The first edition is not much commoner, with just BL and Bodleian in the UK recorded in ESTC, 3 in North America, and 1 in Australia. William Rubenstein in the ODNB entry for Cornwallis mentions ‘a patriotic poem on Napoleon’s threatened invasion of 1803’, perhaps referring to the present piece.
With Walton’s Life 24. Donne (John) LXXX Sermons ... Printed for Richard Royston and Richard Marriott, 1640, FIRST EDITION, with a fine impression of the engraved portrait by Merian (second state, as usual), with the initial and terminal blanks, pp. [viii], 826, [22, plus 2, blank], folio, [bound with:] Fifty Sermons ... The Second Volume. Printed by Ja. Flesher for M.F.[,] J. Marriott, and R. Royston, 1649, FIRST EDITION, pp. [viii], 474, slightly later calf, rebacked, very good (Keynes 29 and 30) £5,000
Large, complete and clean copies, now uncommon thus. ‘Donne left his sermons to Henry King, and they later, by a rather murky process, went via Walton to John Donne the younger, who published
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those in his possession in three folio volumes (LXXX Sermons appeared in 1640, Fifty Sermons in 1649, and XXVI Sermons in 1661) ... Donne’s sermons ... demand reading and study not just as the major productions of his maturity but also as intricate and beautiful pieces of prose. Donne’s religious stance has been much debated from his lifetime on, and the sermons demonstrate that while he continued the controversial interests of his early polemical works, his concern during his ministry was most often to seek edification - of his auditors and of the English church - and, while criticizing those whom he regarded as sectarians, both puritan and Roman Catholic, to find some form of accommodation with elements of both. As Donne preaches to congregations ranging from the inhabitants of Blunham to the members of the courts of James I and Charles I, he can be seen to be mapping out a middle way that offers at the same time a strong vision of a church still seeking identity and a voice with which its ministers can speak both with and to authority’ (ODNB).
‘The final year of the [1630s] also saw the preparation and publication of Walton’s first, and perhaps most considerable, biography: that of Donne. It initially appeared as a preface to Donne’s LXXX Sermons (1640), though it was revised and expanded three times more in Walton’s lifetime’ (ODNB).
Inscribed by T.S. Eliot for Emily Hale 25. (Eliot.) THE EIGHTEEN-EIGHTIES. Essays by Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature. Edited by Walter de la Mare. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1930, FIRST EDITION, occasional library stamps to pages, pp. xxviii, 271, 8vo, original green cloth stamped in gilt to front, backstrip lettered in gilt with tips softened and shadow of previous library label, a few spots of cloth wear and scuffing to lower board, library labels (Leila Dilworth Jones Memorial Library, Connecticut) to pastedowns, dustjacket with a couple of nicks and some light chipping at head of backstrip, top corners and rear panel, inscribed ‘For Emily Hale, from T.S. Eliot’ on the flyleaf, good £10,000
The biography of T.S. Eliot is characterised by three important loves, all of which affected his life and work in very different ways: his first marriage to Vivien[ne] Haigh-Wood was a desperately unhappy arrangement, during and after which Eliot agonised and despaired over his decisions; his second marriage, to Valerie Fletcher, was an altogether happier affair that brought him contentment and stability in the latter phase of his life. Before and between both of these relationships came Emily Hale - a childhood friend of his cousin Eleanor Hinkley, whom Eliot first met at family gatherings in his youth.
Possibly emboldened by news of the disintegration of his first marriage, Hale - as Lyndall Gordon describes it, in her biography of Eliot that deals extensively with Hale in its second volume - re- established contact with Eliot in 1927, ostensibly to ask for his literary guidance in relation to her present teaching post, and by the late twenties they had become regular correspondents with numerous visits taking place on both sides of the Atlantic. One feature of their relationship that Gordon notes is his making a gift to Hale of each of his publications as they appeared - Gordon has this beginning with ‘Shakespeare and the Stoicism of Seneca’ in 1927, but at least one earlier publication exists that bears an inscription from Eliot to Hale [Ara Vus Prec, with an inscription dated to 1923, sold at Sotheby’s in 2011]. The majority of these were bequeathed by Hale to various institutions - Harvard, Princeton, and Scripps College - for reasons of necessity or in response to a turn in their relationship.
This book has Emily Hale’s holograph bookplate on the front pastedown, stating ‘This book belongs to Miss Emily Hale, Abbot Academy, Andover’, and so is likely to have been jettisoned by Hale following her retirement from that institution in 1957. This was in the same year that Eliot, to her surprise,
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married for the second time - a break that proved decisive and terminal, removing once and for all the mutually cherished possibility of their friendship becoming a romance. Despite the abundance of possible material – in addition to his printed works, and voluminous correspondence (his estate’s embargo on Eliot’s letters to her will be removed in 2020), Hale’s bequests show her to have been the recipient of much work in manuscript and draft form - very little has come up for sale; indeed, the above-mentioned copy of ‘Ara Vus Prec’ is unique in the auction record.
Eliot’s essay, ‘The Place of Pater’ [pp. 96-106], appears here for the first time - it was later retitled ‘Arnold and Pater’ - and ranks amongst his finest critical work. In terms of the gifts he made to Hale, it belongs very much in the category of her appeal to his literary authority by which their relationship experienced its rekindling, and dates from that first flush of their renewed contact. Hale’s bookplate, and its subsequent fate as a library copy at Hale’s own ‘alma mater’ (Miss Porter’s School, Farmington, Connecticut) in the seventies, supply further biographical reference points. In terms of the emotional life of the poet, there is no more significant association than the one to which this inscription refers.
26. Eliot (George) The Mill on the Floss. In Three Volumes. Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood, 1860, FIRST EDITION, first issue, half-titles, publisher’s catalogue in volume iii, without the preliminary advertisement leaf in volume i, contemporary signature on the title-page of volume i, just a few scattered spots or very minor stains, pp. [viii], 361; [iv], 319, [viii], 313, [16, ads], 8vo untrimmed in the original wave-grained cinnamon cloth, backstrip lettered and decorated in gilt (Carter A), covers blocked in blind, corners very slightly rubbed and a small ink stain on the front cover of volume ii, very good (Carter, Binding Variants pp.110-11: Parrish p.14; Sadleir 816; Tinker 1007 & Woolf 2060 (second issues)) £2,400
Without the advertisement leaf following the fly-title in vol. i recorded by Parrish, but demonstrated by Carter to be a later insertion. Carter describes the present ‘A’ variant as ‘extremely scarce in fine state to-day.’
27. Eliot (George) Silas Marner: the Weaver of Raveloe ... William Blackwood and Sons, 1861, FIRST EDITION, first printing, half-title present, minor foxing at either end (at the end, affecting the ads, not the text), pp.[vi], 364, 16 Ads), 4 (ads, with press reviews dated January 1861, 8vo, original wavy-grain cinnamon cloth by Burn, with his lozenge ticket on lower pastedown, backstrip gilt lettered and decorated, Carter Variant ‘A’, slight wear at head and tail of spine, very good (Baker & Ross A6.1.a; Muir ‘Bookman’s Journal Supplement’ 4; Parrish p.15-16; Sadleir 819; Tinker 1008; Wolff 2063) £2,500
After The Mill on the Floss ‘George Eliot’s next work was the short novel Silas Marner, begun in November 1860, and finished in March 1861. She experienced much less depression and fewer delays than was usual for her in its composition. With its happy ending, its legendary plot of the miser who turns into a philanthropist and finds happiness in adopting a child, it is different from her other novels, while sharing their humour and breadth of understanding. Though contemporary readers were, on the whole, fondest of Adam Bede among her novels, the response to Silas Marner was gratifyingly warm. Eight thousand copies were sold by the end of 1861’ (ODNB). The first printing was of just over 4000 copies, the reprintings being ‘implied’ second through sixth editions.
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28. Eliot (George) Felix Holt the Radical. In three volumes. Vol. I [-III]. William Blackwood and Sons, 1866, FIRST EDITION, half-titles, two leaves of integral advertisments precede publisher’s catalogue vol.iii, last 3 leaves of final advartisements foxed, a very few scattered spots and minor stains elsewhere, a few dog-ears in vol.i, pp.[iv], 303; [iv], 290; [iv], 283+[1] (blank), 4, 19, [1], 8vo, original sand-grain terracotta cloth, by Edmonds & Remnants, with their ticket on lower pastedown, Carter variant ‘A’ (see note), gilt lettered backstrips slightly rubbed at head and foot, sides with blind blocked border, the vols. slightly skewed, very good (Baker & Ross A8.1; Muir ‘Bookman’s Journal Supplement’ 7; Parrish p.20; Sadleir 814; Tinker 1010; Wolff 2058) £1,500
Carter doesn’t attempt to establish priority between the three variants other than to point out that the two presentation copies he was able to trace and the British Library copy are all in ‘A’ binding. ‘In some respects, this book holds an isolated position among her works, and, practically, alone warrants her being placed among eminent English writers of fiction who, in their novels, have treated political, as well as social, topics’ (CHEL).
An early reader has made a note in pencil on the rear flyleaf of vol. iii - ‘p. 152’, and on the relevant page has drawn a short line in the margin noting the now-archaic term ‘point device’, a usage cited in OED.
29. Eliot (George) Middlemarch. A Study of Provincial Life. Vol. I [-IV]. Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1871-72, FIRST EDITION, BOUND FROM THE ORIGINAL PARTS in 4 vols., half-titles and the advertising material discarded, a few scattered spots, pp. [iii-xii], 410; [iii-viii], 377; [iv], 384; [iv], 371, 8vo, contemporary red straight-grained morocco backed pebble-grained cloth, gilt rules on spine forming irregular compartments, lettered in gilt (just the title), spines and joints a little rubbed, good (Baker & Ross A10.1.a1; Parrish 32; Sadleir 815; Wolff 2059a) £2,000
The author’s greatest novel, bound up from the original parts, exhibiting all the first issue points as noted by Baker and Ross. It was for this book that the publication in parts (or Books) was initiated, involving ‘both a strategy to optimise returns for the author, and appropriateness to the nature of Eliot’s methods of composition’ (Baker & Ross p. 263). A good copy, in a sober Victorian binding.
30. Eliot (George) Daniel Deronda. Vol. I [-VIII]. William Blackwood and Sons, 1876, FIRST EDITION IN THE ORIGINAL 8 PARTS, half-titles, slips announcing publication of the forthcoming parts as called for, without most advertisements, 1 errata slip only (of 2), pp. [iv], 368; [iv], 364; [iv], 394; [iv], 370,8vo, original printed green-grey wrappers, bordered in red, some consolidations to spines, preserved in 2 red cloth folding boxes, very good (Baker & Ross A11.1.a; Muir ‘Bookman’s Journal Supplement’ 13; Parrish pp.37-8) £5,000
Each pair of parts, called a separate Book on the wrappers, is continuously paginated to make one volume. Scarce in this state.
31. Epictetus. Enchiridion. Curante J.B. Lefebvre de Villebrune. Paris: Typis Philippi-Dionysii Pierres, 1782, ONE OF A FEW COPIES PRINTED ON VELLUM, some natural discolouration to the vellum (particularly the final leaf),pp. [vi], 8, 96, 16mo, contemporary red straight-grained morocco,
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Item 30 Item 31
boards bordered with a gilt roll, spine divided by another thin gilt roll, green morocco lettering piece, other compartments with central gilt tools, edges gilt, green watered silk flyleaves and doublures, blue silk page-marker, preserved in a coordinated red morocco pull-off case (this with a spot of damage at base), fine (Van Praet, III.31) £4,000
A finely bound example of one of the very few copies printed on vellum of the larger, annotated issue of Lefebvre de Villebrune’s edition of Epictetus. Determining its exact limitation (and rarity) is complicated by the printer’s habit of variations - there are two issues, with and without notes, both printed on vellum and on paper. (Included with this vellum copy is a paper copy of the printing without notes, pp. 46, in original blue wrappers, for comparison. The two have identical title-pages but the type is otherwise in completely different settings.)
