literature

First edition, first issue with all the first issue points called for by Dufour: the erroneous spelling of the author as ‘Jaques’, the accent to ‘conformé’ added in manuscript the publisher on p. 11, the three cancels (pp. LXVII-LXVIII, 111-112, and 139-140) and the final leaf with instructions to the binder for placing the cancels.

The Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men, also commonly known as the ‘Second Discourse’ examined social inequality and its origins and was Rousseau’s entry in a competition by the Academy of Dijon. Rousseau sets out to demonstrate how the growth of civilization corrupts man’s natural happiness and freedom by creating artificial inequalities of wealth, power and social privilege. Contending that primitive man was equal to his fellows, Rousseau believed that as societies become more sophisticated, the strongest and most intelligent members of the community gain an unnatural advantage over their weaker brethren, and that constitutions set up to rectify these imbalances through peace and justice in fact do nothing but perpetuate them. Rousseau’s political and social arguments in the Discourse were a hugely influential denunciation of the social conditions of his time and one of the most revolutionary documents of the eighteenth-century.

The inscription ‘F.H. Bothe’ is possibly that of Friedrich Heinrich Bothe (1771-1855), German poet, translator and classical philologist. Tchemerzine, X, 32; Dufour-Plan 55-56.

An interesting copy. This is the ‘Author’s Unabridged Popular Edition’ and the first Paris edition of one of the most notorious books of the twentieth, issued by Lawrence to counter the numerous highly-priced counterfeit editions which appeared almost immediately on either side of the Atlantic in response to the book’s banning for obscenity when it first appeared in 1928. It includes a new preface by Lawrence describing his response to this piracy and his hopes for the readership of his novel.

This copy, with all its faults, speaks eloquently of the books reception in Britain. Its early owner, Alice Beary (Irish-born wife of a racehorse trainer) has added her ownership inscription (perhaps unusual) and a pencil list of page numbers of the novel’s sexually explicit passages. The book has been much read and repeatedly repaired - some unsightly clear tape, a strip of pink cotton, and two added sets of brown paper wrappers, which serve as much to conceal as to protect, and it carries the distinct domestic fragrance of the scullery, the potting shed or the boot room. In booksellers’ experience, home libraries of the mid-twentieth century often reveal a well thumbed Lady Chatterley, much read but discreetly concealed.

An attractive diminutive edition of a favourite garden book.

First edition, inscribed by Keller to artist and illustrator W. Graham Robertson: ‘To Mr Graham Robertson I send this book, hoping that it may convince him of the reality of my cordial admiration. Helen Keller. September 24th 1938’ and loosely inserted is an envelope containing a telegram from Alexander Woollcott to Graham Robertson at Sandhills, his Surrey home saying, ‘Helen Keller and I send our love to you at Christmas’. Keller’s inscription is reproduced in Robertson’s Letters. In a letter of 29 December 1938 he recorded receiving ‘to my inordinate pride, an affectionate message from that eighth wonder of the world, Helen Keller. What have I ever done that she should think of me’. Several days later he outlined the background of their connection. ‘Helen Keller began some time ago to send me little messages through a mutual friend who had spoken to her of Time Was. I felt compelled to tell her (very gently and tactfully, I hope) that I was quite unable to believe her existence, and that she and her impossible career were quite obviously a beautiful fairy tale invented for the encouragement and comfort of the world. She then sent me one of her books, inscribed (of course she can write―that is quite a minor miracle) … And then she got Time Was in Braille and seemed to like it. And that’s how it happened that am privileged to call myself a friend of Helen Keller’s’.

First edition. The first volume of the first English edition of Grimm’s fairy tales. The copy belonged to G.M Robertson, artist and illustrator Graham Robertson’s father and loosely inserted is a letter from Kerrison Preston (dated Christmas 1970) to Gillian Preston where he notes, ‘This Grimm belonged to Graham Robertson’s father Graham Moore Robertson and must have influenced the child’s upbringing, and so it has some association value’.

Indeed, Robertson wrote in his memoir, Time Was of his early and defining interest in fairy-tales: ‘I had reached the ripe age of thirteen and had for years been an earnest student of fairy-tales, ballads and romances. In the course of my studies I was continually coming across dazzlingly beautiful ladies, princesses lovely as the day, radiant fairies, exquisite though distressed heroines. There was never any doubt as to the beauty of these ladies; it took you flat aback at first sight and you knew at once that you were in the presence of a Fairy or a Princess or at least of an ill-used stepdaughter — which came to the same thing in the end … I looked round me in the solid, comfortable, mid Victorian world. There were pretty girls and girls who were not pretty; there really seemed very little difference between them. They roused no particular interest, and as to taking one flat aback — well, it was not in their line. I concluded, after some research, that the race of Fairy Princesses was extinct, and I didn’t much mind’. (p. 53).

