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

London : Victor Gollancz, 1936. First edition. Sixteen lyrical essays from Bates, chronicling the yearly round of the English woodland, illustrated with wood engravings by Agnes Miller Parker (1895-1980) – “He talks easily, sometimes provocatively, of everything from the mushroom to the fox, from the poacher to the catkin. The crowning glory of the book lies in the illustrations. It would be difficult to exaggerate the exquisite quality of these wood engravings. They are superb” (The Bystander, 28th October 1936). The book is here presented in an equally superb and double prize-winning binding by Kate Holland.
Crown 4to (254 x 190mm). 142,[ii]pp. Bound in full black goatskin with alum-tawed calf inserts, some hand-dyed in green, turquoise and orange; hand-sewn headbands; sprinkled edges; hand-made green pastepaper endpapers – “the cover shows the dewdrops caught on a spider’s web found on an early morning walk ... the monochrome palette reflects the beautiful woodcut illustrations by Agnes Miller Parker” (Kate Holland); housed in a custom-made clamshell box and in excellent state. The binding won both the Mansfield Medal and First Prize in the Open Choice category in the Designer Bookbinders’ annual competition in 2006.

SOLD

London : Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1936. First edition. A murder mystery set in the Lake District – “ingenious detective story ... The narrator, Richard Carleton, succeeds to a Cumberland property by the death of his half brother and nephews. The house, or rather one room of it, is ransacked and the butler murdered on the night when he comes to take possession. A body is afterwards found on the moors ...” (Northern Whig, 30th March 1936).
Crown 8vo (20cm). (288),[ii]pp. Frontispiece map. Family tree. Original orange cloth lettered in black; a couple of trifling marks; some light edge-spotting, but a very good, bright and sound copy in the map-illustrated dust-jacket by Ralph Mott (1888-1959) – the second state jacket, price-clipped by the publisher and overprinted with a fresh price – the jacket with just minor wear and faint creasing, lightly fingered on rear panel, but also very good; a bright and cheerful copy.

£125

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London : W. Collins Sons & Co., (1924). First edition. “Acclaimed, attacked, parodied, and read, to the most fabulous degree of best-sellerdom ... a romance suited to its decade – cynical, sophisticated, yet sentimental, highly coloured, and glittering ... the book certainly cast a spell in its day and influenced many young writers. The character of the heroine, Iris Storm, set a new fashion in fatal charmers; and Arlen’s pictures of London café society were as exact as glossy photographs” (ODNB). Filmed both in 1928 and in 1934 – as “A Woman of Affairs” (with Greta Garbo) and “Outcast Lady” (with Constance Bennett) respectively.
Crown 8vo (187 x 126mm). (viii),(330),[iv]pp. Bound in a striking late twentieth-century full green morocco, banded and gilt in an asymmetric art deco style [by Bayntun-Riviere]; all edges gilt; original cloth covers bound in at rear; a very good copy, clean and sound, in a most attractive commissioned binding.

£750

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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

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London : William Heinemann, 1923. First trade edition. A sequence of fifty plates – Beerbohm at his finest and funniest – includes portrait caricatures of H. G. Wells, Arnold Bennett, Aldous Huxley, Rudyard Kipling, Osbert and Sacheverell Sitwell, Frederic Manning, E. V. Lucas, etc., with a particularly delightful rendering of a communist Sunday school.
Demy quarto (29cm). viii pp. Colour frontispiece and forty-nine plates, with captioned tissue guards. Original tan cloth, lettered in gilt and blocked in blind; some mild discolouration to cloth; some very minor spotting, but a very good copy in the substantial remains of the dust-jacket, with front rear and panels almost complete.

£125

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London : Thomas Nelson & Sons, [1913]. First edition. His first book and a classic of crime fiction - “Contrasted with the turgid narratives of its own period, its civilized effortlessness and engaging humor are as twin beacons in a fog ... ‘Trent’s Last Case’ stands truly first among modern examples of the genre. It is one of the great cornerstones of the detective story” (Haycraft).
Crown 8vo (20cm). [ii],(376),[ii]pp. Colour frontispiece by Percy Bell Hickling (1876-1951) of the “Woman in Black”. Original blind-stamped blue cloth, lettered in gilt; just a touch of rubbing at extremities; some spotting of edges, but otherwise a very good, bright and sound copy.

SOLD

London : John Murray, 1945. First edition. An early collection of twenty-four poems, including “Henley-on-Thames”, “Parliament Hill Fields”, “South London Sketch, 1944”, “May-Day Song for North Oxford”, “In a Bath Teashop”, etc.
Crown 8vo (19cm). vi,54pp. Original red cloth; paper title label ruled and lettered in black on upper cover; covers faintly flecked as usual; mild spotting of edges; endpapers lightly tanned, but a very good copy in a lightly worn and slightly nicked dust-jacket. Contemporary ownership inscription reading simply “Smethurst”.

£125

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London : Chatto & Windus, 1977. First edition. Signed by Dirk Bogarde on the title-page. “A most enviable piece of (largely) pastoral recall, nostalgic to the point of being aromatic with the smells, colours, sounds, characters of English pre-war rural life, further embellished by the author’s own pen-and-ink sketches, in the style of E. H. Shepard” (Birmingham Daily Post, 2 April 1977). The first and most celebrated of Bogarde’s sequence of autobiographies.
Medium 8vo (23cm). [xii],268pp. Photo plates and seventeen illustrations by the author. Original bright blue boards, ruled, blocked, and lettered in gilt; a few faint marks, but overall a very good, clean and sound copy in the jacket designed by the author, also very good.

£100

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London : Carington Bowles, 1791. An attractive late eighteenth-century map of central London, engraved on a generous scale of four inches to the mile (1:15840), extending out to Islington in the north, Stepney in the east, Newington Butts in the south and Hyde Park Corner to the west. Originally engraved by Joseph Ellis (fl.1758-1802) and published in 1773, the map was regularly revised through to the end of the century. Below the map is an extensive ‘Table of References to the Churches and Principal Buildings, Shewing their Situation in the above Plan’, together with a ‘Geometrical Explanation’ of how to read from grid squares.
Copper engraving on paper. Original hand colour. Printed surface 388 x 552mm (approx. 15-1/4” x 21-3/4”). Dissected and mounted on linen. Some wear and splitting to folds, with some folds neatly strengthened and repaired on verso with archival tape; a good and serviceable copy of a fragile and ephemeral item. Howgego 158A/008.

