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London : Chatto & Windus, 1931. First edition. An uncommon early novel from Adrian Alington – the career of a conceited actor.
Demy 8vo (22cm). (xii),(436)pp. Original dark red cloth, ruled and lettered on spine in gilt; a touch bowed; covers very faintly marked and flecked; top edge a little dusty; mild spotting and light bruising of fore-edge; but still a good, sound and by no means unattractive copy.

£20

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London : Faber & Faber, (1954). First edition : in the variant and almost certainly primary binding of orange-brown cloth, blocked and lettered in maroon.
Crown 8vo (20cm). (214),[ii]pp. Original orange-brown cloth, blocked and lettered in maroon; just a hint of sunning; light spotting to edges and endpapers; erasure mark from front free endpaper, but a very good and sound copy in the original yellow, blue, black, red and white dust-jacket - just lightly used and with slight fraying of inner flaps, but still very good.

£25

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London : Grayson & Grayson, (1936). First edition. "Nor do the characters of Jove and Juno, Apollo and Daphne, Orpheus and Eurydice, thinly veil the identity of any living person ... if they misbehave themselves, that is their own fault".
Crown 8vo (20cm). 288pp. Original red cloth, lettered in black; very slightly sunned and darkened; very faint spine crease; mild spotting of edges, but a very good copy in the original pictorial dust-jacket - worn, torn, chipped, darkened and repaired, with some loss (about 1cm - less than half an inch) at head of spine and across part of upper panel.

£40

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London : W. Collins Sons & Co., (1925). First edition. A prologue and twelve short stories in Arlen’s best vein – his last great success – London’s “charming people” and their “follies, misadventures, and galanteries”. Includes “The Ace of Cads”, “The Battle of Berkeley Square”, “The Ghoul of Golders Green”, etc.
Crown 8vo (20cm). (viii),(320),[vi],[2]pp. Original black cloth, ruled in gilt and blind and lettered in gilt; mild rubbing; some spotting, mainly of edges; a very good copy in the original Edmund Dulac dust-jacket – a striking butterfly design in black and gold – a little worn and slightly chipped at extremities, with a repaired diagonal tear and some creasing to upper panel, but complete and still attractive.

£50

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London : William Heinemann, (1931). First edition. The Kentish novelist and historian's uncommon first novel. A publisher's presentation copy, with a Heinemann compliments slip loosely inserted.
Crown 8vo (20cm). [vi],322pp. Original red cloth, ruled and lettered in gilt; publisher's device in blind on lower cover; mild bruise at head of spine, a handful of spots, but a very good, bright, clean and sound copy in the original dust-jacket - a design primarily in white, blue and red, with a colour-printed magnolia on the upper panel - the jacket very faintly rubbed and with a sprinkling of spots - but fresh and without a nick.

£50

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

£40

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Leicester : Black Knight Press, 1966. First edition : limited to 100 copies, signed by the publisher, Duine Campbell. A legend, with colour illustrations by Pete Harper.
Landscape pott 4to (11 x 12cm). [12]pp. Illustrations. Original plain yellow-grey wrappers; very good.

£20

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London : Faber & Faber, (2005). First edition : precedes the 2006 New York edition. “I was looking for a quiet place to die. Someone recommended Brooklyn, and so the next morning I traveled down there from Westchester to scope out the terrain ...”.
Medium 8vo (25cm). [vi],304,[x]pp. Original black boards; very good indeed in the dust-jacket – also very good indeed.

£25

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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.

£100

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London : Victor Gollancz, 1987. First edition. A river appears in parched central Africa – “classic Ballard. Mesmerising. No one else writes with such haunting impact” (William Boyd).
Foolscap 4to (24cm). 254,[ii]pp. Original black boards, lettered on spine in gilt; near fine in the Paul Wright dust-jacket, also near fine.

£25

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London : Jonathan Cape, (1998). First edition. Signed by Julian Barnes on the title-page. His savage satire on England and the idea of England. Shortlisted for the Booker.
Demy 8vo (23cm). [vi],266pp. Original black boards, blocked and lettered in silver; very good in the Bill Gregory dust-jacket – also very good.

£25

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London : Constable & Co., (1941). First edition. The decidedly eccentric but musical Lord Berners with a tale of a “young composer who, under the auspices of a mysterious millionaire looks forward to a sumptuous production of his first symphony. Entangled with a heroine of enormous size, and assisted by a fashionable dressmaker who is also a reincarnation of Joan of Arc, the aspiring musician goes from one adventure to another”.
Crown 8vo (20cm). [viii],208pp. Frontispiece by Berners. Original magenta cloth, lettered across spine in silver; top edge pink; slight spotting of edges, but a very good, sound and bright copy in the original white dust-jacket – a monochrome design repeating the frontispiece image – lightly rubbed, just a touch dusty and lightly soiled.

£75

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London : Constable & Co., (1941). First edition. Emmeline Pocock, daughter of the warden of All Saints, tries to see out the war in her sound-proof room - disturbances from the university town - tangled love drama, the eccentric provost, the sensational reports of Mr Jericho, the volcanic Lady Caroline Paltry, the melancholic Lord FitzCricket, poltergeists, etc.
Crown 8vo (20cm). [xii],(194),[ii]pp. Three plates by the author. Original magenta cloth, lettered across spine in silver; slight touch of wear at foot; some spotting, mainly of endpapers and edges, but a very good copy in the original Berners dust-jacket - lightly worn and very slightly tanned, with some minor chipping at extremities (not affecting design or lettering), but also very good.

