ASH RARE BOOKS
43 HURON ROAD
LONDON SW17 8RE
UNITED KINGDOM

London : Pan Books, (1979). First edition : precedes the hardback edition by some months. “People of Earth, your attention please. This is Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz of the Galactic Hyperspace Planning Council ...”. The first appearance in print of the seminal radio series.
Crown 8vo (18cm). (159),[i]pp. Original wrappers in a design by Hipgnosis / Ian Wright; just slightly tanned; a few slight marks and spots, but a very good copy of a fragile production.

SOLD

London : Chapman & Hall, 1862. First edition. An uncommon Ainsworth historical novel set in the days of Alderman Beckford, William Pitt, John Wilkes, etc.- much admired for the extraordinary detail (and its accuracy) with which Ainsworth brings the period to life. “This is the Ainsworth 3-decker that I waited longest for” (Wolff).
Three volumes. Crown 8vo (196 x 120mm). (x),304; vi,302; vi,316pp. Bound in later half chestnut crushed morocco (of about 1900) by Robert Riviere & Son – retaining the original magenta cloth gilt covers at rear; banded and richly gilt; top edges gilt; marbled sides and endpapers; some very minor wear and mild scuffing; a few internal spots, but a very attractive set. With the armorial bookplates of Captain James Stewart (1830-1908) of Alltyrodyn, Llandysul, veteran of the Indian Mutiny and J.P. for Cardiganshire, whose fine library was dispersed at auction in 1927, together with the more recent bookplate of another major book-collector – Robert James Hayhurst (1929-2016).

SOLD

London : Henry Colburn & Richard Bentley, 1831. First edition. “The forthcoming satirical novel under this title, is said to exhibit a picture of the life of a young man of fashion, and to develop, in the most spirited manner, the mysteries and chicaneries of the Turf. But these contribute only a small portion of its attractions. The gambling-table at home and abroad – love – debt – opera-dancers – together with the multifarious scenes which present themselves to the young nobleman in his gay career, are unfolded to the view. The name of the author we have heard whispered, but for the present, we forbear to mention it” (Dublin Evening Post, 29th July 1830). True to the spirit of the novel, “which has occasioned so great a sensation in gay circles”, wagers were laid on whether the author’s name would be discovered within a set period – the bets settled at Tattersall’s at the end of April 1831 in favour of those who had bet against it (Morning Post, 6th May 1831). The “Morning Chronicle” attributed it to a “well known sporting baronet”, but the publisher Richard Bentley’s papers note that it was written by “a son of Sir Robert Twisden”, with some additions by Mr Ollier. Ollier is simple enough – Charles Ollier (1788-1859), former publisher of Keats and Shelley, now working as Richard Bentley’s literary adviser. Twisden is a different matter, as no Sir Robert Twisden can be found: I think Sir Roger Twisden is intended – and grandson, not son. Thomas Twisden Hodges (1809-1865), sporting gentleman, later Member of Parliament, cricketer, yachtsman, and crucially at this time a racehorse owner, running a horse aptly named “Naughty Tommy” in various races in the very year of the novel’s publication, seems to have all the right credentials for being the author of this exposé (of prize-fighting as well as racing) – “Lords and blacklegs, ladies and demireps, are mingled together in its pages, – in some portraits we can trace a resemblance, striking, if not flattering, to individuals who have been known, and are now not altogether forgotten” (New Monthly Magazine).
Two volumes. Foolscap 8vo (173 x 105mm). [iv],(240); [iv],(228),[iv]pp. Bound in a smart twentieth-century full blue crushed morocco, banded and gilt, by Sangorski & Sutcliffe; marbled endpapers; text lightly tanned and faintly spotted in places in vol.ii, but still overall a very good set of a scarce and interesting publication.

SOLD

London : James Nisbet & Co., 1880. First edition. Ballantyne’s fictionalised take on the Bligh Mutiny, Fletcher Christian, Pitcairn, and subsequent events. “He assures the readers that the merest spider-web of fiction has been employed to bind the facts together. In such a work he excels, and he has never done one better than this” (The Scotsman, 2nd November 1880).
Crown 8vo (20cm). (viii),(414),[ii],(16)pp. Frontispiece, extra pictorial title, and four plates. Original blue pictorial cloth gilt over bevelled boards; some minor rubbing and wear; endpapers slightly cracked; a little shaken; a few edge spots, but overall still a good copy. Gift inscription dated 1883 to William Lawrence from Howard Gilliat (1848-1906).

£100

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 41575 – or simply click on the button

London : Victor Gollancz, 1984. First edition : in the earlier dust-jacket. The haunting novel based on his wartime experiences as a boy in Shanghai – filmed by Spielberg in 1987.
Medium 8vo (24cm). [viii],278,[ii]pp. Map. Original black boards; text a little tanned as always, but otherwise a very good copy indeed in an unflawed dust-jacket.

SOLD

London : Vizetelly & Co., 1887. First Mermaid edition. The unexpurgated text of the ten major plays in Havelock Ellis’s sought-after Mermaid Series of “The Best Plays of the Old Dramatists” – “The Maid’s Tragedy”, “Philaster”, “The Wild-Goose Chase”, “Thierry and Theodoret”, “The Knight of the Burning Pestle”, “King and No King”, “Bonduca”, “The Spanish Curate”, “The Faithful Shepherdess” and “Valentinian”. Edited, with a long and perceptive introduction, notes, etc., by John St. Loe Strachey (1860-1927).
Two volumes. Crown 8vo (187 x 113mm). xl,(472); viii,(518) + 32pp advertisements dated September 1887. Portrait frontispieces. Bound in a most attractive recent half chestnut morocco, banded and gilt, by Bayntun-Riviere of Bath; cloth sides; marbled endpapers; top edges gilt; a few leaves slightly spotted, but a very good set.

£400

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44491 – or simply click on the button

London : Faber & Faber, (1964). First edition. Beckett’s one-act play, first performed in English at the Old Vic in April 1964, with Robert Stephens, Rosemary Harris and Billie Whitelaw. For Harold Hobson of the Sunday Times, it established Beckett as “a sombre and profound poet ... By associations, by ceremonies, by the stirring of beliefs he has abandoned but not forgotten, he suggests, he creates, he establishes, he fulfils”. Filmed in 2000 by Anthony Minghella, with Alan Rickman, Kristin Scott Thomas and Juliet Stevenson. The short pieces for radio are “Words and Music”, broadcast by the BBC in 1962 with Patrick Magee, and “Cascando”, broadcast on Radio 3 in 1964, again with Patrick Magee.
Post 8vo (21cm). 48pp. Original red canvas, ruled and lettered in gilt; a very good, bright and sound copy in the photographic dust-jacket - the jacket just lightly used, but also very good.

SOLD

London : Chapman & Hall, 1907. First edition. Signed by Arnold Bennett on the front free endpaper. A collection of thirteen bitter-sweet short stories of the Five Towns, all but one previously unpublished. Includes “Baby’s Bath”, “The Silent Brothers”, “Vera’s First Christmas Adventure”, “The Murder of the Mandarin”, etc.
Crown 8vo (19cm). [viii],302,[x]pp – the integral advertisements not noted by Emery. Original blue cloth, ruled in blind and lettered in gilt; mild wear at head; a little sunned; a few faint marks; a few spots to prelims, but a good copy of a difficult title. Emery 50. Hubin p.30.

£350

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 43170 – or simply click on the button

London : John Murray, 1940. First edition. An early collection of twenty-five poems, including “Upper Lambourne”, “Pot Pourri from a Surrey Garden”, “Blackfriars”, “Holy Trinity, Sloane Street”, “Myfanwy”, etc.
Crown 8vo (19cm). (xx),(67),[i]pp. Silhouette portrait frontispiece by Apollo. Ribbon marker. Original blue pebbled cloth; paper title label on spine; label very slightly rubbed; a few very minor marks and signs of age and use, but a very good copy.

SOLD

London : Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green & Longman, 1836. First edition. “Now, when a lady tells a gentleman that ‘he is too bad’, he is apt to construe her assertion into a sort of avowal that he is not bad enough ...” – a wise and witty fiction from Lady Blessington, as an elderly gentleman looks back on lost loves and the foolishness of youth. The loves are each depicted in a finely worked engraving by leading engravers from the designs of Edward Thomas Parris (1793-1873) – Louisa, Arabella, Lady Mary, Lady Elmscourt, Lady Emily, and Caroline. “We need not recommend our friends to read this book – they must do so. The playful talents of Lady Blessington are very delightfully exercised ... and all is governed with a refined taste and correct moral sentiment” (The Examiner, 16th October 1836 – concluding a three-page review).
Royal 12mo (22cm). [iv],(288)pp. Six plates. Original terracotta cloth gilt – probably a slightly later variant – by Remnant & Edmonds, with their ticket; just a touch sunned; a few internal spots, but a very good copy. Small contemporary stamp of Williams’s Library, Cheltenham – the bookseller George Arthur Williams (1794-1880) – although the book appears unused.

£200

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44480 – or simply click on the button

[London : for A. Churchill, J. Knapton & others, 1720]. A handsome antique map of Covent Garden – here bounded by Long Acre to the north, Drury Lane to the east, the Strand to the south and Bedfordbury to the west – with Bedford Street, King Street, Henrietta Street, Maiden Lane, Bow Street, Russell Street, etc., clearly marked. The map is decorated with a baroque title-piece and the names of nineteen smaller side-streets, alleys and new buildings are given in a numbered key. Originally produced by Richard Blome in the late seventeenth century, the map remained unpublished until the present updated version (with his name erased) appeared with the 1720 edition of John Stow’s “Survey of London”. The present example offers unusually clear evidence of the reworking of the plate prior to publication.
Copper line engraving on paper. Later hand colour. Engraved surface 308 x 181mm (approx. 12-1/8” x 7-1/8”). A heavily inked impression, displaying evidence of reworking and wear to the plate, but overall in very good and clean state. A guaranteed genuine antique map.

