Rare books from Shannon Storey

Contemporary mottled boards with five raised bands. Gilt title, volume numbers, and stamps on slightly rubbed spine. Red, slightly faded edges; contemporary marbled endpapers. Modern pencil marks on FFE and RFE. Pages clean. Corners, edges, and hinges a little worn but solid.According to Teerink's bibliographies of Swift, Thomas Johnson was the publisher of this volume, and this work was printed in The Hague, where Johnson also did business, despite the title page's claim of London. Swift scholars have speculated with a certain degree of uncertainty as to the authorship of everything in this volume; some of the works and/or explanations seem inconsistent with Swift's other writings. Johnson may have "contrived...to enhance the appeal of his own book" by "exploiting both the notoriety and the incompletions of the Tale" (Walsh, "Introduction" in A Tale of a Tub and Other Works, Cambridge University Press). Thus, this volume is of intriguing and interesting bibliographic and research value. More photos… Read More

First edition of Rossetti's first publication. Though the collection includes devotional and other verses, "The Goblin Market" remains her most famous poem today. A rich poem open to a multiplicity of readings, including ones highlighting sisterhood, anti-capitalism, same-sex attraction, lesbianism, rape, substance abuse or addiction, or themes of Christianity, Rossetti both publicly stated "The Goblin Market" should be read as poem for children as well as privately acknowledged its lack of suitability for children's ears (the poem was in fact featured in Playboy magazine in the 1970s with illustrations by Kinuko Craft). Subsequent reprints and adaptations of "The Goblin Market" have occurred regularly until the present day, attesting to the poem's enduring popularity and importance.
Octavo. Original blue gilt cloth boards designed by Rossetti's brother, the Pre-Raphaelite artist Dante Rossetti, as well as frontispiece and title page woodcut engravings by him. Brown endpapers, tissue guard, and… Read More

Originally published in 1866, "Snow-Bound" is an idyllic narrative poem filled with nostalgia and remembrance of the author's youth and New England home. Whittier, one of the fireside poets, managed to capture for some readers a snapshot of a rapidly disappearing rural past in a post-Civil War America. The poem became successful and well-known in its time.
Contemporary white hardcover with dust jacket. Signed "John G. Whittier March 15 1892" on FFE. Owner's signature and date ("Harriet Osgood Munger March 14. 1892.") and inscription ("With greeting to Mrs. Fairbairn from Mrs. Munger. New Haven, Conn. April, 1892") on half title page. Reverse of frontispiece lightly foxed. Interior pages clean except for page 17 in which somebody pressed a flower; this has left a flower-shaped mark on page 17 and facing page (reverse of a design page - see images). Blue ribbon marker detatched by all but a thread and frayed at each end. Top edges faded blue. Board edges browned.

Best known for her high-profile divorce and subsequent pressuring of Parliament to pass the Infant Custody Bill of 1839 and Marriage and Divorce Act of 1853, Norton wrote this sonnet upon the death of her friend, the Honorable Miss Caroline Fox, who died childless and unmarried and who had been a favorite amongst her nieces and nephews. The sonnet, though unpublished and all but unknown in her lifetime, was reprinted by the sixth Earl of Ilchester, Giles Stephen Holland Fox-Strangways, in his 1938 Chronicles of Holland House 1820-1900. Norton sent the verse in a letter to Charles Fox upon his aunt's death. The opening reads, "'Sonnet upon an old woman seen reading by a lamp, 1842, describing her, not as she is, but as she ought to be and some partial friends suppose her really to be'" (Ilchester reprint). The sonnet is also listed in Henry Sotheran & Co's 1881 and 1882 Bookseller's catalogues as handwritten in Norton's presentation copy of Lord Holland's 1817 Lives and Writings of Lope Feliz de Vega… Read More

Three-volume first edition of the fifth and final novel Radcliffe saw published in her lifetime. Considered by many to have perfected the gothic literary form (culminating in The Italian), Radcliffe influenced the writings of such figures as Mary Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and Jane Austen. The popularity of her works meant that she became the highest-paid writer of the 1790s; The Italian brought in a staggering £800 from her publishers (£10 was a commonplace figure for a writer to receive for a manuscript). The first edition of The Italian did not contain the corrections Radcliffe made for the second edition (published in the same year); thus, this copy represents the earliest and most unadulterated textual version of an essential gothic novel.

Contemporary calf; spine, corners, and hinges rubbed. Gilt spines with black and gilt title and volume labels. Volume labels missing from 1 and 2; half of title label missing on volume 1. Hinges starting to crack but quite sound. Gilt… Read More

Though experiencing somewhat of a critical comeback, Phebe Gibbes remains a relatively obscure author about whom little is known, despite having published a good deal in her lifetime. Her works were published anonymously, and she explained this in a letter of appeal for financial support to the Royal Literary Fund - her family "rejected every species of Literature, except devotional" and she herself was of a "withdrawing turn of temper." She claimed to be the author of several anonymous pieces; in her letter, she also enclosed an attestation by Joseph Johnson, one of her publishers, that she was the author of Elfrida, or Paternal Ambition, which had been published anonymously. Despite her withdrawing nature, Gibbes' writings were full of pronounced views on freedom of marriage choice, lack of educational opportunities for girls, women's role in society, and the evils of gambling. Indeed, the financial difficulty that led her to write to the Royal Literary Fund was due in part to her father-in-law's… Read More