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English literature pre-1900
WELLS, H. G. Les premiers hommes dans la lune.Paris : [1901]
First van Maële edition, the preferred issue, perhaps the most extraordinary graphic realization of Wells's classic lunar novel. This copy retains the exceptionally rare dust jacket, which features an illustration that appears neither in the book nor on the binding.
Van Maële's vivid depictions of the moon and its Selenite inhabitants...Learn More
BESANT, Annie. An Autobiography.London : 1893
First edition, signed by the publisher on the front free endpaper, "With T. Fisher Unwin's kind regards and compts., Xmas 1893". Besant's autobiography covers her activities as a socialist, atheist, and supporter of Irish self-determination. Her key role in the Match Girl's Strike is also mentioned, with 2 plates showing the members of the...Learn More
BOSWELL, James. The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.London : 1791
First edition of the greatest biography in the English language, "one of Western literature's most germinal achievements" (ODNB). Contemporary copies of Boswell's Life of Johnson bound in one are unusual, but the book is perfectly manageable - indeed rather handsome - as a single volume. The copy includes the additions and corrections to the work,...Learn More
JUVENALIS, Decimus Junius, & PERSIUS FLACCUS, Aulus. The Satires.London : 1693
First edition thus, a complete English verse translation of the two great Latin satirists by various hands. All seven of Persius's satires, along with Juvenal's Satires I, III, VI, X, and XVI, are translated by John Dryden; Juvenal's Satire VII is by his son Charles and Satire XIV by his other son, John.
One of Tonson's handsome folios, the...Learn More
AUSTEN, Jane. Mansfield Park:London : 1814
First edition of Austen's third and longest novel. Begun in early 1811, around the same time as Sense and Sensibility was accepted for publication, Mansfield Park was published in May 1814 in an edition of 1,250 copies. The publisher John Murray later "expressed astonishment that so small an edition of such a work should have been sent into the...Learn More
WILDE, Oscar. The Works.London : 1908-22
First collected edition, one of 1,000 sets on handmade paper, edited by Wilde's most constant friend and literary executor, Robert Ross (1869-1918). It prints previously unpublished material, including the uncompleted play A Florentine Tragedy, a fragment of another (La Sainte Courtisane), and various lectures.
An additional 80 copies were...Learn More
AUSTEN, Jane. Northanger Abbey: and Persuasion.London : 1818
First edition of Austen's final published work, pairing Northanger Abbey, probably the first full-length novel she wrote, with Persuasion, her last completed novel. Her brother Henry's biographical notice, dated 13 December 1817, is the first acknowledgement in print of Jane Austen as the author of her six novels.
Austen wrote Northanger...Learn More
SHAKESPEARE, William. The Poems and Sonnets.Stamford, Connecticut, : 1939
First Overbrook edition, first printing, one of 150 copies. Frank Altschul (1887-1981), a banker, philanthropist, and rare book collector, founded the private press Overbrook in 1934 on his Connecticut estate. It "specialized in exquisitely printed... limited edition books for collectors," of which this elegant folio is an excellent example (New...Learn More
NESBIT, Edith, & Hubert Bland, as Fabian Bland. The Prophet's Mantle.London : 1889
First hardback edition of Nesbit's first novel, co-authored by her husband. Written shortly after she joined the Fabian Society, the novel is about the early days of the socialist movement.
It "is indirectly informative about the Blands's current concerns and attitudes. Writing under pressure, they increasingly found themselves drawing...Learn More
POPE, Alexander. The Works.London : 1787-88
An attractively printed collection of Pope's complete verse, prose, letters, essays, and translations, in a contemporary binding. The text is that of Bishop William Warburton's 1751 edition of Pope's works, and includes the classic poems The Rape of the Lock, An Essay on Man, and The Dunciad.Learn More
HUYSMANS, J.-K. À rebours.Paris : 1884
First edition, presentation copy, inscribed by the author to his fellow French naturalist writer Paul Alexis on the half-title. Alexis was one of the contributors to the short story collection Les Soirées de Médan (1880), to which Huysmans and Émile Zola also contributed. This copy includes, bound-in, the iconic yellow wrappers, the source of...Learn More
DICKENS, Charles. Great Expectations.London : 1861
First edition in book form, first impression. The work saw five impressions issued rapidly in the same year, each with a different title page. Patten states that 1,000 copies of the first impression were printed and that most of these were likely purchased by Mudie's Select Library. As circulating library copies, they inevitably suffered a high...Learn More
RILKE, Rainer Maria. Das Stundenbuch.Leipzig : [1921]
First deluxe edition, number 238 of 440 copies of this lavish production of Rilke's first major work. His English translator, Edgar Snow, praised the Stundenbuch as "one of the strongest inaugural works in all of modern poetry. It arrives as if out of nowhere and seems to want to wipe the slate clean" (Snow, p. 623). The first edition was...Learn More
HOMER; BRYANT, William Cullen (trans.). The Iliad.Boston : 1870
First edition of Bryant's translation, this copy with manuscript material displaying the translation at different stages, from rough to more polished drafts, and, finally, Bryant's authorial corrections to the typescript. The longest autograph addition consists of a choice episode, the battle between Diomedes and Mars from Book V, which was...Learn More
KEATS, John. Poems.London : 1817
First edition of Keats's first book, in the original boards. Poems was published on 3 March 1817 by Charles and James Ollier, who were already publishing Shelley. The first of a mere three lifetime publications, it is a work of mainly youthful promise - Keats had appeared for the first time in print less than a year earlier, with a poem in the...Learn More
CARROLL, Lewis. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland; [together with] -- Through the Looking-Glass.London : 1870 & 1872
First edition of Through the Looking-Glass, together with a copy of Alice in Wonderland from the 21st thousand. These masterpieces of fantasy literature earned their author "a place in the firmament of the great, for they are not only acts of imaginative genius but they also revolutionized writing for children" (ODNB). Alice in Wonderland was...Learn More
NONESUCH PRESS: WALTON, Izaak. The Compleat Walton:Bloomsbury : 1929
First Nonesuch edition, number 373 of 1600 copies, representing the first time all Walton's writings were published together. The limitation was split between 1,100 copies for the British market and 500 copies for the American market, sold by Random House.
The Compleat Angler was first published in 1653 and went to a fifth and final edition...Learn More
MELVILLE, Herman; KENT, Rockwell (illus.). Moby Dick or The Whale.Chicago : 1930
First Rockwell Kent edition, limited to 1,000 copies. This copy is additionally inscribed by Kent on the front free endpaper in pencil: "Inscribed to Mr Lessing Rosenthal by Rockwell Kent - December 5th 1930". It is also inscribed below, "William A. Kittredge: Printer". On the rear pastedown is pencilled, "11/28/30 R. R. Donnelly & Sons co. 3 vols...Learn More
WILDE, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray.London : 1891
First edition in book form, first issue, in beautiful condition. Wilde's sole novel appeared in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine in July 1890 after the American paper sought contributions from both Wilde and Arthur Conan Doyle. Wilde substantially revised the novel for its book publication, adding six new chapters and the preface outlining his...Learn More
BUNYAN, John. The Pilgrim's Progress, translated into classical Chinese by William Chalmers Burns.Shanghai : 1869
An 1869 edition of the first full translation into Chinese of Bunyan's classic literary allegory. Printed to win new converts to Protestantism among the educated elite, the text is illustrated with ten engravings that place the story in a Chinese context.
Born in Scotland, William Chalmers Burns (1815-1868) began his missionary service in...Learn More