£400

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London : Martin Secker & Warburg, 1943 (i.e.1944). First edition. “The poet-artist-prophet is seen in relation to the industrial evils of his time” (The Sphere, 6th May 1944). The dazzling Jacob Bronowski shares his passion for the genius of William Blake, whose frontispiece to “Songs of Experience” was to become the final plate in the book version of Bronowski’s “Ascent of Man”.
Crown 8vo (189 x 121mm). [vi],(154)pp. Plates. Bound in a handsome, slightly later, full green crushed morocco (for Hatchard’s); banded and gilt; all edges gilt; marbled endpapers; a few minor scuffs, but overall a very good and attractive copy. Pictorial bookplate of J. Hodges.

£125

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Edinburgh & London : William Blackwood & Sons, 1871. First edition. The founding fiction in the whole of the “imaginary wars” genre – a German invasion and conquest vividly envisioned in the wake of the lightning advances of the Prussian army in the Franco-Prussian War. Letters to the newspapers having failed, Chesney, a distinguished army engineer, successfully took to fiction to publicise the ramshackle state of the British armed forces. Originally published in “Blackwood’s Magazine”, profoundly influential, and subsequently much reprinted.
Foolscap 8vo (18cm). 64 + 8pp advertisements. Bound in neat recent boards, paper label – retaining the original pictorial mauve wrappers; wrappers a little worn and faded; a few spots, but a nicely preserved example. Dated (1880) ownership inscription of Gaston Démarest – this Louis Gaston George Démarest (1869-1955), born in Guildford, eleven miles from Dorking, brought up by his widowed French mother, and subsequently to work in the Scottish and northern shipyards in the years building up to the Great War.

£250

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London : Collins for The Crime Club, (1962). First edition. “Miss Jane Marple was sitting by her window” – the last of her true country village mysteries. “The story is of an apparently unmotivated murder at a fête held in Miss Marples’s village, where a famous film star has recently bought the local mansion ... classic Christie sleight-of-hand technique” (Birmingham Daily Post, 4th December 1962).
Crown 8vo (185 x 118mm). (256)pp. Bound in an elegant recent half chestnut morocco, banded and gilt; some spotting of edges and prelims but otherwise a handsome copy.

£250

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London : Vernor, Hood & Sharpe, 1806. A neatly worked and detailed town plan of Canterbury as it stood in the early years of the nineteenth century. Engraved by John Roper (1771-1810) from a draught by G. Cole – probably the surveyor George Cole of Soho. The map is decorated with the arms of the City and the Archbishop, as well as a vignette view of the cathedral – the latter separately engraved by George Cooke (1781-1834) from an original study by George Sidney Shepherd (1784-1862). Originally produced to accompany the part-work “Beauties of England and Wales” (London : 1801-1818).
Copper line engraving on paper. Engraved surface 182 x 234mm (approx. 7-1/8” x 9-1/8”). A few tiny specks, but overall in very good and clean state. A guaranteed genuine antique map.

£100

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London : for the Author [Ebenezer Sibly], and sold at the British Directory Office; and by Champante & Whitrow, [1794]. The third edition of the 1789 reworking of Culpeper by Ebenezer Sibly (1751-1799) – infusing the most popular and durable of English herbals with Sibly’s own distinctive blend of astrology, occultism, natural magic and empirical science – a mixture of old and new beliefs characterised by the dating of the preface to the Year of Masonry 5798. Published in parts (and hence giving rise to an unusually unstable collation), the work was affordable and highly popular – reaching a fourteenth edition under Sibly’s name by 1813. The second volume comprises a “Family Dispensatory”, with anatomical diagrams of nerves, muscles, arteries, etc., as well as two rather fine plates engraved by Prattent after Dodd demonstrating “the celestial influx on the human frame”.
Two volumes, bound in one. Post 4to (257 x 200mm). xvi,398 [i.e. 400]; [ii],256pp. Portrait frontispiece. Twenty-nine plates showing “upwards of four hundred and fifty different plants”. Thirteen anatomical plates. Bound in a later (late twentieth century) half imitation morocco; marbled sides; some light rubbing; some internal marks, nicks, spots, scuffs, a short tear, and other signs of use, with some occasional larger and darker stains, but overall a good, sound and serviceable copy. From the library of the distinguished illustrator and architectural historian Geoffrey Fletcher (1923-2004), with his 1981 ownership inscription, as well as the earlier inscription of William Charlton of James Street, Adelphi.

£250

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London : A. C. Fifield, 1908. First edition. The first appearance of the book which made Davies’ name – a tramp by road and rail on both sides of the Atlantic in the late nineteenth century. A work of “primitive splendour and directness” (Osbert Sitwell). “Another effect of this book on me is to make me realize what a slave of convention I have been all my life. When I think of the way I worked tamely for my living during all those years when Mr. Davies, a free knight of the highway, lived like a pet bird on titbits, I feel that I have been duped out of my natural liberty” – from the preface by George Bernard Shaw.
Crown 8vo (184 x 113mm). [2],xiv,(296),[viii]pp. Bound in a handsome recent half red morocco, banded and gilt, by Bayntun-Riviere; top edge gilt; marbled endpapers; trimmed a touch tight at head, but otherwise a very good copy in an attractive binding.

£400

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[Paris] : Publié sous les auspices de La Société Internationale des Intérêts Commerciaux, pour les Chemins de Fer de l’État, par Devambez, [1930]. First edition. The well-known French playwright and screenwriter with a witty response to Anita Loos (1889-1981) and her “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” (1925). From the library of Anita Loos, with her delightful portrait bookplate by Frank Walts (1877-1941), and two small “From the estate of Anita Loos” stamps. “Four letters twenty two post cards two night letters and one cable from his sweet, sweet Annabel Flowers to her darling, darling George Sabran”. Produced as English-language promotional and publicity material for both French State Railways and a range of French businesses, with overt plugs for perfumes, dresses, resorts, hairdressers, hats, jewels, cars, hotels, restaurants, shoes, etc., and even Kellner the body-builder of the Champs-Élysée. A leaflet list of “firms recommanded [sic]” is loosely inserted.
Crown 4to (24cm). [64]pp. Coloured illustrations throughout. Original wrappers; just lightly rubbed and slightly bruised; a touch shaken; a hint of tanning, but otherwise a very good copy in the silver dust-jacket, lettered and decorated in red and black – the jacket similarly lightly worn and slightly bruised, with a short tear at head, but in good condition for a fragile survival. Just three copies (Bibliothèque Nationale. Cambridge, and California) traced in major libraries.

