ASH RARE BOOKS – ANTIQUARIAN RARE AND FINE BOOKS – FIRST EDITIONS – ANTIQUE MAPS AND PRINTS
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CATALOGUE 118 : NOTHING TOO EXPENSIVE (14) | |
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ACRES, W. Marston (Wilfrid Marston), 1879-1953 : LONDON AND WESTMINSTER IN HISTORY & LITERATURE. London : T. Fisher Unwin, (1923). First edition. An attractive compilation of out of the way snippets of London history – central London taken street-by-street. Acres is best known for his history of the Bank of England, where he spent his working life. SOLD |
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ADAMS, Cleve F. (Cleve Franklin), 1884-1949 : SHADY LADY. New York : Ace Books, (1955). First edition. “He is far and away the best writer of the hard-boiled school” (Vincent Starrett). His last novel, completed by Robert Leslie Bellem. Published as an “Ace Double”, bound tête-bêche in “two books in one” format, with the first edition of “One Got Away” by paperback king Harry Whittington (1915-1989). £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 30874 – or simply click on the button
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ADAMS, Herbert, 1874-1958 : THE SLOANE SQUARE MYSTERY. London : Methuen & Co., (1925). First edition. Sir Nicholas Brannock found dead in Sloane Square – a case of poisoning – things look black for his nephew and dining companion Rollo. An elegant murder mystery, with an interesting use of an early radio broadcast to appeal for information. “First-rate detective yarn ... a web of baffling circumstances amid which the bewildered reader is held engrossed to the end” (Truth, 26th August 1925). SOLD |
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AIKEN, Joan (Joan Delano), 1924-2004 : TALE OF A ONE-WAY STREET AND OTHER STORIES. London : Jonathan Cape, (1978). First edition. Eight stories, with striking illustrations by Jan Pienkowski. Includes “The Goodbye Song”, “The Queen of the Moon”, “Clean Sheets”, etc. SOLD |
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AMBLER, Eric (Eric Clifford), 1909-1998 : A KIND OF ANGER. London : Bodley Head, (1964). First edition. An Iraqi colonel has been murdered in Switzerland – and the woman in the bikini has disappeared. A reluctant and underestimated journalist finds his niche in the world of espionage. SOLD |
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AMBLER, Eric (Eric Clifford), 1909-1998 : THE STORY SO FAR : MEMORIES & OTHER FICTIONS. London : Weidenfeld & Nicolson, (1993). First edition. Autobiographical passages interspersed with some of the most interesting of his short stories. SOLD |
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ANDERSON, Oliver, 1912-1996 : RANDOM AT RANDOM. London : Arthur Barker, (1959). First edition. The fourth Guy Random novel – ranging from East Anglia to the Costa del Sol, via the gilded drawing-rooms of Belgravia and Soho’s Vulture Club. £20 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 28403 – or simply click on the button
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ANDERSON, Oliver, 1912-1996 : RANDOM ALL ROUND. London : Arthur Barker, (1960). First edition. The fifth and last of the Guy Random novels – “a peer caught in a mouse-trap; three dozen mixed gadabouts stuffed into the boot-cupboard ... a striptease artiste roosting in the chandelier; and a weight-lifter entombed in the grand piano”. £20 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 28404 – or simply click on the button
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AUDEN, W.H. (Wystan Hugh), 1907-1973 & ISHERWOOD, Christopher, 1904-1986 : PLAYS AND OTHER DRAMATIC WRITINGS BY W. H. AUDEN : 1928-1938. Princeton : Princeton University Press, (1988). First edition. Plays, documentary filmscripts, cabaret and wireless scripts, etc., with full critical notes and apparatus. The first volume of the Complete Works, edited by Edward Mendelson. A presentation copy, with the editor’s compliments slip loosely inserted. From the collection of the late B. C. Bloomfield, who collaborated with Mendelson on the Auden bibliography. SOLD |
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AUNGIER, George James, 1808- – editor : CRONIQUES DE LONDON, DEPUIS L’AN 44 HEN. III. JUSQU’À L’AN 17 EDW. III. London : for the Camden Society, 1844. First edition. A transcription of a valuable fourteenth-century manuscript French Chronicle of London, with an extensive introduction and explanatory notes. With a list of members of the Society, etc. Edited by George James Aungier, who was sentenced to transportation for life the following year for forging a cheque in the name of John Gough Nichols of the printing family – indeed the printers of the present work – Nichols testifying at the Old Bailey trial. £20 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 39011 – or simply click on the button
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BARKER, Nicola, 1966- : WIDE OPEN. London : Faber & Faber, (1998). First edition. Signed by Nicola Barker on the title-page. “Barker once again pushes back the boundaries of comedy, chronicling the dark inner lives of a cast of characters straight from the pages of a social services register” – set on the Isle of Sheppey and winner of the 2000 International Dublin Literary Award. £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44422 – or simply click on the button
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BATES, H.E. (Herbert Ernest), 1905-1974 : THE FABULOUS MRS V. London : Michael Joseph, (1964). First edition. A collection of twelve short stories. Not published in the USA. £15 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 39040 – or simply click on the button
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BATES, H.E. (Herbert Ernest), 1905-1974 : A LITTLE OF WHAT YOU FANCY. London : Michael Joseph, (1970). First edition. “On some occasions Pop was moved to go even further than mere champagne and concoct a cool but potent mixture of about equal parts of brandy and champagne, preferably pink, with a dash of angostura bitters and a slice of orange. This was the perfick stiffener to start the day on”. The fifth and last of the Larkin novels. Not published in the USA. SOLD |
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BAYNTON-WILLIAMS, Roger, 1936-2011 : INVESTING IN MAPS. London : Barrie & Rockliff, (1969). First edition. A handsomely illustrated and influential guide to collecting antique maps, with an index of mapmakers, a bibliography, etc. SOLD |
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BELL, Walter George, 1867-1942 : THE GREAT FIRE OF LONDON IN 1666. London : John Lane, The Bodley Head, 1920. First edition. The first full-length study of the Great Fire and the subsequent rebuilding. SOLD |
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BERNERS, Lord (Gerald Hugh Tyrwhitt-Wilson, 14th Baron), 1883-1950 : COUNT OMEGA. 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”. SOLD |
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BERRY, Bryan (Roderick Bryan), 1930-1966 : THE VENOM-SEEKERS. London : Panther Books – Hamilton & Co. (Stafford), (1953). First edition : the wrappers issue. In a low dive on Venus, the very beautiful Miss Banner is looking for a spaceman to pilot an off-the-record spaceship to Beta Centaurus. Chandleresque sci-fi. Panther Book 57. SOLD |
