Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
TROLLOPE, Anthony. The Prime Minister (volume 4 only). Chapman & Hall,, 1876.
Price: US$256.17 + shipping
Description: Volume 4 only (of 4) of the 1st edition, in original tan cloth with black decoration & gilt lettering. Gift inscription & small bookseller's stamp on front end paper; text clean; binding tight; a little wear at head & foot of spine
Seller: Cotswold Internet Books, Cheltenham, United Kingdom
Trollope, Anthony. THE PRIME MINISTER. , 1876.
Price: US$650.00 + shipping
Description: [preceding the 4-vol. UK edition] Philadelphia: Porter and Coates, n.d. [1876]. Original green cloth decorated in black and gilt. First Edition (preceding the four-volume English edition, but sharing the spotlight with an edition by Harper of New York, as both American editions were published at noon on May 17, 1876). With the serial format dying (following the death of its champion Dickens in mid-1870), Chapman & Hall experimented (unsuccessfully) with issuing THE PRIME MINISTER in eight monthly five-shilling parts from Nov 1875 through June 1876; they then published it in four cloth-bound volumes -- in "May 1876" according to Sadleir, but "on June 12th, 1876" according to Smith. American publication of this title was very curious. Porter & Coates paid Harper 175 pounds for advance sheets and the right to publish simultaneously -- which they did. P&C came out with the novel at three different prices: for 75¢ in paper wrappers in their "Library of Approved Novels," for $1.25 in cream cloth in their "International Series" or in green (as here) or terra-cotta cloth, and for $1.50 in fancier (black-and-gold) cloth. Harper issued the novel only in wrappers (though cloth was advertised) -- at the same 75¢ -- later reduced (with a different wrapper) to 60¢, to drive down P&C's sales. Condition of this substantial 690-page volume is very good-plus, with minor wear at the extremities, light flecking of the cloth, and some cracking of the original brown-coated endpapers. Smith pp 199-203. Both the Harper and the P&C editions -- true first editions both -- are quite scarce.
Seller: Sumner & Stillman [ABAA], Yarmouth, ME, U.S.A.
TROLLOPE, Anthony.. The Prime Minister.. Chapman and Hall. 1876, 1876.
Price: US$704.48 + shipping
Description: FIRST EDITION. 4 vols. Sl. later blue pebble-grained binder's cloth. Booklabels of Ronald G. Taylor. v.g. Trollope Society Catalogue 52; Sadleir 45. This is also a variant copy from Sadleir's, without volume numbers on titlepages. The fifth title in the Palliser series.
Seller: Jarndyce, The 19th Century Booksellers, London, United Kingdom
TROLLOPE, Anthony. The Prime Minister. Chapman and Hall, London, 1876.
Price: US$750.00 + shipping
Condition: Fine
Description: 4 vols. 3/4 black leather over marbled boards; marbled end-papers. London: Chapman & Hall, 1876. First edition in book form of the fifth Palilser novel, preceded by the issue in monthly parts. Without volume numbers on the title pages.
Seller: Argosy Book Store, ABAA, ILAB, New York, NY, U.S.A.
Trollope, Anthony. The Prime Minister. London Chapman and Hall 1876, 1876.
Price: US$832.56 + shipping
Condition: Fine
Description: First Edition in four volumes. Bound in half brown morrocco with marbled boards and edges, gilt titles to spine, five raised bands with gilt lines and four gilt devices. 12mo, pp. Vol, I, parts I and II, title page, 337: Vol.II, parts III and IV, title page, iv, 342: Vol. III, parts V and VI, vi, 346: Vol.IV, parts VII and VIII, title page, vi, 347. A Fine set of books in fine bindings.
Seller: OJ-BOOKS ABA / PBFA, SOLIHULL, United Kingdom
Trollope, Anthony. The Prime Minister.. Chapman and Hall, London, 1876.
Price: US$2500.00 + shipping
Description: First edition of this classic work, which examines one of the most enduring questions in government; whether a morally scrupulous gentleman can make an effective leader. Octavo, original cloth, four volumes. In near fine condition. An exceptional example, one of the nicest examples we have seen. The Prime Minister, novel by Anthony Trollope, published serially during 1875 and 1876 and in book form in 1876. Considered by modern critics to represent the apex of the Palliser novels, it is the fifth in the series and sustains two plotlines.
Seller: Raptis Rare Books, Palm Beach, FL, U.S.A.
TROLLOPE Anthony. The Prime Minister. , 1876.
Price: US$2881.94 + shipping
Description: First edition, original parts. 8 vols, original brown cloth. London, Chapman and Hall. A presentable set, most joints neatly repaired, extremities of bindings slightly rounded but unfrayed, some occasional light staining to the text, a few pencil marginal emphases, and the contemporary ownership inscriptions of one Edward R. Russell, possibly the editor of the Liverpool Daily Post, later elected to Parliament as a Member for Glasgow and later yet enobled as 1st Baron Russell of Liverpool. The Prime Minister was published at the end of the era of publication of novels in parts, and Michael Sadleir (Trollope a Bibliography, 45) speculates that the reduction from 32 or 20 parts down to 8 was a ?concession to public weariness of frequent short instalments? During this endgame part issues were occasionally issued simultaneously in cloth and wrappers, as here and with George Eliot's Middlemarch (1871) and Daniel Deronda (1876). Sadleir, in a further speculation, suggests that ?Perhaps there were also protests from trade quarters against paper wrappers, so that, to appease the libraries of booksellers, an alternative style of cloth- bound parts was issued, which would stand more wear and circulation than those in fragile paper.? The cloth issues included, as here, the wrappers bound in. Sadleir 45, the first state of the cloth bound part issue, ?Part Issue (B) (i).?
Seller: Maggs Bros. Ltd ABA, ILAB, PBFA, BA, London, United Kingdom
Price: US$4162.81 + shipping
Description: , 8 uniform volumes, with original grey paper wrappers from the 8 monthly parts bound in at front and rear, volume 1 includes 8-page publisher's catalogue at front [dated October 1875], First state, Sadleir pg 153-154 First Edition , volumes in similar condition, rebacked [some time ago] with original cloth laid down at spine, new endpapers [not recent], covers scuffed and lightly stained in places, bumped at corners, spines darkened with stains to some vols, volume 1 lacks rear cover of wrapper, occasional light spots to margins but text clean in all volumes, overall in good condition , brown cloth with double blind frame at front and rear, gilt titles to spine and gilt bands at head and tail of spine Octavo Hardback ISBN:
Seller: Keoghs Books, Skipton, United Kingdom
TROLLOPE, Anthony. Prime Minister. , 1876.
Price: US$4950.00 + shipping
Description: TROLLOPE, Anthony. The Prime Minister. Original cloth, housed in two custom cloth clamshell boxes. London: Chapman & Hall, 1876. 4 Vols. First edition. Sadleir 45. Not in Wolff. Cloth lightly scuffed, light occasional foxing to Vol. One, else a very good or better set.
Seller: G.S. MacManus Co., ABAA, Bryn Mawr, PA, U.S.A.