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60 EDWARDS, Amelia Ann Blanford. A Thousand Miles up the Nile. London: Longmans, Green, & Co., 1877 Quarto (255 × 185 mm). Contemporary japon vellum presentation binding, spine lettered in gilt and ends tooled in gilt with double fillet and curled asp motifs, boards elaborately panelled in gilt surrounding a wide pictorial bor- der of hieroglyphs, the title repeated to the central panel of front board, in- ner dentelles gilt, cream moiré silk endpapers, edges gilt. Housed in a con- temporary red morocco box, spine and front board lettered in gilt, fleece- lined, the lid connected to lower casing with single red string. Black and white wood-engraved frontispiece, vignette to title page, and 16 other black and white wood-engraved plates by G. Pearson after watercolours by the au- thor; numerous woodcut illustrations to the text; 2 coloured folding maps; plus 1 colour photolithographic plate of a hieroglyphic inscription at Abou Simbel, facing p. 506. A fine copy, boards slightly splayed with some light spotting to contents. Box worn, front flap restored, missing the second.
first edition, superior large paper copy, presentation copy , inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, “To my dear cousin Gerald Fitz-Gerald with all affectionate good wishes, January 12th 1887, Amelia B. Edwards”. No other copies thus bound are recorded as having appeared at auction: it was likely produced in a very small number for the author. This is a superb copy of the first general archaeological survey of Egypt’s ruins, “one of the great classics of the history of the Nile” (Crewe), by polymath Amelia Edwards (1832–1892). Edwards ef- fectively created Egyptology as an area of study, founding the first chair in Egyptology at University College London, and arguably did more than anyone else in the late 19th century to encourage interest in ancient Egypt. Robinson, Wayward Women , pp. 13–14. See Crewe, Quentin, ‘Introduction’ to Ed- wards’s Untrodden Peaks and Unfrequented Valleys , new edition, Century Publishing, 1982. £6,500 [126129] 61 ELIOT, George. Scenes of Clerical Life. Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1858 2 volumes, octavo. Original maroon morocco-grain cloth, stamped in blind and lettered in gilt, light brown coated endpapers. Housed in a burgundy quarter morocco solander box by the Chelsea Bindery. Contemporary book- seller’s tickets to rear pastedowns of E. Charlton, Pilgrim Street, Newcastle. A trace of wear to extremities, but an exceptional copy, bright and fresh. first edition in book form of George Eliot’s first published work of fiction, which collects three short stories previously serialized in Blackwood’s Magazine from January to November 1857. The tales, cen- tering around three provincial clergymen, focus less on theological issues than on the ethical problems they face in their daily lives, foreshadowing many of the themes addressed in Eliot’s later mas- terpiece Middlemarch (1871–2). The stories “with their deft contex- tualizing and strong dialogue, indicated the arrival of a fresh new talent among Victorian writers of fiction” ( ODNB ). provenance: from the library of Hugh Walpole (1884–1941), a noted collector of Eliot. Parrish, p. 7; Sadleir 818; Wolff 2062. £19,500 [131573]
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All items are fully described and photographed at peterharrington.co.uk
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