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BERRY, Bryan (Roderick Bryan), 1930-1966 : FROM WHAT FAR STAR? London : Panther Books – Hamilton & Co. (Stafford), (1953). First edition : the wrappers issue. Security officer becomes suspicious of a physicist at the Spaceship Development Centre – “something had walked through walls all right – but certainly not a man”. Panther Book 40. £10 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 41487 – or simply click on the button
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BETJEMAN, John (Sir John), 1906-1984 : A NIP IN THE AIR. London : John Murray, (1974). First edition. Twenty-seven poems from the period 1967-1974, including “The Costa Blanca”, “A Wembley Lad”, “A Mind’s Journey to Diss”, etc. £20 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 38548 – or simply click on the button
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BIRRELL & GARNETT – [POLLARD, Graham (Henry Graham), 1903-1976] : CATALOGUE OF : I. TYPEFOUNDERS’ SPECIMENS ; II. BOOKS PRINTED IN FOUNTS OF HISTORIC IMPORTANCE : III. WORKS ON TYPEFOUNDING, PRINTING & BIBLIOGRAPHY OFFERED FOR SALE. Brighton : Tony Appleton, 1972. A facsimile reprint (limited to 500 numbered copies) of this celebrated and influential Birrell & Garnett catalogue, first published in 1928 and at once recognised by Stanley Morison as the most significant attempt thus far at a descriptive list of the major original sources for the study of typography. With Pollard’s original introduction, chronological tables, etc. £15 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 27171 – or simply click on the button
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[BLATCHFORD, Robert (Robert Peel Glanville), 1851-1943] : DISMAL ENGLAND. London : Walter Scott, 1899. First edition. The journalist, novelist and great populariser of socialism speaks out on the dark side of Victorian England – the children of the ghetto, past midnight on the Strand in the snow, chemical workers, life on the canals, in the police court, a workhouse school, and much else besides. SOLD |
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BOVILL, E.W. (Edward William), 1892-1966 : THE ENGLAND OF NIMROD AND SURTEES : 1815-1854. London : Oxford University Press, 1959. First edition. A study of the golden age of fox-hunting and coaching, with chapters on both Charles James Apperley and Robert Smith Surtees, eleven chapters on “The Chase” and seven on “The Road”, a bibliography, etc. SOLD |
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BOWERING PRESS : CATALOGUE OF BOOK FACES : DISPLAY TYPES : BORDERS & RULES. Plymouth : Bowering Press, [ca.1950]. First edition. A handsome post-war specimen book from the Bowering Press. Includes specimen pages for book-work in Baskerville, Caslon Old Face, Fournier, Garamond, Gill Sans, Modern and Perpetua, with a selection of display faces in Albertus, Baskerville, Bulmer, Columna, and variations on Perpetua. Also with notes on other type faces and five pages of type borders and rules. SOLD |
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[BOX, Muriel (Violette Muriel), 1905-1991 & BOX, Sydney, 1907-1983] – “AUGUST, Evelyn” : THE BLACK-OUT BOOK : BEING ONE-HUNDRED-AND-ONE BLACK-OUT NIGHTS’ ENTERTAINMENT. London : George G. Harrap & Co., (1939). The second printing (November 1939) of the original publication issued earlier that month. “Planned with one purpose in mind – to provide the average family with sufficient amusement and entertainment for one hundred and one black-out nights” – “Problems and puzzles, games and competitions, humour, anecdotes and quotations” (Croydon Advertiser, 1st December 1939). Compiled pseudonymously by the screenwriter and film director Muriel Box, together with her husband Sydney, head of Gainsborough Pictures during the war years. Jointly they won the best original screenplay Oscar in 1946 for “The Seventh Veil”, the biggest British box-office success of its year and estimated to be the tenth most-viewed film ever made. SOLD |
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BOYD, William, 1952- : BRAZZAVILLE BEACH : A NOVEL. London : Sinclair-Stevenson, (1990). First edition. Hope Clearwater finds herself living on the edge of Africa – winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. SOLD |
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BOYD, William, 1952- : WAITING FOR SUNRISE. London : Bloomsbury Publishing, (2012). First edition. Vienna in 1913, psychiatry, Freud, love affairs, London in 1914, war, espionage in Geneva, and the battlefields of France. £20 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44443 – or simply click on the button
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BREWER, H.W. (Henry William), 1836-1903 : OLD LONDON ILLUSTRATED. A SERIES OF DRAWINGS BY THE LATE H. W. BREWER ILLUSTRATING LONDON IN THE XVITH CENTURY. London : The Builder, 1922. Third edition. A revised edition, here issued for the first time with key-plates, of Brewer’s delightful reconstructions of the streets and buildings of Elizabethan London: a panoramic view of London from the east; the Tower; Aldgate, Cheapside; Old St. Paul’s; Ludgate; Newgate; Ely Place; Old London Bridge; Westminster, etc. – first published as a collection the previous year, although the drawings originally appeared in “The Builder” in the 1880s and 1890s. With descriptive notes by Herbert Arthur Cox (1875-1956). SOLD |
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BROMLEY, Gordon (Gordon Rushworth), 1910-1988 : LONDON GOES TO WAR – 1939. London : Michael Joseph, (1974). First edition. The first year of the war and London and Londoners are changed forever – The balloons go up, The children leave, The lights go out ... Illustrated throughout with previously unpublished photographs by the cameramen of the weekly magazine “Illustrated”. £15 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 43526 – or simply click on the button
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BROOKE, Rupert (Rupert Chawner), 1887-1915 : THE COMPLETE POEMS. London : Sidgwick & Jackson, 1942. Second edition. A chronological arrangement of Brooke’s poetry – close on 100 poems. Originally published in 1932. SOLD |
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BROTTON, Jerry (Jeremy Richard), 1969- : TRADING TERRITORIES : MAPPING THE EARLY MODERN WORLD. London : Reaktion Books, (1997). First edition. A well-illustrated study (based on a Ph. D. thesis) of maps and geographical knowledge in the early modern world, with sections on the cartography of the early Portuguese discoveries, the geography of the Ottoman Empire, mapping the Moluccas, and the geography of Mercator and Ortelius. £10 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 32564 – or simply click on the button
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BROWNJOHN, Alan (Alan Charles), 1931- : THE OBSERVATION CAR. London : Hutchinson, (1990). First edition. Inscribed, signed and dated (1991) by Alan Brownjohn on the title-page. A collection of thirty-two poems, including “What Lovers Do in Novels”, “Film Noir”, “The Sunshine Coffee Lounge”, etc. “Some of the best British poems of the last thirty years” (Gavin Ewart). £15 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 18453 – or simply click on the button
