ASH RARE BOOKS
43 HURON ROAD
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UNITED KINGDOM

London : Frederick Warne & Co., (1955). First Joan Storey edition. An endlessly reprinted Victorian guide to etiquette, which had reached its forty-eighth edition by 1929, but is here fully revised and updated by Joan Storey to take cognizance of the post-war world. With chapters on the hostess; introductions; accidental meetings; hand-shaking; invitations; cards; parties; luncheons; dinners; bridge and cocktail parties; garden parties; tennis; children’s parties; balls; engagements; weddings; christenings; anniversaries; mourning; present giving; special points of etiquette for men; travelling by air, and much else besides.
Crown 8vo (20cm). x,(198)pp. Original cloth; mild tanning of endpapers, but a very good copy in the dust-jacket – the jacket just lightly used and slightly spotted on flaps.

£20

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London : Curtis Warren, [ca.1950]. First edition. “There was something wrong with the old box of tricks that was stooging around way up in the blue there” – a title in the Curtis Warren “Aero Fiction” series.
Crown 8vo (19cm). 112pp. Original pictorial stapled wrappers in a design by Ray Theobald; a little worn at extremities; some light marking and creasing; staples rusted; some spotting of edges and prelims, but a good and serviceable copy. No copy located in any major library worldwide.

£25

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London : Stanley Paul & Co., (1911). First edition. “He’d need a long arm who wanted to crown Troddles ... this Prisoner of Zenda story gone wrong” – from the introduction by William Reginald Hodder, who appears also to have co-written the story.
Crown 8vo (20cm). (324) + (48)pp. Illustrations by G. W. Wakefield. Original green cloth, lettered and pictorially blocked on upper cover and spine in black; a few very minor signs of age and use; slight spotting of edges, but a very good copy.

£25

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London : Constable & Co., (1939). First edition. “Old Miss Grierson had had her social flowering in the days when a man was a man and was properly rated as such by the ladies. In the year 1908, or thereabouts, one man, however weedy and inefficient, was considered the equal of at least three highly gifted and beautiful women ...”.
Crown 8vo (20cm). [vi],(302)pp. Colour extra-title by Toby. Original light green cloth, ruled and lettered in blue; mild tanning of endpapers; some spotting of edges, but a very good and bright copy.

£20

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London : Mellifont Press, [1944]. Second edition. A country-inn mystery from photographer, war-hero, silent movie star and ultimately crime-writer Charles Ashton. Originally published by Robert Hale in 1939.
Crown 8vo (18cm). 96pp. Original pictorial stapled wrappers; minor wear, lightly tanned and slightly bruised, but overall a very good copy of a fragile production. Just a single copy (British Library) of this edition located in major libraries worldwide.

SOLD

London : William Heinemann, (1923). First edition. “There is a small boy, with a large head, enjoying himself in a dusty attic ... he comes across an old, faded copy of this book ... and goes steadily through to the end. When he has finished he sighs and says : ‘Well, well, so that is what people were like in the old day!’” – an amusing social satire on typical London types across all classes – the fishmonger, the professional singer, the professional drinker, the businessman, the parlour maid, the bachelor, the duke, the American, the police constable, the naval officer, the artist (in fact, George Belcher as described by Aumonier, and Aumonier, as depicted by Belcher), etc.
Foolscap 4to (23cm). (78),[ii]pp. Thirteen plates and two illustrations by George Belcher (1875-1947). Original brown cloth, blocked and lettered in gilt; a few faint marks; mild tanning of endleaves; a sprinkling of edge spots, but overall a very good copy.

SOLD

New York : Henry Holt & Co., (2006). First American edition. Inscribed and signed by Paul Auster, “To Michelle, One for the book club, best Paul Auster x”. The accidental redemption of Nathan Glass, a long-lost nephew working in a bookstore, his colourful employer, a forgery, etc.
Demy 8vo (22cm). [x],306,[ii],[2]pp. Original blue and cream boards, blocked and lettered in gilt; a very good copy in the Sam Bassett dust-jacket, equally very good.

£50

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London : F. C. Avis, (1965). First edition. An attractive and convenient pocket dictionary of type face terminology, from ‘alignment’ to ‘x-height’, with each of the entries illustrated.
Foolscap 8vo (17cm). 52pp. Original boards; very good.

£10

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Sydney : Original Novels Foundation, (1953). First Australian edition. Small-time publisher offered an unknown manuscript by a dead but famous (and very Hemingwayesque) author: plot thickens. A wise-cracking mystery from Axelrod originally published in New York in 1952 – the same year that his “Seven Year Itch” first played on Broadway. Phantom Book 532.
Foolscap 4to (19cm). [ii],5-129,[i]pp. Original pictorial wrappers; wear to spine and a small chip at foot; some creasing, but a reasonable copy of a cheap production. No copy of this edition located in any major library worldwide.

£25

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London : Nova Publications, 1961. Two consecutive issues of the magazine containing both parts of Ballard’s “Storm-Wind”, which later appeared as his subsequently disavowed first novel, “The Wind from Nowhere”, first published as a paperback in the USA in 1962. No. 111 also contains a profile of Ballard, with a photograph – “anyone wondering why I’ve chosen to destroy London quite so thoroughly should try living there for ten years ...”. Other contributors include Lee Harding, Colin Kapp, John Kippax, George Langalaan, David Rome, James White, George Whitley, Lan Wright, etc.
Two issues. Post 8vo (20cm). 128; 128pp. Original pictorial stapled wrappers in designs by Gerard Quinn and Brian Lewis respectively; some very minor wear, mild creasing and light tanning, but overall in very good order.

£40

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London : T. V. Boardman & Co., [1949]. First British paperback edition. A stylish New York mystery – “a best-selling novel, a perfume and a woman with a butterfly birthmark, were all called Lady of Night ... one of the best of the new books in the clipped dialogue style for which the States is justly famous”. Originally published by Doubleday, Doran & Co. in New York in 1944, and by Boardman in hardback in 1945.
Crown 8vo (19cm). 160pp. Original pictorial wrappers – a design by Denis McLoughlin; worn and chipped at tips; some light creasing; a few marks; a serviceable copy. Stamp of The Book Shop, 175 Spring Bank, Hull, on lower wrapper. Only a single copy (Bodleian) of this edition located in the major libraries worldwide. TVB Red Arrow [1].

£15

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Edinburgh : The Geographical Institute, John Bartholomew & Son, 1956. Second edition. An attractive pocket atlas of London, with coloured sectional maps extending north to Highbury, eastwards to Greenwich and the Isle of Dogs, south to the Oval, and westwards to Hammersmith, on a scale of something over three inches to the mile. Complete with historical notes, notes on place names, population, museums and galleries, theatres, cinemas, clubs, hotels, restaurants, sports grounds, etc, etc. Also with plans of several major buildings, general maps of the Greater London area, the major approach roads, underground railways, and an extensive street index, etc. First published in 1951.
Crown 8vo (19cm). xl,32,56pp. Thirty-two coloured map pages, six plans. Original stiff card pictorial wrappers; a few minor signs of age and use, faint crease to upper wrapper, but overall a very good copy.

£25

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London : Michael Joseph, (1961). First edition. A dozen short stories, including “Lost Ball”, “The Place Where Shady Lay”, “Daughters of the Village”, etc. Later published in the USA as “The Enchantress and Other Stories”.
Post 8vo (21cm). (206),[ii]pp. Original red cloth, blocked and lettered in gilt; a very good copy in the Charles Gorham dust-jacket, very slightly tanned and just a little nicked. Eads A91a.

£40

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Edinburgh : John Bartholomew & Son, 1981. First edition. A handsome and scholarly survey, thoroughly illustrated. With sections on masters, men and materials; the magnificent houses; a dictionary of over 700 craftsmen and their known commissions, with a glossary; bibliography, etc.
Royal 4to (31cm). xxiv,(312)pp. Colour plates and 145 monochrome illustrations. Original cloth; a very good copy in the original photographic slip-case.

SOLD

London : C. Arthur Pearson, 1920. First edition. “Christopher Beck has brought the pirate story abreast of the times, for it is an air pirate and his ultimate defeat by two plucky young British airmen, that this story is concerned. Airships, seaplanes and motors send the narrative hurtling along at a breathless pace” (The Scotsman, 9th December 1920).
Post 8vo (21cm). 224pp. Eight dramatic plates by (Joseph) Watson Charlton (1876-1948). Original pictorial cloth; spine lightly worn and a little sunned; outer leaves a little tanned; a few internal marks and spots, but a good copy. Contemporary (March 1921) school prize label for Blealow Parochial School – the prize going to Alice Webster, for Progress.

£25

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London : Hodder & Stoughton, (1963). First edition. A Jaguar car is stolen at London airport, but a flat tyre in Fulham disrupts a planned wage-snatch in Wandsworth. The abandoned car is impounded – and then the body is found.
Crown 8vo (20cm). (190),[ii]pp. Original boards; just a hint of bruising; minor mark to front endpaper, but a very good, clean and sound copy in the Von Briesen dust-jacket – also very good.

SOLD

London : Methuen & Co., (1922). First edition. A Treasury civil servant suddenly finds himself immensely wealthy – money and the 1920s. “Like an oyster waiting the pearler’s knife the whole of idle London lies ready to Mr. Prohack’s – and to Mr. Bennett’s – attack. And that attack when it comes is leisured, penetrating, ruthless in its gentle laughing effectiveness ... In and out of the story weave the strands of Mr. Bennett’s effective humour, subtle in its apparent superficiality; ironic in its low-toned laughter; satiric in its finely pointed epigram ...” (Yorkshire Evening Post, 6th May 1922).
Crown 8vo (20cm). (314),[ii]pp + 8pp advertisements. Original blue-green cloth, blocked and lettered in blind on upper cover; ruled, blocked and lettered in gilt on spine; just a touch of wear and mild bruising; a few slight marks; endpapers a little tanned; some spotting of edges, but a very good and bright copy.

SOLD

London : Michael Joseph, (1948). First edition. His first thriller – a Buchanesque search for vital missing papers. “I happen to know a little bit about the way certain investigations of this kind were carried out during the war” (Nicolas Bentley).
Crown 8vo (19cm). (224)pp. Original black cloth, blocked and lettered across spine in red and yellow; a very good copy in the original dust-jacket – a striking design of canary and eyeball – just lightly used, rubbed, slightly nicked and creased.

£40

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London : B. T. Batsford, (1971). Third impression of the original 1969 edition. Over 200 early photographs of London, with introduction and commentary by Betjeman. The City; Westminster; Street Traders; Entertainers; the Rich; the Parks; the East End; the Less Rich; South of the River; the Railways; the Thames; Markets; and the Suburbs, south, west and north.
Crown 4to (25cm). [160]pp. Illustrations throughout. Original boards; a very good copy in a just lightly sunned dust-jacket – also very good.

SOLD

London : Mansell, 1976. First edition. An exhaustive finding list to the wealth of material – some 11,000 entries – poems, prose, reviews and illustrations – hidden in the “little magazines” of the pre-war period.
Crown 4to (26cm). (xiv),(154)pp. Original cloth gilt; just a little bowed, but a near very good copy.

SOLD

London : Sinclair-Stevenson, (1993). First edition. “His name is Salvador Carriscant and thus begins Kay Fischer’s journey into the past of this beguiling and seductive older man who claims to be her father ...”.
Medium 8vo (25cm). [viii],(324),[iv]pp. Original black boards, lettered in gilt; the merest hint of bruising, but overall a very good copy indeed in the Robin Rout dust-jacket – also very good indeed.

£40

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London : Hamish Hamilton, (1984). First edition. Henderson Dores – shy, English, self-conscious and nearly forty – stands worrying in the middle of Park Avenue, New York City.
Demy 8vo (23cm). (256)pp. Original blue boards, blocked and lettered in gilt; text a touch tanned as usual, but a very good copy in the Lyn Duncombe dust-jacket – price-clipped but also very good.

£40

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[London] : Fontana/Collins (1976). First paperback edition. A richly illustrated study of the Home Front 1939-1945, an extraordinary story told via posters, advertisements, cartoons, film-stills, propaganda photographs, ephemera and much else. With a foreword by Vera Lynn.
Crown 4to (25cm). 256pp. Illustrations throughout. Original pictorial wrappers; some minor creasing, a few spots, but a good copy.

£15

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New York : Hyperion, (1993). First edition. Signed by James Lee Burke on the title-page. “A movie crew has come to New Iberia, Louisiana, and star Elrod Sykes just can’t seem to keep his lavender Cadillac on the road. Under threat of a drunk-driving charge, he offers Detective Dave Robicheaux information ... he leads him to the skeletal remains of a black man whose murder Robicheaux witnessed in the summer of 1957 as a college freshman”. Filmed in 2009 with Tommy Lee Jones, John Goodman, Mary Steenburgen, etc.
Medium 8vo (25cm). [viii],344pp. Original cloth-backed boards; a sprinkling of faint spots to top edge, but otherwise a very good copy indeed in a wholly unflawed dust-jacket.

£40

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London : George Allen & Unwin, (1919). First edition. “The sun is shining. The sky is bland. There are seven hundred square miles of London in which Adventure is shyly lurking for those who will seek her out” – Burke explores the wartime London of 1917 – Back to Dockland; Chinatown Revisited; Soho Carries On; Vodka and Vagabonds; Saturday Night; Tragedy and Cockneyism, etc., etc.
Crown 8vo (20cm). 142,[ii]pp. Original cloth-backed boards; spine a little rubbed and the lettering much faded; a few slight marks, but a good and sound copy. Small ownership inscription on front free endpaper.

SOLD

London : Herbert Jenkins, [1946]. First edition. A wonderful evocation of growing up in South London in the 1890s and Burke’s early days trying to make a living as a writer in the early 1900s, with much on reading, theatre, etc.
Demy 8vo (23cm). (224)pp. Original cloth; a few minor marks and signs of age and use, but a very good and sound copy in the dust-jacket – the jacket lightly worn and slightly creased, with a repaired tear at the head of the front panel.

SOLD

London : William Collins Sons & Co. (The Crime Club), (1989). First edition. Coffin in Docklands.
Demy 8vo (23cm). 206,[ii]pp. Original red boards, blocked and lettered in gilt; very mild bruise at foot, but otherwise very good in the original Howard Bartrop dust-jacket, the principal lettering in green, white and black – also very good.

£20

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Cambridge : Silent Books, (1990). First edition. A general introduction to the topic, notes on collecting and commissioning, and an extremely useful list with biographical notes of over forty designers then currently working. Loosely inserted is the separately printed leaf, often missing, giving all the names and addresses and making a correction to the text.
Post 8vo (21cm). (64)pp – including integral endpapers. Illustrations throughout. Original pictorial laminated boards; very good.

£20

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[New York] : Hanro Corp., (1951). First edition. “The amazing story of a birthmark that solved a savage murder”. Phantom Book No. 501.
Foolscap 4to (20cm). [ii],5-128,[ii]pp. Original pictorial stapled wrappers; some minor creasing; text a touch tanned, but a very good copy. No copy of this edition located in major libraries worldwide.

£40

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London : Rupert Hart-Davis, 1956. First edition. Essays from one of the masters – including studies of the book-collectors Thomas J. Wise (with two additional pieces on his forgeries), Michael Sadleir, Lord Rothschild and others, the typographers D. B. Updike and Stanley Morison, as well as essays on collecting detective fiction, collecting off-subject books, collecting A. E. Housman, fashions in book-collecting, nineteenth-century English books, etc.
Post 8vo (22cm). 196pp. Original maroon boards; top edge maroon; edges a little spotted, but otherwise a very good copy in the dust-jacket – the jacket just slightly nicked and lightly tanned, with a couple of small marks.

