TABRAHAM (Richard):

Instructive Sketches of Character. Fourth Edition, Enlarged. Six Thousand Two Hundred. Sent post paid, if ordered of the Rev. R. Tabraham, Spalding, or through any Wesleyan Minister.

[?London]: Published for the benefit of an afflicted Daughter. Price Three Shillings. 1865 Small 8vo, 168 x 98 mms., pp. [5] 6 - 346, including half-title, original embossed cloth (detached from casing, showing waste paper used in binding), with ownership inscription of Agnes Wade, later Agnes Cowen, of 57 Ark Road, Saltley, on top right of the recto of the front free endpaper. The Wesleyan minister and social activist Richard Tabraham (1792-1878) was converted to Methodism when he was 20 and began to preach at the age of 23. One of the subscribers was Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784 - 1865); Palmerston appears as the first name -- given pride of place -- at the head of the lists (p. [309]). A recent study of Palmerston's maneuverings or political action regarding religion during his premiership suggests he was generally prone to bolstering the Church of England, though was criticized as being susceptible to undue sway from Evangelicals. No copy in COPAC or WorldCat, but other editions are located in the BL and the V&A.

John Price Antiquarian BooksVendeur professionnel

N° du livre: 9057

Catalogue: Fiction

Mots-clés: fiction religion literature

THACKERAY (William Makepeace):

The History of Pendennis. His Fortunes and Misfortunes, his Friends and his Greatest Enemy.

London: Bradbury and Evans..., 1849, 1850. FIRST EDITION in book form. 2 volumes. 8vo, pp. viii, 384; xii, 372, engraved frontispieces, additional engraved title-pages, numerous steel-engraved vignettes and full-page plates, contemporary half calf, rebacked with old spines gilt in compartments laid down, morocco labels, marbled boards (rubbed); spines darkened and with some loss of gilt, edges dusty.

John Price Antiquarian BooksVendeur professionnel

N° du livre: 3118

Catalogue: Fiction

Mots-clés: fiction illustration literature

[VICTOR (Benjamin)]:

The Widow of the Wood.

London: Printed for C. Corbett..., 1755. FIRST LONDON EDITION. 12mo, 183 x 110 mms., pp. [iv] v - vii [viii blank], 208, including half-title, bound in 19th century half roan, marbled boards, top edge gilt, title in gilt on spine; binding a bit worn, but a good copy. ESTC notes, "On the intimacy and alleged marriage between Ann Whitby and Sir William Wolseley." The Monthly Review noticed the work and commented, "This recites the scandalous conduct of a lady who had the wickedness to marry a third husband, the second still living: both marriages falling within the space of one month. The law-proceedings consequent hereupon, fill the greatest part of the book; which has this singular circumstance attending it, that whereas many romances have imposed upon the public by title-pages contrived with design to pass them for true history; so here we have a true history with the title of a novel; which has led many into the mistaken supposition of its being a work of imagination." This appears to be ESTC, with St. in italic, an ornament with flowers on the title-page, an urn and two birds on page 206, and a squirrel ornament on page 208.

John Price Antiquarian BooksVendeur professionnel

N° du livre: 9683

Catalogue: Fiction

Mots-clés: fiction scandal literature

WALPOLE (Horace):

Il Castello di Otranto. Storia Gotica.

In Londra: Presso Molini..., 1795. FIRST ITALIAN EDITION. Large 8vo, 249 x 159 mms. pp. [iii] - x [xi index, xii blank], 253 [254 errata], including half-title, engraved frontispiece (by Medland after Joino), 6 other engraved plates by Birrell after Anne Melicent Clarke, with footnote on page 8, uncut and unopened, almost illegible contemporary autograph on title-page, contemporary marbled boards, with later (19th century) spine and paper label. This Italian translation by George Sivrac uses the plates by Harding that first appeared in 1793. The work appears in various states and issues: this appears to be Hazen's second state. Hazen, p. 63.

John Price Antiquarian BooksVendeur professionnel

N° du livre: 5989

Catalogue: Fiction

Mots-clés: fiction literature

WOOD (Mrs. Henry):

East Lynne. Copyright Edition.

