McConnell Fine Books - Antiquarian Books and Fine and Original Leather Bindings

37 vols., 8vo (8.25 x 5.5 inches). Full calf by ZAEHNSDORF, 1901, with triple red and green labels, gilt raised bands, superb floral tooling to panels, triple gilt rule framing boards with floral cornertools, dentelles and all edges gilt, marbled endpapers. With an autograph letter bound in to volume one. A superb set in wonderful condition.

DELUXE LIMITED EDITION, one of 100 copies, extra illustrated with superb engraved plates, a number of which are beautifully hand-coloured.

One of the great nineteenth century novelists, Lever retained a strong Irish identity and has been described as 'the Irish Dickens'. He was indeed a contemporary and friend of writers including Dickens, Trollope and Thackeray. Trollope later wrote of him: "How shall I speak of my dear old friend Charles Lever, and his rattling, jolly, joyous, swearing Irishmen. Surely never did a sense of vitality come so constantly from a man?s pen, nor from man?s voice, as from his! I knew him well for many years, and whether in sickness or in health, I have never come across him without finding him to be running over with wit and fun... His earlier novels? - the later I have not read? - are just like his conversation. The fun never flags, and to me, when I read them, they were never tedious." (Trollope, An Autobiography.) Lever's first novel The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer (1839) was an instant success and was soon followed by the equally popular Charles O'Malley: the Irish Dragoon (1840), both of which, like much of his work, were published in serialised form. Other highlights included The Knight of Gwynne: a Tale of the Time of the Union (1847), which deals sensitively with the intensely political atmosphere surrounding the Act of Union in 1800, and Roland Cashel (1850).