Case W5
- Association Books 1
John Walker. A critical pronouncing dictionary and expositor of the English language. London: Allan Bell & Co., 1834.
A book can appeal to a collector because of some ‘association’ with a former owner (in a similar way to an autograph letter) or some other personal interest. Such books are known as ‘Association’ books. Collecting Association books was a major interest of Reed from the 1920s to the 1940s. Though the Reed Collection is well-known today for its early Bibles and Dickens collections, it was Association books and autograph letters that were the dominant theme of the original 1948 donation.
The front free endpaper and title page of this copy of Walker’s Dictionary are signed ‘Marian Evans’, who is perhaps better known by her penname ‘George Eliot’.
Evans (1819-1880) would have been just fifteen years old when she signed this book, if the ownership inscription coincides with the publication date. In 1834, she was enrolled in Miss Franklin’s school in Coventry, where she excelled at the piano, in French, and at English composition, perhaps with the aid of Walker’s Dictionary.
John Walker. A critical pronouncing dictionary and expositor of the English language. London: Allan Bell & Co., 1834.
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Anthony Trollope (editor). British sports and pastimes, 1868. London: Virtue, 1868.
A.H. Reed’s copy of British sports and pastimes, a little-known work edited by Anthony Trollope, appears to have been the novelist’s own, and contains numerous editing marks and annotations in Trollope’s hand.
The work was reprinted from articles originally published in St. Paul’s magazine, of which Trollope was editor from 1867 until it ceased publication in 1870. Eight articles covering horseracing, hunting, shooting, fishing, yachting, rowing, alpine climbing, and cricket are included in the book, to which Trollope contributed both the preface and the chapter on hunting.
Did Trollope mark up this copy with the intention of producing a second edition? No later edition is known to exist, but the title was reissued six times. It is possible that the edits in the Reed copy are reflected in one of the reissues.
Thomas Hardy. Far from the madding crowd. New and cheaper edition. London: Sampson Low, Marston and Co. Ltd., 1893.
A.H. Reed’s copy of Far from the madding crowd contains a presentation inscription by the English novelist Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) to Florence Henniker.
Thomas Hardy met the novelist Florence Henniker (1855-1923) in May 1893. She was the daughter of Richard Monckton Milnes, Lord Houghton, and married to a distinguished soldier. Hardy seems to have fallen in love with Henniker, who nevertheless remained staunchly loyal to her husband. The novelists however remained lifelong friends and collaborated on a short story ‘The spectre of the real’, first published in 1894. Hardy’s letters to Henniker were published as One rare fair woman in 1972.
Thomas Hardy. Far from the madding crowd. New and cheaper edition. London: Sampson Low, Marston and Co. Ltd., 1893.
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