£250

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44402 – or simply click on the button

[London : for A. Churchill, J. Knapton & others, 1720]. A fine eighteenth-century map of the central London parish of St. Giles in the Fields, taking in Great Russell Street, Montague House (the site of the British Museum), Bloomsbury, Seven Dials, High Holborn, Drury Lane and Lincolns Inn Fields. A keyed table identifies fifty-eight smaller alleys, yards, courts, inns, etc. Originally produced by Richard Blome in the late seventeenth century, the map remained unpublished until the present version (with his name erased) appeared with the 1720 edition of John Stow’s “Survey of London”.
Copper line engraving on paper. Engraved surface 297 x 364mm (approx. 11-3/4” x 14-3/8”). Original vertical fold; a few tiny marks and faint creases, but in very good and clean state. A guaranteed genuine antique map. Adams 25/057.

£250

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44473 – or simply click on the button

London : “The Field”, 1877. First edition. A presentation copy, inscribed, signed and dated (30th June 1877) by the author to Samuel Hoare (1841-1915), later Sir Samuel Hoare M.P., Harrow and Trinity (Cambridge), banker, parliamentarian and keen amateur cricketer with the Quidnuncs. One of the monuments of cricket literature – a highly influential account which in attempting to define, perhaps for the first time, the quintessential Englishness of cricket, contrived to make it not just a game, but a lasting repository of high-minded Victorian ideals and the ultimate sporting extension of a deeply-imbued sense of national identity. Box takes in turn the origins of ball-games; the Dark and Middle Ages; progress and development; rising popularity; the moral, social and physical attributes; chapters on each of the major counties; the public schools; the eastern counties; intercolonial matches (in North America and Australia); school and village cricket; curiosities; the grounds; the laws; the poems, songs and ballads; a glossary, and a postscript on Shakespeare and cricket.
Crown 4to (26cm). x,496pp. Plates, text illustrations, diagrams. Original decorative cloth gilt over bevelled boards; all edges gilt; some mainly minor wear to extremities; a few slight marks, but overall a much better than average copy of a difficult title. With the significant pictorial bookplate of A. E. Winder – Anthony Edward (Tony) Winder (1944-1991), legendary cricket collector, who acquired (inter alia) John Arlott’s library in 1979 and is himself the subject of a book by David Rayvern Allen, published in 2008.

SOLD

London : Bernard Kaye, [ca.1950]. First edition. The first of the “Ace Capelli” titles – a name originally used by Stephen Daniel Frances (Hank Janson), and later taken over by Geoffrey Pardoe, Norman Lazenby, and others. Gangster Joe Keefe of Chicago stares at a prison sentence – not for the “killings, the dope running, the booze running, or the bank robberies” – but for income tax evasion. He heads for London.
Crown 8vo (19cm). (112)pp. Original pictorial stapled wrappers – a stylish design by F.T.; some minor wear; a few edge-spots; staples just lightly rusted, but a very good copy. Just two copies (Bodleian and Trinity College, Dublin) located in major libraries worldwide.

£75

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44502 – or simply click on the button

London : Cassell & Co., (1930). First edition. Four inter-related novellas – murder, fraud, treason and theft – the moderate murderer, the honest quack, the ecstatic thief, and the loyal traitor.
Crown 8vo (20cm). [2],vi,(310),[ii]pp. Original black cloth, ruled and lettered in gilt; some minor rubbing to extremities; some spotting to edges and outer leaves; a few faint marks, but a very good and sound copy.

£75

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 43849 – or simply click on the button

London : George Newnes, (1924). First edition. Fourteen William stories, including “William and Photography”, “William and the Black Cat”, “William the Showman”, “William Enters Politics”, etc.
Crown 8vo (19cm). [iv],250,[ii]pp – including integral front endpapers. Illustrations, some full-page, by Thomas Henry. Original red cloth, lettered in black; faint crease to lower cover; a few edge-spots, but overall a very good, fresh and sound copy. Neat gift inscription dated May 1924.

£75

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44461 – or simply click on the button

London : Everett & Co., 1909. First edition. A German invasion by stealth from Captain Curties R.E. – “Vehicles rumbled by with loads of wounded. Before the headquarters of each of the Territorial Battalions, before each bank and each public building, outside Buckingham Palace, stood stolid German sentries. German officers filled the breakfast rooms of the hotels. The Monument was a German look-out post. The guttural tones of the Teuton answered ‘calls’ on the telephone, censored conversations, ‘cut off’ at a second’s notice. The railway stations and the police stations, the telegraph offices and the newspaper offices were in German hands ... London was under martial law, ‘held up’ by two hundred thousand Germans under arms. How had the enemy entered the city? That was the question. None had witnessed their coming. No transports had been sighted. No trains had been commandeered. There was no news of a landing. Curious – and startling! They had materialised, it seemed, out of thin air” (The Sketch, 13th April 1910).
Post 8vo (21cm). viii,312pp. Original red decorative cloth; a touch sunned; a few minor marks, spots and signs of age and use, but a very good copy of a scarce imaginary wars title.

£200

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44523 – or simply click on the button

London : Jarrolds Publishing London, [1927]. First edition. Set in a remote Devon village – an unassuming young man attempts to rescue a girl in distress – but is then suspected of murdering the vicar. A largely forgotten author, but one with a loyal and passionate following – five of her books have recently been reprinted – “A crime writer of considerable quality. Indeed to me she is one of the period’s major British crime writers, literate and compulsively readable” (The Passing Tramp). “Fresh, incisive, and sufficiently convincing, and some passages are markedly fine ... Real excitement, with something for the literary connoisseur” (Dundee Courier, 29th December 1927).
Crown 8vo (20cm). 288pp. Original black cloth, ruled, blocked and lettered in red; some mild rubbing; endpapers a little cracked; a touch shaken; a few spots, but a good copy of a scarce book – with the delightful pictorial front panel and blurb of the original dust-jacket preserved on the front endpaper.

SOLD

London : William Darton & Son, [ca.1835]. New edition, “with improvements”. A charming guide for children, cast in the form of the visit to London of Mr Sandby, “a gentleman of fortune”, with his wife and their two eldest children, George and Maria. Visits to all the major sites: the Royal Exchange, St. Paul’s, the Tower, Westminster Abbey, Guildhall, the Bank, the Houses of Parliament, the West India Docks, the Royal Palaces and Parks, Smithfield, East India House, the Custom House, the British Museum, etc. – and not forgetting the School for the Blind and the Orphan Asylum. Originally published in 1805 (Adams 94), then said to be written by one “S. W.” – but here much revised to include mention of the new Post Office (completed in 1829) and the Duke of York’s Column (completed 1834), together with a trip on one of the new steam omnibuses. The present edition, not listed by Adams, pre-dates his final edition (Adams 187) and must have been published before William Darton retired in April 1837.
Pott 8vo (141 x 81mm). viii,232pp. Eight engraved plates – two vignette frontispieces, plus six plates each showing three separate London scenes – a total of twenty engravings – in this copy all beautifully hand-coloured in a later hand. Bound for Sotheran’s in a later, twentieth-century, binding by Morrell – the bindery at this time headed by William John Morrell (1865-1957) – full red morocco, all edges gilt; inner gilt dentelles; marbled endpapers; a few very minor internal marks, but overall a very good copy. No copy of this edition traced in major libraries.

SOLD

London : William Simpson Ford, [1851]. Handsome and scarce, a stylised and simplified plan of Central London, from Hyde Park across to the City of London, with sixty or so of the principal buildings shown pictorially in roundels and vignettes. The plan is framed within a foliate pictorial border – the Great Exhibition at the top, the Bank of England, the Royal Exchange and the Mansion House at the foot, portraits of Victoria and Albert, and images of the national costumes of the countries of the world. Issued as a souvenir of the Great Exhibition, the plan was designed by the artist William Alfred Delamotte, then acting as librarian at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital (which is pictured), also responsible for making sketches of medical conditions for the hospital museum. Lithographed in black on a sepia ground by the Swiss lithographer Johannis Meyer, who had arrived in England in 1848.
Lithograph in two colours on paper. Printed surface 553 x 370mm (approx. 21-3/4” x 14-1/2”). Horizontal fold; a touch dusty; couple of marks; very slight fraying to one margin; a few short marginal tears extending just within the printed area; mild creasing at foot, but overall in very good condition for a scarce and ephemeral item. Just a single copy (British Library) traced in major libraries worldwide.

£500

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 39614 – or simply click on the button

London : Charles Dickens, 1879. First edition : the hardback issue. The first appearance of this splendidly informal handbook produced by the younger Dickens, eldest son of the novelist. A mass of detailed and practical information – bus timetables, postal information, church services, newspaper offices, the names of professional envelope addressers (and prices), etc., alongside some lively and frequently offbeat asides on Victorian mores – “Opium Smoking Dens, – The best known is that of one Johnstone, who lives in a garret off Ratcliff-Highway ... a similar establishment of a slightly superior – or it might be more correct to say a shade less nauseating – class is that of Johnny Chang ...”. “Ladies Shopping without male escort, and requiring luncheon, can safely visit any of the great restaurants – care being always taken to avoid passing through a drinking bar”. With a fine array of contemporary advertisements.
Foolscap 8vo (17cm). 352pp. Maps. Original cloth; a touch dulled; some very minor wear; a few marks; endpapers a touch strained, but still a very good copy. Contemporary ownership inscription.