ABPC lists a copy sold at Christie’s, 1978, described as ‘One of 12 ptd on vellum’ (making $1,600), but the limitation and the French title given there suggest that it may actually have been the French translation issued by Pierres in 1783, which Van Praet says was produced in a dozen copies. For this edition, Van Praet records both issues and under the issue without notes concludes that only four copies have ever been sold, while about this issue with notes he mentions only one (the dedication copy).
There is a vellum copy of the 1783 French translation in the BL (and apparently copies of both the Greek issues on paper), while another sold at Sotheby’s in 2008, but aside from the BL’s holdings there appear to be no other copies of any version of the Pierre’s 1782 Enchiridion in the UK. Worldcat locates the issue with notes in Gottingen, Erfurt/Gotha, and (possibly - no pagination given) Fribourg; the issue without is only slightly more common. With the dedication copy, then, this may be only the second recorded copy on vellum.
Annotated by John Collins 32. Euclid. Geometricorum elementorum libri XV. [Trans. B. Zamberti; Ed. J. Lefèvre.] Paris: Henri Estienne, 7 January 1516/1517, Roman types, with numerous woodcut geometrical diagrams in the margins, fine criblé initials in a variety of styles and sizes, title-page soiled and cut down and mounted on old paper, one diagram just cropped at its extreme outer corner, ff. 261 (of 262, without the final blank), folio (296 x 210 mm),nineteenth-century half brown calf, by Hatton of Manchester, marbled edges, original order for the binder loosely inserted (in fact calling for half Russia), the Macclesfield copy with bookplate but no blind stamps, and annotated by John Collins, preserved in a cloth folding box, good (Schreiber 26; Steck III.14; Thomas-Stanford 6) £12,000
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The sixth edition of Euclid, the first to be printed north of the Alps, the translation from the Greek of Bartolommeo Zamberti newly revised by Lefèvre d’Etaples, who added the “commentaries” of Campano, Theon, and Hypiscles. Thomas-Stanford is slightly dismissive: ‘The Diagrams are well executed, but the tradition of the book beautiful is not maintained.’ We are more inclined to agree with Schreiber who described it as ‘a typographical masterpiece.’ Ours moreover is a good size, 2 cm taller than Schreiber’s and more than 1 cm wider (his in modern half calf). Thus all the diagrams are safe within generous margins, all except one, and that barely touched.
The binder was not quite so kind to John Collins’s notes however, which are in some instances cropped. This volume was Lot 699 in the Macclesfield sale, but failed to sell. The annotations were not mentioned in the catalogue, and were apparently overlooked by viewers since they certainly add interest to what is, apart from the title-page, a very good copy. Without a formal education, John Collins (1625-83) became a pivotal figure in the early years of the Royal Society where ‘he had the opportunity to render the services for which he is remembered. For about ten years he served the society as a kind of unofficial secretary for all kinds of mathematical business. (The official secretary, until his death in 1677, was Henry Oldenburg who, in mathematical questions, relied heavily upon Collins’s advice and assistance.) Collins conducted an extensive correspondence with some of the leading mathematicians in Britain and abroad, and he also drafted the mathematical details for Oldenburg’s correspondence with these mathematicians (who included Barrow, Gregory, Huygens, Leibniz, Newton, Pell, Sluse, Tschirnhaus, and Wallis among others); Isaac Barrow called him ‘Mersennus Anglus’. Collins obtained current mathematical news and foreign books for the Royal Society and its fellows, often in exchange for British scientific publications’ (ODNB). Collins’s books were acquired sometime after his death by William Jones, and thence to Shirburn Castle. Collins’s notes appear on 16 pages, mainly in the first book. In four instances he has made corrections to the text (not errata).
Scarce on the market: since 1975 only 7 copies appear in ABPC, only 1 of them since 1993, and only 1 in a contemporary binding, and that rebacked.
33. Eusebius & Bede. Ecclesiastica historia divi Eusebii: et Ecclesiastica historia gentis anglorum venerabiilis Bede. Cum utrarumque historiarum per singulos libros recollecta capitulorum annotatione. Strasbourg: [George Husner], 1500, capitals supplied in red throughout, frequent contemporary manuscript notes and underlining in the Eusebius (sometimes trimmed at the fore-edge), three small wormholes in last 20 leaves sometimes touching a letter with no loss of sense, several leaves browned, a few other minor stains, ownership inscription of the library of St Stephen’s Abbey at Würzburg, ff. [160], small folio, early seventeenth-century blind-tooled pigskin, front central panel blocked in black with the date 1615 below, surrounded by borders of portrait and vine rolls, rear central panel containing a saint’s portrait surrounded by the same rolls, two fore-edge clasps (initialled ‘WS’), edges blue, top compartment of spine titled in ink, a label removed from second-from- bottom compartment, some soiling and one or two
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wormholes, bookplate of Peter John Bruff and another armorial bookplate (signed ‘Austin’), plus ownership inscription of the Revd Richard Wilson of Otley (1857) and a bibliographical note to front endpapers, good (ISTC ie00129000; Goff E129; Bod-inc E-046; BMC I 162) £7,500
The first edition to collect Eusebius’sEcclesiastical History (in Rufinus’s Latin translation with his supplement) with Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum - and only the second printing at all of Bede’s important text. The Strasbourg printer Heinrich Eggestein had produced the editio princeps of Bede’s text, as well as an early printing of the Eusebius; this volume reprints the versions from his editions. Demand was strong and another printing of the same arrangement was made in 1506 in Haguenau, but this was the last incunable printing of any version or text of either Eusebius or Bede.
This copy was extensively annotated by at least one early reader - the hand varies, but judging by the trimming of the notes by the binder’s knife, almost all must predate 1615 - but although they appear on nearly every page of the Eusebius, the margins of the Bede are entirely blank after the first three leaves. The rubricator, however, did press on through the entire volume.
34. [Flatman (Thomas)] Heraclitus Ridens: or, A Discourse between Jest and Earnest, where many a True Word is spoken in opposition to all Libellers against the Government. Numb[er] 1 [-82]. [colophon:] Printed for the Use of the People [latterly, Printed for B.T., or B. Tooke], Tuesday, Feb. 1, 1681 - August 22, 1682, FIRST EDITION, complete set of the 82 2-page issues, a few imprints shaved, intermittent and variable staining or foxing, Number 39 with a tear at the top (or rather a paper flaw) with the loss of a couple of letters on the verso, rear fly-leaf defective, ff. 164, folio, contemporary mottled calf, blind roll tooled border at spine, repeated, doubled, a short way from it, some loss of surface and corners worn, various early ownership inscriptions, doodles, &c., sound (ESTC P1689; Nelson & Seccombe 183.01; Crane & Kaye, 297) £1,500
A complete run of the first new Tory periodical (weekly) to oppose the flood of Whiggish journalism that had been unleashed by the expiry of the Licensing Act. It is an engaging paper, combining lively dialogue with satirical queries, mock advertisements, and the occasional political ode. The verse has traditionally been associated with Thomas Flatman (John Murdoch in ODNB states categorically that ‘from February 1681 to August 1682 [Flatman] brought out anonymously eighty-two weekly numbers of a pro-government pamphlet, Heraclitus Ridens’), but otherwise the paper’s authorship was a puzzle to contemporaries and remains obscure - ‘Editorship is sometimes attributed to Edward Rawlins (cf. Nelson & Seccombe)’ (ESTC). Scarce: there are only 3 auction records since 1975, the last being the Kraus copy. In Kraus’s own catalogue he highlights a ‘dig’ at ‘the Countrey of Carolina’ in Number 79.
35. [Gaskell (Elizabeth Cleghorn)] Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life. In two volumes. Vol. I [-II]. Chapman and Hall, 1848, FIRST EDITION, 2 vols., without the 2 pp. advertisements before the title in vol. i, scattered spots and minor soiling, pp. viii, 317, [3, blank]; [ii], 312, 8vo, recased (later end-papers) in the original mulberry cloth, blocked in blind, lettered in gilt on spine, repairs to head and tail of both spines with slight loss, spines slightly faded, preserved in a cloth folding box of approximately equal colour, good (Parrish p. 56; not in Sadleir, but Wolff 2419, listing Sadleir’s copy as ‘fine… despite repairs to tops of spine’) £2,000
Mrs. Gaskell’s first novel, very scarce in the original cloth (No. 1 in Sadleir’s list of Comparative Scarcities). ‘The novel was finished by late 1847 and sent to several
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publishers before William Howitt negotiated terms with Chapman and Hall. When it was published in October 1848 Gaskell’s “state of the nation” tale of Chartism, strikes, murder, and prostitution, misery and redemption prompted praise from concerned men as different as Samuel Bamford and Thomas Carlyle. Charles Kingsley applauded it in Fraser’s Magazine (April 1849), as explaining the unrest and Chartism to the threatened, uncomprehending middle classes’ (Jenny Uglow in ODNB).
36. Geiler von Kaysersberg (Johannes) Nauicula siue speculu[m] fatuoru[m] ... a J. Othero collecta. Compendios vitae eiusdem descriptio, per Beatum Rhenanum Selestatinum. Ad Narragoniam. [colophon:] Strasbourg: [Matthias Schürer], February, 1510, FIRST EDITION, with a large woodcut (the Ship of Fools) on the title-page, and 1 other in the text, title-page with paper repairs to top and outer margins and with an old inscription cleaned away (not entirely successfully), some browning and light foxing, and, towards the end, water- staining, tiny bit of worming in the fore-margin at the end, [284 leaves], 4to, contemporary blind tooled panelled calf over beech boards, the outer border a roll tool of hounds chasing a unicorn, title in blind at the top of the upper cover, rebacked in blind tooled calf in imitation of the original, various other repairs to what must have been a rather dilapidated binding, lacking clasps and catches, 20th-century bookplate inside front cover of Robert Chilton Pearson, and opposite, on the fly- leaf, that of Patrick & Julie Pearson, sound (VD16 G 777; Adams G315 (the collation does not allow for the Life at the end)) £7,500
Geiler (1445-1510 - hence this is a posthumous publication, with a Life), was ‘the great pulpit orator of the early sixteenth century ... [he went to study theology in Basle in 1471, where] he became acquainted with Sebastian Brant, with whom he formed a lasting friendship’ (Catholic Encyclopedia). He was persuaded to settle in Strasbourg, where he carried on his preaching, notably on Brant’s Ship of Fools, the said sermons - with their important linguistic and cultural freight - collected here. Subsequent editions were more lavishly illustrated, but this is the first, and rather scarce: there is no copy in the US recorded in WorldCat, and while there is a copy in Cambridge (seemingly incomplete), the only copy in COPAC is at the BL. See item 8 for the Ship of Fools.
