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F I N E B O O K S & M A N U S C R I P T S
Fine Books & Manuscripts
J ONK ER S RAR E B OOK S
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CATALOGUE 87
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Front cover : Epigraphs from Percy Shelley’s Queen Mab (1813) item 5 .
Rear endpaper: Plate from Westall’s Picturesque Tour Of The River Thames (1828) item 7 .
C A T A L O G U E 8 7
Fine Books & Manuscripts
J ONK ER S RAR E B OOK S
M M X X I I
J O N K E R S R A R E B O O K S
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F I N E B O O K S & M A N U S C R I P T S
THE BERLAND COPY
1. Travels Into Several Remote Nations Of The World In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First Surgeon and then a Captain of Several Ships. [SWIFT, Jonathan] GULLIVER, Lemuel Benj. Motte, 1726. First edition, first printing (i.e. Teerink A). Frontispiece portrait of Gulliver in the very rare first state, with the inscription beneath the portrait rather than around it. Original trade binding of panelled calf, morocco title labels to spines lettered and numbered in gilt, edges speckled red. Engraved frontispiece, four maps, two plans and head and tail pieces. A very good set with neat repairs to the spine ends of each volume and upper corners of vol I. Paper repair to the front endpaper and gut- ter of frontispiece vol I, occasional light spotting to the text but generally a fresh well margined copy. Housed in a scarlet full morocco box with chemise. [41784] £135,000 The author’s masterpiece and a landmark in the early development of the novel. Swift wrote Gulliver in stages from 1714. It is unclear whether it began life as an innocent fictional travel account, but certainly by completion it had developed into a tour de force of political satire. As a consequence, Swift insisted on publishing the novel anonymously through the London publisher Benjamin Motte, who used five printing houses to rush the work into print and to counter piracy. The success of the work was instant and the first printing sold out within a week (quickly to be followed by two further printings in 1726). Only the very earliest copies of the first printing were issued with this frontispiece, which was quickly replaced with a redesigned one to allow a Latin motto to take the place of the inscription beneath the portrait. Copies with the first state portrait have always been rare: anecdotally, about one in every 25 first printings in commerce. Indeed, only ten such copies have been sold at auction in the last 100 years. Equally sought are copies in contemporary bindings, so the combination here makes for a most desirable copy of this important work. Teerink 290; PMM 185 PROVENANCE: John Fleming (bookseller) sold in 1973 to; Abel Berland (noted book collector, bookplate to front pastedown) sold at his sale in 2001; Private collection.
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THE FIRST EDITION OF THE BHAGAVAD GĪTĀ
2. The Bhagvat-Geeta Or Dialogues Of Kreeshna And Arjoon; In Eighteen Lectures; With Notes. Translated From The Original, In The Sanskreet, Or Ancient Language Of The Brahmans. WILKINS, Charles; HASTINGS, Warren Printed For C. Nourse, 1785. First edition. 4to (317 x 235mm). Bound in very fine con - temporary tree calf, gilt border to covers, seven gilt compartments to spine, six encas- ing a gilt flower, and one with the red morocco title label. All edges yellow. An excep - tionally well-preserved copy. Very slight signs of wear to the spine ends and corners, with a little rubbing to the base of the spine. Upper joint strengthened. Internally clean and very fresh. [41023] £12,500 The first edition of the Bhagavad Gītā , the most revered text in Hinduism, with a fine association and provenance. This English translation is the editio princeps of the Gītā , preceding any printed edition in an Indic language by some twenty years. Its translator Charles Wilkins was a pioneering Sanskrit scholar, entering the service of the East India Company as a writer in 1770. In his service he proved adept in the vernacular Hindu and Bengali languages, as well as in Persian. By 1783, Wilkins’s work for the East India Company was interfering with his study of Sanskrit, and even took a toll on his health. This led to an interven- tion by the Governor-General of Bengal, Warren Hastings, who would become his supporter. In Hastings, Wilkins had found a generous and enthusiastic patron. It was arranged that Wilkins could move to Benares, freed from administrative duties, to focus on translating the portion of the Mahabharata known as the Bhagavad Gītā from Sanskrit into English. In this he was aided closely by the Brahmin pundit Kasinatha Bhattacharya. Wilkins presented his translation to Warren Hastings in October 1784, who immediately wrote to his wife “My friend Wilkins has lately made a Present of a most wonderful work of Antiquity, and I am going to present it to the Public.” By December, he had written to Nathaniel Smith, the Director of the East India Company, to seek the Company’s patronage in publishing the transla- tion. Were it not for Hastings’s insistence, this translation may never have been printed. Its publication in London in 1785 was the foundational event in the history of Sanskrit studies in the West. It was the first work translated directly from Sanskrit into English, and was carried out by the first Englishman to master the classical Indian language. It also marked the first appear - ance in the Western world of the most sacred text in Hinduism, and within a few years Wilkins’s translation had been rendered into Russian, French and German. Moreover, its publication led to “a series of important translations of ancient Indic works that would make an enormous impact on European letters, inspiring a veritable ‘Oriental renaissance’” (Richard H. Davis). This copy is notable both for its fine condition and provenance. The original owner of this copy, William Markham (1760-1815), served as Warren Hastings’s Private Secretary in Bengal from 1777-81, becoming Resident at Benares until his return to England in 1783. Though still a teenager when he entered Hastings’s service, Markham was a loyal and effective secretary. The aid and testimony he provided to and on behalf of Hastings at his later impeachment has been considered instrumental to his acquittal, and following the trial Hastings wrote to Markham to express his warmest gratitude for his service. PROVENANCE: WilliamMarkham (1760-1815, as Private Secretary to Warren Hastings) with his Becca Lodge bookplate to the front pastedown; thence by descent.