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“BRYONY, June” : GLORIOUS ROMANCE. London : Hamilton & Co. (Stafford), [1949]. First edition. Marguerite de Manell comes of age: she owns a great historic castle, but can’t afford to – she is living in a poky bed-sit and working as a shorthand typist. £10 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 42581 – or simply click on the button
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BUCHAN, John, 1875-1940 : THE PATH OF THE KING. London : Hodder & Stoughton, [1921]. First edition : in a variant binding of light blue cloth lettered in dark blue, with double rules at the head and tail of spine, and the JB monogram on the upper cover. Regarded by Buchan as his first serious piece of fiction – an episodic tale of the descent of kingliness through history – from Nordic prince to Abraham Lincoln. £20 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 20689 – or simply click on the button
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BULMER, H.K. (Henry Kenneth), 1921-2005 : ENCOUNTER IN SPACE. London : Panther Books – Hamilton & Co. (Stafford), (1952). First edition. “And Man’s very brain, his most powerful weapon, which had brought him from the mud to the stars, was the thing that drew the Destromech on!” Panther Book 29. SOLD |
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BULMER, H.K. (Henry Kenneth), 1921-2005 : EMPIRE OF CHAOS. London : Panther Books, Hamilton & Co. (Stafford), (1953). First edition : the wrappers issue. “The story moves rapidly, out from the solar system to the far planets of Martell and Loris” – Captain Lance struggles alongside beautiful flame-haired Rusty Purcell for the mastery of the galaxy. Panther Book 69. £10 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 41474 – or simply click on the button
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BUNTING, Basil (Basil Cheesman), 1900-1985 : THE SPOILS. Newcastle upon Tyne : Morden Tower Book Room, [1965]. First separate edition. “As I sat at my counting frame to assess the people ...” – a ten-page poem relating to Bunting’s time in Tehran, originally published in an American magazine in 1951 and here making its first British appearance. With Bunting’s page of explanatory notes. £15 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44459 – or simply click on the button
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BURKE, James Lee, 1936- : BITTERROOT. New York : Simon & Schuster, (2001). First edition. Billy Bob Holland comes to Big Sky Country for some fishing and ends up helping out an old friend in trouble – deep trouble. £15 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 42304 – or simply click on the button
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BURKE, Jonathan (John Frederick), 1922-2011 : REVOLT OF THE HUMANS. London : Panther Books – Hamilton & Co. (Stafford), (1955). First edition. “Mankind overcomes his parasitical alien oppressors in this excellent and suspenseful sequel to ‘Twilight of Reason’” (Harbottle & Holland A43). Panther Book 192. £10 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 41475 – or simply click on the button
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BURLESON, Terry O.K., 1920-1989 : THE MADAM WHO BLUSHED! New York : Magazine Productions, (1952). First edition. “Six dames wanted Johnny – but five wanted him dead” – murder, mayhem, love and passion – “as believable as if it were happening today to the nice young boy next door – and just as shocking!” Rainbow No. 122. £20 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 41740 – or simply click on the button
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“BUTLER, Joan” – [ALEXANDER, Robert William, 1905-1979] : GILT EDGED. London : Stanley Paul & Co., (1953). First edition. “Summer is i-comen in, and so is Reggie Wilmot, a stout lad with an eye like a frozen haddock and the makings of a high-class racketeer”. SOLD |
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CALDWELL, Erskine (Erskine Preston), 1903-1987 : MIDSUMMER PASSION AND OTHER STORIES. New York : Avon Publishing Co., (1948). First edition of this selection of fifteen stories, written between 1931 and 1940 and earlier collected in “Jackpot”. Includes “The Swell-Looking Girl”, “Saturday Afternoon”, etc. Avon 177. £10 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 41924 – or simply click on the button
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CARBERY, Mary (Lady Mary Toulmin), 1867-1949 & GREY, Edwin : HERTFORDSHIRE HERITAGE : OURSELVES AND OUR WORDS. London : John Green & Co., 1948. First edition. General historical matter on the county, followed by over 100 pages of a glossary of Hertfordshire dialect words. SOLD |
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CARR, John Dickson, 1906-1977 : SCANDAL AT HIGH CHIMNEYS : A VICTORIAN MELODRAMA. London : Hamish Hamilton, (1959). First British edition. “A barrister has secretly adopted the child of a woman whom he himself had successfully prosecuted for murder. Of course, he gets murdered. The plot turns not only on who killed him, but on which of his children was the adopted one” (E. D. O’Brien, Illustrated London News, 3rd October 1959). With a concluding eleven pages of notes on the background and sources for London in 1865. £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44159 – or simply click on the button
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CARR, Kathryn : SUBSTITUTE PRINCESS [COVER TITLE]. London : C. Arthur Pearson, [ca.1950]. First edition. Nurse Gwyneth Ross longs for romance as she works in the Military Hospital at Kleinstadt in the British Zone of post-war occupied Germany. An early un-numbered title in Pearson’s once popular “Glamour Library”. £10 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 42582 – or simply click on the button
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CASTELLO, Inez : MAN-EATER. London : Arthur Gray (Books), [1934]. First edition. “Who is she? Oh, come! You surely can’t tell me that you don’t know she’s the great Lulu Le Sainte?” – the lovely, famous and scandalous man-eater meets a confirmed woman-hater on a terrace in Monte Carlo. Inez Castello, author of half a dozen similar novels of the Bright-Young-Things period, was perhaps the London-born “actress” who took ship from Havana to New York under that name in 1920, but has otherwise eluded identification. SOLD |
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[CERVANTES SAAVEDRA, Miguel de, 1547-1616] : THE STORY OF DON QUIXOTE AND HIS SQUIRE SANCHO PANZA. London : George Routledge & Sons, [1889]. Titled “Don Quixote for Boys” on the cover – an attractively illustrated abridgement (albeit a lengthy one) by Meredith Jones of the much-admired eighteenth-century translation by Charles Jervas. First published in this form in 1875. SOLD |
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CHANCELLOR, E. Beresford (Edwin Beresford), 1868-1937 : THE ANNALS OF THE STRAND : TOPOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL. London : Chapman & Hall, 1912. First edition. The earliest history of this celebrated and important London thoroughfare, covering the Strand itself, the side-streets, and the famous characters, with separate chapters on the Savoy, Somerset House, the Strand Churches, the Inns of Court and Chancery, the Great Houses, the Theatres, the Taverns and Coffee-Houses, etc. £15 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 21195 – or simply click on the button