37. Gibbon (Edward) The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Volume the first. Second edition. [With:] Volume the second [to] Volume the sixth. [And:] Miscellaneous Works of Edward Gibbon, Esquire. With Memoirs of his life and writings, composed by himself... In two volumes. [And:] Miscellaneous Works... vol. III. [All together 9 vols.] Printed for W. Strahan, and T. Cadell [vol. i; later imprints vary] 1776-1815, FIRST EDITIONS of all except the first volume (see below), engraved frontispiece and three maps in the Decline, two further frontispieces and a folding table in the Miscellaneous Works, a little foxing and spotting, occasional minor staining, a few plates and leaves bound out of expected order (see below), final blank in vol. vi discarded, one blank corner in vol. v torn away and neatly repaired, pp. viii, [iv], 586, [2], lxxxviii; [xxiv], 640, [2]; [xii], 640, [2]; [xii], 620; [xii], 684; [iv], viii, [x], 646, [52], 4to, slightly later diced russia, boards bordered with a double gilt decorative roll, spines gilt in compartments and gilt-lettered direct in second and fourth and at foot, rebacked preserving original backstrips, marbled endpapers, edges gilt, some old scratches to leather, bookplate of Fleming Crooks in each vol., along with ownership inscription of John L. Hammond, bookplate of S. Hammond Russell and his pencilled inscription recording the gift ‘from H.D.R. January 1st 1843’ in vol. i,
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Item 37
plus his pencilled notes recording dates of reading, vol. ix (supplied later; see below) in original paper boards, printed label, some small splashmarks, joints and edges a little worn and head of backstrip defective, with bookplate of Rogers of Stanage, a very good set overall (ESTC ; Norton 21, 23, 29, 131, 136) £6,000
The first volume was produced in February 1776 in an edition of only 1000 copies that sold out so quickly second and third editions followed within a year. By the time Gibbon had finished writing the second volume and was ready to print it (in 1781), the fourth edition of the first volume was in the press, and even then the second and third volumes sold out quickly enough to require reprinting in the same year. As a result, most complete sets have later printings of the first three volumes, and even a set like this, where only the first volume is a later printing, is rather uncommon.
This copy has some variations from the ‘standard’ collation in the position of plates and leaves: the table-of-contents for vol. i, which was printed with vol. ii but is usually bound in vol. i, has here been left in vol. ii; the portrait from vol. ii is bound in vol. i, the small map from vol. iii is bound in vol. ii while the large map from vol. ii is bound in vol. iii; a four leaf-section of prelims (A1-4) from vol. iv is bound in vol. vi instead.
The identical binding on the first 8 volumes indicates this set was likely bound all at once after the publication of the two volumes of Miscellaneous Works in 1796 - which state on their title-pages that they are complete in two volumes. The third volume of the Miscellaneous Works, not planned for by the original editors and only printed some two decades later, is not always found with the first two; the original owners of this set had never acquired a copy and one has now been supplied for technical completeness.
The set has a significant American provenance: the earliest owner recorded appears to be John L. Hammond, presumably a relation of the Samuel Hammond Russell who was given the book by one ‘H.D.R[ussell?]’ in 1843. Samuel Hammond Russell was an important figure in Boston society, serving on the city council and building one of the first homes on Beacon Street in Back Bay, which soon became the most fashionable area in the city. (The Gibson House Museum, next door to his former property, was owned by his aunt Catherine Hammond Gibson.) The next evidence of ownership is the bookplate of Fleming Crooks, but the set must have descended through the family since Russell’s daughter, Edith, widow of the Scottish politician Lord Playfair (and model for John Singer Sargent) married Robert Fleming Crooks in 1901. The Fleming Crooks collection was then dispersed at Sothebys in 1932.
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Most interestingly, Samuel H. Russell has recorded his three readings of the work on the last text page of vol. vi: from 20th October to 22nd December 1843, then again from 4th June to 16th October 1848, and a third time through from November 1862 to 9th April 1863. On this third pass he was very aware of the political situation in the United States, writing on 6th December 1862 at the end of vol. ii: ‘Finished the 2d vol - while our own country is devastated by Civil War’, and then on 28th December at the end of vol. iii: ‘While it is still doubtful wh[ich] side will prevail in the Civil War - Still we may acquiesce in the reflection of Gibbon - and hope to emerge a wiser and a better people.’
38. Godwin (William) Things As They Are; or, the Adventures of Caleb Williams. In three volumes. Printed for B. Crosby, 1794, FIRST EDITION, some spotting, early signature (largely illegible, but from the Gell family) and a watercolour coat of arms to half- titles, critical quotation from the Monthly Review to verso of vol. i title-page (written before binding and partly cropped), pp. [iv], 293, [1]; [iv], 285, [1]; [iv], 304, 12mo, early quarter blue roan, marbled boards, spines divided by gilt fillets and lettered direct in gilt, marbled endpapers, a little bit rubbed, modern bookplate, very good (ESTC T94133) £5,000
The first edition of Godwin’s first major novel, in a contemporary binding in remarkably good state. This was Godwin’s biggest success as a fiction writer, both at the time and, in terms of its importance in literary history, now. It stands at the intersection - and the origin - of numerous genres, including the detective story, the Gothic, and the psychological novel.
39. (Golden Cockerel Press.) THE GARDEN OF CARESSES. Translated from the Arabic by Franz Toussaint: Now Rendered into English by Christopher Sandford. Printed for Subscribers, 1934, NUMBER 4 OF A SMALL GROUP OF SPECIAL ISSUE COPIES (from an edition of 275 copies) printed on Millbourn handmade paper, 8 copperplate-engraved head-pieces by Gertrude Hermes and a further 6 copperplate-engravings by her loosely inserted in a pocket on the rear pastedown, each plate signed and dated in pencil in the margin, title-page printed in black and green, the occasional faint foxspot to page-borders, pp. 91, small 4to, original full cream vellum, press device stamped in gilt to upper board, boards very slightly splayed, backstrip lettered in gilt, t.e.g., others untrimmed, a few faint foxspots to endpapers, very good (Chanticleer 100) £2,000
40. Goldsmith (Oliver) The Deserted Village, A Poem. Printed for W. Griffin, 1770,FIRST EDITION, first issue, with the erroneous catchword ‘Careless’ on p. 9, with engraved oval vignette on title by Isaac Taylor, some foxing, pp. vii (including half-title), 23, 4to, bound with a number of blank leaves in twentieth- century sprinkled calf, double gilt fillets on sides, spine gilt in compartments, gilt inner dentelles, rebacked, preserving most of the original spine, bookplate, good (Rothschild 1032; Courtney, p. 113; Hayward 184, one of the 12mos, then thought to be the first edition; Sterling 405; Tinker 1122; W.B. Todd in: Studies in Bibliography, 1954, pp. 25ff) £1,250
‘Goldsmith’s The Deserted Village is not the greatest of the English elegies, but in its successful adjustment of serious Tory thought with gracious charm and in its successful redefinition of the pastoral elegy in terms of contemporary experience, Goldsmith’s
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excellent and indispensable poetry may be said to deserve our admiration as well as our affection’ (Earl Miner, ‘The Making of “The Deserted Village”’, Huntington Library Quarterly Vol. 22, No. 2 (Feb., 1959), p.141).
41. Grahame (Kenneth) The Wind in the Willows. Methuen, 1908, FIRST EDITION, frontispiece by Graham Robertson with tissue-guard, light handling marks and waterstaining to bottom corner of a few leaves, pp. [vi], 302, crown 8vo, original green cloth stamped in gilt to front with Pan illustration and single fillet gilt border, ink spot to upper board, backstrip lettered and decorated in gilt with light rubbing to tips and along joints, lean to spine, corners lightly rubbed with a Item 41 spot of wear to bottom corners, t.e.g., others untrimmed and toned, cracking to rear hinge, contemporary ownership inscription to flyleaf and following blank, bookplate tipped in to flyleaf, good £2,000
From the library of Siegfried Sassoon 42. Graves (Robert) Goliath and David. Privately Printed [at the Chiswick Press,] [1916,] FIRST EDITION, one or two small foxspots to leading edge of title-page and first page, pp. 17, foolscap 8vo, original stitched red wrappers, a small amount of creasing to bottom corners, Siegfried Sassoon’s monogram bookplate to inside cover with later bookplate tipped in to same, custom chemise and slipcase, near fine (Higginson & Williams A2) £3,500
One of only 200 copies printed, from which number Sassoon had taken on Item 42 the distribution of around sixty copies. At the time of his death only four remained in his library, of which this is one.
43. Greene (Graham) The Man Within. Heinemann, 1929, FIRST EDITION, pp. [x], 354, 8vo, original black cloth with blind-stamped border and publisher’s device to upper and lower board respectively, backstrip lettered in gilt, edges very lightly toned, bookplate tipped in to flyleaf, first-issue dustjacket with backstrip panel lightly toned and some very light creasing at head, custom box, near fine (Wobbe A2a) £6,000
The author’s first novel, preceded only by a book of poems entitled Babbling April. The first issue dustjacket has a front flap announcing the book, a rear flap advertising Onions’The Painted Face, and a rear panel advertising Heinemann publications. Item 43
44. Greene (Graham) The Ministry of Fear. A Novel. Heinemann, 1943, FIRST EDITION, pp. [vi], 236, 8vo, original yellow cloth with publisher’s device stamped in black to lower board, backstrip lettered in black, small spot at head of lower board, top edge dusty and faintly spotted, bookplates to pastedown and flyleaf, dustjacket rather frayed and creased with some waterstianing to rear panel, portion of loss around foot of backstrip panel and a repaired chip at head, chipping to corners with small portion of loss at foot of front flap, good(Wobbe A18a) £2,000
The verso of the title-page states that the book is produced to conform to the ‘Book Production War Economy Standard’, and was the first of Greene’s novels to be so, as Wobbe records. This reduction in the overall quality of the production is evident in the binding, paper, and smaller Item 44
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size - but Wobbe notes other ‘signs of wartime strain’ of a more editorial nature, with two Chapter Threes in Book One and the misnumbering of the third section in Book Four’s only chapter.
Inscribed by the author for his lead, Ralph Richardson 45. Greene (Graham) The Complaisant Lover. A Play. Heinemann, 1959, FIRST EDITION, pp. [viii], 77, crown 8vo, original blue boards with publisher’s device blind-stamped to lower board, backstrip lettered in gilt, top corners slightly bumped, bookplates to pastedown and flyleaf, dustjacket a touch frayed around head with a little light dustsoiling, very good (Wobbe A39a) £3,000
Inscribed by Greene on the flyleaf for Ralph Richardson, who played Victor Rhodes in the play’s initial run: ‘For Ralph, with gratitude & affection, from Graham. 18.6.59’ The latter date is that of the play’s first performance at the Globe Theatre, where Item 45 it was produced by John Gielgud - Gielgud and Richardson (with whom Greene had a furious bust-up in the mid-sixties) would later be used as central characters in Greene’s play Yes and No. Richardson’s bookplate is beneath the inscription on the flyleaf - an outstanding dramatic association copy.
Inscribed as a Christmas gift for Ralph Richardson and his wife, ‘with love’ 46. Greene (Graham) A Visit to Morin. Heinemann, 1960, FIRST EDITION, ONE OF 250 COPIES, pp. 26, 8vo, original green cloth, backstrip lettered in gilt, top edge a little dusty, green silk-marker with overhanging portion faded to yellow, bookplates to pastedown and flyleaf, dustjacket browned around head and backstrip panel, a few light marks, very good (Wobbe A40) £1,500
Inscribed by Greene on the flyleaf, for Ralph Richardson and his wife: ‘For Ralph & Mur, with love from Graham. Christmas 1960.’ Richardson’s bookplate is below the inscription. The book was expressly produced as a Christmas gift for friends of Item 46 the author. Greene and Richardson had become acquainted during the production of Greene’s play The Complaisant Lover, in which Richardson starred.