£500

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[London : for W. Innys & J. Richardson, J. & P. Knapton & others], 1755. A most attractive eighteenth-century map of the Spitalfields area of London on a scale of over thirteen inches (33.5cm) to the mile (1:4800), extending from Norton Folgate and Shoreditch in the west across open fields to Mile End New Town and Bethnal Green and including Spitalfields Market, Fashion Street, Brick Lane, etc. Although remaining unpublished until 1720, other maps in this series are known to have been originally produced by Richard Blome in the late seventeenth century and the present map may also be his work. The present, slightly revised, version was produced for the part-work edition of John Stow’s “A Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster” (London : 1754-1757).
Copper line engraving on paper. Later hand colour. Engraved surface 287 x 353mm (approx. 11-1/4” x 13-7/8”). Faint old folds; some browning to blank margins; short repaired split at head; a couple of tiny pinholes, but otherwise in very good state. A guaranteed genuine antique map.

£250

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London : Thomas Jefferys, 1752. First edition in English. An interesting catalogue, originally compiled by the charismatic Parisian art-dealer Edme-François Gersaint and based on the collection assembled by Rembrandt’s personal friend, the Burgomaster Six. Some 342 works are listed, together with a further twenty-seven doubtful attributions and a number of further related pieces by other masters and pupils. As the preface makes clear, Rembrandt was heavily collected, prices were high, and skilful forgeries were in circulation: one of the purposes of the catalogue was to offer a safeguard to collectors. First published in Paris the previous year, the catalogue is also interesting as a sidelight on the career of the publisher, Thomas Jefferys (1719-1771), principally known as a mapmaker and Geographer to George III, but a man also evidently engaged in the wider art market.
Post 12mo (171 x 100mm). [viii],184pp. Etched portrait frontispiece. Contemporary calf, somewhat rubbed and worn, with neat repair and refurbishment to the spine; new label; internally some marks, chips, nicks, short tears, small holes and other minor flaws; rear free endpaper slightly defective, but a reasonable copy. Occasional annotation, mainly in pencil, evidently relating to a personal collection, with the occasional note of an auction price. Pencilled sketch on rear endpaper in imitation of the frontispiece. Nineteenth-century bookplate of one of the Earls of Caithness. ESTC T93268.

SOLD

Robin Hood Press, [1950]. Second edition. “Fiendish drug-orgies shock America”. Originally published By Wells Gardner in 1941, but almost certainly withdrawn from sale in the wake of the Old Bailey obscenity trial in May 1942. Although undated, the present copy has a small and neat date-stamp of October 6th 1950 on the title-page, presumably representing a date of acquisition.
Crown 8vo (19cm). 128pp. Original pictorial stapled wrappers; some very mild rubbing and wear at tips; slight crease; a few faint marks just a hint of rusting to staples, but still overall a very good copy of a seldom-seen title. No copy of this edition located in any major library worldwide.

SOLD

London : Robin Hood Press, (1941) [but 1952]. [Second edition] : a variant state, with a 2/6 rather than 2/- cover price, and the cover tag-line reading “a sincere and gripping story”, rather than “the book that was nearly banned”. The other alternative state announced, “Like the public, Darcy Glinto himself and the present publishers, believe that ‘You Took Me, Keep Me’ is the best Darcy Glinto of them all”. First published by Wells Gardner, Darton & Co. in 1941, the original edition was voluntarily withdrawn from sale by the publishers when both they and the author pleaded guilty to obscenity charges relating to two other Glinto titles at the Old Bailey in May 1942.
Crown 8vo (19cm). 128pp. Original pictorial stapled wrappers – a design by Terry; a few faint marks; staples a little rusted; text lightly tanned, but still overall a very good and much better than average copy. Just a single copy (Trinity College, Dublin) of this 1950s edition located in major libraries, although the continuing presence in this edition of the original 1941 date may perhaps have confused cataloguers – but, in any event, only four major libraries worldwide have a copy of any edition.

SOLD

London : Herbert Jenkins, 1918. First edition. Harben’s extraordinary dictionary of more than 6,000 street and place names in the City of London, their location, the forms and origins of the names, associations, early depictions on maps, etc. Still the essential work.
Royal 8vo (26cm). (xxviii),(642)pp. Six folding plans (one in two separate sheets), some in rear pocket. Original cloth; some minor rubbing; cloth a little stretched by the rear pocket; some spotting to edges, but still overall a very good copy.

£200

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London : for J. Dodsley, and T. Shrimpton, Bath, 1779. Second and best edition, corrected and enlarged to three volumes from the earlier two volumes published in 1769 and 1775. A fascinating compendium of Harington family papers, chiefly those of the mischievous Sir John Harington, translator of Ariosto, godson of Elizabeth I, alternately in and out of favour at both her court and that of James I & VI, but always at the centre of affairs – with his sometimes scurrilous accounts of the leading clergy; his report to Elizabeth on the Earl of Essex in Ireland; correspondence with Elizabeth, James, Prince Henry, Essex, Burleigh, Cecil, and others; conversations, letters and speeches by Elizabeth; his treatise on play; a letter to Isaac Newton on harmonic ratios from a later family member, with Newton’s detailed reply and a diagram; a letter from Prince Rupert at the time of the Civil War; earlier letters from John Cheke to King Edward, Somerset, Bishop Gardiner, Queen Mary, etc.; letters from Roger Ascham, and so much more. Edited by Henry Harington (1755-1791).
Three volumes. Post 12mo (164 x 96mm). [8],(xxii),[10],296; (xviii),326; [4],(vi),312pp. Miniature engraved portrait of Elizabeth I, said to be taken from a plate given by Elizabeth herself to Isabella Harington in 1554; two folding plates. Bound in elegant nineteenth-century half tan roan, ruled and tooled in gilt; green labels; marbled sides; some mild rubbing; tiny areas of surface abrasion and insect damage to two volumes; a few minor internal marks, spots and signs of use, but a good set. From the notable collection of Robert James Hayhurst (1929-2016), with his bookplate.

£250

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London : Jonathan Cape, (1971). First edition : the hardback issue. A presentation copy, inscribed by the author to his publisher, the late Tom Maschler (1933-2020) — “for Tom, new poems for my new publisher — with love thanks”, signed in full, and dated January 1972. Autobiographical poem sequences from the most senior of the “Mersey Sound” poets — pre-war Liverpool, wartime in Rhyl, student days in Paris, a holiday in Norway, dialectics in Hampstead, Aldermaston marches, schoolteacher in the provinces, return to Liverpool and growing fame as performer, poet and painter.
Demy 8vo (23cm). 46,[ii]pp. Original lavender-grey boards, blocked and lettered in gilt; a very good, clean, and sound copy in the M. Mohan dust-jacket — the jacket with some faint suggestion of wear to the extremities, but also very good.

