Shop complete collections and special editions in exquisite bindings. A work of art on their own, these intricate embellishments and printed interiors were carefully designed to match the greatness of the works they encase. Highlights:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book/fine-bindings?Book%20Subject=English%2520literature%2520and%2520history" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">English Literature &amp; History</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book/fine-bindings?Book%20Subject=Americana" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Americana</a> <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">All Books</a>

Fine Bindings

Finely bound set of the Riverside Edition of Longfellow's complete works.<ul><li>Sold as a set of 11.</li><li>Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (American).</li><li>Cambridge:&nbsp;The Riverside Press,&nbsp;1889.</li><li>Bound in three-quarter red morocco and marbled boards, floral gilt-tooling and gilt-label lettering with top edges gilt-tooled with marbled endpapers.</li></ul>

The Complete Poetical Works

Finely bound set of the Edition De Luxe of The Life and Works of Tennyson.<ul><li>Sold as a set of 12.</li><li>Alfred Tennyson (English).</li><li>London:&nbsp;Macmillan &amp; Co., Ltd.,&nbsp;1898.</li><li>Limited to 1050 copies.</li><li>Bound by Adams Bindery in three-quarters wine morocco and marbled boards, floral detailing, top edge gilt with marbled endpapers.</li></ul>

The Life and Works of Tennyson

Finely bound Bagster's Second Edition of Walton's&nbsp;The Complete Angler.<ul><li>Izaak Walton (English).</li><li>London:&nbsp;Samuel Bagster,&nbsp;1815.</li><li>Bound in three-quarter green morocco and marbled boards, top edge gilt with marbled endpapers.</li></ul>

The Complete Angler

Finely bound limited edition copy of Voltaire's Candide signed by the illustrator.<ul><li>M. de Voltaire [François-Marie Arouet] (French).</li><li>Illustrated by Claire Tice (American).</li><li>Candide, or, All for the Best.</li><li>New York:&nbsp;The Bennett Libraries Inc.,&nbsp;1927.</li><li>10 colored etchings.</li><li>Bound in full wine morocco with the covers displaying gilt-tooled depictions of women in the nude in the top left and bottom right corners, top edge gilt and marbled endpapers.</li></ul>

Candide

Finely bound vellum collection of works by various authors.<ul><li>Sold as a set of 26.</li><li>William Shakespeare (English).</li><li>Alfred Tennyson (English).</li><li>Edgar Allan Poe (American).</li><li>Including Works of William Shakespeare, Poems of Tennyson, and The Poetical Works of E. A. Poe, among others.</li><li>Bound in vellum with title to spine.</li></ul>

Vellum Bound Collection

Finely bound first edition set of Churchill's The River War.<ul><li>Sold as a set of 2.</li><li>Winston Churchill (English).</li><li>London, New York &amp; Bombay:&nbsp;Longmans, Green &amp; Co.,&nbsp;1899.</li><li>Bound in full navy morocco with lion details and top edge gilt.</li></ul>

The River War

Signed limited edition of The History of American Sailing Ships by the naval architect, Howard Chapelle.<ul><li>Howard I. Chapelle (American).</li><li>New York:&nbsp;W.W. Norton &amp; Co., Inc.,&nbsp;1935.</li><li>Limited edition of 121 numbered and signed copies, this being number 36.</li><li>Bound in full navy morocco with a gilt-tooled border, nautical details, and label lettering in gilt-tooling on the panels.</li></ul>

The History of American Sailing Ships

Finely bound copy of Bunyan's&nbsp;The Pilgrim's Progress&nbsp;with illustrations.<ul><li>John Bunyan (English).</li><li>Illustrated by William Strang.</li><li>London:&nbsp;John C. Nimmo, Ltd.,&nbsp;1903.</li><li>Illustrated with 14 etchings.</li><li>Bound by Sangorski and Sutcliffe in full tan morocco with simulated latches, all edges gilt, gilt-tooled bordered turn-ins and floral endpapers.</li><li>Housed in a floral slipcase.</li></ul>

The Pilgrim's Progress

Finely bound limited edition set of Thackeray's&nbsp;Complete Works.<ul><li>Sold as a set of 30.</li><li>William Makepeace Thackeray (British).</li><li>London &amp; New York:&nbsp;J.M. Dent &amp; Co. and George E. Croscup,&nbsp;1904.</li><li>Illustrated.</li><li>Limited edition of 10 copies, this being number 1.</li><li>Bound in full green morocco with floral detailing, brown inlay floral details and gilt-tooled label lettering with top edge gilt, floral turn-ins and green watered silk endpapers.&nbsp;</li></ul>