SOLD

London : Trefoil Publications, (1987). First edition. Loosely inserted is an autograph note, signed with forename, from Sebastian Carter. Well illustrated studies of Frederic W. Goudy, Bruce Rogers, Rudolf Koch, William Addison Dwiggins, Eric Gill, Victor Hammer, Stanley Morison, Hans Mardersteig, Jan van Krimpen, Georg Trump, Joseph Blumenthal, Robert Hunter Middleton, Jan Tschichold, Berthold Wolpe, Roger Excoffon, Hermann Zapf and Adrian Frutiger.
Demy 4to (25cm). 168pp. Portraits. Illustrations. Examples. Original boards; a very good copy in the dust-jacket.

£25

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New York : Burt Franklin, (1970). A facsimile reprint of the original 1891 edition of this elegant monograph.
Demy 8vo (23cm). [ii],(38)pp. Original cloth; very good.

£15

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London : Jarrolds (Publishers) London, [ca.1944]. His second book, first published in 1939 and here in an early paperback edition advertising that the book had already reached its 190th thousand copies. “A nightmare tale of the life and death of Dillon, American gangster ... This book is all it should be: fast, tough, sexy and exciting. I give him full marks” said the publisher’s reader. Not everyone agreed: “Too rough a story to hold any pleasure except perhaps for one of Hitler’s S.S. troopers”, reported the “Birmingham Daily Post” (16 January 1940).
Crown 8vo (19cm). 160pp. Original pictorial stapled wrappers – a design by Dolan; spine nicked and chipped; wrappers chipped, slightly split, and a little creased, with repaired tears to corners; text a little tanned; a reasonable copy. There would not appear to be any copy of this edition in any major library worldwide.

£25

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London : Collins, 1951. First edition. “She was standing under the awning outside Maxime in the Rue Royale, young, beautiful, English, a woman of extraordinary grace and strange allure ... Kells never saw her again – alive”.
Crown 8vo (20cm). 252,[iv]pp. Original maroon boards, lettered in silver; a few spots; a few tiny creases; mild tanning of endpapers, but otherwise a very good and sound copy in the original pictorial dust-jacket – price-clipped by the publisher, with an over-printed 6/- price, just lightly worn and slightly nicked.

SOLD

London : Collins, 1949. First edition. Johnny Vallon is a tough egg, just returned from war service in the east to team up with Chennault’s Investigations of Long Acre. It begins with a Bacardi and a woman wearing Narcisse Noir perfume – and then Joe Chennault is found dead.
Crown 8vo (20cm). (192)pp. Original sand cloth, lettered in green; edges spotted, but otherwise a very good and sound copy in the original pictorial dust-jacket – the jacket just lightly worn and slightly creased.

£20

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New York & Chicago : Diversey Publishing Corp., (1948). First edition under this title. “Dick Raynor was a hellion with the girls. This handsome New England chap had time, money – and the youth to go with them ... a headstrong son of a staid family sowed his wild oats as no son of that family had ever sowed them before”. Originally published as “Young and Healthy” in 1931, but here in a revised edition for the Novel Library.
Foolscap 8vo (17cm). [ii],186,[iv]pp. Original pictorial wrappers – blonde in a champagne glass; a little rubbed and very slightly chipped at tips; text a little tanned, but a good copy.

£15

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Newcastle upon Tyne : Jackson’s Arm, (1985). First edition. Signed by Brendan Cleary on the title-page. The Antrim-born poet’s first collection – fourteen poems, including “Buying an Orange”, “Abattoir”, “Truant”, etc.
Post 8vo (22cm). [16]pp. Original stapled wrappers – a design in pale lilac, black and white; very good.

£20

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London : Amalgamated Press, [1953]. First edition. Greedy solicitor, rich innocent, cocaine-addicted actress, London night-club, Sexton Blake. Sexton Blake Library, Third Series, No. 284, issued in March 1953.
Foolscap 4to (18cm). 64pp. Original stapled pictorial wrappers; spine a little tanned; staples rusted, with minor marking; edges very slightly spotted, but a very good copy. Ownership initials J. F. on verso of front wrapper.

£15

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New York : Little, Brown & Co., (2008). First edition. Signed by Michael Connelly on the title-page. The second Mickey Haller (the Lincoln Lawyer) novel – in charge of a high profile case, he reluctantly needs the help of Harry Bosch.
Medium 8vo (25cm). [vi],422,[ii],[2]pp. Original boards; just a hint of a bruise to the dust-jacket, but a very good copy indeed – clean, fresh, sound and unflawed.

£25

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London : Orion, (2002). First British edition. Signed by Michael Connelly on the title-page. The eighth Harry Bosch novel – “When the bones of a twelve-year-old boy are found scattered in the Hollywood hills, Harry Bosch is drawn into a case that brings up the darkest memories from his own haunted past”.
Medium 8vo (25cm). [vi],(394)pp. Original black boards; an excellent copy in an equally excellent dust-jacket.

£25

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Pasadena : Salem Press, (1989). First edition. An exhaustive bibliography of the available biographical and critical material relating to over seventy British and American authors – with commentary on content. In the Magill Bibliographies series.
Royal 8vo (24cm). (xvi),(282),(vi)pp. Original maroon cloth, ruled and lettered in gilt; top edge maroon; very faint bruise to fore-edge of upper cover, but a very good copy.

SOLD

London : Tinsley Brothers, 1876. First edition. A full-scale history of the famous old church, compiled by the then vicar from materials collected by the wine-merchant William Meade Williams (1799-1869), who was baptised at St. Helen’s in December 1799. Illustrated with wood-engraved plates, etc., mainly by Richard Knight – some from the drawings of Percy William Justyne.
Royal 8vo (27cm). (xiv),454,[ii]pp. Plates. Original decorative cloth gilt; a little sunned; a few minor marks, but a very good copy. With the contemporary book-label of a Mr. Rohde – presumably the civil servant John Rohde (1812-1899).

SOLD

London : Hodder & Stoughton, (1955). First edition. A Doctor Palfrey thriller – “against an enemy who moved in a white, insidious mist, the vapour that brought death to all but one”.
Crown 8vo (20cm). 222,[ii]pp. Original blue boards, ruled, blocked and lettered in black; a few slight edge-spots, but a very good copy in the original pictorial dust-jacket – just lightly rubbed.

£20

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London : Hodder & Stoughton, (1960). First edition. A husband disappears – and then the sixteen-year-old daughter.
Crown 8vo (20cm). 192pp. Original green boards, ruled and lettered in gilt; spine titling dulled; some spotting of endpapers; a good copy in the pictorial dust-jacket – lightly used, slightly creased and a touch soiled.

£20

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London : Simpkin, Marshall & Co., 1843. Fifth edition. A clearly-written and long-popular study of the language in general and the alphabet, with separate chapters on noun, article, pronoun, adjective, verb, participle, adverb, preposition, conjunction and interjection, with a second section on syntax and the canons of criticism. Compiled by the Scottish schoolmaster and minister, the Reverend Doctor Alexander Crombie and originally published in 1802.
Demy 8vo (215 x 131mm). Bound in an attractive near-contemporary half tan calf, banded and prettily gilt; paste-paper sides; marbled edges; silk ribbon; very lightly rubbed; some very minor and occasional spotting and browning; label removed from front pastedown, but overall a very good, sound and handsome copy.

SOLD

London : George Newnes, [1929]. First edition. Ten William stories, including “William’s Double Life”, “William the Showman”, “The Outlaws Fetch the Holly”, etc.
Crown 8vo (19cm). 256pp – including integral front endpaper. Full-page illustrations by Thomas Henry (1879-1962). Original orange-red cloth, lettered in black; a touch sunned, lightly worn and a little marked; a handful of spots, but a good, sound and serviceable copy of an early title. Small bookseller’s label of W. S. Cowell of Ipswich.

£40

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London : André Deutsch, (1978). First British edition. Stamp-dealer found murdered – karate, roses and zen. A Masao Masuto mystery – “here he is at his incomparable best” (Louis Untermeyer).
Post 8vo (21cm). [viii],(160)pp. Original orange boards, blocked and lettered in black; some spotting of edges and prelims, but otherwise a very good copy in the original dust-jacket – a photographic design by James Jackson, lettered in orange and white – also very good.

£20

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London : Cynicus Publishing Co. / Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co., 1892. Second edition. The first and best of Anderson’s volumes of assaults on Victorian hypocrisy – mordant caricature with telling captions and verses – dedicated to the “dear deceitful world”. Originally published in a larger format in 1890.
Foolscap 4to (20cm). [80]pp. Illustrated throughout. Original decorative cloth gilt; all edges gilt; a little rubbed and worn; a little shaken; some marks, browning and slight signs of age and use, but a good and still bright copy.

£40

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London : British League for European Freedom, [1946]. First edition. A grim and factual exposé of the persecution and deportation of over a million Polish citizens by the Soviet authorities between 1939 and 1941 – one of the first accounts of the Gulags. With an introduction by Rebecca West.
Crown 8vo (19cm). 94,[ii]pp. Plates. Maps. Original pictorial stapled wrappers, in a design by Machan; a few slight splash marks to covers, but otherwise very good.

SOLD

London : Methuen & Co., (1923). First edition. A thorough and handsome biography of Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (1836-1911).
Demy 8vo (23cm). (x),(270),8pp. Eight plates. Illustrations in the text. Original green cloth, ruled and lettered in blind on upper cover, and in gilt on spine; a touch sunned; mild spotting of endpapers; a little strained, but a very good copy.

£25

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Florence (KY) : Robert L. Barth, (1984). First edition : one of 150 ordinary copies (of 200) – but this copy inscribed and signed by Dick Davis. A collection of sixteen poems.
Demy 8vo (22cm). [20]pp. Original yellow stapled wrappers, lettered on the upper wrapper in black; just a hint of bruising, but a very good copy.

£25

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London : T. V. Boardman & Co., (1948). First British edition. The third and last of Dean’s entertaining murder mysteries featuring antique-dealer cum private-eye Emma Marsh – murder at the Mile High Festival in Colorado. First published in New York in 1944.
Crown 8vo (19cm). 160pp. Original pictorial wrappers – a design by Denis McLoughlin; some light wear and creasing; a few marks; text a little tanned, with some creasing, but overall a good copy. Just two copies of this edition (Bodleian and British Library) located in major libraries worldwide. TVB Books 50.

SOLD

London : Gaywood Press, (1951). First edition. Flying saucers come ever closer – and retaliate with radiation rays when attacked. “It’s a pity their rays hadn’t been aimed at Gaywood Press before this book was published” (Harbottle & Holland A91).
Crown 8vo (19cm). 98 [i.e.96]pp. Original pictorial stapled wrappers in a design by Leroi Osborne; a little rolled, slightly worn, creased, and a little frayed; staples rusting; text lightly tanned, but a good and serviceable copy. Just a single copy (Liverpool) located in the major UK libraries.

£30

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Hatch End : Poet & Printer, 1978. First edition : [one of 380 copies]. A collection of nineteen poems, including “Drunken Breton Sailor”, “The Wild Yorkshire Pudding”, “The Art Teacher”, etc. Loosely inserted are three items of printed press ephemera (bookmark, slip and flyer), and a short, signed typed letter on press notepaper from the publisher-printer, Alan Tarling.
Foolscap 4to (23cm). 24pp. Original grey wrappers, lettered in black and decorated in red on upper wrapper; very good.

£25

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Mount Vernon : Peter Pauper Press, [1942]. First edition. An attractively produced edition, the titles of the seventy or more lyrics printed in orange-yellow, the type and paper specially made for the press.
Medium 8vo (24cm). [ii],68,[ii]pp. Original quarter cloth, floral boards; paper title-label; top edge orange; spine faded; some minor wear to corners, but otherwise a very good copy in a worn and slightly defective slip-case.

£20

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Newcastle upon Tyne : Bloodaxe Books, (1986). First edition. Inscribed and signed by Helen Dunmore on the title-page. A collection of forty-two poems, including “The Bride’s Nights in a Strange Village”, “The Parachute Packers”, “Mary Shelley”, “Bewick’s Swans”, etc.
Demy 8vo (22cm). 72pp. Original colour printed wrappers in a design by Gary Scott, the lettering in red, white and blue; very good.

£25

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London : Farrand Press, (1984). First edition : a subscriber’s copy of the regular edition, signed by both the author and the publisher, R. A. Farrand. An exemplary account of the London engraving and printselling trades in the nineteenth century, particularly strong on the technical side. With chapters on the plate-printer; collaboration and competition; engravers and their earnings; workshops and equipment; the rolling-press; engraving and printing; inks, inking, colour; paper, etc.
Crown 4to (26cm). [2],xxx,234,[ii]pp. Illustrations. Original boards; a few slight marks to top edge and jacket, but a very good copy in the dust-jacket.

SOLD

London : Longmans, Green & Co., (1961). First edition. A review copy, with the publisher’s slip loosely inserted. The vagaries of the human heart and the four viewpoints of Penry Crendon (forgotten author and vagrant), his first wife Elizabeth (the devout Catholic), Mona his third (whose weaknesses are vulgarity and the bottle), and Blanche (the woman of sensibility engaged to his son). “She has helped explode the dying myth that the novel is becoming extinct” (John Betjeman).
Post 8vo (21cm). x,(212),[ii]pp. Original orange-red boards, lettered in gilt; a very good copy in the original Barbara Jones dust-jacket – a design in yellow, orange, brown and black on white – just lightly nicked and a little fingered on lower panel. Contemporary ownership inscription of Wendy Marlar. Bloomfield D27.

£20

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Newbury : Phoenix Press, 1985. First edition. Inscribed and signed by John Fairfax on the title-page. A collection of twenty poems, including “Bloodflowers”, “Ghost Dance”, “Wolf Child”, etc.
Narrow demy 8vo (21cm). (48)pp. Original pale pink wrappers, decorated in red and lettered in maroon; very good.

£15

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Dublin : Dedalus Press, 1992. First edition : the hardback issue. The Dublin poet’s first collection – thirty-four poems, including “The Road to the Skelligs”, “Geographers”, “Orienteering with Elizabeth”, etc – “some of the finest and most artful poems of his generation, not just here but across the globe” (Gerald Dawe).
Foolscap 4to (22cm). (60),[iv]pp. Original maroon rexine, lettered in gilt; top edge faintly spotted, but otherwise very good in the Paul Barrass dust-jacket – also very good.

£20

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Aldershot : Wildwood House, (1989). First paperback edition. A well-illustrated survey, with much on Aubrey Beardsley, Walter Crane, Edmund Dulac, Jessie M. King, Phil May, William Morris, Arthur Rackham, Heath Robinson, etc., with a checklist of all the major illustrators and their work. First published in 1988.
Post 4to (27cm). x,(186),[iv]pp. Numerous illustrations. Seven colour plates. Original pictorial wrappers; very good.

£20

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London : Hutchinson & Co. (Publishers), (1966). First edition. “A treasure-house for the serendipitist ... the off-beat, the eccentric, even the bizarre” – Fletcher in words and pictures in Greenwich, Deptford, Rotherhithe, Wapping, the Bankside, Battersea Park, Chelsea, the pubs of Hammersmith, Kew, Richmond, etc.
Post 4to (28cm). (112)pp. Illustrations, many full page, by the author. Original boards; very good in the original Fletcher dust-jacket – a little worn, torn and repaired.

£20

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London : Herbert Jenkins, [ca.1926]. The third printing of the original 1924 edition. Stranger found dead near the house of Mrs Champerowne the mayor – with one of her safety-pins.
Crown 8vo (20cm). 312,[viii]pp. Original pale green pictorial cloth, blocked and lettered in darker green; slight darkening to lower part of spine; mild tanning of endpapers; a few slight spots, but a very good copy in the original pictorial Frank Marston dust-jacket – rather worn and lacking the lower third of spine and a sizeable piece of the lower panel, but with the upper panel complete.

