This Week's Acquisitions

Anna Maria Porter, The Hungarian Brothers (T. Allman and C. Daly, 1838). A reprint of Porter's historical novel, which is set during the time of Archduke Charles. Porter (portrait at the NPG) was the sister of the better-known Jane Porter, with whom she sometimes collaborated.
Edith M. Dauglish, Gladys; Or, "Bound to Believe and to Do." A Story on Confirmation (SPCK, n.d.). Late Victorian novel about the meaning of taking one's first communion.

Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, Emma, or the Unfortunate Attachment (SUNY, 2004). Scholarly edition of her epistolary novel, published when she was sixteen years old. More information about the Duchess at Regency Personalities.
Mervyn Peake, The Gormenghast Novels (Penguin, 1995). Peake's cult trilogy (acquired on the principle of "if at first you don't succeed..."). There's a website devoted to Peake, as well as a journal; see also PBS' site devoted to the Gormenghast adaptation.
J. M. Coetzee, Dusklands (Penguin, 1996). Two novellas, one set in Vietnam and one in eighteenth-century South Africa.

Stella Gibbons, Cold Comfort Farm (Penguin, 1994). Classic send-up of D. H. Lawrence and company.

Bernardine Evaristo, The Emperor's Babe: A Verse Novel of Londinium, 211 A.D. (Penguin, 2001). Young Sudanese woman gets entangled with Septimius Severus, in verse.

Michael Chabon, ed., McSweeney's Enchanted Chamber of Astonishing Stories (Vintage, 2004). Part of an ongoing attempt to resuscitate "genre fiction."
"Travis Tea," Atlanta Nights (n.p., n.d.). Thirty or so science fiction pros got together and wrote the World's. Worst. Novel.

The Rev. Cator Chamberlain, The True Sense of the Second Cause of the Oath of Supremacy: And That Sense Most Absolutely Falsified by the "Act for the Relief of His Majesty's Roman Catholic Subjects" in 1829 (William Tyler, 1857). Claims that Catholic Emancipation justified Catholics in declaring allegiance to the Vatican. Chamberlain isn't happy, in case you're wondering. In 1867, Chamberlain appears to have been the curate in the village of North Chapel.

The Rev. Hugh Stowell, Lecture...on the Romish Priesthood (Curtis and Co., c. 1851). Argues that the Roman Catholic understanding of priesthood is, well, incorrect. As one might imagine, Stowell is about as happy as Chamberlain. Fifth in the "Brighton Protestant Tracts" series. More on Stowell available at the Cyberhymnal and Salford Local History.