ANON (Maria Monk?) THE AWFUL DISCLOSURES OF MARIA MONK. As Exhibited in a Narrative of Her Sufferings During a Residence of Five Years as a Novice, and Two Years as a Black Nun in the Hotel Dieu Nunnery in Montreal. New York & London 1856 [2178]
Reprinted Verbatim by J. Smith. Original red cloth, with a nun embossed in gilt on front cover, small octavo (12x7cm). Covers soiled and a little rubbed, a few marks to pages, otherwise a good copy. With chromolithograph frontis with title surrounded by design in gold, red, blue and green. £45
The work, a celebrated but particular venomous and probably entirely fraudulent anti-catholic tract of the times, has been ascribed to J.J.Slocum (John Jay) and William K.Hoyte.
AUSTRALIAN THEATRE
A COLLECTION OF PLAYS PUBLISHED IN THE 19TH CENTURY [2376]
Fifty eight plays bound in 19th century half calf, dyed black, marbled boards, joints cracked, front board detached, 8vo ( 7.5x12cm). The plays bound without wrappers, most title pages have illustrations, a very good collection. From the library of Australian actor Peter Finch with his signature on first blank and strips of paper laid into 6 plays which mention Australian cities, Sydney or Hobart and dates between 1799 and 1837 which I assume is when the play was first performed in Australia, a note on the title page of Charles The Second or The Merry Monarch notes ‘ very popular Sydney 30-40’. £100
The volume contains plays by Sheridan, Massinger, Tobin, Colman, Milman, Morton, Kerr, Lillo, Addison, Gay, Dibdin, Bickerstaff, Vanbrugh & Cibber, Rowe, Cowley, Beaumont & Fletcher, Goldsmith, Dimond, Jackman, Moncrieff, Foote, Garrick, Dryden, Holcroft, Moore, Fielding, Lytton Bulwer, Cobb, Franklin, Allingham, Hoare, Knowles, Kenny, Jerrold, Payne, Glengall, O’Keefe, Somerset, Reynolds, Moncrieff, Knowles, Talfoured.
BADEN POWELL, ROBERT. THE MAFEKING MAIL SPECIAL SEIGE SLIP. 1900 [2593]
Single page, 33x21cm printed on both sides. Very good copy of an original of the news sheet issued at the request of Robert Baden Powell to keep up morale. Until reinforcements landed in February 1900, the war was going poorly for the British. The resistance to the siege was one of the positive highlights, and it and the eventual relief of the town excited the liveliest sympathy in Britain. Promoted to the youngest Major-General in the army, and awarded the CB, Baden-Powell was also treated as a hero when he finally returned to Britain in 1903.
Three Victoria Crosses were awarded as a result of acts of heroism during the siege, to Sergeant Horace Martineau and Trooper Horace Ramsden for acts during an attack on the Boer Game Tree Fort, and to Captain Charles FitzClarence for Game Tree and two previous actions.
In September 1904 Lord Roberts unveiled an obelisk at Mafeking bearing the names of those who fell in defence of the town. In all, 212 people were killed during the siege, with over 600 wounded. Boer losses were significantly higher. £10
Colonel Robert Baden-Powell was a Commander of Rhodesian forces in the fall of 1899. As hostilities were imminent with the Dutch Boers, Baden Powell, commanding a highly trained commando force, determined to defend the small town of Mafeking which lay on the main railroad line between Kimberley and Bulawayo. What was remarkable about Powell's defense is that much of it consisted of deception. He had his soldiers bury fake landmines, string invisible barb-wire and moved his few cannons around each night giving the Boers the impression that the town was much better defended than was actually the case.
Colonel Baden-Powell is best known as the man who founded the Boy Scout Movement in 1908 but, in military terms, it was his earlier defence of the small town of Mafeking for 217 days from October 1899 to May 1900 that reveals his ingenuity in times of duress. The Boers laid siege to Mafeking on 12th October 1899 - the day after
BARRIE, J.M. PETER PAN IN KENSINGTON GARDENS. London (1912) [2162]
Quarto (225x285mm). Original green cloth with decorations by Arthur Rackham and 50 mounted colour plates with tissue guards and 7 additional full page full page drawings. A couple of pages bumped and spine a little darkened, otherwise a very good copy. £500
A reprint of the 1906 edition with a new coloured frontis and the 7 drawings. This copy has plain end-papers.
BENSON, E.F. DAVID BLAIZE. London 1916. [2420]
First edition. Original light blue cloth, lettered on spine and front board in dark blue. Covers a little rubbed at edges, rubber stamp of grammar school dated 10 May 1916 on the title page and first page of text, a little foxing to the first few pages and final leaf of text. £65
Homoerotic novel of university life.
TYPESCRIPTBETJEMAN, JOHN. (1906–1984) ODE ON THE MARRIAGE OF HRH PRINCE CHARLES TO LADY DIANA SPENCER. London 1981 [2476]
Typescript on Sir John Betjeman’s headed paper (10x8 inches), 29 lines on two leaves, with one small correction of the celebratory verse on the occasion of the marriage of Prince Charles to Diana (Princess of Wales,1961–1997) Small piece of card pasted onto the blank area of the final leaf with the poet’s shaky signature, he suffered from Parkinson's Disease. The poet laureate Betjeman was required to write verse about the royal family and on national and ceremonial occasions, this was a gift to Charles and Diana on their marriage.
£1,875
ODE ON THE MARRIAGE OF PRINCE CHARLES TO THE LADY DIANA SPENCER IN ST PAUL'S CATHEDRAL ON 29 JULY 1981. Was published as a broadside by Warren Editions, London, limited to 125 unnumbered copies signed by Betjeman. Designed by Jonathan Gili. Printed by Skelton Press.
BLAKSLEY, MAJOR GENERAL J. TRAVELS, TRIPS, AND TROTS. On and Off Duty from the Tropics to the Arctic Circle. London: Keliher & Co 1903. [2468]
First edition. Octavo, original brown cloth, pictorial gilt cover, covers a little dusty, otherwise a very good copy with the original brown endpapers intact without blemish. Illustrations after photographs, 210 pages of travel writing; The West Indies, Greece, Portugal, Spain, North Africa, France, The Gold Coast, Iceland. £75
BOSWELL, JAMES. THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON. London: Privately printed for the Navarre Society. 1924. [2160]
Three large ocatvo volumes. Original maroon cloth with gilt vignette of Johnson on each cover. Very nice set. Illustrated. £75
Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. London 1954. [2085]
First English edition. Boards dusty with dust jacket designed by Joe Mugnaini which is faded on spine. A good copy of an uncommon title. £350
Guy Montag is a fireman who burns books in a futuristic American city. In Montag’s world, firemen start fires rather than putting them out. The people in this society do not read books, enjoy nature, spend time by themselves, think independently, or have meaningful conversations. Instead, they drive very fast, watch excessive amounts of television on wall-size sets, and listen to the radio on “Seashell Radio” sets attached to their ears.
BRONTE, Charlotte. Jane Eyre: An Autobiography By Currer Bell. London 1860. [2116]
An early edition in contemporary dark red half calf binding of the author’s classic tale. Some light occassional foxing, otherwise a very good copy. £300
First published in 1847 in three volumes.
Bulwer Lytton, Edward. Disowned. London 1829. [2153]
First edition. Four volumes, 12mo, contemporary blue calf, spines faded to a mottled brown, marbled boards. Some occassional foxing, otherwise a good set of an uncommon title. £200
The Disowned is based on Lytton’s youthful excursions with the Gypsies near his home and his brief adventures in France.
Burrows, Captain Guy. THE LAND OF THE PIGMIES. With an introduction by H.M. Stanley, M.P. London 1898. [2464]
First edition. Small quarto (22x14cm). Original pictorial cloth, illustrated spine chaffed at top and base, signs of small label removed at lower spine, otherwise a good copy £300
CARRINGTON, LEONORA. THE HEARING TRUMPET. London 1977. [2191]
First English edition. Slight bump to lower board, otherwise a very good copy with dust jacket. Illustrated by Carrington’s son. £35
An odd piece of surrealism.
CHANDLER, RAYMOND. THE LONG-GOODBYE. London 1953. [2137]
First English edition ( preceeds the American publication). Very good copy with the pictorial dust jacket that is a little soiled on rear panel and lightly rubbed at edges. £750
CHANDLER, RAYMOND. KILLER IN THE RAIN. London (1964) [2173]
Proof copy of the first English edition. Original printed wrappers, very darkened and chipped on backstrip, lower corner missing from front wrapper, rear wrapper missing some small pieces and browned at edges. £300
This early proof without the author’s name on wrapper or title page. Here it is written on the front wrapper along with the author of the introduction.
CHANDLER, RAYMOND. RAYMOND CHANDLER SPEAKING. London 1962 [2174]
Proof copy of the first English edition. Original printed wrappers. With published dust jacket pasted over. £300
Early proof without the author’s name on wrapper or title page. Here it is written on the front wrapper along with the author of the introduction.
CHANDLER, RAYMOND. THE LITTLE SISTER. London 1949. [2218]
First English edition. Covers faded, water stain on lower front board with bleed leaving very bottom edge of first three leaves stained red. £25
CHAR, RENE. THE MAN WHO WALKED IN A RAY OF SUNSHINE. Roma: Botteghe Oscure [2377]
A 16 page offprint, original printed wrappers. A very good copy of the play bearing the author’s presentation inscription signed ‘R.C.’ £50
CHATWIN, BRUCE. The Attractions of France. ondon:, Colophon Press 1993 [2526]
First edition one of 175 copies. Near fine in original wrappers. £65
CHRISTIE, AGATHA. APPOINTMENT WITH DEATH. London 1938. [2151]
First edition. Original orange cloth faded on spine, bookplate and later convent library plate and neat rubbed stamp on front free endpaper, some occasional light foxing. Good copy. £125
Featuring Hercule Poirot.
CHRISTIE, AGATHA. HERCULE POIROT’S CHRISTMAS. London 1939. [2152]
First edition. Original orange cloth, boards faded, bookplate and later convent library plate and neat rubbed stamp on front free endpaper, some foxing to endpapers. Good copy. £150
Christie, Agatha. THE HOUND OF DEATH AND OTHER STORIES. London 1933. [2204]
First edition. Original cloth, uneven fading, with dust jacket that is creased on rear panel and with small loss. Twelve short stories, the only collection of supernatural tales by Christie; hauntings, soul transference, and including the classic crime story "Witness for the Prosecution." £150
Churchill, WINSTON S. The Story of the Malakand Field Force. London 1901 [2144]
Original smooth maroon cloth, lettering dull, ship and swan endpapers. Small library stamp on front endpaper, large circular stamp on title ‘Ambassade Britannique Paris’, verso of title has a Harrow School prize label (seems to be covering another library stamp). Even with the stamps this remains a very good copy.
£450
Due to the large number of errors in the first edition, a new revised edition was quickly prepared and published January 1899 in Longmans Silver Library series of low price titles. This second printing of 1000 copies was done in 1901.
