THE RECOLLECTIONS OF GEOFFRY HAMLYN.
In three volumes. Pp. [ii]+vi+276(last blank)+24(publisher's catalogue, dated April 15, 1859)+viii+324+viii+376(last blank)+24(publisher's catalogue, April 1859); dark blue textured cloth, spines lettered in gilt, boards with blind rule borders, the edges lightly rubbed and occasionally slightly bruised, spines lightly faded; uncut; bookseller's sticker on upper pastedown and binder's ticket of Burn & Kirby on lower pastedown each volume, hinges cracking Volumes I & III, several leaves faintly creased, a couple of tiny edge chips or splits, scattered light foxing and occasional slight soiling; Macmillan and Co., Cambridge, 1859. First edition. Miller & Macartney p. 268; Sadleir, 1360; Wolff, 3825. *The author's first and most famous work, 'notable among early works of fiction having their origin in Australian experience' [Miller & Macartney, p. 269]. Henry Kingsley, younger brother of the author of The Water Babies, arrived in Australia in 1853 and spent time in the bush and on the Victorian goldfields. He is said to have begun writing The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn at the suggestion of Thomas Browne (Rolf Boldrewood). This set is from the collection of the author and literary critic Clement Shorter (1857-1926), whose bookplate, designed by Walter Crane, is on the upper pastedown of each volume. Shorter edited an edition of Kingsley's novels (12 volumes) in the mid 1890s. The later ownership sticker of Australian book collector Rollo Hammet is on the upper pastedown of the first volume. Loosely inserted is an undated ALs from Kingsley to a Mr. Lovejoy: presumably George Lovejoy, whose Subscription Circulating Library in Reading, founded in 1832 and purchased by Miss Eliza Langley in 1884, was said to rival Mudie's library in London. The letter is undated, but probably from the early 1860s, because Kingsley, who edited Macmillan's Globe Edition of Defoe's Robinson Crusoe in 1868, asks to be sent a copy of 'Crusoes Island' [sic], being 'very much in want of it'. According to Sadleir [p. 194] Macmillan used the same cloth for the binding of Charles Kingsley's Westward Ho and it was known as 'Kingsley style.'. Item #143778
Price: $5,000.00