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First edition. A descriptive catalogue of the lifetime collection of James Dearden (1931-2021) devoted to John Ruskin. Containing a near-comprehensive set of all important early editions of Ruskin’s works, manuscripts, letters, photographs, ephemera, Ruskiniana and a reference collection (345 item). With introductory essays by Stuart Eagles (’Ruskin Today’) and Stephen Wildman (a biographical appreciation of James Dearden). Catalogue text by Justin Croft and Jonathan Stone.

Number 978 (on Rives) of a total edition of 1000 copies. La Pécheresse (’The Sinner’) was first published in 1912.

First edition. Fragoletta, in which a woman disguises herself as a man and seduces another woman, was a major point of reference for early nineteenth-century literature, notably inspiring Balzac’s Séraphîta and Théophile Gautier’s Mademoiselle de Maupin with its fascination with the androgynous or doubly-sexed body. It clearly took inspiration from Bernini’s statue of the sleeping hermaphrodite and is one of the first nineteenth century novels to feature a hermaphrodite protagonist. It’s most obvious echo in English literature is in Swinburne, whose 1866 Poems and Ballads contained the poem ‘Fragoletta’ — an ode to androgyny in which the boy/girl (’a double-rose’) is rendered more desirable by their double sexuality.

First published in Latin in 1520, this is considered the first ethnographic compendium of the Early Modern period in Europe, a collection of the manners and customs of all mankind, as it was then known to most Europeans. It considers Africa, Asia and Europe. It first appeared in French in 1540. Its first appearance in English was as William Waterman’s The Fardle of Facions in 1555 and it was printed in forty-seven editions between 1535 and 1620. British Library and Bibliothèque nationale only in WorldCat. Atkinson, La Littérature géographique fraņçaise de la Renaissance: répertoire bibliographique (Paris, 1927), n° 73.

First edition to contain the engraved frontispiece and title. Marked ‘troisième édition’ on the title-page, this edition, is actually the fourth — following the edition printed privately (in just 25-40 copies) in 1823 and the first two trade editions of 1824. The illustrated edition is considerably rarer (at least in commerce) than the preceding two trade editions (and the true first virtually unobtainable). The plate shows Ourika at the moment of realisation of her isolation and her fate in white European society. Ourika, based on fact, and influenced by Rousseau and Chateaubriand, is the complex story of a black African child, bought (some said rescued) from the slave trade and raised in aristocratic circles in Revolutionary France. It is the first fully developed attempt to portray a black heroine in Europe and the first French novel with a black female narrator. It proved controversial from the start and remains so. On the one hand it has been interpreted as a compassionate account of both racial and female alienation (Duras certainly projects her own experience onto that of her heroine) while on the other it has been described as a sustained act of appropriation and even as an apology for slavery. Whatever is the case, it caused a sensation with the first trade edition of 1824 becoming a bestseller and later editions very widely read in France and further afield (with early translations into English, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish and Danish).

First edition of a gothic drama recounting the trials of an incarcerated nun — a theme with obvious anticlerical and libertarian potential which attracted several French novelists of the Revolutionary era, including Olympe de Gouges (in Le Couvent ou les voeux forcés) and Chénier (in Fénelon ou les religieuses de Cambrai). Julie was Pougens’ only drama and was evidently given salon performances by the actor François-Joseph Talma, and William Godwin read it in 1801 (Diary, 4 July 1801 http://godwindiary.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/diary/). Charles de Pougens (1755–1833) is an interesting figure — the natural son of the Prince de Conti, he was highly educated and began a diplomatic career in Rome 1776, cut short by smallpox which left him blind. He travelled to England and was associated with Cagliostro and the transgender Chevalier D’Eon. Sentenced to death by the French Revolutionary authorities, in 1794, he survived when the execution of Robespierre brought an end to the Reign of Terror. The National Convention awarded him a pension, and in 1795 he opened a business in Paris selling books on commission. He best known for his early speculative lost-race novel Jocko (1824). Gay, II, 749; Cioranescu 51120; Quérard VII, 302. Worldcat: Hagley Library, Harvard, Texas, Toronto and Victoria (BC) in North America.

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.

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. Graham 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.

A 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. 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.