£100

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London : Jonathan Cape, (1986). First edition. “Blanche Vernon is one of those discreet, smart women one sees in restaurants alone ...”.
Post 8vo (21cm). (192)pp. Original blue boards, blocked and lettered on spine in gilt; text faintly tanned, as usual, but otherwise very good indeed in the dust-jacket – just faintly creased, but also very good.

£20

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London : Jonathan Cape, (1990). First edition. “They might have met far earlier, since Fay had had success as a singer, and Julia was at one time a famous diseuse, her glamour and repartee a legend. But when Julia sweeps in, wearing ravishing black silk, their celebrity is already past ...”. Love, friendship, dependence and disenchantment.
Demy 8vo (23cm). [iv],(218),[ii]pp. Original brown boards, blocked and lettered in gilt; very good indeed in a just very lightly marked dust-jacket.

£20

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London : Chatto & Windus, 1955. First edition. A comedy of manners on the world of publishing, writing, literary prizes, etc. - set in New York, London and Paris.
Post 8vo (21cm). (280)pp. Original green boards, lettered across spine in gilt; a very good, clean and sound copy in the attractive Val Biro dust-jacket - a pictorial design in grey-green, pink and black - just very slightly nicked, but also very good.

£20

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London : Chatto & Windus / Hogarth Press, (1984). First edition : an advance proof copy in the publishers’ wrappers. Fevvers – the toast of Europe’s capitals, courted by the Prince of Wales, painted by Toulouse Lautrec, the greatest aerialiste of her time.
Medium 8vo (24cm). (296)pp. Original cloth-backed decorative wrappers; very slightly bruised and faintly creased, but still a very good copy.

£20

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London : World Film Publications, 1946. First edition. A “Book of the Film” adaptation by E. Fisher of an original story with dialogue by Joyce Cary, adapted via the Herbert Victor and Thorold Dickinson screenplay. Illustrated with stills and studio portraits (Phyllis Calvert, Eric Portman and some seldom seen black actors).
Crown 8vo (19cm). (78)pp. Plates. Portraits. Original pictorial stapled wrappers; a little rubbed and slight creased; text a little browned throughout, more heavily and unevenly on opening leaves, but a good copy of a fragile production.

£20

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London : Cassell & Co., (1946). First edition. The great set-piece speeches of 1945 – the atomic bomb, the death of Roosevelt, the 1945 election, etc. The sixth volume of the war speeches, edited by Charles Eade.
Demy 8vo (23cm). (xii),(240)pp. Plates. Original blue cloth, lettered across spine in gilt; some spotting, mainly of edges and prelims, but a very good copy in a lightly worn dust-jacket.

£20

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London : Jonathan Cape, (1989). First edition. His second novel – the winner of the 1989 Whitbread Fiction Prize. Lives intertwined across time – alchemy, occult, fate, passion and obsession.
Demy 8vo (23cm). 542,[ii]pp. Original black boards, lettered in gilt; very faint spine crease; a few faint marks, but overall a very good copy in the dust-jacket – just lightly used.

£20

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New York : Farrar, Straus & Giroux, (1968). First edition. His first play, produced off-Broadway in 1968 and subsequently made into the memorable 1970 William Friedkin film.
Post 8vo (21cm). [vi],182,[iv]pp. Original sand cloth, lettered down spine in metallic green, magenta and blue; a very good copy in the striking original Diane and Leo Dillon dust-jacket – lightly sunned, with a few faint marks and one short nick to lower panel. Neat illegible name on front free endpaper.

£25

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London : Michael Joseph, (1980). First edition. A TV-tie-in collection of nine short stories, some old, some new – with four appearing in book form for the first time. Includes “Georgy Porgy”, “The Umbrella Man”, “Mr Botibol”, “Vengeance is Mine Inc.”, etc.
Demy 8vo (23cm). (128)pp. Original black boards, lettered in gilt; faint fringe of discolouration to endpapers, but otherwise very good in the dust-jacket – also very good save a few faint marks and some spotting to inner flaps.

£25

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London : Chatto & Windus, 1960. First edition. Autobiography of the poet and (as Nicholas Blake) crime-writer.
Demy 8vo (23cm). (244)pp. Plates. Portraits. Original tan buckram, blocked and lettered in black and gilt; a few minor signs of age and use, but overall a very good copy in the Reynolds Stone dust-jacket – just lightly tanned and slightly spotted, with a chip to rear panel. Contemporary (1961) ownership inscription of Mary Mitchell.

£20

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London : Henry J. Drane (Ye Olde St. Bride’s Presse), 1905. First Edition. An interesting novel from a sister of the ‘spasmodic’ poet, Sydney Thompson Dobell. Nora Dobell married Edmund Williams and subsequently lived in Kent, where the novel is set – Doris Carter experiences life and love down on the farm: ‘It is difficult to divine the reasons for the writing, much more the publication, of such books as ‘Two Women of Kent’... Its author has not the gift of telling a story; her characters are but colourless replicas of the heroes, heroines, and villains of ‘novelettes’. Certainly her intentions are blameless and pious in the extreme, but the absence of a sense of humour makes most of her dramatic moments ludicrous’ (A rather unfair review from the ‘Manchester Courier’, 17th November 1905).
Crown 8vo (19cm). 215,[i]pp. Original tan cloth over bevelled boards, lettered in black and red; lightly rubbed; cloth slightly discoloured; front free endpaper neatly excised; some occasional spotting; a little shaken, but a good copy of an uncommon title. With the dated 1933 ownership inscription of Mrs L. Cooling of Gillingham, Kent – this Lillian Cooling (1885?-1950).