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“THIS GAME, SO FASHIONABLE, AND SO CREDITABLE AND MANLY” 3. Laws Of The Game in The London Chronicle. No 5119, Saturday, July 25 to Tuesday July 28, 1789 [CRICKET] T. Wilkie, 1789. 8pp in original self wrappers. Printed in three columns with title to first page. A fine copy, with evidence of having been extracted from a bound volume. [40977] £2,250 A rare early appearance of the laws of cricket, in an article in The London Chronicle from 1789. The first known attempt to make a universal codification of laws to govern cricket matches was established in 1744, by a number of eminent London cricket clubs under the auspices of The Star and Garter, the inn at which they met, and published in 1755. A significant revision and enlargement was made in 1774, including prescribing the width of the bat and allowing for leg before wicket as a means of dismissal. In 1787 the newly founded MCC, drawn from many of the committee at The Star and Garter, assumed custody of the laws (which it holds to this day) and issued its own rewritten, but essentially similar, version of the 1774 code. This publication in ‘The London Chronicle’ reprints MCC’s 1788 laws and is the first known appearance of the laws in a newspaper. This is significant in that the previous publications were issued in relatively small numbers with a distribution restricted to the major cricket clubs, so the promotion of the laws to a mass audience suggests the increasing popularity of cricket and the importance of a universally adopted set of laws for the game. An important milestone in the early development of cricket.
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A RARE COLLECTION OF ARABIAN POETRY, BEAUTIFULLY PRESERVED 4. Specimens Of Arabian Poetry From The Earliest Time To The Extinction Of The Khaliphat, With Some Account Of The Authors. CARLYLE, J. D. Printed by John Burges, Printer To The University, 1796. First edition, second issue (as usual), with the cancel title page. 4to in halves (232 x 185mm). Bound in contempo- rary half calf over marbled paper-covered boards. All edges speckled blue. Printed on thick paper in Arabic and Roman type, ornamental tailpieces throughout, one sheet of musical notation, errata leaf bound to rear. A fine copy, beautifully well-preserved in a contemporary binding, free from repair or restoration. Some very light wear to the joints, but internally remarkable clean and crisp. [41020] £1,250 Perhaps Carlyle’s most significant contribution to Orientalist scholarship, this work prints sixty poems by Arab poets, often from MSS, before providing the English translation and biographies of the authors. Commenting on the translations, Stanley Lane-Poole wrote that their “certain ele- gance of diction is more striking than the fidelity to the spirit and colour of the originals”. ESTC records just three copies issued with the 1795 title page, the vast majority being issued with the cancel title page dated 1796. All fifteen examples recorded at auction in the last century bore the 1796 title page. A second edition, entirely reset, was issued by Cadell and Davies in 1810. PROVENANCE: William Markham (1760-1815) with his bookplate to the front pastedown. Markham served as Private Secretary to Warren Hastings during his Governorship of Bengal, and was later instrumental in Hastings’s acquittal following an eight year impeachment trial.
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UNMUTILATED IN ORIGINAL BOARDS - THE ROSENBACH-BERLAND COPY 5. Queen Mab A Philosophical Poem: With Notes SHELLEY, Percy Bysshe Printed by P.B. Shelley, 1813. First edition, in the ‘unmutilated’ state, with the title, dedi- cation, and final leaf intact. Publisher’s original drab paper covered boards. A near fine copy, with the joints cracked but holding and wear to the spine, but an extraordinarily well preserved copy. Internally perfect. [41783] £60,000 An exceptional copy of Shelley’s key radical text of the early nineteenth century, described in DNB as a “freethinking and socialistic gospel... couched in a rhetoric so exalted as to pass easily for poetry” (DNB). Shelley arranged for a mere 250 copies to be printed for private distribution. Given the contents, Shelley’s printer, Thomas Hookham, refused to put his name to the work, so it is Shelley’s name and address which are listed on the title page. In order to avoid the possibility of prosecution, Shelley ‘mutilated’ copies as he distributed them by removing the title page and final leaf bearing his name. Furthermore, as his marriage to Harriet Shelley broke down after his elopement with Mary Godwin in 1814, he took to removing the dedication leaf to his wife. Copies which have survived unmutilated offer one of the most inflammatory title pages of the era. Knowing fewwould see it, Shelley felt able to give vent to his revolutionary fervour. It carries a quote in Latin from Lucretius, and Archimedes’ aphorism in Greek “Only give me a place on which to stand,and I shall move the whole world.” Bolder still is the statement from Correspon- dance de Voltaire, “Ecrasez l’Infame!”, a phrase which had been adopted by the Illuminati as their motto to refer specifically to Christ. As Harriet Shelley wrote to a friend about Queen Mab , “Do you [know] any one that would wish for so dangerous a gift?”. This unmutilated state has long been highly sought by collectors and considered much more valuable than mutilated copies. Further, whilst unmutilated copies are rare, copies in boards are even more so and the combination of the two is almost unknown: we can discover only one other such copy offered for sale at auction since 1902. Ashley V, p.57; Granniss, Grolier Shelley 15; Hayward 225; Tinker 1886; Wise Shelley, pp.39-40. PROVENANCE: A.S.W. Rosenbach (Noted bookseller and collector, pencil note declaring it to be from his personal collection); Louis H. Silver (morocco bookplate, purchased by John F. Fleming at the sale of Newberry Library duplicates from the Silver accession, Sotheby’s, London, 9 No- vember 1965, lot 301) – Abel E. Berland (Christie’s, New York, 8 October 2001, lot 105).
