RICHARD JEFFERIES FIRST EDITIONS AT
ASH RARE BOOKS
43 HURON ROAD
LONDON SW17 8RE
UNITED KINGDOM

London : Tinsley Brothers, 1877. First edition : in the primary binding. “The leading idea in the tale is this: at Birmingham there is an immense property without an owner, and two years ago over 100 claimants from America and other countries held a family council there ... Something similar (under different names of localities etc.) forms the nucleus of my novel which shows how this vast property influences the lives of many people” (Jefferies in a letter of July 1876). His rare third novel, intended to appeal to lovers of the sensational in the style of Wilkie Collins — “He certainly succeeds in seizing on his reader’s attention from the first start, and his story, with all its faults, is never for a moment dull or trivial” (The Graphic, 25th August 1877).
Three volumes. Crown 8vo (20cm). [iv],(250),[ii]; [iv],278; [iv],(290)pp. Original dove-grey cloth, lettered in gilt, and ruled and blocked in black and gilt; spines a little darkened; a little rubbed; some slight splash-marks and faint spots; two endpapers a little cracked; a little shaken in places; a few minor internal marks and small flaws, but overall a good set of a notable rarity — ranked by Sadleir as the scarcest of all Jefferies’ novels.

£750

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London : Smith, Elder & Co., 1880. First edition : in the primary binding, with Smith slightly taller than Elder on the spine, and the chocolate endpapers.
Crown 8vo (20cm). [2],(x),204,[iv]pp. Original blue cloth, ruled and blocked in black and blind, lettered across spine in gilt, and blocked in gilt on upper cover with Jefferies’ design of an anemone leaf; a little worn and lightly bruised; small scratch to spine; endpapers slightly cracked; some slight marks, minor chips and small flaws; some occasional pencil annotation, but a reasonable copy in cloth. With the contemporary (1882) ownership inscription and armorial bookplate of Robert Fiennes Hibbert J.P. (1860-1924), of Bucknell in Oxfordshire.

£40

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London : Smith, Elder & Co., 1880. First edition : one of just 1,500 sets printed. Twenty-eight classic essays – “Haymaking”, “The Fine Lady Farmer”, “An Ambitious Squire”, “The Parson’s Wife”, etc., forming “a complete account of all the elements that go to make up the agricultural population of England. We have pictures of every class who live beyond cities ... as accurate as it is artistic ... Nothing so good as ever been written on the subject, nothing in the least approaching to it” (contemporary review in The Examiner).
Two volumes. Crown 8vo (20cm). [2],(x),(360); [viii],312,[iv]pp. Original brown cloth, blocked a lettered in black and gilt, and in blind on lower covers (Miller & Matthews B); some minor wear to extremities; a few spots to prelims of vol.i, but overall a very good and sound copy. Small bookseller’s label of Alfred Wilson of 18 Gracechurch Street, London, in each volume.

£250

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London : Cassell, Petter & Galpin, 1881. First edition : the estimated size of the edition is just 500 copies. “Some delightful reading, especially in the earlier chapters, where a brave little boy named Bevis – they give him the pet name of Sir Bevis ... spends all the days of the summer in wondrous conversations with the birds, the insects, the little beasts, hare, rabbit, squirrel, weasel, field-mouse, and others, and with the trees and flowers, and the mystic voices of the brook and the west wind, haunting the rural home of his childhood” (Illustrated London News, 20th August 1881).
Two volumes. Post 8vo (195 x 125mm). (viii);(236),8; (vi),(264),8pp – advertisements in both volumes dated May 1881, Bound, without half-titles, in an attractive slightly later half olive morocco, banded and gilt, by James Speakman (1850-1925) of Liverpool, with his stamps; top edges gilt; marbled sides and endpapers; spines dulled to brown; some minor rubbing; a few edge spots, but a very good set.

SOLD

London : Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington, 1882. First edition : in the variant green (a) binding – Miller & Matthews (B15) make a persuasive case for regarding these slightly taller copies in green as having appeared earlier than the regular copies in brown. Jefferies and his haunting evocation of a Wiltshire childhood – “where there was magic in everything, blades of grass and stars, the sun and the stones upon the ground”.
Three volumes. Crown 8vo (180 x 119mm). viii,(288); iv,294,[ii]; iv,294,[ii]pp. Original decorative green cloth, blocked in black and gilt, and lettered in gilt; patterned endpapers; a few very minor signs of age and use; some occasional spotting to prelims and edges, but an excellent set. W. H. Smith blind-stamp to front free endpaper of the first volume.

SOLD

London : Richard Bentley & Son, 1884. First edition : just 625 sets were printed, of which only 425 were initially sent for binding. “Meadow and brook, wheat-fields and hills – a simple landscape, yet such as is not to be surpassed by any on earth. A common landscape – there are hundreds such in England – yet beyond compare. There are none like it elsewhere in the wide world” – Jefferies in his element in his native Wiltshire, with a novel characterised as “a sad little episode of cottage life, very tragic in its termination” (Reading Mercury, 20th September 1884). “Human nature, especially rustic human nature, has seldom if ever had a closer student or a more picturesque exponent” (The Graphic, 20th September 1884).
Two volumes. Crown 8vo (20cm). [ii],296; [ii],(328)pp. Decorative initials, head and tailpieces. Original green pebble-grain cloth, ruled and lettered in gilt; just a hint of rubbing and bruising; some spotting, mainly of edges and prelims, but a very good, bright and sound set.

£500

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London : Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington, 1887. First edition. His late novel, to some extent autobiographical and based on his own family and their small Wiltshire farm. “He has certainly made himself master of a peculiarly graceful and often fascinating style of fiction” (The Graphic, 28th May 1887).
Post 8vo (21cm). [viii],260pp – the variant without final blanks or advertisements. Original decorative cloth in a daffodil design; very faint crease to spine; some very minor rubbing; endpapers slightly cracked; some spotting, a little soiling to a few early leaves; still overall a very good and bright copy. With the 1904 ownership inscription of Ethel Mary Mountfort (1883-1966) of Cambridge.

£100

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London : Longmans, Green & Co., 1889. First edition : [the undifferentiated second impression, with the misprints corrected and in the paler binding]. A collection of twenty-nine essays, including Nature and Books, The Country Sunday, Buckhurst Park, House-Martins, Field Words and Ways, Summer in Somerset, etc.
Crown 8vo (20cm). viii,332 + 16pp advertisements dated June 1888. Original decorative cloth; spine a little worn and slightly creased; front endpaper cracked and split; a little marked; somewhat spotted; somewhat shaken and loose, but a serviceable copy. Miller & Matthews B26.3.

£25

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