Search results for: 'poems'
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BRONTË, Patrick. Cottage Poems.Halifax : 1811
First edition, sole impression, of this scarce debut collection of poems by the father of the Brontë sisters. Patrick Bronte's first published poem "Winter Evening Thoughts" had appeared in a local Shropshire newspaper in 1810. He then moved up to Yorkshire and had this collection of poems published in Halifax. Brontë would marry Maria Branwell in... Learn More£1,250.00Stock Code: 133120
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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 radical... Learn More£47,500.00Stock Code: 113377
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TOWNSHEND, Chauncy Hare. Poems.London : 1821
First edition, presentation copy, inscribed on the front free endpaper (probably in a secretarial hand): "From the Author". Townshend (1798-1868, originally Townsend, he added the "H" in 1828) was educated at Eton and Trinity Hall, Cambridge, winning the chancellor's medal for his poem "Jerusalem" (published 1817) and thereafter "was determined to be... Learn More£375.00Stock Code: 124878
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ROSSETTI, Christina. Poems.London : 1892
Arthur Edward Waite's copy of this attractive collection of Christina Rossetti's poems, with his bookplate to the front pastedown. This copy has the contemporary ownership inscription of Waite's muse and great love Dora Stuart Menteath to the front free endpaper, "Dora Stuart Menteath, Feb 23rd 1893". Waite met Dora in 1886 and the two fell almost immediately... Learn More£450.00Stock Code: 130308
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BRONTË, Patrick. Cottage Poems.Halifax : 1811
First edition, sole impression, of this scarce debut collection of poems by the father of the Brontë sisters, this copy in an unrestored contemporary binding and with the contemporary ownership inscription "Apley Castle", of the Charlton family in Shropshire. Bronte had, from 1809 to 1811, been an assistant curate at Wellington, Shropshire, scarcely... Learn More£1,500.00Stock Code: 130435
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CLARE, John. The Village Minstrel, and Other Poems.London : 1821
First edition of Clare's second book of poetry, with no frontispiece to the second volume as required for the first issue. A farm labourer's son, John Clare (1793-1864) had published his first work, Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery, the previous year. It became something of a publishing sensation, with the 1,000 copies of the first edition... Learn More£1,250.00Stock Code: 126172
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(JOHNSON, Samuel.) A Miscellany of Poems by Several Hands.Oxford : 1731
First and sole edition, celebrated for including Samuel Johnson's first appearance in print and the mention of him in the preface as "a Commoner of Pembroke-College in Oxford". Johnson spent only thirteen months at Pembroke (October 1728 to December 1729), forced to leave through financial constraints. His stay may have been short but the nineteen-year... Learn More£3,500.00Stock Code: 125411
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STUART-WORTLEY, Emmeline, Lady. Poems.London : 1833
First edition of the author's first publication, fairly uncommon, around a dozen copies institutionally, but this a delightful presentation copy inscribed; "For the Marchioness of Londonderry with the Author's very Affectionate Love". Stuart-Wortley memorialised her friend, Frances Anne Vane-Stewart in verse in Fisher's Drawing Scrap-Book for 1838:... Learn More£575.00Stock Code: 141664
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[BROWNING], Elizabeth Barrett. Poems.London : 1844
First edition, first issue, presentation copy, inscribed by the author of the collection that made Elizabeth Barrett's fame: "To Miss Heard, with the author's regards, August 1844". A superb association: Miss Heard was a friend and, in Browning's mind, a rival for the attentions of the blind classicist Hugh Stuart Boyd (1781-1848), to whom she was devoted... Learn More£8,500.00Stock Code: 118727
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![Miscellaneous Poems; [together with:] Advice to a Painter; [and:] Second Advice to the Painter.](https://d3dzzbbvj9im7s.cloudfront.net/media/catalog/product/cache/ae0834d12b7cf129fc73bcc000ea526a/1/3/130819_1.jpg)
MARVELL, Andrew. Miscellaneous Poems; [together with:] Advice to a Painter; [and:] Second Advice to the Painter.London : 1681; [1679; 1679?]