Churchill, WINSTON S. LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL London 1907. [2145]
First one volume edition. Original maroon cloth, gilt. Spine and upper rear panel sun faded, small spot on fore-edge and a little foxing to prelims, otherwise a very good copy. Illustrated. £125
Churchill, WINSTON S. STEP BY STEP 1936-1939. London 1939. [2146]
First edition. Original green cloth, a little dusty. With the dustjacket which is browned on spine and a little chipped at edges. £400
CHURCHILL, WINSTON S. THE SECOND WORLD WAR. London 1948-54. [2158]
Six volumes, first editions. Nice set in the original black cloth, gilt. £150
CHURCHILL, WINSTON S. THE WORLD CRISIS. London 1933. [2285]
First edition of the Royal Sandhurst Military College issue. Privately printed in an edition of 1354 copies. Original red cloth, Little fading to edges, otherwise a very good copy of a book rarely found in collectors condition. £200
Printed from the plates of the revised abridged edition.
Churchill, WINSTON S. WINSTON CHURCHILL IN PEACE AND WAR by A MacCallum Scott, M.P. London 1916 [2316]
Original red cloth with the scarce dust jacket which is a little soiled and frayed at edges. The front panel has an photograph of Churchill. £200
First published in 1905, this edition includes details on the Dardanelles.
Churchill, WINSTON S. Charles - IXth Duke of Marlborough, K.G.
TRIBUTES by CHURCHILL, Winston S., and MARTINDALE, C.C., S.J. London 1934 [2357]
First edition. Wrappers. introductory note by C.C. Martindale Fine copy. a NICE SIX PAGE TRIBUTE BY cHURCHILL. fOLLOWED BY mARTINDALE’S. £100
CHURCHILL, WINSTON S. THE WORLD CRISIS. London 1924-29. [2409]
Five Large octavo (9x6 inches) volumes: 1) 1911-1914, 2) 1915, 3) 1916-1918, Part 1, 4) 1916-1918, Part 2, 5) The Aftermath. All in the original blue cloth, gilt, a little spotting to spine of one volume, another has blemish to corner of front board, some foxing to edge of pages, otherwise a very nice run of Churchill’s history of the First World War running to 2554 pages, with maps and plans. The books are all complete in themselves and are all reprints bound in the same style as the first editions (2nd impressions, 2nd editions & 3rd edition), a final volume in the series was published in 1931 under the title The Eastern Front. £300
Please contact if you would like more information or images.
CLARKE, ARTHUR. C. THE FOUNTAINS OF PARADISE. London 1979. [2103]
First edition. Very good copy with dust jacket. £125
Clarke himself regarded at the time this his best novel.
CONRAD, JOSEPH. THE ROVER. London 1923. [2109]
First edition. Original green cloth, gilt, little dull. With the scarce pictorial dust jacket which is a little chipped and lightly soiled and with a feint red blemish to front panel. £350
From the library of a book collector
COTTON, Henry. MY SWING. London 1952. [2474]
Second impression. Original green cloth, gilt, spine faded, otherwise a very good copy. Henry Cotton sets out his swing in photographs ‘from all the angles that interest the spectator and the student’ Presentation copy inscribed by the author to Dr Árpád Plesch (1889-1974), a Hungarian lawyer, international financier and collector of rare botanical books and pornographic esoterica. "To Arpad Plesch that great golfer with a future (behind him) Henry Cotton Feb 1956". With Dr. Arpad Plesch's red and gilt leather bookplate with a sunburst design on the front paste-down. £125
The MAGNIFICENT BOTANICAL LIBRARY OF THE STIFTUNG FUR BOTANIK VADUZ LIECHTENSTEIN COLLECTED BY THE LATE ARPAD PLESCH was sold by Sotheby’s in 1975.
DAVID, ELIZABETH. A BOOK OF MEDITERRANEAN FOOD. London 1958. [2422]
Second edition, with revisions. Original cloth, spine just a little rubbed, otherwise a very good copy with 19 drawings by John Minton reproduced. With a preface by the author explaining the revisions and deletions she has made to this edition of her first book. £80
Elizabeth David CBE (1913 -1992), was a pre-eminent British cookery writer of the mid 20th century.
David is considered responsible for bringing French and Italian cooking into the British home (along with now ubiquitous items such as olive oil and the courgette). In a Britain worn down by post-war rationing and dull food, she celebrated the regional and rural dishes of the Mediterranean rather than the fussier food of the gourmands and aristocrats. David's style is characterised by terse descriptions of the recipes themselves, accompanied by detailed descriptions of their context
DOYLE, A. CONAN. THE ADVENTURE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES. London 1892. [2012]
First edition. Large octavo (9.25x6.5 inches) original light blue cloth lettered on spine and front board in gilt, front board with The Strand Library motif without street name as called for in the first edition. Covers a little marked and rubbed at edges, surface tear on floral paper on inside cover, rear free endpaper missing, half-title and title page have a little foxing (brown spotting), all page edges gilt. A good copy of a scarce collection of Sherlock Holmes Stories, with 104 illustrations by Sydney Paget, the stories are;
A Scandal in Bohemia, The Red-headed League, A Case of Identity, The Boscombe Valley Mystery, The Five Orange Pips, The Man with the Twisted Lip, The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle, The Adventure of the Speckled Band, The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb, The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor, The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet, The Adventure of the Copper Beeches. £600
Please contact if you would like more information or images.
DOYLE, A. CONAN. ADVENTURES OF GERARD. London (1903) [2136]
First edition. A good copy in the original cloth. Inscribed by the author on the title page ‘Yours truly Arthur Conan Doyle Jan 3. 1904’ £1,200
FAULKS, SEBASTIAN. CHARLOTTE GRAY. London 1998. [2180]
First edition. Fine copy with dust jacket. £30
Field, Stephen J. PERSONAL REMINISCENCES OF EARLY DAYS IN CALIFORNIA, WITH OTHER SKETCHES. TO WHICH IS ADDED THE STORY OF HIS ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATION BY A FORMER ASSOCIATE ON THE SUPREME BENCH OF THE STATE. BY HON. GEORGE C. GORHAM. Printed for a Few Friends. Not Published. (Washington 1893) Proof copy. 1893 [2461]
Octavo (9x6 inches), 472 pages. Bound in half black calf, wear to surface and front hinge starting to crack, front free endpaper has a piece missing, Oxford College bookplate and rubber stamp on verso of title page and two stamps stating the book has been disposed from the library. Purchased many years ago from the London bookseller Stanley Smith a good copy. £300
This larger type issue after the 1880, added Gorham's essay on the bizarre attack on Field by Judge Terry, who was then killed by United States Marshall Neagle. Terry had killed California's U.S. Senator David Broderick in an 1859 duel. Field, "a brilliant lawyer and one of the founders of Marysville", was named by Lincoln in 1863 to the Supreme Court, where he served 34 years, eclipsing John Marshall's 33-year record. "A craving for excitement led him to voyage to California during the Gold Rush year of 1849." He became "the equivalent of mayor-plus-judge in Marysville; he also became wealthy through real estate speculation and fees. emerging as a colorful and controversial character in the unsettled days of the little community, making enemies who would follow him even to the Supreme Court." Hall. Field describes his early years, with much information on his feuds, triumphs, and adventures; the events leading to Terry's assassination attempt are also reviewed. Howes F117. Graff 1316. Cowan 209.
FITZGERALD, F. Scott. (Bruccoli, Matthew J., edits and introduces). The Love of
The Last Tycoon - A Western. London 1994. [2622]
First English edition. Original cloth, 23x14cm, 165 pages very good copy with dust jacket which has a couple of short closed tears. Fitzgerald’s portrait appears on both the front and rear of the dj and numerous facsimiles of the typescript, reduced. This edition is based on the author's hitherto unpublished manuscript drafts, revision and notes. £20
The Love of the Last Tycoon was originally published as The Last Tycoon, though there is now critical agreement that Fitzgerald intended the former as the title. It wasn't until the 1993 publication, as part of The Cambridge Edition of the Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald, edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli, that the work first appeared as The Love of the Last Tycoon. According to Bruccoli, Fitzgerald wanted the title to "sound like a movie title and completely disguise the tragic-heroic content of the book".
FLEMING, IAN. ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE. London 1965. [2504]
First edition. Original cloth, lettered in silver on spine, with white ski track on front board. With the Richard Chopping dust jacket that is creased, with tears and lacking a portion from the backstrip, foxing to fore-edges. £250
On Her Majesty's Secret Service is the sixth film in the EON Productions James Bond series and the first and only film to star George Lazenby as British Secret Service agent, Commander James Bond. Lazenby was the second official James Bond, the first having been Sean Connery, who later returned to the role in the following film, Diamonds Are Forever (1971). This is the first and only Bond film to be directed by Peter R. Hunt, who before was a film editor or second unit director on every previous film. On Her Majesty's Secret Service was produced by Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman.
Florian, Jean Pierre Claris de, 1755-94 FABLES DE FLORIAN. Paris (1851) [2161]
Nouvelle edition. Half red morocco, 24x15cm, raised bands, gilt extra, all edges gilt, cloth sides, front board stained, lacking first blank and final blank with diagonal missing. Illustrated with 80 full page and numerous smaller illustrations by J.J. Granville (pseudonym of Jean-Ignace-Isidore Gerard) There is possibly a connection between some of these illustrations and the later surrealists. £125
Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian (March 6, 1755 château of Florian, near Sauve – September 13, 1794) was a French poet and romance writer.
His mother, a Spanish lady named Gilette de Salgues, died when he was a child. His uncle and guardian, the Marquis of Florian, who had married a niece of Voltaire, introduced him at Ferney and in 1768 he became page at Anet in the household of the Duc de Penthièvre, who remained his friend throughout his life. Having studied for some time at the artillery school at Bapaume he obtained from his patron a captains commission in a dragoon regiment. On the outbreak of the French Revolution he retired to Sceaux, but he was soon discovered and imprisoned; and though his imprisonment was short he died a few months later.
Florian's first literary efforts were comedies; his verse epistle Voltaire et le serf du Mont Jura and an eclogue Ruth were crowned by the French Academy in 1782 and 1784 respectively. In 1782 also he produced a one-act prose comedy, Le Bon Ménage, and in the next year Galatie, a romantic tale in imitation of the Galatea of Cervantes. Other short tales and comedies followed, and in 1786 appeared Numa Pompilius, an undisguised imitation of Fénelon's Telémaque.
In 1788 he became a member of the French Academy, and published Estelle, a pastoral of the same class as Galatie. Another romance, Gonzalve de Cordoue, preceded by an historical notice of the Moors, appeared in 1791, and his famous collection of Fables in 1802. Among his posthumous works are La Jeunesse de Florian, ou Mémoires d'un Jeune Espagnol (1807), and an abridgment (1809) of Don Quixote, which, though far from being a correct representation of the original, had great and merited success.
Florian imitated Salomon Gessner, the Swiss idyllist, and his style has all the artificial delicacy and sentimentality of the Gessnerian school. Perhaps the nearest example of the class in English literature is afforded by John Wilson's (Christopher North's) Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life. Among the best of his fables are reckoned The Monkey showing the Magic Lantern, The Blind Man and the Paralytic, and The Monkeys and the Leopard.