Thackeray's Works

Finely bound set of Archer's portraits of English and Scottish royalty.<ul><li>Sold as a set of 2.</li><li>Thomas Archer (English).</li><li>London, Glasgow &amp; Edinburgh:&nbsp;Blackie &amp; Son,&nbsp;1883.</li><li>Includes 69 engraved plates from important works by distinguished modern painters and from authentic state portraits. </li><li>Bound in the Publisher's Pezux binding in full red morocco with the covers displaying incredibly ornate and detailed gilt and open tooling depicting 8 crests around the borders and one larger central crest as well as many small bordering and central decorative details, raised bands, crests, ornate panel detailing, bordering, and label lettering, all gilt or open-tooled, all edges gilt with gilt-tooled turn-ins and marbled endpapers.</li></ul>

Pictures and Royal Portraits Illustrative of English and Scottish History

The Complete Works of William Hogarth with a series of 150 steel engravings, descriptions and a comment on their moral tenancy by the Rev. John Trusler to which are added anecdotes of the author and his works by J. Hogarth and J. Nichols. <ul><li>Sold as a set of 2.</li><li>William Hogarth (English).</li><li>London and New York:&nbsp;The London Printing and Publishing Company,&nbsp;1850.</li><li>Bound in full brown morocco with the covers displaying ruled borders, floral bordering, and a central depiction of a painter, all gilt-tooled, spines display raised bands, panel bordering, and label lettering, all gilt-tooled, all of the edges are gilded with gilt-tooled turn-ins.</li></ul>

Hogarth's Works

Finely bound set of the St. James Edition of Eliot's Complete Works.<ul><li>Sold as a set of 10.</li><li>George Eliot (English).</li><li>London &amp; New York:&nbsp;Postlethwaite, Taylor &amp; Knowles, Ltd.,&nbsp;1908.</li><li>Includes photogravure illustrations from drawings by Gertrude Demain Hammond and Frederick L. Stoddard.</li><li>This edition is limited to 1000 copies printed for sale in America, this being number 142.</li><li>Bound in three-quarter red morocco and textured linen boards, bordered in gilt tooling with a gilt-tooled crest on the top left corner of the covers, raised bands with floral details and label lettering in gilt tooling and green inlay, top edges are gilt with textured linen endpapers.</li></ul>

The Complete Works of George Eliot

Finely bound Limited Edinburgh Edition of Stevenson's works.<ul><li>Sold as a set of 32.</li><li>Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish).</li><li>London &amp; Edinburgh:&nbsp;Longmans, Green &amp; Co; Cassell &amp; Co.; Seeley &amp; Co.; Charles Scribner's Sons; and Chatto &amp; Windus,&nbsp;1896.</li><li>This edition is limited to 1035 copies, this being number 90.</li><li>Bound in three-quarter blue morocco and linen boards, bordered in gilt tooling, spines display raised bands, floral panel details, bordering, and label lettering, all gilt-tooled, top edge is gilded.</li></ul>

The Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson

Finely bound copy of Milton's poetry. <ul><li>John Milton (English).</li><li>Edited by H.C. Beeching (English).</li><li>Oxford:&nbsp;The Clarendon Press,&nbsp;1900.</li><li>Includes a portrait frontispiece. </li><li>Bound in full red morocco with the covers displaying a triple-ruled border and ornate floral bordering details, both gilt-tooled, spines display raised bands, floral detailing, bordering, and label lettering, all gilt-tooled, all edges are gilt with gilt-tooled turn-ins and marbled endpapers.</li></ul>

The Poetical Works of John Milton

Finely bound Extra Illustrated Edition of Froissart's Chronicles of England, France, Spain &amp; Other Adjoining Countries.<ul><li>Sold as a set of 4.</li><li>John Froissart (French)</li><li>London:&nbsp;William Smith,&nbsp;1839.</li><li>Bound in full red morocco with the covers displaying a double border and floral details in the corners, both gilt-tooled, raised bands, bordering, ornate floral details, and label lettering, all gilt-tooled, all of the edges are gilded with ornately gilt-tooled turn-ins and linen endpapers.</li></ul>

