Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies … the Second Impression. London: Printed by Tho. Cotes, for Robert Allot, 1632

This is an excellent example of the Second Folio, the second edition of Shakespeare’s collected plays. This is “incomparably the most important work in the English language” (Jackson, Pforzheimer Catalogue).

$475,000

The Holy Bible, Conteyning the Old Testament, and the New: Newly Translated. London: by Robert Barker, 1613-1611

The Great “She” Bible, the “authorized version” or King James Bible, one of the greatest monuments of English literature.

$270,000

Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World . . . by Lemuel Gulliver. London: Benj. Motte, 1726

FIRST EDITION. This is a handsome set of Teerink’s A edition, the true first edition.

$95,000

The Portrait of a Lady. London: Macmillan, 1881

First edition, first printing of this classic of 19th-century literature. This is one of only 750 sets, many of which were consumed by English circulating libraries. The much more common American edition appeared later and is dated 1882.

$75,000

A Dictionary of the English Language. London: W. Strahan for J. & P. Knapton, 1755

First edition of this enduring classic of English literature. This is Johnson’s “audacious attempt to tame his unruly native tongue … combining huge erudition with a steely wit and remarkable clarity of thought” (Hitchings).

$65,000

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.. London: Strahan and Cadell, 1776-1788

First editions of all six volumes of the most celebrated historical work in English literature. Gibbon’s Decline and Fall covers the thirteen centuries from the age of Trajan to the fall of Constantinople with unmatched erudition, clarity, and organization. “Gibbon brought a width of vision and a critical mastery of the available sources which have not been equaled to this day; and the result was clothed in an inimitable prose” (PMM).

$48,000

Tender is the Night. New York: Scribner’s, 1934

FIRST EDITION, the extremely rare advance issue in wrappers.

$47,500

The Lord of the Rings. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1954-1955

FIRST EDITIONS. This is a very attractive set of the celebrated Lord of the Rings trilogy. The size of the edition was small: The Fellowship of the Ring (3000 copies), The Two Towers (3250 copies), and The Return of the King (7000 copies).

$42,500

A Tale of Two Cities. London: Chapman and Hall, 1859

FIRST EDITION, FIRST BINDING, FIRST PRINTING (with page 213 mis-numbered 113 and sig. b present on the list of illustrations, points that were corrected in later copies of this edition).

$35,000

Two autograph manuscripts signed: Autograph manuscript on the American individual beginning “Or are you one ambitious of great deeds” [and] Autograph manuscript poem fragment signed “Kentucky”. No place, c. 1862

This leaf contains two wonderful Whitman manuscripts. The first is an unpublished manuscript in which Whitman discusses two of the great themes of his writing: the work of strengthening, purifying, and completing oneself and the place of the individual in American democracy. The second, written on the verso of “Or are you ambitious” manuscript, is an unpublished working manuscript from Whitman’s Civil War poem “Kentucky.”

$28,000