£20

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London : Methuen & Co., (1935). First edition. Forty pre-war cartoons on the topics and preoccupations of the period from the irrepressible Frank Ford, many of which originally appeared in “The Bystander”.
Crown 4to (26cm). (88pp). Illustrations throughout. Original pictorial boards; some wear at extremities; joints a little split; boards lightly spotted, but a reasonable copy of an uncommon book. Just three copies (Bodleian, British Library and National Library of Scotland) located in major libraries worldwide. Near contemporary (1939) gift inscription on front free endpaper.

SOLD

London : Faber & Faber, (2010). First edition. Frayn’s poignant, haunting, funny and deeply moving quest for the truth about his father, his mother, and his own suburban childhood.
Demy 8vo (23cm). [vi],(256),[x]pp. Original boards; tiny stain to fore-edge, but otherwise a very good copy in a very good dust-jacket.

£15

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London : Love & Malcomson, [1924]. The forty-fourth edition of Fry’s perennially popular guide, published more or less annually from 1880, but here completely revised and updated, while retaining its defining feature – the splendid bird’s-eye views of the principal thoroughfares designed by Thomas Sulman (1832-1900) and George William Ruffle (1838-1901).
Crown 8vo (20cm). [vi],182,[iv]pp. Folding map. Twenty double-page bird’s-eye views. Original green cloth; lightly sunned; endpapers lightly tanned; a few spots, but a very good copy.

£50

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London : Bloomsbury Books, (1986). Second edition. A well-illustrated study, originally published under the longer title in 1978. With much on Thomas Bewick, William Blake, John Buckland-Wright, Edward Gordon Craig, John Farleigh, Robert Gibbings, Eric Gill, David Jones, Clare Leighton, George Mackley, Iain Macnab, Paul Nash, etc.
Demy 4to (29cm). (408)pp. Illustrations throughout. Original rexine; very good in a sunned and faintly creased dust-jacket.

£25

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London : Macmillan & Co., 1891. First Macmillan and first Hugh Thomson illustrated edition – the book that led to the ever-popular 1890s Macmillan “Cranford” series of classics in elaborately gilt covers. A perennial favourite, first published in Dickens’ “Household Words” 1851-1853, and here with charming illustrations by Hugh Thomson (1860-1920), and with an introduction by Anne Thackeray Ritchie (1837-1919).
Crown 8vo (19cm). xxx,(298),[ii]pp. Numerous illustrations. Original decorative cloth gilt in a Thomson design; all edges gilt; some wear and slight fraying at extremities; tiny chip to cloth at foot of upper cover; some light marking; some occasional internal spotting, but a good copy of a most attractive production.

SOLD

London : Hodder & Stoughton, (1967). First edition. Unscrupulous young post-war officer starts to rebuild a pharmaceutical company – his past re-emerges. Later published in the USA as “Overdrive”.
Post 8vo (22cm). (256)pp. Original navy blue boards, blocked and lettered in gilt; a few very faint marks to edges, but a very good copy in the dust-jacket – a design by Michael Dempsey – with a tiny nick and just a hint of tanning, but also very good. With the armorial bookplate of David C. Morton. .

SOLD

London : Herbert Jenkins, (1936). First edition. Valentine Vernon misses a train, finds a blonde in his bed, and the trouble begins.
Crown 8vo (20cm). 312,[viii]pp. Original orange cloth, ruled, blocked and lettered in black; mild spotting of edges, but a very good, bright and sound copy.

£20

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London : T. V. Boardman & Co., (1949). First British edition. Ad-man Harry Calvert has problems – his wife has run off, his drinking is placing his job in jeopardy – and the man with a crewcut starts following him. Originally published in New York in 1948. Godey is best-known as the author of “The Taking of Pelham 123”.
Crown 8vo (19cm). 160pp. Original wrappers in a design by Denis McLoughlin; lightly rubbed and worn, but a good copy. Ownership inscription on upper wrapper. Just three copies of this edition (Bibliothèque Nationale, British Library, and Trinity College Dublin) located in major libraries worldwide. TVB Books 65.

£15

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London : Covenant Publishing, 1932. Third edition. A wide-ranging survey covering the religion, race, language and literature of pre-Christian Britain in London and further afield; circles, mounds and druids; open-air sanctuaries; holy hills; Arthurian traditions; the kinship of Trojans and Britons; Troy towns or mazes in London; druidic circle at Westminster; Merlin’s cave; Lludd Gate, and much else besides. With appendices by John Aneurin Grey Griffith. First published in 1914.
Demy 8vo (23cm). (xii),212pp. Twenty plates, plans, diagrams, etc. Original olive cloth, ruled, blocked and lettered in black; just a touch rubbed; a few minor marks; endpapers lightly tanned; some spotting of text and edges, but otherwise a very good and sound copy.

£20

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London : Rapp & Whiting, (1969). First edition : one of 100 numbered copies signed by Henry Graham. A collection of forty-five poems from the Liverpool poet, including “Egg Plant in Paradise Street”, “Ten Samuel Palmer Paintings”, “Goldfish Room”, etc.
Post 8vo (21cm). [ii],62,[ii]pp. Original black boards, lettered in gilt; a few slight spots; small neat decorative stamp on front free endpaper, but a good copy in the original Lawrence Edwards dust-jacket – a design in black and white – price-clipped, slightly worn and lightly rubbed.

£20

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Leicester : Grange Fibre Co., 1962. First edition. Illustrated in colour throughout and with a stunning colour cover design by Rigby Graham. Loosely inserted are (1) an autograph single-page 1977 note from Graham to Peter [Hoy?] – “Have heard damned all from David Chambers ...” on the publication of the latest Private Press Books, etc. Signed simply “Rig”, the note is scribbled on the back of an extracted portion of the invitation to the private view of the 1977 Rigby Graham exhibition at the Victoria Galleries in Harrogate, with a small Graham illustration, and (2) a 1983 New Broom Press postcard with a Rigby Graham drawing of Breedon Quarry, Leicestershire, printed in black.
Post 8vo (21cm). [32]pp. Original linson, printed in gold and colours, and lettered down the “linson vellum” spine in gilt; a touch darkened at tips and very slightly bruised, but still a very good, bright and sound copy.

£40

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London : Scion, (1953). First edition. “De Bracy’s drug destroys all disease, but causes spiritual death as a side effect by eliminating most emotions. A minority group – the Freedom Army – refuses to take the drug ...” (Harbottle & Holland A209).
Crown 8vo (19cm). 127,[i]pp. Original pictorial stapled wrappers, in a design by John Richards; a little rubbed and creased; a few marks; staples a little rusted; text a little tanned, but a good copy of one of the more interesting Scion publications. Just two copies (Bodleian and Liverpool) located in the major UK libraries. Ownership label of Philip Harbottle himself on the title-page.

£25

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London : for Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, [1901]. The bulky 1901 issue of the official cab distance tables for the whole of the London area, cross referencing almost every conceivable location – Lord’s Cricket Ground to the Kennington Oval – 4 miles 934 yards; the “Angel” Islington to Putney Station, 7 miles, 592 yards, etc.
Royal 8vo (24cm). xxxvi pp, 400 ll tables. Original cloth gilt on card; sprinkled edges; slight snag to lower joint, cloth slightly bubbled, but otherwise a good copy.

£50

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New York : Magazine Productions, (1952). First edition. “A warmly human story of a group of lovable, wryly humorous Florida ‘crackers’ who pit their wiles against a vicious gang of smugglers and killers” – hot dames – hot money – hot blood! Rainbow No. 118.
Foolscap 4to (20cm). [iv],7-128,[ii]pp. Original pictorial stapled wrappers; lightly worn and creased; a few marks; staples rusted; text a little tanned, but a good copy. No copy located in any major library worldwide.

£40

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Leeds : Northern House, (1965). First edition. Signed by Michael Hamburger on the title-page. A collection of eleven poems, including “The Jackdaws”, “Oxford”, “Brixton”, etc.
Post 8vo (21cm). 16pp. Original black, white and red wrappers; slightly rubbed and a little used, but a good copy.

£20

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London : Hamish Hamilton, [1957]. First edition. A full listing of the entire early output of the distinguished publishing house, listed initially by author, with dates, price, size, etc., and then by title and lastly by subject (fiction, plays, poetry, children’s books, foreign language editions, law, medicine, periodicals), etc.
Demy 8vo (23cm). [iv],136,[iv]pp. Original boards; lightly sunned; slight spotting of edges, but a good and sound copy. No copy located in any major library worldwide.

£25

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New York : Lawrence E. Spivak, (1946). First edition. A collection of six short stories (four featuring the Continental Op, including “The Girl with the Silver Eyes”) all previously unpublished in book form, edited and introduced by Ellery Queen. Bestseller Mystery B81. “Who doesn’t read him misses much of modern America” (Dorothy Parker).
Foolscap 4to (20cm). 128pp. Original wrappers – a design by George Salter in green, grey, black and white; very lightly rubbed; text a little tanned; neat erasure from upper wrapper, but a good copy of a fragile production. Stoddard 15.

SOLD

New York : Lawrence E. Spivak, (1945). First edition. A collection of five short stories (including “The Whosis Kid”) previously unpublished in book form, edited and introduced by Ellery Queen. Jonathan Press Mystery J17.
Foolscap 4to (20cm). 127,[i]pp. Original pictorial wrappers – a design by George Salter in red, blue, yellow, black and white; some very minor wear; text a little tanned, but a very good copy of a fragile production. Stoddard 14.

SOLD

London : Amalgamated Press, [1952]. First edition. A Sexton Blake tale from Rex Hardinge – the Cold War, espionage, and the recovery of a golliwog with a secret from the repressed Baltic state of Litona. Sexton Blake Library, Third Series, No. 265, issued in June 1952.
Foolscap 4to (18cm). 64pp. Original stapled pictorial wrappers – unsigned but by Eric Parker (1898-1974); spine and edges a little tanned; staples a little rusted, with minor marking, but a good copy of a fragile and ephemeral production. Ownership initials J. F. on verso of front wrapper.

£10

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Newton Abbot : David & Charles, (1973). First edition. An absorbing guide, arranged by county and town, tabulating who lived and died where.
Crown 4to (26cm). 216pp. Maps by Alan G. Hodgkiss. Original boards; a few faint marks, but a very good copy in the dust-jacket.

£20

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London : Gordon Fraser, 1979. First edition. A handsome, illustrated survey of the life and work of Edward McKnight Kauffer (1890-1954), the most stylish and distinctive illustrator and designer working in England between the wars. With a bibliography, a checklist of published works, etc.
Demy 4to (31cm). 136pp. Numerous illustrations, a number in colour. Original cloth; a very good copy in the original dust-jacket – just slightly snagged at head of lower panel.

SOLD

London : Portman Books, (1988). A facsimile reprint of the original 1947 edition. A masterly and fully illustrated review of the London shop signs of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, compiled from Heal’s extraordinary collection of trade-cards and billheads (now in the British Museum).
Crown 4to (26cm). [x],220,[ii]pp. Illustrations throughout. Original boards; a very good copy in a just very lightly used dust-jacket.

£25

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London : Faber & Faber, (2006). First edition. A collection of over fifty of the later poems – “With more relish and conviction than ever, Heaney maintains his trust in the obduracy of workaday realities and the mystery of everyday renewals”.
Demy 8vo (23cm). [x],76,[x]pp. Original green boards, lettered in gilt; some slight edgewear and a hint of bruising, but otherwise very good, bright, clean and sound in the dust-jacket – the jacket also very good.

£25

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Dundee : University of Dundee, 2004. First edition. A “Greatest Minds Lecture” given by Heaney at Dundee University in July 2003 – Heaney on the making of poetry, with some striking coloured illustrations by Brigid Collins.
Foolscap 4to (20cm). (28)pp. Original decorative boards in a design by Brigid Collins; very good.

SOLD

London : Blackie & Son, [ca.1900]. An undated reprint of the original 1893 edition, dating from about 1899-1900.
Crown 8vo (20cm). (384) + 32pp. Twelve plates by William Parkinson. Original pictorial cloth, gilt and enamelled, over bevelled boards; olivine edges; very lightly rubbed, but a very good, clean and bright copy.

£25

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London : Blackie & Son, [ca.1920]. An undated reprint of the new and popular edition, with an attractive pictorial cover, probably by John Hassall.
Crown 8vo (20cm). 352pp. Original green pictorial cloth, blocked in black, brown and buff; slight wear to foot of upper cover; mild tanning of endpapers; faint spotting of edges, but still a very good copy. Ownership stamp of R. L. Jobling of The Grove, Benton, Newcastle.

£20

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London : Mitre Press, [1945]. First edition. Nine of Hervey’s very short stories – flashes and glimpses of a world now lost. Printed throughout on a curious khaki-coloured wartime paper shortages stock.
Foolscap 4to (18cm). (32)pp. Original pictorial self-wrappers; spine and edges darkened by smoke; staples a little rusted, but otherwise a very good copy. Just three copies (Bodleian, British Library and University of Western Australia) located in major libraries worldwide.

SOLD

Johnstown : Charles B. Knox Co., [1909]. An attractively produced promotional pamphlet, originally published some fifteen years earlier (and still titled on the cover) as “Dainty Desserts for Dainty People”, but here expanded by its new author to include a few salads and savouries – everything made with Knox Sparkling Gelatine (both the plain and the acidulated versions). Recipes include various fruit jellies, figs in claret, chartreuse of jelly; coffee jelly; snow pudding; peach snowballs; various blancmanges and creams; royal pudding; various charlotte russes; various ice creams, sherbets and mousses; Knox salad; perfection salad; aspic à la financiere; lobster salad; turkish delight, marshmallows, etc.
Crown 8vo (18cm). 36pp + recto of lower wrapper numbered 37. Illustrations, including eighteen in full colour. Original pictorial stapled wrappers; slight split to wrappers; a little marked and creased; staples rusted, but a serviceable copy of a fragile and ephemeral production. Contemporary ownership inscription of J. Dodd.

£20

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London : HarperCollins, (2007). First edition. Signed by Reginald Hill on the title-page. A huge Semtex explosion, Dalziel at death’s door, Pascoe wants to know about the shadowy Knights Templar.
Medium 8vo (25cm). 280pp. Original black boards, blocked and lettered in gilt; just a hint of bruising; a few faint marks, but overall still a very good copy in a very good dust-jacket.

£25

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Manchester : T. A. & E. Pemberton, [1945]. First edition. Robin Garston takes the beautiful Gerda home to meet his people – she has agreed to marry him. An early title in the Pembertons’ “Thrilling Love” series.
Crown 8vo (18cm). 128pp. Original pictorial sewn wrappers; some minor rubbing, light wear and slight creasing, but a good copy of a scarce and fragile title. Just two copies (Bodleian and British Library) located in major libraries worldwide.

£20

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Winchester : St. Paul’s Bibliographies, in association with the Victoria & Albert Museum, (1986). First edition. An alphabetical listing of more than 4,000 country houses, with full listings of the literature relating to them culled from books and magazines. With illustrations and a bibliography.
Demy 4to (29cm). viii,328pp. Twenty-nine illustrations. Original boards; a very good copy in the pictorial dust-jacket, also very good.

£40

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London : Mark Goulden, [1950]. First edition. “The ‘hero’ is The Human Bat, a costumed psychotic who makes Batman appear almost normal” (Harbottle & Holland A235). The first of Home-Gall’s two Human Bat titles, the first in the “Caught in the Spider’s Web” series, and No. 1 in the Goulden Fantasy Library. The Human Bat takes on a robot spider criminal mastermind.
Crown 8vo (19cm). 127,[i]pp. Original pictorial stapled wrappers – a design by R. S. Davis; some mild chipping and light creasing; text a little brittle and tanned; a serviceable copy. Just three copies (Bodleian, British Library and National Library of Scotland) located in the major UK libraries.

