Literature
Elia essays which have appeared… in the London Magazine.
London: Taylor and Hessey, 1823. Octavo, 6pp. ads at rear. First edition, second issue: Lamb's most famous work. Writing as 'Elia' for the London magazine, the graceful irony of Lamb's essays was immediately popular, and his unaffected, inclusive style brought a poise rarely equalled in the essayist. Nonetheless, Elia sold...
Price (AUD):
$400.00
Ref: #2408258
The Essays of Elia.
London: Macmillan, 1921. Small octavo, all edges gilt, a crisp copy; full polished calf, spine with raised bands, gilt. A very good copy of the well-known English essayist Charles Lamb's best known work. First appearing between 1820 and 1823 in the London Magazine, the content is known to be largely...
Price (AUD):
$185.00
Ref: #3804586
Recueil de différentes choses… Relation du royaume des Feliciens, Peuples qui habitent dans les Terres Australes…
A Lausanne: chez Marc-Mic. Bousquet, 1756.
De la Rochefoucauld's copy of a de luxe issue, with an imaginary voyage to les Terres Australes
Four volumes, quarto; contemporary speckled calf, gilt backs with raised bands, contrasting spine labels with gilt lettering, with gilt stamped coat-of-arms arms at foot of spine encircled...
Price (AUD):
$15,000.00
Ref: #4504974
Les Amazones Révoltées…
Rotterdam: Don Luis le Maingre …, 1730. Duodecimo, with both errata leaves; contemporary French mottled calf, spine gilt in compartments between raised bands, crimson morocco label. First edition of this imaginary voyage, and very rare. Although rarely commented on, this work concludes with the hypothesis that Hercules discovered the golden...
Price (AUD):
$2,100.00
Ref: #3005425
The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane.
London: Hurst, Robinson and Company, 1822. Four volumes, small octavo, 24 engravings including 4 frontispieces, some foxing to plates and preliminaries; half polished calf with marbled boards, spines with double morocco labels, gilt. A lovely set of the French novelist and playwright Alain-René Lesage's masterpiece in a Root binding. Lesage...
Price (AUD):
$825.00
Ref: #3804619
Les Avantures de Monsieur Robert Chevalier, dit de Beauchene.
Amsterdam: Aux Depens de la …, 1733.
Colourful tale of a Canadian corsair
Two volumes in one, duodecimo, five plates, titles printed in red and black with engraved vignettes; occasional ms. marginalia in a neat early hand, a good copy in later half red morocco. An attractive copy of the...
Price (AUD):
$1,100.00
Ref: #3011911
Laughable lyrics: A Fourth Book of Nonsense Poems, Songs, Botany, Music…
London: Robert John Bush, 1877. Square octavo; original maroon cloth, head of spine restored. Lear had written his first Book of Nonsense for the children of his patron the Earl of Derby in 1845. Laughable Lyrics, the fourth nonsense book, and 'last but not least' (Muir, p. 147) 'included some...
Price (AUD):
$1,150.00
Ref: #2408271
The Complete Poetry of Gaius Valerius Catullus.
London: Fanfrolico Press, 1929. Tall octavo, signed numbered edition, includes numerous wood engraved illustrations, untrimmed; a crisp copy, top edges gilt, in full brown crushed morocco, title in gilt to spine. A very attractive copy from a limited edition published by the Fanfrolico Press. The accomplished translation is by Jack...
Price (AUD):
$675.00
Ref: #3805636
The Poetical Works.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin, and Company, 1885.
America's lyric foundation
Eight volumes, octavo; finely bound in contemporary tan polished calf, gilt. Very attractive set of Longfellow's works. Published shortly after the poet's decease, this comprehensive American edition includes prose and dramatic works. Many cherished favourites are here, including The Golden Legend...
Price (AUD):
$975.00
Ref: #3209581
Les Princesses Malabares, ou le Célibat Philosophique…
'Andrinople: chez Thomas Franco" 1734. Duodecimo, old quarter calf. First edition of this allegorical satire on French society, an orientalist fantasy with Malabar princesses and many of the usual props including sultans and harems. Its author is believed to have been de Longue, an obscure writer who does not make...
Price (AUD):
$885.00
Ref: #3005427
The History of England from the Accession of James the Second.
London: Longman, Green, Longman and Roberts, 1859-1862.
A classical history by a propagator of "the Liberal faith"
Eight volumes, octavo, full polished calf, gilt spines with red and green morocco labels, marbled edges. An attractive set of Macaulay's History of England with the final volume completed posthumously by his sister...
Price (AUD):
$850.00
Ref: #3710374
Epigrammatum libri.
Paris: Barbou, 1754. Two volumes, duodecimo; contemporary green straight-grained morocco. An attractive copy of Martial's epigrams. Vignette by Legrand after Eisen.
