THE BRAMLEIGHS OF BISHOP'S FOLLY

First edition, first printing. Three volumes. Finely bound in nineteenth century full dark green morocco, the spines uniformly faded to lighter brown. With five raised bands, gilt decorated compartments (lettered in gilt to two), front and rear boards triple-ruled in gilt, inner dentelles elaborately decorated in gilt. Burgundy endpapers. Upper edges gilt. Publisher's original cloth covers (front to Vols. I and II, rear to III) and spines bound to the rear of each volume. Sadleir records three different bindings, this set being the most elaborate, least common variant of light crimson fine-pebble-grain cloth, blocked in black to boards and lettered in gold to spines. A near fine set, the bindings square and firm, the contents clean throughout. Very lightly spotted to fore- and lower page block edges, occasionally to the margins of a few pages, and to the binder's blanks front and rear. A handsome and uncommon set.

Set in the North of Ireland, near Coleraine, Co. Londonderry, and in Italy, 'The Bramleighs of Bishop's Folly' partly relates the experiences of a rich English banker and his family. The central figure, however, is the selfish old peer, Viscount Culduft, a neighbouring landowner, on whose estate coal is found. Much of the novel deals with the exploiting of the Culduff mine. Tom Cutbill, a bluff, vulgar, humorous engineer, provides most of the fun. Other characters include a young Irish Protestant clergyman, the only one that appears prominently in Lever's pages. The mystery that runs through the book is kept ingeniously veiled to the very end. (Synopsis adapted from Stephen J. M. Browne's entry on the novel.) Charles James Lever was born in Dublin, and like Wilde and Beckett after him, attended Trinity College (1823–1828), taking his degree in medicine in 1831. He practised as a physician in Brussels before returning to Dublin to edit the Dublin University Magazine (1842-5). Acquainted with and respected by Dickens, Trollope and Thackeray, the latter, while noting the energy of Lever's humour, describes his salient tone as "not humour but sentiment. The spirits are mostly artificial, the fond is sadness, as appears to me to be that of most Irish writing and people." Lever died in Trieste (Joyce's home for fifteen years) in 1872, aged 65. (Stephen J. M. Brown, 'Ireland in Fiction: A Guide to Irish Novels, Tales, Romances, and Folk-lore', Dublin: 1916; Sadleir 1395).