SOLD

London : Chapman & Hall, 1840-1841. First edition, in book form, bound from the original parts, of both “The Old Curiosity Shop” and “Barnaby Rudge” – “Master Humphrey” was never reprinted, and even unsold copies were cannibalised (within weeks of issue) to make separate books of the two titles we know today. “I am conscious that my pen winces a little even while I write these words. But it was done, and wisely done; and ‘Master Humphrey’s Clock’, as originally constructed, became one of the lost books of the earth, – which, we all know, are far more precious than any that can be read for love or money” (Charles Dickens, in 1848). A specimen wrapper from both the weekly and monthly issue of the parts is preserved at the rear of each volume.
Three volumes, bound in two. Royal 8vo (252 x 164mm). [2],iv,306; vi,306; vi,426pp. Frontispieces and illustrations by George Cattermole, Hablot Knight Browne (“Phiz”), etc. Bound in an elegant mid-Victorian half tan polished calf, banded and gilt; marbled sides and edges; very faintly rubbed; a few very minor signs of age and use; rear hinge of the thicker volume with neat internal reinforcement; a very good, crisp and handsome set.

£750

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 40031 – or simply click on the button

London : for the Author, by Bradbury & Evans, 1846. First edition. With Dickens to Italy via Lyons and Avignon – Genoa, Parma, Modena, Bologna, Ferrara, Verona, Mantua, Milan, Rome via Pisa and Siena, Naples, Pompeii, and Florence. With charming illustrations by Samuel Palmer (1805-1881).
Foolscap 8vo (174 x 110mm). [viii],(270),[ii]pp. Illustrations. Bound, complete with half-title and advertisement leaves, in a very pleasant later (early twentieth-century) full tan polished calf by Morrell; banded and gilt; contrasting red and black labels; top edge gilt; inner gilt dentelles; a little spotting of prelims and edges, but otherwise a very good copy indeed. Modern bookplate of David M. Kirkby, the Chester bookbinder.

SOLD

London : T. Fisher Unwin, 1901. First edition. Beyond the early pamphlets and offprints, Douglas’s first book and his first venture into fiction. He later claimed that just eight copies were sold – a slight exaggeration, but close on 600 copies of the original 750 were still unsold in 1903 and almost certainly pulped. Contains fifteen short stories (including “Elfwater”, “Nocturne”, “The Devil’s Oak”, and “Belladonna”) as well as the fantasy femme fatale novella “Nerinda”, most of the former written in collaboration with his then wife, Elsa Fitzgibbon (1876-1916).
Crown 8vo (185 x 122mm). (viii),(248)pp. Bound in a most attractive mid twentieth-century full red morocco, banded and gilt, by William Root & Son of London; top edge gilt; red silk marker; original pictorial cloth upper cover preserved at rear; a few very minor signs of age and use; a few faint spots, but overall a very good copy in a fine binding.

£400

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44386 – or simply click on the button

London : John Murray, 1825. First edition. A first-hand account of Byron’s ill-fated venture into the Greek War of Independence – compiled from diaries written at the time by Byron’s chief assistant (and the brother of his mistress Teresa Guiccioli) – “one of the most amiable, brave, and excellent young men he had ever encountered”. Regarded as giving the most reliable account of Byron’s last days, Gamba offers no apologies “for being too minute in any details connected with the name of Byron and the cause of Greece”.
Demy 8vo (210 x 130mm). xii,(308)pp. Two folding facsimile letters. Bound, without half-title, in a near contemporary full purple calf, banded and gilt; tan label; marbled edges and endleaves; silk ribbon; some minor wear and slight scuffing; colour rather unsuccessfully touched up in places; occasional internal spotting, but still a handsome copy.

£250

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44481 – or simply click on the button

London : Cassell & Co., (1932). First edition. Satan narrates the epic of mankind – his versions of the biblical stories, the days when he possessed Tiberius, Nero, the Caliph, Cromwell and Napoleon, his final possession, last days in a Bayswater boarding-house, and cremation at Golders Green. Gerhardi, or Gerhardie to use the spelling he later adopted, and something of a lost masterpiece – Evelyn Waugh once remarked to him, “I have talent, but you have genius”. He was also the principal model for the central character (Logan Mountstuart) in William Boyd’s “Any Human Heart”. His collaborator, Brian Holdsworth Lunn (1893-1956), of the Lunn travel-agency family, historian and schoolmaster, is chiefly remembered for his “Switchback” autobiography, with its portrayal of wartime mental breakdown.
Crown 8vo (20cm). 382,[ii]pp. Original black cloth, lettered in red; a few spots to covers and edges; small patch of fading at foot, where the dust-jacket is chipped; endpapers lightly tanned, but overall a very good copy in the striking pictorial dust-jacket – sunned at spine, tiny chips at head, a slightly larger one at foot; some nicks and short tears, with some local discolouration from tape-repairs, but still good and not unattractive.

£100

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 40682 – or simply click on the button

London : Lawrence & Bullen, 1897. First edition. Gissing’s much admired novel of marriage, money, morals and music – “ruthlessly tears away the veil of respectability which shrouds the dark deeds of London Society” (Dundee Advertiser, 15th April 1897) – “In a word he gives us life itself” (Daily Chronicle). A novel which still echoes, as a recent review on Goodreads testifies – “My favourite Gissing novel – everything close and bitter to his heart came together in this book”.
Post 8vo (21cm). [iv],(454) + 32pp advertisements (Spring 1897). Original maroon cloth, ruled and lettered in gilt; a touch sunned; some very minor wear; a few faint internal marks and spots, but a very good copy. With the armorial bookplate (and 1920 note of purchase) of Oliver Brett – Oliver Sylvain Baliol Brett, Third Viscount Esher (1881-1963), man of letters and notable book-collector. Related press-cuttings loosely inserted.

£100

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44490 – or simply click on the button

London : Methuen & Co., 1898. First edition. Probably Gissing’s most cheerful and commercially successful novel – instantly compared to Dickens by all the critics – Mr Gammon, the commercial traveller, and Polly Sparkes, the saucy programme-seller – with a dash of mystery and bigamy. “A thoroughly entertaining novel is a rare joy to both readers and reviewers ... to be recommended to all who like an original touch in their fiction, something with a dash of bitter in it, but sound, stimulating and strong” (St James’s Gazette, 1st September 1898).
Crown 8vo (20cm). vi,(314) + 40pp advertisements dated April 1898. Original red cloth, ruled and lettered in gilt; spine a little dulled; a few marks to cloth and slight crease to lower cover; a handful of internal marks and spots, but a good and sound copy. With the armorial bookplate (and 1921 note of purchase) of Oliver Brett – Oliver Sylvain Baliol Brett, Third Viscount Esher (1881-1963), man of letters and notable book-collector.

£75

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44489 – or simply click on the button

London : William Heinemann, (1934). First edition. Greene’s first overtly political novel – “the injustice of man’s justice”. Greene called it “a panoramic novel of London” – in some sense an inversion of the traditional detective story, as a communist London bus-driver awaits his hanging.
Crown 8vo (185 x 118mm). [viii],(276)pp. Bound, without the final blank, in a smart recent half blue calf, banded and gilt; internally a few minor spots and faint creases, but overall a very good copy. Small stamp of Halifax Parish Church on one leaf.

SOLD

London : William Heinemann, (1943). First edition. Greene’s powerful evocation of London in the blitz – a spy thriller full of guilt, menace and deceit. Informed by his work at the Ministry of Information – and turned into the 1944 Fritz Lang film noir, with Ray Milland and Marjorie Reynolds.
Crown 8vo (182 x 118mm). [vi],236,[ii]pp. Bound in a smart recent half black morocco, banded and gilt; some spotting of edges and prelims, but otherwise a very good and attractive copy of a difficult wartime Greene.

£400

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44191 – or simply click on the button

London : Macmillan & Co., 1887. First edition : one of just 860 copies in the primary binding. The story of Grace Melbury, the faithful Giles Winterborne, and the faithless Edred Fitzpiers. Controversial for its time, but “his loveliest if not his finest book” (Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch) and “the most beautiful and most noble of Hardy’s novels” (William Lyon Phelps) – and indeed Hardy’s own favourite – “On taking up ‘The Woodlanders’ and reading it after many years, I like it as a story best of all”.
Three volumes. Crown 8vo (20cm). [iv],302,[ii]; [iv],328; [iv],316pp. Original holly-green cloth, ruled in black and lettered in gilt; a touch dulled; lightly worn at extremities; endpapers strained at hinges (two with neat repair); vol. i. recased and tightened; vols ii and iii a little shaken and slack; a handful of minor flaws, but a good set. Purdy pp.54-57.

£1,500

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44464 – or simply click on the button

London & New York : Harper & Brothers, (1902). First edition : [one of 500 copies]. A collection of ninety-nine poems – his most extensive collection up to that time – many of them war poems, dating from the time of the Boer War, but others from other places and other times. Includes “The Souls of the Slain”, “The Mother Mourns”, “By the Earth’s Corpse”, “Between Us Now”, “The Darkling Thrush”, “I Have Lived with Shades”, and others.
Post 8vo (21cm). (xii),260,[ii],[2]pp. Original decorative cloth gilt; top edge gilt; just a touch rubbed; endpapers a little spotted, but a very good and bright copy. Pictorial “Faskally” bookplate of Peter and Margery Morris.

SOLD

London : Macmillan & Co., 1928. First edition. Hardy’s final collection of poetry – 105 poems – the majority previously unpublished. Includes “The Lodging-House Fuchsias”, “To a Tree in London”, “Henley Regatta”, “That Kiss in the Dark”, and “We are Getting to the End”. Although prepared for the press before his death in January 1928, Hardy did not live to see its publication.
Crown 8vo (21cm). (xii),202,[ii]pp. Original green cloth, blocked and lettered in gilt; a few edge-spots, endpapers lightly tanned, but a very good, clean, sound and largely unopened copy in a dust-jacket with just a couple of slight marks, but also very good indeed.

£250

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44476 – or simply click on the button

London : William Pickering, 1853. A handsomely produced edition of one of the earliest collected works of the Sweet Singer of the Temple, printed at the Chiswick Press and here in a highly attractive binding by Roger de Coverley & Sons. Originally published in 1835-1836 and including all the extant poems, letters, etc., then known, with lives of Herbert by Izaak Walton and Barnabas Oley, notes by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, etc.
Two volumes. Demy 8vo (217 x 139mm). xii,414; (xxviii),384pp. Engraved frontispieces. Title-pages in red and black. Bound in a stylish early twentieth-century full crushed chestnut morocco, banded and gilt; all edges gilt; a few faint marks; endleaves tanned from turn-ins, but overall a very good set indeed.

