In any event, this is a remarkably fine, bright set (with a half-title in Vol I only, which is proper for this title), with very slight rubbing at the extremities. Although PHILIP is one of the few Victorian three-deckers that does turn up from time to time in this condition, such copies seem to be getting scarcer. Sadleir 3186 (ii); Wolff 6690 (blue cloth); Carter BV pp 158-159. Housed in an open-backed case.

This is an inscribed presentation copy from Trollope, with this inscription in Trollope's hand at the top of the title page: "His Eminence Cardinal Manning | with the author's regards". On the title page there is an inkstamp, and on the front pastedown a bookplate, "Ex Oblatorum S Caroli... Bibliotheca" and bearing the word "humilitas." This was the Oblates of St. Charles, centered at St. Mary of the Angels Catholic Church in Bayswater (whose motto is "humilitas"). Quoting from the Manning papers at Emory University,

Henry Edward Manning (1808-1892) was one of the most influential English Roman Catholic figures of his time. From his ordination in the Church of England in 1832, through his conversion to Catholicism in 1851, and to his death in 1892, his words and actions were powerful influences in England and in the Roman Catholic Church...

In December 1838, Manning and [William] Gladstone visited Rome, where they met with Nicholas Wiseman (later Cardinal and Archbishop at Westminster) at the Vatican's English College...

When [John Henry] Newman converted to Catholicism in 1845, Manning became one of the acknowledged leaders of the High Church Movement... In the Spring of 1847, Manning made an extended trip to the Continent... While in Rome he met with Newman and had two audiences with Pope Pius IX. The trip left him favorably impressed with the vitality of the Roman Catholic Church in Europe.

On his return to England, Manning found the Anglican Church in disarray and deeply divided...

Quoting further from the History of St. Mary of the Angels Catholic Church,

[Following Manning's conversion,] in 1851 Cardinal Wiseman sent his most prestigious convert, Henry Edward Manning, to Bayswater to found a community whose mission would be to revitalize the clergy and faithful in the new diocese of Westminster. Manning drew his inspiration from St Charles Borromeo, who had founded an order of Oblate priests to renew the diocese of Milan in the sixteenth century. Manning founded the Oblates of St Charles at Bayswater, and had considerable success in evangelizing northwest London. In 1865, Manning was made second Archbishop of Westminster, and later Cardinal...

As for Trollope, he was raised as a High Church Anglican; he became a mild supporter of the Oxford Movement, and "his experiences in Ireland brought him into a closer sympathy with the Roman Catholic Church. However, he was hardly ready to follow Newman to Rome!" [Niles]. Robert H. Taylor, in "Letters to Trollope" (The Trollopian, Sept. 1946), noted that after Trollope's death (three years after inscribing this book), a leather portfolio was found, containing the thirty letters he had received over the years that he treasured the most; one of Trollope's most-treasured letters was the one from Cardinal Manning thanking him for the gift of this very book.

This is a near-fine copy (a tiny bit of wear at the foot of the spine, rusted staples showing through at the gutter opposite the title page); the dark green cloth remains quite clean, and the binding gilt remains bright. Borst A10.1.a; Blanck 20129. With the bookplate of the noted collector, dealer and all-around bibliphile Arthur Swann, whose collection formed a major auction sale of 1960.

THE AMERICAN SENATOR will be read for the sake of its opening chapters, which set before the reader in a few pages the whole geographical and social pattern of an English county; for the sake of its hunting episodes, which are among the best not only in Trollope, but in the whole of English fiction; and for the sake of Arabella Trefoil, a masterly study of a girl without a heart... [Sadleir].

The name of the American senator who comes to England with Arabella and her mother? -- Elias Gotobed.

This copy is in the primary binding of pinkish-ochre cloth decorated in black (Sadleir identifies five secondary and remainder bindings, including one three-volumes in-one). This light cloth is extremely prone to soil, but this set has much less than usual: the spines are slightly darkened and there is just a bit of wear at a few binding extremities. The original yellow endpapers (a couple of them slightly cracked -- again, better than usual) bear a W.H. Smith booklabel and atop it the bookplate of (appropriately for a Trollope work) Arthur Palliser. In all, a very good-plus set, and quite difficult to find much better. Sadleir (TROLLOPE) 46. Housed in an open backed slipcase.

I do not know that I have ever heard it well spoken of by my friends, and I cannot remember that there is any character in it that has dwelt in the minds of novel-readers.

Much of the novel's action takes place in Jerusalem and the Holy Land, where George Bertram meets the father he had not seen since his boyhood.

THE BERTRAMS was Trollope's second book to be published in America, following DOCTOR THORNE the previous year. This is a very good copy, quite bright, with minor wear at the edges of the spine; the final (blank) leaf before the endpaper is excised. The front flyleaf bears an October 1859 inscription. In our experience it is considerably scarcer than Harper's subsequent double-columned Trollope American editions. See Sadleir (TROLLOPE) 8. Housed in a morocco backed slipcase.

This is a very good, bright copy (volumes slightly askew, quite minor rubbing, one bumped fore-corner; the spine gilt remains unusually bright). Remarkably, all six of the original pinkish-buff endpapers are NOT cracked (those in Vol I do bear minor remnants of sealing-wax). In this set, Vol III does have an ad catalogue (Sadleir reports that Vol III sometimes but not always has ads; the other two volumes never do). Each pastedown bears the bookplate of Baltimore lawyer Henry G. Burke (1902-1989: he was one of the three founders of the Jane Austen Society of North America, and the rare book room at Goucher College Library is named for him and his wife). In all, highly desirable condition for this Palliser novel. Sadleir (TROLLOPE) 57.

This is a clean, bright copy, near-fine with very minor shelfwear at the extremities. THE EUSTACE DIAMONDS is just about the most sought-after (and expensive) American edition of Trollope, due to its definite precedence over the British edition. See Sadleir (TROLLOPE) 39.