LORD ORMONT AND HIS AMINTA: A Novel. In Three Volumes

1894. London: Chapman and Hall, 1894. Original olive green cloth decorated in black.

First Edition of Meredith's last three-decker novel, which consisted of 1,500 copies -- published, in fact, in the final year of the three-volume format, as the lending libraries had finally lost their decades-long control over the publishing of English fiction. The next year would see Meredith's last multi-volume novel, THE AMAZING MARRIAGE in two volumes, which would carry through with the same topic as LORD ORMONT -- that a woman should be free to leave a marriage in which her husband does not consider her to be an equal partner. This set is in close-to-fine condition -- very light rubbing on some edges, but essentially no other wear nor soil. The spine gilt is intact but we have never seen a copy of this title with what we could call gleaming gilt. Collie XIV; Sadleir 1699; Wolff 4740. Provenance: each front free endpaper bears the penciled signature "Simon Nowell-Smith | July 1936" -- the bibliophile and author of such books as EDWARDIAN ENGLAND and THE HOUSE OF CASSELL and THE LEGEND OF THE MASTER (Henry James) -- signed when he was only 27; he would live another 60 years.