£50

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London : Robert Hale, (1954). First paperback edition. Beauty queen gets desperately involved in London’s dark world of crime. Originally published in hardback the previous year.
Crown 8vo (19cm). 160pp. Original pictorial wrappers – scary man looks at beautiful young woman. Some very slight wear and faint creasing; a few faint edge spots, but an attractive copy. No copy of this edition located in major libraries worldwide.

£15

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Crediton : Richard Gilbertson, (1968). First edition : one of 312 ordinary numbered copies (of 500). A collection of five poems.
Crown 4to (25cm). [ii],(10)pp. Original fluorescent pink stapled wrappers, lettered in black; a very good copy of a very fragile item.

£50

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London : Curtis Warren, [1951]. First edition. Newly opened space-route between Earth and Tanus, ships disappearing, convoy lands on alien planet – “Another of the atrociously-written space operas by Hughes, essentially a transplanted western” (Harbottle & Holland).
Crown 8vo (19cm). 112pp. Original pictorial stapled wrappers – a design by Ray Theobald; small chip at head; slight split at foot; minor wear at foot; some slight creasing; a few spots, but a very good copy. Just five copies located in major libraries worldwide – just one (British Library) in the United Kingdom.

£25

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London : Amalgamated Press, [1952]. First edition. “It is often the innocent who suffer most from the operations of cunning racecourse doping gangs, today’s greatest menace to the sport of kings” – Sexton Blake on the case. Sexton Blake Library, Third Series, No. 263, issued in May 1952.
Foolscap 4to (18cm). 64pp. Original stapled pictorial wrappers – unsigned but by Eric Parker; spine and edges lightly tanned; staples a little rusted, with minor marking; edges a little spotted, but a good copy. Ownership initials J. F. on verso of front wrapper.

£10

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London : Amalgamated Press, [1953]. First edition. The death of a seaman in Alexandria, the death of an old lady in Dorset – a Sexton Blake tale featuring Captain James Dack. Sexton Blake Library, Third Series, No. 301, issued in December 1953.
Foolscap 4to (18cm). [ii],64,iii-[iv]pp – including wrappers, which have been utilised for the final page of the story. Original stapled pictorial wrappers – unsigned but by Eric Parker; spine a little tanned and slightly rubbed; staples a little rusted, with minor marking; edges a little spotted, but a good copy. Ownership initials J. F. on verso of front wrapper.

£10

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London : Victor Gollancz, 1984. First edition. Sir John Appleby has retired to the country, but a near neighbour is planning to disappear on the back of an extravagant fraud.
Post 8vo (21cm). (184)pp. Original red boards, lettered in gilt; a handful of very faint edge-spots, but otherwise a very good copy indeed in the Gollancz yellow dust-jacket, printed in magenta and black – the jacket also very good indeed.

£20

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London : New Fiction Press, [1951]. First edition. The first of the “silver” Jansons – all that can be seen of the original Reginald Heade cover design is a splash of purple sheet, the tip of a shoe and a few hairs from the top of the half-naked brunette’s head. The original artwork (saucy even by Heade’s standards) was silvered over prior to publication on account of increasing attention from the authorities. Later republished under the Alexander Moring imprint as “Don’t Scare Easy” in 1958. “One of the three or four best books by Janson” (John Fraser).
Crown 8vo (19cm). 125,[iii]pp. Original pictorial stapled wrappers; lightly rubbed and just slightly worn; a few spots and faint creases, but a very good copy. Just a single copy (British Library) located in major libraries worldwide. Williams & Holland 32.

£40

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London : New Fiction Press, [1952]. First edition : a bibliographically complex title – the text appearing in at least three different settings, of which this appears to be the earliest, with the present title still listed as “in preparation” on the verso of the title-page, but in an evidently later printing of the wrappers, listing forty-eight numbered Janson titles and three specials on the lower wrapper – six titles marked as being in preparation. “I replaced the receiver, dug down in my desk drawer for the bottle of rye that helps prevent a guy get moody when everyone else is tucked up nice and comfortable in their warm beds, drew the cork with my teeth and hygienically sloshed the raw liquor around my teeth and gargled with it ...”. The book was subject to seventeen destruction orders by various local authorities (Holland p.323).
Crown 8vo (19cm). 144pp. Original pictorial stapled wrappers – a design by Reginald Heade – anguished redhead on a bulky telephone; a little worn, creased and slightly split; neat repair at foot; a few marks, but a good copy of a difficult title. Just a single copy (British Library) located in major libraries worldwide. Williams & Holland 43.

£40

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London : Chatto & Windus / Hogarth Press, (1984). First British edition. A full-length and definitive life and study of Dashiell Hammett (1894-1961).
Medium 8vo (25cm). (xxii),344pp. Illustrations. Portraits. Original orange boards, lettered in gilt; very good in the dust-jacket – also very good.

£20

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London : Hutchinson & Co. (Publishers), (1935). First edition. A delightful, knowledgeable and beautifully illustrated evocation of the tidal Thames – “Here are all the contrasts. The stark walls of Battersea Power Station, floodlit in the night, speak of modernity, and beyond Northfleet a wilderness of crumbled cliff and melancholy weeds is the memorial of the gaiety that once was Rosherville Gardens ... the turbid waters and bleak banks of Bow Creek are oppressive as a nightmare ... The docks boast with the gigantic pride of the greatest port in the world; the wall of Foulness Island encloses loneliness and peace; jazz beats rhythmically from Eel Pie Island. The tide ripples impartially past them ...”.
Medium 8vo (24cm). viii,(312) + 12pp advertisements. Over 100 illustrations by Frank Henry Mason (1875-1965). Original blue pictorial cloth gilt; top edge blue; a little rubbing and wear; some spotting of endpapers and prelims, but a good copy of a most attractive book.

SOLD

London : Universal Publications, [1938]. First edition. A concise and sensible guide, with chapters on the game itself; bowling; fielding; batting; captaincy; umpiring; scoring; equipment; rules and regulations; jargon, etc.
Foolscap 8vo (17cm). (90),[vi]pp. Original wrappers; spine lightly wrinkled; some spotting, mainly to edges; mild tanning to outer leaves, but a very good copy in the striking art-deco dust-jacket – the jacket just lightly worn and used. Just a single copy (British Library) located in major libraries worldwide.

SOLD

London : Herbert Jenkins, (1950). First edition. “It was unwise of Sally to suggest to Woolcott, her husband, and Spencer, his life-long crony, that the two of them should go off on a golfing holiday without her ...” – a novel based on the radio serial.
Crown 8vo (20cm). 254,[ii]pp. Original orange cloth, ruled, blocked and lettered in black; mild tanning of endpapers, but a very good, bright and sound copy in the original Frank Ford pictorial dust-jacket – just lightly worn and nicked, and with a repaired tear to upper panel.

SOLD

Llandudno : Kaner Publishing Co., [1946]. First edition. “I am quite certain,” the beautiful lady said, “that my husband did not commit suicide, no matter what the police say” – a case for the saturnine Meredith Jordan.
Crown 8vo (19cm). 64pp. Original pictorial stapled wrappers – a design probably by H. W. Perl; parts of spine and rear wrapper smoke-blackened; staples a little rusted, but otherwise a good copy. Just three copies (Bodleian, British Library, and National Library of Wales) located in major libraries worldwide.

£20

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Llandudno : Kaner Publishing Co., 1946. First edition. “In a flash the Instantaneous Flight Machine was gone ...” – Roger Marshall and his girlfriend Joan Lorimer teleport themselves into a sunspot and find the Sun Queen engaged in a terrible war against the Black Knights and the evil superstition of the Rock God. “Many novel theories and ideas”.
Crown 8vo (19cm). [ii],204,[ii]pp. Original tan boards, lettered in gilt; top edge a little spotted, but a very good, clean and bright copy in the H. W. Perl dust-jacket – a little rubbed, with a couple of tiny chips and short tears, but also very good.

£25

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Birmingham : Thomas Publications, [ca.1945]. First edition. An exploding landmine on the road from Blackpool interrupts the progress of three ex-servicemen turned private detectives. A Boys’ S.O.S. Library title.
Pott 4to (18cm). (40)pp. Original pictorial stapled wrappers; faint and shallow fringe of discolouration to outer edges throughout; staples rusted, but a reasonable copy of a scarce and fragile item. Just two copies located in major libraries worldwide – neither in the UK.

£20

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Cambridge : W. Heffer & Sons, 1950. First edition. A history of the distinguished Keynes family, with much personal reminiscence – on Cambridge, on her husband John Neville Keynes, and on her sons, Geoffrey Langdon and John Maynard.
Demy 8vo (23cm). (viii),120pp. Plates. Portraits. Original blue-black cloth, lettered in gilt; mild spotting of edges and endpapers, but a very good copy in the original pictorial dust-jacket (unsigned, but attributed to Gwen Raverat) – the jacket just faintly creased and lightly tanned, but also very good.

SOLD

Lunenburg (VT) : for the Members of the Limited Editions Club, 1968. First Limited Editions Club edition : limited to 1,500 numbered copies, signed by the illustrator, David Gentleman. Mowgli and the others enchantingly brought to life in Gentleman’s exquisite illustrations. With a perceptive introduction by Bonamy Dobrée (1891-1974).
Elephant 8vo (27cm). (xvi),383,[i]pp. Sixteen lithographs in eleven colours. Fifty-seven line drawings in text. Original quarter cloth; marbled boards; sprinkled edges; a handful of edge spots, but otherwise a very good copy in the original slip-case – the slip-case a little marked and spotted. With the publisher’s original flyer loosely inserted.

SOLD

London : T. V. Boardman & Co., (1948). First British edition. Triple murder – rancher strangled, neighbour shot, opponent stabbed – but one of the victims must have done it. Originally published in the USA in 1946.
Crown 8vo (19cm). 160pp. Original pictorial wrappers – a design by Denis McLoughlin; light wear; some creasing; a few marks, but a good copy. Just two copies (Bodleian and British Library) located in major libraries worldwide. TVB Books 47.

£25

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London : Sportsman’s Press, (1990). First edition. Combines a history of racing with material on publishers and engravers, details of engraving methods, and a full-scale artist catalogue of racing prints.
Demy 4to (29cm). 200pp. Illustrations throughout, many in colour. Original boards; lightly bruised at two corners, but otherwise a very good copy in the dust-jacket.

SOLD

London : Herbert Jenkins, 1922 [i.e.1921]. First edition. The second of the Mrs May books – the combative and comical Cockney char – originally a music-hall turn played by the first Fred Emney (1865-1917) – and who later had signal success both on screen and in book form.
Crown 8vo (20cm). (254),[ii]pp. Illustrations by A. Jones. Original fawn cloth, blocked and lettered in brown; a few minor marks; mild spotting of edges; endpapers a little tanned, but a very good copy.

£25

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London : Hodder & Stoughton, (1986). First edition. British spy Magnus Pym goes missing – and the whole story of his con-man father emerges – the author’s most autobiographical novel. “The book that is and may always be Le Carré’s masterpiece” (Matthew Bruccoli) and “the best English novel since the war” (Philip Roth).
Medium 8vo (25cm). (464)pp. Original blue cloth-backed boards, lettered in gilt; a few slight edge-spots, but a very good copy in the Howard J. Shaw dust-jacket – the jacket also very good.

SOLD

London : Curtis Warren, (1952). First edition. “A story by the modern French master of Science Fiction” runs the strapline, although the eight or so “Rand le Page” titles produced by Curtis Warren all appear to have been written by British authors, in this instance by William Bird. The planet Argos has been under the Earth’s control for centuries, but now there is an uprising fuelled by telepathy.
Crown 8vo (19cm). 127,[i]pp. Original pictorial stapled wrappers – an unsigned design attributed to Gordon C. Davies; wrappers slightly chipped at head; a little worn and creased; staples rusted, but a good and serviceable copy. Just a single copy (Liverpool) located in the major UK libraries.

£25

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London : George Newnes, [1927]. An attractive paperback edition in Newnes’ sixpenny series. Tales from the tables – “There are a good many secrets of Monte Carlo which are never allowed to reach the public”. First published in 1899.
Demy 8vo (21cm). 127,[i]pp. Original pictorial stapled wrappers – a young woman perplexed, an older man alert; slight chips at tips; lightly worn and slightly frayed; staples rusted; text lightly tanned and with a few creases, but overall a good copy.

£20

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London : St. Pancras Parochial Church Council, 1955. First edition. A thorough history of both church and parish, with chapters on the introduction of Christianity, the parish in the Middle Ages, the Reformation and the Civil War, the Restoration and the growth of the parish, the new church, the chapels of ease, Canon Weldon Champneys and other notables, the twentieth century, registers, records, fees, tithes, rectors, vicars, etc.
Crown 4to (25cm). (viii),(148)pp. Plates. Original boards; just a touch sunned, but a very good copy.

SOLD

New York : Arbor House, (1987). First trade edition. Signed and dated (January 1987) by Elmore Leonard on the title-page. “Come down to New Orleans and meet the bandits: Lucy Nichols, ex-nun, daughter of a rich right-wing oilman; Jack Delaney, an ex-con who thinks he’s gone straight; and Roy Hicks, an ex-cop whose career was cut short when he got sent to prison”.
Medium 8vo (24cm). [xiv],(346),[vi]pp. Original blue cloth-backed boards, lettered in electric blue; a very good, clean and sound copy in the Gerard Huerta dust-jacket – just lightly narked on reverse, but also very good.

£40

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New York : Delacorte Press, (1991). First trade edition. Signed by Elmore Leonard on the half-title. Someone introduces a live ten-foot alligator into the backyard of redneck judge “Maximum Bob” – and then shots are fired in Florida. Filmed for television in 1998, with Beau Bridges, etc.
Royal 8vo (25cm). [vi],(296),[ii]pp. Original black and grey cloth-backed boards, blocked and lettered in gilt; a few faint spots to top edge, but otherwise a very good and sharp copy in an equally very good dust-jacket.

£40

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London : Jonathan Cape, (1990). First edition. “It is 1955 and post-war Berlin is crawling with subterfuge” – a young British technician involved in electronic surveillance encounters a beautiful young German called Maria.
Medium 8vo (25cm). [viii],(232)pp. Original blue boards, blocked and lettered in silver; top edge a little spotted; a few slight marks, but a very good copy in the Robin Cracknell dust-jacket – the jacket with a couple of tiny marks, but also very good. Small label of the Alderney Bookshop on rear pastedown.

SOLD

London : Jonathan Cape, (2007). First edition. Signed by Ian McEwan on the title-page and with a Pan Bookshop “Signed First Edition” wraparound band. His poignant novella of love and fear in young marriage, adapted by himself for the film version with Saoirse Ronan and Billy Howle.
Post 8vo (21cm). [vi],166,[ii],[2]pp. Original black boards, blocked and lettered in gilt; a very good copy in the Chris Fraser Smith dust-jacket – also very good.

SOLD

Dundee : David Winter & Son / London : Gerald Duckworth & Co., 1962. First edition. Over fifty new poems from the Great McGonagall discovered in Dundee Public Library. With his own biographical sketch and reminiscences.
Crown 8vo (20cm). (180)pp. Facsimile. Original tartan boards; very faintly rubbed, but a very good copy in the matching dust-jacket, lightly rubbed and a little worn. Dated (1987) ownership inscription of Joyce K. Gunn.

£25

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London : Constable, (2008). First edition. Hester Thrale (1741-1821) of Streatham Park, Johnson’s favourite, but to Boswell “a little artful impudent malignant devil” – “I have read Ian McIntyre’s ‘Hester’ with sustained pleasure at its calm narrative nicely spiced with the hot stuff of Mrs Thrale’s ups and downs ... the clever accumulation of detail; the spirit of adventure in Georgian life, and its breadth of cultured reading, suggests an England at once more rugged and more cultured than today’s” (Frederic Raphael).
Medium 8vo (25cm). (xiv),450pp. Plates. Portraits. Table. Original boards; very good in a just faintly used dust-jacket.

