Books

London: Vickers, 1846. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good. First London edition, so loosening the corsets of historical romance that every writer who followed could fondle her breasts. It’s not the first in the English language because 2 U. S. translations precede (the first is Baltimore, Taylor Wilde, 1846, published Dec. 5, 1845), and it is abridged, as were all other translation into English before Richard Pevear’s in 2006. Our rare Vickers edition was serialized in penny parts from Jan. to May 8. Bruce and Wyld’s London edition (The Library of Foreign Romance) ran in sixpence parts from Mar. to May 12, and book issues followed promptly in the same order, a priority with which both bibliographies, Munro and Reed, agree and this has been confirmed physically since publication of those bibliographies. Nonetheless, we see Bruce and Wyld’s much more common, later, and always overpriced edition negligently, dishonestly, and ineptly promoted as the first edition in English…