Inscribed for Ralph Richardson 47. Greene (Graham) A Burnt-Out Case. Heinemann, 1961, FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH, pp. [viii], 256, 8vo, original black cloth with publisher’s device blind-stamped to lower board, bottom corner of lower board lightly bumped, backstrip lettered in silver with slight lean to spine, top edge a trifle dustsoiled, bookplates to pastedown and flyleaf, dustjacket with backstrip panel a touch faded and rubbing to extremities, a little browning to head of flaps, very good (Wobbe A41a) £1,500
Inscribed by Greene for Ralph Richardson, on the flyleaf: ‘For Ralph, with love from Graham.’ The Swedish translation, published by Norstedts, precedes this by a year. Item 47
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Item 48
48. Hemingway (Ernest) In Our Time. Paris: Three Mountains Press, 1924, FIRST EDITION, 137/170 COPIES, printed on Rives hand-made paper, frontispiece portait of author woodcut by Henry Strater, pp. 29, [1], 8vo, original tan boards with newspaper design printed in red, lettered in black to upper board, light rubbing at tips of backstrip, edges untrimmed with usual browning to endpapers from adhesive, tipped-in bookplate to front pastedown, very good (Hanneman 2A) £40,000
Hemingway’s second book, and the final instalment in a series of 6 books described as ‘The Inquest into the state of contemporary English prose’, published by the Three Mountains Press under the stewardship of Ezra Pound.
49. Hemingway (Ernest) A Farewell to Arms. New York: Scribner’s, 1929, FIRST EDITION, pp. [vi], 355, crown 8vo, original black cloth with gold paper label printed in black to upper board and backstrip, light rubbing to labels, fore-edge rough- trimmed, bookplate tipped in to front pastedown, dustjacket with some very light rubbing and one or two small nicks, attractive custom slipcase, very good (Hanneman 8A) £15,000
Inscribed by the author on the flyleaf, to Hemingway scholar and biographer Michael Murphy: ‘To Mike Murphy, Good luck, Ernest Hemingway’. A loosely inserted note signed by Murphy explains that this copy was signed by Hemingway in Havana in 1957. A remarkably bright copy of this modern classic.
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50. [Hughes (Thomas)] Tom Brown’s School Days. By an Old Boy. Cambridge: Macmillan, 1857, FIRST EDITION, occasional handling marks and some drink-staining to the edges of a handful of leaves, pp. viii, 420, 1 & 24 [ads], crown 8vo, original blue cloth with double-fillet blind-stamped border to both boards backstrip lettered in gilt and darkened, rubbed overall with a little wear at tips of backstrip, a small amount of bubbling to cloth and a few light marks, edges roughtrimmed and a little dustsoiled, yellow endpapers with bookplates to flyleaf and pastedown, front hinge a little cracked, custom slipcase, sound £10,000
Normally found in dire need of repair, this is a very presentable copy of a very scarce first edition. From the library of the actor Jean Hersholt, with his bookplate in the slipcase.
51. [Johnson (Samuel)] The Prince of Abissinia. A Tale. The Eighth Edition. Printed for J.F. and C. Rivington [and others], 1790, printed on bluish paper, pp. viii, 304, [together with:] [Knight (Ellis Cornelia)] Dinarbas; a Tale, being a continuation of Rasselas ... Printed for C. Dilly, 1790, pp. xii, 336, 12mo, together 2 vols. in uniform strictly contemporary red morocco, gilt roll tooled Greek key borders on sides, spines gilt, green lettering pieces (‘Rasselas’ on the first vol.), gilt edges, spines a trifle faded, corners a trifle worn, ownership inscription on fly-leaves of Thomas Heathcote of Embley, dated Novr. 24th 1790, and his armorial bookplate in each vol., pencil ownership inscription of William Rees-Mogg, 1957, below Heathcote’s, fine (Fleeman 59.4R/17 - Rasselas ) £1,500
First edition of Dinarbas, Rasselas having first appeared in 1759. Exceedingly attractive copies. Thomas Heathcote (1769-1825) was a large landowner in Hampshire. He became an MP at the age of 40. No speech of his in the House of Commons is known.
52. Jonson (Ben) The Alchemist. A Comoedie. Acted in the yeere 1610. By the Kings Maiesties Servants. [Extracted from the 1616 First Folio.] Printed by William Stansby, 1616, some toning and spotting, a couple of small corrections in an early hand, a few light modern pencil notes, pp. [ii], 603-678, folio, mid-twentieth-century full red morocco by Sangorski and Sutcliffe, front board lettered ‘The Alchemist from the first folio of Ben Jonson 1616 and is for Ralph Richardson’, spine also lettered in gilt and a little faded, a touch of rubbing to extremities, ownership inscription of Ralph Richardson and gift inscription to him from AK, Christmas 1946, modern bookplate, very good £2,000
Ben Jonson’s finest and best-known farce, extracted from a copy of his 1616 First Folio and specially bound for presentation to Sir Ralph Richardson, just before he performed the role of Face for his Old Vic company at the New Theatre. Richardson had played the role before, in 1932 at the Malvern Festival, but at the time of the presentation of this book he was jointly directing the Old Vic (with Olivier and John Burrell) in the third of their three great seasons; he was knighted in the middle of the season and shortly afterward the imbalance of star power in a company of supposed equals led to the triumvirate’s dismissal by an ambitious new chairman.
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The revival of The Alchemist was influential and well-received; Alec Guinness played Drugger and was glowingly reviewed by Kenneth Tynan, who also wrote of Richardson that this performance ‘set the seal on his reputation’. It opened on January 14th, 1947, and so the gift of this book, at Christmas three weeks earlier, would have come during rehearsals. The inscription simply reads ‘from A.K.’, but this must be the film director Alexander Korda, who had been directing Richardson in films since the 1930s; the pair remained friends and produced films together until Korda’s death in 1956.
53. Kerouac (Jack) On the Road. New York: Viking, 1957, FIRST EDITION, pp. [iv], 310, 8vo, original black cloth, backstrip and upper board lettered in white, top edge red, bookplate tipped in to flyleaf, dustjacket with a little light rubbing to extremities and three very short closed tears around head with internal tape repair, near fine £7,500
54. La Quinitinie (Jean de) The Compleat Gard’ner; or, Directions for cultivating and right ordering of fruit-gardens and kitchen-gardens; with divers reflections on several parts of husbandry. In six books ... To which is added his Treatise of orange-trees, with the raising of melons, omitted in the French editions. Made English by John Evelyn Esquire, illustrated with copper plates. Printed for Matthew Gillyflower, and James Partridge, 1693,FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH, 2 vols. and 2 parts (see below) in 1 vol., title-page printed in red and black, with an engraved portrait frontispiece, 11 engraved plates, 2 of them folding, 8 engraved garden-scene head pieces and 1 engraved illustration in the text in the penultimate part, and several small woodcut plans and diagrams in the text, piece torn out of top of frontispiece, entering the plate-mark but not affecting the engraved surface, frontispiece partially detached, leaf b*** (a singleton) not properly sewn in and extruding a bit at the fore-edge, where it is a little darkened and frayed, a few leaves browned, mainly towards the end, pp. [xliv], 106, ff 107-110, pp. 111-114, ff. 115-117, 116, 119-184, [4]; 116, 137-204, [4]; 4; 80, folio, contemporary panelled calf, spine richly gilt in compartments, lettered direct, slightly worn at extremities, split at foot of upper joint, contemporary engraved armorial bookplate of Nath. Cholmley, good (Henrey I, 218; Hunt 388; Keynes 103; Wing L431) £3,500
An attractive copy. ‘La Quintinie was one of the great French agriculturists of the 17th century. He was also interested in horticulre and gardens, and Louis XIV felt his work was so important that he created for him the post of Directeur Général des Potagers Royaux. Though La Quintinie held this post with distinction for forty years, his modesty was such that he published nothing of his own during his life time. This was rectified when shortly after his death when Instructions pour les Jardins fruitiers
Item 53 Item 54
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at Potagers was brought out in 1690. It was so practical and filled such a need that it went into many editions including the [present] translation by La Quintinie’s great admirer and friend, John Evelyn’ (Hunt).
The Hunt Catalogue goes on to draw attention to the advertisement by Mrs. Gillyflower for garden tools, remarking ‘We hope the tools were better put together than the book.’ The pagination speaks eloquently of the disorder of the publication. Matters are further complicated by the confusion of books and parts. The title-page states plainly ‘in Six Parts’, and so there are, but they are divided into 2 volumes (the 2nd volume not having a title-page however). These 2 vols. are followed by 4 pages on melons, followed by the treatise on orange trees: this last part is actually in 2 parts, though not so designated, slightly over half of it being given over to Reflections Upon some Parts of Agriculture.
Item 55
55. Lawrence (D.H.) Lady Chatterley’s Lover Florence: Privately printed [by the Tipografia Giuntina,] 1928, FIRST EDITION, 27/1,000 COPIES, pp. [ii], 365, 8vo, original mulberry boards with Lawrence phoenix stamped in black to upper board, printed paper label to backstrip with small portion of loss to centre and a few spots to borders, a little cracking at head of upper joint, edges untrimmed, partially uncut, original plain cream dustjacket with a few foxspots to folds of flaps, a little chipping to corners and at inside corner of rear panel, small portion of loss in upper half of backstrip panel, custom box, very good (Roberts A42a) £10,000
An outstanding copy of Lawrence’s most famous work.
Culloden connections 56. Le Blond (Guillaume) A Treatise of Artillery: or, of the arms and machines used in war since the invention of gunpowder. Being the first part of Le Blond’s Elements of war: Written in French by that eminent Mathematician, for the Use of Lewis Charles of Lorraine, Count de Brionne, and publish’d for the Instruction of the young Gentlemen in the Armies of France. Illustrated with above Fifty Representations, beautifully engraved on Copper Plates. With Remarks, and Explanatory Notes. Printed by E. Cave, and sold by M. Cooper, P. Vaillant, and J. Brindley, 1746, FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH, with large engraved armorial headpiece to Dedication and vignette to beginning of text, and 15 folding engraved plates (mostly with 2 or more figures), occasional minor foxing, pp. [xii], 118 (i.e. 134), [1], 4to, contemporary mottled calf, spine gilt in compartments, lacking lettering piece,
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minor wear, small piece of the skin missing from lower cover, boldly signed on the title-page ‘George Howard, Carlisle, Octb 7th 1746’, and with his fine engraved armorial bookplate inside front cover and below this a smaller bookplate with twin Howard crests and motto, good (ESTC T133610) £1,500
A good copy of this important work, with an interesting provenance. Sir George Howard, (bap. 1718, d. 1796), was made an ensign in the 24th foot in 1725, when he was still a child. He eventually rose to the rank of Field Marshall. ‘He commanded the Buffs at Fontenoy, Falkirk, and Culloden. In the pacification of the highlands his regiment gained a reputation for harshness’ (ODNB). Howard acquired this book, or at least inscribed it, six months after Culloden. The translation is dedicated to ‘Butcher’ Cumberland. The advertisement at the end promises (‘speedily will be published’) the treatises on attack and defence, which formed the second and third parts of Elemens de la guerre des sièges. In fact only Attack appeared, in 1748. The Military Engineer, 1759, comprised both parts, and this again is fairly uncommon. For the present title ESTC locates BL (bis), Durhan, HAC; Göttingen; Cleveland Public, Society of the Cinicinati, LoC, Minnesota, Yale.