First edition of all three works. Miscellaneous Poems includes the first printing of "To his Coy Mistress" and "The Garden". Published a couple of years after Marvell's death, the volume made his poetic talents known to a general readership who would have known him, if at all, only from his commendatory verses to the second edition (1674) of Milton's... Learn More£12,500.00Stock Code: 130819
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![[Complete set of the Seatonian Prize Poems:]](https://d3dzzbbvj9im7s.cloudfront.net/media/catalog/product/cache/ae0834d12b7cf129fc73bcc000ea526a/1/2/120509.jpg)
SMART, Christopher. [Complete set of the Seatonian Prize Poems:]Cambridge : 1750-6
A rare complete set of Smart's Seatonian Prize-winning poems on the Supreme Being, all first editions except for Omniscience which is a second (1756). This set is attractively presented together in a contemporary binding with the library label to the front board of Montacute House, Somerset, the home of the Phelips family, and the contemporary ownership... Learn More£2,500.00Stock Code: 120509
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TENNYSON, Alfred Lord. Poems.[London?] : 1862
First pirated edition of Tennyson's suppressed poems, taken from the Poems, Chiefly Lyrical of 1830 and the Poems of 1833, printed by J. Dykes Campbell and sold by the bookseller John Camden Hotten.
Tennyson took legal action, obtained an injunction to prevent its sale, and extracted an apology and 100 damages from Hotten. The book was issued... Learn More£300.00Stock Code: 130070
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SHAKESPEARE, William. A Collection of Poems, in Two Volumes;London : [1710-11]
Effectively the earliest obtainable printing of Shakespeare's major poetry, combining the complete uncorrupted text of the 1609 Sonnets with Lucrece and Venus and Adonis. Benson's 1640 edition of Shakespeare's Poems lacked both Lucrece and Venus and Adonis and its text of the Sonnets was both incomplete and bowdlerised - combining poems, mixing masculine... Learn More£22,500.00Stock Code: 134529
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TENNYSON, Alfred, Lord. Poems,London : 1830
First edition, first state, of Tennyson's first solo poetry collection. It is preceded only by Poems by Two Brothers (1827), in which he appeared anonymously alongside his (in fact three) brother. "Some of Tennyson's most enduring notes, elegiacally lyrical, with his riven sensibility... are especially manifest in the volume's most remarkable... Learn More£2,000.00Stock Code: 137218
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HOPKINS, Gerard Manley. Poems.London : 1918
First edition, with the rare glassine jacket, one of 750 copies only, of which the bibliography states 50 were given away prior to publication (it took until 1928 to sell them all). Trade copies were issued in a plain paper jacket priced at 12s. 6d., but this original unpriced glassine may well designate one of the 50 copies issued prior to sale. Gerard... Learn More£7,500.00Stock Code: 117738
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BARRETT BROWNING, Elizabeth. Poems.London : 1850
First edition with the Sonnets from the Portuguese, handsomely bound with the original cloth preserved within, and both half-titles. EBB's Poems had first appeared in 1844, but this "New Edition" (the second overall) contains in the second volume the coveted and rare first appearance of Sonnets from the Portuguese, some of the most famous love poems... Learn More£6,500.00Stock Code: 132112
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TENNYSON, Alfred, Lord. Poems.London : 1842
First edition of Tennyson's important early collection, quite scarce, and containing the first appearance of "Ulysses". This work was Tennyson's second publication with Edward Moxon, following Poems (1833), and contains original unpublished poetry that was written in the intervening decade. This was one of Tennyson's saddest yet most creative periods,... Learn More£1,000.00Stock Code: 141374
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SHELLEY, Percy Bysshe. Miscellaneous Poems.London : 1826
First edition of this very scarce early collected edition of Shelley's poetry, in the rare original boards. This Benbow piracy selects Shelley's poetry from various previously published editions, collecting mainly from the Posthumous Poems edition of 1824, but with some notable examples drawn from earlier publications. Excepting perhaps the Posthumous... Learn More£1,750.00Stock Code: 106345
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SHELLEY, Percy Bysshe. Miscellaneous Poems.London : 1826
