THE PRIME MINISTER. In Four Volumes.
London: Chapman & Hall, 1876. Original reddish-brown cloth decorated in black and lettered in gilt.
First Edition in book form of the fifth of Trollope's six "Palliser Novels." This is the tale describing "the triumph, the troubles, and the failure of my Prime Minister" [Trollope's Autobiography]. Its major theme is "a study of two divergent temperaments: the Duchess striving to make her husband the greatest figure of his time, and he conscious only of his duties and responsibilities" [Gerould]. In addition to the Palliser family, Phineas Finn also figures into the plot.
During the decade following Dickens's death (1870), the vogue of serial parts went into a rapid decline. In an effort to revive the idea, publishers tried out the concept of issuing a novel in eight five-shilling parts, unillustrated; only a handful of novels came out in this fashion before it was deemed a miserable failure. Included were George Eliot's MIDDLEMARCH (1872) and DANIEL DERONDA (1876) -- plus Trollope's THE PRIME MINISTER. Thus the sheets were first issued in eight wrappered parts, but with every two volumes continuously-paginated for a four-volume book edition.
As Sadleir points out, PRIME MINISTER leaves were printed on two thicknesses of paper: "Parts and volumes exist, sometimes uniform in paper-quality and sometimes mixed. No evidence of issue is provided by such varieties; the paper was obviously supplied in mixed qualities to the printer." In this set, the first three volumes appear to be on the heavier paper, and the fourth on the lighter paper.
This is a clean, bright, attractive set -- near-fine except that many decades ago, the volumes were unnecessarily re-cased (within the original cloth bindings and with the original endpapers deftly repaired at their gutters); one front cover is slightly wrinkled. Housed in four old 3/4-calf clamshell cases lined in felt. Sadleir (TROLLOPE) 45. Provenance: each front paste-down bears the bookplate of the noted collector Oliver Brett (1881-1963), later 3rd Viscount Esher. Item #15846
Price: $2,250.00