£20

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London : Bantam Press, (2000). First edition. Fresh from the battle of Waterloo, Matthew Hervey departs on a secret mission to India.
Medium 8vo (25cm). (xiv),320,[ii]pp. A very good copy in the Chris Collingwood dust-jacket – also very good. Contemporary ownership inscription of R. K. Gilkes (April, 2000).

£20

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London : William Collins Sons & Co. (The Crime Club), (1982). First edition. Her last novel – Chief Superintendent Roderick Alleyn and Detective Inspector Fox in theatreland – and the Scottish play.
Demy 8vo (22cm). (252),[ii]pp. Original red boards, blocked and lettered in gilt; text lightly browned, but a very good copy in the original Colin Thomas dust-jacket – slightly creased on lower panel but also very good.

£20

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London : Ivor Nicholson & Watson, [1932]. First edition. Essays by various well-chosen hands on forty Victorians – including Edmund Blunden on Matthew Arnold, Rebecca West on Charlotte Bronte, G. K. Chesterton on Charles Dickens, Neville Cardus on W. G. Grace, Laurence Housman on Florence Nightingale, Hugh Walpole on Anthony Trollope, etc.
Demy 8vo (23cm). xx,556pp. Original orange cloth; just a touch sunned and faintly bruised; a few slight marks, but otherwise a very good copy. Ex-libris label inscribed J. Hornby and dated 1932.

£20

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London : Michael Joseph, (1957). First edition. One of the most powerful of Masters’ Indian tales, commencing in 1902 and charting the career of Peter Savage, administrator, mountaineer, soldier and a man of “ruthless will and stupendous ambition”.
Post 8vo (21cm). [ii],(416)pp. Original black boards, lettered in gilt; slight bruise to lower edge of upper board; slight production flaw affecting the tops of some leaves; endpapers a little tanned, but a good copy in the Donald Green dust-jacket – lightly worn and a touch tanned. Tiny inscription on front free endpaper.

£20

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London : Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, (1979). A reprint of the original 1975 edition. A monumental county-by-county study of the smaller rural houses, from the Middle Ages through to the nineteenth century – the study supported by close analysis of over 500 buildings, over 500 line-drawings and plans, plus over 500 photographs. “One of the most profound and thought-provoking studies of historical architecture that has ever been published” (Journal of the British Archaeological Association).
Demy 4to (29cm). xxii,246pp. Illustrations. Plates. Original red armorial buckram gilt; just a touch bruised, but still a very good copy in the dust-jacket – the jacket just lightly marked, but also very good.

£50

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London : B. T. Batsford, (1983). First edition. A masterly and fully illustrated study of the history and remains of Roman London from “the father of London’s modern archaeology”. Chapters on London before the Roman Conquest; the Claudian Invasion; the first Londinium; its transformation; its heyday; the hinterland; Londinium in the Antonine and Severan Periods; Londinium in the Third Century; the Fourth; from Londinium to London, etc.
Crown 4to (26cm). (xii),288pp. Sixty photographs. Forty maps, plans and diagrams. Original boards; just a hint of tanning, but a very good copy in the dust-jacket – the jacket just slightly sunned, but also very good.

£25

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London : Middlesex County Council, [1949]. First edition. “The building over of Middlesex should never have happened. But it is useless to cry over spilt suburbs ... the central cogwheel represents metropolitan commerce and industry grinding into Middlesex, which was at one time a green and pleasant land”. An attractive booklet outlining the County Council’s planning objectives – character, population, open space, social and economic balance, roads, industry and commerce, schools, London Airport, etc.
Long crown 4to (19cm). [24]pp. Jaunty illustrations throughout, many in colour, by Raymond Spurrier. Maps. Diagrams. Original pictorial stapled wrappers; lightly rubbed, slightly bruised, and a little creased, but a good copy of a scarce and fragile production.

SOLD

London : Virago, (1980). First edition. “A fuelless, meatless and sugarless world”- a thoroughly-researched study of “the deprivations and dramas of the women’s war”, commencing with a woman’s chronology of the war and extremely well illustrated from contemporary sources – photographs, advertisements, recipes, posters, etc.
Crown 4to (25cm). [x],206pp. Illustrations throughout. Original pictorial wrappers; a few faint signs of age and use, but a very good copy.

SOLD

London : Michael Joseph, (1983). First edition. Comrie and Hera embark on a long Scottish walk to test compatibility prior to marriage – corpse soon found – and then another. Dame Beatrice investigates.
Post 8vo (21cm). 190,[ii]pp. Original olive boards, lettered in gilt; lightly tanned, but otherwise a very good copy in the Graham Rogers dust-jacket – also very good. Leeds University Library cancellation stamp hidden below flap of jacket.

£50

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London : Michael Joseph, (1978). First edition. A very mixed group – believers, sceptics, hoaxers, and at least one criminal – go ghost-hunting in Norfolk. Manifestations, quarrels and murder – Dame Beatrice investigates.
Post 8vo (21cm). (192)pp. Original turquoise boards, lettered in gilt; a few tiny marks, but a very good copy in the Nigel Mynheer dust-jacket – the jacket just lightly tanned, but also very good.

SOLD

London : Victor Gollancz, 1960. First edition. “Whenever I see the words ‘Peer’s Daughter’ in a headline”, Lady Redesdale once commented rather sadly, “I know it’s going to be something about one of you children”. A sparkling and witty memoir from Decca Mitford – home life in the Cotswolds with the six Mitford girls, finished in Paris, presented at court, elopement to Spain with Esmond Romilly, bohemian life in Rotherhithe, etc.
Demy 8vo (23cm). 222,[ii]pp. Portrait frontispiece. Original red boards, lettered in gilt; some spotting of edges and prelims, but otherwise a very good copy in the Pele dust-jacket – a vivid caricature design in shades of red, pink and black – the jacket lightly worn, a little marked, slightly nicked, and with some shallow chipping at tips.

SOLD

London : Bloomsbury Publishing, (1990). First edition. Hostages, terrorists, car-bomb and the Troubles.
Medium 8vo (25cm). [viii],194,[ii],[4]pp. Original blue boards, blocked and lettered in gilt; top edge just a touch dusty; a few very faint marks, but otherwise a very good copy in the dust-jacket – the jacket also very good.

£20

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London : Nicholson & Watson, (1941). First edition. The first of Moore’s occasional wartime anthologies of new writing – with short stories by Kay Boyle, Gerald Kersh, Storm Jameson, Sidney Keyes, Marghanita Laski, William Saroyan, V. S. Pritchett, etc. – and poems from G. S. Fraser, David Gascoyne, Alun Lewis, Norman Nicholson, Anne Ridler, Alan Rook, Vernon Watkins and others. Edited by Moore (with assistance on the poetry from Tambimuttu).
Crown 8vo (19cm). (160)pp. Original pictorial wrappers by Hof; a touch shaken, but a very good copy in a lightly rubbed and slightly chipped dust-jacket – the Hof design repeated in full colour.

£20

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.London : Nicholson & Watson, [1942]. First edition. The second of Moore’s occasional wartime anthologies of new writing – with short stories by Elizabeth Bowen (The Demon Lover), Rhys Davies, Gwyn Jones, Gerald Kersh, Howard Spring, etc. – and poems (selected and introduced by Henry Treece) from Alex Comfort, J. F. Hendry, Robert Herring, Emanuel Litvinoff, Norman Nicholson, Herbert Read, Anne Ridler and others.
Crown 8vo (20cm). (160)pp. Original blue cloth, lettered in black; very slight fading of extremities, but a very good copy in a slightly worn dust-jacket, just slightly defective at head of spine.

£20

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London : Harborough Publishing Co., (1953). First edition. Marie Guillon plays fast and loose with French railway regulations, finding the first-class passengers more “interesting” than those in third.
Crown 8vo (19cm). (160)pp. Original pictorial stapled wrappers – a design by David Wright, signed with initials; tiny chip at foot; spine a little puckered; some wear and creasing; one short nick; a few spots, but otherwise a very good copy. Just three copies (Bodleian, British Library, and Trinity College, Dublin) located in major libraries worldwide.

£40

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London : George Newnes, 1894. First edition. “The camel is very largely a fraud” – or, for the Zig-Zag Marsupial – “When an animal is more than usually a fool for its size, Nature indulgently permits it to go about with a pouch that it may not lose its family”. Meandering through London Zoo in the 1890s, with similar observations on both animals and their keepers. An amusing but also highly informative collection of all twenty-six of the “Zig-Zag” articles originally published in the Strand Magazine between 1892 and 1894. Wittily illustrated throughout by the well-known animal cartoonist James Affleck Shepherd (1867-1946).
Super royal 8vo (27cm). [viii],228pp. Pictorial title and illustrations throughout. Original blue pictorial cloth over bevelled boards, blocked in black and lettered in red; lemon edges; an indifferent copy, a little marked and worn; the text somewhat shaken and slack, with some creasing and a sprinkling of spots, but a still serviceable copy of an uncommon title. With the bookplate of Eric Lindus Forge (1903-1987), production engineer.

SOLD

New York : Praeger Publishers, (1971). First edition : the American issue. A well illustrated and wide-ranging survey, by one of the best of antiquarian booksellers, of (mainly British) illustrated books of the nineteenth century – with chapters on chapbooks; Thomas Bewick and George Cruikshank; line engraving; the periodicals; the Dalziels; the advent of colour; fin-de-siècle; foreign influence; America, etc.
Crown 4to (26cm). (xvi),(288)pp. Five colour plates. Numerous monochrome illustrations. Original orange cloth, blocked and lettered in gilt; top edge black; a very good and bright copy in the dust-jacket.

£40

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London : Trustees of the British Museum, 1965. First edition. A full-scale catalogue of the 1965 loan exhibition, which apparently incorporated every known and genuine Grolier binding to be found in the British Isles. The 138 fully described and illustrated books are grouped under the headings of Italian bindings; the single velvet binding; early French bindings; Claude de Picques; bindings with no significant tools; the Cupid’s Bow binder; other binderies, etc.
Demy 8vo (23cm). xx,(76),[iv]pp. Coloured frontispiece, Plates A-K (tools) and I-CXXVIII (bindings). Original rexine gilt; mild spotting of top edge, but a very good copy.

£20

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London : Hodder & Stoughton, [1930]. First paperback edition. A legal tale of a satisfied barrister – “a triumph in the mode of high make-believe” (Barzun & Taylor). Originally published in 1922 – and here in Hodder’s pre-war large format yellow Ninepenny series, with a striking cover design by Bip Pares.
Demy 8vo (22cm). 128pp. Original pictorial wrappers – a Pares head in blues, black and white – lightly used, with some minor wear and creasing, but overall a very good copy. No copy of this edition located in any major library worldwide.

£20

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London : Martin Secker & Warburg, (1997). A definitive edition of Orwell’s second novel, originally published in 1935, restoring for the first time a number of previously censored readings, and indicating other passages known to have been “toned down”. Edited, and with a lengthy textual note by Peter Davison. First published in this form in 1986.
Medium 8vo (25cm). [viii],(308),[iv]pp. Original blue cloth, blocked and lettered in silver; very good in the original dust-jacket – a design in blue, orange, red and white – just very faintly sunned.

£40

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London : Country Life, (1954). First edition. A neatly worked dictionary of architectural terms, attractively illustrated with explanatory drawings.
Crown 4to (26cm). (112)pp. Illustrations. Original boards; a few slight spots; mild tanning of endpapers, but a very good copy in a slightly chipped, lightly nicked and price-clipped dust-jacket.

£20

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Cambridge : Harvard University Press, (1976). Third printing of the original 1976 edition. A thoughtful study of the early fictional detectives – with much on Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens, Arthur Conan Doyle, Emile Gaboriau, William Godwin, Edgar Allan Poe, William Russell (Waters), Eugène-Francois Vidocq, etc.
Royal 8vo (24cm). (xiv),194pp. Illustrations. Original cloth; very good.

SOLD

New York : Popular Library, (1952). First paperback edition. The London-born writer with a first novel – soldier home to London from the Great War, wife gone to the bad, daughter desperate, etc. First published in the USA as “White Crocus” in 1947, with a London edition in 1948. Popular Library 433.
Foolscap 8vo (17cm). 223,[i]pp. Original pictorial wrappers – blonde, beret, bar; all edges green; some very minor rubbing; a few faint marks, but still a very good copy. Just two copies of this edition located in major libraries worldwide – neither in the UK.

£20

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London : Hodder & Stoughton, 1894. First edition. An extraordinary sequence of letters home to Scotland from Aniwa in the New Hebrides, dating from 1865 to 1889. Maggie Whitecross Paton was the second wife of the well-known missionary John G. Paton and the letters provide another slant on his own well-known autobiography.
Post 8vo (21cm). (xiv),382,[ii]pp. Frontispiece. Twenty-three photo illustrations, many full-page. Coloured map. Original cloth gilt; slightly bruised and marked; a few minor spots; just a little strained, but a very good copy.

£50

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London : HarperCollins (Collins Crime), (1999). First edition. The twelfth in the Mamur Zapt series – shortlisted for the Ellis Peters Award for best historical crime novel. Cairo in 1909, the murder capital of the world, Tvardovsky, an effendi and a foreigner is shot at a gathering of financiers. Gareth Owen investigates.
Demy 8vo (23cm). [vi],(180),[vi]pp. Original black boards, blocked and lettered in gilt; edges lightly tanned, but otherwise very good in the original pictorial Colin Hadley dust-jacket – just lightly sunned, but also very good.

SOLD

Newton Abbot : David & Charles, (1972). First edition. A fully illustrated survey of this pervasive and ever-popular art form, with material on John Brandard, Alfred Concanen, R. J. Hamerton, Louis Jullien, George Leybourne, G. H. Macdermott, Alfred Vance, etc.
Crown 4to (26cm). 112pp. Illustrated throughout. Original boards; a very good copy in a just slightly used dust-jacket.

£15

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London : Cassell & Co., (1976). First edition. A study of Thomas Hosmer Shepherd (1793-1864) and his family – and their contribution to the recording of the London landscape of the nineteenth century.
Demy 4to (29cm). 116pp. Numerous illustrations, some in colour. Original boards; slight spotting of edges and endpapers, but a very good copy in a sunned and price-clipped dust-jacket.

£30

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New York : Oxford University Press 1982. First American edition. A most attractive study – a richly illustrated survey of London as seen by the great artists down the ages.
Crown 4to (27cm). 160pp. Illustrations throughout, many in colour. Original boards; very good in a just faintly sunned dust-jacket.

£25

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London : Longmans, Green & Co., 1936. First edition. A fascinating account of a poet’s tramp across the south of England trying to peddle his rime-sheets – calling particularly on writers and other “public faces in private places” – and recording their reactions. The dust-jacket maps his journey with the names of those he called on – W. H. Davies, Warwick Deeping, E. M. Delafield, Walter de la Mare, Ethel M. Dell, Lloyd George, Eric Gill, Laurence Housman, A. G. Macdonell, Sir Henry Newbolt, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, Michael Sadleir, A. G. Street, etc.
Post 8vo (21cm). (xiv),320,[ii]pp. Frontispiece. Woodcuts by Florence M. Green. Original cloth; spine lightly discoloured; a few minor marks; a good copy in a worn, tanned, slightly torn and price-clipped dust-jacket. Pencilled ownership inscription of A. D. Holdsworth dated 1949.

£20

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London : Richard Bentley, 1864. First edition. An interesting early work on the theory of language learning, recently reprinted in the Foundations of Foreign Language Teaching series. Prendergast analyses how children acquire language and draws lessons and techniques. He had formerly been a civil servant in Madras and part of the work relates to the structure of Hindustani.
Demy 8vo (24cm). [2],(xii),262,[ii]pp. Folding table. Right of translation slip. Original cloth, by Edmonds & Remnants, with their ticket; externally a little worn and dulled, but internally clean and largely unopened. With the 1900 armorial bookplate of William Arthur Cavendish-Bentinck, Sixth Duke of Portland (1857-1943).