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CHAPONE, Hester (Hester Mulso), 1727-1801 : MISCELLANIES IN PROSE AND VERSE. London : for E. & C. Dilly; and J. Walter, 1775. First edition. A collection of various pieces from Hester Chapone – Richardson’s “little spitfire” – including her much-admired essays “On Affectation and Simplicity” and “On Conversation”, the novella “The Story of Fidelia”, and a selection of poems. £40 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 22493 – or simply click on the button
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“CHASE, James Hadley” – [RAYMOND, René Brabazon, 1906-1985] : THE FAST BUCK. London : Robert Hale, (1954). First paperback edition. Only the jewel-thief knows where the loot is – how to spring him from jail. First published in 1952. £10 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 41965 – or simply click on the button
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“CHASE, James Hadley” – [RAYMOND, René Brabazon, 1906-1985] : HIT AND RUN. London : Robert Hale, (1959). First paperback edition. We don’t know why the lovely Lucille wants so badly to learn to drive; why the blood-stains on the Cadillac are on the wrong side; or why the patrol officer was run over on a lonely beach road. Originally published the previous year under the “Raymond Marshall” pseudonym. £10 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 41971 – or simply click on the button
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CHEYNEY, Peter (Reginald Southouse), 1896-1951 : THE DARK STREET : A NOVEL. London : Collins, 1944. First edition. “The women, of course, dress superbly, move like angels, are as beautiful as diamonds and, with one notable exception, behave abominably”. An early Cheyney “dark” novel of counter-espionage. £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 41344 – or simply click on the button
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CHEYNEY, Peter (Reginald Southouse), 1896-1951 : DARK WANTON : A NOVEL. London : Collins, 1948. First edition. One of Cheyney’s “Dark” series, with Everard Peter Quayle, “that poker-faced and most secretive of secret agents”, Vincente Callao, fashionable dance-band leader, the lovely Aurora Francis, and the enigmatic Antoinette Brown. £20 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 43832 – or simply click on the button
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CHEYNEY, Peter (Reginald Southouse), 1896-1951 : ONE OF THOSE THINGS : A NOVEL. London : Collins, 1949. First edition. Irish private enquiry agent, Terence O’Day – an afternoon at Plumpton Races – a tip about a horse, and another about a woman – the very beautiful and very dangerous Merys Vanner. SOLD |
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CHEYNEY, Peter (Reginald Southouse), 1896-1951 : “G” MAN AT THE YARD : A LEMMY CAUTION NOVEL AND THREE SHORT STORIES. London : Todd Publishing Group, (1953). A hardback collection of a novella and three short stories, the latter having only previously appeared in paperback. Comprises the title story (Lemmy Caution); “Cocktail Party”; “The Arrest” (Alonzo McTavish), and “Cocktail for Cupid”. SOLD |
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CHURCH, Richard, 1893-1972 : BRITISH AUTHORS : A TWENTIETH-CENTURY GALLERY WITH 53 PORTRAITS. London : Longmans, Green & Co., (1948). Second edition : revised and enlarged. Brief accounts and some splendid photographs and sketches of a cross-section of authors from Maurice Baring to Frances Brett Young. Includes John Buchan, Joseph Conrad, T. S. Eliot, Robert Graves, Graham Greene, Thomas Hardy, Virginia Woolf, etc. £10 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 14354 – or simply click on the button
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CLARE, John, 1793-1864 : JOHN CLARE’S AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL WRITINGS. Oxford / New York : Oxford University Press, 1983. First edition. Extensive selections from Clare’s scattered autobiographical writings. Edited by Eric Robinson. Illustrated with wood engravings by John Lawrence. £10 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 25172 – or simply click on the button
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CLARK, Leonard, 1905-1981 : PASSAGE TO THE POLE AND OTHER POEMS. London : Fortune Press, (1944). First edition. An early collection of forty poems, including “Enigma”, “Checkmate Every Move”, “Biological Experiment”, “No Discount for Cash”, etc. SOLD |
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CLOWES & SONS, William : A BOOK PRINTER’S DISPLAY MATERIAL : AS USED BY WILLIAM CLOWES & SONS LTD. AT THE CAXTON WORKS, BECCLES. London & Beccles : William Clowes & Sons, (1954). First edition. A fine array of mid twentieth-century type specimens suitable for title-pages, etc., with examples from seventeen type families; modern faces; old style faces; small bolds; displays; scripts; titlings; initials; borders and rules; tables of point-widths, etc. With a good selection of Baskerville, Bell, Bembo, Bodoni, Garamond, Gill Sans, Goudy, Imprint, Perpetua, Plantin, etc., as well as lesser-known faces, numerous examples, etc. SOLD |
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COCHRANE, J.A. (James Aikman), 1919-2015 : DR. JOHNSON’S PRINTER : THE LIFE OF WILLIAM STRAHAN. London : Routledge & Kegan Paul, (1964). First edition. A life of the celebrated eighteenth-century printer, William Strahan (1715-1785), compiled by the war-hero and publisher J. A. “Peter” Cochrane. £10 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 37934 – or simply click on the button
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CONNELLY, Michael, 1956- : A DARKNESS MORE THAN NIGHT : A NOVEL. Boston : Little, Brown & Co., (2001). First edition. Signed by Michael Connelly on the title-page. Harry Bosch is involved in a high-profile case – movie director and dead actress – meanwhile Terry McCaleb is handed a case which strangely and dangerously interconnects. SOLD |
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CONNELLY, Michael, 1956- : THE CLOSERS : A NOVEL. New York : Little, Brown & Co., (2005). First edition. Signed with a squiggle by Michael Connelly on the title-page. The eleventh Harry Bosch novel – Harry is back with the LAPD investigating cold cases, the 1988 murder of a sixteen-year-old girl is reopened with new evidence from DNA. SOLD |
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CONNELLY, Michael, 1956- : NINE DRAGONS. London : Orion Books, (2009). First edition : reported to precede the US edition by twelve days. Signed by Michael Connelly on the title-page. The shooting of a Chinese liquor store owner, triads, Hong Kong, and the kidnap of Harry Bosch’s daughter. £20 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 42332 – or simply click on the button
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CROSSLEY-HOLLAND, Kevin, 1941- : THE RAIN-GIVER. London : André Deutsch, (1972). First edition. Signed by Kevin Crossley-Holland on front free endpaper. His first full-length collection – thirty-eight poems, including “Spring-Tide, Burnham-Overy-Staithe”, “Mirror Edged with Shells”, “A Lindisfarne Tombstone”, “Alderney: The Nunnery”, etc. £15 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 11132 – or simply click on the button