£250

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44387 – or simply click on the button

London : Chatto & Windus, 1939. First edition. Household, “a discriminating hedonist, well versed in the pleasures of the table and the bed” as Michael Barber in ODNB has it, with his most famous and enduring novel – a laconic English sportsman sets out to bag “the biggest game on earth” – a Hitleresque dictator bent on the perversion of civilisation. Nominated at least once as “the best manhunt book in history”. Filmed as “Man Hunt” by Fritz Lang in 1941, with Walter Pidgeon, Joan Bennett, George Sanders, etc., and again by Clive Donner in 1976, with Peter O’Toole, John Standing, Alastair Sim, Harold Pinter, etc.
Crown 8vo (177 x 113mm). [vi],(272)pp. Bound in a stylish recent full black morocco, banded and gilt; to edge gilt; a few small internal marks and spots, but otherwise a very good copy.

£750

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44474 – or simply click on the button

[Bideford] : Sunstone Press, (1993). First edition : published in a limited edition of 100 copies by Hughes’ own Sunstone Press, but this copy, without the limitation statement, evidently bound up from a small over-run of sheets remaining at the printers. Twenty-eight poems on the creatures of the sea – “Starfish”, “Whelk”, “Whale”, “Lobster”, etc. – each stunningly illustrated with a full-page colour illustration by Hughes’s Sunstone partner, the artist Reginald James Lloyd (b.1926). A disagreement with his regular publishers, Faber & Faber, over this “naughty adventure” in self-publishing meant that when the Faber edition eventually appeared, after Hughes’ death and six years later, the illustrations were by a different artist (Flora McDonnell) and, attractive as they are, they are simply not the original illustrations of this full collaboration between artist and poet – the work of each inspired by the other.
Demy 8vo (210 x 148mm). [iv],28 leaves. Frontispiece and twenty-eight full-page coloured illustrations by Lloyd; bound in an elegant full pale blue straight-grain morocco, with Lloyd’s original “kelp” endpapers; a very good copy indeed of one of the scarcest of Hughes’ printed books. Just a single copy (Cambridge) of this edition located in major libraries worldwide.

£500

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44401 – or simply click on the button

London : Smith, Elder & Co., 1847. First edition. A sparkling collection of Hunt’s essays for the magazines – Hunt on fact and fiction; inside an omnibus; a visit to the zoo; beds and bedrooms; the world of books; a few remarks on the rare vice called lying; female beauty; statesmen-poets; English queens; social morality in Suckling and Jonson; the other side of Alexander Pope; the beneficence of bookstalls; bookbinding; British poetesses; Lady Mary Wortley Montagu; Pepys in Tangier; Madame de Sévigné – and much else.
Two volumes. Post 8vo (21cm). (xii),324 + [ii],32,[ii]pp advertisements dated June and October 1847; (xii),358,[ii]pp. Portrait frontispiece. Original red-pink cloth, lettered in gilt and elaborately blocked in blind, by Westleys & Clark, with their ticket; just a touch rubbed and dulled; a few minor marks, but a very good and sound set.

SOLD

London : Thomas Cautley Newby, 1849 [but 1848]. First edition. A complicated tale of a boy of mysterious parentage, gambling losses, forgery, escape abroad, faked death, exile, false names, trials and the eventual establishment of innocence. “Throughout all his books, we find ourselves in the company of an intelligent, cultivated, good-natured, well-mannered gentleman. This, with his lively mode of putting together incidents so as to give the most commonplace a turn of novelty ... sufficiently account for the audience he has obtained” (The Examiner, 16th December 1848).
Three volumes. Medium 12mo (189 x 113mm). [ii],(322); [ii],336; [ii],338pp. Bound, without the advertisement leaves sometimes found, in a neat contemporary half maroon calf, banded and gilt; marbled sides; sprinkled edges; a few minor signs of age and use; a few faint marks; manuscript shelf-marks to spines; but a very good set. With the contemporary ownership inscriptions and armorial bookplates of William Edward Powell (1788-1854) of Nanteos, Lord Lieutenant and M.P. for Cardiganshire, and the more recent bookplate of the book-collector – Robert James Hayhurst (1929-2016).

SOLD

London : New Fiction Press, [1952]. First edition. “She’d been sitting at the bar for half-an-hour and during that time she’d ordered and drunk three Martinis. That’s a lot of Martinis for a tight little package to consume in half-an-hour. Especially a dame who’s young as well as cute ...”. The second book in Janson’s fourth series – the subject of twenty-four destruction orders by various local authorities – and one of a number of books that several booksellers on the Isle of Man were prosecuted for selling in July 1953 (Holland pp.133-134).
Crown 8vo (19cm). 126,[ii]pp. Original pictorial stapled wrappers in a design by Reginald Heade (1901-1957) – pained redhead in plunging green with blood on her hands; a few slight marks; faint crease on lower wrapper, but otherwise an excellent copy of a scarce title. Just a single copy (British Library) located in major libraries worldwide. Williams & Holland 38.

£100

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 32896 – or simply click on the button

London : Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington, 1882. First edition : in the variant green (a) binding – Miller & Matthews (B15) make a persuasive case for regarding these slightly taller copies in green as having appeared earlier than the regular copies in brown. Jefferies and his haunting evocation of a Wiltshire childhood – “where there was magic in everything, blades of grass and stars, the sun and the stones upon the ground”.
Three volumes. Crown 8vo (180 x 119mm). viii,(288); iv,294,[ii]; iv,294,[ii]pp. Original decorative green cloth, blocked in black and gilt, and lettered in gilt; patterned endpapers; a few very minor signs of age and use; some occasional spotting to prelims and edges, but an excellent set. W. H. Smith blind-stamp to front free endpaper of the first volume.

£1,000

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44395 – or simply click on the button

New York : Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1951. First edition. His first and most famous novel, based on his own army experiences in the months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, which he witnessed. An immediate success, winner of the National Book Award, always included in lists of the major novels of the twentieth century, and the basis of the memorable and multiple Oscar-winning 1953 film, with Burt Lancaster, Deborah Kerr, Montgomery Clift, Frank Sinatra, etc.
Demy 8vo (207 x 136mm). [xii],(862)pp. Bound in an elegant recent half black morocco, by Bayntun-Riviere; top edge gilt; marbled sides and endleaves; very faint crease to the final leaves, but otherwise an excellent copy, clean and sound.

£400

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44486 – or simply click on the button

London & Cambridge : Macmillan & Co., 1866. First edition. The last novel published by Kingsley, Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge and friend of Darwin. The final resistance against the Norman conquerors – the “splendid barbarian” and folk-hero Hereward of the Fens, son of Leofric, Earl of Mercia and Lady Godiva – and his witch-wife Torfrida, “whose true witchery lay in her intellect, her courage, and her unswerving love” (The Globe, 30th April 1866). “To lovers of the old class of reading wherein the heroic deeds of our forefathers are graphically described, no better volumes could be read” (Cheltenham Chronicle, 10th July 1866).
Two volumes. Crown 8vo (184 x 123mm). viii,(366); viii,402,[ii]pp. Bound, without the advertisement leaf in vol.i sometimes found, in an elegant later (early twentieth-century) half black morocco; top edges gilt; marbled endleaves; some very minor rubbing and bruising; a few occasional internal marks and spots, but an attractive set. From the notable modern collection of Robert James Hayhurst (1929-2016), with his bookplate.

£400

Currently on display at Bryars & Bryars in central London, please enquire about availability – books@ashrare.com

London : Bickers & Son, [1918]. First edition : the London issue of the American sheets. Thirty-six tales of inspiring bravery, ancient and modern, grouped under the headings of “Facing Death to Avoid It”, “The Treasure-Seekers”, “Soldiers Who Knew No Fear”, “Some Exploits of the Sea”, and “Famous Deeds of Discipline”, with individual chapter titles such as, “How an Artist Outwitted a Pope”, “A Great Novelist among the Corsairs”, etc.
Post 8vo (197 x 129mm). xii,420pp. Sixteen plates. Bound in a handsome full prize tree calf, by Bickers & Son, banded and gilt, with the arms of Guy Henry Fisher-Rowe (1877-1946) of St. David’s School, Reigate, on the upper cover; top edge gilt; marbled endpapers; just a hint of rubbing, but a very good copy indeed. School prize-label dated 1930, signed by Fisher-Rowe, and made out to W. G. Peck of the Lower Third.

£100

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44460 – or simply click on the button

London : Robert John Bush, 1877. First edition. More inspired nonsense from Edward Lear – with the present collection containing the first appearance of “The Dong with the Luminous Nose”, “The Pobble Who Has No Toes”, “The Yonghy-Bonghy-Bò”, “The Pelican Chorus”, “The Akond of Swat”, etc.
Foolscap 4to (200 x 158mm). [128],4pp. Numerous illustrations by the author, music, etc. Bound in an elegant recent half russet morocco, banded and gilt; top edge gilt; some internal marks and spots, but a handsomely bound copy of some of the most inspired nonsense in the language.

£500

Currently on display at Bryars & Bryars in central London, please enquire about availability – books@ashrare.com

London : Macmillan & Co., 1942. First illustrated edition. The most famous village cricket match in all fiction – although some find Macdonell’s account of the League of Nations, of which he had just as much personal experience, even funnier. Not wholly disguised behind their fictional names are J. C. Squire (William Hodge), Nancy Astor (Lady Ormerode), J. B. Morton (Tommy Huggins) and the still-surviving Invalids Cricket Club. First published in 1933 but here for the first time with the memorable illustrations of John Evans and a prefatory note in memory of Archie Macdonell by Squire.
Crown 8vo (184 x 115mm). (xii),(300)pp. Bound in an elegant recent half red morocco, banded and gilt; a very good copy indeed – clean, sound and handsomely bound.

