"ONE OF TROLLOPE'S BEST BUT LEAST-KNOWN NOVELS": 1869 FIRST EDITION IN SCARCE ORIGINAL PARTS OF HE KNEW HE WAS RIGHT

TROLLOPE, Anthony. He Knew He Was Right. London: Strahan, 1869. Thirty-two parts. Octavo, original drab stiff paper wrappers printed in red and black, stitched as issued. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box. $6000.

First edition in the scarce 32 original parts in printed paper wrappers of Trollope's widely praised novel of obsession and madness, with 64 wood-engraved illustrations (32 full-page). A beautiful unrestored copy complete with all advertisements, handsomely boxed by Sangorski & Sutcliffe.

Nathaniel Hawthorne captured the essence of Anthony Trollope's considerable appeal in noting that his novels "precisely suit my taste; solid, substantial… as if some giant had hewn a great lump out of the earth and put it under a glass case, with all its inhabitants going about their daily business, and not suspecting that they were made a show of." Trollope is said to have been inspired by Shakespeare's Othello in He Knew He Was Right. "One of Trollope's best but least-known novels… it achieves what Henry James, who admired the book, has called 'an impressive completeness of misery" (Hennessey, 291). The novel's focus on the obsessions of his protagonist produces "a narrative that is at once a 'sane' realistic novel and a 'mad' Shakespearean tragedy" (Oberhalman, Studies in English Literature). Written from November 1867-June 1868, and serialized in 32 weekly numbers from October 17, 1868-May 22, 1869. With 64 wood-engraved illustrations after Marcus Stone (32 full page). Sadleir 31.

Interiors generally clean and fine, only a bit of light wear to spines of first and last parts, occasional minor toning and edge-wear to other parts. A beautiful, near-fine copy, scarce and desirable in the original parts, complete with all ads.