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IN ORIGINAL BOARDS
6. Nightmare Abbey [PEACOCK, Thomas Love]
T. Hookham, Jun. & Baldwin Cradock and Joy, 1818. First edition. Original publisher’s drab grey boards with title label to the spine. Page edges uncut. A very good copy, rebacked but retaining most of the original spine and the original title label. Some pencil marks to the rear boards and a little general surface wear to the edges and cor- ners, front hinge cracked but holding. In all a well preserved copy of a book seldom encountered in boards. Housed in a chemise and quarter morocco slipcase. [41539] £4,500 The author’s most famous work, a pastiche of the Gothic novel published in the same year as Jane Austen’s similarly titled Gothic burlesque. It is also a play on romantic literary society with characters drawn to resemble Byron, Coleridge, Shelley and others. Rare in boards. Other than this copy, which was offered in the Hersholt sale in 1954, there have only been three other copies at auction in the last 100 years, in 1952, 1945 (Hogan copy) and 1936. PROVENANCE: Francis Watt (Name and year of publication to front pastedown and title); Jean Hersholt (bookplate to inside of chemise, sold at his sale in 1954).
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ONE OF THE GREAT WORKS ON THE THAMES
7. Picturesque Tour Of The River Thames Illustrated by Twenty-four Coloured Views, A Map, and Vignettes, from Original Drawings Taken on the Spot. WESTALL, William; OWEN, Samuel Ackermann, 1828. First edition. Royal 4to (280 x 338mm). Contemporary half calf over marbled boards, gilt titles and ornament to compartments on spine. All edges marbled and marbled endpapers. Twenty-four aquatint plates, two aquatint vignettes and a fold out engraved map of the Thames after Westall and Owen. A very good copy indeed, well margined in an unrepaired binding with a little wear to the spine ends and corners and splits to the joints at the base of the spine. Internally very fresh with vibrant plates protected from offsetting by tissue guards. [41828] £6,000 “The tradition of picture-books on the Thames was started by Samuel Ireland with his Picturesque Views on the River Thames published in 1791-2, but Boydell was quick to compete in 1793 with his own two-volume History of the Thames . Both of these, like the present volume, were illustrated with aquatints and between them they established a canon of most-favoured views from the source to the sea.” - Bernard Adams (London Illustrated 1604-1851). Adams also notes that, “The colouring is less subdued than Boydell’s, and there are more un- aquatinted spaces where the interpretation has been left to the colour-washing artist. This gives the plates a greater resemblance to spontaneous water-colour drawings but leads inevitably to a greater disparity between individual copies.” It is in this respect that this copy particularly stands out, having an exceptionally good set of aquatints, which are both precise and vibrant. Although the Twickenham plate lacks the ink blotches thought to be present in the earliest state, the plates appear to be early impressions on Whatman paper watermarked 1826 or 1827.
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DICKENS’S FIRST WORK IN ORIGINAL CLOTH
8. Sketches By “Boz,” [First And Second Series] Illustrative of Every-day Life and Every-day People. [DICKENS, Charles] John Macrone, 1836, 1837. First editions. Three volumes. The first series in original dark green cloth with gilt titles on the spine, with variant orange coated endpapers; the second series in peach coloured cloth lettered in gilt to the spine and yellow coated endpapers. The second series in Sadleir’s earlier state, with no list of plates after the contents, the frontispiece bound in the text and ‘Vol III’ still present on each of the plates. Twenty-six steel engraved plates by George Cruikshank (sixteen in the first se - ries and ten in the second). A fine set, the cloth notably bright and crisp. A small closed tear to the head of the spine of the Second Series and a trace of wear to the corners, but entirely without repair or meaningful deficiency, which is most unusual for this book. Internally exceptionally clean and fresh, with just some offsetting to the coated endpa- pers of the First Series and a little looseness between the initial sections, but all hinges perfect. All housed in an elaborate full morocco box with drop-down side and me- chanical catch. An exceptional set, seldom seen in such uniformly excellent condition. [40860] £19,500 Dickens’s career as a writer of fiction began in 1833 when, as a political journalist, he wrote a series of ‘sketches’ or observations on society, under the pen name of Boz, to be published in ‘The Monthly Magazine’. In 1835, acquaintance and young publisher John Macrone approached Dick- ens with the idea of publishing his stories in book form, offering £100 for the copyright. As Dick- ens’s income at the time was £382 a year, this was a princely sum, and he approached the project with some enthusiasm, rewriting a number of the previously published stories and adding some new ones, notably ‘A Visit to Newgate’ and ‘The Black Veil’. A further feather in the caps of both author and publisher was securing the services of the much better known George Cruikshank to illustrate the book, which instigated a relationship that was to be mutually fruitful throughout much of Dickens’s and Cruikshank’s careers. Sketches by Boz was published in 1836 to glowing reviews, helped in no small way by Dickens’s own literary and journalistic contacts, and sold smartly, so that a second edition was published within the year, followed by a third in the following year. The book was the catalyst to Dickens’s meteoric rise to literary fame that would in due course lead to him being regarded as the foremost writer of the Victorian age. It is likely that Sketches was originally conceived as a three volume work, but that Dickens wanted to include more material than would comfortably fit into a uniform third volume, so it was decid - ed to issue two volumes followed by a separate ‘second series’ some ten months later. Exact publication numbers are unknown, but Macrone was a small establishment, so it is unlikely that each edition consisted of more that a couple of thousand copies. Sadleir ranked them first and second in his list of comparative scarcities for Dickens in original cloth and nice copies are now very infrequently encountered. Smith 1&2; Sadleir 699 PROVENANCE: J. Steele (Noted Dickensian, whose collection seems notable for the exceptional condition of copies in original cloth. Bookplate to each volume and box).