FORESTER, C.S. LORD NELSON. Indianapolis 1929. [2446]
First American edition. Water stain along top edge of most pages, stain on rear board, a good copy with just the front and rear panel of the dust jacket only, lacking pieces. Inscribed by the author to his sister Majorie Foster Smith ‘Marjorie from C S. Forester’ A biography of Nelson. £800
FORESTER, C.S. NAPOLEON AND HIS COURT. London 1924. [2447]
First edition. Very good copy with dust jacket lacking large piece from top of spine and small portion from base of spine, corner from rear panel. Inscribed by the author to his sister Majorie Foster Smith ‘To my sister Marjorie with very best wishes from C S. Forester 10.8.24’ Forester’s second book. £1,200
FORESTER, C.S. THE GOOD SHEPHERD. London 1951. [2587]
First English edition. Very good copy with dust jacket lacking a few small pieces from edges and with a few short closed tears. Inscribed by the author to his sister Majorie Foster Smith ‘Marjorie with love from C S. Forester’ The story of an allied convoy during the battle of the Atlantic. £800
FORESTER, C.S. CAPTAIN HORNBLOWER, R.N. The Happy Return. A Ship of the Line. Flying Colours London 1939. [2588]
First edition. Original red cloth, frayed at base of spine, endpapers a little dusty, otherwise a good copy of this volume containing the first 3 Hornblower novels. Inscribed by the author to his sister Majorie Foster Smith ‘Marjorie with love from C S. Forester’ The first printing of the first 3 Hornblower novels in one volume. £800
FORESTER, C.S. HUNTING THE BISMARCK. London 1959. [2590]
First English edition. Very good copy with dust jacket. Inscribed by the author to his sister Majorie Foster Smith ‘Marjorie with love from Cecil’ Filmed as Sink the Bismarck! in1960 with Kenneth Moore. £850
FORSTER, E[DWARD] M[ORGAN]. A Passage to India. London 1924. [2033]
First edition. Original dark red cloth, spine lettered in black, occasional spotting to first few pages. Otherwise a very good copy. £350
Basis for David Lean's final film
FRANCIS, DICK. SLAY-RIDE. London 1973. [2485]
Pre-publication. Uncorrected proof copy of the first edition. Original printed wrappers, a couple of creases to corners, otherwise a very good copy. £65
FRANCIS, DICK. SLAY-RIDE. London 1973. [2485]
Pre-publication. Uncorrected proof copy of the first edition. Original printed wrappers, a couple of creases to corners, otherwise a very good copy. £65
FRANCIS, DICK. FOR KICKS. London 1965 [2507]
First edition. Original green boards, gilt, bookplate removed A good copy with the dust jacket that is lacking portion from upper front panel and closed tears to edge of spine. The author’s scarce third novel. £300
GEORGE III King of Great Britain (1738-1820) Watercolour by J.P. Brooke. [2426]
GEORGE III King of Great Britain (1738-1820) Watercolour by J.P. Brooke after an original oil by Sir William Beechey, 52x37cm, circa 1900. George III was born on 4 June 1738 in London, the eldest son of Frederick, Prince of Wales, and Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha. He became heir to the throne on the death of his father in 1751, succeeding his grandfather, George II, in 1760. He was the third Hanoverian monarch and the first one to be born in England and to use English as his first language. George III is widely remembered for two things: losing the American colonies and going mad. This is far from the whole truth. George's direct responsibility for the loss of the colonies is not great. He opposed their bid for independence to the end, but he did not develop the policies (such as the Stamp Act of 1765 and the Townshend duties of 1767 on tea, paper and other products) which led to war in 1775-76 and which had the support of Parliament. These policies were largely due to the financial burdens of garrisoning and administering the vast expansion of territory brought under the British Crown in America, the costs of a series of wars with France and Spain in North America, and the loans given to the East India Company (then responsible for administering India). By the 1770s, and at a time when there was no income tax, the national debt required an annual revenue of £4 million to service it. The declaration of American independence on 4 July 1776, the end of the war with the surrender by British forces in 1782, and the defeat which the loss of the American colonies represented, could have threatened the Hanoverian throne. However, George's strong defence of what he saw as the national interest and the prospect of long war with revolutionary France made him, if anything, more popular than before. £1,200
GRAHAME, KENNETH. THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS. London 1959. [2217]
First edition with eight coloured plates by Ernest Shepard ( one reproduced on dust jacket). Very good copy with complete dust jacket that is browned along edges, especially on rear panel. £200 Ernest Shepard had illustrated an earlier edition with line drawing, this is the first publication with his coloured plates added.
Please contact if you would like more information or images.
GREENE, GRAHAM. THE MINISTRY OF FEAR. London 1943 [2184]
First edition. Original yellow cloth with the dust jacket which is soiled and lacks a one inch portion from both the top and base of spine and is rubbed at edges. A scarce book with dust jacket. £1,200
CHRISTMAS GIFT TO HIS WIFE
GREENE, GRAHAM. VICTORIAN SNAPSHOTS by PAUL MARTIN. London 1939. [2246]
First edition, original cloth, spine dull, some marks to boards. A Christmas gift from Graham Greene to his wife Vivien. Inscribed by G. Greene ‘For my very dearest love/ Christmas 1939’ in pencil. £350
From the library of Vivien Greene 1904-2003.
Please contact if you would like more information or images
GRAHAM GREENE’S WIFE’S COPY
GREENE, GRAHAM. WHAT MAISIE KNEW by HENRY JAMES. London 1947. [2247]
Reprint, original cloth. A good copy bearing Vivien Greene’s ownership signature. A significant year for Vivien Greene to aquire this book as Graham Greene had left his wife and children. Henry James with insight takes us into Maisie’s world, the child of divorced parents and other entanglements. Henry James was a favourite author of Graham Greene who saw the humour of his writings. £125
From the library of Vivien Greene 1904-2003.
GRAHAM GREENE’S WIFE’S COPY
GREENE, GRAHAM. ANECDOTES OF DESTINY by ISAK DINESEN (Karen Blixen) London 1958. [2248]
Original cloth with dust jacket, worn. A good copy bearing Vivien Greene’s ownership signature. and her note ‘Bought to celebrate Graham’s present to me on 6 Oct 1958. Seven Gothic Tales. Winter’s Tales. Last Tales’ £65
From the library of Vivien Greene 1904-2003.
GRAHAM GREENE’S WIFE’S COPY
GREENE, GRAHAM. THE HAND OF MAN: A Practical Treatise of the Science of Hand Reading by NOEL JACQUIN. London 1938. [2250]
Reprint. Original cloth, worn. Bearing Vivien Greene’s notes. She marks passages and margin to indicate her characteristics and Graham Greene’s - ‘a critical and analytical type of mentality...born to mistrust..predisposition to a suicidal tendency’ noted ‘G’ and on another page ‘indicating a thoughtful and rather critical mentality’ again marked ‘G’ £75
From the library of Vivien Greene 1904-2003.
GREENE, GRAHAM. THIS GUN FOR HIRE. [2279]
Six lobby cards in black & white. The film starred Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake, Robert Preston. Screen Play by Albert Maltz and W.R. Burnett. Some short tears and surface wear. £225
Based on the novel, A GUN FOR SALE, by Graham Greene. Released by Paramount Pictures, Inc. in 1942, this film was produced by Richard Blumenthal, directed by Frank Tuttle, and starred Veronica Lake, Alan Ladd, Robert Preston, and Laird Cregar. Remade in 1957 as SHORT CUT TO HELL, and again in 1991 for cable TV ( With Robert Wagner). Co-authored by screenwriter and novelist W. R. Burnett, whose screen credtis include SCARFACE (1932), THE GET-AWAY, WAKE ISLAND, THE ASPHALT JUNGLE, THE BADLANDERS, HIGH SIERRA, DANGEROUS MISSION, and many others. Co-author Albe rt Maltz's screen credits include AFRAID TO TALK, CLOAK AND DAGGER (1946), THE NAKED CITY, SHORT CUT TO HELL, TWO MULES FOR SISTER SARA, and others.
GREENE, GRAHAM. THIS STRANGER’S HAND. [2280]
Six lobby cards in black & white. The film starred Trevor Howard, Alida Valli, Richard Basehart, Eduardo Cianelli. One with short tear. £150
GREENE, GRAHAM. THE POWER AND THE GLORY. [2281]
Six lobby cards in black & white. The film starred Laurence Olivier. £150
GREENE, GRAHAM. SHORT CUT TO HELL. 1957. [2282]
Six lobby cards in black & white. The film starred Robert Ivers, Georgann Johnson and was directed by James Cagney. £150
Based on the novel, A GUN FOR SALE, by Graham Greene. Released by Paramount Pictures, Inc. in 1942, this film was produced by Richard Blumenthal, directed by Frank Tuttle, and starred Veronica Lake, Alan Ladd, Robert Preston, and Laird Cregar. Remade in 1957 as SHORT CUT TO HELL, and again in 1991 for cable TV ( With Robert Wagner). Co-authored by screenwriter and novelist W. R. Burnett, whose screen credtis include SCARFACE (1932), THE GET-AWAY, WAKE ISLAND, THE ASPHALT JUNGLE, THE BADLANDERS, HIGH SIERRA, DANGEROUS MISSION, and many others. Co-author Albe rt Maltz's screen credits include AFRAID TO TALK, CLOAK AND DAGGER (1946), THE NAKED CITY, SHORT CUT TO HELL, TWO MULES FOR SISTER SARA, and others.
GREENE, GRAHAM. LEICESTER GALLERIES and KNOEDLER EXHIBITION CATALOGUES: Leicester Galleries: Victorian Life. 1937. Victorian and 19th Century Pictures. 1941. The Victorian Romantics. 1949. The Victorian Scene 1956. Knoedler: Beatiful Women of the 19th Century. 1933. Winterhalter Loan Exhibition. 1936 London 1933-56. [2286]
Six exhibition catalogues, some illustrations, 15x12cm & 19x13cm. All from the library of Greene’s Wife Vivien. It is possible Graham Greene accompanied his wife to some of the earlier exhibitions £130
Victorian life was a favourite subject of Vivien Greene.
GREENE, GRAHAM. THE END OF THE AFFAIR. London 1951. [2289]
Proof copy. Original printed wrappers, front with title and author and ‘Proof Copy For Your Personal Reading’. Spine lacking a portion from both top and base, but with title and author’s name still intact. Wrappers suffer from foxing as do fore-edge and the margins of quite a few pages. All this said still a good and very acceptable copy of a rarity in proof state. Only two copies have appeared at auction over the last 30 years (we have not looked further) one of these was Greene’s own. £1,200
The author’s most sexually explicit “Catholic” novel. The book is in fact a record of his passionate affair with Catherine Walston, Sarah’s journals in the book are based on Catherine’s.
GREENE, GRAHAM. ENGLAND MADE ME. A Novel. London 1935 [2299]
First edition. Original red cloth, gilt, spine a little faded, some very light foxing to first few pages, water stain on top edge that has bled into upper margin of many pages. However this is a very good copy and stands well above the usual worn copies encountered. £425
GREENE, GRAHAM. STAMBOUL TRAIN. London 1932 [2301]
First edition.Original black cloth, gilt, top of spine with short closed tear, otherwise a very good copy. £125
GREENE, Graham. L'Autre et Son Double [The Other Man] Conversations with Greene, in Antibes, by Marie-Francoise Allain. Paris 1981 [2508]
FIRST EDITION, preceeds UK edition by 2 years. Also includes 4pages of photographs not present in UK edition. Original wrappers, front cover has a crease running across and edges a little rubbed. Wraparound band laid in. INSCRIBED BY GREENE “For Doctor Sange the friend of my friend, in .. hope of meeting one day. Graham Greene. Antibes, August 13. 1981” Greene HAS ALSO CORRECTED WITH ARROWS TWO CAPTIONS TO THE PHOTOGRAPHS. £250
''The Other Man'' is perhaps a fuller and more lucid explanation of his uneasy relationship to the church than exists elsewhere. *
Did you become a Catholic the way one falls in love? No, I needed convincing arguments for the possibility that God exists. I'm very fond of an Anglican divine, Bishop Gore; he was also a writer, and he opened one of his books with the words ''The hardest thing is to admit the existence of God.'' I'm with him there. I was perfectly ready to accept the historical existence of Christ, but how was I to start from a hypothesis as vague as that of the omnipresence of God?