First edition of this very scarce early collected edition of Shelley's poetry, appealingly bound with an occult emblem to front board (flaming skull-and-cross-bones, snakes holding a heart, crowned with a crown and star, known by another copy to be that of collector Gilbert C. Elliot) and another bookplate (skull with a worm, initialled DMF). This Benbow... Learn More£1,250.00Stock Code: 119978
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[TENNYSON, Alfred, Lord.] Poems, by two brothers.London : 1827
First edition, small paper issue, of Tennyson's first book of poems, published anonymously. Despite the title, there were in fact three brothers involved, as the volume included poems by his brothers, Charles and Frederick. The Jacksons paid the authors 20 pounds for the copyright, a surprisingly large sum for unknown authors, obviously convinced of... Learn More£2,500.00Stock Code: 127399
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MORRIS, Richard. Early English Alliterative Poems,London : 1864
First edition. The book marked the first complete publication of the poems Cleanness, Patience and Pearl, commonly believed to be by the same anonymous author who wrote Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The poems were taken from the late-14th century manuscript known as Cotton Nero A.x, and were almost entirely unknown until a few portions were published... Learn More£675.00Stock Code: 123389
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TENNYSON, Alfred, Lord. Poems, chiefly lyrical.London : 1830
First edition, second state, with p. '91' (from '19') corrected, and with 'carcanet' (from 'coronet') on p. 72, with errata. This work is Tennyson's first solo poetry collection, preceded only by Poems by Two Brothers (1827), in which he appeared anonymously alongside his (in fact three) brothers. "Some of Tennyson's most enduring notes, elegiacally... Learn More£1,750.00Stock Code: 128253
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ROGERS, Samuel. Poems. New edition.London : 1854
Very smart pairing of these handsome editions, among the most lavishly produced of the century. Italy was originally published in two parts (1822 and 1828) but was so badly received that "Rogers destroyed the unsold copies, revised it carefully, engaged Turner and Stothard to illustrate it, and republished it in a handsome edition in 1830.... Learn More£275.00Stock Code: 115101
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BENSON, Arthur Christopher. Le Cahier Jaune. Poems.Eton : 1892
First edition of Benson's first collection of poems; number 198 of a numbered 200 copies, this one signed by the author on the title page. A. C. Benson (1862-1925) was the son of Edward White Benson, Archbishop of Canterbury, and the brother of talented intellectuals such as the writer E. F. Benson and Egyptologist Margaret Benson. After graduating... Learn More£575.00Stock Code: 81813
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SMART, Christopher. A Song to David, with other poems.London : 1924
First edition, first impression, of Blunden's edition of the poems of 18th-century lunatic poet Christopher Smart, most likely written during his stay in mental asylums, where he was confined from 1757 to 1763. With a contemporary newspaper clipping on Smart pasted to the front endpapers. Scarce in the dust jacket. Learn More£175.00Stock Code: 128469
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DONNE, John. Poems. With Elegies on the Authors Death.London : 1633
First edition of the principal collection of Donne's poetical works, issued two years after his death. This copy has the two inserted leaves with "The Printer to the Understanders" and the publisher John Marriot's Hexastichon Bibliopolae, not always present, and has the leaf Nn1 in the earlier uncorrected state with 35 lines of text on p. 273 instead... Learn More£25,000.00Stock Code: 82696
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KEATS, John. Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and other poems.London : 1820
First edition of Keats's third and final book, a very scarce example in the original boards with spine and title label intact. This was the last book published in Keats's lifetime, about which he had "low hopes, though not spirits this shall be my last trial; not succeeding, I shall try what I can do in the apothecary line". Though Keats did not live... Learn More£15,000.00Stock Code: 134735
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GRAY, Thomas. Designs for Mr. R. Bentley for Six Poems by Mr. T. Gray.London : 1765
Fourth edition overall, expanded from the three editions of 1753 with further Odes, of this large, elaborately illustrated publication of the best-known works of the poet Gray, including the Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard. A presentation copy of H. A. J. Munro's translation of the Elegy into Latin (c. 1873) is tipped-in at the rear endpapers.
