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London : Henry Colburn, 1843. First one-volume and first fully illustrated edition. One of Ainsworth’s abidingly popular historical tales, set in the time of Henry VIII – Anne Boleyn, Cardinal Wolsey, Jane Seymour, etc. Originally published in book form in three volumes earlier in 1843, but here with the full panoply of illustrations utilised in the contemporary serialization in the author’s own “Ainsworth’s Magazine”.
Medium 8vo (24cm). x,[ii],324pp. Engraved portrait frontispiece after Daniel Maclise (1806-1870), decorative woodcut title by Thompson after Antoine “Tony” Johannot (1803-1852), with eighteen etchings – fourteen by the peerless George Cruikshank (1792-1878) and four by Johannot – plus eighty-seven wood engravings in the text by W. Alfred Delamotte (1775-1863). Bound in a handsome later (early twentieth-century) half crushed crimson morocco, banded and richly gilt by William Worsfold (1856-1929) of Frith Street, Soho, with his stamp; top edge gilt; marbled sides and endpapers; original cloth backstrip and upper cover (the earlier blue cloth) preserved at rear; a few minimal signs of age and use but a very good copy. Bookplate carefully removed, but a pencilled note records the book’s purchase from Kensington Palace State Apartments in 2006. For more on William Worsfold, see my Bookhunter on Safari blog-post for 13th January 2017.

£200

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Bristol : J. W. Arrowsmith, 1885. First edition : in the variant brown binding. A statue of Aphrodite brought to life by the application of an engagement ring and some make-up. Twice filmed, with Maud Cressall playing the Venus in 1921 and Ava Gardner in 1948.
Foolscap 8vo (17cm). [iv],192pp. Original brown cloth, ruled and lettered on front cover in black, and on spine in gilt; chocolate endpapers; spine a shade darkened; two corners lightly bruised; endpapers cracking at hinges, but otherwise very good. Sadleir 53. Wolff 167a.

£50

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London : Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green & Longman, 1836. First edition. “Now, when a lady tells a gentleman that ‘he is too bad’, he is apt to construe her assertion into a sort of avowal that he is not bad enough ...” – a wise and witty fiction from Lady Blessington, as an elderly gentleman looks back on lost loves and the foolishness of youth. The loves are each depicted in a finely worked engraving by leading engravers from the designs of Edward Thomas Parris (1793-1873) – Louisa, Arabella, Lady Mary, Lady Elmscourt, Lady Emily, and Caroline. “We need not recommend our friends to read this book – they must do so. The playful talents of Lady Blessington are very delightfully exercised ... and all is governed with a refined taste and correct moral sentiment” (The Examiner, 16th October 1836 – concluding a three-page review).
Royal 12mo (22cm). [iv],(288)pp. Six plates. Original terracotta cloth gilt – probably a slightly later variant – by Remnant & Edmonds, with their ticket; just a touch sunned; a few internal spots, but a very good copy. Small contemporary stamp of Williams’s Library, Cheltenham – the bookseller George Arthur Williams (1794-1880) – although the book appears unused.

£200

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London : Bradbury, Evans & Co., 1868. First edition. “If future generations wish to see representations and reproductions of how London men talked in the middle of the nineteenth century they will find them in ‘Sooner or Later’ ... the world ... ought to be grateful to him for the excellent novel he has provided – one of the best produced in recent times ... a work of genius, and admirably illustrated by the pencil of Du Maurier” (Edinburgh Evening Courant, 20th January 1868). A much-admired and somewhat controversial novel, too realistic for some Victorian tastes – “His development of character is admirable, especially in men and the queerer kind of women” (Pall Mall Gazette, 3rd February 1868) – from the journalist and playwright Shirley Brooks, later to become editor of “Punch”.
Two volumes. Demy 8vo (217 x 134mm). Fifteen wood-engraved plates and two title-page vignettes by George du Maurier (1834-1896). Bound in a smart near contemporary half green sealskin, banded and gilt; matching marbled sides, edges and endleaves; a few minimal signs of age and use; mild spotting of binder’s blanks, but overall a very good, clean and sound set. Ownership inscriptions of Thomas Lambert.

£200

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London : for John Murray, 1816. First edition of the third canto. “There was a sound of revelry by night ...”, etc.
Demy 8vo (209 x 129mm). [iv],76 [i.e.79],[i]pp. Bound, complete with half-title, in a smart recent binder’s cloth; last leaf a touch dusty, occasional slight spotting, but a very good copy.

£50

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London : John Murray / J. & H. L. Hunt / John Murray, 1823 / 1824 / 1821. Three Byron first editions bound together – “Werner” (the traditional first issue, without “The End” and the printer’s imprint on p.188, Byron’s gothic play set in a ruined castle on the Silesian frontier; the scarce “The Deformed Transformed” – a Faustian pact, and “Marino Faliero” (the traditional first issue, with the shorter speech on p.151) – an indecent libel on the Doge’s wife sets the action in train. The last also contains Byron’s long poem, “The Prophecy of Dante”. Three volumes, bound in one.
Demy 8vo (210 x 128mm). viii,188; 88; (xxii),(262)pp. Bound, without half-titles and advertisements, in contemporary half russia, now neatly rebacked in a stout and workmanlike morocco; marbled sides and edges; some minor external wear; a few leaves lightly bruised, but very good, clean and crisp texts of these three separately published Byron first editions. With the nineteenth-century armorial bookplate of Robert Hutton.

£250

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Edinburgh & London : William Blackwood & Sons, 1871. First edition. The founding fiction in the whole of the “imaginary wars” genre – a German invasion and conquest vividly envisioned in the wake of the lightning advances of the Prussian army in the Franco-Prussian War. Letters to the newspapers having failed, Chesney, a distinguished army engineer, successfully took to fiction to publicise the ramshackle state of the British armed forces. Originally published in “Blackwood’s Magazine”, profoundly influential, and subsequently much reprinted.
Foolscap 8vo (18cm). 64 + 8pp advertisements. Bound in neat recent boards, paper label – retaining the original pictorial mauve wrappers; wrappers a little worn and faded; a few spots, but a nicely preserved example. Dated (1880) ownership inscription of Gaston Démarest – this Louis Gaston George Démarest (1869-1955), born in Guildford, eleven miles from Dorking, brought up by his widowed French mother, and subsequently to work in the Scottish and northern shipyards in the years building up to the Great War.