£50

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London : Chatto & Windus / Martin Secker & Warburg, (1945). First British and first trade edition. A day-by-day almanac of epigrams selected by Douglas from his own earlier works. The text varies considerably from that of the twenty-five copies privately printed at Lisbon in 1941. With decorations by Enid Marx.
Post 8vo (21cm). Original deep yellow cloth, lettered in gilt; top edge very lightly spotted, but a very good and bright copy in a just faintly tanned dust-jacket – also very good.

£20

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London : Fortune Press, [1940]. First edition. A review copy, and so stamped on front free endpaper. Three verse plays: “The Unburied Dead”, dedicated to Gandhi; “Ora Pro Nobis”, dedicated to Richard March; and “Pimp, Skunk and Profiteer”, dedicated to Ezra Pound.
Crown 8vo (20cm). (136)pp. Original green buckram, lettered in gilt; cloth a little dulled and faded; some spotting of edges and prelims, but otherwise a very good copy in the original beige dust-jacket, printed in black, with a striking design on the upper panel – very slightly tanned and with just a hint of wear. Neat contemporary (1941) inscription on front free endpaper. D’Arch Smith 169.

£25

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London : George Allen & Sons, 1908. First edition. A collection of twelve stories including “The Kith of the Elf-Folk”, “The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save for Sacnoth”, “The Doom of La Traviata”, etc. Illustrated by the great Sidney Sime (1865-1941) and linked to Dunsany’s two earlier collections via the gods and goddesses of Pegãna, who appear in several of the stories.
Foolscap 4to (21cm). (xii),(244)pp. Ten black and white plates by Sime. Original decorative green cloth gilt; a touch sunned; some very faint rubbing and wear at tips; a few slight spots; small tape-marks on endpapers, but overall a very good and still bright copy.

£250

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London : Dorset Books published by E. Warington Smyth, [1943?]. First edition. Inscribed, signed with forename, and dated (1943) by Clifford Dyment on the verso of the title-page.
Crown 8vo (19cm). 20pp. Original turquoise stapled wrappers, ruled and lettered on upper wrapper in red; wrappers a little sunned, slightly creased and a little split; lower wrapper lightly stained; staples rusted; a good copy of a scarce and fragile item.

£20

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London : Hutchinson, (2001). First edition. Signed by Sebastian Faulks on the title-page. The ending of the Eisenhower years, the Kennedy campaign, Washington 1959 – a novel to the jazz rhythms of Miles Davis and John Coltrane.
Medium 8vo (25cm). [vi],(342),[iv]pp. Original green boards, blocked and lettered on spine in gilt; very good in the Robert Harding dust-jacket – price clipped, but with minimal signs of use. Gift inscription on half-title.

£40

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London : Constable & Co., 1911. First edition. A modern man adrift in the Middle Ages – Ford’s popular fantasy, dedicated to Violet Hunt – “I have worked at it harder, I think, than at any story I ever wrote, because it was to please you”.
Crown 8vo (20cm). [viii],(364),[xii]pp. Original brown cloth, pictorially blocked in blind on upper cover; a touch bruised; endpapers a little spotted, with a sprinkling of spots elsewhere, but a very good copy. Contemporary ownership inscription of G. M. Bradley. Harvey A33a.

£100

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London : Duckworth, (1925). First edition. “No more hope, no more glory, not for the nation, not for the world I dare say, no more parades”. The second of the “Parade’s End” tetralogy – Christopher Tietjens, “the last Tory”, struggles with love and war. “There are not many English novels which deserve to be called great: Parade’s End is one of them” (W. H. Auden).
Crown 8vo (19cm). (320)pp. Original green cloth, ruled in blind and lettered in gilt; a little rubbed and bruised, some spotting, labels neatly and inconspicuously removed from upper cover and rear endpaper, but a good and acceptable copy. Harvey A59.

£50

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New York : Atlantic Monthly Press, (1990). First edition. Signed by Richard Ford on the title-page. His highly acclaimed fourth novel – on the edge of the Great Plains and “coming out into the world as it is and not as we had hoped, but as it resolutely is”.
Crown 4to (24cm). [x],(178),[ii],[2]pp. Original grey cloth, lettered in metallic pink; top edge very slightly spotted, but otherwise a very good copy in the Marc Cohen dust-jacket – fresh, bright and unflawed.

£40

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London : The Harvill Press, (1997). First British edition. Signed and dated (4th September 1997) by Richard Ford on the title-page. “One of the glories of modern American writing” (Jonathan Raban).
Crown 8vo (20cm). [x],(256),[vi]pp. Original black boards, ruled, blocked and lettered in gilt; a very good copy in the dust-jacket, also very good.

