[in the original 1848 wrappers] Edited by Currer Bell [pseudonym]. New York: Harper & Brothers, n.d. [1848?]. Original orange-brown wrappers printed in black. First American Edition, later issue (printing?), of one of the greatest novels of the Nineteenth Century. The first American edition of JANE EYRE was published, in wrappers...
[original boards, leaves uncut] Edinburgh: Printed for the Author, and Sold by William Creech, 1787. Original blue-grey paper-covered boards with cream paper spine and printed label, page edges uncut. The Edinburgh edition, which is to say the second edition overall, following the rare Kilmarnock edition of 1786 (and containing 22...
[original boards, leaves uncut] The Third Edition. London: Printed for A. Strahan; T. Cadell in The Strand; and W. Creech, Edinburgh, 1787. Original blue-grey paper-covered boards with cream paper spine and printed label, page edges uncut. "The London edition," which is to say the third edition overall (so stated, unlike...
Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1899. Original brown cloth decorated in black, white and orange. First Edition of this Afro-American writer's first book, a series of seven dialect stories about incidents of slavery, told as reminiscences by an old black gardener. Examples are "Po' Sandy," "Mars Jeem's...
With Selections from his Journals and Correspondence. By His Son. [in Two Volumes.] London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1848. 32 pp Vol I ads dated April 29, 1848. Original blind-stamped dark purple-brown cloth. First Edition of Wilkie Collins's first book -- a memoir of his father the landscape and...
![ALMAYER'S FOLLY [Edward Garnett's copy]. Joseph Conrad](/pictures/thumb/13421.jpg?v=1564065610)
[Edward Garnett's copy] A Story of an Eastern River. Second Edition. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1896. Original dark green cloth. First Edition, early but not first printing, of Conrad's first book. The first printing came out in 1895 (bearing that date on the title page) -- some domestic copies and...
A Story of an Eastern River. New York: Macmillan and Co., 1895. 3 pp undated ads. Original black cloth. First American Edition of Conrad's first book, with a text that varies considerably from the English edition (because it was typeset from uncorrected proofs). We find the American edition to be...
A Story of an Eastern River. Second Edition. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1896. Original dark green cloth. First Edition, early printing -- of Conrad's first book. Though labeled "Second Edition" on the title page, this is actually a reprint of the first edition; all copies of this printing seem to...
A Story of an Eastern River. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1895. Original dark olive green cloth. First Edition of Joseph Conrad's first book, an edition believed to have consisted of 1000-1250 copies. Conrad, after meeting the real "Olmeijer" in East Borneo in 1887, gradually produced the manuscript of this book...
In: THE LIBRARY OF FICTION, or Family Story Teller; consisting of Original Tales, Essays, and Sketches of Character. With Fourteen Illustrations [in each volume]. Vol. I [& II]. London: Chapman and Hall, 1836/1837. Bound in contemporary half calf with marbled boards. First Edition in book form. Chapman & Hall's monthly...
London: George Allen & Unwin, (1920). Original blue cloth stamped in black, with dust jacket. First Edition of Dos Passos's first book -- a novel of soldier life during the Great War. After graduation from Harvard in 1916, he volunteered for an American ambulance corps (along with his college friend...
and What People Thought of Him. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1894. 2 pp undated ads. Original red cloth decorated in black and gilt. First Edition of the author's first novel, based on his own abortive efforts to enter politics in his hometown of Brooklyn. The semi-realistic PETER STIRLING is...
[first book, "From the Author"] By John Sinjohn. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1897. Original olive green cloth decorated in gilt. First Edition of John Galsworthy's first book, a collection of ten tales. Only 500 copies were printed -- on a commission basis, with Galsworthy paying for the printing; in order...
A Novel. With an Etching by H. Macbeth-Raeburn and a Map of Wessex. (London and New York: Harper & Brothers, 1898.) Original dark green cloth with monogram device in gilt. "Wessex Novels" edition, American issue. DESPERATE REMEDIES was Hardy's first novel, first published in 1871 in three volumes; here it...
of Popular Literature, Science, and Art. Fourth Series | No. 64. [London & Edinburgh:] William and Robert Chambers, March 18, 1865. Original self-wrappers, lightly bound into a later medium-brown printed folder. First Appearance of Thomas Hardy's first published piece of work, appearing anonymously. The three-page sketch is a rather amusing...
Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1876. Original blind-stamped green cloth with gilt-decorated spine. Second Edition of Hawthorne's first book FANSHAWE (the first had been in 1828), plus the first appearance in book form of the other pieces -- the five "biographical sketches." This title was published as a twin...
Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1887. Original bright red cloth decorated in brown. First Edition of Hearn's second book -- but his first book of "original" work (since his earliest, STRAY LEAVES FROM STRAY LITERATURE (1884), was a collection of folk tales he had "reconstructed"). This volume presents as a similar volume...
Stories. Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1884. Original dark royal blue cloth decorated in black. First Edition of Hearn's first book (other than an 1882 translation of Gautier). This was Hearn's attempt to reconstruct "fantastically beautiful stories from the exotic literature which fascinated him" [OCAL]. Born in the Ionian Islands...
Stories. Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1884. Original dark royal blue cloth decorated in black. First Edition of Hearn's first book (other than an 1882 translation of Gautier). This was Hearn's attempt to reconstruct "fantastically beautiful stories from the exotic literature which fascinated him" [OCAL]. Born in the Ionian Islands...
Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1875. Original terra-cotta cloth, beveled. First Edition of Henry James's first book, which consisted of only 1,500 copies. This is a collection of six tales that had appeared in American periodicals (mostly the Atlantic Monthly) over the preceding years. In 1873 James's father wrote...
Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1877. Original mauve cloth decorated in black and gilt, all page edges red. First Edition, first state (with "was" at the end of the 16th line on p. 65, later changed to "so"), of Sarah Orne Jewett's first book. In addition to so-stated "fourth"...
[his first and scarcest novel] Reprinted, with corrections and additions, from Fraser's Magazine. London: John W. Parker, 1851. 8 pp undated ads. Original blind-stamped rose-brown wavy-grain cloth. First Edition of Charles Kingsley's first-written (and today his scarcest) novel. It first appeared serially in Fraser's Magazine during the latter half of...
A Novel. New York: Duffield & Company, 1911. Original light blue-grey cloth decorated in white and black and with lettering in white. First Edition of D.H. Lawrence's first book, which he began in 1906 (at age 20) and rewrote several times; it is the tale of a love triangle, between...
![THE ORDEAL OF RICHARD FEVEREL [signed by Meredith]. George Meredith](/pictures/thumb/11317.jpg?v=1564065591)
[signed by Meredith] A History of Father and Son. In Three Volumes. London: Chapman and Hall, 1859. Original blind-stamped greenish-brown cloth. First Edition of Meredith's first full-length novel (preceded only by a volume of verse and two single-volume burlesques). FEVEREL is the tough tale of a father's "system" of raising...
![POEMS [inscribed by Meredith]. George Meredith](/pictures/thumb/11316.jpg?v=1564065591)
[inscribed by Meredith] London: John W. Parker and Son, n.d.[1851]. Original blind-stamped purple cloth. First Edition of George Meredith's first book, a volume of verse published when he was only 23 (and including many poems written at the age of 18 and earlier). Meredith had just married the widowed daughter...