The Chronicles of England, France, Spain & Other Adjoining Countries

Finely bound set of the Centenary Edition of Emerson's Complete Works that includes a biographical introduction, notes by Edward Waldo Emerson, and a general index.<ul><li>Sold as a set of 12.</li><li>Ralph Waldo Emerson (American).</li><li>Boston &amp; New York:&nbsp;Houghton, Mifflin &amp; Co.,&nbsp;1903.</li><li>Bound in three-quarter red morocco and marbled boards, bordered in gilt tooling, raised bands, panels decorated with bordering and floral details, and label lettering are all gilt-tooled, top edges are gilt with marbled endpapers.</li></ul>

The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson

A finely bound and illustrated set of Dickens' Christmas Books.<ul><li>Sold as a set of 5.</li><li>Charles Dickens (English).</li><li>Illustrated by John Leech (English).</li><li>A Christmas Carol, the Cricket on Hearth, the Battle of Life, the Haunted Man Etc., the Chimes.</li><li>London:&nbsp;Chapman &amp; Hall,&nbsp;1848.</li><li>Bound by Zaehnsdorf in full red calf with the covers displaying a gilt-tooled triple border, raised bands gilt with panels displaying holly, bordering, and label lettering, all gilt-tooled, all of the edges are gilt with gilt-tooled turn-ins and marbled endpapers.</li></ul>

A Christmas Carol, the Cricket on Hearth, and others

Finely bound copy of Bacon's Essays.<ul><li>Francis Bacon (English).</li><li>London:&nbsp;Arthur L. Humphreys,&nbsp;1900.</li><li>Bound by Morrell in full brown morocco with the covers displaying floral and ruled gilt-tooled borders, spines display raised bands, bordering, floral details, and label lettering, all gilt-tooled, top edge is gilt with gilt-tooled turn-ins and marbled endpapers.</li></ul>

The Essays

Finely bound set of Trevelyan's history of the American Revolution. <ul><li>Sold as a set of 10.</li><li>George Trevelyan (English).</li><li>New York, London, Bombay &amp; Calcutta:&nbsp;Longmans, Green &amp; Co.,&nbsp;1909.</li><li>Bound in three-quarter brown morocco and linen boards, bordered in gilt tooling, raised bands with gilt-tooled label lettering, top edges gilt with marbled endpapers.</li></ul>

The American Revolution

First edition, first printing of Woolf's&nbsp;The Voyage Out.<ul><li>Virginia Woolf (English).</li><li>London: Duckworth &amp; Co., 1915.</li><li>318 pages.</li><li>16 pages of publisher’s advertisements.</li><li>Bound by The Chelsea Bindery in full morocco with gilt title, marbled endpapers, handsewn headbands and all edges gilt.</li></ul>

The Voyage Out

Finely bound and illustrated limited-edition copy of Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde.<ul><li>Geoffrey Chaucer (English).</li><li>Illustrated by Eric Gill (English).</li><li>London: Folio Society, 2011.</li><li>328 pages.</li><li>Limited edition of 1,250 copies, this being number 275.&nbsp;</li><li>Accompanying 48-page commentary volume.</li><li>Bound in full black goatskin with illustrated design, top edge gilt, satin bookmark.</li><li>Housed in a buckram clamshell solander box.</li></ul>

Troilus and Criseyde

Fine prize bindings of Jameson's third edition of the historical art text Sacred and Legendary Art.<ul><li>Sold as a set of 2.</li><li>Anna Jameson (Anglo-Irish).</li><li>London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1905.</li><li>818 pages.</li><li>19 full-page steel plate etchings with tissue guards.</li><li>In-text woodcut illustrations.</li><li>Full leather binding with burl flame boards, gilt embossed title, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt with gold prize stamp to the front board of each.</li></ul>

Sacred and Legendary Art

Finely bound copy of Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson.<ul><li>James Boswell (Scottish).</li><li>London: Oxford University Press, 1953.</li><li>1489 pages.</li><li>Bound by Bayntun-Riviere in full leather polished calf, all edges gilt and marbled endpapers.</li></ul>

The Life of Samuel Johnson

Finely bound copy of Donne's poetry.<ul><li>John Donne (English).</li><li>Illustrated by Imre Reiner (Hungarian).</li><li>New York: Heritage Press, 1970.</li><li>198 pages.</li><li>Bound by the Harcourt Bindery in polished calf over marbled boards with hand-sewn silk headbands and top edge gilt.</li></ul>

The Poems of John Donne

Finely bound copy of the Humanist work The Sonnets of Petrarch.<ul><li>Francesco Petrarca (Italian).</li><li>Illustrated by Aldo Salvadori (Italian).</li><li>New York: Heritage Press, 1966.</li><li>369 pages.</li><li>Bound by the Harcourt Bindery in morocco over cloth boards with hand-sewn silk endbands and top edge gilt.</li></ul>

