"There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. "
— Oscar Wilde
Collected Works & Sets
The Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. (Reprinted from the Revised American Edition) with Explanatory Notes. The "Albion" Edition.
London: Frederick Warne and Co., no date [circa 1900]. [Poetical Works] FINELY BOUND. Octavo (20 x 14cm), pp.x; 630 [2]. With an engraved frontispiece portrait of the author. Contemporary navy full calf with raised bands, gilt titles to red label, and further gilt decoration to spine. All edges and endpapers..... More
The History of the Life of King Henry the Second, and of the Age in which he Lived, in Five Books: To which is Prefixed, a History of the Revolutions of England From the Death of Edward the Confessor To the Birth of Henry the Second.
London: Printed for J. Dodsley, 1769. [English Mediaeval History] THIRD EDITION. Complete in six volumes. Octavo (22 x 14 x 22cm), pp.[4] viii; 487 [3]; pp.[6] 517 [3]; pp.[6] 496 [2]; pp.[8] 576 [4]; pp.[8] 425 [5]; pp.[8] 505 [3]. Contemporary brown full speckled calf, with raised bands, gilt titles..... More
The Poetical Works. With Notes of Various Authors.
London: C. and J. Rivington, J. Cuthell, J. Nunn, J. and W.T. Clarke, Longman and Co., T. Cadell, Jeffery and Son, J. Richardson, Carpenter and Son, J. Mawman, Baldwin and Co., J. Booker, J. Bohn, J. Duncan, Black and Co., G.B. Whittaker, J. Bain, W. [Poetry]. FINELY BOUND. Six volumes..... More
Life and Writings of Thomas Paine. Containing a Biography by Thomas Clio Rickman and Appreciations by Leslie Stephen, Lord Erskine, Paul Desjardins, Robert G. Ingersoll, Elbert Hubbard and Marilla M. Ricker.
New York, NY: Vincent Parke and Company, 1908. [Political Philosophy] FINELY BOUND DE LUXE INDEPENDENCE EDITION. Complete in ten volumes. Octavo (23 x 16cm). Number 166 of just 500 hand-numbered sets signed by the editor Daniel Edwin Wheeler, published to celebrate the centenary of Paine's death. Each volume with three..... More
The Collected Works of Mervyn Peake.
London: Queen Anne Press, 2011. FINELY BOUND. Ten volumes bound by Shepherds, Sangorski and Sutcliffe in black full goatskin, gilt titles to spine and various onlays. Red endpapers and gilt top edges, each volume housed in a custom, lined slipcase with leather trim. The set housed in a black cloth..... More
The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe. The Virginia Edition.
New York, NY: Thomas Y. Cromwell, 1902. [Strange Tales and Mysteries]. FINELY BOUND COMPLETE WORKS. Seventeen volumes. Crown octavo (16 x 11 x 39cm). With frontispiece engravings. Contemporary tan half calf with raised bands, gilt titles to contrasting green and brown labels to spines, gilt decoration to spines and marbled..... More
The Complete Works of William Hickling Prescott. Edited, with the Author's Latest Corrections, by John Foster Kirk.
London: George Routledge and Sons, Ltd., no date [circa 1890s]. [History] FINELY BOUND. Twelve volumes, octavo (23 x 16 x 45cm). Beautifully bound by Bayntun for Lauriat Booksellers in tan half calf over marbled boards, gilt titles on contrasting morocco squares and extra gilt to spines, top edges gilt, marbled..... More
![His Dark Materials; 1. Northern Lights [Golden Compass] 2. The Subtle Knife 3. The Amber...](/pictures/thumb/41780.jpg?v=1584802503)
His Dark Materials; 1. Northern Lights [Golden Compass] 2. The Subtle Knife 3. The Amber Spyglass.
London: Scholastic Press, 1995-2000. ALL FIRST EDITIONS. 3 volumes, octavos. Publisher's cloth in original pictorial dust-jackets. The set housed in a custom felt lined slipcase. Some water marking to the cloth which had transferred with some colour to the reverse of the slightly edge worn dust-jacket of the first volume..... More
A New Dictionary of the English Language.
London: William Pickering, 1839. [English Dictionary] EARLY PRINTING. Complete in two volumes. Quarto (29 x 24cm), pp.[8] [72] 1184 [4]; pp.[8] 1185-2223 [5]. Contemporary lightly-diced brown calf boards with gilt rule, recently re-backed to-style in tan calf with raised bands and gilt titles. All edges speckled red; textured orange-patterned endpapers..... More
The Works of Roosevelt [set of writings/essays including The Rough Riders, Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail, The Winning of the West, African Game Trails, Through the Brazilian Wilderness, Outdoor Pastimes of an American Hunter, etc.]