£250

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Oxford / New York : Oxford University Press, 1983. First edition. Extensive selections from Clare’s scattered autobiographical writings. Edited by Eric Robinson. Illustrated with wood engravings by John Lawrence.
Demy 8vo (23cm). (xxii),(186)pp. Illustrations. Maps. Original boards; mild spotting of edges, but a very good copy in a just faintly rubbed dust-jacket.

£10

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London : William Heinemann, 1896. First British edition. His first book, “regarded as the first work of unalloyed naturalism in American fiction” (Milne Holton) and immediately inviting comparison in Europe with Hardy, Zola and Arthur Morrison’s “Tales of Mean Streets”. Originally published under a pseudonym at Crane’s own expense in 1893, but not issued under his own name until after the success of “The Red Badge of Courage” on both sides of the Atlantic. The British edition has a telling introduction by William Dean Howells (1837-1920) – “the girl herself, with her bewildered wish to be right and good, with her distorted perspective, her clinging and generous affections, her hopeless environments”.
Foolscap 8vo (17cm). (viii),(148),4pp. Original decorative navy buckram gilt; top edge gilt; endpapers a little tanned; a touch shaken; a few minor marks and spots, but overall a very good copy. With the dated (October 1896) ownership inscription and armorial bookplate of Walter Wren (1833-1898), briefly a radical Member of Parliament and later a member of the first London County Council.

£125

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London : Cynicus Publishing Co. / Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co., 1892. Second edition. The first and best of Anderson’s volumes of assaults on Victorian hypocrisy – mordant caricature with telling captions and verses – dedicated to the “dear deceitful world”. Originally published in a larger format in 1890.
Foolscap 4to (20cm). [80]pp. Illustrated throughout. Original decorative cloth gilt; all edges gilt; a little rubbed and worn; a little shaken; some marks, browning and slight signs of age and use, but a good and still bright copy.

£40

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London : Henry Frowde, 1905. First edition. “Dust and Wind”, “Ode on the Death of Dickens”, two hymns and seven other poems, selected and edited by Robert Bridges, who also contributes a memorial preface.
Crown 8vo (19cm). (xvi),(40)pp. Portrait frontispiece. Original blue-white weave linen, ruled in blind on upper and lower covers, and lettered across upper cover and spine in gilt; spine just a touch dulled and with two tiny marks; occasional slight browning and spotting, but a very good copy.

£40

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Edinburgh & London : William Blackwood & Sons, 1874. First edition. The title poem and nine further poems, including “Brother and Sister”, “Stradivarius”, “Two Lovers”, etc. – “A very welcome addition to our poetic literature, and sustains in a spirited way the noble reputation won by the author of ‘Romola’, as one of our very best caterers for mental and moral food, fancies that soothe, and thoughts that exalt, refine, and purify” (Morning Post, 6th July 1874).
Foolscap 8vo (171 x 106mm). [vi],242,16pp. Erratum slip. Near contemporary full polished tan calf, banded and gilt; top edge gilt; original cloth gilt preserved at rear; expertly refurbished and restored, retaining the original backstrip; endpapers replaced; a few trifling marks, but a very good copy.

£200

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London : John Murray, 1825. First edition. A first-hand account of Byron’s ill-fated venture into the Greek War of Independence – compiled from diaries written at the time by Byron’s chief assistant (and the brother of his mistress Teresa Guiccioli) – “one of the most amiable, brave, and excellent young men he had ever encountered”. Regarded as giving the most reliable account of Byron’s last days, Gamba offers no apologies “for being too minute in any details connected with the name of Byron and the cause of Greece”.
Demy 8vo (210 x 130mm). xii,(308)pp. Two folding facsimile letters. Bound, without half-title, in a near contemporary full purple calf, banded and gilt; tan label; marbled edges and endleaves; silk ribbon; some minor wear and slight scuffing; colour rather unsuccessfully touched up in places; occasional internal spotting, but still a handsome copy.

£250

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London : Methuen & Co., 1898. First edition. Probably Gissing’s most cheerful and commercially successful novel – instantly compared to Dickens by all the critics – Mr Gammon, the commercial traveller, and Polly Sparkes, the saucy programme-seller – with a dash of mystery and bigamy. “A thoroughly entertaining novel is a rare joy to both readers and reviewers ... to be recommended to all who like an original touch in their fiction, something with a dash of bitter in it, but sound, stimulating and strong” (St James’s Gazette, 1st September 1898).
Crown 8vo (20cm). vi,(314) + 40pp advertisements dated April 1898. Original red cloth, ruled and lettered in gilt; spine a little dulled; a few marks to cloth and slight crease to lower cover; a handful of internal marks and spots, but a good and sound copy. With the armorial bookplate (and 1921 note of purchase) of Oliver Brett – Oliver Sylvain Baliol Brett, Third Viscount Esher (1881-1963), man of letters and notable book-collector.

£75

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Edinburgh : for Archibald Constable & Co., 1817. First edition. “Invisible things are the only realities; invisible things alone are the things that shall remain” – the originator of the psychological novel, “intimately skilled in the perversity of the human mind, and in all the blackest and most horrible passions of the human heart” (Quarterly Review, 1817), takes on the issues of the English Civil War. Published not long before his daughter Mary Shelley produced “Frankenstein” and much admired by Shelley himself, who immediately sent a copy to Byron, describing it as Godwin’s best.
Three volumes. Demy 12mo (186 x 105mm). xii,306; [iv],316; [iv],(368)pp. Bound in a pleasant later (early twentieth-century) half tan polished calf, banded and gilt; olive labels; top edges gilt; marbled endpapers; text a little browned and spotted in places; neatly repaired tears to a couple of leaves, but overall a very good set. With the nautical bookplate of the book-collector Robert James Hayhurst (1929-2016). Wolff 2588 – but without the inserted advertisements.

