Cloister and the Hearth A Tale of the Middle Ages

London: Trubner, 1861. Full Description:

READE, Charles. The Cloister and the Hearth. A Tale of the Middle Ages. London: Trübner, 1861.

First edition, first issue. With no periods after "Etc" on Volume I title page, after "Volumes" on Volume II title page and after "Hearth" on Volume III title page. Also with "Catherine threw her face over her apron" on p. 372 Vol. II, "The right of Reproduction and Translation reserved" on the titles, and Vol. II having 384 pages. Four octavo volumes (7 1/4 x 4 1/2 inches; 184 x 112 mm). [iv], 360; [ii], 384; [ii], 328; [ii], 435,[1, blank] pp.

Original green morocco-stamped cloth. Spines lettered in gilt, covers paneled in blind. Original light yellow coated endpapers. Edges uncut. Binder's ticket on rear pastedown of volume I: Westleys & Co., London. bindings slightly skewed. Corners a bit bumped and some rubbing to cloth along outer hinges. Volume IV with two leaves (189-192) roughly opened at top margin, not affecting text. Publisher's advertisement tipped in to rear endpaper of Volume IV. Quarter green morocco over green cloth clamshell case. An excellent copy.

"I do not know where I can find a book in which the highest qualities of head and of heart go together as they do in this one." (Conan Doyle, 1898)

"Charles Reade (1814-1884) is a neglected, almost a forgotten novelist. If he is remembered at all, it is for The Cloister and the Hearth....[I]f Malcolm Elwin is correct, 'When Dickens died, Reade automatically ascended his seat above the heads of contemporary novelists...[I]n America, he had been considered for some years even the equal of Dickens.'...[H]e did receive far more critical acclaim than has generally been recognized, not merely from capable but little known writers like Hain Friswell, but from some of the finest and best known critics of the time-- including Henry James, who in his early reviews (1865) placed Reade in the foremost rank of English novelists, far above Trollope and the Kingsleys, even above George Eliot..."(Burns, Charles Reade: A Study in Victorian Authorship, p. [11]).

Parrish, p. 206; Sadleir, 1999.

HBS 69335.

$4,000. (Inventory #: 69335)