SOLD

London : Bernard Kaye Agency, [1950]. First edition – the ninth of the Steve Markham titles, written for the most part by Stephen Frances (Hank Janson) and/or Geoffrey Pardoe. “If you ever want to knock anybody off, you hire the cold blooded Tweedy Twins ... but Lola fell heavily for Johnny Tweedy and she didn’t know till too late that Johnny spelt death, just by looking at you. Johnny’s brother Bill fell for Lola but he was too late ...”.
Crown 8vo (18cm). [iv],9-116pp. Original pictorial stapled wrappers – Lola and the Tweedy Twins, possibly by John Pollack; short split at head; minor wear at foot, but a very good copy overall, with just a hint of rust to the staples. Just a single copy (Bodleian) located in major libraries worldwide.

£100

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44036 – or simply click on the button

London : Saunders & Otley, 1836. First edition. Marryat’s amiable and abidingly popular tale of the making of a seaman – although as one modern critic has it, “there’s something here to offend almost everyone”. Contemporary critics found it “a work of great power and surpassing beauty, sufficient of itself to have established his reputation as a man of genius” (London Courier, 19th December 1836).
Three volumes. Demy 12mo (186 x 112mm). (viii),(292); (viii),306; viii,314pp. Bound, without half-titles and advertisement leaves, in a neat contemporary half tan calf, banded and gilt; red labels; marbled sides, edges and endleaves; just a touch sunned; a few faint signs of age and use, but a very good and sound set. With the contemporary armorial bookplates of John Wingfield (1769-1862) of Onslow, Sheriff of Shropshire and Mayor of Shrewsbury, in each volume – and the more recent nautical bookplate of the notable collector Robert James Hayhurst (1929-2016).

£500

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44509 – or simply click on the button

London : William Heinemann, (1927). First edition. Kay Harker seeks the stolen fortune of his sea-faring great-grandfather – a celebrated fantasy novel for children.
Crown 8vo (20cm). (328)pp. Original blue cloth, ruled in blind and lettered in gilt; small mark to top edge; a few faint spots, but overall a very good, bright and sound copy in the dust-jacket – a striking pictorial design in green, grey and blue – the jacket just a little edge-worn, and with some spotting to rear panel and flaps, but also very good.

£150

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44384 – or simply click on the button

London : Methuen & Co., (1928). First edition. “One day when Pooh Bear had nothing else to do, he thought he would do something, so he went round to Piglet’s house to see what Piglet was doing”. Illustrations, endpapers, and cover-design by the inimitable Ernest H. Shepard.
Crown 8vo (20cm). (xii),(180)pp. Original pink cloth, ruled, blocked, and lettered in gilt; top edge gilt; just a touch dulled; some very mild rubbing and wear to extremities; faint tanning of endpapers; slight spotting of edges, but overall a very good copy.

£400

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 43066 – or simply click on the button

London : Michael Joseph, (1961). First edition. A review copy, with the publisher’s slip loosely inserted – and from the library of the crime writer, reviewer and broadcaster “Anthony Lejeune” (1928-2018). Dame Beatrice is called on by a school-mistress friend to extricate her from the possibility of an attempted murder charge – and then there’s a corpse – “a combination of murder, archaeology and games mistresses” (Illustrated London News, 2nd September 1961).
Crown 8vo (20cm). (240)pp. Original black boards, blocked and lettered in gilt; a few edge spots; endpapers slightly tanned, but a very good copy in the Kenneth Farnhill dust-jacket – the jacket just lightly used and a little tanned on rear panel, but also very good.

£100

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44399 – or simply click on the button

[London : George Virtue, 1831]. A highly attractive “gothick” map of the county prepared by the antiquary Thomas Moule. Decorated with an ornamental border, coats of arms, and inset views of Cashiobury and St. Alban’s Abbey. Engraved by William Schmollinger (1811?-1869) and originally produced in 1831 for the part-work series “The English Counties Delineated” (London : 1830-1837) – and here in earliest state (Hodson 94.i) before the addition of railways, etc.
Steel line engraving on paper. Original hand colour. Engraved surface 200 x 261mm (approx. 7-3/4” x 10-1/4”). Trimmed a little tight (as usual); a few faint spots and specks, but overall in very good and clean state. Rare in this earliest state and with original colour. A guaranteed genuine antique map.

£125

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 43915 – or simply click on the button

[London : George Virtue, 1834]. An attractive town-plan decorated with the coats of arms of the city and the colleges, and a vignette view of Trinity. Originally engraved by John Crane Dower (1791?-1847) in 1834 for Moule’s “English Counties Delineated” series (London : 1830-1837).
Steel line engraving on paper. Original hand colour. Engraved surface 205 x 253mm (approx. 8” x 10”). Trimmed a little tight at foot; a few faint marks and spots, but overall in very good and clean state. A guaranteed genuine antique map.

£125

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 43933 – or simply click on the button

London : MacGibbon & Kee, 1964. First edition of the last novel published in his lifetime – “the best comic fantasy since ‘Tristram Shandy’” – mad scientist plots the end of the world, time travel used to age whiskey, both James Joyce and St. Augustine with speaking parts, etc.
Post 8vo (21cm). 222,[ii]pp. Original green boards, lettered in gilt; a very good, clean and sound copy in a just lightly used and slightly creased dust-jacket.

£250

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 42284 – or simply click on the button

London : Secker & Warburg, 1949. First edition. “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen ...”. The most compelling and chilling novel of the twentieth century – not least in that it can no longer be wholly regarded as fiction.
Crown 8vo (183 x 121mm). 312pp. Bound in a smart recent dark green full morocco, banded and gilt; all edges gilt; a couple of minor internal marks, but overall a very good, clean and sound copy, handsomely bound.

SOLD

London : Anthony Blond, (1965). First edition. It’s 1959 and they were all at the wedding – ministers, patrons, editors, friends high and low, and a skeleton at the feast. The second volume in the “Alms for Oblivion” sequence.
Post 8vo (21cm). (248)pp. Original green boards, blocked and lettered in white; a few edge-spots, but a very good copy in the Oliver Elmes dust-jacket – just very faintly sunned at spine, but also very good.

£100

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 42564 – or simply click on the button

London : W. Reed, [ca.1845]. A handsome map of England and Wales, displaying the burgeoning railway network on a silk scarf or handkerchief. The map shows both completed lines and those under proposal and can be fairly precisely dated – the line from London to Exeter is completed (1844), but not the extension to Plymouth (1846); the line to Colchester is completed (1843), but not the extension to Ipswich (1846), etc. The publisher may possibly be identified with William Reed, linendraper, of Church Street, Rotherhithe.
Lithograph in black on cream silk, with a broad border dyed a deep crimson. Overall size 83 x 93cm, approx. 32-7/8” x 36-3/4”. Evidence of old folds, a few tiny holes and small flaws, but overall in very good condition for a scarce and ephemeral map of this type. Only the National Library of Wales copy (which may be a variant) traced in major libraries worldwide.

SOLD

[London] : Thomas De La Rue & Co., [ca.1930]. “Blow at the Vane, With Might and Main, Your Temper True, It Shows to You”. A card-game for four to eight players – fifty-four cards designed by Robinson, divided into nine sets of winds and temperaments (Sunny, Raging, Blustering, etc.), each comprising six cards (Ferocious Feminist, Howling Highbrow, Vile Vulgarian, etc). Housed in the original decorative compartmented cardboard box, complete with all fifty-four cards, a set of rules, and the wooden compass with its metal weathervane spinner.
Fifty-four cards by Robinson, each 89 x 58mm. The box a little worn, but the contents in very good and full working order.

SOLD

London : Hutchinson & Co. (Publishers), [1939]. First edition. “In England nowadays it is practically impossible to be both law-abiding and a car-owner; try as the latter may to keep abreast of the regulations, new ones pop up at the rate of six a week” – Heath Robinson causing havoc on the roads – “How a Car Works”; “How to Choose a Car”; “How to Drive a Car”; “Maintenance and Simple Repairs”; “Road Sense and Etiquette” (“no car looks its best with half a bicycle and a total stranger impaled on its front”); “Special Bodies”; “Accessories”; “Foreign Touring and Caravan Life”, etc.
Crown 8vo (20cm). (x),116,[ii]pp. Illustrations by Robinson throughout. Original red cloth, blocked and lettered in black; top edge red; faint patch of fading at foot of top cover; pictorial endpapers lightly tanned; but a very good copy in the original Robinson dust-jacket – the jacket slightly nicked and chipped, with a few short tears, but substantially complete and a welcome survival.

SOLD

London : Tinsley Brothers, 1863. First edition. A rare novel from Sala, probably at this time the most popular journalist in the country. The adventures of a buccaneering captain of the eighteenth century – “adventures of every kind, perilous and perplexing, manifold and marvellous” (The Sun, 23rd May 1863) – set variously in London, Jamaica, Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris, Malta, Algiers and Constantinople. Despite the improbability of some of the adventures, Sala is at pains to point out in an extended preface that all are based on true happenings, giving sources for many of them.
Three volumes. Crown 8vo (187 x 229mm). xx,318; iv,(316); iv,(308)pp. Bound in a smart early twentieth-century half red morocco, banded and gilt; marbled sides and matching endleaves; some minor rubbing and bruising; a few faint marks, but a very good set. With the nautical bookplate of the celebrated book-collector Robert James Hayhurst (1929-2016).

SOLD

London : The Studio, 1910. First edition. A handsomely bound and richly illustrated monograph, with an admirably researched history of the genre.
Demy 4to (287 x 199mm). xii,(44)pp. 128 plates. Contemporary half red morocco, banded and gilt, for Sotheran, by Alfred & Frank Denny of the Strand; top edge gilt; some minor wear; some occasional spotting, but a very good copy.