£500

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London : Watts & Co., [1891]. First edition. An overtly polemical novel from the man credited as the first to use “humanist” in its modern sense – “Little more than a pamphlet; but a clever pamphlet, it must be confessed. Its purpose is to show the superiority of the Agnostic position over that of the Christian ... by imagining a Utopia, in New Guinea, inhabited by Agnostic colonists, who are as near moral perfection as it seems possible for mortal man to get. To them arrive three missionaries sent out to convert the Agnostics ... Two retire and the third is perverted by a charming female Agnostic” (Yorkshire Post, 29th July 1891).
Crown 8vo (19cm). 124,[iv] + [16]pp advertisements. Original blue cloth, ruled and lettered in gilt and blocked in blind; some minor wear at tips; a few slight marks, but a very good copy of a scarce book.

£125

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London : Richard Bentley, 1843. First edition. Sam Slick arrives in England in the unexpected guise of an Attaché to the American Legation at the Court of St. James. A sharp satire on English life by the first Canadian international best-selling author – “If our old friend, Sam Slick, be not the very wittiest person in the world, he is assuredly one of the most humorous. He is one of the few whose humour hath always point and purpose in it, and is ‘near about’ the only Yankee we have ever made acquaintance with who succeeded in warming us to feelings of hearty trustful cordiality” (Morning Post, 8th August 1843).
Two volumes. Post 8vo (193 x 110mm). vi,(278); vi,(290)pp. Bound, without half-titles, in a smart contemporary half tan calf, banded and gilt; contrasting red and green labels; marbled sides; silk ribbons; sprinkled edges; a little rubbed, marked, and slightly scuffed; a few spots, a couple of press creases, but still overall a very good copy. Armorial bookplates and ownership inscriptions of the well-to-do barrister, Justice of the Peace, and Deputy Lieutenant, Sir Mervyn Lloyd Peel (1856-1929) of Danyrallt.

£200

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London : Tinsley Brothers, 1867. First edition. A collection of stories, poems and occasional pieces by the gifted members of the Savage Club, assembled to afford some charitable relief to the young widow of one of their former members. Contributors include E. L. Blanchard, Andrew Halliday himself, W. S. Gilbert, Tom Hood, Arthur Locker, J. R. Planché, Clement W. Scott, Arthur Sketchley with one of his Mrs Brown stories, G. L. M. Strauss, Walter Thornbury, Artemus Ward, etc. With illustrations by a string of well-known artists, including Frederick Barnard, George Cruikshank, Gustave Doré, George Du Maurier, W. S. Gilbert, Ernest Griset, Arthur Boyd Houghton, Harrison Weir, etc. – engraved apparently free of charge by some of the best engravers in London.
Post 8vo (21cm). (344)pp. Plates. Illustrations. Head and tailpieces. Music, etc. Original red decorative cloth, heavily worked in gilt and blind, over bevelled boards; all edges gilt; spine a little worn and dulled, some marks to boards; slight spotting of prelims; a little shaken and slack; one leaf a little loose, but a good copy of an attractive and interesting production. Small ownership stamp of J. W. Clark.

£40

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London : Tinsley Brothers, 1869. First edition. Stories, poems and occasional pieces by the gifted members of the Savage Club, assembled to finance their charitable work. Contributors include Dion Boucicault, George Manville Fenn, George Grossmith, Andrew Halliday himself, Arthur Locker, John Oxenford, J. R. Planché, George Augustus Sala, Walter Thornbury, etc. With illustrations by Frederick Barnard, George Cruikshank, Gustave Doré, Gordon Thompson, Harrison Weir and many others, all engraved by the Dalziel Brothers.
Crown 8vo (20cm). 352pp. Additional decorative title (dated 1868). Plates and decorations. Music, etc. Original red cloth decorated in gilt and blind; spine a touch darkened and slightly nicked at head; some minor wear and a few slight marks, but a good and sound copy. With the contemporary armorial bookplate of Holroyd Chaplin (1840-1917), a well-to-do solicitor educated at Tonbridge School and London University.

£40

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London : Hurst & Blackett, 1857. First edition. His first book – a collection of whimsical essays, poems, stories, etc., from the younger Tom Hood – enlivened with his own illustrations.
Post 8vo (21cm). viii,(338) + (24),16pp advertisements. Illustrations. Original blue decorative cloth gilt, by Leighton, Son & Hodge, with their ticket; very slightly rubbed, slight spotting of edges, but a very good and bright copy.

£40

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Cambridge : Macmillan & Co., 1855. First edition. Kingsley’s ever-popular saga of the days of Drake, the Armada, etc. – “the most perfect romance that we have yet had from Mr. Kingsley’s pen ... he is in love with the manliness, hardihood, and imagination of our forefathers” (Daily News, 4th April 1855). The first novel ever published by Macmillan and probably unique in Victorian fiction in having a holiday resort named after it (much to Kingsley’s annoyance).
Three volumes. Crown 8vo (185 x 120mm). [2],viii,(304); vi,356; vi,(374)pp. Bound, with half-titles and preliminary advertisement, but without the inserted catalogue sometimes found, in a near contemporary quarter roan, ruled and lettered in gilt; marbled sides; sprinkled edges; some light wear; faint cracking to vol. iii; internally, some soiling, marking and fraying – especially to vol. i; one leaf with a more extensive repaired tear; occasional pencil marks; a reasonable and modestly priced set of a difficult Victorian classic. Small library stamps of Newtyle Public Library on p.41 of each volume – a Scottish provenance reinforced by some resonant pencil annotation to p.217 in vol iii – the passage relating to the execution of Mary Queen of Scots – “A confounded tissue of lies. Whether true or not – uncharitable”.

£250

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London & Cambridge : Macmillan & Co., 1866. First edition. The last novel published by Kingsley, Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge and friend of Darwin. The final resistance against the Norman conquerors – the “splendid barbarian” and folk-hero Hereward of the Fens, son of Leofric, Earl of Mercia and Lady Godiva – and his witch-wife Torfrida, “whose true witchery lay in her intellect, her courage, and her unswerving love” (The Globe, 30th April 1866). “To lovers of the old class of reading wherein the heroic deeds of our forefathers are graphically described, no better volumes could be read” (Cheltenham Chronicle, 10th July 1866).
Two volumes. Crown 8vo (184 x 123mm). viii,(366); viii,402,[ii]pp. Bound, without the advertisement leaf in vol.i sometimes found, in an elegant later (early twentieth-century) half black morocco; top edges gilt; marbled endleaves; some very minor rubbing and bruising; a few occasional internal marks and spots, but an attractive set. From the notable modern collection of Robert James Hayhurst (1929-2016), with his bookplate.