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9. Oliver Twist DICKENS, Charles
Bradbury & Evans, 1846. First one volume edition. Original blue-grey cloth with blind ornamental border to the covers and gilt wreath vignette to the upper cover. Twen- ty-four steel engravings by George Cruikshank. A fine copy, bright and crisp with barely a hair out of place. Internally clean with just slight browning to the edges of some of the plates. An exceptional copy. Housed in quarter morocco, clamshell case. [40857] £5,000 Dickens’s second novel, originally published in three volumes in 1838. Such was its popularity that Dickens was persuaded by his new publishers to revise the work and have it issued in a sin- gle volume with new illustrations. Uncommon in cloth, particularly so well preserved.
10. The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby DICKENS, Charles Chapman & Hall, 1839. First edition. Publisher’s primary binding of dark green fine diaper cloth, with plain ruled borders in blind to covers and titles in gilt on the spine. Bound from the parts with plain uncoated endpapers. Plates in the earliest state with imprints at the base of the frontispiece and first four plates. Contemporary inscription and later bookplate to front pastedown. Steel engraved frontispiece of Dickens after D. Maclise, and 39 steel engraved plates by Phiz. A very good copy indeed, small split to the joint. A crisp copy with minimal wear, frontispiece foxed, but generally clean with a little browning to the occasional plate. An excellent copy. [40856] £7,500 The author’s third novel. Seldom encountered in good original cloth.
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11. The Personal History Of David Copperfield DICKENS, Charles
Bradbury & Evans, 1850. First edition. First state of vignette title page (dated). Pub- lisher’s primary binding of sage green cloth stamped in blind with ruled border and central arabesque to covers and lettered in gilt on the spine. Thirty nine full page steel engravings by H. K. Browne. A very good copy indeed with the spine slightly faded and dusty and a few trivial marks, but the cloth entirely without repair. Internally, generally very fresh with minor, superficial repair to the hinges, pronounced foxing to the frontispiece and engraved title, but the remainder of the plates, for the most part, notably clean. An exceptionally well preserved copy. [40855] £22,500 David Copperfield , described by Dickens as “my favourite child”, marks a step change in the au- thor’s career, a transition from composer of popular, picaresque, comedies to great novelist. It now ranks as one of the great novels of the nineteenth century. Sadleir listed it at the top of his list of comparative scarcities for Dickens in fine condition and we have found it consistently the most difficult of Dickens’s major works to find in good un - repaired cloth. This is due in part to its shape and size. Like all of Dickens’s octavo novels, the contents were simply too bulky for the flimsy binding. With Copperfield this issue was probably exacerbated by its popularity: the serialisation was an instant hit with the public and so when the completed novel was available it was read heavily or rebound for posterity.
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12. Bleak House DICKENS, Charles
Bradbury & Evans, 1853. First edition. Original publisher’s primary binding of olive green fine diaper cloth blocked in blind with border and central arabesque to covers and titles blocked in gilt to the spine. Engraved title and 39 full page steel engraved plates by H.K. Browne. A near fine copy, with almost inevitable toning to the spine but otherwise very bright and crisp and free from any repair. Internally, unusually clean, with no mentionable foxing only the most minor browning to the edges of the plates. Hinges tight, but starting. An exceptionally well preserved copy. [41758] £12,500 Critically regarded as one of Dickens’s most accomplished novels, Bleak House is notable for its complex plot structure and for the large and the diverse range of characters it introduces. It also contains elements of crime fiction and is the first significant novel in which a detective plays an important role. Its satire of the Chancery court system remains one of the greatest passages on the English legal system in literary history. “ Bleak House is not certainly Dickens’s best book; but perhaps it is his best novel” - G.K. Ches- terton Dickens’s octavo novels have rarely survived in good unprepared cloth, however, possibly as a consequence of its immediate popularity, copies of Bleak House seem particularly uncommon.
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13. Hard Times For These Times DICKENS, Charles
Bradbury & Evans, 1854. First edition. Original olive green cloth. First issue with hor- izontally ribbed cloth with the price 5/- in gilt at the base of the spine. A fine copy, with a little fading to the spine and edges as usual, but a very bright and clean copy. Internally fresh with perfect hinges and a little foxing to the preliminary leaves. An exceptional copy. [41972] £3,500
A SIGNED RELIC OF DICKENS’S AMATEUR DRAMATICS
14. A Playbill And Signed Ticket For A “Strictly Pri- vate” Amateur Performance DICKENS, Charles Bradbury and Evans, September 20, 1845. The original playbill, and a ticket signed by Dickens, for the amateur performance of Ben Jonson’s Every Man In His Humour in which Dickens starred. The playbill (250 x 200mm) attractively printed in green, red and gold. The ticket (95 x 130mm), titled “Strictly Private” and inscribed in Dickens’s hand for “Miss M. Holskamp”, and offering her seat no. “40” in “Boxes. Second Cir- cle”. The ticket is also signed by Dickens to verso. In excellent condition, the playbill once lightly folded. Now both items mounted, framed and glazed, with a window mount to verso showing Dickens’s signature. [40892] £9,500 An excellent relic of a extravagant evening of amateur dramatics, both organised by and starring Charles Dickens. Dickens had warmed to the idea of himself as a performer after giving a small reading of The Chimes in 1844. By the following September he had organised and cast the evening’s entertain- ment remembered here, the highlight of which was Dickens’s own performance as Jonson’s Cap- tain Bobadil. Jonson’s play was both preceded and followed by the performance of Rossini over- tures, with the evening concluded by Catherine Gore’s one act farce A Good Night’s Rest . Attendance at the private performance at Miss Kelly’s Theatre was by invitation only, with both the playbill and ticket titled “strictly private”. The “Miss M. Holskamp” of Dickens’s inscription is Margaret Holskamp (1827-1908), a correspondent of Dickens’s favourite child Kate. PROVENANCE: Miss Margaret Holskamp, the “Miss M. Holskamp” of Dickens’s inscription. .
