The Literary History of England in the End of the Eighteenth and Beginning of the Nineteenth Century, in Three Volumes, EXTRA-ILLUSTRATED **Fine Binding by Riviere & Son**

London: MacMillan & Company, 1882 Hard cover, 8vo, in a contemporary rebinding of full polished calf gilt, signed "Riviere & Son," with the added Extra Illustration of 67 portraits of the Authors, First edition. Vol. I: (4) i-iv,1-395, (4). Vol II. (1) (6),1-392pp. Vol. III (4)(vi), 1-405pp., plus erratum page. Also with 67 unnumbered illustration plates. The three volumes have triple banding and filled corner roundels to top and bottom boards, the spine with five raised bands encompassing titles on red and brown onlaid morocco labels to the second and third compartments, and with a richly gilt decorative pattern showing three stages of a pomegranate blossom at the center of the other compartments, surrounded by a diamond pattern of small roundels and blossoms, all framed by additional floral sprigs, rope style banding, scalloped rolls and dotted lines upon the bands. Head and foot of spine, as well as board edges are also rolled with decoration. All edges gilt, marbled paper paste downs feature one engraved, illustrated bookplate of F. E. Dinshaw. Vols. 1 and III with the gilt maroon leather book label of W.A. Foyle, Beeleigh Abbey, and another small paper library inventory or auction lot (?) label printed and in old ink. Turn ins are richly decorated in gilt as well. **CONDITION: Near Fine. Exterior boards show some use, with light scuffing and shelf wear and lightly worn corners. Any exterior wear is very superficial, however, and the volumes remain otherwise tight, clean and sound. There is light toning to the text, and occasional light foxing to some of the engraved portraits, some offset opposite some of the portraits, to the new endpapers and extending into beginning of text, which is all age appropriate. Some small pencil notations verso images left intact.**The "EXTRA-ILLUSTRATION" necessitating the re-binding of this item by Riviere & Son, consists of a UNIQUE, one-of a kind, "grangerized" personal collection of engravings, line illustrations and the like, some pencil-annotated, described thus: "an imposing gallery of interesting portraits illustrates this very useful survey, which is of special value for its attention to England's lesser writers, such as Crabbe, Southey, Landor, Galt, to the writers of the Provinces, and to women authors such as Susan Ferrier and Maria Edgeworth, Mary Wollstonecraft and Miss Mitford. The periodicals are also noticed, as well as the historians and philosophers." (from undated auction catalog clipping laid in.) **The "Provinces" and the "England" of the title belie the Author's definite attention to her Scottish heritage; there is a chapter devoted to consideration of Robert Burns, followed by the Before Burns-era writers Henry Mackenzie and Thomas Blacklock. The portraits selected also contain a number of other notable women of the era: Anna Opie, Anna Seward among them, who were an English education reformer and abolitionist. Illustration publishers include: Archibald & Fullerton, Glasgow; Black & Sons, Glasgow et al.; D. Bogue, London; T. Cadell and W. Davies; W. Crawford, Cheapside, London; Fisher Son & Co., London; A. Fullerton & Co., Dublin; Society For the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, John Limbard, London; Oevres de Chateaubriand. (List of the illustrations available on request.)**AUTHOR Mrs. Margaret Oliphant Wilson Oliphant (1828-1897) born near Edinburgh, was one of Britain's most prolific women writers of the nineteenth century, and a favorite novelist of Queen Victoria. Her 167 novels and short stories published during her lifetime, were all achieved without a formal education, and despite a litany of personal tragedy. These included a number ghost stories, biographies, travel writing and historical titles. As a young widow, she worked while still mourning the death of several of her children, nursed her ailing artist husband (her cousin, also named Oliphant,) of tuberculosis on a disastrous foreign curative trip abroad. She would take on financial responsibility for an alcoholic brother's family as well. The "Carlingford Chronicles," brought her first real monetary success and the patronage of William Blackwood's publishing firm, purveyor's of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, who employed Mrs. Oliphant for years thereafter as a contributor, critic and columnist from the 1860's.**PROVENANCE: Ex-libris F.E. Dinshaw, with his engraved bookplate. Framroze Edulji Dinshaw (1862-1922) was a descendant of a prominent pre-partition Pakistani family of lawyers, businessmen, landowners and philanthropists. Ex-Libris W.A. Foyle, of Beeleigh Abbey, with his leather book label. William Foyle, (1885-1963) was founding partner with his brother, of the fabled Charing Cross Road, London Foyles Bookshop in 1903. An avid collector of old books, Foyle's built a famed library at his medieval manor house in Essex. Foyle was an innovator in the twentieth century bookselling trade, building a successful chain of British bookstores latterly sold to Waterstone's. For more on Mrs. Oliphant: William Blackwood and His Sons: Annals of an Edinburgh Publishing House, Charles Scribner & Sons, New York, (1897.), Preface Vol. I, and Vol. II autobiographical note, pp. 485-87. J. Sutherland p. 476-477. Watson 955. Bookbinder: see Ramsden, p.123.** For its consideration of women writers of the period, in addition to the inclusion of a great number of women (some fictional characters) amongst the added engravings, this is indeed a very special, and by definition, unique set. . Extra-Illustrated with 67 portraits of Authors, Poets, Politicians and Philosophers. Hard Cover. Near Fine. Illus. by Various, incl. E. Scriven, J. Sartain, W. Holl., S. Freeman et al..