The Sonnets of Petrarch

Finely bound Franklin Library edition of Wilder's most popular plays.<ul><li>Thornton Wilder (American).</li><li>Three Plays: Our Town, The Skin of Our Teeth, The Matchmaker.</li><li>Minneapolis: Franklin Library, 1980.</li><li>456 pages.</li><li>Bound by the Harcourt Bindery in morocco over marbled boards with hand-sewn silk headbands and all edges gilt.</li></ul>

Three Plays

First U.S. Edition and finely bound copy of Snow's novel The Affair.<ul><li>C. P. Snow (English).</li><li>New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1960.</li><li>374 pages.</li><li>Bound by the Harcourt Bindery in morocco over cloth boards with hand-sewn silk endbands, marbled endpapers and top edge gilt.</li></ul>

The Affair

Finely bound Franklin Library edition of Galsworthy's Five Tales.<ul><li>John Galsworthy (English).</li><li>Illustrated by John Collier (English).</li><li>Five Tales: The First and Last, A Stoic, The Apple Tree, The Juryman, Indian Summer of a Forsyte.</li><li>Minneapolis: Franklin Library, 1980.</li><li>382 pages.</li><li>Bound by Harcourt Bindery in morocco over marbled boards, hand-sewn silk headbands and all edges gilt.</li></ul>

Five Tales

Finely bound copy of Thackeray's collection of comedic Burlesques.<ul><li>William Makepeace Thackeray (English).</li><li>Burlesques: Novels by Eminent Hands, The Diary of C. Jeames de la Pluche, The Tremendous Adventures of Major Gahagan, The Fatal Boots, Little Travels and Roadside Sketches.</li><li>New York: Brentano’s, c. 1900.</li><li>394 pages.</li><li>Bound by Harcourt Bindery in morocco over marbled boards and hand-sewn silk endbands.</li></ul>

Burlesques

Finely bound limited edition of Smollet's Adventures of Count Fathom.<ul><li>Tobias Smollett (Scottish).</li><li>London: George Routledge and Sons, 1884.</li><li>416 pages.</li><li>Limited edition of 350, this being number 345.</li><li>Bound by Harcourt Bindery in morocco over marbled boards with gold gilt titles, decorations and ruling with hand-sewn silk endbands.</li></ul>

The Adventures of Count Fathom 

Finely bound copy of Cellini's autobiography.<ul><li>Benvenuto Cellini (Italian).</li><li>Illustrated by Fritz Kredel (German).</li><li>New York: The Heritage Press, c. 1960.</li><li>301 pages.</li><li>Bound by the Harcourt Bindery in morocco over cloth-covered boards with gilt titles and borders, hand-sewn silk endbands, marbled endpapers and with top edge gold gilt.</li></ul>

The Life of Benvenuto Cellini

Finely bound copy of Virgil's poem The Georgics.<ul><li>Virgil (Roman).</li><li>Translated by John Dryden (English).</li><li>Illustrated by Bruno Bramanti (Italian).</li><li>New York: Heritage Press, 1953.</li><li>155 pages.</li><li>Bound by Harcourt Bindery in morocco over cloth-covered boards with gold gilt titles, hand-sewn silk endbands, gold ruling to the boards, marbled endpapers with top edge gilt.</li></ul>

The Georgics

Finely bound copy of Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel.<ul><li>Francois Rabelais (French).</li><li>Illustrated by Lynd Ward (American).</li><li>Translated by Jacques LeClercq (Belgian).</li><li>Gargantua and Pantagruel: The Five Books by Francois Rabelais.</li><li>New York: Heritage Press, 1942.</li><li>764 pages.</li><li>Bound by the Harcourt Bindery in morocco and decorative gilt motifs with marbled endpapers, hand-sewn silk headbands, and top edge gilt. </li></ul>

Gargantua and Pantagruel 

Finely bound first edition, first issue of Ruark's Something of Value.<ul><li>Robert Ruark (American).</li><li>New York: Doubleday, 1955.</li><li>566 pages.</li><li>Rebound by Derek Woolf in three-quarter dark brown Nigerian calf leather over marble covered boards with raised bands to the spine with gilt lettering.</li></ul>