£40

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London : Victor Gollancz, 1981. First edition. Spy thriller set in 1957 – a double agent sets out to recruit Dr Audley.
Demy 8vo (23cm). (278),[ii]pp. Original dark brown boards, lettered in gilt; a couple of tiny marks to edges, but otherwise very good indeed in the Oliver Hatch dust-jacket – also very good indeed.

£20

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London : Chatto & Windus, 1956. First edition. A collection of thirty-seven stories from the “complete short-story writer” – an East End funeral; the colonel’s daughter seduces a sailor; two clergymen and a bottle of whisky in a bombed church; a loss of faith while punting, etc.
Post 8vo (21cm). (408)pp. Original turquoise cloth, blocked and lettered in red and gilt; top edge turquoise; slight spotting of edges, but a very good, bright and sound copy in the original dust-jacket – a touch tanned; price-clipped and with a tiny hole at upper fold, but with minimal wear and also very good.

SOLD

London : John Lane, The Bodley Head, (1943). The third impression of Pudney’s highly popular collection of twenty-three wartime poems, first published the previous year. Includes “Convoy Job”, “The WAAF Corporal”, “The Bomb Dump”, etc.
Post 8vo (20cm). 32pp. Original boards; endpapers lightly tanned; a few leaves corner-creased, but otherwise a very good copy in the striking dust-jacket – the jacket lightly used and just a touch sunned. Loosely inserted are some related press-cuttings.

£10

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London : Radiation Ltd., [1938]. First edition. An attractive promotional booklet publicising the New World “Regulo-Controlled” gas oven – twenty-six recipes, with four extra icings – including Orange Cake, Linze Torte, Stuffed Monkeys, Coconut Pyramids, Parisian Cake, American Layer Cake, Drop Scones, Gateau St. Honoré, etc.
Demy 8vo (22cm). 20pp. Illustrations. Original decorative stapled wrappers; short split at foot; slight creasing; a few marks and spots, but a good copy. Just a single copy (Wellcome) located in major libraries worldwide.

£20

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London : B. T. Batsford, (1987). The 1987 reprint of the original 1954 edition of this extensive directory of the known bookbinders of the period working in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. With an introductory essay on the evaluation of the source materials, etc.
Crown 4to (26cm). (xvi),250,[iv]pp. Sixteen plates. Original boards; top edge very slightly spotted, otherwise very good in dust-jacket.

£25

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London : B. T. Batsford, (1987). The 1987 reprint of the original 1956 edition of this extensive directory of the some 2,000 known London bookbinders of the period. With an introductory essay on the evolution of London binding styles.
Crown 4to (26cm). xiv,(156),[vi]pp. Forty plates. Original boards; a very good copy in a very good dust-jacket.

£20

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London : Orion Books, (1998). First edition. “Damon Mee was last seen in a blurred security video on the dance floor of a Kirkcaldy night club ...”. One of the “Criminal Records” series of novellas, edited by Otto Penzler.
Crown 8vo (20cm). [vi],73,[i]pp. Original blue boards, blocked and lettered in silver; just a hint of tanning, but a very good, bright and firm copy in the dust-jacket – equally very good.

£20

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London : Frederick Muller, (1989). First edition. The demise of the Provost sets off a chain of disgraceful doings. “Raven has the mind of a cad and the pen of an angel” (Guardian review). The fifth volume in “The First Born of Egypt” sequence.
Demy 8vo (23cm). [vi],(198),[iv]pp. Original boards; just a hint of bruising, but a very good, bright and sound copy in the Patrick Mortemore dust-jacket – also very good.

£20

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London : Blond & Briggs, (1980). First edition. His previously unpublished first novel – rejected over libel fears in 1950 and here resurrected. A semi-autobiographical tale of acting as tutor to the “erratic and erotic son of an hysterical millionairess” – London, country house, Aldeburgh, Biarritz.
Demy 8vo (23cm). 176pp. Original black boards, lettered in gilt; small mark on fore-edge, but a very good copy in the Craig Dodd dust-jacket – also very good indeed.

SOLD

London : Blackie & Son, 1911. First edition. A delightful book about London for children – not just Oranges and Lemons and other nursery rhymes, but the origins of the city, the Romans, Boadicea, Saxon London, the Danes, Westminster Abbey, the Thames, London Bridge, the Tower, the Great Fire, St. Paul’s, London children, St. James’s Park, the Crystal Palace, the Zoo, Covent Garden, the docks, and London servants. With colour plates by Wilfrid Ball, W. L. Wyllie, Frank Brangwyn, Samuel Scott, Stanhope Forbes, Vicat Cole, and others, as well as numerous illustrations, some full-page, in the text.
Foolscap 4to (23cm). 128pp. Twelve coloured plates. Numerous illustrations. Maps. Music. Original pictorial cloth; a touch dulled, faintly marked and slightly bruised; endpapers and outer leaves a little tanned, but otherwise internally a very good, clean and sound copy.

£40

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[Leicester] : Beacon Publishing Co., [ca.1949]. First edition. “Diana Wilton looked extremely attractive that afternoon sitting on the lounge in the smart sitting-room of her Chelsea flat and smiling across at me through the drifting smoke of her cigarette”. According to his publishers, Paul Rénin “knows women better than they know themselves” – suspicious wife, glamorous widow, famous actress, etc.
Crown 8vo (19cm). 112pp. Original pictorial stapled wrappers; some wear to spine; some internal creasing; a reasonable copy of an uncommon title. Exchange stamp of the “Modern Book Stall’s” [sic] of Leicester, Loughborough and Coalville Market, on upper wrapper and final leaf. No copy traced in any major library worldwide.

£40

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London : Macmillan & Co., (1969). First edition. With much passing reference to Charles Baudelaire, Roger de Beauvoir, Jules Claretie, Theophile Gautier, Arsene Houssaye, Charles Monselet, Henry Murger, Gerard de Nerval, etc.
Demy 8vo (23cm). (202),[ii]pp. Plates. Portraits. Original boards; a few slight marks; a few leaves slightly creased, but otherwise a very good copy in a lightly marked dust-jacket.

£15

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London : Fiction House, [1942]. First edition. A foggy night in a London park – “beastly murder” followed by “a second utterly heartless crime. From a quiet, uneventful life as companion to an eccentric aunt, Diana Barry finds herself precipitated into this turmoil”. Swift-moving adventure, moving to the Riviera. Piccadilly Novel No. 193.
Crown 8vo (18cm). 96pp. Original pictorial stapled wrappers – blonde, gloves, gun; a few faint marks and slight creases; staples a touch rusted, but overall a very good copy. Just a single copy (British Library) located in major libraries worldwide.

SOLD

London : John Lane, The Bodley Head, (1938). First edition : the first issue, printed on slightly thicker stock and in the primary binding of yellow cloth. An engaging anthology – E. C. Bentley, Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear, Ogden Nash, and many more – compiled and edited by Denys Kilham Roberts. Illustrated with some arresting images by Victor Reinganum.
Crown 8vo (20cm). (xx),(260)pp. Original yellow cloth, blocked and lettered in dark red; some very faint spotting to covers and edges, but otherwise a very good and bright copy in the yellow, brown and black Reinganum jacket – a little sunned, lightly rubbed and with a few slight nicks.

£40

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London : Ivor Nicholson & Watson, 1937. First Edition. An illustrated, discursive and entertaining journey down the Thames from Lechlade to the sea, by the popular novelist and critic, with atmospheric photographs by her husband H. E. (Sir Henry) Turner.
Crown 4to (26cm). (xii),(174)pp. Fifty-one photos. Original pink canvas, ruled and lettered in black; a few tiny marks, some spotting, mainly to prelims and edges, but a very good and sound copy in the textured dust-jacket, sunned and a little rubbed, but complete and attractive still.

£30

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London : Harborough Publishing Co., [1953]. First edition in English. Pascal Battisti from Laos needs urgently to speak to the director of the Mining Research Company – but then he is murdered. Originally published in Paris as “Kham la Laotienne” in 1935.
Crown 8vo (18cm). (160)pp. Original pictorial stapled wrappers – a design probably by David Wright; inked mark on upper wrapper; some creasing and wear; staples a little rusted; some marks and spots, but a reasonable copy of an uncommon title. Just a single copy (British Library) located in major libraries worldwide.

£30

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London : Constable & Co., (1948). First British edition. A selection of over seventy of the best of the short stories and articles arranged under various headings. Includes “Tripping over Trivia”, “Horse Sense”, “Larcenous Ladies”, “A Dog’s Best Friend”, “Smoking Ladies”, etc.
Crown 8vo (20cm). 278,[ii]pp. Frontispiece. Original dark green cloth, lettered in silver; a very good and bright copy in the original pale blue dust-jacket, printed in red and darker blue – slightly sunned and a just a little marked.

£25

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[New York] : Phantom Books (Hanro Corp.), (1952). First edition. “A weird ritual, a reckless redhead and a killer on the loose ... young lawyer tossed into a boiling pot of evil”. Phantom 512.
Foolscap 4to (20cm). (3)-129,[i]pp. Original pictorial stapled wrappers; a little rubbed and somewhat creased; text very slightly tanned, but a good copy of a fragile production. No copy located in any major library worldwide.

£40

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London : Hogarth Press, 1958. First edition. A part-time jazz pianist in a small London club falls for an unusual young woman – “This one face contains his future. Why?” – an elegant novel from “one of the modern masters of English prose” (Anthony Burgess) – “His observation, wit and use of words are fresh, exciting and beautiful” (John Betjeman).
Crown 8vo (20cm). (222),[ii]pp. Original green boards, blocked and lettered in gilt; a few faint spots, but a very good copy in the stylish Charles Mozley dust-jacket – the jacket a touch sunned and just lightly worn at extremities.

£25

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London : Hodder & Stoughton, [1929]. An early reprint of the original 1928 edition. Bulldog Drummond has rid the world of Carl Peterson, but Irma lives on – Mrs Drummond is abducted, “hair-raising adventures in haunted houses, deserted mills, at Stonehenge at midnight, and in Irma’s fantastic room. The probabilities of the tale may be far-fetched, but that will not prevent its being hailed as worthy successor to the stories of the series that have preceded it” (The Scotsman, 16th August 1928).
Crown 8vo (20cm). 312,4pp. Original mustard-yellow cloth, lettered in black; a few minor marks and slight creases; mild spotting of edges; outer leaves lightly tanned, but overall a very good copy. Contemporary (1929) gift inscription.

£20

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London : Ernest Benn, (1929). First British edition : in a secondary but nonetheless striking dust-jacket – an art deco design by “Barbara” in Benn’s 3/6 Library format. Her first novel, previously unpublished but pre-dating “The Story of an African Farm” (1883) and taking up the same themes of childhood and adolescence in nineteenth-century South Africa. With an explanatory introduction by her husband, Samuel Cron Cronwright-Schreiner.
Crown 8vo (20cm). 254,[ii]pp. Portrait. Plate. Original brown cloth, lettered across spine in gilt; a few marks and spots, mild tanning to plates, but a very good copy in the dust-jacket – a little worn, nicked and slightly chipped, the spine lightly tanned and a little spotted.

£25

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New York : Select Publications, (1949). First paperback edition. “All Barbara Dorn wanted was a week of fun” – “She left the dull life she knew. She left her family. She left behind the man who loved her. She left them all for one glorious mad fling ...”. Originally published as “Mardi Gras Madness” in 1934. Red Circle Book No. 13.
Foolscap 8vo (17cm). 160pp. Original pictorial wrappers – a lively design by Ray Johnson; some minor rubbing and wear; crease to lower wrapper, but a very good copy. Small label and mark of John T. Pratt of Delaware. No copy of this edition located in any major library worldwide.

£20

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New York : Falcon Books, (1951). Second edition. Vergie Whidby “was known to care for only the finest things in literature” – bookshop assistant goes on holiday and discovers that passion is not confined to the pages of novels. First published in 1935 under the title “Virgin’s Holiday” and here retitled, slightly revised, and part of the Ecstasy Novel series.
Crown 8vo (19cm). [iv],7-128,[ii]pp. Two full-page photographic illustrations “specially posed by professional models”. Original pictorial stapled wrappers; some light wear and creasing; small nick at foot; text a little tanned; a few leaves a touch proud, but otherwise a very good copy of a scarce title. No copy of this edition located in any major library worldwide.

SOLD

London : Faber & Faber, (1960). First edition. Simpson’s finest and best-known play – absurdity, diversions, non-sequiturs, cardless card games, talking weight machines being trained to sing the Hallelujah Chorus, etc. First performed at the Royal Court in December 1959. “I suspect Mr Simpson to be the possessor of the subtlest mind ever devoted by an Englishman to the writing of farce” (Kenneth Tynan).
Post 8vo (21cm). (94),[ii]pp. Original plum cloth, lettered in gilt. A sprinkling of edge spots, but a very good copy in the Angus McBean dust-jacket – just lightly used but also very good.

SOLD

Manchester : Carcanet Press, (1998). First edition of the complete collected poems, adding numerous poems from three later collections to the 1984 “Collected Poems”, as well as seventeen poems previously unpublished in book form.
Demy 8vo (22cm). (xviii),(526)pp. Original wrappers – a design by Stephen Raw; very minor signs of use, but a very good copy.

£15

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Oxford : B. H. Blackwell, (1918). First edition. The third of Edith Sitwell’s annual volumes of poetry – with poems from Aldous Huxley (6), Arnold James (4), Edith Sitwell (10), Osbert Sitwell (6), Sacheverell Sitwell (6), Iris Tree (9), Sherard Vines (9), etc.
Pott 4to (21cm). (104)pp. Original black cloth-backed pictorial boards, paper title label and a design in red, white and black by Laurence Atkinson on upper cover; a little rubbed and lightly worn; mild spotting of endpapers, but a good copy.

£25

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Irvine : Alan Mackie for the Newlands SF Club, [1954]. The first issue of this shortlived Scottish science fiction fanzine. Includes short stories by Peter Hennessey and Alan Mackie, as well as contributions from J. T. McIntosh, Ethel Lindsay, Kenneth F. Slater, Matt A. Elder, Bob Lindon (on Aldous Huxley), etc., with some dramatic artwork by Brian Miller.
Crown 8vo (20cm). 28pp. Illustrations. Original pictorial stapled wrappers; staples rusted, with resultant discolouration and holing, but otherwise a very good copy. Just two copies (British Library and National Library of Scotland) located in major libraries worldwide.

£25

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London : Harvill, (1992). First British edition. The third Arkady Renko book – reinstated Investigator Renko has to deal with the lawlessness of the fall of communism.
Medium 8vo (25cm). 431,[i]pp. Original black boards, blocked and lettered in gilt; a very good, bright and sound copy in the Vladimir Pcholkin dust-jacket – also very good.

SOLD

London : Macmillan & Co., 1958. First edition.The seventh novel of Snow’s “Strangers and Brothers” sequence, although, as Snow notes, “This book is appearing out of place; it should really come second”. The Anglo-Jewish aristocracy in the years before Munich.
Crown 8vo (20cm). (xii),(338),[ii]pp. Original red cloth, lettered in gilt; a few minor marks; edges a little spotted, but a good copy, in a lightly rubbed and used dust-jacket – a pictorial design by Sidney Nolan – a little marked on rear flap.

SOLD

Sevenoaks : Caxton & Holmesdale Press, 1950. First edition. A charming illustrated guide to the town, with chapters by Somervell on the history, the castle, the parish church, the school, etc., with further material on the Medway, the parks, local commerce, places of interest, with an array of advertisements from local business, etc.
Crown 8vo (19cm). xx,71,xxi-xxxii pp. Illustrations. Photographs, Maps. Original pictorial wrappers; lightly rubbed; a few slight creases, but a very good copy.

