appealing set in a strictly contemporary binding of Mayhew’s “seminal study of London street life in the middle of the century” ( ODNB ). First issued in two volumes in 1851 by David Bogue, the copyright of London Labour was purchased from Bogue’s executors by Griffin and Bohn for £1,000. Sensing that there was still a market for London Labour , they reissued volume 1 in 1861, and volumes 2 and 3 in 1862, along with a fourth volume, “containing the 1851 global prostitution survey by Horace St John and surveys of London prostitutes by Bracebridge Hemyng, as well as interviews with thieves and swindlers by John Binny and with beggars by Andrew Halliday” (Schroeder). Hugely popular and attracting enthusiastic letters from readers, Mayhew’s ground-breaking analysis resulted in the establishment of a special Labour and the Poor Fund. His book was considered “required reading for anyone interested in the minutest details of Victorian lower-class life, such as what kinds of foods were sold on the streets, how financial transactions with street-sellers were conducted, and how vendors ‘cried’ their wares. Mayhew’s work influenced contemporary literature and popular entertainments as readily as it helped to shape Victorian social theories. Many literary representations of the working class were indebted to Mayhew’s sketches; Dickens’s certainly were, and the same might be said for any number of novels with lower-working-class characters produced during and after the 1840s” ( ODNB ). 4 volumes, large octavo (230 × 152 mm). Contemporary half calf, red morocco lettering-pieces, brown morocco numbering-pieces, low, narrow bands gilt, gilt panels to compartments, dark brown pebble-grain cloth sides, corners and sides trimmed with a gilt single rule, matching Nonpareil pattern marbled edges and endpapers. All wood-engraved plates as called for, maps and tables to the text; printed in double columns. Provenance: armorial bookplates of Percy Robert Basil Feilding (1827–1904) to all front pastedowns. A little rubbed at the extremities, gilt of spines a trifle dulled, old pale stains to rear cover of vol. II, a couple of marks to front cover of vol. IV, typical light browning and occasional foxing; yet this remains a very good set. ¶ Janice Schroeder, “The Publishing History of Henry Mayhew’s London Labour and the London Poor ”, BRANCH: Britain, Representation and Nineteenth-Century History , 2019. £1,500 [154345]
117 MILNE, A. A. Now We Are Six. London: Methuen & Co., Ltd, 1927 the most exclusive deluxe issue – PRESENTATION COPY FROM MILNE TO HIS AMERICAN PUBLISHER First edition, signed extra limited issue, number 14 of 20 large-paper copies printed on Japanese vellum and signed by the author and illustrator, this a presentation copy to Milne’s American publisher John Macrae, inscribed by the author on the front
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116 MAYHEW, Henry. London Labour and the London Poor. London: Griffin, Bohn, and Company, 1861–62 MAYHEW’S “VIVID AND UNFORGETTABLE” MAGNUM OPUS – WITH THE FIRST APPEARANCE OF THE EXPOSÉ OF PROSTITUTION First editions thus, issued under Griffin and Bohn’s imprint; first edition of volume IV. This is an
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free endpaper: “A gallant Knight is John Macrae – / He takes me on his pillion, / and round and round the U.S.A. / he dashes on his headstrong way, / until there dawns the glorious day / When he can sheathe his sword and say, / ‘Well, Now We Are Six Million’”, signed and dated January 1928. Published on 13 October 1927, it took only two months for Now We Are Six to eclipse the sales records of the previous two books. At the time of Milne’s death, his American publishers estimated they had sold seven million copies of the Pooh books in various editions. This is the most luxurious and exclusive format in which Milne’s Pooh books were issued. Presentation copies are exceptionally scarce. Octavo. Original full vellum with yapp edges, gilt lettered front cover, untrimmed and unopened. Housed in a custom blue quarter morocco slipcase and chemise. Illustrated throughout by Ernest H. Shepard. From the library of Elliott B. Macrae. Boards lightly splayed, mild foxing to endpapers, book block lightly toned. An excellent copy. £35,000 [138094]
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