ANTHONY TROLLOPE FIRST EDITIONS AT
ASH RARE BOOKS
43 HURON ROAD
LONDON SW17 8RE
UNITED KINGDOM

London : Longman, Brown, Green & Longmans, 1855 [i.e. 1854]. First edition. Trollope’s fourth book and the first of the Barchester novels. Only 1,000 copies were printed, of which Sadleir believed perhaps as many as 400 were later pulped. “Now, of course, ‘The Warden’ is rare. The demand for Trollope first editions far exceeds even the total limits of the original printing number. In consequence the price has risen rapidly” (Sadleir – writing in 1928).
Crown 8vo (194 x 122mm). iv,336 + 24pp inserted advertisements, dated September 1854. Bound in an elegant later half chestnut morocco, banded and gilt, by Robert Riviere & Son; top edge gilt; marbled endpapers; original cloth backstrip preserved at rear; a small area of slight fading to the top of the front board, but otherwise a very good copy indeed – clean, sound and beautifully bound. From the celebrated collection of the antiquary Harry Lawrence Bradfer-Lawrence (1887-1965), with his armorial bookplate.

SOLD

London : Richard Bentley, 1858 [i.e. 1857]. First edition. “The best of the new novels. The author has left Barchester Cloisters and now finds his way into the civil service, upon which he has ideas as strong as those he has expressed about ecclesiastical endowments ... unusually good, and the character-painting ... excellent” (The Examiner, 19th December 1857). Trollope regarded it as “certainly the best novel I had as yet written” – notable also for what he regarded as his first successful love scene and the first appearance of Chaffanbrass.
Three volumes. Demy 12mo (181 x 111mm). iv,340; iv,322; iv,334pp. Bound in a neat, early twentieth-century, half blue calf, banded and gilt; marbled endpapers; sprinkled edges; some very minor rubbing and bruising; internally a little thumbed, with small marks, some creases, and very occasional annotation and underlining, but a good set of a scarce early title, most of the original 1,000 copies being intended for library lending. Sadleir 6.

£750

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London : Chapman & Hall, 1861-1863. First editions of both series of Trollope’s short stories, some based on his personal experiences abroad. Seventeen stories in all, including “Miss Sarah Jack, of Spanish Town, Jamaica”, “An Unprotected Female at the Pyramids”, “The Mistletoe Bough”, “The Man who kept his Money in a Box”, etc. Sadleir (writing in 1928) noted the first series as being “a scarce book and difficult to get in fine state” and the second series as being even scarcer – “this book holds a high place in the schedule of Trollope rarities”.
Two volumes. Post 8vo (195 x 124mm). [iv],312; [iv],(372)pp. Bound (without the advertisements occasionally found) in an elegant later (early twentieth-century) full chestnut straight-grained calf by Zaehnsdorf; banded & gilt; inner gilt turn-ins; top edges gilt; marbled endpapers; no half-titles called for; some very minor wear; a few very faint marks; short nick to one leaf expertly repaired, but still a very good set.

£1,250

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London : Chapman & Hall, 1866 [i.e.1865]. First edition. Clara Amedroz has to choose between kind and generous Will Belton and smooth and urbane Captain Aylmer – probably one of Trollope’s most undervalued novels and certainly one of the hardest to find in first edition. As long ago as 1928 Michael Sadleir wrote that “‘The Belton Estate’ in first edition, through some hazard of publishing history which I cannot explain, has simply disappeared. I have no record of ‘The Belton Estate’ being offered for sale in a bookshop catalogue or at auction”.
Three volumes. Crown 8vo (187 x 116mm). iv,284; iv,308; iv,276pp. Half-titles not called for. Bound, without the publishers’ catalogue sometimes found, in a pleasant contemporary half blue polished calf, banded and gilt; marbled sides, edges and endleaves; lightly sunned; a little rubbed and slightly scuffed; binder’s blanks neatly excised at the front of each volume; some slight marks and faint creases, but overall a very good, sound, and handsome set. Ownership inscription of R. E. Broome in each volume. Sadleir 22. Wolff 6767.

SOLD

London : Smith, Elder & Co., 1867. First edition. Grace Crawley, Mrs Proudie, Septimus Harding, etc. – “Mr. Trollope has seldom been in greater force” (Illustrated London News, 9th March 1867). “Taking it as a whole, I regard this as the best novel I have written” (Trollope in 1883). With lively wood-engraved plates and illustrations after George Housman Thomas (1824-1868), mainly engraved by his brother, William Luson Thomas (1830-1900).
Two volumes. Demy 8vo (209 x 129mm). [iv],384; [iv],384pp. Thirty-two full-page plates and thirty-two vignettes. Bound in a stylish recent full burgundy crushed morocco, banded and gilt; top edges gilt; mild browning and spotting to outer leaves; a few faint marks; one plate trimmed tight, but overall a very good and handsome set, housed in a custom-made cloth case.

