John Inglesant
SHORTHOUSE, J.A.
A Romance.
Published: Macmillan, 1881
Stock code: 14174
Price: £100.00
2 vols., roy. 8vo., First Trade Edition, on laid paper, free endpapers lightly browned; original dark red buckram, gilt backs, uncut, backstrips lightly faded (but all gilt wholly legible) else a remarkably bright, clean copy.
Nice copy of the first trade edition, preceded only by a privately printed edition of 100 copies in 1880. Set in the time of Charles I, Shorthouse's first (and best) novel explores contemporary issues within the Anglican and Catholic churches (arising primarily from the Oxford Movement). Macmillan, to whom the novel was introduced by Mrs. Humphrey Ward, considered it a work of genius and hastened to publication. His instinct would seem to have been justified, for it became one of the most popular works of the late Victorian period selling over 80,000 copies. NCBEL III, p.1078; cf. Wolff, 6300.