Kingsley, Charles

8vo (190 x 122mm.), 3 volumes, FIRST EDITION, one of 1,250 copies, half-titles, advertisement leaf (signed Vol. I. b) at the end of volume 3 followed by 16pp. publisher's catalogue dated February 1855 (earliest state), short autograph letter signed ("C Kingsley") tipped in at the beginning of volume 1, to Mr Parker ("...Your explanation is quite satisfactory -- I am only much vexed that you shd have taken the trouble to write so long a letter in your present state of health...", Chersley Rectory, Winchfield, 15 April 1862), original blue cloth with double blind-stamped fillet on covers, spines lettered in gilt, yellow endpapers, minor browning to edges, hinges repaired, very slight wear to cloth (3)

Rev. William Scott, contemporary ownership signatures on upper paste-downs; Richard Manney, book-label, his sale, Sotheby's New York, 11 October 1991, lot 195

Woolf 3813; Sadleir 1340

A near fine copy of the first edition of the author's world-wide adventure, one of the great bestsellers of the nineteenth century. It was also the first novel published by the then fledgling firm of Macmillan.