Feb 2, 2015 | Videos
First edition, presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the title-page: “To Hon: Mrs Watson, From Charles Dickens, Fourth December, 1859.”
A Tale of Two Cities was published on 21 November 1859. Dickens had a few copies bound for presentation with the frontispiece and engraved title, but without the plates. Other known copies, including those presented by him to George Eliot and Charles Lever, are similarly bound and made up. The text is in first state, with p. 213 misnumbered 113.
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Feb 2, 2015 | Videos
First edition, presentation copy, to Edward William Vernon Harcourt, inscribed by the recipient at the head of the title, “E. W. Harcourt, from the Author, 1859″ and with his bookplate to the front pastedown. Presentation copies of the Origin are rare, and no copy is known to have been inscribed by Darwin himself. Darwin had written to the naturalist Harcourt (1825–1891) on 19 August 1856 asking to borrow his copy of Christian Ludwig Brehm’s work on German ornithology, as he wanted “to see how far Brehm goes in splitting species”.
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Feb 2, 2015 | Videos
Rudyard Kipling’s fully corrected proofs of Kim, used for both the first London book publication and the second, corrected American edition.
There are extensive edits comprising over 3,000 changes to single words or emending short sentences and with the addition of the verse chapter headings. These proof sheets represent the authoritative complete state of the text for book publication.
Kipling worked on what most critics agree is his best novel for seven years, his excitement growing as at last he neared completion of the manuscript for what the author and his publishers intended to be a major publishing event. Kipling enjoyed a close personal friendship with his American publisher, Frank Nelson Doubleday, whom he had dubbed “Effendi”. In late 1899 he wrote enthusiastically to Doubleday of “finally licking Kim into shape.” Serial publication began soon after, with McClure’s running the instalments from December 1900 to October 1901 in the US and Cassell’s Magazine in England from January to November 1901.
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Feb 2, 2015 | Videos
Limited edition, number 84 of 100 numbered copies.
Lautrec began his preliminary sketches in 1896, at the Jardin d’Acclimatation, but the lithographs were only executed in 1898. Publication was delayed by the author, displeased with the illustrations which did not illustrate the text in every instance. Though today it is seen as one of the most celebrated and sought-after of all livres d’artiste, the book was received poorly when it was issued and did not sell out until 1917.
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Feb 2, 2015 | Videos
First edition, first issue of both parts, of the book that is widely accepted as the first novel in English. It was an immediate success, widely translated, and which inspired a huge number of imitations and adaptations across the world since publication. The first part was published on 25 April 1719 in an edition of 1,000 copies; the sequel, Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, was published in August the same year. Rousseau recommended it as the first book which ought to be studied by a growing boy; Coleridge praised its depiction of “the universal man” and Marx used it to illustrate economic theory in action. The first English novel was modelled along the existing lines of hugely popular travel books and distantly inspired by the true story of Alexander Selkirk, yet Robinson Crusoe was “novel”, as Defoe claimed in the preface to the second part, in supplying a “surprising variety of the subject”.
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