English Literature

Contact Donovan Rees or Zach Larsen

British literature and history from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, with an emphasis on poetry, fiction, and drama.

We usually have a selection of literary works from the STC and Wing period (i.e. before 1701), and a broad range of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century fiction and poetry, particularly the Romantics. We also have a selection of historical manuscripts, prints and broadsides, and works in translation.

Among important works which have passed through our hands are the editor's presentation copy of Milton's Lycidas, Swift's Modest Proposal, the autograph draft of Byron's She walks in beauty, the autograph manuscript of Jane Austen's only play Sir Charles Grandison, Dickens’s copy of Vanity Fair, Trollope's classical library, and, over the years, some fifty Shakespeare First Folios.

  1. LLOYD, Mary.

    Brighton a Poem. Descriptive of the Place...

    London: Printed for the Author. Sold by...

    First and only edition of Mary Lloyd’s...

    £350

  2. [LONDON.]

    Indenture tripartite concerning ‘two...

    [London], 20 May 1659

    In 1641 Richard Baskerville, described...

    £650

  3. [LOQUET, Marie-Françoise].

    Voyage de Sophie et d’Eulalie, au Palais...

    Paris, Charles-Pierre Berton, 1781.

    First edition of this rare utopian voyage...

    £1500

  4. LUCIAN, of Samosata.

    Deorum dialogi... una cum interpretatione...

    Strassbourg, Johannes Schott, 1515.

    First edition edited and translated by...

    £2100

  5. LUCRETIUS. 

    Titi Lucretii Cari de rerum natura libri...

    Padua, Giuseppe Comino [for Volpi], 2...

    First Volpi–Comino edition of Lucretius’s...

    £450

  6. [LYTTELTON, George, Lord Lyttelton, attributed author].

    The Court-Secret: a melancholy Truth. Now...

    London: Printed for T. Cooper … 1741

    First edition of a political satire in...

    £350

  7. MACAULEY, Auley.

    A Sermon on the peculiar Advantages of...

    London, Printed for C. Dilly … and...

    First edition of a rare sermon to promote...

    £250

  8. MACDIARMID, Hugh.

    Stony Limits and Scots Unbound and other...

    Edinburgh, Castle Wynd Printers, [1956].

    First edition thus, including some poems...

    £100

  9. MACDIARMID, Hugh.

    A Lap of Honour.

    [London,] MacGibbon & Kee, [1967].

    First edition, published to coincide with...

    £40

  10. MACDIARMID, Hugh.

    Three Hymns to Lenin …

    Edinburgh, Castle Wynd Printers, [1957].

    First collected edition, inscribed ‘With...

    £200

  11. [MACDIARMID, Hugh.]

    WESTON, John C. MacDiarmid’s A Drunk...

    Preston, Akros Publications, 1970.

    First edition, inscribed ‘To Joyce and...

    £100

  12. MACDIARMID, Hugh.

    Poems to Paintings by William Johnstone 1933 …

    Edinburgh, K.D. Duval, [1963].

    First edition.

    £25

  13. MACDIARMID, Hugh.

    ‘Direadh’ in Agenda Vol 2,7-8,

    May-June 1962.

    £25

  14. MACDIARMID, Hugh.

    More Collected Poems.

    [London,] MacGibbon & Kee, [1970].

    First edition.

    £50

  15. MACDIARMID, Hugh.

    Direadh I, II and III …

    [Stamperia Valdonega for] Frenich, Foss,...

    First edition, no. 29 of 200 signed copies...

    £175

  16. MACDIARMID, Hugh [i.e. Christopher GRIEVE], and Valda TREVLYN GRIEVE.

    Three Christmas cards, signed from Christopher...

    undated.

    Three Christmas cards to Douglas Geoffrey...

    £100

  17. [MACDIARMID, Hugh.] WESTON, John C.

    Hugh MacDiarmid’s A Drunk Man looks...

    Preston, Akros Publications, 1970.

    First edition, inscribed ‘To Joyce and...

    £100

  18. [MACDONNEL, David Evans.]

    A Dictionary of Quotations, in most frequent...

    London, G. G. and J. Robinson, 1797.

    First edition, rare, of the first English...

    £650

  19. MACFARLANE, Patrick.

    A new and copious English and Gaelic Vocabulary,...

    Edinburgh: Printed [by R. Menzies] for...

    First edition of this early English-Gaelic...

    £175

  20. [MACKENZIE, Lieutenant-Colonel George, and others, defendants.]

    The Trial, before the High Court of Justiciary...

    Aberdeen: Printed by J. Burnett ... for...

    Sole edition. This controversial trial...

    £150