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CUMMING, Primrose (Primrose Amy), 1915-2004 : THE SILVER EAGLE RIDING SCHOOL. London : A. & C. Black, (1938). First edition. Three sisters start a riding school – “the whole idea is pure nonsense” explodes Uncle Manfred – but they set out to prove him wrong. “Full of the right ‘jodhpur’ tone and suggests a really thorough knowledge of horseflesh” (Hull Daily Mail, 10th December 1938). £15 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 28965 – or simply click on the button
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CUMMING, Primrose (Primrose Amy), 1915-2004 : TROUBLE AT TRIMBLES. London : Country Life, (1949). First edition. Peter and Tilly and funny business at the farm – adventures with bargemen, a strange lorry-driver, and a redhead who arrives in the oddest circumstances. SOLD |
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CUSK, Rachel, 1967- : THE TEMPORARY. London : Macmillan, (1995). First edition. Her second novel – the disruptive beauty of a London temp disturbs the office calm. £15 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 37674 – or simply click on the button
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“DALY, Hamlin” – [PRICE, Edgar Hoffmann, 1898-1988] : CASE OF THE CANCELLED REDHEAD. New York : Falcon Books, (1952). First edition. An unusual mystery from the larger-than-life Hoffman Price – Lydia collects stamps; Redheaded Velma collects things which don’t belong to her; Sweet Kay collects murder clues; Outdoor Girl Rita collects lies, and Private Eye John Carmody collects women (and bullets). Falcon No. 25. SOLD |
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DAWSON, W.J. (William James), 1854-1928 : LONDON IDYLLS. London : Hodder & Stoughton, 1895. First edition. A collection of ten stories set in the “Golgotha” of the streets of late Victorian London – including “The Footfall”, a moral ghost story; “The Chilled Heart”; “The Third Man”; “The Madness of ’Liza”, etc. SOLD |
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DE LA MARE, Walter (Walter John), 1873-1956 : HENRY BROCKEN : HIS TRAVELS AND ADVENTURES IN THE RICH, STRANGE, SCARCE-IMAGINABLE REGIONS OF ROMANCE. London : John Murray, 1904. First edition : the traditional first issue, with the plain top edge and lacking the closing bracket after “Ramal” on the title-page. The author’s second book and his first work of fiction – a supernatural tour and encounters with famous figures from the literary classics – Jane Eyre and Rochester, Wordsworth’s Lucy, La Belle Dame sans Merci, the Houyhnhnms, Poe’s Annabel Lee, etc. SOLD |
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DE LA MARE, Walter (Walter John), 1873-1956 : POEMS : 1919 TO 1934. London : Constable & Co., (1935). First edition. A handsome collection of De La Mare’s later poetry. £15 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 24263 – or simply click on the button
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DE NERVAUD, Marie, 1884-1973 : EARLY ONE MORNING. London : T. V. Boardman & Co., (1949). First edition. A surprise legacy, with certain dangerous conditions attached – and the deceased had been poisoned. SOLD |
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DE ST. JORRE, John, 1936- : THE GOOD SHIP VENUS : THE EROTIC VOYAGE OF THE OLYMPIA PRESS. London : Hutchinson, (1994). First edition. Maurice Girodias and his authors – one of the most bizarre tales in all twentieth-century publishing – with much on Dominique Aury, Samuel Beckett, William Burroughs, J. P. Donleavy, Lawrence Durrell, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kahane, Christopher Logue, Henry Miller, Vladimir Nabokov, Alexander Trocchi, Miriam Worms, etc. £15 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 34649 – or simply click on the button
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“DEL MARTIA, Astron” : INTERSTELLAR ESPIONAGE. London : Gaywood Press, (1952). First edition. The third and last of the Space Express titles, one of which appeared under the “Franz Harkon” pseudonym. A journey to Nebulae Sixty-Six in search of Crystonium, led by the coldly beautiful Dr Mena Diamenter. “Abject rubbish” (Harbottle & Holland A92). £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 31383 – or simply click on the button
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“DELAFIELD, E.M.” – [DASHWOOD, Edmée Elizabeth Monica, 1890-1943] : GENERAL IMPRESSIONS. London : Macmillan & Co., 1933. First edition. General impressions of a tennis party, a country auction, the January sales, a hunt ball, and much more, with further entertaining and outlandish thoughts from the Provincial Lady on men, women and children in fiction, home life, everyday life, etc. SOLD |
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“DELAFIELD, E.M.” – [DASHWOOD, Edmée Elizabeth Monica, 1890-1943] : THE PROVINCIAL LADY IN WAR-TIME. London : Macmillan & Co., 1940. First edition. Provincial Lady – gas-masks, black-outs, identity-cards, war-work. £15 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 27885 – or simply click on the button
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“DELMAINE, Georges Louis” : LES FOLIES DE PARIS. London : Edwin Self & Co., [ca.1953]. First edition. “One of the most exciting and glamorous authors to depict life in modern Paris ... the fascinating world of beautiful artists’ models and dangerous demi-mondaines ... a new and glamorous world where excitement and passion rub shoulders with the treacherous apache and the shady boite de nuit”. £40 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44465 – or simply click on the button
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DOBSON, Margaret (Margaret Stirling), 1888-1952 : LINO PRINTS. London : Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, 1936. A reprint of the original 1930 edition. An excellent guide to all aspects of the linocut – knife-work, gouge-work, materials and mediums, printing in black, printing in colour, design, pattern, etc., illustrated with some striking examples of contemporary work by Ward Hunt, Sydney Gausden, etc. In the Pitman’s Craft-for-All series. SOLD |
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DOUGLAS, Norman (George Norman), 1868-1952 : AN ALMANAC. 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. £15 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 18179 – or simply click on the button
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DU BOIS, Theodora (Theodora McCormick), 1890-1986 : THE WILD DUCK MURDERS. London : T. V. Boardman & Co., (1948). First British edition. The McNeills bewildered by the cork, the wild duck theme, the bamboo pole, the medical tome and the copper knife. First published in the USA in 1943. SOLD |
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“DUDLEY, Ernest” – [COLTMAN-ALLEN, Vivian Ernest, 1908-2006] – editor : ARMCHAIR DETECTIVE READER. London : T. V. Boardman & Co., (1948). First edition. The BBC’s colourful Armchair Detective, variously actor, journalist, novelist, and script-writer, introduces a dozen favourite stories – by Nicholas Blake, Agatha Christie, Freeman Wills Crofts, Dudley himself, Anthony Gilbert, Gladys Mitchell, Ellery Queen, etc. SOLD |
