BYRON'S LETTERS AND JOURNALS [1798-1824]: Complete in Thirteen Volumes.

First editions, first printings. Original red cloth lettered in gilt to spine and front panel, in the illustrated dustwrappers designed by Craig Dodd. Each volume with an illustrated frontispiece. Upper edges coloured red. A near fine set, the bindings square and firm, the contents, except for a neat gift inscription in blue ink to the front free endpaper of Vol. 10, clean and bright. In the generally fine dustwrappers, with one or two surface marks and a little toning to a few flaps. Small abrasion and a handful of tiny indentations to the front panel of Vol. 12. All with the exception of Vol. 11 remain unclipped, with six volumes re-priced with a publisher's label. Altogether, a very attractive complete set of first editions.

Leslie Marchand's monumental edition set out to publish every extant Byron letter, and between 1973 and 1981 he did just that. The supplementary volume (13), published in 1994, adds a number of newly discovered letters (Vol. 12 is an index and anthology). "What a feast of a life actually in process of being lived these letters have provided. We read them. as he wrote them, on the run. They breathe the very spirit of the man, and they bring Byron and his circle of friends before our eyes as no biography has ever done or can ever hope to do." (Robert Nye in 'The Guardian')