Leipzig Bernhard Tauchnitz 1861 [actually 1863], 3 volumes. 8vo, 150 x 108 mms., pp. [iv], 342 [345 colophon, 346 blank]; [vi], 330 [331 colophon, 332 blank]; [iv], 323 [324 colophon], half buckram, gilt spines,marbled boards. A very good set, with the autograph "E. S. Spices" (I thnk) on teh top margin of the front past-down end-paper of each volume, and "Edith Saumerly" on the top margin of the series title-page. Mrs. Henry Wood (née Price [no relation], 1814–1887) was the author of a number of novels, but this one, designated a "sensation novel" was a best seller, frequently reprinted, made into movies, etc. It was was originally serialised in The New Monthly Magazine between January 1860 and September 1861, being issued as a three-volume novel on 19 September 1861. A contemporary reviewer, Samuel Lucas, in The Times for 25 January 1862, despite some misgivings about the absurd plot, ended his review, asserting that the novel satisfies "the indispensable requirement which is the rude test of the merits of any work of fiction … East Lynne is found by all its readers to be highly entertaining." The blogger, Mad Bibliophile, says of it, "I quite enjoyed this book, being a huge fan of Sensation fiction. This, along with Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White and Mary Elizabeth Braddon's Lady Audley's Secret makes up the core Sensation trilogy. Many of the plot lines were contrived but I quite enjoyed it. It's like a Victorian soap opera. Isabel remained an elusive character though and while I didn't despise her, I also didn't quite warm to her although I did pity her and her tragic circumstances. Unlike other adulteresses in many other Victorian fiction, Isabel is not painted as a 'scarlet woman' but merely a woman who made one mistake that ultimately cost her everything." Todd [574/75/76].

John Price Antiquarian BooksVendeur professionnel

N° du livre: 9535

Catalogue: Fiction

Mots-clés: fiction women literature

YORKE (Philip), Second Earl of Harwicke:

Lettres Atheniennes Lettres Athéniennes, ou Correspondance d'un Agent du Roi de Perse, à Athènes, pendant la guerre du Péloponèse; Traduites de l'Anglais, Par Alexandre-Louis Villeterque, Correspondant de l'Institut national de France. Orné de Douze Portraist Gravés au Burin; avec une Carte de l'ancien Grèce et un Index Georgraphique.

Paris, Dentus, Impr.-Libraire..., 1803. 3 volumes, 8vo, 192 x 122 mms., pp. [5] 6 - 396; [iv], 408; [iv], 385 [386 test], including half-title in each volume and engraved portrait frontispiece in each volume, 9 other engraved portraits, folding engraved map at end of volume 3, attractively bound in contemporary half calf,, gilt spine, red leather labels, speckled boards, with the small oval library klabel "Bibliotheque de Cirey" on the front paste-down end-paper of each volume. A very good to fine set. While Yorke (1720 - 1790) was at Cambridge University with his brother brother Charles York (1722 - 1770), he "wrote the greater portion of the Athenian letters, or, The epistolary correspondence of an agent of the king of Persia, residing at Athens during the Peloponnesian War (1741). The latter work was an academic exercise edited by Thomas Birch, and other contributors included Henry Coventry, John Green, Samuel Salter, Catherine Talbot, Daniel Wray, George Henry Rooke, John Heaston, and John Lawry. The Athenian Letters was printed for private circulation only, with a first edition of only ten copies and a second, which did not appear until 1781, of 100 copies. In 1792 the vogue for historic fiction created by Barthélemy's Voyage de jeune Anacharsis en Grèce (1788) led to a pirated edition of the Letters being printed in Dublin, but this was subsequently suppressed and was superseded in 1798 by a new edition that had the imprimatur of the third earl of Hardwicke and was furnished with a geographical index, maps, and engravings. A new edition by Archdeacon Coxe appeared in 1810, and another edition was printed at Basel in 1800. There were also French translations by Villeterque and Christophe, published in Paris in 1803" (ODNB).

John Price Antiquarian BooksVendeur professionnel

N° du livre: 9730

Catalogue: Fiction

Mots-clés: fiction spy literature