£200

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London : André Deutsch, (1971). First edition : the rare hardback issue. The winner of the inaugural Whitbread Award for Poetry. A collection of thirty “prose-hymns”, all previously unpublished, with notes on King Offa, etc., and an introduction by C. H. Sisson. “These brilliantly exact verbal organizations are typical of the book: the activities of Mercia — coining, hammering, carving — are, first of all, the qualities of Mr Hill’s own poetic technique, so that style matches theme in a striking congruency” (TLS review).
Foolscap 4to (21cm). [48]pp. Original stone boards, lettered in brown; some spotting and browning of edges, endpapers and the inner flaps of the John Andrew dust-jacket, but otherwise a very good copy of a poorly produced book — the jacket complete and unworn. Loosely inserted are two contemporary press reviews.

£200

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Crediton : Richard Gilbertson, (1968). First edition : one of just twenty-six numbered copies (of 500) inscribed with a complete verse from the first song in the poet’s hand and signed and dated 3rd January 1969 by Ted Hughes. A collection of five poems.
Crown 4to (25cm). [ii],(10)pp. Original fluorescent pink stapled wrappers, lettered in black; just a hint of rubbing, but a very good copy of this fragile production. Sagar A18 – noting that no copy of this issue had been seen by the compilers.

£400

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London : Faber & Faber, (1989). First edition. A butler and his memories – winner of the Booker Prize and memorably filmed by Merchant and Ivory, with Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson in 1993. “It is the rare achievement of Ishiguro’s novel to pose big questions – what is Englishness? What is greatness? What is dignity? – with a delicacy and humour that do not obscure the tough-mindedness beneath” (Salmon Rushdie, The Guardian, 17th August 2012).
Demy 8vo (23cm). [vi],(246),[iv]pp. Original black boards, lettered in white; the slightest suggestion of a crease to the spine, but a very good, bright, and sound copy in the Sam McConnell dust-jacket – the jacket with just the faintest hint of age and use, but also very good.

SOLD

London : William Heinemann, 1898. First edition. Two stories by James, including the first appearance in book form of “The Turn of the Screw”, still his most compelling and hotly debated story, adapted and filmed on multiple occasions. The second story, “Covering End”, was originally intended as a play for Ellen Terry. “Mr James holds us and thrills us, strikes us with wonder, strikes us with awe; but over and above this, more than anything else, he delights us with the pure, the joyous delight of art, of beauty. It is incredible, it is impossible; and Mr James has done it” (Daily Chronicle, 17th November 1898).
Crown 8vo (187mm x 115mm), [iv]310[ii] +[32pp advertisements]. Bound in a handsome recent full navy morocco, banded and gilt; preserving the original cloth at rear; all edges gilt; marbled endleaves; very faint mark to rear board but a clean and highly attractive copy in a superior binding.

SOLD

London : Robert Sayer; John Bowles, and Carington Bowles, 1767. First edition. A handsome eighteenth-century road-atlas, showing the major roads and highways in scroll form, with mileages, local detail and directions to cross-roads, tables, etc. Based on earlier models, but the maps corrected, updated and with the addition of fresh material – not least two Hertfordshire roads (St. Alban’s to Ware, and London to Hitchin) – “The two Roads laid down in this Plate were never before given in any Book of Roads whatever, but were purposely Measured and Engrav’d for this Work” – significant in that Kitchin was to move his base of operations to St. Alban’s the following year.
Long crown 4to (178 x 229mm). [8]pp + general map and 103 engraved strip-maps, printed back-to-back. Contemporary half calf, now neatly rebacked; marbled sides; corners a little rubbed; ink-splash to upper board; clean tear to one leaf neatly repaired; occasional mild tanning, but a very good copy of an attractive and interesting production.

SOLD

Amsterdam : chez D. de la Feuille, [1706]. A most attractive antique map of the world in hemispheres. Originally produced for the “Oorlogs Tabletten ...” published by Daniel de la Feuille at Amsterdam in 1706.
Copper line engraving on paper, with original hand colour. Engraved surface 153 x 215mm (approx. 6” x 8-1/2”). Very minor repair to foot of fold, some slight browning and faint marking, one small hole, single vertical crease, but a very good and crisp impression, with warm and rich original colour. A guaranteed genuine antique map.

£400

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London : for Longman, Hurst, Rees & Orme, 1808. First edition. Lamb’s hugely influential rediscovery of the Elizabethans and Jacobeans, many of the specimens of their work culled from “plays which are to be found only in the British Museum and in some scarce private libraries” – Francis Beaumont, George Chapman, Thomas Decker, John Fletcher, John Ford, Fulke Greville, Ben Jonson, Thomas Kyd, Christopher Marlowe, John Marston, Philip Massinger, Thomas Middleton, George Peele, Cyril Tourneur, John Webster, and many more – “the most striking anthology perhaps ever made from English literature” (Edmund Blunden).
Crown 8vo (185 x 113mm). xii,484pp. Bound, without half-title, in a very handsome later (early twentieth century) full blue crushed morocco, banded and richly gilt, by Robert Riviere & Son; all edges gilt; inner gilt dentelles; marbled endleaves; some very minor rubbing and a hint of bruising, but a very good copy.

£500

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London : Duckworth & Co., 1913. First edition : Roberts’ variant (1), with the cancel title dated 1913. “Review copies have been noted both with the bound-in title without date and with the tipped-in title with date ... as Duckworth’s records were destroyed during the war, a final solution to these bibliographical problems may be impossible” (Roberts). “No other English novelist of our time has so great a power to translate passion into words, but that is neither the beginning nor end of his art” (London Evening Standard, 30th May 1913).
Crown 8vo (186 x 119mm). (viii),(424) + (20)pp advertisements. Bound in a smart recent half blue morocco, banded and gilt; marbled sides; a few slight marks and spots; one leaf chipped, with the loss of four letters, but a good copy, attractively bound. Roberts A4.