£500

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London : Macmillan & Co., 1899. First edition. "In summer all right-minded boys built huts in the furze-hill behind the college – little lairs whittled out of the heart of the prickly bushes, full of stumps, odd root-ends, and spikes, but, since they were strictly forbidden, palaces of delight".
Post 8vo (195 x 122mm). (xii),272,[ii]pp. Bound in a smart recent half red morocco; top edge gilt; original cloth gilt sides retained; a very attractive copy. Stewart 195.

£200

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London : Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1903 [but 1902]. First edition. A laser-like ray for sky-writing in letters of flame doubles as a death-ray – a joint Russo-French coalition delivers an ultimatum to England. “It is all due to the machine, which is found to have the power to kill every living thing in the world” (London Evening Standard, 21st November 1902). “The death count of this Future [1909] War is unusually high” (Encyclopedia of Science Fiction).
Crown 8vo (19cm). 230,[ii]pp. Frontispiece and extra pictorial title. Original pictorial cloth; some minor rubbing; some mild spotting of edges, but still a very good copy. Sunday School prize label dated Xmas 1903 on front pastedown, made out to Harry Morehen (1895-1953), son of a Gloucester hairdresser, for regular attendance and good conduct – signed by local vicar Enoch Brooke Bradley (1854-1945).

£100

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London : Henry Colburn, 1841. First edition. Lauder’s second collection of carefully preserved highland legends – a world of warlocks, water-kelpies, dominies and fighting men, with the Legend of the Clan-Allen Stewarts, etc.
Three volumes. Post 8vo (195 x 118mm). xxiv,292; [vi],294; [vi],(324)pp. Six etched plates by “Phiz” (Hablot Knight Browne). Bound in an attractive contemporary half red calf, with green labels, banded and gilt; marbled edges and endpapers; some mild rubbing and some occasional internal marking and spotting; plates spotted, but overall still a very good set.

SOLD

London : Robert John Bush, 1877. First edition. More inspired nonsense from Edward Lear – with the present volume containing the first appearance of “The Dong with the Luminous Nose”, “The Pobble Who Has No Toes”, “The Yonghy-Bonghy-Bò”, “The Akond of Swat”, etc.
Foolscap 4to (21cm). [128],4pp. Numerous illustrations by the author. Original pictorial cloth gilt over bevelled boards, in a Lear design, by W. Bone & Son; expertly resewn and refurbished; endpapers replaced; a few small marks to covers; light spotting to prelims, but overall a very good copy. Contemporary armorial bookplate of the Tatton family – presumably at this date that of Thomas Egerton Tatton (1846-1924).

£500

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London : Robert John Bush, 1877. First edition. More inspired nonsense from Edward Lear – with the present collection containing the first appearance of “The Dong with the Luminous Nose”, “The Pobble Who Has No Toes”, “The Yonghy-Bonghy-Bò”, “The Pelican Chorus”, “The Akond of Swat”, etc.
Foolscap 4to (200 x 158mm). [128],4pp. Numerous illustrations by the author, music, etc. Bound in an elegant recent half russet morocco, banded and gilt; top edge gilt; some internal marks and spots, but a handsomely bound copy of some of the most inspired nonsense in the language.

£500

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London : Chapman & Hall, 1845. First edition : in the more elaborate and earliest binding. Clearly modelled on Dickens’ treatment of social issues in his Christmas books, Lever tackles the Irish issue of absentee landlords – “a very pretty little volume ... dedicated to his children with a desire to inculcate this truth, ‘that prosperity has as many duties as adversity has sorrows’ ... painted with his customary force of genius and his usual glowing and effective colouring” (Liverpool Mail, 29th March 1845).
Pott 4to (18cm). [iv],(204)pp. Four etched plates, pictorial title, and wood-engraved illustrations by “Phiz” – Hablot Knight Browne (1815-1882). Original decorative green cloth, blocked in gilt and blind in a design of harps, shamrocks, etc.; all edges gilt; a touch sunned; a few slight marks; some spotting and browning, mainly to plates, but a very good, bright and sound copy.

£50

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London : George Routledge & Sons, 1868. First British edition. “A solid man of Boston; a comfortable man with dividends, And the first salmon and the first green peas ...”.
Foolscap 8vo (18cm). (viii),(224),8pp. Original variant blue cloth, ruled, blocked and lettered in blind and gilt; chocolate endpapers; lightly rubbed; spine a touch darkened; some marking to lower cover; a few slight marks, but a very good copy. With the contemporary (1868) ownership inscriptions of Ellen L. Orton.

£25

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Dundee : David Winter & Son / London : Gerald Duckworth & Co., 1962. First edition. Over fifty new poems from the Great McGonagall discovered in Dundee Public Library. With his own biographical sketch and reminiscences.
Crown 8vo (20cm). (180)pp. Facsimile. Original tartan boards; very faintly rubbed, but a very good copy in the matching dust-jacket, lightly rubbed and a little worn. Dated (1987) ownership inscription of Joyce K. Gunn.

£25

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London : Magpie Press, (1966). First edition : one of about 100 numbered copies in wrappers (of about 130). A selection of fifteen poems of love and urgency, designed and printed by Derek Maggs – Herrick, Waller, Spenser, Keats, Shakespeare, Jonson, and of course Marvell, etc.
Crown 8vo (19cm). (26),[ii]pp. Original grey textured wrappers, lettered and decorated in green; very good.