First edition. Number 43 of an edition of 50 copies. The poet Gordon Bottomley, an invalid since his childhood, lived away from the stress of cities in Carnforth, Lancashire. He donated his extensive collection of Pre-Raphaelite paintings to the Tullie House Museum in Carlisle. ‘Gordon Bottomley has never enjoyed robust health … He can only work very very slowly and must husband his physical strength with the utmost care. … his work, appearing at rare intervals, is of great perfection. … He stands among the greatest’ (Old Vic Magazine, November 1922). Graham Robertson, who described Bottomley as a ‘dear friend’ wrote of the plays: ‘They have real stuff in them I think, especially King Lear’s Wife and his new one Gruach, just published, being an incident in the early life of Lady Macbeth; (Letters, p. 76). ‘Bottomley, who had a luxuriant beard and hair well into later life, was liked and admired. He maintained the standards and culture which he knew historically and aesthetically with a generous courtesy. He believed in rural tradition, community, and craftsmanship. His influence on the minority who are sensitive to the power of poetry, and especially of poetry heard communally, was due to his gift of friendship and direct encouragement as well as his writings’ (Oxford DNB). 

First Rackham edition. Number 65 of 500 copies. Gettings, Arthur Rackham, p. 139; Hudson, Arthur Rackham, pp. 118-119.

A unique album written and illustrated by the artist and illustrator W. Graham Robertson for Marion (‘Binkie’), daughter of artist Arthur Melville who had died in 1904. It is one of several (another is in the Ray collection in the Morgan Library, New York) devoted to the young girl who became Robertson’s muse in the years following Melville’s tragic death. It comprises ‘Six Songs of the Day’ and ‘Six Songs of the Dusk’, the typed poems accompanied by his illustrations, usually depicting himself ‘Ba’ and the infant Binkie, and bear titles such as ‘Glad Day’, ‘Sea Pinks’, ‘Sand Castles’, ‘The Nowhere Place’ and ‘The Lady Dream Come True’. The larger watercolours are on Robertson’s Rutland Gate stationery.

First edition, deluxe issue, inscribed to ‘To my dear Graham [Robertson] Sep 1908 ET Nelleanora’ on half-title, with a small collection of associated and autograph material. The book was limited to 1000 copies for sale of which the first 250 copies are signed copies this being 122. With the book is an envelope containing a small collection marked ‘Items linked to Ellen Terry’s Story of my Life’, which includes four Terry autograph fragments (two on an envelope, one on a photo postcard with a family group), several photographs (early copies) of Terry, items concerning the G.F. Watts portrait, newspaper cuttings, an autograph letter from Sir John Gielgud, letters from Terry’s daughter Edith Craig (‘Edy’, to whom Terry dedicates the book) and her grandson, Edward Craig.
Ellen Terry was pre-eminent among the figures who defined the artist and illustrator W. Garham Robertson’s early life, dubbed by him ‘Our Lady of the Lyceum’ (Time Was) and his reminiscences of his time with her are among the most satisfying of his memoirs. He drew her several times, and The Story of my Life contains one of his portraits.

First edition.

An superbly executed manuscript miscellany of short works by the eccentric antiquary and bibliophile Laurent de Crozet (1809-1872). The volume was edited posthumously by his son Amédée de Crozet (1847-1896) and is in the hand of a master scribe, Alphonse Pelletier of Marseille. The choice of contrasting quires of coloured papers aptly reflects some of the author’s curious bibliophilic practices. A prolific author of pamphlets and articles, it was said that he preferred to have each work printed in small editions by different printers, sometimes even ordering different gatherings from different printers. His aim was to make collecting his works as challenging as possible, so that only he and one other ever achieved a complete collection. Notably modest, de Crozet also published anonymously and adopted pseudonyms (such as the ‘Chevalier Apicius à Vindemiis’), a characteristic alluded to in the the author’s portrait (’Auctoris vera effigies’ which mentions a limitation of 50 copies) depicting a man sitting on an immense barrel, his pockets stuffed with pipes and bottles and his head in a book, so that his face is entirely obscured). De Crozet was a major collector of earlier French books (Perrier, Bibliophiles et les collectionneurs provencaux, 1897).