£50

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London : Hutchinson & Co. (Publishers), [1929]. First edition. The best-selling book of the early months of 1929 – a tragic tale of séances, spiritualism and messages from the other side, which opens with “goings-on” on the corner of Ezra Road and Electric Avenue in Brixton, where “young females a bit short in the frock, with young gents in evening clothes” have taken to turning up in smart cars late at night. Gibbs faultlessly captures the milieu of a certain time, a certain mood and a certain place. Filmed later in 1929 by Louis J. Gasnier – an early talking picture with Evelyn Brent, Neil Hamilton, etc.
Crown 8vo (20cm). 286,[ii]pp. Original cloth grey cloth, ruled and lettered in black; a hint of wear; a few small splash-marks; some spotting, mainly to edges and prelims, but a good copy in the original dust-jacket – a strikingly atmospheric design in black and white, with darkened room, crystal ball, etc., by Sydney Seymour-Lucas (1878-1954) – very slightly used, nicked and chipped, with a couple of marks, one tiny hole and a short repaired tear, but complete, and overall a well-preserved and very welcome survival. Bleiler p.81.

£200

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London : Viking, (1996). First British edition. A strange predictive tale of the beautiful, mysterious and entirely virtual media star – from the man who coined the term cyberspace.
Medium 8vo (25cm). [x],292,[ii]pp. Original black boards, lettered in silver; just a hint of bruising, but a very good copy in the Gary Marsh dust-jacket – similarly with a hint of bruising, but also very good.

£20

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Leicester : Grange Fibre Co., 1962. First edition. Illustrated in colour throughout and with a stunning colour cover design by Rigby Graham.
Post 8vo (21cm). [32]pp. Original linson, printed in gold and colours, and lettered down the “linson vellum” spine in gilt; a touch darkened at tips and very slightly bruised, but still a very good, bright and sound copy.

£25

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London : Boriswood, 1933. First trade edition. The self-taught former ship’s stoker with a powerful novel of a captain obsessed with his only passenger, the wife of a diplomat. A mysterious stoker named Mulcare joins the crew at the last minute. “You are not reading about a ship, you live on it ... I am happy that Mr. Hanley has achieved this first-rate novel. For me he is now easily first among living writers of sea stories” (Richard Aldington).
Demy 8vo (22cm). (424),[viii]pp. Original black cloth, ruled and lettered in red and silver; top edge red; endpapers lightly tanned; edges spotted, but otherwise a very good copy indeed, bright and sound, in the delightful art-deco dust-jacket by James Boswell (1906-1971), also very good indeed, bar a single small mark on the lower panel. Loosely inserted are the original publisher’s flyer and a press-cutting of the Richard Aldington review quoted above.

£125

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London : Hutchinson, (1995). First edition. His second novel – Bletchley Park, the Ultra Secret, etc. – filmed with Saffron Burrows, Dougray Scott, Kate Winslet, etc., with a Tom Stoppard screenplay, in 2001.
Medium 8vo (25cm). [viii],390,[ii]pp. Endpaper plans. Original black boards, lettered in silver; a few faint signs of use, but a very good copy in the dust-jacket – equally with just minimal signs of use.

£25

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London : Chatto & Windus, (1991). First edition. Signed by Josephine Hart on the title-page. Her first novel, dedicated to her husband, Maurice Saatchi, and the basis of the 1992 Louis Malle film, with Jeremy Irons, Miranda Richardson and Juliette Binoche.
Medium 8vo (25cm). [vi],216,[ii]pp. Original black boards, ruled and lettered in gilt; text a touch tanned, a few tiny spots, but a very good copy in a very good dust-jacket.

£40

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London : William Heinemann, (1960). First edition. Eleven short stories.
Crown 8vo (20cm). [vi],(250)pp. Original red-pink boards, ruled and lettered in gilt; blocked in blind on upper and lower covers; a very good, bright, clean and sound copy in the original Barbosa dust-jacket – the pale pink sunned to white at spine, a few nicks and short tears, and a couple of marks, but also very good.

£20

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London : J. M. Dent & Sons, 1922. First edition. The great naturalist’s final thoughts – on deer, on ears, the wind, ways back to nature, smell, noses, sense of direction, migration, sound, music, art and the unanswered questions.
Demy 8vo (22cm). (xvi),(336)pp. Original green cloth, ruled, blocked and lettered in black and gilt; spine lettering a touch dull; slight spotting of edges and prelims, but otherwise a good and sound copy. Payne A43a.

£25

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London : Chatto & Windus, 1952. First edition. Mass hysteria and possession in seventeenth-century France – with power, corruption and political expediency. The basis of the 1971 Ken Russell film, with Vanessa Redgrave, Oliver Reed, etc.
Post 8vo (21cm). [viii],376pp. Original orange cloth, blocked and lettered in black and gilt; a little dulled; faint spine crease, but otherwise very good in the Val Biro dust-jacket – a pictorial design in orange, yellow and black – lightly worn and slightly spotted, with some light repair and reinforcement.

£25

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London : Edward Arnold & Co., 1919. First edition. His third collection of atmospheric tales – five stories, including “The Diary of Mr. Poynter”.
Crown 8vo (20cm). [viii],152pp. Original grey-black cloth, lettered and decorated in a cobweb design in pale blue; some mild rubbing; a touch of bruising; a few minor marks, but a very good copy. With the pencilled ownership inscription at front and inked note at end of Sir Percy Loraine (1880-1961), British High Commissioner to Egypt, Ambassador to Turkey, Ambassador to Italy, and racehorse owner.