Price (AUD):
$450.00
Ref: #1810005
Mahmoud le Gasnevide, histoire orientale…
Rotterdam: Jean Hofhoudt, 1729. Octavo, woodcut vignettes; in contemporary sprinkled calf. First edition of this Oriental romance and utopian allegory by the economist Melon (d. 1738), an influential French intellectual, who, amongst other things, helped found a literary society under the protection of the Duc de la Force. His best...
Price (AUD):
$785.00
Ref: #3006446
The Amazing Marriage.
London: Archibald Constable, 1895. Two volumes, octavo; ribbed sage-green cloth lettered in gilt on the spine and the upper board, uncut. First edition and one of Meredith's best loved novels: the 'chivalrous advocacy of women compromised in honour and in pride by masculine despotism' (CHEL).
Price (AUD):
$285.00
Ref: #2408311
Diana of the Crossways a novel.
London: Chapman & Hall, 1885. Three volumes, octavo, with the half-titles; original red cloth. First English edition, preceded by a New York piracy of the unfinished novel as it appeared in the Fortnightly Review from September to December 1884, where it ended with the abrupt note: 'Thus was the erratic...
Price (AUD):
$485.00
Ref: #2408306
Poems and lyrics of the joy of Earth.
London: Macmillan, 1883. Octavo; finely bound in full polished tortoiseshell marbled calf, inner gilt dentelles, all edges gilt, raised bands. A superb copy of the first edition, in an unusual polished tortoiseshell calf binding by Mudie. Here Meredith continues to delineate his cult of the earth, in the tradition of...
Price (AUD):
$425.00
Ref: #2408308
Suspense.
London: Richard Bentley, 1890. Three volumes, octavo, with half-titles; contemporary half chestnut calf, marbled endpapers. First edition and, like all Merriman titles, scarce: the adventures of the rakish Theo Trist, war-correspondent to the Russo-Turkish war.
Price (AUD):
$550.00
Ref: #2408315
The Life of Josiah Wedgwood.
London: Hurst and Blackett, 1865. Two volumes, thick octavo, two engraved portrait frontispieces, double-page pair of chromolithograph plates of borders, numerous wood engravings in the text; ALS from Josiah Wedgwood II (son of Josiah Wedgwood) attached to verso of frontispiece in first volume;in striking three-quarter red morocco, gilt lettering and...
Price (AUD):
$1,400.00
Ref: #4002628
The dramatic works…
London: W. Bunce, 1765. Octavo; full calf. Fourth edition of three popular plays by Moore, including his most powerful work The Gamester in which his 'tragic and moral bent unite most clearly and forcibly' (CHEL).
Price (AUD):
$285.00
Ref: #2408327
The Brook Kerith. A Syrian Story.
London: William Heinemann, 1929. Tall octavo, signed and numbered from a limited edition of 375, with twelve engravings (including frontispiece) unopened; in full vellum binding, gilt, bookplate. A very good copy of George Moore's decorative retelling of the Gospel story. Published by Heinemann, a private press from Covent Garden established...
Price (AUD):
$1,500.00
Ref: #3805639
![De optimo Reipublicae statu, deque nova insula Utopia, libri duo… [and], Moriae Enkomion:...](/pictures/thumb/3006455.jpg?v=1434432118)
De optimo Reipublicae statu…
London and Paris: Barbou, 1777. Duodecimo, with a frontispiece to the first work; contemporary dark green morocco, sides bordered and spine panelled in gilt, all edges gilt. The attractive Barbou edition of Utopia, bound with the matching edition of Erasmus' Praise of Folly. The friendship between More and Erasmus (1469-1536)...
Price (AUD):
$1,250.00
Ref: #3006455
A most pleasant, fruitful, and witty work…
London: William Miller, 1808.
Large paper issue of a classic
Quarto, engraved frontispiece and one plate; contemporary straight-grain brown morocco, elaborately gilt. Classic edition of More's Utopia in English, here in a "Large Paper" issue: a fine copy of this attractive scholarly edition of Robinson's translation of More's text, with...
Price (AUD):
$2,400.00
Ref: #3006450
![Utopia: De optimo reip. statu, deque nova insula Utopia libellus… Epigrammata [with] Desiderius...](/pictures/thumb/4505061.jpg?v=1570774089)
Utopia: De optimo reip. statu, deque nova insula Utopia libellus…
Basel: Johann Froben, March 1518.
The Holbein edition of More's masterpiece
Three parts in one volume, small quarto, in Roman, Greek, and 'Utopian' types (there is a page of the Utopian alphabet); full-page woodcut bird's-eye map of the island, three fine title surrounds (to Utopia, More's Epigrams and Erasmus' Epigrams)...
Price (AUD):
$125,000.00
Ref: #4505061
The Life and Astonishing Adventures of John Daniel.
London: Robert Holden, 1926. Octavo, four facsimile plates, uncut; original quarter vellum, cloth sides. From a limited edition of 750, the first volume in the Library of Impostors: the tale of a fateful trip. It includes four plates reproduced from the first edition. First published in 1751, this work has...
Price (AUD):
$285.00
Ref: #3103061