Kingsley, Charles. Westward Ho!. Macmillan & Co, Cambridge, 1855.

Price: US$200.00 + shipping

Description: Second edition. 3 vols. 8vo. Publisher's blue cloth. Bookplates of Charles Arthur Wynne Finch, signed C.W. G. Wynne 39 Portman Square on flyleaf, (with some offsetting and foxing). Spine ends and corners bumped, joints starting to fray, else very good

Seller: James Cummins Bookseller, ABAA, New York, NY, U.S.A.

KINGSLEY, Charles.. Westward Ho!. Cambridge: Macmillan & Co., 1855, 1855.

Price: US$5888.24 + shipping

Description: First edition, presentation copy, inscribed "From The Author" in a secretarial hand on the half-title of vol. I. Kingsley's greatest popular success, Westward Ho! was originally planned as a patriotic tale about the defeat of the Spanish Armada at a time when Napoleon III's anti-English posturing was alarming many of Kingsley's countrymen. By the time of publication the Crimean War had switched public angst towards Russia, but it remained just as timely and the novel's nostalgic and rose-tinted look at the Elizabethan golden age struck a chord with its Victorian readership. Three volumes, octavo. Original blue cloth, spines lettered in gilt, yellow endpapers. Housed in a custom blue quarter morocco box. With old bookseller's description from James F. Drake of New York (wrongly placing the inscription as in Kingsley's autograph) loosely inserted. Neat repair to headcaps of vol. I, and minor colour touch-up to the cloth, small chip to the rear cloth of vol. II with slight loss of colour to spine to the same, light bumps to vol. III at extremities, light ink mark to title of vol. III else contents clean. A very good copy.

Seller: Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United Kingdom