£200

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London : Macmillan & Co., 1959. First edition. Her high comedy of a deluded and utterly unspeakable author at large in Bruges.
Crown 8vo (20cm). (viii),(246),[ii]pp. Original turquoise cloth, lettered in gilt; a touch sunned; a few slight spots, but a very good copy in a lightly used dust-jacket - a little spotted on reverse. Bookplate of David Graham.

£40

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Leipzig : Bernhard Tauchnitz, 1930. First Tauchnitz edition : the first printing, with the advertisements dated May 1930. Seemingly the first appearance of the book outside England and the U.S.A.
Foolscap 8vo. (304),(32)pp. Original cream wrappers, printed in black; a little minor spotting and tanning; just a touch rubbed, but a nice copy. Slocum & Cahoon p.21. Todd & Bowden 4937a.

£50

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London : Faber & Faber, (1987). First edition. An extensive selection from across the full range of Kipling’s work, edited and selected by Craig Raine.
Demy 8vo (23cm). [x],448,[vi]pp. Original black boards, lettered in silver; text lightly tanned; one leaf damaged (without loss of text); otherwise very good in the dust-jacket – also very good.

£20

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London : Arthur Barker, (1952). First edition. An innocent born in the year of the Amorous Dragon – abroad in ancient China.
Crown 8vo (19cm). 192pp. Original black cloth, blocked and lettered in gilt; top edge crimson; a very good copy in the original dust-jacket, printed in red, black and gold – just a little sunned and with a few short nicks repaired on verso.

£20

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London : Hodder & Stoughton, (1980). First edition. The last duel with Karla.
Demy 8vo (23cm). (328)pp. Original blue boards, blocked and lettered on spine in gilt; a few faint marks and spots, but a very good copy in the original dust-jacket – a photographic design by Stephen Cornwell – very lightly used and faintly spotted on lower flap.

£20

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London : Hodder & Stoughton, (1989). First edition. The third summer of perestroika – a package from Russia for Barley Blair, jazz-player, drinker and derelict English publisher.
Medium 8vo (25cm). 344,[ii],[6]pp. Original grey cloth, blocked in blind and lettered in blue; text just a touch tanned, but a very good copy in the dust-jacket – also very good.

£25

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London : Michael Joseph, (1989). First (British) edition in English of “L’Altrui Mestiere” (1985). Forty-four essays on everything from astronomy to linguistics and zoology, with autobiographical pieces and on the nature of writing. Translated from the Italian by Raymond Rosenthal.
Demy 8vo (23cm). [2],(x),(210),[ii]pp. Original maroon boards, blocked and lettered in gilt; a very good copy in a likewise very good dust-jacket.

£15

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London : Jonathan Cape, (1969). First British edition. An “essential companion” to “Under the Volcano” – Lowry’s return to the scene. Edited by Lowry’s widow, Margerie Bonner, and his first biographer, Douglas Day, from 700 pages of Lowry’s notes and drafts.
Post 8vo (21cm). xviii,[2],(256)pp. Original black boards, blocked and lettered in gilt; top edge lilac; an unusually good copy, the book very good indeed, the jacket fresh, white, unworn and the lettering unfaded.

£100

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London : Bantam Press, (2008). First edition. Brigadier Mallinson with a further instalment of the much-lauded adventures of Matthew Hervey of the 6th Light Dragoons- South Africa in 1828, Hervey escorts an embassy to Shaka, King of the Zulus.
Medium 8vo (25cm). x,(338),[ii],[2]pp. Endpaper maps. Original blue boards, blocked and lettered in gilt; very good in the pictorial Robert Papp dust-jacket – just faintly creased.

£20

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London : Constable & Co., (1924). First edition. A collection of twenty-five stories written between 1908 and 1920, including the semi-autobiographical “An Indiscreet Journey”, etc.
Crown 8vo (20cm). [2],(x),(260)pp. Original grey cloth, ruled and lettered in blue; some spotting of edges, but a very good copy in the typographic dust-jacket – lightly tanned and with minor wear and a few short nicks, but also very good. Pictorial bookplate of Marjorie Dickson and small bookseller’s label of the Bucks County Book Shop of Amersham on front endpaper.

£150

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London : Constable & Co., 1927. First edition. Mansfield destroyed all but a fragment of her “huge complaining diaries” prior to 1914, but the journal – here edited and introduced by John Middleton Murry – made up of notes for stories, diary entries, unposted letters, comments and confessions, preserves all that she wished to survive for the period 1914-1922.
Crown 8vo (20cm). (xvi),(252)pp. Original grey cloth, ruled and lettered in blue; endpapers a little tanned, but a very good copy in the typographic dust-jacket – lightly tanned and just slightly worn – but also very good. Bookseller’s label of Edgar H. Wells & Co. of New York on rear pastedown.

£100

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London : Hodder & Stoughton, 1936. First edition. A Elizabethan tale of the days leading up to the Armada – filmed in 1937 with Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh (their first pairing), as well as Flora Robson, Tamara Desni, James Mason, etc.
Crown 8vo (21cm). 316pp. Original pale blue cloth, lettered in gilt and black; a few slight marks to cloth; top edge lightly spotted, but a very good copy in the handsome Bip Pares dust-jacket – lightly worn and creased at extremities, with a couple of nicks, but also very good. Contemporary ownership inscription of Kathleen F. Martin.