So you were an atheist? No, but religion bored me to death with its Sunday services and its endless readings from the Bible. Anglicanism meant absolutely nothing to me, no more than Buddhism or Catholicism. One of my grandfathers was a clergyman with a great sense of personal guilt, so one day he had defrocked himself in a field and ended his days in an asylum! You see, I've inherited some bad genes. I too rebelled but not from a sense of guilt. At Oxford one had the choice between having breakfast sent to one's rooms if one attended the morning service in chapel or of going to breakfast in the hall. I opted for the second solution.
Your rebellion did not go very far! That's because I was so indifferent. I knew nothing about Catholicism; it was a closed book to me. It was a long time later, when I was working in Nottingham, that I slipped a note into a collection box in the cathedral, asking for instruction because my fiancee was Catholic. I wanted to understand what she believed in, I wanted a better grasp of the nature of her faith. I had no thought of becoming a convert myself.
So would love have been responsible for your conversion? I've told you, my conversion was not in the least an emotional affair. It was purely intellectual. It was the arguments of Father Trollope at Nottingham which persuaded me that God's existence was a probability.
How do you explain his success? I enjoyed our discussions. I was stubborn as a mule, but he got me interested in his game. Subsequently I plunged into books of theology, which fascinated me. You see, I wasn't in the position of a Protestant who is searching for an alternative. I believed in nothing. Father Trollope and I saw each other regularly for six months, sometimes at the cathedral, sometimes on the open upper deck of a bus, when we'd pursue our arguments for the entire journey! (When I was baptized, I made it clear that I had chosen the name of Thomas to identify myself not with St. Thomas Aquinas but with St. Thomas Didymus, the doubter.) I eventually came to accept the existence of God not as an absolute truth but as a provisional one.
So you could not say, like Sarah in ''The End of the Affair'': ''I've caught belief like a disease. I've fallen into belief like I fell in love''?
I should have been pleased if my faith had been like hers. But I must say in my defense that unlike her I had also to be converted to the idea of Christianity.
When did you begin to ''feel'' your faith? I recognized the first inroads during my visit to Mexico in 1938. It's all bound up with my loyalty to the underdog - and so it has been ever since. In Mexico the underdogs were the Catholics. When I heard a woman tell of the death of one of her family, how they had to send in secret to the capital for a priest to come and celebrate the funeral rites in Tabasco (the persecutions did not affect the inhabitants of Mexico City, who were in a way ''protected'' by the tourists); when I had witnessed the fervor of the peasants, who would go back and forth on their knees across the flagstones of those churches in Chiapas which were still open (though not to priests) and who would kneel for ages with their arms outstretched as though crucified - I tried to pray this way, and I found I could keep my arms up for a few minutes, perhaps, no longer, while they would stay as though crucified for the entire service - when one has been with believers who suffered for their faith - the masses said in secret in Chiapas and Tabasco, where there were no longer either churches or priests - this endowed the church with such grandeur, the fidelity of the believers assumed such proportions that I couldn't help being profoundly moved. I expect I'm explaining myself badly. I would compare these worshipers with the polite little congregation in Chelsea which I sometimes joined and the ladies in hats, and I'd feel that religion was the peasant approaching the altar on his knees, his arms outstretched as though crucified.
HAGGARD, H. Rider. Colonel Quaritch, V.C. A Tale of Country Life.
London 1888. [2283]. First edition. Three volumes in the original red cloth.Free endpaper split at joints, otherwise a very nice set. £450
Scott 12
HALL, MARGUERITE RADCLYFFE. A SHEAF OF VERSES. London 1908. [2194]
First edition. Original green cloth, gilt, small octavo. Very good copy. Presentation copy inscribed by the author ‘Lilian Faithfull from Marguerite Radclyffe-Hall’. A scarce early book with Sapphic poems. £650
HAMILTON, PATRICK. HANGOVER SQUARE. or The Man With Two Minds. A Story of Darkest Earl’s Court. New York 1941. [2448]
First American edition. Spine and edges a little faded, otherwise a very good copy with the pictorial dust jacket that is a little rubbed and creased, lacking a diagonal portion from front panel removing most of centre image and with a closed tear to rear panel £350
Harvey, william Fryer
THE BEAST WITH FIVE FINGER. New York 1928. [10958]
First American edition from the English sheets. Very good copy with the rare dust jacket which has some restoration and some chips to edges. £1,250
The book consists of the English publisher Dent’s sheets which were bound by the American publisher Dutton. The dust jacket is the English issue printed in the UK. The title story was made into the classic film staring Peter Lorre £1,250
HEATH STUBBS, JOHN. HELEN IN EGYPT and Other Plays; The Talking Ass and The Harrowing of Hell. London 1958. [2366]
First edition. Very good copy with dusty dust jacket. With a very nice presentation inscription signed by the author. The inscription appears on the final blank, the author has possibly inscribed after lunch. £45
John Heath-Stubbs was born in 1918. He was educated at The Queen's College, Oxford, where his contemporaries were C.S.Lewis and Tolkein. He published his first poems in the wartime volume EIGHT OXFORD POETS and has gone on to write poetry, plays and literary essays that ignore fashion. One of the most celebrated poets of his generation, he is noted also for his translations of Middle Eastern poets, his role as teacher to new generations of writers and as a voice keeping the long form poem an active and vibrant tradition. He received the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry.
HENTY,G.A. WITH CLIVE IN INDIA : or The Beginnings of an Empire. London 1884. [2615]
First edition. Original pictorial cloth, cloth on rear cover bubbled and cloth on edge of spine split 4cm, inner hinges cracked, otherwise a good copy. With 12 illustrations by Gordon Browne and a double page map of India. 382 pages and 32 pages of adverts, 18x13cm. Gift inscription dated Dec 1884 on half-title. Major-General Robert Clive, 1st Baron Clive of Plassey, KB (1725 – 1774) was the soldier-of-fortune and commander who established the military supremacy of the East India Company in Southern India and Bengal. He is widely regarded as a key figure in the establishment of British India. £65
George Alfred Henty ( 1832 - 1902), commonly referred to as G. A. Henty, was a prolific British novelist, war correspondent, and Imperialist born in Trumpington, England. He is best known for his historical adventure stories that were popular in the late 19th century. His most famous works include The Young Buglers (1880), With Clive in India (1884) and Wulf the Saxon (1895).
HerbArium: New Zealand ferns. 19th c [2458]
A collection 14 of dried ferns attached to paper and window mounted on card, with manuscript title on each, 8.1/4x5inches, plus mount. Top, front and bottom edge gilt, ocassional light spotting, some pieces of fern missing. Plates loose with the front and back cover of the original elaborate morocco binding, wide gilt margins and title in the centre of front board. The boards are very worn but it is obvious this was a professional presentation of New Zealand fauna and probably ran to many volumes. £500
A herbarium is a collection of dried plants, which are used for scientific study and as a reference collection of named specimens.
The practice of pressing plants between sheets of paper and drying them is 500 years old. Thanks to this simple technique, most of the characteristics of living plants are visible on the dried plant.
HUXLEY, ALDOUS. BRAVE NEW WORLD. London 1932. [2224]
First edition. Very good copy with the scarce dust jacket that has had some professional restoration to backstrip. £1,200
"Community, Identity, Stability" is the motto of Aldous Huxley's utopian World State. Here everyone consumes daily grams of soma, to fight depression, babies are born in laboratories, and the most popular form of entertainment is a "Feelie," a movie that stimulates the senses of sight, hearing, and touch. Though there is no violence and everyone is provided for, Bernard Marx feels something is missing and senses his relationship with a young women has the potential to be much more than the confines of their existence allow. Huxley foreshadowed many of the practices and gadgets we take for granted today.
Please contact if you would like more information or images.
JACOBS, W.W. THE LADY OF THE BARGE. London 1902. [2132]
First English edition. Original pictorial cloth, foxing to prelims and last few pages, otherwise a good copy. Illustrated by M. Greiffenhagen and J.F. Sullivan. With an autograph letter from Jacob’s concerning the play of The Monkey’s Paw. Dated July 1903 ‘I believe not. It was not when I saw Louis N. Parker a week ago & I expected that I should have heard if he had placed it since. It seems to be a little too gruesome for the managers’ £350
The Monkey’s Paw dramatised by Louis Parker who thought the story to be one of the finest he had ever read. Because of the grisly nature he had difficulty finding a theatre manager to put it on. Eventually Cyril Maude the actor/manager of the Haymarket Theatre, London decided to put the play on as a curtain raiser. It opened in October 1903 and had an immediate impact, some ladies fainted and had to be carried out. It is said the play was so popular that many theatre goers went to see it and left before the main play. A fine horror story.
JAMES, P.D. THE BLACK TOWER. London 1975. [2484]
Pre-publication. Proof copy. Original printed wrappers of the first edition. A very good copy. £65
The author received the Silver Dagger award for this novel.
JONES, DAVID. anathamata London 1952. [2605]
FIRST EDITION. Nice copy with dust jacket. £100
David Jones CH (November 1, 1895-1974) was both an artist and one of the most important first generation British modernist poets. His work was formed by his Welsh heritage and his Catholicism. T. S. Eliot considered Jones to be a writer of major importance and his The Anathemata was considered by W. H. Auden to be the most important long poem written in English in the 20th century.
JONES, HAROLD (illustrator) BLESS THIS DAY. A Book of Prayer for Children. London 1958. [2223]
First edition. Large octavo, covers just a little dusty, neat signature on half-title and small note on contents page. A very nice copy compiled by Elfrida Vipont and illustrated on each page by Harold Jones in colour or b&w, pictorial cover. £35
JOYCE, JAMES. ULYSSES. Hamburg: Odyssey Press 1932 [2141]
Definitive edition, specially revised, at the author's request, by Stuart Gilbert; generally considered to be the most accurate and authoritative text (Slocum & Cahoon A20). Two volumes in wrappers, spine soiled, wrappers a little rubbed. A good set only. £135
King, Stephen. THE SHINING. London 1977. [2100]
First English edition. Edges of pages browned, otherwise a very good copy with dust jacket that is just a little rubbed. The pictorial dust jacket portrays the face of the child and is repeated on rear panel. £175
Please contact if you would like more information or images
King, Stephen. THE SHINING. New York 1977. [2101]
First edition. Top of spine just a little creased, otherwise a very good copy with dust jacket that is just a little faded on spine. £350
LA FONTAINE, Jean de. Fables of La Fontaine. Translated into English Verse by Walter Thornbury. With illustrations by Gustave Dore. London circa 1890 [2466]
Large quarto. (11 /4 x 8 3/4 inches; 300 x 225 mm.). 839 pages. With frontispiece portrait of the author and eighty-six full-page illustrations, head- and tail-pieces throughout. Contemporary full red morocco, raised bands, gilt, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt, bound by A.W. Bain. Edges of boards rubbed, otherwise a very nice copy. £450
Jean de La Fontaine,1621-95, is the most famous French fabulist and probably the most widely read French poet of the 17th century. According to Flaubert, he was the only French poet to understand and master the texture of the French language before Hugo. La Fontaine's Fables are choice in every sense: utterly correct, balanced, exquisite in rhyme, natural and easy, droll, witty, knowing, sage, utterly French. They were an immediate success.
