The Works.: With the Author's Preface, and an Introduction by G. H. Maynadier.

London: Gay and Bird,, 1903. A collected edition of Fielding's novels including miscellaneous writings such as plays and essays. "In breaking away from the epistolary method of his contemporary Richardson, and others", Fielding (1707-1754) "devised what he described as 'comic epics in prose', which may be characterized as the first modern novels in English, leading straight to the works of Dickens and Thackeray" (Drabble, p. 360). Twelve volumes, octavo (207 x 134 mm). Contemporary reddish-brown half morocco, spines lettered and decorated with floral design in gilt, marbled calf-grain paper boards, matching marbled endpapers, top edges gilt, fore and bottom edges uncut. Frontispiece with captioned tissue guard to each volume, title pages printed in red and black. Loosely inserted typescript presentation slip from the historian Leopold George Wickham Legg (1877-1962). Spines faded, a few volumes with chipped headcaps, joints split on vols I and V, sometime repaired, book blocks square and firm, rubbing to extremities, occasional marks to binding, internally clean. A very good set. Morrissey 1903 A.3. Margaret Drabble, ed., The Oxford Companion To English Literature, 2000.