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DICKENS’S GOTHIC MASTERPIECE
15. Great Expectations DICKENS, Charles
Chapman & Hall, 1861. First edition, first impression. Three volumes, bound in contem - porary polished calf with flat spines ruled in gilt and morocco title and volume labels. Bound without terminal adverts to vol. III, though Smith states that not all copies were issued with adverts. Edges speckled. A fine copy with trivial wear to the corners and spine ends. Endpapers and prelims foxed, but text block bright. An exceptionally well preserved set, seldom encountered in a contemporary binding. [40861] £45,000 The first printing of Dickens’ Gothic masterpiece, now considered his best constructed and most popular novel and one of the great works of nineteenth century literature. “ Great Expectations ... is altogether something different. It did not come from research or the the- atre but out of a deep place in Dickens’s imagination which he never chose to explain... It is set, like so many of his books, in the period of his own childhood and youth... Great Expectations is not a realistic account of how the world was but a visionary novel, close to ballad or folk tale...” - Claire Tomalin ( Charles Dickens A Life ) Only 1,000 copies of Great Expectations were bound for the first impression on 6 July 1861. Four further so called editions (in reality impressions or issues), were bound up and issued up to 30 October 1861, carrying edition statements to the title pages to “imply and encourage a rapid sale” (Smith). It is likely, however, that some later issues were supplied with unaltered title pag- es, either by the publisher or by Victorian book collectors. Research for appendix D of the 1993 Clarendon edition established 124 textual points distinguishing the five issues, enabling modern collectors to distinguish true first printings from later ones with first edition title pages. This copy collates to all points required for the first issue. The scarcity of this work is further exacerbated by the fact that the majority of the first printing were sold to libraries so whilst copies do survive in the original cloth, they are usually well used and with the stamps and stickers commensurate with library circulation, or have been rebound in modern bindings. Copies in good order in contemporary bindings are rare. Smith I: 14; Great Expectations (Clarendon Press, 1993) Appendix D. PROVENANCE: John Gordon of Aikenhead (1815-1897; Scottish landowner, bookplates to front pastedowns). Bookseller/binder’s label to pastedown of vol I of John Smith & Sons, 70 St Vincent Street, Glasgow. The firm was at this address between 1835 and 1874.
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A RARITY IN FINE ORIGINAL CLOTH
16. Lorna Doone BLACKMORE, R.D.
Sampson Low, 1869. First edition. Three volumes. Publisher’s original blue cloth, vols I and II in finely ribbed cloth, vol III in sand grained cloth (no priority). Blind ruled borders to covers, gilt titles to spine. A near fine set, with just trivial wear to the head of the spine but no repairs to the cloth. Contemporary gift inscription to title and blank of vol I partially washed, otherwise internally clean with the hinges of each volume unobtrusively strengthened. An exceptional copy. [41760] £18,750 Lorna Doone , the work on which Blackmore’s popularity and significant literary standing in the latter half of the nineteenth century entirely rests, had a somewhat inauspicious start. Having struggled to find a publisher. It was eventually issued in an edition of 500 copies of which, in spite of good reviews, only some 300 were sold. A year later, a one volume cheap edition was published, which was a great success, and the work has scarcely been out of print since. It has long since been regarded as one of the rarest of the major nineteenth century novels in original cloth, especially so in such exemplary condition.
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ONE OF ONLY 500 COPIES
17. The Bostonians JAMES, Henry
Macmillan, 1886. First edition. Three volumes. Publisher’s original dark blue cloth let- tered in gilt to the spine with black ruled borders to the upper cover. Terminal adverts to vols II and III. A near fine set with hinges in volume I and the front hinge of vol II showing superficial splits. Slight toning to the spine, internally fresh. An exceptionally well preserved set. [41786] £17,500 One of only 500 copies of the first edition of one of James’s best known novels and the author’s own favourite. F. R. Leavis claimed the book was “one of the two most brilliant novels in the language,” the other being James’s The Portrait of a Lady . Edel & Lawrence A28a. Provenance: Wittersham House (bookplate to each pastedown), probably therefore the copy be- longing to Hon. Alfred Lyttleton (1857-1913, cricketer and politician), who moved to the house in 1907 and knew James in the 1880s.