New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1923-6. [Memoirs] MEMORIAL EDITION. 24 volumes, octavo (25 x 17 x 114cm). Limited to 1050 sets, SIGNED by Edith Roosevelt. Beautifully printed on fine paper with watermark seal to centre. Photographic portrait of Roosevelt with a facsimile autograph as frontispiece. Publisher's deep red cloth lettered..... More
The Waverley Novels. The works include: Waverley, Rob Roy, Ivanhoe, etc.
Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black, 1886-1887. [English Literature] The Centenary Edition, complete in 25 volumes; Octavo (18 x 12 x 64cm). Frontispiece illustration to each volume. Contemporary decorative binding by Blackwell in green half morocco with gilt titles and gilt tooling of leaves and thistles to spines, marbled boards and..... More
Waverley, or, 'Tis Sixty Years Since.
Edinburgh: James Ballantyne and Co., 1814. Second Edition, in ORIGINAL BOARDS. Three volumes. Octavo, with half-titles, edges untrimmed. Frontispiece illustration to each volume. A rare survival in the original grey-paper covered boards, with blue paper spine and printed title labels (lacking from vol. II). Some general wear to the fragile..... More
The Family Shakespeare. In which nothing is added to the original text, but those words and expressions are omitted which cannot with propriety be read aloud in a family.
London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1874. [Plays of Shakespeare] FINELY BOUND CENSORED PLAYS. Large octavo (24 x 17cm), pp.[4] x; 910 [2]. Very small print set in two columns. With an engraved head piece for each play. Contemporary black full morocco with raised bands, gilt title to spine, and heavy..... More
The Plays of William Shakespeare. The Comedies; The Histories; The Tragedies.
London: Cassell & Company, no date [circa 1880s]. [Drama] FINELY BOUND AND ILLUSTRATED, a later printing. Three volumes. Quarto (32 x 25cm), pp.[12] 712 [2]; pp.[10] 596 [2]; pp.[2] xlii [10] 775 [3]. With numerous in-text and full page engravings by Selous, a facsimile and transcript of Shakespeare's Will, and..... More
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. The Oxford Shakespeare.
Oxford: at the Clarendon Press, no date [circa 1900]. [Drama and Poetry] FINELY BOUND. Octavo (19 x 13cm), pp.[4] viii; 1264 [4]. Small print in two columns, printed on thin paper. Contemporary brown full morocco by MUDIE of London, with raised bands and gilt titles and decoration to spine. All..... More
The Tragedies of Shakespeare.
London: Henry Frowde, Oxford University Press, 1912. [Shakespeare's plays] FINELY BOUND. Octavo (19 x 14cm), pp.[viii]; 1315; [1]. Oxford binding of quarter vellum over blue cloth boards, gilt decoration and titles to spine, top-edge gilt, housed in the original card slipcase. Frontispiece from a drawing by Sir George Scharf. Ownership..... More
![Bell's Shakespeare]. [Romeo and Juliet; All's Well that Ends Well; The Winter's Tale; Love's...](/pictures/thumb/57101.jpg?v=1593449283)
[Bell's Shakespeare]. [Romeo and Juliet; All's Well that Ends Well; The Winter's Tale; Love's Labour's Lost; Tempest; Titus Andronicus; As You Like It; Measure for Measure; Antony and Cleopatra; Midsummer-Night's Dream; King Lear; Othello; Cymbeline; Much Ado about Nothing; Julius Caesar; Comedy of Errors; Timon of Athens; King John; Merry Wives of Windsor; Richard II; Richard III; King Henry VIII; Hamlet; Taming of the Shrew; Two Gentlemen of Verona; Twelfth-Night, or, What You Will; Troilus and Cressida; Macbeth; Coriolanus; Henry V; Henry IV, parts I and II; Henry VI, parts I, II and III; Names of the Original Actors in the Plays of Shakspeare, by Will. Shakspeare: Printed complete from the Text of Sam. Johnson and Geo. Steevens, and revised from the last Editions.