First edition of this British political satire, co-opting Aesop’s animals of in a series of witty verses, capitalising on the popularity of the Aesop in English via the editions of Ogilby and L’Estrange. ‘In 1698 a whole series of fables began to appear anonymously which set Aesop on a journey through England and the rest of Europe. He comments through his animal characters about the Jacobite threat, William’s government of England, and Louis XIV’s ambitions on the continent. As one writer put it, “It is now the Mode, it seems, for Brutes to turn Politicians,” and Aesop was chosen as their main expositor. Aesop at Tunbridge (1698) was a structured attack on William and on Whig principles in general. In the same year Aesop at Bath criticized the Jacobites; Aesop Return d from Tunbridge committed the hapless supporter of the Jacobites to Bedlam; Old Aesop at Whitehall defended the government; and Aesop at Amsterdam objected to the very monarchical forms of government supported in one way or another by Whig, Tory, and Jacobite factions’ (Daniel, ‘Political and Philosophical Uses of Fables in eighteenth-century England’, The Eighteenth Century, 23, 2, 1982, p. 153).
Wing O196. ESTC lists US copies at Clark (UCLA), Folger, Harvard, Cincinnati and Texas.

First edition, presentation copy. A witty imaginary Voyage autor de ma chambre in the spirit of Le Maistre. In just nine steps the author circumnavigates his room, bumping into Napoleon and traversing Europe. There are verses, riddles, enigmas and an acrostic on the Swedish succession: ‘Charles Jean Prince Royal de Suede’. The ninth step is a long verse dedicated to the elderly British King George III. The allegorical plate depicts voyagers in an elegant state of undress on the back of a flying horse. The dedicatee of this presentation copy is Maria Juliana Wahrendorff von Rosen (1763-1820). Worldcat locates the Yale copy only in the US. JISC/Copac lists no UK copies.

First edition of this very scarce novel by a significant British Catholic author. She was born Gertrude Hext in Cornwall in 1812 and became a Catholic in 1844. A review of Edith Mortimer in The Rambler enthused: ‘Mrs. Parsons is one of our best writers of Catholic fiction. There is a heartiness and energy about almost every thing that comes from her pen...’

‘A deeply religious woman, Gertrude Parsons was charitable to the poor and a leading benefactor of the mission at Little Malvern. Gertrude Parsons’s enthusiastic commitment to her adopted faith was most apparent, however, in many of her published works. Thornberry Abbey (1846), in which the heroine and her clergyman fiancé are both converted to Catholicism, is clearly semi-autobiographical. In another early novel, Edith Mortimer, or, The Trials of Life (1857), a young Roman Catholic convert learns to conquer her pride, breaking off her engagement to a rich protestant cousin. In the 1860s Gertrude Parsons wrote four tract tales for Burns and Oates’s Tales and Narrative series, which was aimed at a working-class audience; these included Lent Lilies and The Muffin Girl’ (Rosemary Mitchell in Oxford DNB). WorldCat lists US copies at Brigham Young and Huntington only.

First edition with this title and introductory part, a very rare opportunistic edition of Lettres Portuguaises, which found itself onto the Index librorum prohibitorum in 1727. The epistolary novel Lettres Portugaises was one of the publishing sensations of the late seventeenth century and beyond, first published in Paris in 1669, purporting to be the genuine letters between a Portugese nun, Mariana Alcoforado, and the French nobleman, the Marquis de Chamilly. Despite its passionate tone it was not outlawed and indeed it was widely reprinted and set the tone for much of the sentimental and epistolary fiction of the eighteenth century. Though the letters have been proved to be fictional, both parties were real.

This edition, probably clandestine, seems to have been a step too far in the eyes of the censors. Apparently a reissue of the sheets of a 1696 Lyon edition, it was augmented with a 48-page prequel in which the first encounters between Maria and the Marquis in Portugal are recounted. This text was cast as a seduction scene, in which the young nun entertained the Marquis in a private apartment beside her cloister, dressed in a pale blue nightgown adorned with red ribbons. Suppression seems to have been effective and it is unrecorded in public collections, as far as we can tell, besides a single copy in the library at Bourg-en-Bresse. Gay mentions it among the reprints of Lettres Portugaises, citing a copy offered for sale in Paris in 1869. Gay II, 847. Not found in Worldcat.