A History of the Life of Richard Coeur-de-Lion, King of England

London: Saunders and Otley, 1842, 1843, 1849. Hardcover. Very good. 4 volumes. [2], 402, [2], 419, [2], 431, [2], 447p. 22.5 cm. Hardcover bindings with blind impressing on boards and gold impressing on spines. Bindings worn with discolouration and tears to cloth on spines, denting to extremes and corners. Scuffing to boards. Light penciling in margins with extensive notations in pencil on the end papers. Spines are cracked but are securely held together. Some yellowing to pages, especially at edges. Very good condition considering the age of the books and the low-quality papers used by publishers in mid-nineteenth-century Britain.

George Payne Rainsford James (1799-1860) was a Regency- and Victorian-era novelist and historian. Admired by Sir Walter Scott for his first novel Richelieu (1822), James was the contemporary of Charles Dickens and Edward Bulwer-Lytton. His name is not as well known today, and little is known of his personal history, but he was popular in his day for his many historical romances. He was prolific, publishing 40 novels in a 30-year period. That productivity, however, earned him the reputation of a commercially motivated "hack" writer. His books were all distributed by the circulating libraries in Britain so they all conformed to the three-volume or the "three-decker" model. This particular history was produced in four volumes and likely distributed in the same manner. James' histories were also numerous and proved just as popular as his fiction. A great example of a popular Victorian-era historical work.