The contents comprise: Volume I: Du Coeur de l’homme selon la Philosophie ancienne; Reflexions; Notes de voyage (Hôtels, Registres des Etrangers; Enseignes; Voyageurs en Suisse, L’Amateur); Sur Cicéron; Lucrèce Borgia; Les Fiancés par Manzoni; Messe en Fa de Chérubin; Cicéron et Lord Byron; De la Décentralisation littéraire; Pensées; Histoire de l’Angleterre par Hume; Considérations sure les premiers siècle de notre histoire; Sur la foi. Volume II: De la Recherche des plaisirs’ De la Connaissance de Dieu; De l’Esclavage en Turquie; Memoires d’un Président de Conférences; Réponse de Mr. Casimir Bousquet; Notes sur Haitze’ Rapport; Notes bibliographiqes.

First edition. The verso of the front free endpaper has an early manuscript note: ‘Taken out of the Empress Josephine’s Library at Malmaison, when the Allied armies entered Paris in 1815’. The half-title bears another early inscription in pencil: ‘Dear Edward, you will find me at No. 2 Rue Trudon near Rue Camartin, if you arrive early come and see me, if I am not on duty, I shall call here about three o’clock. Yours Wyndham’.

Whether the book was ever in the library at Malmaison is debateable: the arms are of Louis Jean-Pierre, marquis de Fontanes (1757-1821) as a comte senateur de l’empire. Man of letters Fontanes had fled France at the Revolution (as a supporter of a reformed monarchy) and was associated with Chateaubriand. He was an enthusiastic supporter of Napoleon, who commissioned him to write an éloge on George Washington in 1800. He became professeur de belles-lettres at the Collège des Quatre-Nations, and a member of the Institut de France. Thereafter he gathered honours and became a major part of the Imperial educational reforms. He was named comte de l’Empire in 1808. After Napoleon’s fall he resumed his Royalist stance and was names Louis XVIII’s ministre de l’instruction publique. He is buried in Père Lachaise.

KingVictorian Decorated Trade Bindings 36 ( variant of this binding by Robert Dudley).

King Victorian Decorated Trade Bindings 735 (Albert Warren, King’s example in blue).

King Victorian Decorated Trade Bindings 361 (Red, John Leighton).

King Victorian Decorated Trade Bindings 361 (John Leighton).

First edition. A preface explains the etymology of the novel’s subtitle: Cigisbéisme [’cicisbeism’] — the custom, probably of Italian origin, of a married woman keeping an additional male companion, either Platonic or otherwise. Its author, Durdent, produced several other novels and a translation of Edgeworth’s Fanny. Despite its promising subject matter, Clémentina appears to have gone almost entirely unnoticed by contemporary reviewers.

This copy is complete with spine labels (two for each volume) printed on the verso of the title-page of the second volume. Thankfully, they have not been used in binding here (which has black labels lettered in gilt supplied by the binder) since their use would entail sacrificing the title page. It seems an odd place to print them, and where such printed title-pages have been encountered elsewhere they have been printed on a blank. Worldcat: Cambridge (England) and Toronto only.

First edition. A novel illustrating the contemporary vogue for fiction based on the records of the French law courts. A contemporary reviewer in the Revue encyclopèdique savaged the novel itself but evidently found the 38-page introduction interesting - being a commentary on the merits of the relatively recent development of trial by jury in France. The book found several other reviews in the same year and evidently divided opinion. The Revue bibliographique du Royaume des Pays-bas simply noted ‘Cet ouvrage a été saisi par la police’.

Dubergier, who did not put his name on the title, was prolific both as a translator from English and as a novelist in his own right — usually favouring popular literature of the Walter Scott variety, sometime with Scottish or Irish settings. Querard, 11, p. 115. Worldcat lists the Bn and Princeton copies only.

First edition with the Lydis illustrations, of Colette’s coming-of-age novel (first published in 1900-3 with debatable contribution from her then-husband, Willy). This is copy number 88 of 100 on pur fil Lafuma with plates in 2 states, after copies on Japon and Hollande, of a total edition of 1585 copies on different papers. There was mutual admiration (and perhaps more) between Colette and Lydis, the former having written an admiring note on the artist for the programme of the 1934 Bal des petits lits blancs, which Lydis had illustrated.