"This... Learn More£750.00Stock Code: 142136
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(BLAKE, William.) GRAY, Thomas. William Blake's Water-Colour Designs for the Poems of Thomas Gray.London : 1972
First edition thus, first impression, number 467 of 100 copies reserved for Paul Mellon, from a total edition of 518 copies issued in a range of formats (of which the present copy is one of those "unbound in the French style"), all printed on Arches pure rag paper made specially to match that used by Blake. In this extravagant tour de force Blake used... Learn More£1,250.00Stock Code: 141250
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(KEMBLE, Fanny.) LEIGH, [Chandos], Lord. Poems, now first collected.1839
First edition. Presentation inscription to the front free endpaper; "To Mrs. Fanny Kemble with Leigh's kind regards. 15th January 1872." Inscribed to the great actress by her son-in-law. Bookplate of Butler Place, the suburban Philadelphia home of Kemble and her husband Pierce Butler, which passed to her as part of the settlement of their 1863 divorce.... Learn More£1,250.00Stock Code: 50872
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BROWNING, Robert. Poems.London : 1912
A handsomely bound copy of the Oxford Edition, first published in 1905. Learn More£95.00Stock Code: 140676
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(HARRISON, Florence, illus.) ROSSETTI, Christina. Poems.London : [1910]
First Florence Harrison edition, first impression, variant issue with the date to the title page and vignette to the title page verso. Florence Harrison (1877-1955) was an Australian-born artist known for her rich, art nouveau style. "Florence Harrison brought to this volume some of her most recognisable and oft-reproduced illustrations, ethereal and... Learn More£850.00Stock Code: 129313
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MEREDITH, George. Poems.London : [1851]
First edition of the author's first book, the publication of which he funded himself. Though he later disowned the work, it was praised at the time by both Tennyson and Charles Kingsley. Learn More£825.00Stock Code: 130288
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YEATS, W. B. Poems.London : 1895
First edition, one of 750 copies printed, very scarce first state of the US issue with both US and UK publisher's slug to spine, but retaining the UK title page, and with the top edge ungilt. More usually copies of the US issue had a cancel title page with the Boston imprint, and a gilt top edge. O'Hegarty "notes that he has seen two copies, identical,... Learn More£2,250.00Stock Code: 119668
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CLOUGH, Arthur Hugh. Poems.London : 1890
A choicely bound copy. Learn More£95.00Stock Code: 101683
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MOORE, Thomas Sturge. Two Poems.London : 1893
First edition of the author's first book, printed in a small edition for family and friends, and consequently very rare, with only four copies known institutionally in the UK with a further three in the United States. Learn More£1,350.00Stock Code: 126966
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BRIDGES, Robert. The Shorter Poems.Oxford : 1894
First complete edition, limited issue, including the first printing of any of the final volume; one of 150 numbered sets, the vast majority of which were either issued bound as one or suffered the same fate after purchase. Sets in their original state are rare, only one such example appearing at auction in 30 years. With the original prospectus laid-in.... Learn More£850.00Stock Code: 118717
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WALLER, Edmund. Poems, &c.London : 1711
First illustrated edition, the eighth overall, containing the first appearance of an anonymous memoir of Waller (1606-1687) that contains "useful biographical materials" (ODNB). Learn More£175.00Stock Code: 127067
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HARDY, Thomas. Wessex Poems.London : 1898
First edition, one of 500 copies. An exceptional copy of Hardy's first volume of verse, rare thus. Learn More£3,000.00Stock Code: 134116
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(ROSSETTI, Dante Gabriel.) MEREDITH, George. Modern Love, and the Poems of the English Roadside, with Poems and Ballads.London : 1862
First edition, presentation copy inscribed by the author to D. G. Rossetti on the title page, "Dante Gabriel Rossetti, from his friend, George Meredith", with authorial manuscript corrections in the text. (The Hayward exhibition copy, also inscribed and corrected, had a note in Merdith's hand apologizing for "Errata ennumerable".) Meredith's novel Evan... Learn More£5,000.00Stock Code: 111629
