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Literary criticism & biography
REMINGTON, Frederic - Peter H. Hassrick & Melissa J. Webster (eds). Frederic Remington. A Catalogue Raisonne of Paintings, Watercolors and Drawings.Cody, Wy : 1996
First edition, first printing, deluxe issue, number 246 of 250 copies signed by both editors on the title page of the first volume. Frederic Sackrider Remington (1861-1909) was an American artist and writer who specialized in depictions of the Old American West.Learn More
WOOLF, Virginia. The Common Reader: Second Series.London : 1932
First edition, an exceptionally bright example, with a Hogarth Press advertisement for the works of Virginia Woolf loosely inserted. This copy is the second and last instalment in the Common Reader series, following that of 1925.
Woolf's writing was always "permeated with her reading" and in these essays she explores the works of many...Learn More
SPENS, Janet. Two Periods of Disillusion.Glasgow : 1909
First edition, a presentation copy inscribed by the author to a key Austen scholar on the front free endpaper: "Katherine Metcalfe, from J. Spens, April 1912". At the time, both women were employed as academic tutors in English literature at the University of Oxford. Later in 1912, Metcalfe published her landmark scholarly edition of Austen's...Learn More
WILDE, Oscar (contrib.). The Chameleon.London : [1894]
The first and only issue of the notorious literary magazine repeatedly cited in Wilde's 1895 trials. This copy, number 88 of 100 only, retains the rare original wrappers.
The magazine contains the first appearance of Wilde's collection of aphorisms, "Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young", as well as two poems by Lord Alfred...Learn More
JOYCE, James - BECKETT, Samuel, and others. An Exagmination, Analyses of the "Work in Progress".Paris : 1929
First edition of this early critique of Joyce's final work, Finnegans Wake. It was published 10 years before the publication of the finished novel to raise funds for the ever impecunious Joyce. The first article, "Dante... Bruno. Vico.. Joyce", was Samuel Beckett's first appearance in print.
The two "Letters of Protest" negatively...Learn More
JOHNSON, Samuel. A Dictionary of the English Language:London : 1755
First edition of this most famous of English dictionaries. "The Dictionary left an immense mark on its age. It soon became recognized as a work of classical standing, and in spite of some minor blemishes it has never lost its historical importance as the first great endeavour of its kind" (ODNB).
Begun in 1746, the Dictionary was Johnson's...Learn More
BEARDSLEY, Aubrey - PENNELL, Joseph. Aubrey Beardsley and Other Men of the Nineties.Philadelphia : 1924
First edition, number 79 of 100 hand-numbered copies only, printing the "lecture delivered at the Brooklyn Museum of Science and Art on the occasion of the Beardsley exhibition, November 1923" (title page).
Provenance: William Andrew Clark Jr. (1877-1934), a philanthropist who funded the construction of the Clark Library, California, in...Learn More
ELIOT, T. S. (contrib.); Ezra Pound (ed.). Catholic Anthology.London : 1915
First edition, one of 500 copies, which Pound edited for the primary purpose of "getting sixteen pages of Eliot into print at once" (cited in Norman, p. 181). Besides from a 1910 Harvard graduation pamphlet that printed an ode by Eliot, this poetical anthology marks the first appearance in book form of any of Eliot's verse and includes "The Love...Learn More
LEWIS, Wyndham. Paleface. The Philosophy of the Melting-Pot.London : 1929
First edition of this literary analysis of race relations - an enlarged version of the essay originally published in Lewis's magazine The Enemy in 1927. This copy has the bookplate of D. G. Bridson (1910-1980), a poet, journalist, and significant radio producer for the BBC.
Bridson wrote a study of the politics of Lewis, The Filibuster...Learn More
BAGEHOT, Walter. Estimates of Some Englishmen and Scotchmen.London : 1858
First edition of Walter Bagehot's first book, presentation copy from his wife, inscribed "From Mrs Walter Bagehot 1877" on the front free endpaper, and with an autograph letter from her to Richard Monckton Milnes, 1st Baron Houghton.