57. (Lewis.) BAYNES (Pauline) Original drawing for Prince Caspian. [p. 86, ‘The gloomiest of all was Giant Wimbleweather …’] [n.d., circa 1951,] black ink with pencil annotations, 31.7 x 19cm, original creasing from publisher’s storage, but none touching image, trace overlay fixed with tape on verso, very good £5,000 + VAT in EU
Baynes’s drawing, with her pencilled signature beneath, shows the Giant Wimbleweather, flanked by the Badger and Talking Mice (Chapter VII : ‘Old Narnia in Danger’). The image is the same size as published in the first edition. The sheet includes a small positional sketch in pencil in the top right-hand corner, showing the image’s relation to the text on page, which could also be by Baynes. The other pencil markings (some in red, numerals in pen at head) refer to sizing and place in text, with a contextual quotation (from p. 85, contemporary with the original drawing) in Baynes’s hand captioning her illustration.
58. Mace (Thomas) Musick’s Monument; or, A remembrancer of the best Practical Musick, both Divine, and Civil, that has ever been known, to have been in the world ... Printed by T. Ratcliffe, and N. Thompson, for the Author, and are to be sold by himself, at his House in Cambridge, and by John Carr ... 1676, FIRST EDITION, with an engraved portrait frontispiece, 3 engraved plates and 1 engraving in the text, and many pages of lute music in tablature from movable type,
Item 57 Item 58
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some browning and spotting, damp-staining in the upper outer corner towards the end, small triangular nick out of fore-margin of the frontispiece, not affecting the printed surface, pp. [xx], 272, folio, modern panelled calf (by Bernard Middleton), red lettering piece on spine, spine a trifle faded, good (ESTC R21066) £5,000
‘Mace visited London in 1676 to arrange for the publication of the book for which he is most famous, Musick’s monument… (1676). This is a volume of remarkable interest divided into three parts dealing, respectively, with psalm singing in parish churches (“also shewing, How Cathedral Musick, may be much Improved and Refined”); playing the lute (an instrument on which Mace was evidently highly skilled); and “The Generous Viol, In its Rightest Use … and Musick in General”. Musick’s Monument was written between 1671 and 1676 and shows Mace to have been of a conservative frame of mind in musical matters, defensive of traditions and chiefly of English music as it stood in the early seventeenth century (preferring, for instance, viols to violins - “Squaling-Scoulding Fiddles”), and deeply suspicious of newly imported French idioms that accompanied the restoration of Charles II. His conservatism is apparent too in the dozen or so fantasias, lessons, and suites for lute and theorbo appended to Musick’s Monument. Paradoxically, he was one of the few writers on music in seventeenth-century England to grasp the importance of the affective element in music, advising his students to consider carefully, in learning to play a piece on the lute, not only the technicalities of its composition, but also its “humour”, that is, its emotional content. Towards the end of the book, he turns attention towards suitable acoustics for musical performances, implying an awareness of the growing importance of public concerts’(ODNB).
With a signed portrait, and quarter-bound in Wassa goatskin 59. Mandela (Nelson) The Illustrated Long Walk to Freedom. Little, Brown, 1996, FIRST ILLUSTRATED EDITION, 144/425 COPIES with a photographic portrait signed by the author, richly illustrated with photographs throughout, pp. 208, royal 8vo, original quarter South African Wassa goatskin with jagged gilt rule and terracotta cloth sides, a.e.g., lined dropdown box with pictorial onlay and original publisher’s cardboard packaging, fine £3,000
An abridged version of the text of Mandela’s autobiography, vividly brought to life with photographic documentation in a beautifully presented limited edition.
60. Marvell (Andrew) Miscellaneous Poems. Printed for Robert Boulter, 1681, FIRST EDITION, with a strong impression of the portarit frontispiece, without the Cromwellian verses as usual, lower and fore-edge of frontispiece repaired to plate mark, small hole in I1 repaired without loss, small hole in Q1 affecting 2 letters, ink or soot stain to Q2 recto, rust mark on 2L1, pp. [iv], 116, 131-39, folio, nineteenth-century polished tan calf by Bedford, spine gilt, green morocco lettering pieces, gilt inner dentelles, gilt edges, minimal wear to corners, the Huth, Herring, Peddie School copy, good (Allison 9; Hatward 126; Pfrorzheimer 671; Wing M872) £20,000
A good, wide-margined, copy of one of the great collections of English poetry. Miscellaneous Poems was sent to the press by ‘Mary Marvell’ (Mary Palmer, Marvell’s housekeeper) who claimed that she was Marvell’s widow. The volume ‘includes religio-philosophical dialogues; verses on the pleasures (both sensuous and spiritual) of the retired life in pastoral surroundings; poems that depict innocence on the verge of sexual maturity; love lyrics, from the classic persuasion of ‘To his Coy Mistress’ to the dark complaint of ‘The Unfortunate
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Lover’; and some Latin epigrams and epitaphs. Almost the only public response to such late-appearing metaphysical poems is Wood’s grudging statement that the volume was ‘cried up as excellent’ by those of the author’s own persuasion (Wood, Ath. Oxon., 4.232)’ (W. H. Kelliher in ODNB).
In all but two known copies, (Dobell-Thorn Drury-British Library and Huntington) three long poems in praise of Cromwell are suppressed by the cancellation of 13 leaves, R2-T1 and U2-X2, which were replaced by cancels, S1 and X1, reprinting the non-Cromwellian parts of the excised leaves.
61. Mill (John Stuart) The Subjection of Women. Longman, Green, Reader, and Dyer, 1869, FIRST EDITION, two pages with passages underlined in ink and an accompanying annotation, one in French and the other in German but apparently the same hand, occasional foxspots, pp. [iv], 188, 8vo, original sand-grain mustard cloth, brown chalked endpapers, spine cocked, cloth a bit mottled, a few small wormholes to surface of lower joint, a touch of wear to head of upper joint, modern bookplate, good £1,800
‘In the short term Mill’s The Subjection of Women proved the most unpopular and bitterly contested of all his writings.... Among campaigners for women’s suffrage, however, it rapidly became a sacred text and gave him a position of heroic, almost apostolic, authority within the nascent women’s movement’ (ODNB). Item 61
A signed copy in the first issue dustjacket 62. Miller (Arthur) Death of a Salesman. Certain private conversations in two acts and a requiem, New York: Viking Press, 1949, FIRST EDITION, pp. 139, crown 8vo, original orange cloth with illustration stamped in brown to upper board, backstrip lettered in brown with merest hint of fading at ends, top edge brown, first issue dustjacket with a little rubbing to extremities, very minor chipping at head of backstrip panel and to top corner of front, short closed tear at head of rear panel, very good £3,000
Signed by the author on the blank preceding half-title.
63. Milton (John) Poems, &c. upon Several Occasions. Both English and Latin, &c. Composed at several times. With a small Tractate of Item 62 Education To Mr. Hartlib. Printed for Tho. Dring at the White Lion, 1673, 2 parts in 1 vol., front fly-leaf and title frayed at fore-edge (no loss), small hole on A1 touching 2 letters on the verso, crease in B1 causing a few letters to be printed imperfectly, sliver torn from fore-edge on I2 with the loss of half a letter on the verso, a few other paper-flaws or small holes, not affecting text, occasional minor spotting and staining, tip of the second ascender in the M on the sectional title just touched by the binder’s knife, pp. [viii], 165, 117, [5, ads], 8vo, contemporary calf, blind ruled borders on sides, ornaments in the corners, surface crackled, headcaps defective, minor wear to corners, paper lettering piece attached to foot of final leaf and intended to be folded over the text block (as it evidently was, judging by the darkening of the paper), this label slightly defective, purchase note on verso of rear fly-leaf ‘Oxford 18d’, preserved in a tan cloth folding box, good (Coleridge 85a; Wing M-2161; Bibl. Anglo-Poetica 455; Grolier, Wither to Prior 573; Pfrorzheimer 723) £3,500 Item 63
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First issue title-page, with the variants listed by Coleridge uncorrected - and with yet another variant: the catchword on D5v is ‘slain’. Most of the text of this edition is reprinted from the 1645 collection; 33 poems are added. The Tractate of Education is here in its second printing, and its inclusion here was the cause of its repeated incorporation in the editions of the minor poems in the 18th century. A nice, unsophisticated copy.
64. Montaigne (Michel de) The Essayes or, Morall, Politike, and Militarie Discourses ... [Translated by John Florio]. The Third Edition. Whereunto is now newly added an Index of the principall matters and personages mentioned in this Booke. Printed by M. Flesher, for Rich: Royston, 1632, with additional engraved architectural title-page by Martin Droeshout, leaf A6, ‘To the Beholder of this Title’, bound at the front as usual, engraved title a little proud and slightly crumpled at fore-edge, some browning and occasional spotting, a few rust stains, in one instance with the loss of a letter on either side of the leaf, one rust hole in a blank margin, another margin with a scorched hole, two leaves with marginal tears (or paperflaws) in the upper fore-margins, in the second case touching a sidenote, small hole (paperflaw) in one leaf with the loss of 3 letters on the verso, pp. [xiv], 161 (recte 631), [13, including blank pages], folio in 6s, contemporary calf, double blind ruled borders on sides, rebacked preserving most of the original spine (now pulling loose), lettered (later) in gilt, recornered, some scuffing to covers, red edges, early lettering on fore-edge and a similarly early manuscript title label loosely inserted, good (STC (2nd ed.),18043; ESTC S114977) £2,000
A good copy of the third edition of Florio’s translation, the first with an engraved title, and an index. The second and third part titles (included in the pagination) are dated 1631. ‘Florio’s greatest fame as a manipulator of English and as a translator was achieved through his English version of Montaigne’s Essais, [first published in 1603] ... Although he received assistance from his brother-in-law Samuel Daniel, his Welsh friend Dr Matthew Gwinne, and the Italian protestant Theodore Diodati, Florio’s style is clearly visible throughout the translation. His extraordinary skill in the use of alliteration, his ability to embroider and amplify the French original through the addition of English synonyms, his sense of rhythm, his art of turning French proverbs and expressions into idiomatic English equivalents, and his experimentation with new-formed English words (such as ‘conscientious’, ‘endeare’, ‘efface’, ‘facilitate’) made his Montaigne one of the great translations of the Elizabethan age. The work was a source of inspiration for such as Ben Jonson, Sir Walter Ralegh, John Webster, and Shakespeare’ (Prof. Desmond O’Connor in ODNB).
65. Pope (Alexander, translator) HOMER. The Iliad [together with:] The Odyssey [11 vols. bound as 6.] Printed by W. Bowyer for Bernard Lintott, 1715-26, FIRST EDITIONS, LARGE PAPER COPIES (14 1/4 x 8 1/2 inches), title-pages of the Odyssey printed in red and black, lacking the (often missing and possibly sold separately) Troy plate, the double-page map hand-coloured in outline, some spotting and browning in vol. iii of the Iliad, the same but less in v, worming in the lower margins of vol. iv of the Odyssey extending as a single pinhole into the beginnings of vol. v, no loss of text, one or two other minor faults marked by slips of paper, sporadic minor dust-staining in the upper margins but only 2 pages notably marked, staining to 2 leaves in the Postscript to the Odyssey, folio, uniform contemporary mottled calf, spines richly gilt in compartments, tan lettering pieces, numbered in gilt direct, some joints
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cracked, cords holding, some wear and abrasions, but on the whole solid and handsome, engraved armorial bookplate of Thomas Edwards Freeman in most vols. and removed from others, good £6,000
An imposing set, and a magnificent production. The works were published by subscription in 4to, and Lintott was to print as many of those as were called for by that subscription, resulting in some 660 being printed. Lintott was to make his profit by issuing the volumes in alternative forms, which included ‘ordinary’ large paper copies, a little over 11 inches tall, and what might be termed genuine large paper copies, at just over 14 inches, in the case of the Iliad: the Odyssey was an inch taller, and here has been trimmed to match the Iliad.