Fables have long been told. The first notable fabulist was Aesop, a supposed Greek slave ca. 600 B.C. Although no solid evidence exists proving Aesop was a real person, some consider him the father of the genre. Hundreds of fables have been attributed to him, though most may have been told earlier. Fables had a further long tradition through the Middle Ages, and became part of European literature. During the 17th century Jean de La Fontaine saw the soul of the fable in the moral — a rule of behavior. Starting with the Aesopian pattern, La Fontaine set out to satirize the court, the church, the rising bourgeoisie, indeed the entire human scene of his time. La Fontaine's model was subsequently emulated by Poland's Ignacy Krasicki (1735-1801) and Russia's Ivan Krylov (1769-1844).
In modern times, the fable has been trivialized in children's books. Yet it has also been fully adapted to modern literature. For instance, James Thurber used the ancient style in his book, Fables for Our Time; and in a book, The Beast in me, unmasked by fables. George Orwell's Animal Farm satirizes Stalinist Communism in particular, and totalitarianism in general, by using the animal story.
LANCASTER, OSBERT. HOUSE OF COMMONS CHRISTMAS CARD. London 1970. [2321]
The card folded in three reveals a wonderful colour reproduction of a drawing of the lobby of the House of Commons crowded with people by Lancaster, 21x30cm when opened. Very good unused copy of a very scarce item. Digital image available. £50
LEWIS C S CHRISTIAN BEHAVIOUR a Further Series of Broadcast Talks
London 1943. [2619] First edition. Original cloth, a little dusty at edges, otherwise a very good copy, 18x12cm, 64 pages. £11
Clive Staples Lewis (29 November 1898 – 22 November 1963), commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis, was an Irish author and scholar. Lewis is known for his work on medieval literature, Christian apologetics and fiction. He is best known today for his children’s series The Chronicles of Narnia.
Lewis was close friends with J. R. R. Tolkien, the author of The Lord of the Rings, and both were leading figures in the Oxford literary group the Inklings. Due in part to Tolkien's influence, Lewis converted to Christianity, becoming "a very ordinary layman of the Church of England".[1] His conversion would have a profound effect on his work and his wartime radio broadcasts on the subject of Christianity brought him wide acclaim.
Lewis remained a bachelor for most of his life, marrying the American divorcée Joy Gresham when he was 57. They would only be married for four years, as Joy died of bone cancer at the age of 45. Lewis died three years later, one week before his 65th birthday. He is buried at Holy Trinity Church in Oxford.
Lewis' works have been translated into over 30 languages and continue to sell over a million copies a year; the books that comprise The Chronicles of Narnia have sold over 100 million copies. A number of stage and screen adaptations of Lewis' works have also been produced, the most notable of which is the 2005 Disney film adaptation of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe which grossed US$745,000,000 worldwide.
LEWIS, M.G. THE ISLE OF DEVILS. A Historical Tale, Founded on an Anecdote in the Annals of Portugal. A Poem in 12 Cantos. London 1912. [2320]
Original blue silk weave cloth with paper label on front board. (22x15cm, 40 pages) Covers a little dusty, otherwise a very good copy. One of 250 numbered copies issued by George T. Dukes, Dealer in Rare Books. The 40 page poem was written by Lewis in 1816 whilst on his last voyage to Jamaica. A faithfull reprint of the rare edition of 1827, of which only a few copies were issued for the author Monk Lewis’ friends.
£35
Matthew Gregory Lewis (July 9, 1775 – May 14, 1818) was an English novelist and dramatist, often referred to as "Monk" Lewis, because of the success of his Gothic novel, The Monk.
He was born in London and educated for a diplomatic career at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford, spending most of his vacations abroad in the study of modern languages; and in 1794 he went to the Hague as attache to the British embassy. Although he only stayed a few months, it was there that he produced, in ten weeks, his romance Ambrosio, or the Monk, which was published in the summer of the following year. It immediately achieved celebrity; but some passages it contained were of such a nature that about a year after its appearance, an injunction to restrain its sale was moved for and a rule nisi obtained. Lewis published a second edition from which he removed what he thought were the objectionable passages, but the work retained much of its horrific character. Lord Byron in English Bards and Scotch Reviewers wrote of "Wonder-working Lewis, Monk or Bard, who fain wouldst make Parnassus a churchyard; Even Satan's self with thee might dread to dwell, And in thy skull discern a deeper hell."
Whatever its demerits, ethical or aesthetic, may have been, The Monk did not interfere with the reception of Lewis into the best society; he was favorably noticed at court, and almost as soon as he came of age he obtained a seat in the House of Commons as member for Hindon, Wiltshire. After some years, during which he never addressed the House, he finally withdrew from a parliamentary career. His tastes lay wholly in the direction of literature, and The Castle Spectre (1796), a musical drama of no great literary merit, but which enjoyed a long popularity on the stage, The Minister (a translation from Friedrich Schiller's Kabale und Liebe), Rolla (1797, a translation from August von Kotzebue), and numerous other operatic and tragic pieces, appeared in rapid succession. The Bravo of Venice, a romance translated from the German, was published in 1804; after The Monk it is his best known work. The death of his father left him with large fortune, and in 1815 he set off for the West Indies to visit his estates; in the course of this tour, which lasted four months, the Journal of a West Indian Proprietor, published posthumously in 1833, was written. A second visit to Jamaica was undertaken in 1817, in the hope of becoming more familiar with, and able to ameliorate, the condition of the slave population; the fatigues to which he exposed himself in the tropical climate brought on a fever which resulted in his death during the homeward voyage.
LORNE, Marquis of. (the Duke of Argyll) Canadian Pictures Drawn with Pen and Pencil. London circa 1880’s [2459]
Quarto (28x20cm), 224 pages. Large folding colored map of Canada, numerous illustrations by Edward Whymper, Lorne, Sydney Hall and others. Original pictorial cloth. A good copy. £200
The author; Canadian Governor General, travels across Canada from the Bay of Fundy to Vancouver Island and gives his impressions of the country, scenery, the people, natives, agriculture, economy, society, etc.
LOW, DAVID (Cartoonist) [2205]
Sir Malcolm Sargent. (1895-1967) A caricature by David Low. Pencil drawing signed 'Low', 30x20cm. £1,200
Sargent conducted the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester (1939-1942), the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra (1942-1948) and the BBC Symphony Orchestra (1950-1957). From 1948 until his death he was in charge of the Proms, the world-famous London Promenade Concerts. He also achieved great success as the conductor of many choral societies.
Throughout his life, Sir Malcolm was a passionate advocate of contemporary English music and he conducted a whole range of important first performances, including At the Boar's Head (1925) by Gustav Holst, Hugh the Drover (1924) Sir John in Love (1929) Riders to the Sea (1937) and Symphony No. 9 (1958) by Ralph Vaughan Williams, further Belshazzar's Feast (1931) and Troilus and Cressida (1954) by Sir William Walton.
David Low was born in Dunedin, New Zealand in 1891. His father's family had originally come from Fifeshire in Scotland. As a young man he had discovered a pile of old copies of Punch Magazine in a second-hand bookshop in Christchurch. Deeply impressed by the work of Charles Keene, Linley Sambourne and Phil May, Low decided he wanted to become a cartoonist.
At the age of fifteen Low began to have his drawings published in magazines and newspapers in New Zealand. This included anti-gambling cartoons for the War Cry, the newspaper of the Salvation Army, and illustrations for New Zealand Truth, a weekly newspaper specializing in sensational crime and sex . Still a teenager, Low was appointed the regular political cartoonist of the New Zealand Spectator. His fame spread to Australia and at the age of eighteen he was asked to join the Sydney Bulletin, where he worked with two other great cartoonists, Livingstone Hopkins and Norman Lindsay.
The British writer Arnold Bennett was impressed when he saw Low's cartoons and wrote an article about him in the New Statesman. This resulted in Low being offered a job in England with The Daily News and the company's evening paper, the Star. Low arrived in England in 1919 but was unhappy with the space that he was given for his cartoons. After threatening to resign, the editor of the Star agreed to publish the large, half-page cartoons that he had been doing in Australia. In London Low became a close friend of the other great political cartoonist of the period, Will Dyson of the Daily Herald.
Low was commissioned by the Star to draw the portraits of the fifty most distinguished people in Britain. His subjects included George Bernard Shaw, Arnold Bennett, H. G. Wells, Hilaire Belloc, G. K. Chesterton and Arthur Conan Doyle. Only two men refused to sit for him: John Galsworthy and Rudyard Kipling.
After a disagreement with the editor about how this should be presented in the Star, Low eventually had them published in the New Statesmen. Low also had cartoons published in other journals in Britain such as Punch Magazine and The Graphic.
In 1927 Low was persuaded by Lord Beaverbrook to work at the Evening Standard. Although Beaverbrook was a strong supporter of the Conservative Party, he promised Low that he would have complete freedom to express his own radical political views.
Unhappy with the political leadership of the British establishment David Low created his cartoon character, Colonel Blimp in 1934. In his autobiography, Low explained that Blimp represented everything he disliked in British politics: "Blimp was no enthusiast for democracy. He was impatient with the common people and their complaints. His remedy to social unrest was less education, so that people could not read about slumps. An extreme isolationist, disliking foreigners (which included Jews, Irish, Scots, Welsh, and people from the Colonies and Dominions); a man of violence, approving war. He had no use for the League of Nations nor for international efforts to prevent wars. In particular he objected to any economic reorganization of world resources involving changes in the status quo."
In the 1930s Low joined with other radicals, such as Stafford Cripps, Nye Bevan, Ellen Wilkinson, J. B. Priestley, Victor Gollancz, Henry Nevinson and Norman Angell to complain about Britain's foreign policy. Low was especially appalled by what he called the "Government's supine attitude to foreign intervention in Spain" during the Spanish Civil War.
Low's cartoons criticizing Hitler and Mussolini resulted in his work being banned in Germany and Italy. After the war it was revealled that in 1937 the German government asked the British government to have "discussions with the notorious Low" in an effort to "bring influence to bear on him" to stop his cartoons attacking appeasement.
Low was attacked in the press as a "war-monger". However, others welcomed his criticisms of Hitler. This included Sigmund Freud who wrote: "A Jewish refugee from Vienna, a very old man personally unknown to you, cannot resist the impulse to tell you how much he admires your glorious art and your inexorable, unfailing criticism."
In the Second World War Low's cartoons such as All Behind You, Winston (14th May, 1940), Stay There! I'll Be Back (24th May, 1940) and Very Well, Alone (18th June, 1940) were used to inspire the British people at a time when many feared a German victory.
Low left the Evening Standard in 1949 and later worked for the Daily Herald (1950-1953) and the Manchester Guardian (1953-1963).
Published collections of Low's work include: A Cartoon History of the War (1941), Low's Company (1952), Low's Autobiography (1956) and Years of Wrath: 1932-1945 (1986). David Low, who was knighted in 1962, died in 1963. £1,200
Purchased from the Grandson of David Low
MALLARME, STEPHANE. VERS DE CIRCONSTANCE. Avec un quatrain autographe, edition originale. Paris 1920. [2230]
First edition, 16mo, xii, 192pp, facsimile frontispiece. Cream wrappers, lettered and bordered in red and black. Wrappers a little worn, otherwise a very good copy. Issued in an edition of 1175 numbered copies printed. £95
Most of the poems originate between 1883 and the time of Mallarme's (1842-98) death. With a facsimile quatrain and autograph.