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SWINBURNE, Algernon Charles. Poems and Ballads.London : 1866
First edition, first issue (with Moxon imprint), first state with Wise's textual errors uncorrected, of the most sensationally controversial book of English poetry of its century, its contents being a heady mix of sadomasochism, necrophilia, egalitarianism, and blasphemy. "It was a dazzling collection. Swinburne had developed an original poetic voice,... Learn More£2,000.00Stock Code: 136507
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KINGSLEY, Charles. The Novels and Poems.New York : 1899
Edition de Luxe. Limited to 250 numbered copies and printed on japon vellum. With a letter written in the author's hand dated April 4 '71 tipped into the first volume. A particularly handsome set. Learn More£3,750.00Stock Code: 74248
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GRAY, Thomas. Poems and Letters.London : 1879
A beautifully bound copy of the large paper issue of this attractively printed edition of Gray, with letterpress by the prestigious Chiswick Press. Learn More£500.00Stock Code: 115921
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(FLINT, William Russell, illus.) HERRICK, Robert. One Hundred and Eleven Poems.London : 1955
First edition, number 529 of 445 copies bound thus; a further 105 signed copies with eight extra plates were also issued, all printed at the artist's expense. Sir William Russell Flint (1880-1969), was described by Charles Wheeler, president of the Royal Academy, as an artist of "a steady hand, keen eye and gay spirit in a shaky world" (ODNB). His illustrations... Learn More£150.00Stock Code: 140576
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SHAKESPEARE, William. The Comedies, Histories, Tragedies, and Poems.Boston : 1912
The New Grant White Shakespeare. The book lovers' limited edition of 1,000 numbered sets, of which this is number 869. Learn More£2,500.00Stock Code: 127797
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PARNELL, Thomas. Poems. Selected by Lennox Robinson.Dublin : 1927
First edition, first impression, one of only 200 copies, of this selection of poetry by Thomas Parnell (1678-1718), friend of Pope and Swift, and ancestor of Yeats's infamous political hero Charles Stewart Parnell. With an introductory essay by Lennox Robinson. Learn More£150.00Stock Code: 83967
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YEATS, W. B. The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems.London : 1889
First edition, first issue, a major literary association copy, inscribed by Yeats on the front free endpaper, "To the poet of the North Countrie, Joseph Skipsey, with the author's kind regards". In addition, Yeats has made minor corrections to the text on four pages. The inscription shows Yeats's admiration for the Newcastle pitman poet, whom he honours... Learn More£9,750.00Stock Code: 140222
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BURNS, Robert. Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect.Edinburgh : 1787
First Edinburgh edition, the second overall, in an attractive contemporary binding. This edition was preceded only by the highly rare Kilmarnock edition of 1786, from which it was expanded, containing twenty-two new pieces, including "To a Haggis", and the first appearance in print of "Death and Doctor Hornbook", which had been omitted from the Kilmarnock... Learn More£2,500.00Stock Code: 141696
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PRIDEAUX, Walter. Poems of Chivalry, Faery, and The Olden Time.London : 1840
First and only edition of this unusually early example of this genre, anticipating Tennyson's Arthurian poetry by over a decade. Possibly a family copy, with the ink ownership inscription "W. de C. Prideaux" to the half-title in a later hand, seemingly the author of Notes on Mediaeval Enamelled Armorial Horse Trappings, with Reference to a Weymouth... Learn More£275.00Stock Code: 139881
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THOMSON, James. The City of Dreadful Night and other Poems.London : 1880
First edition, one of 40 unnumbered large paper copies. Thomson's The City of Dreadful Night, a pessimistic reaction against modern urban life, has been praised as a forerunner of modernism. The work proved a major influence on T. S. Eliot, both in its style, its theme and in its depiction of London, influences that can be clearly seen in The Waste... Learn More£750.00Stock Code: 126448
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AYTOUN, Edmondstoune William. Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers and other Poems.Edinburgh : 1863