£500

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London : Jonathan Cape, (1922). First British edition and first edition under this title. The first appearance of Doctor Dolittle, who shuns his human patients in favour of his animal ones – “Heartily recommended ... There they will read, among other strange beasts, of the ‘pushmipullyu’, or ‘marvellous two-headed animal from the jungles of Africa’, and also watch it go through its incredible performances under the Doctor’s care” (The Scotsman, 7 December 1922).
Post 8vo (21cm). (186),[vi]pp – including integral pictorial endpapers. Over thirty black and white illustrations, some full-page, by the author. Original blue cloth, lettered in black and blocked pictorially in blind; a touch of bruising and a few faint signs of use; occasional light spotting, mainly of edges, but a very good copy of an instant classic.

£400

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London : Weidenfeld & Nicolson, (1977-1980). A first edition set of Manning’s powerful evocation of wartime as Guy and Harriet reach Egypt – “the finest fictional record of the war produced by a British writer” (Anthony Burgess). The first volume signed by Olivia Manning on the title-page, and further inscribed with a Christmas gift inscription to friends by her husband “Reggie” – Reginald Donald Smith (1914-1985), model for the Guy Pringle of the novels.
Three volumes. Demy 8vo (23cm). 196,[iv]; (186),[ii]; (204)pp. Original boards; the first volume slightly bruised at foot, with some spotting to top edge, but otherwise a very good set in the dust-jackets – the first (by David Hockney), similarly slightly bruised at foot, but in first state, without the press reviews; the second (by Edward Ardizzone), and third (by Alun Hood), both price-clipped and a little sunned, but also very good.

SOLD

London : Smith, Elder & Co., 1902. First edition. Mason’s enduring tale of courage, cowardice and redemption – made into popular films on at least seven occasions from 1915 onwards, of which perhaps the most memorable is that directed by Zoltan Korda and starring Ralph Richardson, C. Aubrey Smith, and June Duprez.
Crown 8vo (181 x 117mm). viii,338,[vi]pp. Bound in a handsome recent full walnut crushed morocco, banded and gilt, by Bayntun-Riviere; all edges gilt; marbled endpapers; very occasional mild spotting, but overall a very good copy indeed, most attractively bound.

£1,000

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London : Michael Joseph, (1954). First edition. “If an impecunious author had not accidentally intercepted a telephone call, the mysterious case of Miss Faintley might have defied even Mrs Bradley’s efforts at solution ... It seemed at first unlikely that she, a prim, quiet schoolmistress, could have anything to do with gang-work – or with currency smuggling”. F. E. Pardoe in the Birmingham Daily Post (13th April 1954) noted “It is certainly the best she has written for some years ... Mrs Bradley is a perennial joy”, while for the News Chronicle, “Mrs Bradley is easily the best woman detective in fiction”.
Crown 8vo (20cm). (224)pp. Original black cloth, lettered in gilt; top edge a touch dusty, but otherwise a very good, bright and sound copy in the Peter Rudland dust-jacket – just lightly rubbed, with a short tear to one corner, but otherwise very good.

£100

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[London : ca.1720]. A most attractive map of Berkshire – with a neatly worked curtain title-piece and the upper border ruled, in Morden’s characteristic fashion, not in degrees but in minutes of real time from London. Although probably engraved in the early 1690s, the maps in this series were not published until 1701. After Robert Morden’s death in 1703 the plates were reworked and subjected to minor revision by Herman Moll – and the present edition (with Moll’s additions) is dated to about 1720.
Copper line engraving on paper. Engraved surface 161 x 214 (approx. 6-3/8” x 8-1/2”). Faint original vertical folds, but overall in very good and clean state. A guaranteed genuine antique map.

£100

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Bath : Old School Press, 2001. First edition : one of twenty copies (of 230) reserved in sheets for binders and signed by both Andrew Motion and the illustrator, Simon Brett. Four extended poems from the then Poet Laureate, delicately hand-printed on Magnani paper, illustrated with evocative and atmospheric wood-engravings by Simon Brett.
Post 4to (271 x 190mm). [48]pp. Four wood-engraved illustrations. Bound in black morocco, with delicately shaded pale morocco onlays, in an exquisite designer binding by Kate Holland, winner of the 2006 Mansfield Medal and First Prize for Best Book in the annual Designer Binders’ competition – the present binding dating from the same period; delicately marbled edges and endpapers; the binding housed in its original velvet-lined black cloth box, decorated with a crescent moon. A fine copy of a beautiful book.

£2,000

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London : André Deutsch, (1963). First edition. “Marks the first time this very distinguished West Indian author has written a novel which deals exclusively with the English against their own background. The result is completely successful ... beautifully written, restrained and sensitive” (The Sphere, 8 June 1963).
Post 8vo (21cm). (160)pp. Original tan boards, ruled, blocked and lettered in gilt, top edge lilac; a handful of edge spots. but a very good, clean and sound copy in the Leonard Rosoman dust-jacket – the jacket lightly used, a touch nicked and sunned, with some strengthening and repair on verso.

£100

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London : C. Arthur Pearson, 1913. First edition. An exemplary and thoroughly illustrated guide to the art of creating amusing hand shadows – animal forms, with rabbit, wolf, elephant, tortoise, crocodile, etc. – birds, with pigeon, vulture, swan, rooster, etc. – character studies, with postman, rake, vagrant, Wellington, Bismarck, etc. – with some more complex shapes made with the aid of accessories, and finally a section on mounting a whole shadow pantomime.
Crown 8vo (19cm). 109,[iii]pp – including integral endpapers with advertisements. Eighty-five diagrams. Original pictorial boards, with price revision overlays; lightly rubbed and very slightly bruised, but a very good copy of a fragile production. From the collection of magician Paul Daniels (1938-2016), with his portrait bookplate and blind-stamp on the half-title.

£100

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London : Chapman & Hall, 1834. First edition. “A bottle of Reading sauce, a box of ‘peptic pills’, and a portable frying-pan ought to form part of every angler’s travelling equipage”. Fly-fishing in Coquetdale, Glendale and the Northern Hills, together with an appendix – “a well-written review of the older angling literature” (Westwood & Satchell), as well as a list of trout streams all across the north of England and the Borders. Father of the publisher, Chatto was also the editor of “The New Sporting Magazine” – “must have a place in every library” (Blackwood’s Magazine).
Foolscap 8vo (166 x 100mm). [iv],212pp. Wood-engraved head and tailpieces, mostly by Ebenezer Landells (1808-1860). Contemporary half green sheep, banded and gilt; marbled sides and edges; some minor rubbing and wear; some internal marks, chips and small flaws, but a good copy of an attractive book. With the later armorial bookplate of Mackenzie of Gairloch – probably Sir Kenneth John Mackenzie (1861-1929).