Eliza Bagehot writes on mourning paper on 8 December 1877, following Walter's death that March. Milnes had...Learn More
SHELLEY, Mary - CROKER, John Wilson. Review of Frankenstein in The Quarterly Review. October 1817, & May 1818.London : 1818
First edition of the first review, notoriously scathing, of Frankenstein. Croker, a serial foe of young Romantics and Jacobins, condemns the presumed male author and damns the novel as "a tissue of horrible and disgusting absurdity".
He continues by noticing that the novel "is piously dedicated to Mr Godwin, and is written in the spirit of...Learn More
BECKETT, Samuel, & Georges Duthuit. Proust; [and] Three Dialogues.London : 1965
Signed limited edition, number 97 of 100 copies signed by Beckett and specially bound. Proust, Beckett's epistemological and aesthetic manifesto, was first published in 1931. Three Dialogues, a series of letters between Beckett and Duthuit concerning contemporary art, was first published in the literary journal Transition in 1949.
Federman...Learn More
FORSTER, E. M. Two Cheers for Democracy.London : 1951
First collected edition, signed by the author on the title page. The collection is named after an essay Forster wrote before the Second World War and includes his quote: "if I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country" (p. 78).Learn More
THOMAS, Dylan. - BILL, Read. The Days of Dylan Thomas.New York : 1964
First edition, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, "For F. W. Roberts, with many thanks for your help in the preparation of this book, Bill Read, Boston, January 14, 1965." Roberts was the director of the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas, Austin, from 1958 to 1961.
Loosely inserted is a print of a pen...Learn More
MOORES, Phil. Alasdair Gray.Boston Spa & London : 2002
First edition, signed limited issue, number 83 of 100 copies signed and dated by Gray. Anthony Burgess named Alasdair Gray the greatest Scottish writer since Walter Scott (front flap). This work forms part of the British Library's "Critical Appreciations" series, which offers scholarly criticisms concerning authors often otherwise overlooked.Learn More
HUNTER, Joseph. A Disquisition on The Scene, Origin, Date, Etc. Etc. of Shakespeare's Tempest.London : 1839
First edition, one of 100 copies. The book was published by the renowned 19th-century printer and publisher William Pickering, described by Keynes as having "done more than any other single man to raise the standard of book production in all its details, whether of subject matter, typography, or binding" (p. 32).
Hunter's Disquisition was...Learn More
WILSON, Colin. The Outsider.London : 1956
First edition, first impression, of the author's landmark first book and key work of British Existentialism. It is here inscribed by the author on the title page: "For Susan, warm regards, Colin W, Oct 15 '85".Learn More
JOHNSON, Samuel. The Beauties of Johnson: Consisting of Maxims and Observations.London : 1782
Fifth edition. An alphabetical collection of thoughtful and occasionally wry observations, taken from the writings of one of England's most distinguished men of letters. Johnson's insight gives his "beauties" the character of aphorisms. For example, under "Credulity", he proffers "We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know, because they...Learn More
CUALA PRESS: YEATS, W. B. The Death of Synge, and Other Passages From an Old Diary.Dublin : 1928
First edition, first impression, one of 400 copies. The diary extracts cover the period following the death of John Millington Synge, age 37, on 24 March 1909. It includes conversations with Synge's widow, Molly Allgood, Yeats's sisters Elizabeth and Lily, and literary figures such as Florence Farr, as well as Yeats's ruminations on Ireland's...Learn More
DUN EMER PRESS: EGLINTON, John. Some Essays and Passages.Dundrum : 1905
First edition, first impression, one of 200 copies. John Eglinton was the pen name of William Kirkpatrick Magee (1868-1961), a schoolfriend of Yeats. A note was added at his request, humorously objecting to "the inclusion of the last essay, written over twelve years ago, in which a metaphor is pressed to the point of being recommended as a...Learn More
