“Owen Meredith” was the pen-name of Edward Robert Bulwer Lytton, Earl of Lytton, Viceroy of India and a popular Victorian poet. Lucile, a romantic yet witty novel in verse, went through hundreds of editions (legitimate and pirated) and hundreds of thousands of copies. The three editions shown here were all published by Thomas Y. Crowell of New York within the decade of the 1880s. Each was meant to appeal to a different level of society: (l-r) a lady’s boudoir book, and a cheap edition, a family library or parlor edition.
| True Heroism. Edinburgh: Gall & Inglis, ca. 1880. |
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Milton, John. The Poetical Works of John Milton. London: George Routledge and Sons, ca.1880.
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Balzac. Droll Stories Collected from the Abbeys of Touraine. London: William Mitchell and Company, ca.1880.
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Bonhomme, Honoré. La Société Galante et Littéraire au XVIIIe Siècle. Paris: Édouard Rouveyre, 1880.
Binding: Chambolle-Duru |
| Glückliche Kinderzeit. Ca. 1880.
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Gilchrist, Alexander. Life of William Blake. 2 vols. London: Macmillan and Co., 1880. Blue cloth blocked in gold on front and spine. Cover design by Frederick Shields after an original design by William Blake. |
| Herbert, George. The Works of George Herbert in Prose and Verse, Edited from the Latest Editions, with Memoir, Explanatory Notes, Etc. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1880. |
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Audsley, George A., and James L. Bowes. Keramic Art of Japan. London: Henry Sotheran, 1881.
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Pope, Alexander. The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope. Boston: D. Lothrop & Company, 1883.
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