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DURRELL, Lawrence (Lawrence George), 1912-1990 : CONSTANCE : OR SOLITARY PRACTICES. London : Faber & Faber, (1982). First edition. The central volume in the Avignon Quintet series, set mainly during the Second World War, and located in France, Egypt, Poland and Switzerland. Nominated for the Booker Prize. £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44112 – or simply click on the button
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EDWARDS, Martin (Kenneth Martin), 1955- : ALL THE LONELY PEOPLE. London : Judy Piatkus (Publishers), (1991). First edition. His first crime novel and the first appearance of Harry Devlin, the increasingly admired Liverpool solicitor and sleuth. His estranged wife found murdered, etc. SOLD |
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ELIOT, T.S. (Thomas Stearns), 1888-1965 : THE ELDER STATESMAN : A PLAY. London : Faber & Faber, (1959). First edition. An Eliot play first produced at the Edinburgh Festival in 1958, with Anna Massey, Alec McCowen, etc. – a man of distinction and respect is confronted by his past. £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44446 – or simply click on the button
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ELLIS, Edward F. (Edward Fenwick), 1906-1984 : THE BRITISH MUSEUM IN FICTION : A CHECK-LIST. Buffalo : Privately Printed, 1981. First edition : limited to 500 copies. A splendidly idiosyncratic tabulation – with extensive quotation – of many hundreds of references in English and American fiction (from Smollett onwards) to what was plainly once the world’s most cherished institution – the British Museum and its Reading Room. SOLD |
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ELLIS, Winifred : LONDON – SO HELP ME! London : Macdonald & Co. (Publishers), (1952). First edition. An entertaining account of coming to London – and the perils and pitfalls of railway porters, private hotels, service flatlets, cab-drivers, digs, bed-sitting rooms, gas-rings, and all the hazards that may greet a young woman from the provinces (in this case Liverpool) – “Unless you intend coming in nothing but a fig leaf and a string of beads you will not expect your arrival in London to cause any sensation”. £15 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44305 – or simply click on the button
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EMERY, Guy (Russell Guy), 1909-1964 : FRONT FOR MURDER. London : T. V. Boardman & Co., (1948). First British edition. Murder in a San Francisco hotel – suspicion, scandal and another death. Emery was both soldier and lawyer as well as crime-writer. First published in the USA in 1947. SOLD |
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FENN, Amor (William Amor), 1863-1933 : DESIGN AND TRADITION : A SHORT ACCOUNT OF THE PRINCIPLES AND HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT OF ARCHITECTURE AND THE APPLIED ARTS. London : Chapman & Hall, 1920. First edition. A handsomely illustrated history of architecture and design, with sections on mouldings, architectural proportions, surface division, conventional ornament, design treatment, mythology and symbolism, ways and means, etc. In the Universal Art Series. SOLD |
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FIRTH, N. Wesley (Norman Wesley), 1920-1949 : “CONCERTO FOR FEAR!” (FEATURING RED BENTON). London : Bear Hudson, 1945. First edition. Each time a certain point in the concert was reached, someone died. Red Benton and his whisky-loving accomplice Happy Harringay investigate. Bear Hudson No. 530. £20 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 42511 – or simply click on the button
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“FLAGG, John” – [GEARON, John] : THE PERSIAN CAT. Sydney : Phantom Books – Original Novels Foundation, (1955). First Australian edition. Gil Denby hunts down an English Nazi collaborator in Teheran – the deadly Claire Fayne. First published in New York in 1950. No. 624 in the Australian Phantom series. SOLD |
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“FLAMMÊCHE, Pierre” – [DAWSON, George Herbert, 1916-1980] : SPOILED LIVES. Cleveland : Kaywin Publishers, (1952). First American edition. Phil Langley must marry – pursued by three beauties – blonde, redhead and brunette – makes a fatal choice. Originally published as “Spoilt Lives” by Swan in 1941, and as “Spoiled Lives” by Archer in the UK in 1950. £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 43578 – or simply click on the button
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FORD, John (John Alan), 1936- : ACKERMANN 1783-1983 : THE BUSINESS OF ART. London : Ackermann, 1983. First edition. A richly illustrated and meticulously researched history of the celebrated art publishing and art dealing concern founded by Rudolph Ackermann (1764-1834). With much incidental material on Henry Alken, William Combe, John Buonarotti Papworth, Augustus Pugin, Thomas Rowlandson, George Stubbs, and other authors and artists; a checklist of the Ackermann books, games, and music; a bibliography, etc. £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 25880 – or simply click on the button
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FRANCIS, Dick (Richard Stanley), 1920-2010 : IN THE FRAME. London : Michael Joseph, (1976). First edition. Art, racing, wine, women, and murder in Australia and New Zealand. £15 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 34364 – or simply click on the button
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FRANCIS, Dick (Richard Stanley), 1920-2010 : WHIP HAND. London : Michael Joseph, (1979). First edition. The second novel to feature Sid Halley, jockey turned private eye – the winner of two major crime-writing awards. £15 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 39092 – or simply click on the button
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GARNER, Helen, 1942- : THE SPARE ROOM. Edinburgh : Canongate Books, (2008). First British edition. “An unforgettable novel about the distance a friendship must travel, and the depths it must plumb, when confronted by the threat of death. It is full of wisdom, dark laughter, and truth” – the multiple award-winning novel, first published in Australia earlier in 2008. “A book for grown-up people” (Hilary Mantel), “‘The Spare Room’ is a perfect novel” (Peter Carey). £20 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44439 – or simply click on the button
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GIBBON, Charles, 1843-1890 : A STRANGE WOOING : A STORY OF THE PERIOD. London : Modern Publishing, [ca.1935]. [Second edition]. “Slight in structure, but so skilfully put together as to sustain a keen interest ... When the military adventurer returns to England his designs upon his friend’s widow are in a fair way of prospering, when the intuitions of another woman set to work ...” (The Scotsman, 3rd November 1890) – the posthumously published final novel of a once highly popular Victorian, originally published in 1890. SOLD |
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GILBERT, Michael (Michael Francis), 1912-2006 : THE NIGHT OF THE TWELFTH. London : Hodder & Stoughton, (1976). First edition. Tortured body found in a Sussex cornfield – the third in a year. Meanwhile a new master arrives at Trenchard House School. SOLD |