£100

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 10307 – or simply click on the button

London : Methuen & Co., (1930). The first edition of this enduring classic – “the result of years of research in golf-clubs, gun-rooms, green-rooms, etc. ... for Pheasant read Peasant, throughout”. Illustrated by John Reynolds (1909-1935).
Crown 8vo (183 x 121mm). xii,116,8pp. Bound in a handsome recent half red morocco, banded and gilt; original cloth decorated front panel preserved at rear; a few faint marks and spots, but a very good and attractive copy of a difficult title.

£500

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 43591 – or simply click on the button

London : John Murray, 1845. First edition. A key novel in the whole Tractarian, Young England, Oxford Movement controversies of the times – a lament for the loss of Anglican faith, hostility to the industrial world, profound opposition to Rome and the Jesuits – and yet also a lurid and sensational novel, widely read and hugely popular, especially in the United States. “Hawkstone has the rare merit of being written throughout with more or less of intellectual power. It does not contain a single page in which the evidence of mind is not apparent” (John Bull, 29th March 1845).
Two volumes. Foolscap 8vo (159 x 99cm). viii,396; [ii],422pp. Bound, without half-titles, in a neat contemporary half tan calf, banded, gilt, and worked in blind; black labels; marbled sides, edges, and endleaves; some very minor wear; a handful of internal spots, but a very good set. Contemporary ownership inscriptions of Mary Hobson, and later owner’s 1909 name.

£200

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44482 – or simply click on the button

London : Charles Knight & Co., [1838-1843]. The first Charles Knight edition. Comprises two volumes each of the comedies, histories and tragedies, as well as the poems, a volume of seventeen doubtful plays sometimes ascribed to Shakespeare (or Shakspere, as Knight insists on having it), together with commendatory verses, a history of critical opinion, material on Shakespeare in Germany, indexes, and a final volume of Knight’s full-length biography. All furnished with introductory notices, notes, variant readings, a glossary, music to the songs, etc. – and profusely illustrated throughout by the leading wood-engravers of the day from the designs of William Harvey (1796-1866) and others. Using the latest technology, Charles Knight (1791-1873) was in the vanguard of bringing the price of books within everyday reach and bringing education and edification in their train with the use of copious illustration – here insisting on illustrations of “the realities upon which the imagination of the poet must have rested ... the localities ... the portraits of the real personages ... accurate costume in all its rich variety”.
Eight volumes. Royal 8vo (240 x 159mm). Pictorial title-pages, profuse vignettes and decorations throughout. Bound in a handsome contemporary full polished plum calf, banded and gilt; silk ribbons; some minor rubbing; a few scratches; a few front endpapers slightly split, but still firm; a handful of minor marks, but a very good, overall very clean and sound set of a tour-de-force of early Victorian publishing. Contemporary bookplates of William Payne to each volume – possibly the nineteenth-century actor William Payne (1804-1878), who carried Edmund Kean from the stage when he fell terminally ill in his last ever performance (Othello at Covent Garden in 1833).

£1,000

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44447 – or simply click on the button

London : W. H. Allen & Co., 1893. First edition : in the slightly plainer variant binding, lettered in black on upper cover. “These two amusing Irish ladies ... have been doing the vine country of Médoc, and here we have their impressions of wine-making and French rural life ... They have made a very pleasant book out of their adventures with a kodak ... One description of a rustic ball, which wound up with an ancient dance danced by four ancient dames, is surpassed in humour only by the illustrations, which are throughout very good” (Glasgow Herald, 23rd February 1893).
Crown 8vo (20cm). 237,[iii]pp. Illustrations by Frederick Henry Townsend (1868-1920) from Somerville’s own sketches. Original green pictorial cloth, ruled and lettered on spine in gilt, blocked and lettered in black; some very minor edge-wear; outer leaves a little tanned; a touch shaken and slack, but otherwise a very good copy.

£125

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44455 – or simply click on the button

London : W. H. Allen & Co., 1893 [but 1892]. First edition : in the more attractive of the two green variant bindings. “This is a very funny book of adventure which reads like a novel. Two Irishwomen disgusted with London weather, undertook a trip through Connemara” (Cork Constitution, 21st November 1892). With illustrations by W. W. Russell, worked up (not wholly to her approval) from Somerville’s original sketches.
Crown 8vo (20cm). viii,200 + 32pp advertisements dated January 1893. Full page illustrations. Original green cloth, pictorially blocked (to Somerville’s design) on spine and upper cover in blue, ochre and black, and lettered on upper cover and spine in gilt; black endpapers; just a touch of wear; front endpaper strained; a few mild flaws, but overall a very good copy. Contemporary presentation inscription on behalf of the Oxford Gardens Girls’ School Swimming Club to Constance Cave – first prize for for “swimming on back” – presumably Constance Cave (1884-1919), daughter of a London jeweller.

£200

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44454 – or simply click on the button

London : Longmans, Green & Co., 1906. First edition. “A new volume of stories from the vivacious joint pens ... is always welcome ... the stories, like their predecessors, are instinct with life and humour, and are told in a style which is at once restrained and roystering, a rare enough combination” (The Bystander, 24th October 1906). A collection of thirteen illustrated stories and articles, together with Somerville’s delightful pictorial “Slipper’s ABC of Fox-Hunting”.
Crown 8vo (20cm). viii,(252)pp. Plates and illustrations by Somerville. Original fawn cloth, lettered in black, with a black and white pictorial onlay on upper cover; very faintly rubbed and slightly tanned; very light spotting of endpapers, but a very good copy. Contemporary (October 1906) ownership inscription of M. L. Kinsey.

£100

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44453 – or simply click on the button

London : Cassell & Co., 1886. First edition : the first issue, with the various errors – “nine o’clock” for “twelve o’clock” in the first line of p.64, etc., without the numerals at the foot of the last page of text, and with the advertisements dated April 1886.
Crown 8vo (20cm). viii,311,[i] + 16pp advertisements. Folding coloured map. Original variant blue cloth; a little bruised, darkened and lightly worn; a few marks; slightly shaken and slack; a few leaves roughly opened and slightly nicked and chipped; a few internal marks and spots, but a reasonable copy.

£500

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 40966 – or simply click on the button

London : Chatto & Windus, 1887. First edition. A powerful collection of six stories from Stevenson, including the title story – a dramatic tale of shipwreck and treasure hunt in the Hebrides; the moving and philosophical “Will o’ the Mill”; “Markheim” and murder in an antique shop; the horror classic “Thrawn Janet”; the gothic “Olalla”, set in Spain, and the interesting and unusual “The Treasure of Franchard”.
Crown 8vo (19cm). [x],296 + 32pp advertisements dated September 1886. Original blue cloth, decorated in a striking design of silver stars and black floral sprays; some light wear; covers a little marked and smudged; mild discolouration of top edge; a few edge-spots, but still a good copy. Later ownership inscription of Jessie Kennedy (1938).

£100

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 40831 – or simply click on the button

London : Walter Spiers, 1838. First edition. The first appearance of Jorrocks – ten stories from the “New Sporting Magazine” here revised and polished for their first publication in book form.
Demy 8vo (24cm). [viii],358,[ii],8pp. Twelve etched plates by “Phiz” (Hablot Knight Browne, 1815-1882). Original publisher’s pictorial morocco cloth, extensively blocked in gilt and blind; some very minor wear at foot; top edge a touch dusty; plates showing light spotting and offsetting in places, but a very good copy indeed, in a most attractive and early example of a publisher’s cloth gilt case. With the unusual contemporary armorial ownership stamp of the London solicitor Charles Ranken Vickerman (1817-1897).

SOLD

London : Hutchinson & Co., 1902. First edition. One of the great masters of the game, five times Open Champion – with a masterly overview of the whole subject: the rise and progress of the game; Irish and Welsh links; golf overseas; artisan golfers; university and public school golf; championships and their courses; money; hints on learning; golf for ladies; medal play; match play; lengthening courses for the improved new balls; inland and seaside courses; clubs; driving; approaching; putting, etc., etc. All illustrated with forty-eight photographs, mainly of Taylor in action – many by the pioneer of action photography George William Beldam (1868-1937). “Always remember that however good you may be, the game is your master”.
Post 8vo (21cm). viii,328pp. Forty-eight plates. Original decorative cloth gilt; top edge gilt; lightly worn and slightly bruised; a little shaken; endpapers slightly cracked; a few internal marks, creases and small flaws, but a good copy.

SOLD

London : Edward Moxon, 1855. First edition. Eight poems – one of Tennyson’s major collections (and his own favourite to the end of his days), which added not only “Come into the garden, Maud ...”, but also “Half a league onward ...”, “Their’s not to reason why ...” and “Cannon to the right of them ...” to the universal canon of most quoted lines.
Foolscap 8vo (165 x 100mm). [viii],154pp. Bound, without advertisements, in a fine full contemporary plum straight-grain morocco by James Hayday (1796-1872); banded and richly gilt; all edges gilt; a hint of rubbing; endpapers darkened at edges; a few faint spots; a few pencil marks, but a very good copy indeed.

SOLD

London : Edward Moxon & Co., 1859. First edition : the probably earlier variant state without the printers’ imprint on the verso of the title-page. “The brave Geraint, a knight of Arthur’s court ...” – Tennyson commences his great Arthurian cycle of poems with “Enid”, “Vivien”, “Elaine” and “Guinevere”.
Foolscap 8vo (167 x 100mm). [viii],(262)pp. Bound, without half-title or advertisements, in an elegant contemporary full plum straight-grain morocco, banded and elaborately worked in gilt, by James Hayday (1796-1872); all edges gilt; a touch of rubbing; endpapers darkened at edges; a handful of spots, but a very good copy. Pencilled ownership inscription.

