J O N K E R S R A R E B O O K S
Internally very fresh and hinges perfect. A very well preserved copy. $42,500 Dickens completed writing A Christmas Carol in November 1843 and was determined to produce it as a beautiful gift book. He stipulated that it should have a fancy binding, all edges gilt and four full page hand coloured etchings. The book was an instant success, reportedly selling all 6000 copies of the first edition on the first day of publication, almost single-handedly spawning a new genre of “Christmas literature”. “it is rather as if Dickens had rewritten a religious tract and filled it both with his own memories and with all the concerns of the period. He had, in other words, created a modern fairy story. And so it has remained.” - Peter Ackroyd (Dickens) Smith II 4 ELIOT, George MIDDLEMARCH A Study of Provincial Life Blackwood, 1871-2 [46335] First edition in book form. 8vo. Four volumes, handsomely bound in later half calf over marbled boards with blind tooling to calf edges. Lettered in gilt and decorated with gilt banding and tooling to the spine, raised bands creating six sections with two morocco title labels in green and red. All edges marbled. Marbled endpapers. A near fine set, with very occasional spots of internal foxing and the trimming of the title pages of vol I and IV clipping some of the “translation rights” text slightly. $6,500
ies on large handmade paper, signed by Hardy. Original pub- lisher’s quarter vellum over marbled boards, with the rare buff dustwrapper, printed in navy. Forty-one wood engraved plates by Vivien Gribble. Fold-out map of Wessex to the rear. A near fine copy, with some very slight foxing to the endpapers and page edges only, in a very good dustwrapper which shows some wear to the head of the spine with a small chip to the upper cor- ner and some spotting to the spine and light scuffing to the rear panel. $6,500 A beautifully illustrated, printed and bound edition of Hardy’s great novel, issued two years after its stage debut. IN ORIGINAL CLOTH HARDY, Thomas THE TRUMPET MAJOR Smith, Elder & Co., 1880 [44937] First edition. Three volumes. Original publisher’s red pictori - al cloth with decoration in black to the upper cover and gilt to the spine. Purdy’s secondary binding with three blind rules to the rear panel. A very good set indeed with a little fading to the spines, but generally bright and crisp. Ownership stamps to each pastedown, section G in volume III loosening and sitting slightly proud of the text block, but hinges fine and generally fresh. An attractive set. $13,500
Eliot’s greatest novel written at the height of her artistic maturity. V.S. Pritchett in his introduction to a later edition of the novel, opines, “No Victo - rian novel approaches Middlemarch in its width of reference, its intellectual power, or the imper- turbable spaciousness of its narrative... No writer has ever represented the ambiguities of moral choice so fully.” IN RARE ORIGINAL DUSTWRAPPER HARDY, Thomas TESS OF THE D’URB- ERVILLES A Pure Woman Macmillan, 1926 [46558] First illustrated edition, limited to 325 cop-
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