£20

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London : G. & W. B. Whittaker / Geo. B. Whittaker / Whittaker, Treacher & Co., 1824-1832. First edition. A complete first edition set of the five-volume series of her much-loved and most famous work – sharp, affectionate, precise and amused sketches of village life in Regency England – “Our landlord has a stirring wife, a hopeful son, and a daughter, the belle of the village; not so pretty as the fair nymph of the shoe-shop, and far less elegant, but ten times as fine; all curl-papers in the morning, like a porcupine, all curls in the afternoon, like a poodle, with more flounces than curl-papers, and more lovers than curls ...”. Walks in the Country, A Country Cricket-Match, A Christmas Party, Christmas Amusements, The Mole-Catcher, Children of the Village, The Cribbage Players, and so much more.
Five volumes. Crown 8vo (180 x 108mm). viii,292; vii[i],(312); viii,315,[i]; viii,345,[i]; iv,362pp. Bound, without half-titles and advertisement leaves, in a smart twentieth-century half tan calf, banded and gilt, for Sotheran; contrasting red and green labels; top edges gilt; a few minor marks and spots; the very occasional crease; mild offsetting in one volume; one leaf with tiny repair, but overall a very good set. With the nautical bookplate of George G. Stevenson in each volume. Sadleir 1752.

£1,000

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London : Methuen & Co., 1894. First edition. Morrison’s extraordinary vision of the late Victorian mean streets of the East End of London – “Unquestionably an achievement of art ... something more than remarkable. The tune is new in the sense in which the new woman, and the new drama, and the new hedonism, and the other clamant bores of the period are not new ... It is akin to a shock, to a sudden gust of east wind. But to those who care for all humanity ... it should be something like a godsend” (Pall Mall Gazette, 19th November 1894).
Crown 8vo (20cm). (302),[ii] + 32pp advertisements dated October 1894. Original dark green cloth, ruled and lettered in gilt; a few trifling signs of age and use; mild tanning of endpapers; a few slight spots, but a very good copy.

£250

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Edinburgh & London : William Blackwood & Sons, 1882. First edition. Oliphant in top form with a dozen essays, sketches and stories of a gently satirical turn – “A Turkish Effendi on Christendom and Islam”, “Moral Reflections by a Japanese Traveller”, “The Autobiography of a Joint-Stock Company”, “The Newest American Railroad”, “A New Method of Social Evolution”, “Knight-Errantry in the Nineteenth Century”, etc. “A more thoroughly enjoyable book has not appeared in many a long day” (Morning Post, 19th August 1882).
Post 8vo (194 x 123mm). (x),(430)pp. One illustration. Bound in an elegant later half burgundy morocco, by Bickers & Son; top edge gilt; marbled endleaves; just a touch sunned; some spotting, especially of edges and prelims, but otherwise a very good copy. Armorial bookplate of R. D. Jackson.

£200

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Cambridge : Macmillan & Co., 1861. First edition : one of the 2,000 copies of the first impression, with the roman rather than gothic half-title, just four notes on p.323, etc. The original appearance of a perennial favourite – close on 300 of the finest poems in the language from seventy-five or so poets – from Sir Thomas Wyatt, Marlowe and Shakespeare, to Shelley and Keats. With a preface and some extensive notes by Palgrave.
Foolscap 8vo. [4],[viii],332pp. Engraved vignette by Charles Henry Jeens (1827-1879) after Thomas Woolner (1825-1892). Bound in a smart recent half crimson morocco, banded and gilt – retaining the original cloth gilt (the priced, earliest variant) at rear; a handful of spots, a small flaw to the final leaf, but a very good copy. Contemporary ownership inscription on title-page and some neat pencil markings to margins in places.

£400

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Cambridge : Macmillan & Co., 1861. First edition : mixed issue – with the four (rather than six) notes on p.323, obviously indicating the earlier printing, but with the gothic (rather than plain) half-title. The original appearance of a perennial favourite – close on 300 of the finest poems in the language from seventy-five or so poets – from Sir Thomas Wyatt, Marlowe and Shakespeare, to Shelley and Keats. With a preface and some extensive notes by Palgrave.
Foolscap 8vo (162 x 103mm). [4],[viii],332pp. Engraved vignette by Charles Henry Jeens (1827-1879) after Thomas Woolner (1825-1892). Bound in an elegant recent half green morocco, banded and gilt – retaining the original cloth spine and upper panel (by Burn) at rear (the Carter “C” unpriced variant, although Carter makes a case of probability not certainty for the ordering of the variants); contrasting label (erroneously lettered “The Golden Treasures”); marbled sides; some occasional light spotting, but overall a very good copy. Contemporary (1862) pencilled ownership inscription of Marion Campbell of Edinburgh. The tickets of both Burn and the Edinburgh bookseller William Pattison Kennedy (1804?-1877) neatly reinserted.

£400

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London : Macmillan & Co., 1885. First edition. The great stylist’s philosophical novel of ancient Rome – the young Marius, secretary to the stoic Marcus Aurelius, pursues integrity and the aesthetic life. One of the most remarkable novels of the period, stretching the boundaries of fiction, and exploring questions of morality, religion, philosophy and gender. A key text of the modern movement, influencing authors as diverse as Hardy, Joyce, Wilde and Woolf. “We consciously looked to Pater for our philosophy” (W. B. Yeats).
Two volumes. Post 8vo (202 x 132mm). [viii],260; [viii],246,[ii]pp. Bound in an elegant later (early twentieth-century) half blue morocco; marbled sides and endpapers; top edges gilt; a few very faint signs of age and use, but a very good set of an uncommon book. With the pictorial book-room bookplate of Allan D. Macdonald and the later (1950) ownership inscription of David Fyfe Anderson (1904-1988), the Scottish obstetrician, in each volume.

£400

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London : Parker, Son & Bourn, 1861. First edition : in Carter’s primary binding of green pebble-grain cloth. Peacock’s final novel – a country house, eccentric guests – and full to the last of his “inveterate prejudices and pugnacious hostility to every modern innovation” (Garnett).
Post 8vo (20cm). viii,316,(4)pp. Original cloth; some minor wear; endpapers cracking; text somewhat shaken and a little slack; some mild discolouration to first few leaves; occasional marking and spotting; but a good and presentable copy in cloth. With the neat ownership inscriptions of members of the Vachell and Wilson families. Wolff 5479. Carter (BV) pp.146-147 & (MBV) p.32.