£125

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London : Anthony Blond, (1959). First edition. Signed by Simon Raven on the title page. “A first novel of great power and compassion. Its author, Simon Raven, has a great gift as a story teller and creator of character ... A young officer in command of a small detachment in some imaginary island shoots the young soldier with whom he has been having an affair for disobeying orders during a terrorist attack. The officer is court-martialled on a charge of murder. The whole argument turns on his state of mind at the time of the shooting. Was he acting as a soldier or a slighted lover?” (Daily News, 28th January 1959).
Crown 8vo (20cm). 254,[ii]pp. Original black boards, blocked and lettered in gilt; a touch bruised; mild tanning of endpapers; a few spots, but a very good copy in the Symonds dust-jacket – in second state, with press reviews on the rear flap – price-clipped and a touch sunned with a tiny hole to rear flap, but otherwise very good with only minimal wear and signs of use.

SOLD

London: George G. Harrap & Co., (1937). First edition. Fifteen of Raymond’s much-loved stories about the Floppo Woppo – “He was green and woolly with black spots and a very shiny nose and six black legs. As most animals have only two or four legs, the Floppo Woppo had two more to manage than any of his friends, and sometimes it got him into rather a muddle”.
Post 8vo (21cm). 128pp. Numerous delightful illustrations, many in two colours, by Henry Elliott-Blake (1902-1983). Original yellow pictorial cloth, blocked in black and green; very minor bruising at foot; mild tanning of endpapers, but a very good copy indeed in the original dust-jacket, also very good indeed, with just the faintest of wear at foot.

£100

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London : J. Britton, 1826. A fine antique print – a general view of the city from the open fields to the west – a rainbow counterpoints the cathedral. Engraved by Thomas Jeavons (1794-1867) from an original study by George Fennell Robson and originally produced for John Britton’s “Picturesque Views of the English Cities” (London : 1826-1828). The edition was strictly limited to 1,000 impressions and the original plates were destroyed in January 1829 after that number had been printed.
Line engraving on paper. Later hand colour. Engraved surface 164 x 234mm (approx. 6-1/2” x 9-1/4”). Small spot at foot of lower margin, but overall in very good and clean state. A guaranteed genuine antique print.

£100

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London : Tinsley Brothers, 1870. First edition. “It belongs to what may be called the ‘Mysteries of London’ school ... One of the heroines – there are two – is, although in many respects charming and innately good, yet, influenced by a false sense of duty, participant in a murder, so far as knowledge of the crime and the procuring the necessary poison are concerned; while the other is a sort of wild cat ... There are of course detectives, and crime-hunts, and stealthy, watchful movements, and crafty hidings away ... [and] life-like descriptions of queer London haunts” (Morning Post, 1st December 1870).
Three volumes. Crown 8vo (180 x 100mm). vi,(284); vi,286; vi,(276)pp. Bound, with half-titles, in a pleasing recent half tan calf, banded and gilt; red labels; marbled sides. A few slight internal marks and a number of slight corner creases, but a very good set of an intriguing and uncommon title. Just four copies, only one (British Library) in the UK, located in major libraries worldwide.

SOLD

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.

SOLD

Paris : Chez Buisson, 1788. First edition. A charming eighteenth-century illustrated French guide to London from a journalist and refugee who had absconded to London with the aristocratic wife of his employer. Serres de la Tour includes chapters on the character of the people, the London way of life, the antiquity, the extent, the principal buildings in turn, the Thames, the hospitals, societies, institutions, markets, spectacles and amusements, the post, the taverns and cafes, etc. In an unusual feature at this date, the second volume comprises an alphabetical dictionary of the smaller towns and villages of the London area (from Abbots Langley to Windsor), with descriptions of each, this followed by notes on the principal English towns elsewhere, from Bath to York. As Adams points out, the folding plates are “larger and more handsome than those usually found in a duodecimo volume. They ... seem not to be associated with any British prints of the period. Most view the buildings at an unusually oblique angle and include ... much architectural detail”.
Two volumes. Crown 12mo (163 x 95mm). 4,372; [ii],(324),[iv]pp. Folding map and nine folding plates. Contemporary mottled calf, the spines prettily ruled and decorated in gilt in a floral design; marbled edges and endpapers; some minor rubbing and wear; lacks one title-label and one numeral label; some repairs and strengthening to folds of plates; two leaves torn without loss; a few minor marks and small flaws, but overall still a very good set in a pleasant contemporary binding. Adams 65.

£400

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London : David Bogue, 1847-1848. First editions of three of Smith’s highly entertaining “Social Zoologies”, the second with a partially trimmed inscription from Albert Smith to Colonel Sir William Robert Clayton M.P. (1786-1866). The first was written “that all might clearly see who the Gents were, and shun them accordingly”. It led to a highly successful sequence of similar separately published “studies”, both by Smith and others. The present bound volume preserves what are probably the three most amusing of these highly ephemeral little publications. “An exceedingly clever hit, full of the most lively description, nice appreciation of the ludicrous, sufficiently satirical, but withal kindly regardful to exhibit the better traits of the theatrical butterflies” (Gloucester Journal, 12th June 1847).
Three volumes, bound in one. Crown 16mo (126 x 75mm). viii,104; (104); (108) + [12]pp advertisements dated April 1848. Frontispieces and numerous delightful illustrations by Archibald Henning, with additional work by Gavarni and Gilbert in the third volume. Bound in a pleasant late nineteenth-century half blue armorial calf gilt by Zaehnsdorf, with a Clayton family crest at foot; marbled sides, with matching endleaves and edges; spine a little sunned; trimmed a little in binding, affecting the authorial inscription to the second work; a few minor marks and spots, but overall a very good copy. Ownership inscription of Colonel Clayton dated November 12th 1848 on a blank leaf between the second and third works.

SOLD

Edinburgh & London : William Blackwood & Sons, 1895. First edition. “Amateur-gipsy tours ... iron endurance, the temper of Mark Tapley, and the will to survive of Robinson Crusoe” (Somerville). “A sense of humour is one of the essentials for any tour, as necessary as a knapsack, or a map, and as both writers possess a keen perception of the ludicrous, their account of their jouneyings on ponyback through the northern parts of the Principality is most amusing and entertaining” (The Gentlewoman, 17th August 1895).
Crown 8vo (193 x 124mm). vi,186 + 32pp advertisements dated June 1895 – the month of publication. Illustrations by Somerville. Bound in an elegant recent half blue morocco, banded and gilt; original cloth upper cover and spine preserved at rear (the primary binding, with the publishers’ name given in full at foot of spine); a few minor marks and spots, but a very good copy of an uncommon title. Neat ownership inscription.