£20

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Toronto : Collins White Circle Pocket Edition, (1948). The first paperback edition of his first book – the first ever Mickey Spillane – the first Mike Hammer – and something of a seismic moment in the annals of twentieth-century pulp, popular culture and the history of the paperback. Originally published in hardback in New York in 1947, the present edition precedes the New York Signet paperback edition (published December 1948) by a few months – and the first British edition by several years.
Crown 8vo (18cm). (192)pp. Original pictorial wrappers – blonde in red underwear (and matching shoes) faces down armchair gunman; all edges red; slightly rolled and slack; some wear at extremities, with short splits at head; some creasing to wrappers; slight crease and minor wear to half-title; text faintly browned, but overall still a presentable copy of a scarce and fragile production. No copy of this edition located in any major library worldwide.

SOLD

London : Collins, 1953. First edition. A London bank-clerk pursues a strange inheritance in remote Cornwall.
Post 8vo (21cm). 256pp. Original green cloth, lettered across spine in gilt; very good in the pictorial Harry Toothill dust-jacket – a little creased, with a few short repaired tears and a chip on lower panel.

£20

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London : Sidgwick & Jackson, (1977). First edition. Absorbing reminiscences of John Bayliss, Roy Campbell, Ian Hamilton Finlay, G. S. Fraser, Wrey Gardiner, Robert Greacen, John Heath-Stubbs, J. F. Hendry, Nicholas Moore, Herbert Read, Julian Maclaren-Ross, Muriel Spark, Dylan Thomas, etc., with much on the London literary haunts of the period.
Demy 8vo (23cm). viii,242pp. Plates. Original boards; top edge lightly spotted, but a very good copy in the original John Sewell dust-jacket – lightly tanned and somewhat sunned at spine, with one short nick, but otherwise good.

£15

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London : Martin & Reid, [1946]. First edition. Gangsters with identical frozen faces who bring their own mist with them appear in London to the consternation of Special Branch.
Crown 8vo (18cm). 62 [i.e. 60]pp. Original pictorial stapled wrappers; a little fingered and slightly creased, but a good copy of a fragile item. Just two copies (Bodleian and British Library) located in major libraries worldwide.

£20

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London : Film Book Club, Ward & Hitchon, [1947]. First edition. An interesting and richly illustrated tour of the British studios with film buff Robert Stannage – chapters on Pinewood; Denham; Shepperton & Isleworth; Islington; Shepherd’s Bush; Ealing; Welwyn; Walton-on-Thames; Elstree, and the Smaller Studios.
Crown 8vo (19cm). (104)pp – plates included in pagination. Numerous photo illustrations, portraits, stills, etc. – Richard Attenborough, John Boulting, Phyllis Calvert, Michael Denison, Paulette Goddard, Stewart Granger, Valerie Hobson, Glynis Johns, Jean Kent, Sir Alexander Korda, Margaret Lockwood, Burgess Meredith, Dennis Price, Patricia Roc, Jean Simmons, Peter Ustinov, Jack Warner, Michael Wilding, etc. Original stapled wrappers; a few marks and tiny hole to spine; staples rusted, but a good copy in the original dust-jacket – spine frayed and holed, rear wrapper discoloured, but otherwise complete and in reasonable order. Just two copies (Exeter and Stockholm) located in major libraries worldwide.

SOLD

London : Faber & Faber, (1991). First edition : the hardback issue. Stoppard’s radio play, the scenes alternating between the India of 1930 and the England of 1990. Dedicated to Felicity Kendal, who played Flora Crewe in the original BBC Radio 3 broadcast in April 1991.
Post 8vo (21cm). [viii],(86),[ii]pp. Original blue boards, lettered in white; text just faintly tanned, but a very good copy indeed in the Tania Willis dust-jacket – the jacket also very good indeed.

£40

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Westport (CT) : Greenwood Press, (1986). First edition. Essays, profiles and publication histories of all the twentieth-century British literary magazines – alphabetically arranged from “The Abinger Chronicle” to “X : A Quarterly Review” – with supplementary appendices giving material on the social and literary chronology, Scottish periodicals, magazines with short runs, etc. The fourth in the “British Literary Magazines” series, and forming part of the “Historical Guides to the World’s Periodicals and Newspapers” project.
Medium 8vo (25cm). (xxxii),(630),[ii]pp. Original cloth; very good.

SOLD

London : Wells Gardner, Darton & Co., (1946). First edition. “My dear daughter Pearl : By the time you get this, you will be acquainted with all the apparent circumstances of my death. You will have heard that my body was found in a ditch off the Spaniards Road on Hampstead Heath; the coroner will have returned a verdict of Death from Natural Causes ... and that will be that. Nevertheless, my death was no more due to ‘natural causes’ than was that of the victims of, say, Crippen, Mahon or Major Armstrong. It was the inevitable climax to a deliberate plot; in a word – and a very ugly word – it was Murder”.
Crown 8vo (19cm). 192pp. Original pictorial wrappers; lightly rubbed and used; text a little tanned, but a very good copy of a fine and unusual murder mystery, which also appeared in French and Spanish translations. Contemporary (1946) ownership inscription. Just two copies (Antwerp and British Library) located in the world’s major libraries.

SOLD

Port Washington : Kennikat Press, (1966). A reprint of the original 1928 edition. The “Malone Scrap”, the “manifold mischiefs wrought by the forgeries of that learned and unprincipled scholar, John Payne Collier”, etc.
Demy 4to (29cm). xiv,(110)pp. Facsimiles. Original cloth; a few faint signs of age and use, but a very good copy.

SOLD

London : Victor Gollancz, (1987). First edition. The fifth William Dougal mystery – murder and the Jacobite guinea.
Post 8vo (21cm). (192)pp. Original red boards; tiny edge spot, but a very good indeed in the original Eleni Michael dust-jacket – a design in red, yellow, black and white – price-clipped, but otherwise also very good indeed.

£20

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London : Victor Gollancz, 1986. First edition. The fourth William Dougal and James Hanbury novel – Hanbury plans to marry into respectability.
Post 8vo (21cm). (184)pp. Original red boards; very good indeed in the original yellow, black and cerise dust-jacket – price-clipped, but otherwise also very good indeed.

£20

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London : Longman Group, (1972). First edition. The last remaining slaves in British sugar colonies were freed in 1833 – the history of the tireless British humanitarian campaign to abolish slavery worldwide from that point onwards, with much on John Bright, Lord Brougham, Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, etc.
Demy 8vo (23cm). (xviii),298,[iv]pp. Original boards; very good in a just slightly creased but also very good dust-jacket.

SOLD

London : Macmillan & Co., 1886. First edition. Tennyson’s early optimism revisited in the second of his Locksley Hall dramatic monologues, together with three further poems, including “The Fleet” and “The Promise of May”.
Foolscap 8vo (19cm). [viii],(202),[ii]pp. Original green cloth, lettered in gilt; a touch rubbed; a few very minor marks and spots, but a very good copy.

SOLD

Oxford : Oxford University Press, (1999). First edition. A handsome companion, providing an alphabetical guide to Trollope’s work, friends, publishers, characters, topics, and anything else one might need.
Medium 8vo (25cm). xxiv,(626),[vi]pp. Portrait frontispiece. Illustrations. Maps. Original boards; a very good copy in the dust-jacket – just slightly creased on inner flap.

£25

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New York : Dell Publishing Co., (1961). First paperback edition. First published in 1959 and here in paperback form to tie in with the celebrated 1961 film, with Paul Newman, Piper Laurie and Jackie Gleason, etc.
Foolscap 8vo (17cm). 223,[i]pp. Original pictorial photographic wrappers – Paul Newman and Piper Laurie; all edges blue; a little worn and creased; a few tiny nicks, but a good copy.

£20

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London : Hamish Hamilton, (1947). First edition. Barsetshire in its first post-war summer – evacuees departed and a very charming young widow arrives to turn a few heads.
Crown 8vo (20cm). (382),[ii]pp. Map endpapers. Original green cloth, lettered in gilt; a very good, bright, clean and sound copy in the dust-jacket – a map design by M. Weightman – price-clipped and over-printed with a fresh price by the publisher – also very good.

£25

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London : Victor Gollancz, 1988. First edition. Autobiographical musings and recollections from the author of “The White Hotel”.
Demy 8vo (23cm). [x],(196),[ii]pp. Original orange boards, lettered on spine in gilt; very good in the dust-jacket – just faintly bruised, but also very good.

£20

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London : Martin Secker & Warburg, (1986). First edition. An illustrated memoir of the distinguished publishing house – Martin Secker (1882-1978), Fred Warburg (1898-1981), Roger Senhouse, Tom Rosenthal et al. “They published what they liked and did their weeping in private” (Frank Swinnerton).
Post 8vo (21cm). (88)pp. Illustrations. Original cloth gilt; very good indeed.

£20

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London : Oxford University Press, 1956. First edition. A study of the evolution of the heroine in British fiction as ideas of emancipation began to take hold.
Demy 8vo (23cm). 178,[ii]pp. Original boards; a very good, sound and clean copy in the original Lynton Lamb dust-jacket – just faintly marked and a touch dusty.

£20

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London : Faber & Faber, (1935). First edition. A masterly survey of that rich period of illustration in the 1890s – with much on Cecil Aldin, Fred Barnard, Lewis Baumer, Aubrey Beardsley, Max Beerbohm, Frank Brangwyn, Gordon Browne, Tom Browne, Harry Furniss, John Hassall, Phil May, H. R. Millar, Hugh Thomson, Jack B. Yeats, and many another.
Medium 8vo (25cm). xx,(268)pp. Plates. Numerous illustrations. Original cloth gilt; top edge gilt; a few slight marks and spots, but a very good copy. Neat ownership inscription.

£25

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London : Hamish Hamilton, (1962). First edition : precedes the American edition. A posthumously published collection of twenty-one pieces, including “Menaces in May”, “The Lady from the Land”, “The Manic in the Moon”, etc., with a preface by Helen Thurber.
Demy 8vo (23cm). (xii),180pp. Illustrations by Thurber. Original red boards, blocked and lettered in gilt; a very good copy in the original Thurber dust-jacket – a design in yellow, black and red – also very good.

£25

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London : Hutchinson, (1987). First edition. Signed by Anthony Thwaite on the title-page. A collection of forty-seven poems, including “Cicadas in Japan”, “At the Fox Shrine”, “Cairo”, “On Alderney”, etc.
Post 8vo (20cm). [ii],86,[viii]pp. Original colour-printed wrappers; very slightly bruised; text a touch tanned, but a otherwise a very good copy.

£15

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London : Folio Society, 1951. First edition under this title – five of Trollope’s best short stories, one (Katchen’s Caprices) making its first appearance in book form, the others seemingly out of print since the nineteenth century. With an introduction by John Hampden and wood-engravings by Joan Hassall.
Demy 8vo (23cm). [xii],(170),[ii]pp. Wood-engraved illustrations and decorations. Original floral-patterned cloth; title-label; top edge red; edges and endleaves a little spotted, but otherwise a very good copy in the matching dust-jacket – a little worn at tips and slightly spotted on flaps, but still very good.

£25

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London : Chapman & Hall, 1867. A reprint of the 1864 collected edition of the two series of stories originally published 1861-1863. Seventeen stories, including “An Unprotected Female at the Pyramids”, “The Mistletoe Bough”, “The Man Who Kept His Money in a Box”, etc.
Crown 8vo (19cm). [iv],404pp. Steel-engraved frontispiece by J. Brown after Marcus Stone. Original green cloth, ruled and lettered in gilt and decorated in blind in a Select Library of Fiction design; lightly rubbed and a touch worn; a couple of tiny splits at joints; endpapers cracked and tape-repaired; a little shaken and slack, but a reasonable copy of an early edition. Contemporary red armorial circular stamps of the library at Ickwell Bury, Bedfordshire, then the home of John Harvey (1815-1879) and his wife Annie Jane Harvey (1825-1898), née Tennant, author of “Turkish Harems and Circassian Homes”, etc., and (as Andrée Hope), “Vyvyans : or, The Murder in the Rue Bellechasse”, etc. Contemporary blind-stamp of W. H. Smith of the Strand, where presumably the Harveys bought the book.

£50

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London : Bloomsbury, (2000). First edition. Signed by Joanna Trollope on the title-page. Judge abandons his wife of forty years for a barrister half his age, but neither woman behaves quite as expected. “Just as one has forgotten the intense pleasure of reading Trollope, along comes another flawless novel” (Library Journal).
Medium 8vo (25cm). [iv],(312),[iv]pp. Original black boards, blocked and lettered in gilt; purple ribbon; very faint tanning of edges, but a very good copy in the Jenny Wheatley dust-jacket – also very good.

SOLD

London : Macmillan London, (1988). First edition. Signed by M. J. Trow on the title-page. Superintendent Sholto Lestrade is recovering from a broken leg in 1912 – but then his future father-in-law’s butler is murdered by mistake and a letter arrives reading simply, “Four for the Gospel Makers”.
Post 8vo (21cm). 224pp. Original blue boards, lettered in silver; a very good copy in the original pictorial dust-jacket – the jacket also very good.

£25

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London : Scion, (1954). First edition. Klaglan – the ancient, mysterious and forbidden city of Mars – Halmar the Guide, Lorna the dancer from Venus, and the man called Smith try to penetrate its crystal walls.
Crown 8vo (19cm). 144pp. Original pictorial stapled wrappers in a design attributed to Ronald Turner; some light wear, rubbing and slight creasing; a few faint marks; text a little tanned, but overall still a very good copy. Just two copies (British Library and Liverpool) located in the major UK libraries.

£40

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Woodbridge : Antique Collectors’ Club, (1986). First edition. A richly illustrated study of English garden design, the author identifying eleven major categories – Enclosed; French; Dutch; Forest; Serpentine; Irregular; Transition; Italian; Mixed; Arts & Crafts, and Abstract – with much passing reference to Capability Brown; Gertrude Jekyll; Edward Kemp; Richard Payne Knight; Leonard Knyff; George London; J. C. Loudun; Edwin Lutyens; T. H. Mawson; Uvedale Price; Humphry Repton, etc.
Demy 4to (29cm). 238,[ii]pp. Over 300 illustrations, sixty-nine in colour. Original cloth gilt; a very good copy in a just slightly nicked but also very good dust-jacket.

SOLD

London : Chatto & Windus, (2009). First British edition. A pedant adrift in his own life.
Medium 8vo (25cm). (278),[ii],[4]pp. Original grey boards, lettered in gilt; just the faintest signs of use, but very good in the dust-jacket – also very good.

£20

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London : Penguin Books, (1988). A reprint, in the Penguin Modern Classics series, of this collection originally published by Heinemann in 1969. Signed by Edward Upward on the title-page.
Post 8vo (20cm). (234),[vi]pp. Original colour-printed Paul Leith wrappers; text edges very mildly tanned; a few very small spots on title-page, but otherwise in very good state. Walker A3c.

£15

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London : W. Everett & Son, 1865. [Second edition]. Journalistic sketches on aspects of London life – city beggars; a stroll through the City on Christmas Day; books and bookshops; Sunday mornings; Dirty Dick’s; promptitude; the financial press and its editors; the great Tooley Street fire; from east to west; Jews in the City; and a ride on the newly opened Hammersmith and City underground railway. Utley was a bank messenger and part-time journalist who was born and lived right in the heart of the City of London. His observation is direct, unusual and wholly first-hand. First published the previous year.
Demy 8vo (23cm). 64pp. Originally issued in pamphlet form, and now bound in a neat late twentieth-century marbled boards; paper label; first and last leaves a little dusty; a few small flaws, but a good copy of a scarce and fragile item. Just a single copy (Guildhall Library) of this edition located in the major UK libraries.