£100

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London : David Nutt, 1910. First edition. The first publication of three Peacock plays discovered among the manuscripts acquired by the British Museum in 1903 – “The Dilettanti”, “The Circle of Loda” and “The Three Doctors”. Edited and introduced by Peacock’s biographer, Arthur ButtonYoung (1877-1960).
Pott 4to (16cm). [2],(xiv),(158),[ii]pp. Original red cloth, ruled and blocked in blind and lettered in gilt; top edge gilt; lightly rubbed and a little dull; endpapers a little tanned, but a good and partly unopened copy. Contemporary pencilled ownership inscription of H. J. Marshal, with some further pencilled annotation and underlining to the first play, suggestive of it having been used for a production.

£50

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London : Richard Bentley, 1866. First edition. “La Puebla de los Angeles is peculiar, even among the cities of modern Mexico; peculiar in the fact, that two-thirds of its population are composed of priests, pelados, poblanas, pickpockets, and picarones of a bolder type”. Love and bandits in the mountains.
Post 8vo (21cm). [iv],308pp. Frontispiece. Original pictorial cloth gilt; some very minor rubbing and wear; some spotting of prelims, but still overall a very good copy.

£125

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London : Elkin Mathews, 1896 [i.e. 1895]. First edition. The short-lived Ruding’s scarce and only novel – he died at the age of twenty-five less than a month after it was published. Slated by the critics and undeniably flawed, but very consciously a new kind of fiction – startling, impressionistic, psychological, experimental and fin-de-siècle – and marked out as so by a dramatic cobwebby cover and a fine frontispiece by Aubrey Beardsley.
Post 8vo (21cm). [2],x,(100),20pp. Frontispiece – the regular “Portrait” variant, rather than the “Black Coffee” design found in a handful of pre-publication copies – by Aubrey Beardsley. Original blue cloth, blocked in lighter blue and and lettered in bronze; lightly rubbed; spine dulled (as always); endpapers lightly tanned; a few minor spots and creases, but a good copy of a difficult title. Krishnamurti 573. Lasner 94. For more on Walt Ruding, see my Bookhunter on Safari blog-post of 21st March 2013.

£100

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London : George Routledge & Sons, 1895. First British edition. “A remarkably pretty woman had just whirled past in a sleigh ... ‘How in the world did she turn up in New York in January! Too much rapid transit in this world!’ ... This year of ninety reminds me that my life has been deficient in sleigh-rides”. The colourful and adventurous soldier-turned-popular-author here going completely over the top in Victorian yellow-back format. Originally published in Chicago in 1894. “Colonel Richard Henry Savage wields a pen of power” (Saturday Review, 5th November 1892).
Crown 8vo (19cm). [vi],304,4,[iv]pp – advertisements dated 1894. Original pictorial boards; a little rubbed and worn; a little shaken; text a little brittle and tanned, with occasional slight chipping; one leaf more heavily chipped, without affecting the text, but a good copy of a scarce and fragile production. Small bookseller’s label of Neal’s Library of Paris on front paste-down.

£100

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London : Henry Colburn & Richard Bentley, 1829. First edition. “The characters, though under assumed names, are reported to be admirable portraits of many celebrated living personages” (Morning Post, 28th October 1829). Two well-told stories, “founded on certain actual occurrences that have recently occupied the attention of our courts of law” (London Evening Standard, 6th November 1829). “In the former [Second Thoughts are Best] ... a young foolish fellow runs away from his home and gets into all the vices of London, becomes acquainted with a gang of gypsies, is taken up for a burglary, and then repents and becomes a philosopher and gentleman. From ‘New Neighbours’ we learn the art of becoming acquainted with those who live next door to us, an art, by-the-bye, very little known in London” (Monthly Review, March 1830). Scargill, also the author of “Blue-Stocking Hall” (1827), etc., had already secured a reputation for his acute observation of human foibles and frailties, laced with wit and humour.
Three volumes, bound in two. Demy 12mo (187 x 115mm). [ii],306; [ii],170; [ii],171-309, [ii],300pp – title page to vol.ii moved to form a title for the second volume, title-page to vol.iii discarded. Bound in a lavish full contemporary deep pink calf; banded and richly gilt, with blind-stamped decorative panels; green labels; marbled endpapers and edges; some mild rubbing; spines darkened to red, but a very good and handsome set. With the armorial bookplate of Maxwell of Polloc in each volume – Sir John Maxwell (1768-1844), 7th Baronet of Pollock, a flamboyant figure and as a Member of Parliament a “champion of the rights and liberties of the people”, husband to Lady Hannah Maxwell, herself “an ultra reformer, the best in the nation”. Not in Sadleir or Wolff.

£400

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Edinburgh : Archibald Constable & Co., 1826. First edition. Scott in the thick of the Civil War – Cromwell, Charles II, etc. Written rapidly to earn his way out of financial difficulties, the reviewers found the novel flawed and occasionally wayward in its history, but it became a huge commercial success and remains one of his most popular titles.
Three volumes. Crown 8vo (190 x 121mm). xvi,(316); [ii],332; [ii],370pp. With the two cancel-leaves reported by Worthington in all copies examined – the title-page to vol.i and leaf L4 in vol.iii (the latter in second state). Bound (without half-titles) in a neat near contemporary silk-cloth, leather labels; a little sunned, some minor wear, occasional slight spotting, but otherwise a very good set. With the armorial “Fide et Constantia” bookplate of William John Lee in each volume.

£100

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London : John Murray, 1845. First edition. A key novel in the whole Tractarian, Young England, Oxford Movement controversies of the times – a lament for the loss of Anglican faith, hostility to the industrial world, profound opposition to Rome and the Jesuits – and yet also a lurid and sensational novel, widely read and hugely popular, especially in the United States. “Hawkstone has the rare merit of being written throughout with more or less of intellectual power. It does not contain a single page in which the evidence of mind is not apparent” (John Bull, 29th March 1845).
Two volumes. Foolscap 8vo (159 x 99cm). viii,396; [ii],422pp. Bound, without half-titles, in a neat contemporary half tan calf, banded, gilt, and worked in blind; black labels; marbled sides, edges, and endleaves; some very minor wear; a handful of internal spots, but a very good set. Contemporary ownership inscriptions of Mary Hobson, and later owner’s 1909 name.