£200

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London : André Deutsch, (1969). First edition. The Port of Spain and the twinned stories of the dispossessed conquistador and the later Venezuelan revolution.
Demy 8vo (22cm). [2],334pp. Frontispiece plan. Endpaper maps. Original brown boards, blocked and lettered in gilt; top edge orange; very good in the original Keith Rawling dust-jacket – a design in brown, gold and orange – a little sunned and just slightly nicked.

£40

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London : André Deutsch, (1972). First edition. A collection of essays and articles – Naipaul on being an Indian West Indian, on London, on cricket, on India, on John Steinbeck and Monterey, on Norman Mailer and New York, on Jacques Soustelle, on St. Kitts, on Anguilla, on Mauritius, etc.
Demy 8vo (22cm). 286,[ii]pp. Original navy boards, ruled, blocked and lettered in gilt; a touch of sunning to spine, but a very good copy in the original Peter Freeman dust-jacket – a design in blue, yellow, cerise and white – just slightly creased on an inner flap, but otherwise very good.

£20

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London : Arthur Gray (Books), [1934]. First edition. “Someone once said that the parties in Hollywood sounded like school treats compared to those given by Maisie Bellamy” – film critic Peter Day knows everyone in the Elstree set – young Lucinda Carey does not. Conflicts between love and career, “the glamour of the film world; written with first-hand knowledge”.
Crown 8vo (19cm). (250),[ii]pp. Original jade cloth, lettered in black; a few minor marks, but a very good copy in the striking art-deco dust-jacket by H. W. Perl (1897-1952) – a little sunned, label neatly removed, but very lightly used and bright and attractive. Just two copies (British Library and New York) located in the world’s major libraries.

£125

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New York : Gemor Press, (1945). First edition. “The unveiling of women is a delicate matter. It will not happen overnight. We are all afraid of what we shall find”. One of 1,000 copies of the regular edition, illustrated with five woodcuts by “Ian Hugo” – Nin’s husband Hugh Parker Guiler (1898-1985). This copy signed by Nin and amicably inscribed to Raymond Daum – “Hoping we may colloborate!” – Raymond Witham Daum (1923-2003), cameraman and archivist, perhaps best-known for his “Walking with Garbo” (1991). His archive documenting his friendships with Gloria Swanson, Greta Garbo and other well-known figures is now housed at the Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Foolscap 4to (22cm). [iv],(184),[iv],[4]pp – including integral endleaves. Five woodblock illustrations by Ian Hugo. Original decorative boards in a Hugo design in maroon and cream; some very minor wear and a few slight marks; tiny sticker mark on rear board; endpapers a little tanned, but a very good copy.

£500

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London : Jonathan Cape, (1933). First edition. The daughter of a county family marries the son of one of the tenants and is rejected by her kith and kin – a fine and unsentimental novel of Irish life.
Crown 8vo (20cm). (414),[ii]pp. Original olive cloth, blocked and lettered in yellow; edges spotted, but otherwise a very good copy in the stylish dust-jacket – slightly darkened at foot of spine and with just a touch of edge-wear, but also very good.

£200

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

£40

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London : Chatto & Windus, 1945. First edition. A collection of fourteen stories from the “complete short-story writer”. Includes “The Sailor”, “The Saint”, “Aunt Gertrude”, “The Night Worker”, etc.
Crown 8vo (20cm). [vi],(186)pp. Original sand cloth, lettered in gilt; top edge deep yellow; a few faint edge-spots, but a very good, bright, clean and sharp copy.

£20

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

£20

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London : Chatto & Windus, 1974. First edition. Nine short stories – antique dealers and their fantasies; the lady from Guatemala; Molly – “as noisy as a blowlamp, but pretty”; an innocent abroad; an ambitious film-producer, etc.
Post 8vo (21cm). (204),[iv]pp. Original light green-gray boards, lettered in gilt; very minor adhesion damage to endpapers, but a very good copy in the John Sutcliffe dust-jacket – also very good.

£20

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London : Jonathan Cape, (1997). First British edition. Pynchon’s Grand Tour of the Enlightenment’s dark hemisphere.
Medium 8vo (25cm). [viii],(774),[ii]pp. Original black boards, blocked and lettered in gilt; very good in the Raquel Jaramillo dust-jacket – also very good.

£25

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London : Duckworth & Co., (1931). First edition. The tenth volume in the “Pilgrimage” sequence – Miriam once more in London – trying to reject the influence of Hypo G. Wilson (so clearly based on Richardson’s former lover, H. G. Wells). With an afterword by John Cowper Powys – “It is hard to think of any woman in fiction more living, more real ... Certainly she is one of the master realists of our tongue. Like all great writers, she really and truly creates a completely new world ...”.
Crown 8vo (20cm). (254),[ii]pp. Original purple-blue cloth, lettered in gilt; a few faint marks, but a very good copy in the dust-jacket – lightly worn and slightly spotted, with a faint crease to rear panel, but also very good.

£100

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London : Methuen & Co., (1918). First edition. Rohmer tries to escape from the Doctor Fu Manchu genre with a restrained but serious excursion into the occult and philiosophical novel.
Crown 8vo (20cm). [vi],250pp + (32)pp. Original tan cloth, lettered in black; very slightly rubbed; a touch bruised; very mild spotting of edges; a few small marks and spots; advertisement leaves a little tanned and brittle, with a short tear to final leaf, but overall a very good copy of a difficult title. Bleiler p.170.