MANNING, Samuel. Swiss pictures, drawn with pen and pencil. London circa 1880’s [2460]
Quarto (28x20cm), 214 pages. Original pictorial covers, very nice copy, with drawings by Edward Whymper and others. £200
illustrated with engravings, town and village views, landscapes, mountains, mounteneering, glaciers, costumes, animals, railways, etc.
MAP OF AFRICA by Felix Delamarche Paris 1837. [2271]
Engraved with in original colour outline, 29x40. Short tear in lower margin, otherwise very good. £45
MAP OF AMERICA. MERIDIONALE by Felix Delamarche Paris 1837. [2273]
Engraved with in original colour outline, 28x33cm. Very good. £65
MAP OF AMERICA. SEPTENTRIONALE by Felix Delamarche Paris 1837. [2272]
Engraved with in original colour outline, 28x33cm. Short closed tear to centre of lower margin, otherwise very good. £120
MAP OF ANCIENT GREECE by Felix Delamarche Paris 1837. [2275]
Engraved with in original colour outline, 30x40cm. Very good. £65
MAP OF ASIA by Felix Delamarche Paris 1837. [2270]
Engraved with in original colour outline. £50
MAP OF GREAT BRITAIN by Felix Delamarche Paris 1837. [2257]
Engraved with in original colour outline, 41x29cm. Very good. £40
MAP OF OCEANA by Felix Delamarche Paris 1837. [2274]
Engraved with in original colour outline, 29x40cm. Some light staining, a good copy. Showing Australia, New Zealand £65
MAP OF RUSSIA SEPTENTRIONALE by Felix Delamarche Paris 1837. [2259]
Engraved with in original colour outline
MAP OF TURKEY by Felix Delamarche Paris 1837. [2269]
Engraved with in original colour outline, 28x32. Centre crease, otherwise very good. This shows the Turkey in Europe. £40
MAUGHAM, W.SOMERSET. MRS CRADDOCK. London 1903. [2198]
First Edition, second issue. Bound in smooth navy blue cloth for the Times Book Club, lettered in black with the Times Book Club device on base of spine. This is one of the bound copies of the Colonial Edition consisting of the first edition with a cancel title dated 1903 remaindered along with unbound sheets to 'The Times Book Club' in 1906. See A Bibliography of W. Somerset Maugham by R. Toole Stott, A5b, page 30.. £300
MOORE, HENRY. HENRY MOORE SCULPTURE AND DRAWINGS. With an Introduction by Herbert Read. London 1944. [2192]
First edition, quarto (30x25cm), original cloth, rubbed. A good copy. Inscribed by the artist ‘For Malcolm Methuen Clarke Henry Moore December 1944’. Profusely illustrated with b&w plates and some mounted colour plates of the artists work and three essays by Moore. £350MORRIS, WILLIAM. NEWS FROM NOWHERE OR An Epoch of Rest, Being Some Chapters from A Utopean Romance. London: Reeves & Turner 1891 [2430] £450
Second edition.(March 1891) Original maroon cloth, lettered on front cover and spine in gilt, spine dull, edges of boards a little rubbed and darkened, some staining to edges of the occasional page. A very good copy. A presentation copy inscribed by G. Bernard Shaw ‘To Mr Charles Atkinson from G. Bernard Shaw 8th Sept 1891.’ Bernard Shaw joined the fledgling Fabian Society in 1884, dedicated to establishing a socialist democracy in Britain. Shaw quickly became a major spokesperson for the Fabians and their ideas. Among his friends and associates in the Society were William Morris, H.G. Wells, feminist Annie Besant, and economic reformers Sidney and Beatrice Webb. In December 1892 The Hammersmith Socialist Society discussed various issues and formed a Joint Committee consisting of five members from each body. Morris, George Bernard Shaw and Hyndman were given the task of drawing up a manifesto that could be the basis of united socialist action. The resulting Manifesto of English Socialists was issued on May 1st 1893. On the face of it the text could have provided the basis for some sort of unity. It suggested a programme of palliatives to satisfy the “stepping stones” of the SDF and the gradualism of the Fabian Society whilst, for the HSS, making clear that these were merely temporary measures not detracting from the ultimate need to abolish capitalism and establish socialism. It is probable that the SDF and HSS might have coped with the document but the revolutionary tone was probably too harsh for the Fabian Society to work with.
1881-1891 witnessed the publication of socialist "classics" in pamphlets such as the Fabian "The New Life" (1883), Shaw's "What's in a Name?" (1885) and "The Impossibilities of Anarchism" (1891). These three reveal the tendency of British socialism in miniature. The first embraces diversity and calls idealistically, but not in sectarian fashion, for "the cultivation of a perfect character in each and all"; the second admits the legitimacy of nihilists and anarchists to be included in the fraternity but wishes they would change their names; the last denounces the anarchists as Utopian dreamers, the stigma they carry to this day in the eyes of socialists and communists alike. The decade also produced the "great books" of socialist theory and socialist visions: Shaw's An Unsocial Socialist (1883); Stepniak's Russia under the Tsars (1885) and The Russian Storm-cloud (1886); the English edition of Marx's Das Kapital (1887); Fabian Essays in Socialism (1889), edited by Shaw; Morris' News from Nowhere (1890); and Kropotkin's Mutual Aid (1890). The same peiod gave rise to the first socialist newspapers. Apart from Most's Freiheit, these included: Justice, begun in 1884, Morris' Commonweal (1885), Kropotkin's Freedom (1886), the Fabian Basis (1887), and Blachford's Clarion (1891). The inpression conveyed by this astounding efflorescence is one of luxuriant vitality and optimism. By 1893, however, lines had been drawn and boundaries had hardened. When Shaw, the gradualist socialist, Hyndman, the Marxist, and Morris, the aesthetic Libertarian, attempted a gesture of public solidarity in A Joint Manifesto (1893), it was truly, in Shaw's words, "not worth a farthing," so mutually exclusive had the three become.
NABOKOV, VLADIMIR. LOLITA. London 1959. [2172]
First English edition. Very good copy with dust jacket. £200
Graham Greene helped shepherd the first British edition into print, writing to Nabokov that "in England one may go to prison, but there couldn't be a better cause!"
PIPER, JOHN. JOHN PIPER. STUDIES FROM SKETCH BOOKS 1940-60. London: Brook Street Gallery 1967. [2498]
Exhibition catalogue, 33 pages (10x20cm), spiral bound in plastic covers with reproduction of a drawing and facsimile signature of the artist, introduction by John Piper reproduced in facsimile and reproductions of pictures exhibited all in b&w printed on rectos only. This copy from the artists own library with the book label of John & Myfawy Piper designed by David Colvin. £65
PLATH, SYLVIA, TED HUGHES. RECORDING OF POEMS. The Poet Speaks: Record Five. Ted Hughes. Peter Porter. Thom Gunn. Sylvia Plath. London 1965. [2425]
First pressing: Argo Record Company Limited. These recordings were made between 1962-65, 12 inch long playing mono phonograph record (33 1/3 rpm). Record fine, sleeve has small blemish to one corner. £120
Eight poems by Hughes, 3 by Plath, 4 by Porter and 9 by Gunn. This is one of the most uncommon records in the series along with one featuring poems by Seamus Heaney.
POTTER, BEATRIX. PETER RABBIT’S ALMANAC FOR 1929. London 1928. [2221]
13 full page illustrations on glazed paper and the days of each month on a cream stock. Each month has a border incorporating rabbits in four different styles, endpapers with rabbits surrounding a lettuce in colour, title page with small vignette of two rabbits eating lettuce. Front board with colour paste on of Peter arriving and rear board Peter leaving. Boards dusty and lower corner of each paste on removed, lacking backstrip. A good copy of a scarce volume. £250
POWELL, Enoch. First Poems Oxford 1937 [2527]
First edition. Fifty Short LyricsFirst edition. Oxford. Wrappers. Printed at the Shakespeare Head Press. Signed by Powell. £65
POWYS, JOHN COWPER. WOLF SOLENT. A Novel. New York 1929. [2456]
Fifth printing; August 1929 (the first printing published in May 1929) Two volumes, original cloth with dust jackets, spines of which are soiled and that of volume 2 torn with small loss. Portrait of author on front panel of each dust jacket, with the original card slipcase, worn. Presentation copy; volume one is inscribed by the author ‘To Elise Garneau Werner John Cowper Powys’. Bookplates. £120
Quayle, E. [2517]
The Collector's Book of Detective Fiction
Studio Vista, London, first edition 1972. Very good in dustwrapper. Cloth, large 8vo, 31 cm, 143 pp, plates, ills. A handsomely illustrated book with 16 colour plates and numerous other illustrations. Quayle provides a highly readable survey of the field, seamlessly weaving together stories of the authors and their plots with much information on the publication history. £30
RAINE, CRAIG. A FREE TRANSLATION. Edinburgh: Salamander Press 1981. [2630]
First edition. Original boards, 21x14cm, 30 pages, dust jacket, a very good copy. One of 200 casebound copies from an edition of 1000 copies printed on Gladstonbury Book Antique Laid Paper, printed by Tom Fenton. £35
Craig Raine (born 3 December 1944) is an English poet and critic born in Bishop Auckland, County Durham, England. He is the best-known exponent of Martian poetry.
Educated at Exeter College, University of Oxford, he taught at Oxford and followed a literary career as books editor for New Review, editor of Quarto, and poetry editor at The New Statesman. He became poetry editor at publishers Faber and Faber in 1981, and has been a fellow of New College, Oxford since 1991. He is married to Ann Pasternak Slater, a fellow of St Anne's.
His works include a number of poetry collections: The Onion, Memory (1978), A Martian Sends a Postcard Home (1979), A Free Translation (1981), Rich (1984) and History: The Home Movie (1994). His reviews and essays are collected in two anthologies: Haydn and the Valve Trumpet (1990) and In Defence of T. S. Eliot (2000).
Craig Raine is founder and editor of the literary magazine Areté.
RUNYON, DAMON. RUNYON A LA CARTE. London 1946. [2215]
First English edition. A little spotting to fore-edge, otherwise a very good copy with dust jacket that is a little darkened and has a couple of short closed tears. £35
A collection of 12 short stories.
RUNYON, DAMON. ALL THIS AND THAT. London 1950. [2216]
First English edition. A very good copy with pictorial dust jacket that has some small pieces missing from edges and is a little stained on spine. £35
A large collection of short stories and a long biographical introduction.
SALINGER, J. D. The Kitbook for Soldiers, Sailors and Marines. Favorite stories, verse and cartoons for the entertainment of servicemen everywhere. Chicago 1943 [2503]
Original pictorial boards (6.1/4x4.3/4 inches) boards rubbed at edges , a good copy of the second issue. The first book appearance of J. D. Salinger with the short story ‘The Hang of It’. Preceding his classic Catcher in the Rye by 8 years. £65
SMITH, DODIE. THE HUNDRED AND ONE DALMATIONS. London 1956. [2133]
First edition. Fine copy with dust jacket that is faded on spine and with closed tear at the head. Illustrated throughout by Janet and Anne Grahame-Johnstone. £350
STEPHENS, JAMES. THE FIFTEEN ACRES. Within: A BROADSIDE. Edited by W.B. Yeats and F.R. Higgins. No 8, August 1935, Dublin: The Cuala Press 1935. [2451]
Four pages (29x21cm), creased and dusty and a little darkened at edges, otherwise a nice copy. Also includes Pharao’s Daughter attributed to Michael Moran and two hand coloured illustrations by Victor Brown. Limited to 300 copies. £135
Thackeray, W. M. THE ADVENTURES OF PHILIP, On his Way through the World; shewing who robbed him, who helped him, and who passed him by. London 1862. [2292]
First edition. Three Volumes. Original brown cloth, gilt, short tear at top of the spine of one volume, otherwise a very bright copy. With the imprint on base of the spine "Smith & Elder". £250
TOOLE, John Kennedy. A Confederacy of Dunces. London 1981. [2244]
First English edition. Very good copy lacking the dust jacket. One of only 1500 copies. A Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. £125
The author sent the manuscript to every publisher in America, all of whom rejected it. After the final rejection he committed suicide. at only thirty-two. His mother gave the manuscript to Walker Percy, who secured its publication by Louisiana State University Press, and it was awarded a posthumous Pulitzer Prize.