SOLD

London : Edwin Self & Co., [ca.1953]. First edition. “Throbbing, pulsating, completely alive in every part of its being, the kind of body over which empereurs have fought and kingdoms have been lost”.
Crown 8vo (19cm). 128p. Original pictorial stapled wrappers; some rubbing, wear and slight splitting to spine; wrappers a little creased and soiled; text a little tanned; a touch of rust to staples; a reasonable copy. No copy located in any major library worldwide.

£50

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Charlottesville : for the Folger Shakespeare Library, by the University Press of Virginia, (1970). First edition. A thorough, extensive and richly illustrated study of Hollar and his milieu, presenting a fresh interpretation of the man himself. “He has left an invaluable record of seventeenth-century England”.
Royal 4to (28cm). (xiv),122pp. Folding plates. Numerous illustrations. Original canvas; top edge a touch dusty, but otherwise a very good copy in the dust-jacket – the jacket a little tanned, lightly worn and reinforced at tips.

£40

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London : Phoenix Press, [ca.1950]. [Second? edition]. No earlier edition has been traced, but the book is evidently to some extent autobiographical and based on McKeag’s time in Germany in the early 1920s: an earlier edition is suspected, perhaps under another title.
Crown 8vo (19cm). 96pp. Original pictorial stapled wrappers; some wear and creasing; a few tiny chips; staples lightly rusted; a few spots and small flaws; a serviceable copy. No copy (of any edition) traced in any major library worldwide.

£50

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Stoke-on-Trent : Archer Press, (1949). First edition. Muriel surveys Paris from the top of the Arc de Triomphe – “She was undeniably pretty, with her strangely bluey-greenish eyes that looked out so bewitchingly from beneath long, curving lashes; the wealth of auburn hair that cascaded like a fountain of flame over her shoulders ...”.
Crown 8vo (19cm). 128pp. Original stapled pictorial wrappers – a man implores a haughty Muriel; a little rust to the staples; a few slight creases; text very slightly tanned, but overall a very good copy of an uncommon title. Just two copies (Bodleian and British Library) located in major libraries worldwide.

£50

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[London : Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, 1939]. First edition. A comprehensive view of the world of the pre-war sweet-shop, toffee-hammers, dorothy bags and coconut ice – with material on stock, ordering, window displays (with some wonderful plates), serving, staff, accounts, fitting and layout, tax, insurance, and the additional lines (cigarettes, ice cream, biscuits and books – with eleven pages on running a library).
Demy 8vo (23cm). [iv],332,[iv]pp. Plates. Diagrams, Tables, two folding. Original cloth; some minor spotting to edges and lower cover, but overall a very good copy.

£20

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London : John Lane, The Bodley Head, 1925. Fist edition. “The perfect example of harmony between artist and author. Lady Kitty Vincent’s portrait of Lady Carstairs is a triumph ... although she is a modern, [she] shows her direct descent from the ... mistresses of the poisoned art of innuendo ... There are some books you must not read in railway carriages unless you are prepared to be taken for a cheerful lunatic. It is one of them” (Illustrated London News, 13th February 1926). A delicious social satire, delightfully illustrated by the celebrated “Fish” – Anne Harriet Fish (1890-1964).
Demy 8vo (23cm). (xii),80,[iv]pp. Coloured frontispiece and fourteen monochrome plates by “Fish”. Original grey cloth, blocked and lettered in red and black; top edge red; spine a touch darkened and lightly marked; some spotting to text and edges, but a good copy of a charming period piece.

£25

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London : Claud Morris Books, [1947]. First edition. The wealthy Mrs King is murdered before she can rewrite her will – featuring Erma King, the young and beautiful heiress; the long-lost Glen King, now reappeared; Nolan King – the half mad stepson; Lola Dracut, the companion (and Glen’s childhood sweetheart); Tommy Sears, the dentist, and Douglas Robie, the chemist – both suitors of Erma; a hot-tempered cook; the family doctor, lawyer, etc.
Crown 4to (25cm). 48pp. Illustrations. Original pictorial stapled wrappers; wrappers slightly spotted, nicked and chipped; staples rusting; text a little brittle and tanned, but a good copy of a scarce and fragile production. Just a single copy (Bodleian) located in major libraries worldwide.

£25

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Newton Abbot : David & Charles, (1979). First edition. A fine and detailed study of the extraordinary events – faction, feud and controversy – surrounding the building of the first Westminster Bridge in the mid eighteenth century. With much on Antonio Canaletto, Sir Henry Fielding, Richard Graham, Nicholas Hawksmoor, Andrews Jelfe, Charles Labelye, Batty Langley, Thomas Lediard, etc.
Royal 8vo (25cm). (320)pp. Plates. Maps. Original cloth; a very good copy in the dust-jacket – also very good.

£20

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London : Macmillan & Co., 1942. First edition. A Jekyll and Hyde type tale of possession – largely set in the darkened streets of wartime London.
Crown 8vo (20cm). [vi],(258)pp. Original green cloth, blocked and lettered in gilt and blind; a few slight edge spots, but a very good copy in the original dust-jacket – a design in red, white and black – lightly tanned, very slightly worn, with a few small nicks and chips, and a tape-repaired tear on lower panel.

SOLD

London : Martin & Reid, [1946]. First edition. There’s a puzzle about a racing driver who never wins a race.
Crown 8vo (18cm). (31),[i]pp. Original pictorial stapled self-wrappers; staples a little rusted, but a very good copy. Just a single copy (British Library) located in major libraries worldwide.

£20

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Manchester : T. A. & E. Pemberton, [1952]. [Second edition]. Molly Waring was one of Lindsay’s multiple pseudonyms, which also included Mary Faulkner, Mary Richmond and Betty Manvers. She was at one time recognised as the most prolific novelist in history, with over 900 known titles. Originally published in hardback by Wright & Brown in 1943.
Crown 8vo (19cm). 160pp. Original pictorial stapled wrappers; minor wear a tips; light creasing to wrappers; text lightly tanned; a few minor marks and creases, but overall a better than average copy. Only a single copy of this edition (Trinity College, Dublin) located in the major UK libraries.

£20

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Oxford : Carcanet Press, (1971). First edition : one of forty special numbered and dated copies (of 600), signed by Val Warner. Her first collection – thirty poems, including “In Woolworth’s”, “Balham, Christmas”, etc.
Pott 4to (19cm). [ii],34pp. Original stapled wrappers – a design in black on sand by Priscilla Eckhard; wrappers just a touch dusty; tiny mark; outer leaves and edges a little spotted, but otherwise a very good copy.

£20

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Manchester : Sherratt & Hughes, 1900. Second edition. A corrected and slightly enlarged version of the original 1880 publication. A pioneering study, with chapters on the principal styles; dated bookplates; mottoes directed against borrowers; bookplates of historic interest; foreign engravers (with a tabulated list); engravers of English bookplates (with tabulated lists); foreign dated bookplates, etc.
Demy 8vo (24cm). [4],(viii),228pp. Sixteen full-page facsimiles. Original cloth; paper label; a touch rubbed; label very slightly marked, with minuscule chipping; cloth lightly marked and bubbled; endpapers a little tanned, but a good copy.

£40

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Manchester : T. A. & E. Pemberton – distributors, [ca.1940]. Second edition. The educated, comely and resolute Rosabel Sayer becomes a most superior parlourmaid to a dysfunctional family in Hambledon – a thinly veiled Wimbledon. Originally published by the Federation Press in 1926.
Crown 8vo (19cm). (128)pp. Original pictorial stapled wrappers – a design by Douglas La Coste Constable (1881-1930); a little worn, nicked, chipped and creased; text a little tanned; staples rusting, but a serviceable copy of an uncommon title. No copy of this edition (and only one copy of the earlier edition) located in major libraries worldwide.

£25

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London : Bantam Press, (1990). First edition. A story that commences in 1926 with a family holiday in Britanny – one of her best.
Medium 8vo (25cm). (364),[iv]pp. Original blue boards, blocked and lettered in gilt; a very good, clean, bright and crisp copy in the Susan Moxley dust-jacket, also very good indeed.

£25

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London : Jonathan Cape, (1973). First edition. White’s novel of a matriarch and her impact – drawing on his own relationship with his mother. Published in the year White won the Nobel Prize.
Post 8vo (21cm). 608pp. Original blue boards, blocked and lettered in gilt; a few slight spots, but a very good copy in the original Desmond Digby dust-jacket – price-clipped and just lightly used.

£25

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London : Martin Secker & Warburg, 1957. First British edition. Published to coincide with the UK release of the controversial and much-banned Elia Kazan film starring Karl Malden, Carroll Baker and Eli Wallach.
Post 8vo (21cm). 140pp. Plates – stills from the film. Original red boards, lettered down spine in silver; a few faint marks, but a very good copy in the dust-jacket – a touch sunned, very lightly rubbed and just slightly dusty.

£40

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London : Faber & Faber, (1981). First edition. A well-researched history, with material on the invention of transfer printing; glazed porcelain; the northern school, Liverpool transfer printers; the free-lance transfer printers; the individual potteries and factories, etc., with much passing reference to Richard Abbey, the Battersea Enamel Works, Thomas Billinge, Louis-Peter Boitard, the Bow China Works, the Derby Porcelain Manufactory, Robert Hancock, Longton Hall, Thomas Radford, Thomas Rothwell, John Sadler, Simeon Shaw, Josiah Wedgwood, the Worcester Porcelain Company, etc.
Royal 8vo (26cm). (250),[ii]pp. Colour plates. Numerous illustrations. Original cloth; very good in a much-sunned and price-clipped dust-jacket.

£20

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Charlottesville & London : University Press of Virginia, (1992). First edition. The full-length study of the extraordinary success as publishers of the central players in the Bloomsbury Group. With much passing reference to Clive Bell, Vanessa Bell, T. S. Eliot, E. M. Forster, Sigmund Freud, Duncan Grant, Robert Graves, John Lehmann, Vita Sackville-West, etc.
Medium 8vo (25cm). xvi,[2],(452),[x]pp. Illustrations. Facsimiles. Original cloth; slight mark to top edge, but otherwise a very good copy in the dust-jacket.

£25

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London : Fiction House, [1947]. First edition. “I was there when it all happened. Gradually, horror deepened and death and mystery surrounded me ... in our quiet community we saw murder as horrible and puzzling as anything written about in detective novels”. Piccadilly Novels No. 249.
Foolscap 8vo (18cm). 96pp. Original pictorial stapled wrappers; some wear at tips; a little rubbed and slightly marked; text lightly tanned, but a good and serviceable copy. Just a single copy (British Library) located in major libraries worldwide.

£20

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London : Martin Secker & Warburg, 1957. First edition. Eight stories in which various characters seek, cheerfully or desperately, to get their bearings on the new map of post-war English society.
Crown 8vo (20cm). [vi],(194)pp. Original green boards, lettered in gilt; a few faint spots, but a very good, bright and sound copy in the dust-jacket – also very good, with just a couple of little nicks to lower panel.

£20

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Newton Abbot : David & Charles, (1967). First edition : the Readers’ Union issue, with its stickers on dust-jacket and title-page. An extraordinary pictorial record – with stunning photographs by Joseph McKeown (1925-2007) – of a lost landscape: a sewer gas lamp off the Strand; a pottery kiln in Kensington; a candle factory in Battersea; food-drying kilns in Lambeth; a margarine factory in Southall; a sealing-wax factory in Bermondsey; snuff mills at Morden; the Camden Town catacombs, and dozens of other relics of a once great hub of manufacturing.
Demy 4to (29cm). 160pp. Colour frontispiece. Full page photographs throughout. Original boards; mild tanning of outer edges, but otherwise a very good copy in the dust-jacket – the jacket a little tape-stained in places, but otherwise also very good. Ownership stamp of Ian S. Pettman.

£25

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London : Hutchinson, (1988). First edition. Twenty-eight Wodehouse poems, with introductory material by Auberon Waugh and Frances Donaldson, and illustrations by David Langdon.
Post 8vo (21cm). 80pp. Nine illustrations. Original pale blue boards, blocked and lettered in gilt; light spotting to rear free endpaper, but otherwise very good indeed in the original Ned Hoste dust-jacket – also very good.

SOLD

Dublin : Dedalus Press, (1990). First edition : the hardback issue. A collection of twenty-six poems, including “Long Day Short Night She Dances”, “The Country of Blood-Red Flowers”, “Time and the Ice-Fish”, etc.
Foolscap 4to (22cm). 80,[iv]pp. Original blue rexine, lettered in gilt; mild spotting of top edge, but a very good copy in the original Graphiconies dust-jacket – a striking floral design in yellow, blue and black on white – also very good.

£20

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London : Hogarth Press, 1975. First edition. The first of the six published volumes of the letters: the formative years, letters from childhood to her marriage to Leonard Woolf in 1912. “Had she achieved nothing else, these letters would still be worth publishing as some of the best and most entertaining to survive from the years before the First World War”. Edited and introduced by Nigel Nicolson.
Medium 8vo (25cm). (xxiv),(532)pp. Family tree. Plates, portraits, etc. Original boards; very good in the Angelica Garnett dust-jacket – price-clipped and just faintly tanned. Kirkpatrick A44a.

SOLD

London : Hogarth Press, (1982). First British edition. Essays on the London Docks, Oxford Street, Great Men’s Houses, London’s Abbeys and Cathedrals, and the House of Commons. Originally written for “Good Housekeeping” in 1931-1932 and previously only published in book form in an American limited edition.
Demy 8vo (23cm). 44,[iv]pp. Original purple-grey boards, lettered in gilt; very good indeed in the original pictorial Angelica Garnett dust-jacket – also very good indeed.

£40

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New York : Popular Library, [1950]. First edition. Six short stories – “One Night in New York”, “One Night in Chicago”, etc. – five culled from pulp magazines, and one previously unpublished. Popular Library 258.
Foolscap 8vo (17cm). 190,[ii]pp. Original pictorial wrappers in a design generally attributed to Rudolph Belarski (1900-1983) – cornered man shoots at redhead in strapless green; a little worn, darkened and rubbed; text lightly tanned, but a serviceable copy of a fragile production. Stamps of the Indian distributors, A. H. Wheeler & Co., with a price in rupees, on title-page.

£25

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London : London Magazine Editions, (1971). First edition. Studies of five lightly fictionalised characters who went to fight in Spain – Martin Murray, the rebellious young novelist; Lady Esmerelda Griffiths, politically connected aristocrat; Gavin Blair Summers, undergraduate who had lost belief; ex-guardsman Harry Watson, and playboy Pugh Griffiths.
Post 8vo (21cm). (250),[ii]pp. Original black boards, blocked and lettered in gilt; a few spots, but a very good copy in the original dust-jacket – just very faintly marked and creased, but also very good.

SOLD

London : Nova Publications, (1953). [Second edition]. John Wyndham’s second foray into science fiction, first published as “Planet Plane” in 1936 and here in a revised text, published under his John Beynon pseudonym as the first in the Nova Science Fiction Novels series.
Crown 8vo (19cm). 128pp. Original pictorial stapled wrappers – a design by Gordon Hutchings. Light wear and some mild creasing; pencilled price to upper wrapper, but a very good copy. No copy of this edition traced in any major UK library.

£25

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London : Ward, Lock & Co., (1952). First edition. A conversation piece – a memoir of both Yates and his most famous creation.
Post 8vo (21cm). [ii],(286)pp. Original black cloth, lettered across spine in gilt; top edge red; a few faint marks, endpapers lightly browned, but otherwise a very good, clean and sound copy in the original dust-jacket, complete with the original wrap-around band – also very good, with minimal wear and just a couple of short nicks.

£25

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London : Ward, Lock & Co., (1958). First edition. Further reminiscence and memoir from Yates and Berry.
Post 8vo (21cm). (286),[ii]pp. Original black cloth, lettered across spine in gilt; top edge yellow; a few faint marks; mild tanning of endpapers, but a very good, clean and sound copy in the Peter Rudland dust-jacket – just faintly tanned, but otherwise very good indeed.

£25

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 38550 – or simply click on the button