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GLANVILLE, Brian (Brian Lester), 1931- : THE ARTIST TYPE. London : Jonathan Cape, (1967). First edition. “Brian Glanville has a pitiless eye for the frauds and tactics of the sex game” – the “artist type” revenges himself on intellectuals, stockbrokers and slick executives. £20 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44528 – or simply click on the button
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GODDEN, Rumer (Margaret Rumer), 1907-1998 : THE DRAGON OF OG. London : Macmillan Children’s Books, (1981). First edition. A shy and lonely dragon finds his life rudely interrupted. Delightfully illustrated by Pauline Baynes (1922-2008). SOLD |
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GODFREY, Richard T. (Richard Timothy), 1945-2003 : PRINTMAKING IN BRITAIN : A GENERAL HISTORY FROM ITS BEGINNINGS TO THE PRESENT DAY. Oxford : Phaidon Press, (1978). First edition. An erudite study of the evolution of a British style, from the Elizabethans through Hollar and Hogarth to Hockney – work in engraving, mezzotint, aquatint, etching, etc., with much on Francesco Bartolozzi, Thomas Bewick, William Blake, etc. SOLD |
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GOLDING, Claud (Claud Harold Percival), 1889-1954 : LONDON : THE CITY. London : Robert Hale, (1951). First edition. Both a history and an evocation of the City in the aftermath of the war – Holborn and the Viaduct; The Fleet; the Temple; Smithfield and Bart’s; Newgate; Fleet Street; Ludgate; Cheapside; City Government; Plague and Money; Livery Companies; London Bridge and Tower Hill; Leadenhall Street and Aldgate; Rebuilding the City, etc. In the attractive “County Books” series. SOLD |
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GORDON, Arthur, 1912-2002 : DANGEROUS TWILIGHT AND OTHER STORIES. London : Gordon Martin Publishing Co., [1946]. First edition. Five stories, some evidently drawing on Gordon’s wartime experiences in Germany, his time at Yale, and in England as a Rhodes Scholar. £15 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 30499 – or simply click on the button
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GRANGE FIBRE COMPANY : BOB THE BINDER’S PROGRESS. Leicester : Grange Fibre Co., (1955). First edition. A bound version of the entertaining “Bob the Binder” advertisements issued between 1952 and 1955 to encourage the use of “Linson”, “Fabroleen”, and other imitation fabrics made by Grange Fibre and marketed as “non-woven book cover material”. SOLD |
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“GRIDBAN, Volsted” – [FEARN, John Russell, 1908-1960] : THE MAGNETIC BRAIN. London : Scion, (1953). First edition. Regular space travel has begun (in 1987) – a Martian brain-surgeon operates on a human salesman, endowing him with dangerous powers of thought reading. SOLD |
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“GRIFF” : NIGHT PATROL. London : Modern Fiction (London), [1953]. First edition. The terrible death of a beautiful woman – “gangsterdom and vice, against the pulsating background of New York’s seamier streets”. SOLD |
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GUNTER, Archibald Clavering, 1847-1907 : M. S. BRADFORD SPECIAL : A NOVEL. London : George Routledge & Sons, 1899. First British edition. “For those who like plenty of action, a jumping from sensation to sensation, in fact, a progress so exciting that the reader, gripped by the story, has no time to question its probabilities, this is just the book ... a smart detective ... a Wall Street firm believed to be fraudulent ... the detective personates a dead man ... burglars, fires, and dynamite ... certainly the best novel Mr. Gunter has given us for a long time past” (Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 24th September 1899). First published in New York earlier in 1899. £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44412 – or simply click on the button
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“HAMILTON, Cosmo” – [GIBBS, Henry Charles Hamilton, 1870-1942] : PRISONERS OF HOPE. London : Hurst & Blackett, [1924]. First edition. The playwright and novelist, of whom Dorothy Parker once wrote, “There can no longer be any doubt that it was from Cosmo Hamilton that the cosmic urge derived its name”, with a spicy tale of Tony and Teddy in love with the same woman – Tony successful, Teddy burning with jealousy, man overboard in the South Seas – “There is character in this story; genius in the writing, and artistic richness in the style and setting. A brilliant book ...” (Kensington Post, 5th December 1924). “And there is Lady George Cornish, who was once a barmaid and is still a good sort” (Ralph Straus in The Bystander, 4th March 1925). £20 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44444 – or simply click on the button
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HAMILTON, Mark : RARE SPIRIT : A LIFE OF WILLIAM DE MORGAN 1839-1911 [i.e. 1839-1917]. London : Constable & Co., (1997). First edition. A life of William Frend de Morgan, his ceramic work at Chelsea, Merton Abbey and Sands End, the novels, friendship with William Morris and Burne-Jones, etc. The dust-jacket corrects the erroneous biographical dates of the title-page. £10 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 34680 – or simply click on the button
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HAMMETT, Dashiell (Samuel Dashiell), 1894-1961 : THE CONTINENTAL OP. New York : Dell Publishing Co., [1946]. Second edition. A collection of four stories, edited and introduced by Ellery Queen. Originally published by Lawrence E. Spivak the previous year – but here enlivened with some fine cover art by Gerald Gregg (1907-1985) in his distinctive airbrush style and the Dell “mapback” of the streets of downtown San Francisco. Dell Mapback 129. £10 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 30861 – or simply click on the button
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HAMMETT, Dashiell (Samuel Dashiell), 1894-1961 : THE DASHIELL HAMMETT STORY OMNIBUS. London : Cassell & Co., (1966). First British edition, originally published in America earlier the same year as “The Big Knockover”. Eight Continental Op short stories, the novelette “The Big Knockover”, and a chapter from the unfinished novel, “Tulip” – none of which had previously appeared in hardback form. Edited and introduced by Lillian Hellman. A review copy, with the publisher’s slips loosely inserted. £20 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 28461 – or simply click on the button
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HARRIS, Robert (Robert Dennis), 1957- : CONCLAVE. London : Hutchinson, (2016). First edition. Signed by Robert Harris on the title-page. “Behind the locked doors of the Sistine Chapel, one hundred and eighteen cardinals from all over the globe will cast their votes in the world’s most secretive election”. SOLD |
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HARRIS, Robert (Robert Dennis), 1957- : MUNICH. London : Hutchinson, (2017). First edition. Signed by Robert Harris on the title-page. “September 1938. Hitler is determined to start a war. Chamberlain is desperate to preserve the peace. The issue is to be decided in a city that will forever afterwards be notorious for what takes place there. Munich”. SOLD |
