The Works. In Three Volumes. Consisting of His Plays and Poems.

Engraved frontispiece portrait and five plates. Three volumes. 8vo. [244 x 146 x 102 mm]. xxiv, [viii], 358, [2] pp; [6]ff, 17-514, [2] pp; [6]ff, 17-514, [2] pp. Bound in contemporary calf, the covers with a gilt fillet border, expertly rebacked preserving the original red and green goatskin labels (with a few small repairs), the edges of the boards and turn-ins tooled with gilt rolls, marbled endleaves, light yellow edges. Gaskell, John Baskerville. A Bibliography, 16. The sole Baskerville edition. With the early 19th century engraved label: "Bohn / English & Foreign / Bookseller / 17 Henrietta Street, Cov.t Gard.n / London". A little light browning and minor soiling but a very good copy, which happened to belong to the Anglo-American author Henry James (1843-1916), and has his ink signature on the front flyleaf in vol.1. Henry James's library at Lamb House in Rye was the subject of the Appendix (pp.291-294) in H. Montgomery Hyde's Henry James at Home (1969). When he died in 1916 the library consisted of some 2000 volumes, mostly acquired during his 40 years residence in England. He was not a book collector and "the library which seems to have been somewhat haphazardly assembled appears largely utilitarian in content. English, French, and Italian literature, biography, literary criticism, history, drama, crime, belle-lettres, philosophy, theology, topography and travel are the subjects principally represented. As one might expect, there are few books published before the middle of the last [19th] century, and apart from the authors' presentation copies few rarities. Among the latter was a 3-volume edition of Congreve's Works published by J. Baskerville (Birmingham, 1761)". On James's death the house and its contents passed under his will to his nephew Henry James Jr, who lived in New York and preferred to let Lamb House furnished to a succession of tenants. The latest of these, E. F. Benson, died early in 1940, and before another tenant could be found the property was severely damaged in an air raid, which completely destroyed the Garden Room, spoiling between 250 and 300 of the books kept there. Henry James Jr died in 1948 and two years later his widow presented the house to the National Trust. The contents was sold separately and the bulk of the library which survived the bombing was bought by a Rye antiquarian bookseller, Gilbert H. Fables, who issued three catalogues between 1949 and 1951. They were sold to a wide circle of customers on both sides of the Atlantic, including Dr Leon Edel and Hyde himself. The Congreve has the pencil cost code of "i/./." and price £15 in vol.1, and was bought by Stephen Clark of Street and Lansdown Crescent in Bath.…