London: John Bell [and] John Cawthorn, 1784-1807. [Shakespeare] JOHN BELL EDITION, later printings, mixed issue. 36 of 38 volumes. Duodecimo in half-sheets (16 x 10cm). Most volumes dated 1788 or 1803, with just a few intersectional exceptions. All volumes with two engraved title pages of varying dates ranging from 1784..... More
![The Library Shakspeare [Shakespeare]. William SHAKESPEARE](/pictures/thumb/60148.jpg?v=1631377083)
The Library Shakspeare [Shakespeare].
London: William Mackenzie, no date [1873-75]. [Dramatic Works] FINELY BOUND AND ILLUSTRATED. Complete in three volumes. Quarto (32 x 27cm), pp.[6] 396 [2]; pp.[6] 406 [2]; pp.[6] 476 [2]. With a full-page engraved plate for each play, nine very fine coloured plates, including a frontispiece to each volume, and very..... More
The Works of William Shakespeare.
London: Archibald Constable, n.d [c.1910]. FINELY BOUND EDITION. 12 volumes. Crown octavo (19 x 14 x 40cm). Half scarlet calf by The Times Bindery, with green morocco title labels, gilt to spine, matching buckram sides, top edge gilt, marbled endpapers. Contents a little thumbed, bindings with the odd mark or..... More
Calender of Wills, Proved and Enrolled in the Court of Hustings, London.
London: John C Francis 1889. 2 vols, parts one and two. Octavo. Bound in half brown morcco with green cloth boards highlighted with single gilt rule, raised bands with gilt decoration and gilt titles to spine, all edges gilt. Includes binder's ticket. Some rubbing and wear, the spine of part..... More
The Miscellaneous Works of Tobias Smollett, complete in one volume, with memoir of the author, by Thomas Roscoe.
London: Henry G. Bohn, 1863. [Illustrated literature] ILLUSTRATED EDITION. Octavo (25 x 17cm), pp.[2]; xl; 966. With a drypoint-finished etched portrait frontispiece of the author after Joshua Reynolds, a facsimile letter facing the preface and 19 copper engraved plates by George Cruikshank. In publisher's blind-decorated red cloth with gilt titles..... More
![A Series of Unfortunate Events [1-11]. The Bad Beginning, The Reptile Room, The Wide Window, The...](/pictures/thumb/57570.jpg?v=1596298989)
A Series of Unfortunate Events [1-11]. The Bad Beginning, The Reptile Room, The Wide Window, The Miserable Mill, The Austere Academy, The Ersatz Elevator, The Vile Village, The Hostile Hospital, The Carnivorous Carnival, The Slippery Slope, The Grim Grotto, and The Unauthorized Autobiography.
London: Egmont [and] New York, NY: HarperCollinsPublishers, 2001-2004. [Children's Fantasy] MIXED COLLECTION. 12 volumes. Octavo (19 x 13 x 28cm). With in-text illustrations by Helquist. Including volumes 1-11 of the series (lacking volumes 12 and 13), as well as the autobiography. All UK first editions, except volumes 6 and 7..... More
The Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Dean of St Patrick's, Dublin, accurately revised in Six Volumes, Adorned with Copper-Plates; with Some Account of the Author's Life, and Notes Historical and Explanatory, by John Hawkesworth.
London: Printed for C. Bathurst, C. Davis [etc.], 1755. [Literature] FINE CONTEMPORARY BINDING. In six volumes. Quarto (27 x 23 x 28cm), pp.[4]; 44; xviii; 184; [2], viii; 286; [2]; pp.[6]; 232; [4]; 182; [2]; pp.[4]; vi; iv; 192; [6]; 253 [3]; pp.[10]; 318; [2]; ii; 237; [3]; pp.[6]; 258;..... More
The Works of Alfred Tennyson. Poet Laureate.
London: Macmillan and Co., 1904. [Complete Works] FINELY BOUND, a later printing thus. Octavo (19 x 13cm), pp.[4] viii; 900 [6]. With an engraved frontispiece portrait of the author. Very fine contemporary brown full crushed morocco, possibly by Zaehnsdorf or similar, with raised bands and gilt titles to spine. All..... More
The Works of W. Thackeray. Including: Vanity Fair, Pendennis, Barry Lyndon, etc.
London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1869, 1886. 24 volumes. Octavo. Contemporary dark green half morocco by Riviere, with gilt titles and elaborate gilt decoration to spines in 3 compartments; light green cloth boards with gilt rule; top edges gilt; marbled endpapers. With illustrations by the author. Spines evenly faded to..... More