First Paton edition, superbly illustrated. "The book brims with Paton's half-page illustrations, headpieces and tailpieces (augmented by a few landscapes by his brother, Waller Paton) - the armour and historical costumes (Paton was a noted collector of these) perfectly realized to the last detail, the compositions unusual and forceful, the squeezed-together... Learn More£275.00Stock Code: 137470
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DONNE, John. Poems, By J.D. With elegies on the authors death.London : 1654
Fourth edition overall, though a reissue, with cancel title page, of the 1650 third edition. Learn More£5,000.00Stock Code: 134530
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(DOVES PRESS.) SHELLEY, Percy. Poems. Selected and Arranged by T. J. Cobden-Sanderson.Hammersmith : 1914
Limited edition, one of 200 copies printed on paper, from an edition of 212 (the additional 12 were printed on vellum). The book was printed just two years before Cobden-Sanderson threw the Doves typeface into the Thames, thus concluding the bitter dispute between him and his partner Emery Walker, and bringing the era of the Doves Press to a close. Learn More£1,500.00Stock Code: 118500
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[POPE, Alexander.] The Rape of the Locke.London : 1712
The first printing of Pope's Rape of the Lock, published anonymously in two cantos, extracted from its appearance in Bernard Lintot's Miscellaneous Poems and Translations, 1712, pp. 353-376. Lintott paid Pope 15 to expand the poem following this printing, with the revised and full poem published in five cantos in 1714, under Pope's name. Learn More£1,000.00Stock Code: 135474
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ARNOLD, Matthew. An amateur manuscript copy of The Forsaken Merman.1897
A unique calligraphic manuscript copy of Arnold's poem "The Forsaken Merman". The present copy includes fine illustrations within ornamental borders, possibly after original designs, in an art nouveau style reminiscent of masters such as Edward Burne-Jones, Robert Anning-Bell, and Walter Crane. We were unable to trace information about the "Dodo" who... Learn More£675.00Stock Code: 138062
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SHELLEY, Percy Bysshe. The Poetical Works.London : 1839
First collected edition, highly desirable in a contemporary binding in such nice condition. Mary Shelley's collected edition of her husband's poetical works established Shelley finally and irreversibly amongst the great poets of the English language. Pirate editions of Shelley's works had persuaded his father, Sir Timothy, that all hope of obscurity... Learn More£1,250.00Stock Code: 140275
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![[Vathek.] An Arabian Tale, from an unpublished manuscript:](https://d3dzzbbvj9im7s.cloudfront.net/media/catalog/product/cache/ae0834d12b7cf129fc73bcc000ea526a/1/2/128808.jpg)
[BECKFORD, William.] [Vathek.] An Arabian Tale, from an unpublished manuscript:London : 1786
First edition. Beckford's Gothic oriental novel Vathek, was written in French between January and May 1782. This English translation by the literary scholar Samuel Henley was published first in June 1786, despite Beckford's express wish that the French edition should precede it. The latter was published in Lausanne in December 1786 (postdated... Learn More£2,750.00Stock Code: 128808
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CARMAN, Bliss; & Richard Hovey. More Songs From Vagabondia.Boston : 1896
First edition, one of 60 large paper copies, inscribed and signed by Carman with the 8-line poem "Daisies" (also printed on page 13) written out on the half title, and additionally signed or initialled by Carman no less than 26 times in the text (conceivably marking out the poems of which he, rather than Hovey, was author). Carman has also signed the... Learn More£500.00Stock Code: 122231
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WILDE, Oscar. The Sphinx.London : 1894
First edition, first impression. Although the stated limitation was of 200 copies, there appear to have been 303 copies printed, with 128 copies left standing unbound in quires and it is possible that this copy was bound for Hatchards from one of the remaining unbound sheets (see Nelson). Wilde's poem, together with Charles Ricketts's art nouveau illustrations... Learn More£5,750.00Stock Code: 131703
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TENNYSON, Alfred, Lord. The Charge of the Light Brigade.[London] : 1855
First separate edition, extremely scarce in this format, one of 1,000 copies published for distribution to the troops in the Crimea, with a note in manuscript at the foot of the mount: "My father Col. Adolphus Burton C.B. was in the Charge of the Heavy Brigade at Balaclava. G.D.B. his eldest daughter, Grace, whose married name was Grace Denys-Burton"... Learn More£42,500.00Stock Code: 111544