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BEATRIX POTTER’S FIRST BOOK
18. A Happy Pair Verses by F. E. Weatherley [POTTER, Beatrix] H.B.P
Hildesheimer & Faulkner, [1890]. First edition. Original folded card covers illustrated in colour by Potter, enclosing seven card leaves tied at the spine with the original silk tasselled tie. All edges gilt. Illustrated internally with six exquisite chromolithographs by Potter, one of which is duplicated on the upper cover. A near fine copy with light wear to the spine fold, though much less than usual, and a faint crease to the upper corner. An exceptionally bright and crisp copy and very rare indeed in such a state. [40948] £30,000 The first work to contain illustrations by Beatrix Potter, preceding The Tale of Peter Rabbit by some eleven years, and of legendary scarcity. In the summer of 1889 the twenty four year old Beatrix Potter had bought herself a pet rabbit. “I brought him home from a London bird shop in a paper bag. His existence was not observed by the nursery authorities for a week.”. She christened him Benjamin Bouncer, and he was to be the model to satisfy her voracious appetite for drawing. “One of the greatest admirers of her work was her uncle, and when he heard that she had set her heart on buying a printing press but had not enough money for it, he suggested she might try to earn some by selling her drawings... With this encouragement, Beatrix set about preparing six designs, using Benjamin Bouncer as her model... and when they were disappointedly rejected by the first firm on the list by return of post, Walter [her brother] took the drawings by hand to the next firm, Hildesheimer & Faulkner, on his way through London. Mr. Faulkner bought them on the spot for £6 and then asked to see more of the artist’s work.” (Judy Taylor) The drawings were used for Christmas cards but also collected into this ephemeral little booklet to accompany a set of verses by Frederic Weatherly, thus launching Potter’s career as an au- thor-illustrator.
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HAND-COLOURED BY GLORIA CARDEW
19. A Midsummer Night’s Dream CARDEW, Gloria; [GUILD OF WOMEN BOOKBINDERS]
Dent, 1895. First edition illustrated by Anning Bell. One of a very small number of cop- ies hand coloured by Gloria Cardew with her label to an initial blank. Bound for the Guild of Women Bookbinders, probably by Annie S. Macdonald, though not signed, in characteristic moulded goatskin, depicting “Puck Fleeing from the Dawn”, after a painting of the same name by Scottish artist David Scott. Fifteen full page illustrations and a further 53 illustrations in the text by Robert Anning Bell, all exquisitely hand coloured by Gloria Cardew. A very good copy indeed, spotting to the page edges, a couple of worm holes at the base of the spine. Overall a well preserved example. [40725] £7,500 An effective combination of Arts & Crafts binding and fine hand colouring with one of Shake - speare’s most enduring works. The principle of Cardew’s hand colouring as a means of adding value was introduced by the enterprising bookseller, Frank Karslake. Having established The Hampstead Bindery and later The Guild of Women Bookbinders to enhance the books he was offering, Karslake employed Cardew’s services to add colour to woodcut illustrations. The process was painstaking and doubtless time consuming but the effect could be spectacular. The labour intensive nature of these productions mean the numbers produced must have been very small and they are now seldom offered in commerce. The binding, though not signed, shows many of the stylistic hallmarks of Annie S. Macdonald, whose work inspired Karslake to form The Guild of Women Bookbinders. Indeed, in his Cat- alogue Of An Exhibition Of Bookbindings By The Guild Of Women Binders... (December 1898), the Anning Bell A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Cardew’s hand-colouring appears as number 206.
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IN THE FINE SUBSCRIBER’S BINDING BY COCKERELL
20. Dante Gabriel Rossetti MARILLIER, H.C.
George Bell & Sons, 1899. First edition, special subscriber’s issue finely bound by Doug - las Cockerell in full brown morocco in the Arts and Crafts style. 4to (340 x 225mm). Gilt rules to covers, with the corners of the central panel showing Rossetti’s palin- dromic date of birth and death. Delicately decorated central wreath in gilt with green calf onlays. Six raised bands to the spine, decorated in blind, with gilt compartments and titles. The binding stamped with Cockerell’s cipher and dated 1899 to rear turn-in. All edges gilt. Photogravure frontispiece portrait of Rossetti after Frederick Hollyer, and 99 further plates, one being double-page, and chiefly reproductions of Rossetti’s work. Thirty of these are photogravures on Japon. Laurence Housman’s designs for the cover and spine of the trade edition are bound in. A fine copy, the binding notably free from wear and the toning to the spine is minor. Internally crisp, clean and fresh, with some very light foxing affecting gatherings DD-EE only. [40898] £6,500 An exceptional copy of Marillier’s monumental work on Dante Gabriel Rossetti, one of a very small number of copies specially bound by Douglas Cockerell in this fine Arts & Crafts binding. A contemporary advertisement issued by Bell noted that “a few copies will also be issued for subscribers, bound in African leather by Douglas Cockerell.” These subscribers’ copies were sold for £10 10s, while the trade edition was available for £5 5s.