SOLD

London : Edward Moxon & Co., 1864. First edition. A collection of sixteen poems from Tennyson at the height of his powers, including “Sea Dreams”, “The Voyage”, “Tithonus”, etc. – “‘Enoch Arden’, the first poem in the volume, and from which it takes its name, is as beautiful a poem as we have had even from Tennyson” (Westmorland Gazette, 20th August 1864).
Foolscap 8vo (166 x 101mm). [iv],178pp. Bound, without advertisements, in an attractive contemporary full burgundy morocco, banded and gilt; all edges gilt; some very minor rubbing; a few scattered spots, but a very good copy.

SOLD

New York & London : Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1903. First edition. Over fifty poems omitted from the Collected Works, or only included in an unreliable text – culled from the earliest editions, from annuals and periodicals – and together “possessing a value much beyond that of a mere collection of literary curiosities” (from J. C. Thomson’s preface). Includes a number of sonnets, as well as earlier versions of some of his best-known works.
Crown 8vo (194 x 129mm). (x),(202)pp. Bound in a lavish full maroon crushed morocco, banded and extra gilt, by Henry Blackwell (1851-1928) of New York; top edge gilt; morocco gilt doublures and watered silk free endpapers; some minor wear to front joint, but otherwise a very good copy in a fine binding by the Welsh-born Blackwell.

SOLD

London : Smith, Elder & Co., 1858. First edition. Thackeray’s perceptive lectures on Swift, Congreve, Addison, Steele, Prior, Gay, Pope, Hogarth, Smollett, Fielding, Sterne and Goldsmith. Also bound in at the front of the present volume is Richard Hannay’s “A Brief Memoir of the Late Mr Thackeray” (Edinburgh : Oliver & Boyd, 1864).
Two volumes, bound in one. Foolscap 8vo (164 x 100mm). (32) + [iv],(342)pp. Bound in an elegant contemporary half red sealskin, banded and gilt; marbled edges and endleaves; cup-marks to covers, but otherwise a very good, clean and sound copy, with a distinguished provenance. From the library of the poet and essayist Austin Dobson (1840-1921), with his “Autant Icy Qu’Ailleurs” bookplate, designed by Alfred Parsons (1847-1920) and the library dispersal label. Also with the earlier “Thackeray” bookplate of the American essayist, critic and book-collector Laurence Hutton (1843-1904), who was presumably responsible for binding the two works together.

SOLD

London : Bradbury & Evans, 1855. First edition. Set in the decades following on from “Vanity Fair” (and reintroducing some of the characters in peripheral roles), Thackeray gives his most complete exploration of character, wealth, marriage and religion. “One of the few immortal novels ... As a novel of English upper and middle class life, it remains without a rival” (Helen Rex Keller).
Two volumes. Demy 8vo (216 x 134mm). viii,380; viii,(376)pp. Frontispieces, extra pictorial titles, forty-four plates and numerous wood-engravings in the text by the celebrated Richard Doyle (1824-1883). Bound (without half-titles) in a handsome near contemporary half crimson roan, banded and gilt, by James Maclehose (1811-1885) of Glasgow; marbled sides, edges and endleaves; a hint of rubbing and bruising; a few tiny scuffs; a handful of spots, but overall a very good, clean, bright and sound set. With the attractive gold-printed pictorial bookplate of A. P. Urquhart in each volume, and the small book label of the distinguished Newcastle bookseller Robert D. Steedman in the first.

SOLD

London : Robert Holden & Co., (1915 [but 1926]). [Second edition]. The first and most famous of the Doctor Syn novels – the piratical vicar of Dymchurch – rum-running, night-riding and coffins. Thorndike starred in his own touring production of a stage version in the 1920s, produced by his sister – Dame Sybil Thorndike (1882-1976) – who contributes a foreword to the present edition. It was filmed in 1937 with George Arliss, Margaret Lockwood, etc.
Crown 8vo (181 x 117mm). 256pp. Bound, without preliminary blanks, in a fine recent half blue morocco, by Bayntun-Riviere; top edge gilt; marbled sides and endleaves; a sprinkling of edge-spots, but a very good copy.

£250

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44484 – or simply click on the button

London : George Vickers, 1863 [i.e.1862]. First edition. “Yes, I am a thief! I will not say that I glory in the title ... but, as I am about to write my ‘Confessions’, as other men, great in their way – and I am a very great man in mine – have done before me, I may as well start fair, and own myself at once what I am, what I always have been, what I was born, bred, and brought up – A THIEF!” – the book was announced in the “London Evening Standard” on 11th December 1862 as to be published in ornamental boards at a shilling and sixpence on the 15th December – “The disclosures made in this volume will be read with deep and peculiar interest. It is full of information”. Sometimes attributed to Irving Lyons, author of “The Boy Pirate” and “Black Rollo, the Pirate”, although no contemporary person of that name has been traced. The book was evidently not a success: 896 copies were auctioned off at Hodgson’s in October 1863, along with 50,000 assorted others books classified as “capital popular books, railway reading, &c.”.
Foolscap 8vo (17cm). viii,312pp. Original decorative boards; spine darkened, worn and chipped; edges rubbed; lower hinge cracking; lacks front free endpaper; an indifferent but serviceable copy of a cheaply made and extremely rare book. Just two copies (Amsterdam and Harry Ransom, Texas) of this edition located in major libraries worldwide, none in the United Kingdom.

£250

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 41282 – or simply click on the button

London : David Bogue, 1855. First edition. The final realisation of an idea first hatched in 1828 – an encyclopaedic dictionary of London – from the Adelphi to the Zoological Gardens – mixing the “entertaining and anecdotic” with “social statistics and other Great Facts”. Compiled by John Timbs F.S.A., author, journalist and antiquary. As “agreeable a book as you could wish to meet with. There is so much out-of-the-way reading in it – such apt introduction of personal experience” (The Examiner, 5th May 1855).
Foolscap 8vo (18cm). viii,800 + 32pp advertisements dated July 1857. Portrait frontispiece. Original publisher’s cloth by Leighton, Son & Hodge, with their ticket; lightly sunned; slight spine crease; front free endpaper neatly excised, but overall a very good copy. Small contemporary booksellers’ label of Mann Nephews of Cornhill.

£125

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 42463 – or simply click on the button

London : Richard Bentley, 1858 [but 1857]. First edition. “The best of the new novels. The author has left Barchester Cloisters and now finds his way into the civil service, upon which he has ideas as strong as those he has expressed about ecclesiastical endowments ... unusually good, and the character-painting ... excellent” (The Examiner, 19th December 1857). Trollope regarded it as “certainly the best novel I had as yet written” – notable also for what he regarded as his first successful love scene and the first appearance of Chaffanbrass.
Three volumes. Demy 12mo (181 x 111mm). iv,340; iv,322; iv,334pp. Bound in a neat, early twentieth-century, half blue calf, banded and gilt; marbled endpapers; sprinkled edges; some very minor rubbing and bruising; internally a little thumbed, with small marks, some creases, and very occasional annotation and underlining, but a good set of a scarce early title, most of the original 1,000 copies being intended for library lending. Sadleir 6.

£750

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44475 – or simply click on the button

London : Chapman & Hall, 1862. First edition, in book form, bound up from the original monthly instalments published between March 1861 and October 1862. Wills, codicils, property, family and love – “The plot of ‘Orley Farm’ is probably the best I have ever made ... I do not know that there is a dull page ... especially proud of its illustrations by Millais, which are the best I have seen in any novel in any language” (Trollope).
Two volumes. Demy 8vo (209 x 130mm). viii,320; viii,320pp. Forty stylish plates after Sir John Everett Millais (1829-1896). Bound, without half-titles, in a handsome turn-of-the-century half chestnut crushed morocco, banded and gilt, by Morrell – the bindery at this time headed by William John Morrell (1865-1957); top edges gilt; marbled sides and endpapers; just a hint of rubbing and mild wear; a touch bruised; some occasional spotting, but a very good set. With the armorial bookplates of the Hon. Henry Lloyd Gibbs (1861-1907), well-to-do City merchant, who died the day after his father, Lord Aldenham, in September 1907.

SOLD

London : Chapman & Hall, 1873. First British edition. One of Trollope’s best and most enjoyable – and “one of the most entertaining, worthless, attractive women in the history of the novel: the totally amoral Lizzie Eustace” (P. D. James). “The novel is rare in fine state, for it had great library popularity ... few copies in good original condition have survived the zeal of contemporary readers” (Sadleir, writing in 1928).
Three volumes. Crown 8vo (183 x 123mm). viii,354; viii,(364); viii,(354)pp. Bound (for Hatchard’s of Piccadilly), complete with half-titles, in a smart later (early twentieth-century) half red morocco; top edges gilt; marbled sides and endpapers; silk ribbons; a few very minor internal marks, spots and small flaws, but overall a very good set in a handsome binding. Monogram bookplates – possibly of George Capel Cure (1853-1943) of Blake Hall, Ongar – engraved by Allan Wyon (1843-1907), together with the more recent bookplate of the notable modern collector Robert James Hayhurst (1929-2016). Sadleir 39.

SOLD

London : Elkin Mathews & Marrot / New York : Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1927. First edition : limited to 530 numbered copies. Eleven witty Trollope sketches written in 1880 for the “Pall Mall Gazette” and never previously published in book form – The Tailor, The Chemist, The Butcher, The Plumber, The Horsedealer, The Publican, The Fishmonger, The Greengrocer, The Wine Merchant, The Coal Merchant and The Haberdasher. With a foreword by Michael Sadleir.
Crown 8vo. [2],xiv,(98),[ii]pp. Original dark red quarter cloth, marbled boards, lettered on spine in gilt; a few faint marks, some slight spotting, but a very good copy of an attractive book, in the remains of the original glassine dust-jacket.