£500

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London : Chapman & Hall, 1873. First British edition. One of Trollope’s best and most enjoyable – and “one of the most entertaining, worthless, attractive women in the history of the novel: the totally amoral Lizzie Eustace” (P. D. James). “The novel is rare in fine state, for it had great library popularity ... few copies in good original condition have survived the zeal of contemporary readers” (Sadleir, writing in 1928).
Three volumes. Crown 8vo (183 x 123mm). viii,354; viii,(364); viii,(354)pp. Bound (for Hatchard’s of Piccadilly), complete with half-titles, in a smart later (early twentieth-century) half red morocco; top edges gilt; marbled sides and endpapers; silk ribbons; a few very minor internal marks, spots and small flaws, but overall a very good set in a handsome binding. Monogram bookplates – possibly of George Capel Cure (1853-1943) of Blake Hall, Ongar – engraved by Allan Wyon (1843-1907), together with the more recent bookplate of the notable modern collector Robert James Hayhurst (1929-2016).

£1,250

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Leipzig : Bernhard Tauchnitz, 1873. The true first edition : the earliest printing, with just twenty-two earlier Trollope titles listed on the verso of the half-title. Precedes both the London edition, published by Chapman & Hall the following year, as well as the American edition, which also appeared in May 1874. After a torturous legal case, the previously impoverished Anna Lovel becomes the newly acknowledged daughter of an earl – but still wishes to marry a tailor – and, more than that, the son of a radical. As Sadleir noted, “this unsuitable flouting of mid-Victorian propriety” left the public cold, although, as a perceptive critic pointed out, the author was clearly enjoying himself greatly and the novel “contains, in a nutshell ... so many of Mr. Trollope’s favourite ideas” (The Tablet, 30th May 1874).
Two volumes. Foolscap 8vo (153 x 101mm). 302; 286pp. Contemporary half calf, banded & gilt on wide bands; marbled sides and edges; complete with half-titles, but lacking the two final imprint leaves; minuscule chip to head of one volume; two or three faint creases; slight marginal chip to one leaf, but a very good set of a scarce item. With the contemporary book-labels of John Barker of The Grange, Bishop’s Stortford – later to become Sir John Barker (1840-1914), the founder of the famous Kensington department store.

£1,500

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London : Ward, Lock & Bowden, [ca.1895]. An undesignated reprint of the 1883 third edition. The original 1874 edition is of course of legendary rarity – as Sadleir noted in 1928, “No price records exist. Should a good copy come up for sale it will fetch as much as the most frenzied Trollopian present can afford to pay”. “We settle down, in companionship with Mr. Anthony Trollope, at the Gangoil Farm, on the other side of the Equator, just as easily and comfortably as we did at Orley Farm itself. There are not a few persons to whom the bare idea of colonial existence is intolerable; yet here it is made even charming” (London Evening Standard, 9th November 1874).
Foolscap 8vo (172 x 109mm). [vi],(314)pp. Bound in a smart recent half maroon calf, banded and gilt, by Bayntun-Riviere; top edge gilt; a few minor marks and small flaws, but a very good copy.

£200

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London : Chapman & Hall, 1877. First edition. “Once again we have the author at his best, we feel quite disposed to agree with the distinguished critic who declared not long ago that he held that Mr. Trollope’s novels must be counted among the few real pleasures of life. As a specimen of realistic literary art, it would not be easy to find anything more perfect than these three volumes ... there is hardly a figure in the story which has not the sharpness of outline and fidelity of a fine photograph” (The Graphic, 16th June 1877). The figures of course include Arabella Trefoil, “a masterly study of a girl without a heart” (Michael Sadleir), but also “the finest, most fearless and the most tragic of all his doomed and desperate anti-heroines” (James Pope-Hennessy).
Three volumes. Crown 8vo (184 x 122mm). viii,(294); viii,(294); viii,284pp. Bound, complete with half-titles, in an elegant later (early twentieth-century) full chestnut straight-grained calf, banded & gilt, by Zaehnsdorf; inner gilt turn-ins; marbled endpapers; just a hint of wear; a few slight marks, nicks and faint creases, but still a very good set.

