Braddon M Ary E Lizabeth (5 results)

Hardcover. Condition: Near Fine. First Edition. Braddon, M[ary] [E]lizabeth. LONDON PRIDE; or when the world was younger. London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent, (1896). First Edition. A NEAR FINE copy in original publisher's decorated cloth. A few abrasions to the boards but a remarkably unworn copy. Light foxing to prelims. This is one of M. E. Braddon's later historical mysteries, set both in England and France and involving a member of royalty accused of kidnapping a beautiful woman. The most famous collector of Victorian fiction ever, in terms of depth and numbers (he practically cornered the market with ten thousand titles or so), was Harvard Professor Robert Lee Woolf, and to him Braddon was every bit as skilled an author as her Victorian contemporaries. His book about her, entitled SENSATIONAL VICTORIAN, is well worth reading if one is interested in learning more. Braddon's "problem" was her astonishing success with the circulating libraries. Beginning with LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET in 1861, Braddon rose to become the best selling mystery author in England (bar none) until the end of the century. Unjustly forgotten, she wrote dozens of novels which Professor Wolff considered uniformly brilliant and innovative but, as with such 20th century writers such as Margaret Mitchell or Daphne du Maurier, too much popular success made critics wary of bestowing literary praise. Her books are highly sought after and rarely found.…

Decorative Cloth. Condition: Fine. First Edition. Braddon, M[ary] E[lizabeth]. THE CHRISTMAS HIRELINGS. Illustrated by F. H. Townsend. London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co., 1894. First Edition in the original pictorial buff linen cloth, decorated blue morocco cloth spine. A few pages carelessly opened, a touch of foxing with the usual offsetting to its endpapers but a NEAR FINE PRESENTATION COPY, inscribed by Miss Braddon in purple ink on a prelim: "To dear Mrs. Guyon with the Author's love & New Year wishes. December 30th 1910." Presentation copies by the famous and ever-underrated author of LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET are indeed uncommon. Robert Lee Wolff, in his comprehensive biography of Braddon described THE CHRISTMAS HIRELINGS "as a genuine Braddonian gem." It is a Christmas story in the Dickensian vein, but the deeply moving sentiment is subtly laced with irony and fierce denunciation of Victorian social codes, a Braddon trademark. The central character is an embittered widower who discovers too late, after reading his dead young wife's diaries, that she married him, not for his money (as he assumed) but for his love. But a threesome of young impoverished "hirelings" initially paid to make Christmas more "family-like" for the old man help redeem him, much as Scrooge is redeemed in A CHRISTMAS CAROL. A lost children's classic, and Braddon's only foray into juvenile fiction, this holiday-inscribed minor masterpiece is much deserving of a place on any Victorian collector's shelves. Sadleir 274. Wolff 631. F. H. Townsend (illustrator). Signed by Author(s).…

2 volumes (vi, 432; iv, [433] - 840 pp). Illustrated with inserted plates & intra-textual cuts. Imperial 8vo. Braddon was a prolific writer, producing more than 80 novels with inventive plots. This is the first novel published serially in Belgravia magazine, a periodical founded by Braddon, from December 1875 - December 1876 (Cf. Wolff 658), which, we surmise, preceded the book publication by Maxwell. Nr Fine (light wear/the expected occasional spot of foxing). Handsome period deep maroon quarter pebbled calf with marbled paper boards, edges & eps 1st edition thus. Cf. NCBEL III, 1039; Sadleir 19th C. Fiction, 299.…

Octavo, pp. [1-8] 1-398 [399] [400: ads] [note: first leaf is a blank save for tiny signature mark "a" on recto], publisher's pictorial blue cloth, front panel stamped in red and black, spine panel stamped in black and gold. First edition. A novel of possession. "In two late novels Braddon extended her supernaturalism to the psychology of ruthlessness . THE CONFLICT (1903) is concerned with a rather ambitious revenge. A man of great vitality, killed in a duel, swears to have revenge as he lies dying. His spirit possesses the bodies of the other duelist's friends and causes much mischief." - Sullivan (ed), The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural, pp. 51-2. Bleiler, The Guide to Supernatural Fiction 268. Clute and Grant (eds), The Encyclopedia of Fantasy (1997), p. 134. Wilson, Shadows in the Attic, p. 102. Bleiler (1978), p. 29. Not in Reginald (1979; 1992). Hubin (1979), p. 44. Sadleir 276. Wolff 634. Spine panel a bit faded, two tiny nicks to cloth along outer front joint, a clean, tight, very good copy. Overall a quite attractive copy of a very scarce book. (#178227).…

Small octavo, nineteenth-century leather-backed cloth. Mostly first printings of the Tauchnitz Continental editions. Six "copyright editions" in Tauchnitz's "Collection of British Authors" series comprising ALL ALONG THE RIVER, 1893 (2 volumes), Todd and Bowen 2925a and 2926(a) [with] ELEANOR'S VICTORY, 1863 (2 volumes in one), Todd & Bowen 668a and 669(a) [with] GERARD OR THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL, 1891 (2 volumes), Todd and Bowen 2782(a) and 2783(a) [with] LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET, 1862 (2 volumes in one), Todd and Bowen 635b and 636b [with] ONE LIFE, ONE LOVE, 1890 (2 volumes in one), Todd and Bowen 2684a and 2685(a) [with] THOU ART THE MAN, 1894 (2 volumes), Todd and Bowen 2997(a) and 2998(a). Presumably, all but one work, LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET, are Tauchnitz first printings. The books are uniformly bound in quarter green leather and green cloth without the original wrappers. The leather is scuffed and rubbed, the spine panels of several volumes have green leather faded to brown; all volumes have sound hinges and fine interiors. (#168379).…