8vo. In three volumes. [5], viii-xii, 338; [4], 354; [4], 509pp, [1]. Without half-titles. Contemporary half-calf, tooled in gilt and blind, marbled boards, brown morocco lettering-pieces. Rubbed and a trifle marked. Marbled endpapers, very occasional light spotting. Contemporary ownership inscriptions of J. T. Coleridge to front blank fly-leaves of all volumes. Presentation copy, inked inscription to head of title page of Vol. I: 'The Honble. Mr. Justice Coleridge / with the author's compliments / 9th Dec. 1837'.

The first published work of English barrister and novelist Samuel Warren's (1807-1877), Passages from the diary of a late physician, initially serialised in Blackwood's Magazine from 1831 to 1827, made his literary reputation.

The immediate success of the book rested on the sensational and melodramatic atmosphere of the stories which parade the horrors of debauchery, disease, madness, and death with an almost erotic fascination.

John Taylor Coleridge (1790-1876), nephew of the Romantic poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, judge, and sometime editor of the Quarterly Review.