SOMERVILLE & ROSS FIRST EDITIONS AT
ASH RARE BOOKS
43 HURON ROAD
LONDON SW17 8RE
UNITED KINGDOM

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

£200

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

£125

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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).
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.

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London : Longmans, Green & Co., 1903. First edition. Eleven short stories, with illustrations by Somerville.
Crown 8vo (20cm). [viii],274,2pp + [4]pp inserted advertisements. Ten full-page illustrations. Original grey cloth, lettered in black and gilt, with a striking pictorial design by Somerville; very lightly bruised at head, some spotting of edges and text, but otherwise a very good copy.

£100

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

£100

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London : Longmans, Green & Co., 1908. First edition : in the primary binding, the white cloth band extending across both front and back covers. The second volume of Major Yeates stories – eleven tales, illustrated by Somerville.
Crown 8vo (20cm). viii,(316),(4)pp. Plates. Illustrations. Original pale green cloth, with onlaid white band, lettered in gilt and black; a touch sunned; a few specks; endpapers a little tanned; some spotting, mainly of edges, but a very good and still bright copy.

£100

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London : Methuen & Co., (1911). First edition : in the primary binding of orange-brown glazed linen. “In this story, above all others, we have told, faithfully, and with the emotion of enthusiasts, of the sport that we knew and loved” (Edith Somerville).
Crown 8vo (20cm). [viii],340 + (32)pp advertisements dated September 1911 (earlier advertisements are sometimes encountered – dated August or even March 1911, although the book was not published until October and these appear to be irregular). Original orange-brown cloth, blocked on upper cover and spine with white feathers, lettered across upper cover in black, and across spine in gilt; a few faint marks and spots, but a very good copy still. Small Times Book Club label and date-stamp Nov 18 1911 on rear endpaper.

£100

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London : Methuen & Co., (1941). First edition : [one of 2,490 copies]. Somerville on poltergeists, magic, ghosts and much else besides. Illustrations by Somerville.
Foolscap 4to (22cm). (x),(134)pp. Illustrations. Original orange cloth, lettered on spine in black; tiny patches of sunning where the jacket is chipped, but a very good copy in a nicked and chipped dust-jacket, slightly split along flap of upper panel. Hudson p.58. Vaughan p.270.

£75

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