With the original dustjacket 66. Potter (Beatrix) The Tale of Tom Kitten. Frederick Warne, 1907, FIRST EDITION (the first three impressions are identical), 26 full- page colourprinted illustrations (including the frontispiece) and a title-vignette by the author, one or two light handling marks, pp. 86, 16mo, original grey-green boards, backstrip and upper board lettered in white, onlaid colourprinted illustration to upper board, some very light foxing to top edge, illustrated endpapers with tiny bookseller’s blind-stamp to flyleaf, original printed tissue dustjacket, the rear panel advertising (among others) ‘New Volume for 1907. The Tale of Tom Kitten’, dustjacket a little frayed at head and with a 1cm chip at head of backstrip panel (inch deep), very good (Linder p.427) £4,000
67. [Radcliffe (Ann)] The Romance of the Forest:: interspersed with some pieces of poetry ... In three volumes ... Printed for T. Hookham and J. Carpenter, 1791, FIRST EDITION, 3 vols., with the final blank in vol. ii, corner torn from H1 in vol. i without loss of text, small hole in M4 of the same vol. with the loss of a letter and a half, pp. [ii], 274; [ii], 286 plus blank leaf; [ii], 347, [1, ads], 12mo, original publisher’s calf, gilt ruled compartments on spines, black lettering pieces, numbered in gilt direct, minor wear to extremities, armorial bookplate in each vol. of St. Andrew Ld. St. John of Bletsoe and his signature to the head of each title-page, very good (Summers p. 483) £3,000
The very scarce first edition of Radcliffe’s third novel and her first major popular success, going through four editions in its first three years. It was praised by Coleridge who wrote ‘the attention is uninterruptedly fixed, until the veil is designedly withdrawn.’ As well as the armorial bookplate inside the front covers, there is the circular ticket of the publishers, indicating the origin of the binding.
Michael Sadleir’s copy 68. Radcliffe (Ann) The Mysteries of Udolpho; a Romance; interspersed with some pieces of poetry ... In four volumes ... Printed for G.G. and J. Robinson. 1794, FIRST EDITION, half-title in vol. i excised, in the other vols. present, and with the terminal blank in vol. ii, a few minor tears, without loss, pp.[ii], 428; [iv], 478; [iv], 463; [iv], 428, 12mo, contemporary polished calf, spines gilt in compartments, black lettering piece and small circular numbering piece, trifling wear to corners, with Michael Sadleir’s oval book label in each vol., very good (Rothschild 1701; Summers, Gothic Bibliography p.135; Tinker 1703) £5,000
A very attractive copy. ‘In its own age The Mysteries of Udolpho was one of the most popular of all Gothic novels, and it has never entirely lost its appeal’ (Cambridge Guide). It entirely overshadowed
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Item 68
Mrs. Radcliffe’s earlier three novels, and she was paid the then enormous sum of £500. ‘Udolpho brought to a culmination the gothic terror, romantic charm, and picturesque scenery in which she excelled.’
A fine example of the scarce dustjacket 69. Ransome (Arthur) Swallows and Amazons. The maps drawn by Stephen Spurrier. Jonathan Cape, 1930, FIRST EDITION, frontispiece map, some light handling marks, pp. 350, 8vo, original blue-green cloth stamped in gilt to upper board with publisher’s device blind-stamped to lower, backstrip lettered in gilt and faded with a touch of light wear at head, corners rubbed, uneven fading to cloth and some light spotting, waterstain at head of lower joint, tail edge
Item 69 Item 70
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roughtrimmed, endpaper maps with very faint off-setting to free endpapers, neat ownership inscription to half-title, supplied dustjacket with Spurrier design in very clean condition with just one tiny nick at the head of the front panel, very good £10,000
The dustjacket, although not original to this copy or at least stored separately, is in as nice condition as one could hope to find. One of only 2,000 copies in the first edition.
70. Rey (H.A.) Curious George. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1941,FIRST EDITION, colour illustration to each recto, pp. [55], 4to, original red cloth stamped in black to upper board, light rubbing to extremities and a couple of small faint spots to upper board, pictorial endpapers, very good £2,000
Item 71
71. Rodwell (George Herbert Bonaparte) Old London Bridge, a Romance of the Sixteenth Century. Illustrated by A. Ashley. J. & D.A. Darling, 1848 [-49], FIRST EDITION IN THE ORIGINAL 12 MONTHLY PARTS, with additional engraved title and 24 engraved plates, 1 large and folding, with engraved title-page on the wrappers (not a repeat of the additional engraved title), and woodcut illustrattion of Walley & Hardwick’s The Dupalla (a Mantle, or Visite) on the rear covers, numerous inserted advertisements, including the 4 pages of ads in part VIII printed in blue and red, pp. (not counting ads) 407, [1], [viii, the preliminaries, at the end of the last part], 8vo, uncut in the original printed wrappers, some wear and tear, 2 spines darkened, last part split in half, preserved in a cloth folding box, good £1,500
Very scarce in any form, and especially in the original parts. Rodwell was a musical composer, director of the Adelphi Theatre, and musical director at Covent Garden. He wrote mainly for the stage, but also several novels. Not in Sadleir or Wolff; the latter has other titles by him.
Inscribed to Christopher Priest and Lisa Tuttle 72. Rushdie (Salman) Midnight’s Children. Jonathan Cape, 1981, FIRST ENGLISH EDITION, using the American sheets, pp. 446, 8vo, original quarter maroon cloth with grey sides a little darkened around top edge, author’s monogram stamped in silver to upper board, backstrip lettered in silver, fore-edge untrimmed, dustjacket with just a hint of fading, very good £2,750
Inscribed to authors Christopher Priest and Lisa Tuttle: ‘To Chris and Lisa, With my best wishes, Salman Rushdie, 30th Nov: 83’. Christopher Priest’s ownership inscription is at the head of the flyleaf. Rushdie’s second novel; a Booker winner in 1981, as well as the Booker of Bookers winner in 1993 and the Best of the Bookers winner in 2008 (to commemorate the award’s 25th and 40th anniversaries).
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Item 72 Item 73
73. Salas Barbadillo (Alonso Jerónimo de) The Lucky Idiot: or, fools have fortune. Verified in the life of D. Pedro de Cenudo, whose follies had generally a prosperous event: ... Written in Spanish by Don Quevedo de Alcala. Now rendered into modern English by a person of quality. Illustrated with pictures. Printed for A. Bettesworth and C. Hitch, and J. Hodges, 1734, with a woodcut frontispiece and 10 half-page woodcuts in the text, somewhat browned, and stained in places, cut close with a few letters shaved, pp. 178, [2], 12mo, nineteenth-century calf, rubbed, some loss of surface on spine, joints cracked, cords holding, armorial bookplate of Edward Francis Carry £2,200
An unrecorded edition of the second English translation of Necio bien afortunado (1621, itself a very rare book). The first English translation, by Philip Ayres, was published in 1670, and the present translation first appeared in 1710; there was another edition of it in 1760. The rather crude woodcuts appeared in the 1710 edition, although apparently without the frontispiece. There are a number of small reworkings of the cuts for this edition, and they were not a feature of the 1760 edition. All three editions bear striking evidence of the economy of their production, with the type going down in size at some point near the end in order to cram the text in. ESTC records just 2 copies of the 1710 edition: BL and the Clark. There was a Worcester, Massachusetts, edition in 1797.
An inscribed carbon typescript, with manuscript corrections 74. Sayers (Dorothy L.) Souvenir, 8 October 1935. [The Prothalamion to ‘Busman’s Honeymoon.’] pp. [23, rectos only], 4to, unbound, some light creasing to corners and a small tear at the foot of one sheet, paperclip marks at head of outer leaves, in custom leather folder stamped in gilt to front, good condition £2,000
Inscribed by the author to her friend and collaborator Muriel St. Clare Byrne, with whom the play of the same title had been written. The full Prothalamion is here. The manuscript corrections largely focus on typographical errors, although in the ‘15 September’ entry ‘face’ has been changed to ‘features’ (as found in the published version).
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Item 75
With a TLS about the book to Berta Ruck 75. Sayers (Dorothy L.) Busman’s Honeymoon. A Love Story with Detective Interruptions. Victor Gollancz, 1937, FIRST EDITION, erratum-slip present at p.335, some foxing to borders of initial and ultimate pages, pp. 447, crown 8vo, original black cloth, backstrip lettered in gilt with some wear and splitting at head of joints, dustjacket darkened with fraying around head, a water-spot to front panel and a portion of loss at foot of same, good (Gilbert A25b1) £1,500
With a TLS to the author Berta Ruck, dated 19th October 1937, thanking her for her letter regarding the book and expanding on a couple of plot points: ‘I am sorry I couldn’t arrange to get Crutchley off; I did not really think he was a very nice person to have about, and indeed, no murderer who has once tasted blood and got away with it is safe. So glad you approve of my treatment of ghosts; it has annoyed one or two people quite a lot’. The letter, written on one-side of a single sheet, has some tape reinforcement to central fold of its verso.
76. (Shanty Bay Press.) OVID. Stories from the Metamorphoses. Illustrated by Walter Bachinski. 2013, 16/60 COPIES (from an edition of 70 copies) signed by illustrator and printer, printed on Arches Cover mouldmade paper, author’s name to title-page, initial letters and additional decorations printed in red against a grey ground, 16 charcoal drawings by Jon Goodman reproduced by photogravure, pp. xi, 133, folio, original quarter tan calf with Japanese Gampi paper boards, backstrip lettered in blind, edges untrimmed, slipcase, fine £2,000
The translation used is that compiled by Sir Samuel Garth in 1715, using poets such as John Dryden and Joseph Addison.
77. Shaw (George Bernard) Widowers’ Houses, a Comedy... first acted at the Independent Theatre in London. Henry and Co., 1893, FIRST EDITION, long inscription by Conal O’Riordan to John Galsworthy on flyleaf recto, a further inscription by Shaw to E.V. Lucas filling recto and verso of half-title, pp. xix, [v], 126, [2, ads], 8vo, original blue cloth, backstrip and front board lettered in gilt, cloth a bit rumpled on front board, backstrip slightly faded, a touch of rubbing to
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extremities, front hinge cracking, morocco bookplate of Frank L. Hogan, preserved in a moocco pull-off case by Bennett of N.Y., very good (Laurence A20) £4,000
The first edition of Shaw’s first play, printed in an edition of no more than 500 copies, only some of which sold (194 sets of sheets were returned to Shaw four years after publication). This copy was effectively used as an envelope for letters between Conal O’Riordan and John Galsworthy, then Bernard Shaw and E.V. Lucas, in 1929. O’Riordan writes to Galsworthy to excuse his absence from a fundraising dinner, offering the book (indicating that he had been one of the few original purchasers when it was new) to be sold for the benefit of the Royal Literary Fund instead, and suggesting that it could fetch £50. Galsworthy must have passed it to E.V. Lucas, who sent it to Shaw to ask for a valuation. Shaw then writes a letter back to Lucas on both sides of the half-title, in typical style insisting that it is ‘quite the rarest of my published first editions... I should suggest a reserve price of fifty millions... The printing, which I designed myself, is alone well worth the money; and the paper is of the best. William Morris had taught me to be particular about such things’. Shaw also denies knowledge of the blue cloth binding - there is a variant in green cloth, now much rarer, but which Shaw remembered as being the only version.