Anthony Burgess, 99 Novels
TREVOR, WILLIAM. THE OLD BOYS. A PLAY. London: Davis-Poynter 1971. [2621]
First edition. Pictorial wrappers, 22x14cm, 136 pages. Spine and edges browned, otherwise a very good copy of a now uncommon book. £35
William Trevor, KBE (born May 24, 1928) is a short story writer, novelist and playwright of Irish origin, now living in Devon in England.
Born William Trevor Cox in Mitchelstown, County Cork, Ireland to a middle-class Anglican family, he moved several times to other provincial towns due to his father's work as a bank official. He was educated at St Columba's College, County Dublin, and Trinity College, Dublin. He received a degree in history at Trinity College in Dublin.
Trevor worked for a while as a sculptor, supplementing his income by teaching. He married Jane Ryan in 1952 and emigrated to England two years later. His first novel, A Standard of Behaviour, was published in 1958, but had little critical success.
After abandoning sculpting he became a copywriter in London before becoming a full-time writer in 1965. Trevor's stories are set in both England and Ireland, ranging from black comedies and sexual deviants to tales based on Irish history and politics. He focussed on the tensions between Protestant landowners and Catholic tenants. Trevor maintains that, unlike the characters in his stories, those in his novels 'cause everything to happen.' His early books are peopled by eccentrics who speak in a pedantically formal manner and engage in hilariously comic activities, which are recounted by a detached narrative voice. Instead of one central figure, the novels feature several protagonists of equal importance, drawn together by an institutional setting, which acts as a convergence point for their individual stories. The later novels are thematically and technically more complex. The operation of grace in the world is explored, and several narrative voices are used to view the same events from different angles. Unreliable narrators and different perspectives reflect the fragmentation and uncertainty of modern life. Again, Trevor draws increasingly on his Irish background for setting and character, and Fools of Fortune was a new departure in that it was Trevor's first 'Big House' novel. Trevor continued to explore the decaying institution of the 'Big House' in The Story of Lucy Gault.
He has written several collection of short stories that were well received. short stories often follow a Checkovian pattern. Characters have deeply felt longings but must accept that life will not change, and the inevitable has to be endured. There are fragmentary moments of illumination, but these are soon quenched, and problems prevail. One of the dominant themes in the stories is the difficulty of dealing with truth, of recognizing it, of communicating it, and of accepting it. The characters in Trevor's work are usually marginalized members of society: children, old people, single middle-aged men and women, or the unhappily married. Those who cannot accept the reality of their lives create their own alternative worlds into which they retreat. A number of the stories use elements of the Gothic convention to explore the nature of evil and its connection with madness. Trevor acknowledges the influence of James Joyce on his short story writing, and 'the odour of ashpits and old weeds and offal' can be detected in his work, but the overall impression is not a gloominess, since, particularly in the early work, the author's wry humor offers the reader a tragicomic version of the world. He has adapted much of his work for stage, television and radio. Felicia's Journey was made into an acclaimed film by Atom Egoyan.
TROLLOPE, ANTHONY. the Barsetshire Novels. Oxford: Printed at the Shakespeare Head Press and Published for the Press by Basil Blackwell 1929. [2034]
Fourteen volumes, large 8vo, in the original green cloth, top edges gilt. A very nice set. £750
Trollope's "Barsetshire" series comprises: The Warden, Barchester Towers, Doctor Thorne, Framley Parsonage, The Small House at Allington and The Last Chronicle of Barset, originally published 1855-67. This set includes Trollope's Autobiography as well. Edited by Michael Sadlier
TWAIN, MARK (Clemens, Samuel Langhorne) THE JUMPING FROG and Other Humerous Sketches. London: John Camden Hotten (1872) [2431]
Rare piracy of the author’s first book. Original pictorial wrappers, lacking many pieces from edges, with tape residue on both edge of front and rear wrappers, lacking backstrip. Publishers catalogue dated 1872. This piracy by the infamous publisher Hotten is easily as scarce as the first British edition which was published in 1867 and especially so in the original wrappers. £350
Victorian publisher, John Camden Hotten, published a wide variety of books between 1856 and 1873. A controverisal publisher who specialized in Americana, erotica, and avant-garde poetry. When Mark Twain visited England the pirate Hotten did not have a happy time. He had reveled in the prospect at first, for he anticipated a large increase to be derived from his purloined property; but suddenly, one morning, he was aghast to find in the Spectator a signed letter from Mark Twain, in which he was repudiated, referred to as "John Camden Hottentot," an unsavory person generally. Hotten also sent a letter to the Spectator, in which he attempted to justify himself, but it was a feeble performance. Twain prepared two other communications, each worse than the other and both more destructive than the first one. In one of them he pursued the fancy of John Camden Hottentot, whom he offers as a specimen to the Zoological Gardens. “It is not a bird. It is not a man. It is not a fish. It does not seem to be in all respects a reptile. It has the body and features of a man, but scarcely any of the instincts that belong to such a structure.... I am sure that this singular little creature is the missing link between the man and the hyena”
John Camden Hotten (1832-73) has had a very poor press from both his contemporaries and later historians. At best, his actions have been regarded as shady and, at worst, positively criminal. All the best stories concerning Hotten involve dubious deals, exploitation of writers, violent arguments, and even hints of blackmail. It may well be that most of the stories are true or, at least, true enough to justify the publisher's Machiavellian image.
It was certainly the case that less egregious publishers--who, nevertheless, were not always above the occasional dubious deal or mild piece of author exploitation--would welcome an almost comic character whose excesses made their sharp practice seem blunt. At a time when British publishing was undergoing a period of rapid and sometimes painful transition, when new and pushy firms were beginning to hustle, it was comforting to have someone to remind authors that, however unhappy they were with their current publisher, there was always Hotten to confirm that things could be worse.
In histories of the exploitation of contemporary texts unprotected by copyright, Hotten had always been a useful British counterweight to all those examples of unprincipled American reprinting. If the British cried, in accusation, "Dickens, Eliot, and Thackeray!" the Americans could retort, "Artemis Ward, Bret Harte, and Mark Twain!" all of whom, at one time or another, Hotten had liberated into the British market.
VERNE, JULES. LA MAISON A VAPEUR. Paris: Bibliotheque d'Education et de Recreation / J. Hetzel (1881) [2016]
First edition with illustrations by Benett. Quarto, 28x18cm, original red cloth, front cover with elaborate design in gilt and black described as ‘Elephant’, ‘Edition J. Hetzel’ on front cover, rear board with triple border and centre device in blind, spine blocked in gilt. Spine dull and having a short tear at top edge. All edges gilt, green end papers fresh and intact, Eight page catalogue listing publications for 1880-81. Twentieth century owners name on half-title. Some light foxing. £1,500
An English engineer proposes to colonel Munro a voyage to the north of India on board a vehicle with steam, whose engine has the shape of an elephant.
VERNE, JULES. [2020]
CINQ SEMAINES EN BALLON and VOYAGE AU CENTRE LA TERRE.
Paris: Bibliotheque d'Education et de Recreation / J. Hetzel (1873)First ‘Shell Binding’ with illustrations by M.M. Riou & De Montaut. Quarto, 28x18cm, original brick cloth, front cover with elaborate design in gilt and black described as ‘shell binding’, ‘Edition J. Hetzel’ on front cover, rear board with triple border and centre device in blind, spine blocked in gilt. Spine dull and having to short tears at top and base edge. All edges gilt, green end papers fresh and intact, Ownership signature dated 1873 on title and twentieth century owners name on half-title. Some foxing to first few pages. £1,000
VERNE, JULES. L’ILE MYSTERIEUSE. Les Naufrages de L’Air. L’Abandonne. Le Secret de L’ile. [2021]
Paris: Bibliotheque d'Education et de Recreation / J. Hetzel (1875) First ‘Banner binding’ with illustrations by Ferat. Quarto, 28x18cm, original purple and red cloth, front cover with elaborate design in gilt and black, ‘Edition J. Hetzel’ on front cover, rear board with triple border and centre device in blind, spine blocked in gilt. Edges of boards faded, spine dull and with tear to upper edge. All edges gilt, grey end papers fresh and intact, with 8 page catalogue listing publications for 1876-77. Ownership signature dated 1877 and twentieth century owners name on half-title. £700
VERNE, JULES. [2022]
PAYS DES FOURRURES.
Paris: Bibliotheque d'Education et de Recreation / J. Hetzel (1873) First edition with illustrations by Ferat & De Beaurepaire. Quarto, 28x18cm, original red cloth, front cover with elaborate design in gilt and black described as ‘shell binding’, ‘Edition J. Hetzel’ on front cover, rear board with triple border and centre device in blind, spine blocked in gilt. Spine dull and having a short tear at bottom edge. All edges gilt, green end papers fresh and intact, Ownership signature dated 1873 on title and twentieth century owners name on half-title. Some light foxing. £400
Lt. Jasper Hobson and other members of the Hudson's Bay Trading Co. and his team along with the company's guests, Mrs. Paulina Barnett and Thomas Black travel through the North West Territories of Canada to Cape Bathurst on the Arctic Ocean. At Cape Bathurst, Hobson intends on creating a new trading post for the company, Paulina Barnett is along for the adventure and Thomas Black intends on viewing a solar eclipse during the summer of the following year. The party establishes their outpost before winter sets in, but when spring arrives, nearby volcanic activity triggers an earthquake, which the colony survives; however, a startling revelation is revealed later in the summer when Thomas Black tries to observe the total eclipse. Cape Bathurst has changed its position to the north by almost three degrees of latitude and to the west by several hundred miles; Hobson determines that the Cape has become an island. Now the party's only hope is the onset of winter, so they might travel across the ice, to reach the mainland Russian America (Alaska). When a mild (by Arctic standards) winter sets in and the island is locked by the ice directly north of the Bering Strait; but the ice is not sufficiently frozen enough for safe passage across the ice. The islands colonists wait for the spring thaw and hope that island will move south with the Bering current and that the boat they've built will be able to take them to safety.
VERNE, JULES. DICK SANDS THE BOY CAPTAIN. London: Sampson Low..... 1879. [2220]
First English edition. Original green pictorial cloth blocked in black and gilt, all edges gilt. Little rubbed at edges, gilt on covers dull, otherwise a very good copy which has at some time been re-cased with all original covers and endpaper, although rear endpaper could have been replaced. I presume the reason for the re-casing is due to copies of this book having the gatherings stapled rather than stitched, with time the staples rust. £500
Illustrated by Henri Meyer this story of whaling, slavery, shipwreck, conflict.
