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🎁🎅🎄MERRY CHRISTMAS & A HAPPY NEW YEAR!☃️❄️🦌
🎁🎅🎄MERRY CHRISTMAS & A HAPPY NEW YEAR!☃️❄️🦌
With 10% off the Country House Collection of rare, vintage and first edition, luxury gift books, what better time to treat you book loving friends and family (or indeed yourself!) with an extra special festive present. Like any rare work of art, these selected publications are something to treasure for generations and could well appreciate in value as the years pass. Whether you prefer fiction or non-fiction, we’re confident you’ll find something in our ‘luxury’ section.
From the pen of one of English literature’s finest writers, this set of four volumes, including Jane Austen’s most famous works, is a book collectors dream, and the jewel in the crown in Country House Library’s fine collection of rare books. Austen gained far more notoriety after her premature death at just 42 years old, helped by these publications in the 1870’s by the Richard Bentley company. Presented in stunning green and gold livery, these literary jewels will shine with true worth in your home library collection.
Oliver Twist, or The Parish Boy’s Progresswas first issued in monthly instalments in Bentley's Miscellany(1837-1839), and first published in book form in 1838. Rightly famous for its cast of unforgettable cast of characters including Oliver himself, Mr Bumble the workhouse beadle, The Artful Dodger, Fagin, with his stable of pickpocket boys, Bill Sikes the brutal murderer, and Nancy the warm-hearted ‘lady of the night’. This highly decorative red and gold covered publication from the 1890’s by Miles and Miles, is a rare antique find which would make a wonderful centrepiece for any collection of Dickens’ work.
Commonly listed in the very top of the best literary novels ever written, Middlemarch (A Study of Provincial Life) by George Eliot, first published in 1871, was famously described by the author Virginia Woolf as “one of the few English novels written for grown-up people”. The story concentrates on the blighted marriage of the wealthy young Puritanical idealist, Dorothea Brooke, to the middle-aged pedant, Dr Edward Casaubon, labouring fruitlessly on his never finished magnus opus, Key to All Mythologies. The huge cast of superbly drawn secondary characters play their part in examining the ‘web of society’ in provincial Victorian Britain. This decorative and rare edition from the 1950’s by Zodiac Press would grace any home vintage book collection.
Perhaps not widely known that J(ames) M(atthew) Barrie’s (1860 – 1937) famous character ‘Peter Pan’ appeared in four separate novels, with only the last one, Peter Pan(originally titled Peter and Wendy) now widely read, and subsequently made into animated films. This second novel to feature Peter, with illustrations by the wonderful Arthur Rackham, was published by Hodder and Stoughton specifically as a children’s book, although it’s now widely perceived by collectors as a work of art thanks to the illustrations. Arthur Rackham’s work appeared in novels and publications by William Shakespeare, Rudyard Kipling, Lewis Carroll and the Brothers Grimm, to name but a few. A large book in eye-catching vintage green and gold, this rare find will be a favourite with lovers of the Peter Pan stories and the masterpiece illustrations of Arthur Rackham.
One of three volumes on Italian Renaissance art by the respected French art historian Eugène Műntz (1845 – 1902), this 1889 publication by Librairie Hachette is in itself a rare work of the bookmaking art. With a striking, metallic black cover with inset gold coloured coins and gold leaf pages, containing many full colour and black and white illustrations, this is one to treasure for book and art lovers everywhere.
John Brown’s Self-Interpreting Bible was one of the most long-lived of the early American annotated bibles, first published in 1778 in Edinburgh. Brown (1722-1787) was the orphaned son of a Scottish weaver. He taught himself Latin and Greek while keeping sheep and later taught himself Hebrew. In fact, for a period of time, one minister spread the suspicion of witchcraft against Brown for his learning these languages when he had little formal schooling. In his numerous writings, Brown sought to be practical and helpful to people who wanted to know the Scripture, but hadn’t the time or learning for deep, personal investigations for themselves – hence ‘self-interpreting’. Although the publication date of this edition is unknown, the beautiful black and gold binding and clasps make it a rare collector’s piece.
Hans Christian Andersen (1805 – 75) born in Denmark, was the son of a cobbler father and washerwoman mother. By the time he was 26 years old, he’d made his name as a playwright and novelist and travelled widely throughout Europe. During a trip to England he stayed with a famous admirer of his work, none other than Charles Dickens. Andersen’s most famous stories include ‘The Little Mermaid’, ‘The Snow Queen’, ‘The Ugly Duckling’, and ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’. This illustrated, 1939 publication from J. M. Dent & Sons, is a magnificent example of the bookbinder’s art and would make a wonderful family heirloom on the home library shelves.
The poet and playwright William Shakespeare needs no introduction, but the publishers of this trio collection of the Stratford-upon-Avon Bard’s plays, J. M. Dent are noteworthy in their own right. In 1904 they set about publishing 1000 classic novels under the ‘Everyman Library’ label. Each edition was to have a high quality feel and retail for no more than one shilling. Before completing the 1000 however, they suffered a double blow of a change to the copyright laws, which reduced availability of Victorian novels, and then the First World War with resulting inflation and shortages. J M Dent himself was said to be, “small, lame, tight-fisted, and apt to weep under pressure”. He believed cheap books, available to the ordinary man, might stop further wars. Published during the war years, these three rare volumes would make a special edition to a home collection of the literary greats.
With a collection to rival any antiquarian book shop, Country House Library is proud to offer a stunning array of rare and collectable publications, including many of the great names in literature from Jane Austen to William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens to Hans Christian Andersen. Also including an impressive variety of luxury and rare non-fiction, we’re confident we can keep the serious booklover absorbed for many happy hours of browsing and adding to their collections.
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