£950

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London : Chapman & Hall, 1879. First edition. A scarce late Trollope, featuring on Sadleir’s “A”-list of rarities (XIX Century Fiction, 1951). Disinherited son makes good in the goldfields of Australia, returning home a wealthy man to marry Hester Bolton, but the delightfully wicked Euphemia Smith turns up to claim a prior marriage. Trollope makes interesting use of his Post Office experience to hinge the story on a forged postmark. “Mr Trollope has perhaps never hit upon a story that more strongly arouses the reader’s attention and sympathy, and never told one with more mastery of the whole situation, in small things no less than in great” (The Graphic, 26th July 1879).
Three volumes. Crown 8vo (181 x 120mm). vi,290; vi,296; vi,302,[ii]pp. Bound, complete with half-titles and final blank, in a most handsome later half morocco, gilt on wide bands and decorated with small onlay flowers, by Zaehnsdorf; all edges gilt; marbled sides and matching endpapers; just a hint of rubbing; a few minor internal marks, but overall clean and sound, and a very good set indeed. With the attractive bookplates of both Ernest George Mocatta (1849-1927), stockbroker and book-collector, and Harold Charles (Harley) Drayton (1901-1966), the renowned financier whose library was dispersed at Sotheby’s in 1968. Sadleir 55 – “very scarce in fine condition”.

£1,000

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London : Chapman & Hall, 1880. First edition. A fine and unduly neglected late novel, the last of the Palliser sequence and Trollope at his most moving and humane. “We come across many old friends of bygone days – the Duke of Omnium, Mr. and Mrs. Finn and many, many others ... we roam around Barsetshire ... The book is written in Mr. Trollope’s happiest style, and is one which, when once taken up, it will be found impossible to put down” (The Graphic, 29th May 1880).
Three volumes. Crown 8vo (20cm). viii,320pp; viii;(328); viii,312 + 24pp publishers’ catalogue. Original blue-green cloth, blocked in black and lettered in gilt; expertly recased and refurbished; endpapers rejointed; edges cleaned; some minor residual signs of age and wear; a few minor marks, but otherwise a very good and attractive set. With the bookplate of Leslie Benson in each volume and the earlier ownership inscription ‘Bradwell’ to each title-page.

£500

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London : Chapman & Hall, 1881. First edition. Lucy and Ayala Dormer left destitute by the death of their gifted but improvident artist father. “Possibly the most unjustly neglected of all Trollope’s novels ... and yet it is one of the most charming ... the lightest and airiest of them all, it has a gaiety and happiness and playfulness that Trollope ... never exceeded ... what vigour of scene and creation, what vitality of action and dialogue it contains” (Hugh Walpole). “The author has not written a better or pleasanter novel for a good many years” (Pall Mall Gazette, 28th May 1881).
Three volumes. Crown 8vo (189 x 121mm). iv,280; iv,272; iv,(278)pp. Bound (without final blank, no half-titles or advertisements called for) in an elegant later (mid-twentieth-century) half red morocco by Sangorski & Sutcliffe; top edges gilt; one or two tiny marks and edge-spots, but a very good, clean and fresh set of an uncommon late title.

£850

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London : Chapman & Hall, 1882. First edition. An uncommon late Trollope title – love, marriage, politics and class divisions. Lady Frances Trafford falls for a post-office clerk, her brother, Lord Hampstead, pays court to Marion Fay, a humble Quaker. “A course (two courses indeed) of true love that does not run quite smooth, a strong contrast of polite and by no means polite society, a Government office and its humours, some hunting scenes, an anonymous letter, the vain endeavours of crabbed age to control generous youth – these are the ingredients of ‘Marion Fay’, and it must be confessed that most of them have met before inside covers bearing Mr. Trollope’s respected name. But what of that?” (Pall Mall Gazette, 22nd June 1882).
Three volumes. Crown 8vo (182 x 115mm). viii,(304); viii,282; viii,(272)pp. Bound, with half-titles but without the final blank in vol.ii, in an elegant later (mid twentieth-century) half red morocco by Sangorski & Sutcliffe; top edges gilt; internally some occasional light thumbing and spotting, but a very good set. Bookseller’s label of Henry Sotheran Ltd. in vol.i. Sadleir 64.

£750

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London : Folio Society, 1951. First edition under this title – five of Trollope’s best short stories, one (Katchen’s Caprices) making its first appearance in book form, the others seemingly out of print since the nineteenth century. With an introduction by John Hampden. Also includes “The O’Conors of Castle Conor”, “The Journey to Panama”, and “The Turkish Bath”.
Demy 8vo (23cm). [xii],(170),[ii]pp. Wood-engraved illustrations and decorations by Joan Hassall. Original floral-patterned cloth; title-label; top edge red; edges and endleaves a little spotted, but otherwise a very good copy in the matching dust-jacket – a little worn at tips and slightly spotted on flaps, but still very good.

£40

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Oxford : Oxford University Press, (1999). First edition. A handsome companion, providing an alphabetical guide to Trollope’s work, friends, publishers, characters, topics, and anything else one might need.
Medium 8vo (25cm). xxiv,(626),[vi]pp. Portrait frontispiece. Illustrations. Maps. Original boards; a very good copy in the dust-jacket – just slightly creased on inner flap.

£25

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