Item 77 Item 78
A proof copy, annotated for performance 78. Shaw (George Bernard) Pygmalion. A Romance in Five Acts. Constable, 1914, PROOF COPY, copious pencil annotations for performance, the odd faint spot at head of pages, pp. [iv], 87, foolscap 8vo, original blue-grey wrappers printed in black, a little browned to borders and backstrip, faint pencil caricature of Shaw in profile to front and an even more faint sketch of a woman to the back cover, a little chipping and cracking to ends of backstrip, edges browned, loosely inserted postcard offset to pages, custom chemise and drop-down box, good (Laurence AA5d) £1,500
The second such proof copy produced in a small quantity, prior to its first performance in London in 1914 - a postcard for the performance, starring Herbert Tree and Mrs Patrick Campbell, is loosely inserted, with notes regarding classical drama on the reverse in the same hand as the staging and performance notes throughout the text. These latter take the form of underlinings with occasional comments and deletions. There is no further information to be able to firmly identify the hand, but it must have been someone associated with an early performance of the play - the hand does not appear to be Herbert Tree’s, but the notes all relate to the character of Higgins.
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79. Shaw (George Bernard) The Millionairess: a Jonsonian Comedy in Four Acts by a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Privately Printed, July 1935, PROOF COPY, ONE OF 25 COPIES, inscribed on the title-page by the author, the part of Epifania picked out in pencil throughout, pp. 73, [1], 8vo, original printed wrappers, ‘Rough Proof: unpublished’ printed below the title, a little bit soiled and worn, backstrip partially defective, very good [with:] The Millionairess: a Jonsonian Comedy in Four Acts by a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Privately Printed, March 1940, ONE OF 25 COPIES, with a long presentation inscription from the author on the initial blank, the part of Epifania picked out in pencil throughout, pp. [127]-199, [1], 8vo, original printed wrappers, ‘Second edition revised’ added in Shaw’s hand below the printed statement ‘Rehearsal copy’, a few splashmarks to front, backstrip partially defective, very good £4,500
The most important possible copies of this play: the first is the original, private printing, the second is the third edition (also privately printed), and both are inscribed to Dame Edith Evans, for whom Shaw had specifically written the role of Epifania. The original printing was inscribed to her at time of publication, but despite Shaw’s entreaties Evans declined the role; it was eventually staged in Malvern with Elspeth March taking the part. However, in 1940 Evans agreed to take it up, after Shaw made changes for her. The second copy here was inscribed to her then, and the long inscription details some of the changes and advises on where Evans can do research. A major problem with the original text was that Evans’ character was meant to be a boxer, but this was then changed to the more ladylike profession of judo expert.
80. [Shelley (Mary)] History of a Six Weeks’ Tour through a part of France, Switzerland, Germany, and Holland... Published by T. Hookham, Jun, 1817, FIRST EDITION, a little light soiling, pp. [ii], vi, 183, [1], 8vo, early twentieth-century olive morocco by Tout, boards with a gilt frame and spine elaborately gilt, top edge gilt, others untrimmed, joints rather rubbed, a little wear to headcap, bookplates of H. Bradley Martin, Robertson Trowbridge (this bookplate inscribed to mark Trowbridge’s gift of the volume to Thomas Pym Cope), and Thomas Jefferson McKee, very good (Ashley V 64; Forman 47) £3,500
Mary Godwin and P. B. Shelley eloped on 28th July 1812 and embarked on a tour through Europe before returning, penniless, to England in September the same year. ‘While on their unconventional walking tour through war-torn Europe during the lull between Napoleon’s first and final defeat, Mary Godwin and P. B. Shelley kept a daily journal, which soon became principally hers, and which she continued to keep until 1844. Mary Shelley’s revision of the elopement journal, along with four 1816 letters and P. B. Shelley’s poem ‘Mont Blanc’, was published anonymously as History of a Six Weeks’ Tour of France, Switzerland, and Germany (1817). It formed a narrative of the Romantic feelings and observations about nature, social mores, and politics’ (ODNB).
This is the the McKee-Trowbridge-Cope-Martin copy, featuring in the highly-anticipated 1900 sale of Thomas Jefferson McKee’s notable library, then entering the collection of the writer and book collector Robertson Trowbridge, who gave it in 1921 (with other books) to Thomas Pym Cope; after that it came into the hands of H. Bradley Martin, appearing at another vast and important dispersal when his library was sold in 1990.
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81. Shelley (Percy Bysshe) Rosalind and Helen, a modern Eclogue; with other Poems. Printed for C. and J. Ollier, 1819, FIRST EDITION, with the final advertisement leaves, first few leaves slightly spotted,pp. vi, [i], 98, [4], 8vo, polished calf by F. Bedford, spine gilt red lettering piece, gilt edges, minimal wear to extremities, the Hibbert-Esher copy with bookplates and acquisition notes by Oliver Brett, good (Graniss 49; Tinker 1897; Wise p. 50) £2,500
An important collection, particularly as the ‘other Poems’ include the ‘Hymn to Intellectual Beauty’, and ‘Ozymandias’.
82. Shelley (Percy Bysshe) Letters...to Leigh Hunt. Edited by Thomas J. Wise. Privately Printed. 1894, FIRST EDITION, ONE OF SIX COPIES ON VELLUM, with first and last blank leaves,pp.[xvi], 74, [vi]; [xvi], 69, [vii], 8vo, crushed black morocco by Ramage, Herbert S. Leon and Alington bookplates, fine (Grannis 90; Wise p. 85 [paper copy]) £6,000
A further thirty copies were printed on Whatman paper. The bibliographic details seem a little bit elusive, despite, or perhaps because of, Wise’s involvement: the figure of 6 copies on vellum apparently comes from the 1897 privately printed list of the Ashley Library, but this was at some point mistranscribed as ‘4’ and appears that way in, e.g., Smith. By the time of the printed catalogue of the ‘Shelley Library’ portion of the Ashley Library in 1924, Wise seems to have no longer owned a copy on vellum since the one described there is one of 30 on paper, and the entry, in fact, makes no mention at all of the vellum issue. Apart from this copy we have only been able to trace one other on vellum, in the John Rylands Library.
An inscribed copy 83. Steinbeck (John) Tortilla Flat. Illustrated by Ruth Gannett. New York: Covici Friede, 1935, FIRST EDITION, pp. 317, crown 8vo, original grey cloth stamped with blue horizontal rule, backstrip lettered in blue, top edge blue, others rough-trimmed, dustjacket just a little toned overall and a shade darker on the backstrip panel, very good (Goldstone & Payne A4b) £12,000
Inscribed by the author on the flyleaf, in the year of publication: ‘For Guy G.B. Reedy, John Steinbeck’. Reedy was an old friend of Steinbeck’s, with whom he had worked on the construction of Madison Square Garden. A beautifully preserved copy of this early Steinbeck novel.
Item 82 Item 83
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Item 84
84. Sterne (Lawrence) The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. R. and J. Dodsley [vols. iii-iv], T. Becket and P.A. Dehondt [vols. v-ix], 1760-1767, FIRST EDITIONS of all volumes except vol. iv (which is the concealed second edition), first issue of vol. vii title-page (with errata list, the errata in that volume corrected in a contemporary hand), vols. v, vii, and ix signed by Sterne as called for, half-titles present in vols. iv-vi and ix, vol. v with initial and final blanks, engraved frontispiece and marbled leaf in vol. iii (the latter bound in backwards), this volume issue III-1d with three press corrections made, the whole set somewhat browned and spotted throughout, occasional soiling, a few leaves with chips or short tears to blank margins, marginal wormhole in top margin of 5 leaves in vol. ii, pp. [ii], 179, [1]; [ii], 182; 202; [iv], 146, 156-220, [1]; [viii], 150; [iv], 155, [1]; [ii], 160; [ii], 156; [viii], 145, [1], 8vo, contemporary quarter sheep with marbled boards, spines numbered in gilt, rubbed, hinges cracking, several flyleaves subtly renewed, vol. viii joints neatly repaired, each vol. preserved in a folding cloth cover and the set grouped into three morocco backed slipcases, good (ESTC T14780; T14705; N19729; T14706; T14820 ; T14824) £15,000
The Bradley Martin copy of this seminal work, long considered one of the best copies extant, given the contemporary binding and unsophisticated condition. Closer examination suggests that the condition is not wholly original - particularly some of the flyleaves, and the joints of vol. viii - with the repair work almost certainly pre-dating the Bradley Martin sale. The fourth volume not being the ‘true’ first also appears to have gone previously unnoticed. It remains in any case a remarkable copy of a work exceptionally rare in contemporary binding, and this more honest than most; also clear proof of the subtlety of the concealed reprinting of vol. iv.
85. Stevenson (Robert Louis) Treasure Island. Cassell, 1883, FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE, frontispiece map printed in 3 colours, some scattered spots, pp. viii, 292, 8 (Publisher’s List dated 5-R 1083), 8vo, original green cloth, a few minor marks, extremities a trifle bumped, inner hinges cracked but holding firm, preserved in a blue morocco backed slip-in case with chemise, very good (Beinecke 241; Prideaux 11) £9,000
The following points mark out the first issue of this classic: initial letter of ‘vain’ broken on page 40, ‘a’ not present in line 6 on page 63, the 8 to be found in the pagination on page 83 and 7 is present on page 127, the full-stop missing following the word ‘opportunity’ on page 178 and the word ‘worse’ in uncorrected form on page 197.
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‘Novvelle Galante’ 86. [Torche (Antoine)] Le Chien de Boulogne ou l’amant fidelle. Novvelle Galante. Paris: Jean Ribou, 1668, FIRST EDITION, pp. [viii], 220, 12mo contemporary mottled calf, spine gilt with a large fleur-de-lys in each compartment, minor wear, ?later labels, armorial bookplate of Sir John Rushout, very good (Williams, Seventeenth Century Novel in France pp. 98 and 196 (mistranscribing the title)) £1,200
The rare first edition of an intriguing novel, and one of the very first to adumbrate the term ‘nouvelle galante’, although there is nothing really ‘gallant’ about the book in the ordinary sense of the word. The Abbé Torche, born about 1635 in Béziers, was educated by the Jesuits, and joined the order at the age of 16. However he was much given over to ‘les plaisirs’ (as the Biographie Universell has it), and had to leave Béziers after a certain intrigue was discovered. He went to Paris, and began the study of theology at the Sorbonne, but his modest family allowance was insufficient for ‘les plaisirs’ and he took to writing novels, anonymously. The present one, with its curious conceit of dog-authorship, is in part a scurrilous attack on Madame Ferlingham, with whom Torche had been lodging. She had two daughters, one of whom Torche had asked to marry him: he was refused, and he blamed the mother. She in turn was outraged by the novel, and plotted revenge, upon which Torche fled Paris. There were several editions in the next few years. Recently its has been reprinted in a facsimile edition, with an introduction by René Godenne. The Boulogne of the title is Bologna.