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RUDYARD KIPLING AND THE BOER WAR
21. Three Autograph Letters to Edmund Garrett KIPLING, Rudyard i. “Oct. 19. 1899”. An excellent, unpublished letter from Rudyard Kipling to Edmund Garrett. Three handwritten sides of letter paper (single sheet, folded twice, approxi- mately 480 words), signed “Rudyard Kipling”. [41808] £2,750 An exceptional and unpublished autograph letter, written at the outbreak of the Second Boer War to the influential journalist and up-and-coming politician in South Africa, Edmund Garrett. Garrett was a journalist and politician, editor of the influential Cape Times and a member of the Parliament of The Cape Of Good Hope. Around the time of this letter, however, he contracted tuberculosis and was forced to return to Britain. Garrett had been a rising star in South African public life in the late 1890s, and in him Kipling saw an heroic man of action that he could idolise in the same mould as Cecil Rhodes and Joseph Chamberlain. The timing of this letter is significant, being written just a week after the outbreak of the Second Boer War. Both Kipling and Garrett shared a view of the most favourable outcome of the war, that of “Federated States of South Africa” within the British Empire, but with its own independence. Kipling played an active literary role in the Boer War, writing poems and stories on the situation, with more success in the poetic form than prose, particularly in ‘Bridge-Guard in the Karroo’ and ‘The Old Issue’. The fundraising “music-hall song” he refers to here was ‘The Absent-Minded Beg- gar’, which was set to music by Edward Sullivan, and raised over £250,000 for soldiers’s families. His chief concern here, however, is that Garrett can rest and sufficiently recover so that he can play a leading role in the reconstruction of South Africa, and “the making of a new nation” after the war.
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ii. “Oct. 16. 1900”. An excellent, unpublished letter from Kipling to Edmund Garrett. Five handwritten sides of letter paper (two sheets, folded twice, approximately 920 words), signed “Rudyard Kipling” with a ten line postscript. At the head of the first page, Kipling has written “I apologise for this vile writing. It’s stylographic - not Ara- maic.” [41809] £4,750 An exceptional, detailed and long letter from Kipling to Edmund Garrett on the state of South Africa and the ongoing Boer War. The letter dates from a pivotal time in the conflict, just before the annexation of Transvaal and the capture of Pretoria. By this time, Garrett had been back in Britain recovering from tuberculosis for over a year, while Kipling was now in the habit of making annual winter trips to South Africa. It is Kipling, there- fore, who is sharing the news from there with Garrett, rather than receiving it from him. Kipling’s mention of army reform here is particularly significant. After seeing much of the Boer War and the losses the British incurred with his own eyes, Kipling became very critical of military leadership and wrote privately and publicly of the need to reform in the light of an inevitable future conflict with Germany. At one point in this letter his rage at army officers renders him speechless, and the failure of the British Army to reform was immortalised in his later poem ‘Ep- itaphs Of The War’: “If any question why we died, Tell them, because our fathers lied.” The architect Herbert Baker had lived with Garrett in Muizenberg, and it was here on an earlier visit that Kipling and Garrett first met. The Honoured Dead Memorial at Kimberley had been commissioned by Cecil Rhodes after that city had been besieged by forces from the Boer repub- lics. Baker’s design was based on the Nereid Monument - being a Doric temple set on a high base - and Rhodes commissioned Kipling to provide an inscription for it, which was to be carved in large Roman capitals. The second half of the letter, concerned entirely with the major figures of the war and South Afri - can politics gives a sense of Kipling’s nuanced positioning. Though he is not jingoistically wed to the British, “Now I do not think highly of British Statesmen”, he shares high praise for Alfred Mil- ner. Equally, while he pours scorn on John X. Merriman, he closes the letter with the suggestion that a Boer military governor be given control of Griqualand West. Kipling also, prophetically, sees that an end to the first phase of the war is close at hand, where he says “both sides are utterly talked out. They are dead sick and weary of the war-exhausted volcanoes.” iii. “Aug. 10. 04”. An excellent, unpublished letter from Kipling to Edmund Garrett. Two handwritten sides of letter paper (single sheet, folded twice, approximately 272 words), signed “Rudyard Kipling”, with a three line postscript signed “RK”. [41810] £1,500 A terrific letter from Kipling to Edmund Garrett, prompted by the Garrett’s parody of him in the Spectator. Garrett’s parody in the Spectator was a poem titled ‘Facts And The Boss’ (August 6 1904), which was a reply to Kipling’s ‘Things And The Man’, dedicated to Joseph Chamberlain (who played a central role in the Second Boer War) and first published in The Times just days earlier (August 1 1904). Later writing of the parody, and Kipling’s response to it, Garrett said “That small jape of mine brought a shower of letters from old friends and acquaintances, but Kipling’s own magnanimous and jolly enjoyment of it was the best”. Garrett, like Chamberlain was a man of action admired by Kipling. Indeed, such was Kipling’s admiration for Garrett that he seems in this letter not at all to mind being parodied in this way, and is more interested in the publication as evidence of Garrett’s return to health than any kind or personal, political or literary slight.
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“AMONG THE FINEST BOOK ILLUSTRATIONS EVER PRODUCED” 22. Illustrations To Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book DETMOLD, Maurice & Edward Macmillan, 1903. Sixteen very large mounted colour plates depicting scenes from Kipling’s story (each image is 300mm by 250mm). Housed in publisher’s green linen portfolio with gilt embossed decoration depicting a winged beast to the upper cover. The sixteen colour illustrations are mounted and protected by both captioned tissue guards and (loose) uncaptioned tissue guards. An uncommonly fine, complete set. The linen slipcase is notably bright and fresh, albeit with some slight splits to joints. Occa- sional light spotting to captioned tissue guards, and some browning to the secondary tissue guards, but the plates are bright and clear. [40833] £10,000 Maurice and Edward Detmold were twins born in London, who studied animal life in the Zo- ological Gardens. Much of the work the brothers did was with animal images, paying great at- tention to detail and producing images which are very true to life. This series of illustrations is undoubtedly their most celebrated achievement. Keith Nicholson wrote “The watercolours them- selves must be among the finest book illustrations ever produced”. The paintings were praised for their attention to detail, their realistic images and their great depth. The portfolio was pro- duced in a small limitation and sold for 5 guineas a set.