£200

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London : Oxford University Press, 1927. A handsomely bound edition of the comprehensive Shelley edited and introduced by Thomas Hutchinson (1856-1938) and first published by the OUP in 1904. Includes the prefaces by Mary Shelley written for the 1824 and 1839 editions of his poems.
Crown 8vo (189 x 122mm). xxiv,912pp. Portrait frontispiece. Bound for Harrow School in a pleasant contemporary half diced calf, banded and gilt; top edge gilt; marbled endpapers; some mild rubbing and wear, a couple of slight marks, but a very good copy. Laid in to the front endpaper is the printed armorial Harrow prize label from the tenure of Sir Cyril Norwood as headmaster, 1926-1934, made out in manuscript to G. D. Petherick in 1932 – George David Petherick (1917-1986), soldier and barrister.

£100

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London : Frank Palmer, (1913). First edition in English of “I Hafsbandet” (1890). Strindberg’s novel of isolation and resistance – a clever outsider arrives at a remote village in the archipelago as the Superintendent of Fisheries. Translated by Ellie Schleussner.
Crown 8vo (19cm). 324pp. Original pictorial cloth, gilt and enamelled; just a touch sunned; some spotting to endpapers and prelims, but a very good copy. Contemporary gift inscription dated Christmas 1913.

£200

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London : Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., 1903. A handsome and lavishly produced edition of Surtees’ classic of sporting humour, produced for the Trübner Sporting Library series. John Jorrocks originally surfaced in the “New Sporting Magazine” in 1831, and first appeared in book form in 1838, but here appears with the original illustrations from all the various early editions – by Henry Alken, “Phiz” and William Heath – including an Alken illustration previously unpublished. With an interesting introduction on the history of the book and its illustrations by Joseph Grego (1843-1908), noted authority on illustration and its techniques.
Super royal 8vo (258 x 172mm). xxii,(356)pp. Frontispiece, extra pictorial title, twenty-nine tissue-guarded plates – twenty-two with original hand colour – and nine illustrations in text. Bound in an elegant contemporary half red crushed morocco for Hatchard’s; banded and gilt; top edge gilt; marbled endleaves; a few very minor signs of age and use; some spotting to text, but otherwise a very good copy indeed. Dated 1906 gift inscription from Alwyn(e) Ainsworth Crossley (1881-1933) to S. M. Crossley – presumably his widowed mother, Sarah Maude Crossley (1847-1938).

£200

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London : Folio Society, 1949-1956. A complete set of the sporting novels, each volume lavishly produced with individually hand-coloured facsimiles of the original nineteenth-century illustrations by John Leech, Henry Alken and Hablot Knight Browne. Comprises “Jorrocks’ Jaunts and Jollities”; “Mr. Sponge’s Sporting Tour”; “Handley Cross”; “Mr. Facey Romford’s Hounds”; “Plain or Ringlets”; “Ask Mamma”; “Hawbuck Grange” and “Hillingdon Hall”.
Eight volumes. Medium 8vo (23cm). Original scarlet buckram; one volume a little bruised; another with mild crinkling to some plates; endpapers lightly tanned; mild spotting of edges, but a very good set in the original Faith Jacques dust-jackets – these a little worn and chipped in some cases, more heavily so on one volume, but all now laid down, repaired and reinforced with linen to prevent further deterioration.

£200

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London : George Vickers, 1863 [i.e.1862]. First edition. “Yes, I am a thief! I will not say that I glory in the title ... but, as I am about to write my ‘Confessions’, as other men, great in their way – and I am a very great man in mine – have done before me, I may as well start fair, and own myself at once what I am, what I always have been, what I was born, bred, and brought up – A THIEF!” – the book was announced in the “London Evening Standard” on 11th December 1862 as to be published in ornamental boards at a shilling and sixpence on the 15th December – “The disclosures made in this volume will be read with deep and peculiar interest. It is full of information”. Sometimes attributed to Irving Lyons, author of “The Boy Pirate” and “Black Rollo, the Pirate”, although no contemporary person of that name has been traced. The book was evidently not a success: 896 copies were auctioned off at Hodgson’s in October 1863, along with 50,000 assorted others books classified as “capital popular books, railway reading, &c.”.
Foolscap 8vo (17cm). viii,312pp. Original decorative boards; spine darkened, worn and chipped; edges rubbed; lower hinge cracking; lacks front free endpaper; an indifferent but serviceable copy of a cheaply made and extremely rare book. Just two copies (Amsterdam and Harry Ransom, Texas) of this edition located in major libraries worldwide, none in the United Kingdom.

£250

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London : Richard Bentley, 1837. First edition. A novel with the reputation of being her best – a stinging satire on evangelicalism, with an unscrupulous vicar who manipulates the more susceptible women of the parish – “We do not know that we have ever read a work of fiction, similar in general character, superior to ‘The Vicar of Wrexhill’. Never, certainly, have we met with a more able, a more ingeniously conducted exposure of canting hypocrisy” (The Scotsman).
Three volumes. Demy 12mo (195 x 114mm). [iv],324; [iv],328; [iv],(344)pp. Frontispieces and six striking further plates drawn and etched by Auguste Hervieu (1795-1880). Bound, with both half-titles called for, in a nineteenth-century half roan with marbled sides and the binder’s labels of Fr. Ljunggrens of Goteborg – now fully rebacked in a recent chestnut morocco, banded and gilt, with black labels; some occasional spotting and browning; a few minor marks, nicks, creases and small flaws, but overall a very good set of an uncommon book.