£250

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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. David Balfour and a stolen inheritance – the classic adventure story converted into at least ten film and television versions between 1917 and 2005. “I just knew that this was what a story should be like. It was the model that was always in my head” (Hilary Mantel, interviewed in The Guardian, 19th November 2005).
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

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London : Chatto & Windus, 1887. First edition. A celebrated collection of fifty-four poems, thirty-eight in English and the remainder in Scots – the latter including the first appearance in book form of both “A Lowden Sabbath Morn” and “The Scotsman’s Return from Abroad”.
Foolscap 8vo (175 x 118mm). [ii],(xvi),[2],(138),[ii]pp. Bound, with the initial blank but without the inserted advertisements, in a delightful contemporary half tan morocco, banded and gilt in a floral design; top edge gilt; marbled sides and endpapers; a hint of rubbing; mild spotting of binder’s blanks and edges, but a very good copy indeed. With the pictorial 1895 bookplate of Albert Harrison.

£200

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London : Faber & Faber, (2002). First edition : the uncommon hardback issue of Stoppard’s trilogy of plays set in nineteenth-century Russia and London, first directed at the Olivier Theatre by Trevor Nunn in the summer of 2002. “Heroically ambitious and wildly uneven ... it contains passages of breathtaking beauty and surprising ordinariness. But I wouldn’t have missed it for worlds and at its heart it contains a fascinating lesson about the nature of drama ... I think it is time we began to appreciate Stoppard not for his intellectual legerdemain, but for what he is actually best at: exploring the mystery of existence, the anguish of the human heart and the stranger fact that it is our apprehension of death that gives joy and intensity to life” (Michael Billington in The Guardian, 5th and 7th August 2002).
Three volumes. Post 8vo (21cm). [xii],114,[ii]; [xii],106,[x]; [xii],(120),[xii] pp. Original black boards, lettered on spine in pale yellow; a fine set in the original pictorial dust-jackets – also fine.

£400

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London : Edward Moxon, 1855. First edition. With the ownership signature of Tennyson’s sister Matilda Tennyson (1816-1915), and further inscribed “Leonora M. Pinwill [Leonora Marian Pinwill (1842-1910)] from Matilda Tennyson July. 28th 1856”. Matilda, perhaps the favourite sister, was known to the family primarily as Tilly – but also as “The Empress Maud”. Her nickname is bestowed on this major collection of eight poems (Tennyson’s own favourite to the end of his days) which added not only “Come into the garden, Maud”, but also “Half a league onward”, “Theirs not to reason why” and “Cannon to the right of them” to the universal canon of most quoted lines. “It is no small thing in these days of lying, humbug, and flunkey worship, to come at last upon a real, true thing, and that a genuine poem, full of those vivid yet subtle pictures of internal life and external nature which Tennyson knows so well how to draw” (The Atlas, 4th August 1855).
Foolscap 8vo (18cm). [viii],154,[ii]pp + 8pp advertisements dated October 1855 inserted at front (advertisements dated July and August are also known). Original green cloth, decorated in blind; lightly sunned and a little worn; rear cover a little marked and ink-splashed; endpapers cracking; a little shaken; a few minor internal spots, but a good copy with a splendid association. With occasional pencil marks alongside the text.

£750

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London : Bradbury & Evans, 1848. First edition, bound from the original monthly parts published between January 1847 and July 1848. The parts in first state, with the “rustic” heading to the first chapter, the inadvertent “Mr. Pitt” rather than “Sir Pitt” on p.453, and the notorious “Marquis of Steyne” wood-engraving (p.336) – an illustration said to have been suppressed, under threat of court action, for its allegedly libellous resemblance to the Third Marquis of Hertford. This has been disputed, but the portrait certainly only appears in the earliest copies of the book – and disappeared very early in the book’s life cycle.
Demy 8vo (214 x 131mm). xvi,624pp. Etched plates and highly entertaining text illustrations by Thackeray himself. Bound, without half-title, in a recent half green calf, banded and richly gilt, with burgundy label, in a pleasing imitation of contemporary style; marbled sides; plates spotted in varying degrees, but the text clean; a very good copy in an attractive binding.

£850

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London : Smith, Elder & Co., 1855 [but 1854]. First edition. The last of Thackeray’s Christmas stories, a satirical fairy tale, wonderfully illustrated with Thackeray’s own numerous sketches. “But in the meanwhile, and for a brief holyday, let us laugh and be as pleasant as we can. And you elder folks – a little joking and dancing and fooling will do even you no harm. The author wishes you a merry Christmas, and welcomes you to the Fire-side Pantomime”.
Crown 8vo (177 x 129mm). iv,128pp. Eight plates. Numerous illustrations in text. Bound in a handsome early twentieth-century full tan calf, banded in gilt, by Riviere; red labels; all edges gilt; inner gilt dentelles; marbled endleaves; slight scratch to rear board; some internal marks and spots; one leaf with a short repaired tear, but still an attractive copy in a fine binding.

£250

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London : Bradbury & Evans, 1856. First British edition. Two stories, with Thackeray satirical on social climbing, and teasing on a young and possibly mismatched couple.
Crown 8vo (183 x 120mm). 82 + [6]pp advertisements dated July 1856. Bound in a late nineteenth-century full red-brown crushed morocco, banded and gilt, by Peter Alexander Riarch (1836-1888?), a gifted pupil of the great Francis Bedford, last heard of in Cincinnati in 1888; inner gilt dentelles; top edge gilt; marbled endleaves; original yellow pictorial wrappers and advertisements preserved at rear; just a hint of rubbing; some occasional internal spots; a few miniscule repairs, but a very good copy of a Thackeray scarcity.

£200

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London : The Sunday Referee and The Parton Bookshop, (1934). First edition : just 500 copies were printed, this copy being one of the second batch of 250 to be bound, with an additional inserted leaf bearing [February 1936] advertisements. The most remarkable debut in all twentieth-century English-language poetry – written before and published just weeks after Thomas’s twentieth birthday and already containing several of his greatest poems – “I See the Boys of Summer in Their Ruin”, “The Force that Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower”, “Where Once the Waters of Your Face”, etc.
Demy 8vo (23cm). [2],[ii],[3]-36,[iv]pp. Original black cloth with rounded back, lettered up spine in Dutch gilt; very slightly rubbed and a touch dulled; some spotting to endpapers and outer leaves, but a good and sound copy in the rare original dust-jacket – the jacket also with a sprinkling of spots, but barring a couple of short nicks and a slight crease, in very good state. A loosely inserted press-cutting of a 1953 obituary notice remarks that the book’s “impact was immediate and profound ... this poet had created an idiom ... he had disturbed the roots of our language”.