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ILLUSTRATED MANUSCRIPT TRAVEL JOURNAL
23. Original Manuscript &Water-Colour Travel Journal Over the Hog’s Back - West, Being Wayside Sketches during a short Driving Tour MITCHELL, Henry Alexander [1905]. Original manuscript comprising 96 captioned watercolours on art paper and the following prelims: title page, dedication, log of the journey and a ‘toast’, all com- posed on rectos only. Bound in two volumes in full burgundy straight grained moroc- co, with the initials I.O.M. and the volume number to each upper cover. Housed in a matching custommade box, with a hinged lid and fold down side held with a catch, in full burgundy morocco, with gilt titles to the spine and lined in blue velvet. A fine set, with some internal reinforcement to the leaves, but the bindings untouched. Minor wear to the corners of the box. A beautifully presented work. [41829] £3,750 An exceptionally accomplished illustrated account of a ‘motor’ tour by Henry Mitchell, his wife and sister. The journey was undertaken by horse drawn carriage with coachman (”chattering ‘Arry”). The log shows they set out from the Ladies Club on Curzon Street on 24 August 1905 and made their way south west into Surrey, through Richmond and Guildford, across the Hog’s Back ridge and into Hampshire, past Alton to Winchester. On the way back they travelled up to Newbury and then tacked their way back along the Thames valley, stopping in Whitchurch, Goring and Streatley, Rotherfield Peppard, Henley, Hurley, Maidenhead, Bray and Windsor before returning to London along the line of the Thames. In total the tour took eight days and covered 176 miles. At each stage the author has stopped to record monuments and landscapes with a series of stylish and charming watercolours.
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FORD MADOX FORD’S RAREST BOOK
24. Christina’s Fairy Book [FORD, Ford Madox] HUEFFER, Ford Madox
Alston Rivers Ltd., [1906]. First edition. 16mo. Original publisher’s pictorial paper cov- ered boards over a cloth spine lettered in dark blue. Pictorial endpapers by Dion Clay- ton Calthorp. A very good copy indeed, clean and bright with only the slightest wear to the edges of the boards. An exceptionally well preserved example of a very rare book. [42213] £9,500 Ford Madox Ford’s rarest book. No copies have been recorded at auction and we are aware of only one other copy being offered for sale in living memory. In a piece accompanying the 1981 Princeton exhibition of Edward Naumburg’s monumental col- lection of Conrad and Ford, Richard Ludwig comments, “The rarest book in the whole collection is, in fact, Christina’s Fairy Book (1906), written for his first child and published in decorated boards. Mr. Naumburg recalls it took him 15 years to find a copy and, so far as he knows, the only other copy is in the British Library in London.” In fact, Naumburg understates its rarity. He began collecting in the late 1920s and published a checklist of Ford in the Princeton Library Chronicle in 1948, based on his near comprehensive col- lection. His entry for Christina’s Fairy Book there is based on the British Library copy as Naumburg had not then seen a copy in more that twenty years of searching. Harvey A18
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THE EARLIEST KNOWN CONRAD IN DUSTWRAPPER
25. The Inheritors CONRAD, Joseph with HUEFFER, Ford M.
McClure, Philips & Co. 1901. First edition. The dedication leaf in the usual second state, as a cancel with the correct spelling of Borys. Original buff cloth lettered in black to the spine with an elaborate pictorial design to the upper cover in black, red and gilt, in rare publisher’s light brown dustwrapper blocked in black to match the cover design. A fine copy, exceptionally so, in a very good dustwrapper which shows a little wear to the corners and a section excised from the base of the rear flap. [41757] £30,000 Conrad’s first collaboration with Ford Maddox Ford and his first foray into the world of quasi science fiction. At the same time its themes are drawn from the same pool as The Heart of Dark- ness (published the following year, although around the same time as The Inheritors ) in its satire of King Leopold’s scheming in the Congo and the colonial exploitation of Greenland labourers. This is the only copy we have encountered in a dustwrapper and is, so far as we have been able to ascertain, the earliest known example of a Conrad first edition to retain its jacket.
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IN ORIGINAL DUSTWRAPPER
26. The Wind In The Willows GRAHAME, Kenneth
Methuen, 1908. First edition. Original blue-green cloth with gilt vignettes and titles to the spine and upper cover, in original brown dustwrapper printed in blue. Top edge gilt. Publisher’s advertisement leaf loosely inserted. Striking black and white frontis- piece by Graham Robertson. A superb near fine copy, crisp and bright with just trivial wear and some internal foxing and browning in a dustwrapper with meaningful pro- fessional restoration to spine and minor reinforcement to edges and joints. [41790] £60,000 The Wind in the Willows began life as a series of bedtime stories told to his son Alastair. Upon retiring from his position as secretary of the Bank of England, Grahame returned to Cookham where he had grown up and set about composing the stories into a full length novel. The book was rejected by several publishers, in one case with the memorable response, “An irresponsible holiday story that will never sell.” On publication the book was well received without being a runaway success, but demand was sufficient to spawn a series of editions illustrated by different artists. It is now one of the most affectionately and highly regarded children’s books of all time. It is original dustwrapper (distinguishable from later printings which show 7/6 on the front panel), this ranks as one of the great rarities of 20th-century literature and a keystone book in any collection of children’s literature. Osborne p. 349; Grolier Children’s 61 PROVENANCE: I.D. Margary (bookplate to front pastedown).
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