87. Villon (François) Les Oeuvres de Françoys Villon de Paris. Reveues et Remises en Leur Entier. Paris: Pierre Bouchet, 1932, 11/15 COPIES (from an edition of 170 copies), colour-printed illustrations by Charles Martin throughout with some occasional offsetting, titles and initial letters printed in blue with red-line borders, a full suite of prints of Martin’s illustrations in colour and the same in black and white pp. [vi], 168, [5], 4to, original wrappers, unbound as issued with edges untrimmed, tissue jacket with tear to front panel, each suite of prints within card folder, housed in board folder with blue cloth joints a little rubbed to extremities and some very faint handling marks overall, backstrip with leather labels lettered in gilt, slipcase, very good £2,000
88. Walker (George) The Three Spaniards. A Romance. In three volumes. Vol. I [-III]. Printed by Sampson Low, for G. Walker, 1800, FIRST EDITION, 3 vols. in 1, a little scattered spotting, some damp-staining in vol. ii, pp. [vi], 295, [1]; [i], 262; [i], 250, 12mo, mid-nineteenth- century half black calf, spine blind tooled in compartments with a gilt roll tool on the raised bands, dark red lettering piece, a bit worn at extremities, lettering piece partly defective, good (ESTC T181013; Garside, Raven and Schöwerling 1800:76) £3,000
The rare first edition of one of Walker’s numerous Gothic novels in the manner of Ann Radcliffe. There is a laconic Preface, which reads in its entirety: ‘In compliance with the present Taste in Literary Amusement, this work is presented to the Public.’ ESTC records Bodleian only in the UK, Huntington and Texas in North America, and the Fisher Library in Sydney. COPAC adds NLS. There was another London edition in 1821, 2 in Dublin (the first in 1800), and at least 2 in theUS , and it was translated into French.
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89. [Walpole (Horace)] The Castle of Otranto, a Story. Translated by William Marshal, Gent. From the Original Italian of Onuphirio Muralto, Canon of the Church of St. Nicholas at Otranto. Printed for Tho. Lownds, 1765, [1764], FIRST EDITION, title slightly spotted and soiled, pp. [viii], 200, near-contemporary half calf, red morocco label, upper joint cracked, preserved in a folding half brown morocco box, engraved armorial bookplate inside front cover of Scrope Berdmore, warden of Merton College, dated 1790 (roughly the date of the binding), engraved armorial bookplate inside rear cover of Henry Combe Compton, good (Hazen 17; Rothschild 2491; Tinker 2274; PMM 211) £7,500
In this copy of the prototype of the Gothic novel (indeed the the title-page to the second edition introduced the term ‘gothic’ to the language in its 18th-century literary sense - see OED), Walpole is identified on the title-page as the author in a contemporary hand: his identity had not long remained a secret however. 500 copies were published on Christmas Eve, 1764.
90. Waugh (Evelyn) Decline and Fall. Chapman & Hall, 1928, FIRST EDITION, frontispiece and 5 further full-page line drawings by the author, occasional light foxing to page borders, pp.xii, 288, crown 8vo, original patterned red and black cloth, backstrip lettered in gilt, light foxing to edges with tail-edge roughtrimmed, faded ownership inscription to pastedown, dustjacket designed by author with printed label lettered in red to front, fading to backstrip panel with nicks and chips around edges, good £8,000
A nice example of a scarce dustjacket.
91. Waugh (Evelyn) Remote People. Duckworth. 1931, FIRST EDITION, frontispiece and 6 plates, 2 folding maps, pp. 240, 8vo, original purple cloth with lightest of rubbing to extremities, very faint partial tanning to free endpapers, backstrip lettered in gilt, dustjacket with a few nicks and very light creasing to backstrip panel, near fine £3,000
Item 90 Item 91
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92. Waugh (Evelyn) Mr. Loveday’s Little Outing and Other Sad Stories. Chapman & Hall, 1936, FIRST EDITION, frontispiece- design by Thomas Derrick, pp.237, crown 8vo, original red and black patterned cloth, backstrip lettered in gilt and a little faded, light rubbing to extremities and in a couple of spots on boards with one or two small indentations to edges, light toning to edges of textblock with a couple of light handling marks to rear free endpaper, dustjacket toned overall with backstrip panel a shade darker, light chipping to bottom corners and fraying to edges with a couple of short closed tears and one or two small marks to rear panel, very good £2,000
The hinges have an extra reinforcement of rubberised linen tape, as issued - in what the recto of the rear free endpaper states is a ‘Flexiback Binding’. A nice example of a scarce dustjacket.
93. White (E.B.) Stuart Little. Pictures by Garth Williams. New York: Harper, 1945, FIRST EDITION, frontispiece drawing and further illustrations throughout text, pp. [viii], 129, crown 8vo, original pale green cloth stamped in green and orange to upper board, backstrip lettered and decorated in green and orange with a touch of fading, illustrated endpapers, dustjacket remarkably bright overall with backstrip panel lightly toned, a couple of small nicks and the lightest of chipping at foot of backstrip, near fine £2,000
A very pleasing copy of this charming story.
94. White (Patrick) Happy Valley. A Novel. Harrap. 1939, ADVANCE PROOF COPY, pp. 328, f’cap.8vo., original printed tan wrappers, the front cover printed in black with title, author and ‘Advance Proof Copy’, author and title faintly penned on the backstrip, small chip to the tail of the backstrip and a tear to the bottom half of the rear joint, good £2,000
Item 93 Item 94
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Item 95 Item 96
The author’s first novel and third book, preceded by two rare books of verse. Winner of the Australian Society of Literature’s gold medal in 1941. White’s fear that he had libelled a Chinese family in the novel ensured that it was not republished in English in his lifetime.
95. Wilde (Oscar) Lady Windermere’s Fan. A Play about a Good Woman. Elkin Mathews and John Lane, 1893, FIRST EDITION, ONE OF 50 LARGE PAPER COPIES, printed on hand-made paper, the ads unopened, thin red mark to edge of title-page, pp. [xvi], 132, 14 (ads), [2], 4to, original pale buckram decorated with a scattering of gilt stamps, rather darkened as often (especially the backstrip), a touch rubbed, flyleaves renewed with sympathetic paper (a resulting thin glue stain visible in gutter of first leaf), good £5,000
The first of Wilde’s famous light comedies, ‘revolutionary in its mingling of the vocabulary of comedy, the potential of tragedy, and the insistence on realism’ (ODNB).
96. Wilde (Oscar) A Woman of No Importance. John Lane, 1894, FIRST EDITION, ONE OF 50 LARGE PAPER COPIES, printed on hand-made paper, largely unopened, pp. [xvi], 154, [2], 4to, original pale buckram decorated with a scattering of gilt stamps, darkened as often (the backstrip all the way to deep brown), a bit rubbed, endpapers toned, very good (Mason 365) £4,500
Wilde’s follow-up to Lady Windermere’s Fan. The pale buckram used on the large-paper editions of his plays was extremely light-sensitive and is almost always darkened on the spine.
Inscribed by the author with a quotation from Longfellow 97. Williams (Charles) The Silver Stair. Herbert & Daniel, [1912,] FIRST EDITION, one or two faint foxspots at foot of pages, pp. xi, 90, crown 8vo, original quarter fawn canvas with printed label to upper board, backstrip darkened with printed label, board-edges darkened, a touch of wear to corners, edges untrimmed and toned, free endpapers browned, good (Glenn I-A-i-1) £1,500
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Item 97
The author’s first book and inscribed by him on the flyleaf with a quotation from Longfellow: ‘“Ships that pass in the night and hail each other in passing” - Charles Williams’. Contemporary ownership inscription at head of same. One of 250 copies printed.
98. Wollstonecraft (Mary) A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects. Printed for J. Johnson. 1792, FIRST EDITION, some browning and foxing, small patch on U6r where a spot of glue (or other substance) has lifted a couple of letters from the surface (present on the page opposite), pp. xix, [i](blank), 452, 8vo, contemporary tree sheep, red lettering piece on spine, lower joint skilfully repaired, corners worn, signature clipped from top outer corner of fly-leaf (which is a little loose), the rest of the inscription remaining, ‘To Cynthia Spear, Boston 1825’, below this signature of M.A. Souther, good (Masterpieces of Women’s Literature pp.528-30: PMM 242: Tinker 2314: Todd 9: Windle A5a) £15,000
Wollstonecraft’s most famous work ‘aims, like her first book, to make women think, but it goes far beyond it in passionate argument for women’s rights and for the opportunity to prove themselves intellectually equal to men. “It is time to effect a revolution in female manners - time to restore them their lost dignity.”’ (Todd quoting A Vindication). She was the first to codify women’s rights, to identify the cause as ‘justice for one half of the human race’. This rallying cry was perceived as being too revolutionary for its day, but in reality it was not especially shocking. She did not attack the institution of marriage, nor the practice of religion. Wollstonecraft sought ‘to persuade women to endeavour to acquire strength, both of mind and body, and to convince them that soft phrases, susceptibility of heart, delicacy of sentiment, and refinement
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of taste, are almost synonimous with epithets of weakness.’ Her object was to show that women should not be an unregarded adjunct of men, but ought to be their equal partners, and that this end could only be achieved through equal opportunity in education.
It is interest that this copy should have crossed the Atlantic about a quarter of a century after its publication and made a present to a young woman (if we are correct in identifying Cynthia Spear, 1800-86, who married John Lincoln Souther in 1848, he being a ship’s carpenter).
Item 99
99. Wollstonecraft (Mary) Letters written during a Short residence in Sweden, Norway and Denmark. Printed for J. Johnson, 1796, FIRST EDITION, scattered foxing and occasional light browning, pp. [iv], 262, [4], [2, ads], 8vo, entirely untrimmed and and unpressed in the original boards, spine neatly overlaid with vellum, spine lettered by hand but only the word Sweden now legible, boards a little foxed and worn at extremities, tipped onto the front pastedown is a fragment of an autograph letter signed by the author (see below), good (Rothschild 2598; ESTC T38577) £2,000
‘This book, A Short Residence in Sweden, Norway and Denmark, is from a literary standpoint probably Wollstonecraft’s best; certainly many readers have found it her most captivating. “If ever there was a book calculated to make a man in love with its author”, Godwin wrote, “this appears to me to be the book” - and he was the man to know’ (ODNB).
The fragment of the autograph letter tipped in at the front concludes: ‘not go without a remembrance from yours sincerely Mary Wollstonecraft.’ There are three and a half words above this. There is an inscription above this on the pastedown ‘Autograph of Miss Wollstonecraft.’ This is of an early date, and might even predate the marriage of Wollstonecraft to William Godwin in 1797 (although in fact she was going by the name of Imlay between 1794 and 1797).
100. [Wordsworth (William) and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.] Lyrical Ballads, with a few other poems. Printed for J. & A. Arch, 1798, FIRST EDITION, second issue, lightly toned, errata leaf present but advertisement leaf discarded, pp. [ii], v, [3], 69, [2], 70-210, [2], 8vo, nineteenth-century biscuit calf, boards bordered with a triple gilt fillet, neatly rebacked to style with dark brown morocco lettering pieces and gilt tooling in spine compartments, old leather a little darkened and cracked at the edge of the repair, very good (ESTC T142994) £10,000
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The London, or second, issue of the first edition of the foundational text of the Romantic movement - the title-page cancelled to replace the original Bristol imprint. Five hundred copies had been printed but sales were so slow that Cottle, the Bristol publisher, sold most of them on in bulk to Arch. Slow sales did not prevent the second edition, expanded into two volumes and with some alterations, from appearing in 1800. Wordsworth’s poem ‘The Convict’ was omitted from later editions, among other textual changes. In this copy the misprint on p. 19 is corrected by hand, but on p. 204 ‘woods’ and ‘thought’ are intact.
Item 100
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