Verne, Jules. FIVE WEEKS IN A BALLOON. A Voyage of Exploration and Discovery in Central Africa. London 1876. [2291]
Third edition. Original redish brown pictorial cloth, all edges gilt, covers rubbed at edges and top of spine frayed, inner hinges cracked and some pages thumbed. Overall a very good copy of a scarce title, the author’s first book. This copy bears a gift inscription dated December 23rd 1876. £350
FIVE WEEKS IN A BALLOON. Verne's first book, a fantasy of balloon travel over the African Continent and a satire on English books on African travel. This tale first came out in French in 1863, with eighty illustrations by Riou. The first edition in English was by Appleton of New York, in 1869; this included only six of the illustrations and was bound in rather plain pebbled cloth. The first British edition was in 1870, by Chapman & Hall -- a different translation, with 64 Riou illustrations; this edition is now virtually impossible to find. In 1873 came the first fully-illustrated American edition, by Osgood of Boston. Then in December 1874 Sampson Low, having become the leading British publisher of Verne's works (with such titles as TWENTY THOUSAND LEAGUES UNDER THE SEAS and AROUND THE WORLD IN EIGHTY DAYS), published this edition of Verne's first book. (It was a courteous gesture for Sampson Low to print "Second Edition" on the title page, since the first edition had been issued by a competing publisher.) - Sumner & Stillman (ABAA)
VERNE, JULES. THE SECRET ISLAND. London: Sampson Low..... 1879. [2432]
Third edition. Original green pictorial cloth blocked in black and gilt, all edges gilt. Little rubbed at edges, gilt on covers dull, otherwise a very good copy. Translated from the French by W. H. G. Kingston, illustrated. £200
The final volume in The Mysterious Island trilogy. First published in 1875, followed by a second edition in 1876. The first editions of this trilogy are a rare and early editions in good shape are certainly scarce.
VERNE, JULES. DECOUVERTE DE LA TERRE. Paris: Bibliotheque d'Education et de Recreation / J. Hetzel circa 1880 [2467]
Quarto, 28x18cm, original red cloth, front cover with elaborate design in gilt and black described as ‘Sphère armillaire ptolémaïque’, ‘Collection J. Hetzel Et Cie’ on front cover, rear board with border and centre device in blind and black. Spine in recent red morocco with raised bands, gilt lettering. All edges gilt. With illustrations by Benett and Philippoteaux. Twentieth century owners name on half-title. Some light foxing and edges of boards a little rubbed, a very good copy. £350
VERNE, JULES. LA MAISON A VAPEUR. Paris: Bibliotheque d'Education et de Recreation / J. Hetzel (1881) [2016]
First edition with illustrations by Benett. Quarto, 28x18cm, original red cloth, front cover with elaborate design in gilt and black described as ‘Elephant’, ‘Edition J. Hetzel’ on front cover, rear board with triple border and centre device in blind, spine blocked in gilt. Spine dull and having a short tear at top edge. All edges gilt, green end papers fresh and intact, Eight page catalogue listing publications for 1880-81. Twentieth century owners name on half-title. Some light foxing. £1,500
An English engineer proposes to colonel Munro a voyage to the north of India on board a vehicle with steam, whose engine has the shape of an elephant.
VERNE, JULES. [2020]
CINQ SEMAINES EN BALLON and VOYAGE AU CENTRE LA TERRE.
Paris: Bibliotheque d'Education et de Recreation / J. Hetzel (1873)First ‘Shell Binding’ with illustrations by M.M. Riou & De Montaut. Quarto, 28x18cm, original brick cloth, front cover with elaborate design in gilt and black described as ‘shell binding’, ‘Edition J. Hetzel’ on front cover, rear board with triple border and centre device in blind, spine blocked in gilt. Spine dull and having to short tears at top and base edge. All edges gilt, green end papers fresh and intact, Ownership signature dated 1873 on title and twentieth century owners name on half-title. Some foxing to first few pages. £1,000
VERNE, JULES. L’ILE MYSTERIEUSE. Les Naufrages de L’Air. L’Abandonne. Le Secret de L’ile. [2021]
Paris: Bibliotheque d'Education et de Recreation / J. Hetzel (1875) First ‘Banner binding’ with illustrations by Ferat. Quarto, 28x18cm, original purple and red cloth, front cover with elaborate design in gilt and black, ‘Edition J. Hetzel’ on front cover, rear board with triple border and centre device in blind, spine blocked in gilt. Edges of boards faded, spine dull and with tear to upper edge. All edges gilt, grey end papers fresh and intact, with 8 page catalogue listing publications for 1876-77. Ownership signature dated 1877 and twentieth century owners name on half-title. £700
WAIN, LOUIS. THE KINGS & THE CATS. Munster Fairy Tales for Young & Old. Written by John Hannon and Illustrated by Louis Wain. Preface by Father M. Russell and a verse by Katherine Tynan. London 1908. [2412]
First edition. Large octavo (9.5x7 inches) original green cloth, title in gilt on front board. Lower front board a little marked and water stain on inside front cover, otherwise a very good copy. With 11 black and white full page illustrations, the first features has two cats, all signed in the plate by Louis Wain.
An early and uncommon book. Copies were issued in cloth and wrappers. £150
Irish Fairy Tales
Please contact if you would like more information or images.
WELLS, H.G. THE WAR IN THE AIR. And Particularly How Mr. Bert Smallways Fared While It Lasted. London 1908. [2127]
First edition. Later issue bound in blue cloth with colour plate on the front cover. Spine dull and frayed at top and base, lacking some small pieces. Otherwise a very good copy with illustrations by A.C. Michael. £100
appeared in various magazines as a serial in 1908 and it was published in the Fall of that year. At that time the aeroplane was, for most people, merely a rumour and the "Sausage" held the air. The contemporary reader has all the advantage of ten years' experience since this story was imagined. He can correct his author at a dozen points and estimate the value of these warnings by the standard of a decade of realities. The book is weak on anti-aircraft guns, for example, and still more negligent of submarines. Much, no doubt, will strike the reader as quaint and limited but upon much the writer may not unreasonably plume himself. The interpretation of the German spirit must have read as a caricature in 1908. Was it a caricature? Prince Karl seemed a fantasy then. Reality has since copied Prince Carl with an astonishing faithfulness. Is it too much to hope that some democratic "Bert" may not ultimately get even with his Highness? Our author tells us in this book, as he has told us in others, more especially in The World Set Free, and as he has been telling us this year in his War and the Future, that if mankind goes on with war, the smash-up of civilization is inevitable. It is chaos or the United States of the World for mankind. There is no other choice. Ten years have but added an enormous conviction to the message of this book. It remains essentially right, a pamphlet story--in support of the League to Enforce Peace.
WERNER, JUTTA, artist FUCLOCK by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. London 1968. [2450]Poster (53x38cm). Entwined psychedelic women in red with a text by Ferlinghetti describing the mantra rock dance Fuclock. Printed on heavy paper and folded. Good copy £60
Jutta Werner was the second wife of R.D. Laing the experimental psychiatrist
WHARTON, EDITH. [2044]
200. THE LETTERS OF EDITH WHARTON. Edited by R.W.B. Lewis and Nancy Lewis. London 1988. [10617] Spine creased, otherwise a good copy. £15
Wilde. Oscar. Bibliography of Oscar Wilde
by Mason, Stuart. London: T. Werner Laurie Ltd, 1914.First edition Original orange cloth, spine dull, otherwise a very good copy. Illustrated throughout with full-page plates and facsimiles in the text. A very comprehensive bibliography of Oscar Wilde's work. It includes periodical publications, works issued in book form (both first editions and authorized reprints), and biographies and studies of Oscar Wilde. £200
WODEHOUSE, P.G. EGGS, BEANS AND CRUMPETS. London 1940. [2182]
First edition. Original orange cloth, spine sun faded. With the pictorial dust jacket which is chipped at edges, lacking to small pieces, has had reduced price over sticker removed revealing the original 7/6 price ( later issue) £250
WODEHOUSE, P.G. UKRIDGE STARTS A BANK ACCOUNT. ILLUSTRATED BY EDWARD GOREY. in PLAYBOY MAGAZINE London issue : June 1967. [2599]
Original pictorial wrappers,28x21cm, little creased, otherwise a very good copy. With illustration by Vargas, photographs of playgirls, interview with actor Michael Caine, part one of a novel by Evan Hunter, fiction by James Leo Herlihy, opinion by Kenneth Rexroth £25
Playboy is an American adult entertainment magazine, founded in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, which has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc., reaching into every form of media. Playboy is one of the world's best known brands. In addition to the flagship magazine in the United States, special nation-specific versions of Playboy are published worldwide.
The magazine is published monthly and features photographs of nude women, along with various articles on fashion, sports, consumer goods, and public figures. It also has short fiction by top literary writers, such as Arthur C. Clarke, Ian Fleming, Vladmir Nabokov, and Margaret Atwood. The magazine has been known to express liberal opinions on most major political issues. Playboy's use of "tasteful" nude photos is often classified as "softcore" in contrast to the more "hardcore" pornographic magazines that started to appear in the 1970s in response to the success of Playboy's more explicit rival, Penthouse.
WODEHOUSE, P.G. GEORGE AND ALFRED. in PLAYBOY MAGAZINE. Special Holiday Anniversary Issue. London issue : January 1967. [2600]
Original pictorial wrappers,28x21cm, little creased, otherwise a very good copy. With photographs of playgirls, interview with Fidel Castro, fiction by Ray Bradbury, Isaac Bashevas Singer, Robert Graves, part of Expensive Place to Die by Len Deighton, opinions by Lenny Bruce, verse by Allen Ginsberg £25
Playboy is an American adult entertainment magazine, founded in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, which has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc., reaching into every form of media. Playboy is one of the world's best known brands. In addition to the flagship magazine in the United States, special nation-specific versions of Playboy are published worldwide.
The magazine is published monthly and features photographs of nude women, along with various articles on fashion, sports, consumer goods, and public figures. It also has short fiction by top literary writers, such as Arthur C. Clarke, Ian Fleming, Vladmir Nabokov, and Margaret Atwood. The magazine has been known to express liberal opinions on most major political issues. Playboy's use of "tasteful" nude photos is often classified as "softcore" in contrast to the more "hardcore" pornographic magazines that started to appear in the 1970s in response to the success of Playboy's more explicit rival, Penthouse.
WOOLF, VIRGINIA. NIGHT AND DAY. London 1919. [2411]
First edition. Original dark grey cloth lettered in blue, edges of spine rubbed and tender, missing small piece from the corner of one page, not affecting text, ownership inscription. Overall a nice copy of Virginia Woolf’s rare second book £650
Katherine Hilbery, torn between past and present, is a figure reflecting Woolf's own struggle with history. Both have illustrious literary ancestors: in Katherine's case, her poet grandfather, and in Woolf's, her father Leslie Stephen, writer, philosopher, and editor. Both desire to break away from the demands of the previous generation without disowning it altogether. Katherine must decide whether or not she loves the iconoclastic Ralph Denham; Woolf seeks a way of experimenting with the novel for that still allows her to express her affection for the literature of the past. This is the most traditional of Woolf's novels, yet even here we can see her beginning to break free; in this, her second novel, with its strange mixture of comedy and high seriousness, Woolf had already found her own characteristic voice.
WORLD MAP by Felix Delamarche Paris 1837. [2255]
Engraved with in original colour outline, 28x45cm. Some short closed tears, creased and with a little staining, but still shows well. An attractive double hemisphere world map £95
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