London: Printed for A. Bell, W. Taylor and J. Baker, 1715. First edition. NCBEL II, 1709 (Oldmixon). A memoir of politician and author Arthur Maynwaring (1668-1712), whose "influence among both politicians and writers was great" (DNB), including Addison, Steele, Congreve and Vanbrugh. The versatile John Oldmixon was the editor and.....
New York: Harper & Brothers, 1834. First American edition, preceded by the London edition of the same year. NCBEL III, 263; American Imprints 23679; Lowe, English Theatrical Literature, 3542. The English poet Thomas Campbell (1777-1844) on Sarah Siddons (1755-1831), the great English actress, who was from the distinguished theatrical Kemble.....
London and Cambridge: Macmillan, 1864. First edition. NCBEL III, 554. A substantial collection of over 100 sonnets by Charles Turner (formerly Tennyson and often referred to as Tennyson-Turner), an accomplished and prolific sonneteer (his collected poems contained over 400). In the ODNB, Roger Evans writes that this 1864 collection, Turner's.....
London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1842. First English edition. Noted under BAL 11143. ¶ The second book by Caroline Kirkland (1801-1865), a collection of sketches about the life of raising a family on the Michigan frontier, where she moved to from New York in 1837.
Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1888. First edition. The scarce collected poems by the Concord minister and author David Atwood Wasson (1823-1887), one of the most highly regarded of the Transcendentalist writers, whose poems had previously only appeared in periodicals. This posthumous collection - Wasson's first and only book - was.....
Boston: James R. Osgood, 1872. First edition, second issue, enlarged with the addition of a 70-page final chapter. BAL 9560; Smith, American Travellers Abroad, H143. Howells’ fourth book and his second travel narrative about Italy, both of which were based on experiences when he was the American consul at Venice.....
Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1884. First edition. BAL 19780. A substantial biographical treatment of one of the great American travelers, travel writers and poets, Bayard Taylor (1825-1878). Ink inscription on the front free endpaper of Walter Sillman, Wolfe Hall, Griswold College, Davenport, IA, Mar. Fri 13 / 1885."
Paris: Apud Mamertum Patissonium, in Officina Rob. Stephani, 1577. First edition edited by Joseph Scalinger. Adams C1156; Schreiber, The Estiennes, 248. The celebrated and often reprinted edition of Catullus and his two fellow Roman poets, Tibullus and Propertius, edited by French scholar Joseph Justus Scalinger (1549-1609), one of the most.....
Stockholm: Zacharias Haggström, 1829. First edition of the first Swedish translation. Langfeld & Blackburn, page 71; OCLC records three copies in the US (Harvard, Kansas and NYPL) and three in Sweden. The first edition in Swedish, translated by Lars Arnell, of Washington's Irving's Tales of a Traveller, his continuation of.....
Paris: Jules Gay, Editeur, 1863. First edition, number 75 of 300 numbered copies on Holland paper (of a total of 317 copies). An interesting compilation by Paul Lacroix (1806-84), French antiquary, bibliographer, editor and author, of the library of Marie Antoinette that was housed at her estate, Petit Trianon. The.....
Boston: Gray and Bowen, 1830. First edition. BAL 14874; Wright I, 1943; American Imprints 2696. An unusual novel based on Neal’s experiences in England, where he lived and worked as a writer between 1824 and 1827. Always a vocal partisan for American language and ways, the story relies heavily on.....
Paris: Chez Ponthieu, 1822. One of two French translations of The Sketch Book that were issued in 1822, its first year of publication in France; priority between the two is not known. Langfeld & Blackburn, page 67. One of the earliest examples of an important work of American literature translated.....
Omaha: Abattoir Editions, 1979. First edition of this translation, number 100 of 250 numbered copies. A handsome fine press edition of poet Charles Martin's translation of the poetry of Catullus.
London: Printed for Private Circulation Only, 1888. First and only edition: "Of this Book Twenty-five Copies have been printed." There were also apparently three copies printed on vellum, as noted in one OCLC record. An essay on Shelley's faith, which concludes "Just as Religion is above all creeds, dogmas and.....
London: Chapman and Hall, 1863. Second edition, published shortly after the first. BAL 19258; cf. Smith, American Travelers Abroad, S200, which records an 1887 edition. A popular travel narrative about Rome by the American sculptor William Wetmore Story (1819-1895), who was a talented writer, as well. The title of "Roba,".....
Wien und Prag: Berlag von F. Tempsky, 1899. A second or later printing (possibly edition); the first was published in Leipzig and dated 1898. A German edition of the second part of Little Women, published in English for use in schools, with a seven-page introduction about Alcott in German by.....
London: Printed by Brettell for Appleyards, 1808. First edition. The first of three plays by Marie Therese Kemble (1774-1838), the Austrian-born English actress and mother of Fanny Kemble. She moved to England at an early age and became a popular child actress. She later married actor Charles Kemble, for whom.....
Weimar: Landes-Industrie-Comptoir, May, 1826. An example of the influence and spread of the news of Mary Somerville’s first scientific publication, “On the Magnetizing Power of the More Refrangible Solar Rays” – i.e., the magnetizing power of sunlight – that had been published in the February, 1826, issue of the Proceedings.....
[San Francisco:] Publ. by I. N. Choynski, Antiquarian, [1877]. First edition. A satirical cartoon depicting the ironic situation of Denis Kearney (1847-1907), who agitated for the expulsion of Chinese immigrants. He was famous for his speeches in which he repeated "the Chinese must go!" In 1877 he found himself in.....
Cambridge: Published by Hilliard and Brown, 1830. First editions. Currier & Tilton, Bibliography of Oliver Wendell Holmes, pages 14-17; Sabin 14407.; OCLC records nine copies. A complete run of a rare Harvard undergraduate literary magazine that contains 22 poems by Oliver Wendell Holmes, one of his first substantial contributions to.....
N.p., n.d., ¶ An unusually large and fine engraving of the iconic portrait of Washington Irving as a young man, when he was living in London, painted by his friend Charles Robert Leslie in about 1820, at the time the Sketch Book was being published. Thomas Johnson flourished as an.....
London: Printed for J. and A. Ach, 1816. Second edition, enlarged; the first edition was published in 1813. ODNB; Feminist Companion to Literature in English. Mary Anne Schimmelpenninck (1788-1856) visited the famous abbey Port-Royal in France, where she was attracted to the serious study, Jansenist piety, their theories of philosophy.....
London: Printed for John Stockdale, 1801. First edition. Rothschild 1553; NCBEL II, 1595. A sweeping chronological history of the world in 540 pages, from the birth of Christ to 1800, told in the entertaining, informal style of Hester Lynch Piozzi (1741-1821). Retrospection was written and published to celebrate (and profit.....
London: Printed by J. Plymsell; for T. N. Longman, 1797. First edition. ESTC N12984. Rachel Charlotte Biggs was acquainted with France when she traveled by herself there in 1792 to aid an aristocratic lady friend, during which time she witnessed the Revolution during its grim climax. Out of concern for.....
Paris: Fr. Cocheris Fils, Libraire, 1808. First and only edition. Jackson, Romantic Poetry by Women, Williams 8(c); OCLC records 15 copies. A French translation of more than 30 poems by Helen Maria Williams, including ones on her real and imaginary travels: "Sonnet sur la ligne équinoxiale”; “Sonnet sur l’oiseau du.....