£75

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London : Constable & Co., (1937). First edition. Young love in France - "a book which begins and ends with their farewell, under the cliff-like side of a Cunarder on the docks of Cherbourg in the rain".
Crown 8vo (20cm). [viii],344pp. Original purple cloth, blocked in gilt and lettered in green across spine; top edge pink; a touch sunned; mild spotting of edges, but a very good copy in the original dust-jacket - a design in purple-red, white and black (with words from the song) - just lightly used, a touch sunned and very lightly tanned - but in very good order.

£50

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London : Hogarth Press, 1956. First edition. "One moment the window was empty, a dark square - and the next this strange new woman was standing against the sill ... " - the rich and private jungle within the brick façades of Kensington. A fine novel from this quirky and neglected master of London lives.
Crown 8vo (20cm). (240)pp. Original bright blue boards, lettered in gilt; top edge pink; slight sliver of fading at foot; mild tanning of endpapers; a few slight edge spots, but overall a very good copy in the stylish Charles Mozley dust-jacket - price-clipped, lightly tanned and with a few short nicks, but still attractive. Small bookseller's label of George's of Bristol on front pastedown.

£20

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

£40

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London : William Heinemann, (1975). First edition. The final volume of Scott’s ‘Jewel in the Crown’ quartet – the British Raj moves inexorably towards its end.
Demy 8vo (23cm). [viii],(600)pp. Original brown boards, blocked and lettered in gilt; very faint spine crease; mild spotting of edges, but a very good copy in the original Bill Richmond dust-jacket – just faintly sunned at spine.

£50

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London : Chapman & Hall, 1949. First edition. Her third novel and her own favourite – hopeless relationships amid post-war reconstruction.
Crown 8vo (20cm). (202),[ii]pp. Original dove-grey cloth, the spine enamelled in pink and lettered in gilt; top edge pink; a very good, clean and sound copy – the pink wash on the spine fresh and clear – in the original pink, white and black dust-jacket, decorated with a Stevie Smith drawing – just faintly tanned, very slightly rubbed and just lightly used.

£75

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London : D. C. Thomson & Co., [1931]. First edition. Soskice was Ford Madox Ford’s younger sister, best remembered for her “Chapters from Childhood : Reminiscences of an Artist’s Granddaughter” (1921), but here with a tearful romance - “Nevertheless, a few months later Rhoda and her sister, pretty, wilful Phyllis, dressed in deep mourning, sat motherless and friendless, alone in the threadbare little room”. Red Letter Novels No. 270.
Foolscap 4to (21cm). 160pp. Original stapled pictorial wrappers - masher in striped tie seemingly wearing lipstick; lightly rubbed; mild tanning of text; a touch of rusting to staples, but a very good copy of an extremely rare book. Only the British Library copy located in any of the major UK libraries.

£200

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London : Macmillan & Co., 1963. First edition. “Few people alive at the time were more delightful, more ingenious, more movingly lovely, and, as it might happen, more savage, than the girls of slender means”.
Crown 8vo (20cm). [vi],(184),[ii]pp. Original blue boards, lettered in gilt; a very good, sound and clean copy in the evocative dust-jacket by Harry Cowdell (1912-1987) – just lightly sunned and slightly rubbed at extremities.

£75

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

£20

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London : William Heinemann, (1954). First British edition. “One night Mack lay back on his bed in the Palace Flophouse and he said, ‘I ain’t never been satisfied with that book Cannery Row. I would have went about it different’” – the sequel.
Post 8vo (21cm). viii,264pp. Original dark green cloth, ruled and lettered across spine in gilt; very faint cup-mark on lower cover, but otherwise a very good, sound and bright copy in the original pictorial dust-jacket by PG – very lightly worn, with just a few tiny chips and a few short tears.

£40

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Boston : Houghton Mifflin Co., 1973. First edition. Jack Flowers, Singapore fixer and pimp, in a spot of trouble with the locals – memorably filmed by Peter Bogdanovich in 1979, with Ben Gazzara, Denholm Elliott, Joss Ackland, etc.
Demy 8vo (23cm). [viii],(248)pp. Original stone cloth, blocked and lettered in blue and red; top edge pink; some spotting of cloth and edges, but a good and sound copy in the Paul Bacon dust-jacket – price-clipped, but very good, fresh and clean.

£40

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Boston : Houghton Mifflin Co., 1997. First edition. Hong Kong on the eve of the hand-over to China – Bunt Mullard struggles to adapt and a young woman disappears from his factory.
Demy 8vo (22cm). [viii],(244),[iv]pp. Original quarter red cloth; red boards; lettered in gilt; a very good, bright, clean and sound copy in an the Michaela Sullivan dust-jacket – equally very good.

£25

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London : Bloomsbury, (1995). First edition. Inscribed and signed by Joanna Trollope on the title-page. Two intelligent, ordinary, recognisable families intertwined in friendship in a country town – intimacy, betrayal and loyalty.
Medium 8vo (25cm). [vi],(262),[ii],[2]pp. Original navy boards, blocked and lettered in gilt; top edge a little spotted; faint press-crease to title-page, but otherwise a very good copy in the Jenny Wheatley dust-jacket – just faintly rubbed, but also very good.

£20

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New York : Farrar Straus Giroux, 1990. First edition. Signed by the author on the title-page. The “Presumed Innocent” attorney finds his wife has killed herself.
Medium 8vo (25cm). [x],(518)pp. Original half cloth; a very good copy in the Neil Stuart dust-jacket – also very good.