£75

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44435 – or simply click on the button

London : J. Wallis, [ca.1814]. First edition : the second state, with the addition of plate numbers to Wallis’s delightfully engraved sequence of maps. A very pretty pocket atlas of the English counties, generally dated to 1810, although surely post-dating Wallis’s larger county atlas of that year and probably datable to about 1812, with the present issue (distinguished by the addition of plate numbers) probably dating from about 1814.
Pott 4to (146 x 109mm). Engraved title-page, contents page, general map of England and Wales, forty-two county maps (one – Yorkshire – double-page), two regional maps of North and South Wales, and a smaller map of the Isle of Wight – all with original hand colour. Original publisher’s half sheep, with the publisher’s leather label on upper board; some minor wear and marking, with slight splitting; a little shaken and slightly loose; short split to double-page map; one map (Wiltshire) deftly attached or re-attached by two old metal pins, and possibly supplied from another copy, but overall an attractive example of a charming pocket companion. Contemporary (1818) ownership inscription of the untraced Hannah Wessely or Wepely, with the additional message “Forget me Not”.

£500

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 40969 – or simply click on the button

London : Chapman & Hall, (1932). First edition. His third novel – the modernisation of the Azanian empire.
Crown 8vo (20cm). (304)pp. Frontispiece map. Original lizard pattern red and black cloth, lettered in gilt; just lightly rubbed; some spotting, mainly to prelims and edges; a few faint marks, but a very good copy. Faint ownership inscription of M. A. Watson.

£125

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 40702 – or simply click on the button

London : Chapman & Hall, 1945. First edition. “Chapter One : I meet Sebastian Flyte – and Anthony Blanche – I visit Brideshead for the first time”.
Crown 8vo (186 x 122mm). 304pp. Bound in an elegant recent full burgundy morocco, banded and ruled in gilt; a very good copy.

SOLD

London : Contact Publications, [1950]. First edition. One of apparently only three contemporary spin-offs of the Dick Barton radio phenomenon – and the most significant. Nine Dick Barton stories by the original BBC scriptwriters (later to write “The Archers”), all appearing in book form for the first time, with six of them as yet un-broadcast. With numerous stirring text illustrations, cover design and colour frontispiece by George Mitchell.
Crown 4to (26cm). 160pp. Illustrations almost throughout. Original cloth-backed pictorial boards; some minor rubbing and mild wear; a few slight marks, but still overall a very good copy.

£50

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44438 – or simply click on the button

London : Thomas Nelson & Sons, (1910). First edition : the first issue with the advertisement for John Masefield’s “Trepanned” – a quirky title subsequently discarded before publication. “What could be more human or more humorous than Mr Polly as haberdasher’s apprentice, haberdasher incendiary, and tramp” (Montrose Standard, 13th May 1910) – “He hated Foxbourne, he hated Foxbourne High Street, he hated his shop and his wife and his neighbours – every blessed neighbour – and with indescribable bitterness he hated himself”. High comedy in the drapery trade – Wells wouldn’t quite concede that this was his best book, but “certainly it is his happiest book, and the one he cares for the most”.
Crown 8vo (20cm). 374,[x]pp. Colour frontispiece. Original cloth; light spotting of edges, but a very good copy with the notoriously frail white enamel title-panel barely showing signs of wear at all; an excellent copy of this fragile and difficult book. Hammond A6.

£200

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44467 – or simply click on the button

London : Hutchinson & Co. (Publishers), [1932]. First edition : in the primary binding in black cloth, with the pictorial endpapers. “I am a liar in a world of lies” – a much under-rated late Wells novel – a Jungian exploration of the psychological impact of the Great War, the principal character based at least in part on Ford Madox Ford. Dedicated to Wells’ current mistress, Odette Keun.
Post 8vo (21cm). 408 + 40pp advertisements dated January 1933. Original black cloth, lettered in gilt; a very good, bright, clean, and sound copy in the original Youngman Carter dust-jacket, lightly sunned at spine but with just minor wear and a few slight nicks and creases.

£100

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 40836 – or simply click on the button

London : for C. & J. Rivington; J. & A. Arch [and others], 1825. A most attractive edition of White’s 1789 classic. White was the first to take a census of birds, to study their territories and analyse their migration patterns, the first to understand the concept of a food chain. “The young Charles Darwin would grow up with White’s book at his side – [he] is the indispensible precursor to those great Victorians who would transform our ideas about life on earth ... Lyell, Spencer, Huxley and Darwin” (Robert McCrum).
Two volumes. Demy 8vo (216 x 132mm). viii,(352); [iv],364pp. Four engraved plates, one with full hand colour. Bound in full contemporary polished calf, banded and gilt; red labels; marbled edges and endleaves; lightly rubbed; a few slight marks; some spotting to prelims and plates, but still very good set.

£200

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44449 – or simply click on the button

London : Herbert Jenkins, (1931). First British edition. Anthony, Fifth Earl of Droitwich, is poised to marry Violet Waddington, the soup heiress – but then his old nurse turns up to expose the skeleton in the family cupboard. Butlers, aunts, barbers and socialists. First published three weeks earlier in New York.
Crown 8vo (19cm). 280,[viii]pp. Original orange cloth, ruled, blocked and lettered in black; some minor rubbing and faint bruising; front endpaper a little spotted, but a very good, bright and sound copy. With the bookplate of Neil Munro.

SOLD

London : Herbert Jenkins, (1940). First edition : in the variant red cloth. The Wodehouse mix at Claines Hall, a Tudor mansion at Loose Chippings in Sussex, with impecunious peer, lively fiancée, dyspeptic trustee, wealthy American, over-zealous butler, etc.
Crown 8vo (19cm). 252,[iv]pp. Original red cloth, blocked and lettered in gilt and blind; top edge pink; spine sunned at extremities, where the jacket is chipped; a touch bruised; endpapers tanned; some spotting to edges, but a good copy in the original dust-jacket – a delightful design by Ian Fenwick (1909-1944) – the jacket chipped at head and tail, with the loss of a few letters, and a little creased and edge-worn, but substantially complete and a welcome survival.

SOLD

London : Herbert Jenkins, (1961). First British edition : in the primary binding, lettered in gilt, and in the primary dust-jacket, the principal lettering in yellow and white. Freddie Widgeon is in the chips, or thinks he is – kindly American Thomas (a.k.a. Soapy) G. Molloy has given him a hot financial tip. Mainly set in “South London Argus” territory. First published in New York earlier in 1961.
Crown 8vo (20cm). (223),[i]pp. Original red boards, blocked in blind on lower cover and lettered in gilt; a very good, bright and fresh copy in the original dust-jacket, printed in pink, blue and yellow – just lightly sunned as usual, but also very good.

SOLD

London : Herbert Jenkins, (1963). First British edition. “It was the instinct of self-preservation transcending better judgement and personal inclination that sent Bertie Wooster hot foot to Totleigh Towers ...” – Jeeves, Wooster, Gussie Fink-Nottle, and Madeline Bassett – “moulder of men”.
Crown 8vo (20cm). (190),[ii]pp. Original red boards, blocked in blind on lower cover and lettered across spine in gilt; tiny indentation to spine and jacket, but otherwise a very good copy in an equally good jacket.

SOLD

London : Duckworth & Co., (1920). First American edition : the London issue of the American sheets. Her first book, originally published in 1915 but very extensively revised for the 1920 New York edition. Beyond the somewhat limited issue of these sheets supplied to Duckworth by the George H. Doran Company in 1920 and again in 1927, this textually highly significant version of the novel has never appeared in this country.
Crown 8vo (20cm). (376)pp – excluding integral endpapers. Original green cloth, ruled and lettered in black; some light wear at head and tail; faint marking to upper cover; endpapers slightly cracked and a little tanned; mild and faint discolouration to outer margin almost throughout; a good copy of an important text.

SOLD

London : Richard Bentley & Son, 1873. First edition. Throughout the course of his career Sir John Fox Burgoyne (1782-1871) was everywhere that mattered – with Sir John Moore at Corunna, with Wellington at Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajoz, and Vitoria, with Pakenham at the Battle of New Orleans, and later in life even with Raglan in the Crimea. Wellington once wrote, “If Burgoyne only knew his own value, no one would equal him”. A presentation copy, inscribed to E. B. de Fonblanque “from his grateful friend”, signed by Wrottesley (Burgoyne’s son-in-law and himself a Royal Engineer) and dated March 1873 – this the historian Edward Barrington de Fonblanque (1821-1895), who later published his own “Political and Military Episodes in Latter Half of the Eighteenth Century, Derived from the Life and Correspondence of the Right Hon. John Burgoyne” (Burgoyne’s father). Tipped in to the front endpaper is a signed, four-page manuscript letter, dated 14th August 1869, from Sir John Fox Burgoyne to Fonblanque, with some acid comments concerning Zéphyr-Joseph Piérart’s “Le Drame de Waterloo” (1868), a copy of which Fonblanque had lent him. Fonblanque has added a note on Burgoyne at the end of the letter – “a fine specimen of a scientific soldier & the most amiable man I ever knew”. Fonblanque has also had a photograph of Burgoyne bound in at the front of the second volume.
Two volumes. Demy 8vo (215 x 135mm). [iv],506; [ii],508pp. Frontispiece portrait. Facsimile. Bound, without half-titles, in full contemporary red sealskin, banded and gilt; all edges gilt; marbled endleaves; silk ribbons; a touch dulled; some very minor wear; a handful of spots, but a very good set with a splendid provenance.

SOLD

London : Macmillan & Co., 1879. First edition. A physician dies leaving his widow with a medical discovery to be passed on to whichever of his sons is best equipped to perfect it and most apt to benefit the world with it. “The chief interest of the novel, however, is due to Miss Yonge’s never-failing genius for working up minute and photographic details, stroke by stroke, until we know her characters so well that it will be strange if we ever forget them” (The Globe, 30th January 1880).
Three volumes. Crown 8vo (20cm). iv,314; iv,(315)-636; iv,(637)-956pp. Original green decorative cloth gilt; some mild rubbing and slight bruising; some spotting of edges and prelims; a few slight creases, but overall a very good set. Not listed in Sadleir or Wolff.

£200

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44463 – or simply click on the button