£500

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London : for G. B. Whittaker / Bath : John Upham / Exeter : Charles Upham, 1824. First edition. “One of the most intellectual and imaginative productions of the age” (Monthly Critical Gazette, 1st December 1824). Bookseller, orientalist and quondam mayor of Exeter, Upham intended his anonymous tale to introduce readers to the full glories of ancient Egypt – “a series of data, whereby may be formed a knowledge and appreciation of this ancient and illustrious kingdom, resorted to by the wisest and best of the philosophers, the sages, and legislators of Greece, and pronounced by them to be ‘the mother of arts, and the fountain of wisdom’”.
Three volumes. Crown 8vo (187 x 111mm). viii,(342); [ii],(322); [ii],328pp. Bound, without half-titles and a final blank, in an attractive near contemporary half blue-green polished calf, worked in blind on broad bands, ruled and lettered in gilt; red labels; marbled sides; some mild rubbing and a few minor signs of age and use, but a very good, crisp and sound set. Bookplate with the unicorn crest of the Marquesses of Conyngham in each volume and the contemporary ownership inscription of A. Conyngham in vol.i - presumably the diplomat Albert Denison Conyngham (1805-1860), later first Baron Londesborough. Wolff 6925 - not in Sadleir.

£400

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London : Smith, Elder & Co., 1892. First edition. An early novel of faith and doubt from the sterling Mrs Humphry Ward, Tasmanian-born grand-daughter of Dr. Arnold of Rugby. “Though the book is by no means sensational, its violent death-rate is very high. We hear of at least three deaths by accident, and two by suicide, while the mortality is heightened by two cases of cancer, one of consumption, and one of diphtheria. The boy and girl pass through a very rough childhood” (Pall Mall Gazette, 22nd January 1892) – for all that, the novel proved popular with the public, reaching a tenth edition by July 1894.
Three volumes. Crown 8vo (20cm). [xii],388; [viii],388; [viii],396pp. Original cloth, lettered and blocked in gilt and blind; very short split to lower joint of vol.i; a little sunned; the patterned endpapers a little tanned; preliminary blank neatly removed from vol.i; but still a clean and pleasant-looking set. Pencilled ownership inscriptions of Cyril D. Fitzroy, dated Oxford 1905 – this Cyril Duncombe Fitzroy (1861-1939), an Inspector of Schools for Art Instruction. Sadleir 3288. Wolff 7017.

£100

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London : Charles Dickens & Evans, 1873. First edition. The younger Charles Dickens revives his father’s Christmas Numbers – pictures come to life in a German castle and tell their dreadful stories – “An introductory chapter to connect the tales, and a concluding one to wind them up. The five tales are all very good ... Altogether we should be puzzled to name any Christmas number of All the Year Round fuller of amusement and enthralling incidents than will be found here, and we commend it heartily” (The Era, 14th December 1873). The framing story is by Edmund Yates, friend of Dickens, foe of Thackeray, and occasionally compared to Trollope – eliciting the famous “That’s not very high praise” remark by Dickens. Yates may also have written some, if not all, of the other chapters.
Royal 8vo (25cm). 48pp. With three flyers on coloured paper for insurance companies loosely inserted. Original blue wrappers, ruled and lettered in black; lightly worn and a little creased; some mild spotting, but a good and bright copy of a fragile production.

£25

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London : Macmillan & Co., 1879. First edition. A physician dies leaving his widow with a medical discovery to be passed on to whichever of his sons is best equipped to perfect it and most apt to benefit the world with it. “The chief interest of the novel, however, is due to Miss Yonge’s never-failing genius for working up minute and photographic details, stroke by stroke, until we know her characters so well that it will be strange if we ever forget them” (The Globe, 30th January 1880).
Three volumes. Crown 8vo (20cm). iv,314; iv,(315)-636; iv,(637)-956pp. Original green decorative cloth gilt; some mild rubbing and slight bruising; some spotting of edges and prelims; a few slight creases, but overall a very good set. Not listed in Sadleir or Wolff.

£200

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London : Macmillan & Co., 1880. First edition. “There is always a pleasurable feeling of expectation in opening a new novel by Miss Yonge and that lady’s many admirers need not be told that there is a certainty of more or less satisfaction from anything she writes” (Morning Post, 14th September 1880). A lost inheritance, a secret love – Major Delavie and his three daughters encounter the wonderfully villainous Lady Belamour.
Two volumes. Crown 8vo (20cm). [viii],288; [viii],304pp. Original green cloth, ruled and lettered in gilt, and blocked in black; a little rubbed and worn; endpapers cracking; a little slack; a few internal marks, nicks and spots, but a good and serviceable cloth set.

£125

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London : William Heinemann, 1892. First edition. “The Old Maids’ Club was founded by Lillie Dulcimer in her sweet seventeenth year. She had always been precocious, and could analyse her own sensations before she could spell. In fact, she divided her time between making sensations and analysing them ...”. Twenty entertaining tales from the annals of the club, including the very funny “Algebra of Love”, “The Man in the Ironed Mask”, “The Old Young Woman and the New”, “The Mysterious Advertiser”, “The Beautiful Ghoul”, etc. – “Two books for the holiday season, to be read lounging in a hammock, or under the shadow of a cliff, are Mr. Zangwill’s ‘Old Maids’ Club’, and Mr. Grossmith’s ‘Diary of a Nobody’. The former is very droll in places ...” (Cheltenham Looker-On, 20th August 1892). “Worth all the inanities of Jerome K. Jerome and all the thin fun of Barry Pain bundled together” (Glasgow Evening Post, 30th June 1892).
Crown 8vo (20cm). viii,326,[ii] + 16pp advertisements dated March 1892. Forty-four amusing illustrations by F. H. Townsend (1869-1920). Original decorative cloth; some minor wear; spine a touch dulled; cloth slightly bubbled; endpapers lightly tanned; a few spots, but a good copy. Contemporary (1892) ownership inscription of C. A. Newman of Cambridge.

£50

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London : Chatto & Windus, 1896. Second edition in English. “The Belly of Paris” – set in and around Les Halles, the great central food market of Paris, and Zola’s first novel entirely to concentrate on the working class. Originally published French in 1873 and in English by Henry Vizetelly in 1888, the year before he was imprisoned under the obscene libel laws specifically for publishing Zola, and here in a revised translation with a new introduction by his son, Ernest Alfred Vizetelly (1853-1922).
Crown 8vo (20cm). [2],xiv,314,[ii],4 + 32pp inserted advertisements dated October 1895. Original decorative cloth in an attractive floral design; floral endpapers; some minor wear at extremities; top edge a little dusty, but still a very good copy. Small bookseller’s label (Palmeira House, Brighton and Hove Stores) on front pastedown.

£40

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