SOLD

London : Bodley Head, (1972). First edition. Trevor’s highly acclaimed second collection of masterful short stories – the title story, turned into an award-winning television film, and eleven further stories including “The Mark-2 Wife”, “A Choice of Butchers” and “O Fat White Woman”.
Post 8vo (21cm). (270),[ii]pp. Original olive-brown boards, ruled and lettered in gilt; a touch rubbed; spine lightly sunned with a shadow from the jacket; mild spotting of edges, but otherwise a very good and sound copy in the eye-catching Stephen Russ dust-jacket – the jacket likewise just faintly rubbed and lightly sunned, with a little spotting on the flaps, but still very good.

SOLD

London : for G. B. Whittaker / Bath : John Upham / Exeter : Charles Upham, 1824. First edition. “One of the most intellectual and imaginative productions of the age” (Monthly Critical Gazette, 1st December 1824). Bookseller, orientalist and quondam mayor of Exeter, Upham intended his anonymous tale to introduce readers to the full glories of ancient Egypt – “a series of data, whereby may be formed a knowledge and appreciation of this ancient and illustrious kingdom, resorted to by the wisest and best of the philosophers, the sages, and legislators of Greece, and pronounced by them to be ‘the mother of arts, and the fountain of wisdom’”.
Three volumes. Crown 8vo (187 x 111mm). viii,(342); [ii],(322); [ii],328pp. Bound, without half-titles and a final blank, in an attractive near contemporary half blue-green polished calf, worked in blind on broad bands, ruled and lettered in gilt; red labels; marbled sides; some mild rubbing and a few minor signs of age and use, but a very good, crisp and sound set. Bookplate with the unicorn crest of the Marquesses of Conyngham in each volume and the contemporary ownership inscription of A. Conyngham in vol.i - presumably the diplomat Albert Denison Conyngham (1805-1860), later first Baron Londesborough. Wolff 6925 - not in Sadleir.

£400

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London : J. & C. Brown & Co., (1856). First edition : with the variant undated title-page. “I returned to Scotland Yard to report …” – the very first appearance in fiction of a Scotland Yard detective – indeed, the first English detective stories. “Waters” of the Yard was the invention of journalist William Russell – the stories originally published in Chambers’ Edinburgh Journal between 1849 and 1852, with some of the stories appearing in book form in New York in 1852. The present publication is the first appearance of all eleven, with a final twelfth tale not previously published.
Foolscap 8vo (18cm). (310)pp. Wood-engraved frontispiece, engraved by George Measom (1818-1901), later knighted for his charitable work. Original pictorial boards, a dramatic yellowback design in red and black; rebacked with a neat paper spine replacing the fragile lost original; some rubbing and wear; internally a few small marks, spots and slight creases, but overall an attractive copy of a literary milestone.

£850

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London : for J. Clark & R. Hett; E. Matthews, and R. Ford, 1726. First edition. A popular and much reprinted text, with very clear expositions and worked examples of the problems and principles, intended to lead on “to the higher speculations of the great Sir Isaac Newton and his followers”. Dedicated to John Eames (1686-1744), recently elected to the Royal Society on Newton’s recommendation and himself a serious scholar of physics. “The same perspicuity of thought and ease of expression which distinguish his other works running through the whole of this, I don’t question but the world will meet with equal pleasure and satisfaction in the perusal” (from Eames’ preface). Watts was perhaps better known as a hymn-writer, but was also the author of such works as “Logic, or The Right Use of Reason in the Enquiry After Truth” (1724), which became the standard text on logic at Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard and Yale.
Post 8vo (196mm x 16mm), [2](xiv),(220)[xii]pp. Title-page in red and black, six folding plates. Contemporary full calf, silk headbands; rebacked, labelled, banded and gilt to style; sprinkled edges; some light wear; neat repair to title-page, not affecting lettering; some occasional internal marking and spotting; small ink stain to fore-edge but a good, sound and attractive copy of an important and accomplished work, particularly good on the use of maps and globes.

£500

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London : Chapman & Hall, (1936). First edition. A collection of eleven short stories, including “Excursion in Reality”, “Love in the Slump”, and “Bella Fleace Gave a Party”. “One of the few living authors who is incapable of being a bore. One of the few whose books are worth buying and keeping ... ‘Excursion in Reality’ is a brilliant study of the unreality of cinema production ... Mr Waugh is the much-imitated author of our time. Yet we all know that he is inimitable” (Daily Mirror, 30th June 1936).
Crown 8vo (20cm). [ii],(238)pp. Frontispiece in two colours by Thomas Derrick (1885-1954). Original lizard pattern red and black cloth, lettered in gilt; spine just a touch sunned; a scattering of edge spots, but a very good copy, bright, sound and unworn.

£350

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London : John Murray, 1891. First edition. A monumental dictionary of London from the well-known Abbey Road, and Abbey Street, Bermondsey, to the Yorkshire Stingo and the Zoo. “There is scarcely an unregarded, shabby-genteel street in Bloomsbury, or Chelsea, or Clerkenwell which has not its shred of history or literature connected with it” (London Evening Standard, 5th February 1891). Ostensibly based on Peter Cunningham’s “Handbook of London” (1849), but so far extended and updated as to be essentially a new work.
Three volumes. Medium 8vo (230 x 144mm). xxxii,(546); [iv],622; [iv],(608)pp. Bound in a handsome near contemporary half aubergine crushed morocco, banded and gilt, by Bickers & Son of Leicester Square; all edges gilt; marbled sides and endpapers; a few slight marks; some shelf-wear to lower edges; some foxing and spotting, mainly to endpapers, edges and prelims, but otherwise a very good set in a most elegant binding. Contemporary ownership inscriptions.

£300

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London : Herbert Jenkins, 1923. First edition : the first issue, with just ten titles listed on the verso of the half-title. Eighteen short stories including “Jeeves Exerts the Old Cerebellum”, “No Wedding Bells for Bingo”, “Aunt Agatha Speaks Her Mind” and “The Great Sermon Handicap”.
Crown 8vo (20cm). (256)pp. Original sage green pictorial cloth, blocked and lettered in black; some light rubbing and wear at tips; edges a little spotted, but a good copy. Pictorial bookplate of the well-known Woodrow Wyatt (1918-1997), journalist and parliamentarian.

SOLD