Something of Value

Finely bound and printed copy of Pushkin's Eugene Onegin.<ul><li>Alexander Pushkin (Russian).</li><li>Translated into English by Vladimir Nabokov (Russian-American) with the Russian in Cyrillic transliteration by Stanislav Shvabrin.</li><li>Illustrated by Stan Washburn (American).</li><li>San Francisco: Arion Press, 2018.</li><li>256 pages.</li><li>Folio.</li><li>Frontispiece reproduces a painting by Stan Washburn, portraying Pushkin and Nabokov side by side, painted especially for this edition.</li><li>Limited edition of 300 copies, this being 75.</li><li>Sewn by hand with linen thread over linen tapes, with handsewn bands at the head and foot in three colors of silk thread, and cover with a brown goatskin spine with gold foil-stamped titling and tan cloth over boards and with original prospectus.</li><li>Housed in a dark brown cloth slipcase with gold gilt titling on the spine.</li></ul> From the publisher, “Alexander Pushkin (1799–1837) is not only Russia’s greatest poet, but also, to those in a position to judge, the greatest poet since Shakespeare. His novel in verse, Eugene Onegin, stands at the center of Russian literature in a way that nothing else in world literature dominates its tradition. By common consent, Pushkin is also the most untranslatable of writers. Dante and Shakespeare have long been admired across linguistic borders, but because Pushkin’s unique harmony of rhyme and reason defies translation, his reputation outside those who knew Russian remained pallid or merely notional for more than a century after his death. His quality did not become apparent to the English-speaking world until Nabokov’s 1964 Eugene Onegin translation and commentary, revised still more stringently in the 1975 version that this edition follows.” As Brian Boyd declares: “Nabokov would have been thrilled to see this Arion edition, which solves these problems of presentation so elegantly: the English translation with, beside it, the Cyrillic original interlineated with an indented stress-marked transliteration (prepared by Stanislav Shvabrin, the leading scholar of the finer points of Nabokov’s verse), both original and transliteration set in type small enough that their two versions of the line match the placement and numbering of the lines of the translation, so that the eye can easily skip from English to Russian. “But what difference could a mere typographic arrangement make? In this case, all the difference in the world. It allows Pushkin to leap into sharp focus; it allows Nabokov’s aims in translating the poem as he did to become instantly clear; it allows readers to see the essential modesty and solicitude that drove Nabokov’s method.” In a tour de force of typography and letterpress printing, Nabokov’s English is presented alongside the original in Cyrillic, accompanied by a transliteration. The paper is Italian mold-made Magnani, the types are Bembo for the English translation, 16 point; Modern 8A for the Cyrillic and transliteration, 12 point; and Ariston script for display in various sizes. About the Arion Press: Since its inception in 1974, the Arion Press has published 118 deluxe limited editions that are breathtaking in their scope and artistry. Combining notable literature illustrated with original artwork from prominent artists, Andrew Hoyem and his team at the Arion Press have carried on the tradition of the livre d’artiste in spectacular fashion. Michael Kimmelman of The New York Times put it best when he wrote, "The Arion Press produces some of the most beautiful limited-edition, hand-printed books in the world."

Eugene Onegin: A Novel in Verse

Finely bound and illustrated set of three plays by the famed Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen.<ul><li>Henrik Ibsen (Norwegian).</li><li>Illustrated by Fredrik Matheson (Swedish).</li><li>Introduction by John Gassner (American).</li><li>New York: The Heritage Press, 1965.</li><li>Bound in three-quarter morocco leather over complementary cloth-covered boards by the Harcourt Bindery, Charlestown, Massachusetts, with raised bands to the spine, gilt titles and ruling, and decorative central gold gilt motifs, single gilt lines to the boards and corners, hand-sewn silk endbands with the top page edges gold gilt.</li></ul>

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Available for International Shipping

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Alfred Tennyson

Izaak Walton

M. de Voltaire [François-Marie Arouet]

Edgar Allan Poe, William Shakespeare, Alfred Tennyson

Winston Churchill

Howard I. Chapelle

John Bunyan

William Makepeace Thackeray

Thomas Archer

William Hogarth

George Eliot

Robert Louis Stevenson

John Milton

John Froissart

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Charles Dickens

Francis Bacon

Sir George Otto Trevelyan

Virginia Woolf

Geoffrey Chaucer, Eric Gill

Anna Jameson

James Boswell

John Donne

Francesco Petrarca

Thornton Wilder

C. P. Snow

John Galsworthy

William Makepeace Thackeray

Tobias Smollett

Benvenuto Cellini

Virgil

Rabelais, François

Robert Ruark

Alexander Pushkin

Henrik Ibsen