£25

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London : Chatto & Windus, (1980). First British edition. “You would say he was a man who had gone to pieces, or maybe he’d always been in pieces: maybe he’d arrived unassembled ...”. A fine early Anne Tyler. Originally published in New York earlier the same year.
Post 8vo (21cm). [iv],(312)pp. Original brown boards, ruled and lettered across spine in gilt; a very good, fresh, sound and bright copy in the pictorial Oliver Elmes dust-jacket – price-clipped by the publisher and with a revised price over-sticker – also very good indeed.

£50

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

£20

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

£15

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London : Enitharmon Press, 1994. First edition : [one of 1,000 copies in wrappers]. Signed by Edward Upward on the title-page. Six short stories, including “A Ship in the Sky”, with an introduction by Frank Kermode.
Demy 8vo (22cm). 102,[ii]pp. Original pale blue-grey wrappers, with a Glenn Sujo design, printed in blue and black; very good. Walker A7a.

£20

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London : Hodder & Stoughton, (1968). First edition. Satirical and still fresh fable of town-planning in Sussex.
Post 8vo (21cm). 224pp. Original blue boards, blocked and lettered in gilt; some spotting of edges, but a very good and bright copy in the Verney dust-jacket, just a little worn and faintly dulled.

£20

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London : Stanley Paul & Co., (1924). First edition. One of the author’s “smartly witty novels, self-consciously progressive especially about sex, published between 1908 and 1929” (Oxford Companion to Edwardian Fiction). “A frank and convention-defying story” (Aberdeen Press, 1st January 1925). The rather supercilious Lily Kesterton lives in the worst part of Kensington with her rather dull husband, but longs for high society and the smart set of bright young things exemplified by her friend Mrs Flare – a character who could slip effortlessly and without alteration into the pages of any of Evelyn Waugh’s early novels. “An entertaining and brightly written story. All the characters are well drawn” (Times Literary Supplement).
Crown 8vo (20cm). 256 + (40)pp advertisements. Original grey cloth, ruled and lettered in black; cloth lightly rubbed and a little marked; a handful of edge spots, but a good and sound copy in the dust-jacket – a lively design of redhead dancing with a devil on a string – a little worn, torn, chipped, marked and repaired, but substantially complete and attractive still. Ownership inscription dated August 1926 blocked out.

£50

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London : Jonathan Cape, (1962). First edition. Square-bashing with the RAF – and the undermining of a rebel.
Post 8vo (21cm). [ii],74,[iv]pp. Original holly green boards, blocked and lettered up spine in silver; top edge red; a very good copy in a lightly worn and slightly creased dust-jacket featuring a scene from the original Royal Court Theatre production. Contemporary (1963) ownership inscription of P. M. Turner on front free endpaper.

£25

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London : Grey Walls Press, 1951. First British edition. Hollywood in the Depression years – and the first appearance of Homer Simpson. Originally published in New York in 1939.
Crown 8vo (20cm). (208)pp. Original dark blue cloth, lettered in gilt; a few faint marks; very mild tanning of endpapers, but a very good and bright copy in the original pale blue dust-jacket, printed in maroon and black – just a little tanned, and with a few very faint streaks of discolouration.

£40

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London : Neville Spearman, (1954). First British edition. The dismantling of the American dream – a sharp satire originally published in New York in 1934.
Crown 8vo (20cm). (140)pp. Original red boards, blocked and lettered in white; very good in the original dust-jacket, printed in yellow, red and grey – a little sunned at spine, lightly nicked and slightly holed and creased on lower panel.

£20

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

£25

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London : Martin Secker & Warburg, 1950. First edition. The author’s second book – a collection of eleven stories, including “Sister Superior”, “Heart of Elm”, “What do Hippo’s Eat”, etc.
Crown 8vo (19cm). 212pp. Original dark red cloth, lettered in gilt; slight tanning of endpapers; mark on fore-edge, but otherwise a very good, bright and unworn copy in the original grey dust-jacket, printed in red and black – alao very good, with just a few faint signs of age and use.

£25

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New York : Doubleday & Co., 1946. First edition. Wilson’s celebrated collection of short stories of the “lost generation” – “the adventures of an egoist among the bedeviled”. Banned on first publication.
Post 8vo (21cm). [xii],338,[ii]pp. Frontispiece. Original green cloth, blocked and lettered in gilt; a very good copy in the original grey, green and white dust-jacket – lightly tanned and slightly chipped.

£25

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London : Jonathan Cape, (1966). First British edition. Wolfe’s first collection – twenty-two essays and half a dozen caricatures. An entirely new voice in journalism skyrockets metaphors, neologisms, hip-talk and learned reference into the pursuit of the form and style of the new. Includes “The Fifth Beatle”, “The First Tycoon of Teen”, “The Last American Hero”, “The Girl of the Year”, “The Nanny Mafia”, “A Sunday Kind of Love”, “The Woman Who Has Everything”, “Why Doormen Hate Volkswagens”, etc. First published in New York the previous year, but here in the period-defining dust-jacket by Jonathan Miller.
Post 8vo (21cm). (xviii),(340),[iv]pp. Original pink boards, blocked and lettered in gilt; mild tanning of edges, but a very good copy in the dust-jacket – a touch sunned, with some very minor edge-wear and a single short tear, but also very good.

£100

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

£20

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