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HAWES, James, 1960- : A WHITE MERC WITH FINS. London : Jonathan Cape, (1996). First edition. His much admired first novel – four ne’er-do-wells, the memorable Suzy the Black Widow, plastic guns, the IRA, the white Merc, and a bank heist. £10 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 38615 – or simply click on the button
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“HEAD, Matthew” – [CANADAY, John Edwin, 1907-1985] : THE ACCOMPLICE. New York : Dell Publishing Co., [1949]. First paperback edition. Perky leather skullcap, an odd gymnasium, monkey money, a wedding that makes no sense, amazing dancers, dried grasses and dead birds – a stylish thriller set in Paris from the art critic John Canaday under his Matthew Head pseudonym. Originally published in 1947. Dell 346 – in mapback format. SOLD |
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HEANEY, Seamus, 1939-2013 : SLACK [COVER TITLE]. Newcastle : Centre for the Literary Arts, (2009). First edition. A single sheet folding, to form four leaves, with Heaney’s poem on the recto, and with a photograph and a note by Sean O’Brien on the poem and on Heaney’s family connections with Blyth on the verso. SOLD |
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HEPBURN, James (James Gordon), 1922- : THE AUTHOR’S EMPTY PURSE AND THE RISE OF THE LITERARY AGENT. London : Oxford University Press, 1968. First edition. A pioneering study of the pre-history, rise and influence of the literary agent in England and America – with much on Arnold Bennett, Walter Besant, Curtis Brown, William Heinemann, J. B. Pinker, A. P. Watt, etc., and an extensive bibliography of material relating to the conditions of authorship. £10 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 20247 – or simply click on the button
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HERBERT, Benson, 1912-1991 : HAND OF GLORY : STRANGE ADVENTURES IN THE PENNINES. London : Lloyd Cole, [ca. 1943]. First edition. Mysterious goings-on on Cauldron Snout – the mysterious remains of Celtic monuments, rocking stones, Druid circles, Bronze Age villages, and Roman camps are joined by a more modern and invisible mystery. SOLD |
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HERRMANN, Frank, 1927-2017 : THE ENGLISH AS COLLECTORS : A DOCUMENTARY SOURCEBOOK SELECTED, INTRODUCED AND ANNOTATED BY FRANK HERRMANN. New Castle : Oak Knoll Press / London : John Murray, 1999. Second edition. An updating and revision of the classic 1972 publication – the essential sourcebook for the history of collecting and connoisseurship, both public and private, in England from the seventeenth century. With a lengthy new introduction for this edition. SOLD |
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HEYER, Georgette, 1902-1974 : BLACK SHEEP. London : Bodley Head, (1966). First edition. Regency novel set in Bath – Stacy Calverleigh has gambled away his fortune and requires an heiress. Young orphan Fanny Wendover fits the bill, but her Aunt Abigail has other ideas – enter Uncle Miles – the Black Sheep. £40 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44441 – or simply click on the button
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HOBSON, Stretton (Stretton Hunter), 1949-2009 & OTHERS – editors : SAD TRAFFIC [ISSUES 1-5]. Barnsley : Sad Traffic / Seaview Publications, 1969-[1971]. A complete set of all five issues of this Yorkshire alternative magazine – with poems and contributions from George Barker (1), Donald Davie (2), Roy Fisher (5), Roy Fuller (1), Frances Horovitz (1), Michael Horovitz (2), Ted Hughes (1), Spike Milligan (4), William Oxley (2), Brian Patten (4), David Tipton (3), etc. SOLD |
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“HOLLIDAY, Alf” : OVER THE NORTHERN HEIGHTS : A SERIES OF RAMBLES BY FIELD-PATH AND HEDGEROW THROUGH NORTH MIDDLESEX, HERTS., AND BUCKS ... FIRST PART. London : Robert Edmund Taylor & Son, 1896. First edition. The first of two attractive little pocket guides by the evidently pseudonymous ’Alf ’Holliday – “the pun is not agreeable” (The Queen, 5th September 1896). Seven half-holiday rambles across North London – Hornsey to East Finchley; East Finchley to Hendon; Hendon to Harrow; Cricklewood to Edgware; Finchley to Pinner; Willesden Green to Barnet; and a lengthy Hampstead Heath to Enfield. “One hails with delight the prospect of escaping from hot, dusty London, and of enjoying the manifold benefits of fresh air and scenery in the easily accessible neighbourhood recommended to our notice” (Hampstead and Highgate Express, 4th July 1896). SOLD |
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“HOPE, Anthony” – [HAWKINS, Sir Anthony Hope, 1863-1933] : QUISANTÉ. London : Methuen & Co., 1900. First edition. A powerful political novel – Alexander Quisanté – an outsider, but the coming man in London political circles. “He is vulgar, he is something of a charlatan, but he has a streak of genius and that mysterious quality – force” (Pall Mall Gazette, 10th October 1900). Lady May Gaston has breeding, humour and courage – “Lady May sneers and mistrusts and dislikes, but she is carried away”. £15 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 22068 – or simply click on the button
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“HOPE, Anthony” – [HAWKINS, Sir Anthony Hope, 1863-1933] : TALES OF TWO PEOPLE. London : Methuen & Co., (1907). First edition. “Common opinion said that Lord Lynborough ought never to have had a peerage and forty thousand a year; he ought to have had a pound a week and a back bedroom in Bloomsbury. Then he would have become an eminent man ...”. £15 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 22069 – or simply click on the button
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HUDSON, W.H. (William Henry), 1841-1922 : THE LAND’S END : A NATURALIST’S IMPRESSIONS IN WEST CORNWALL. London : Hutchinson & Co., 1908. First edition : the earlier variant in larger format and in the slightly more elaborate binding, with double rules at head and tail of spine. Hudson in St. Ives, Zennor, Land’s End, etc. SOLD |
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HUGHES, Ted (Edward James), 1930-1998 : THE MERMAID’S PURSE. London : Faber & Faber, (1999). First trade edition. Twenty-eight poems on the creatures of the sea – “Starfish”, “Whelk”, “Whale”, “Lobster”, etc., with illustrations throughout by Flora McDonnell. First published in a very limited edition by Hughes’ own Sunstone Press in 1993, but here in a revised text and with wholly new illustrations. £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44516 – or simply click on the button
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HUNTER, John (Alfred John), 1891-1961 : DESTINATION UNKNOWN. London : Amalgamated Press, [1953]. First edition. Respectable Charles Stranway takes his wife to France in pursuit of a fortune – murder south of Arles. Sexton Blake Library, Third Series, No. 294, issued in August 1953. £5 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 42397 – or simply click on the button
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JACKSON, Lucie E. : THE ABBEY ON THE MOOR. London : Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1900 [i.e. 1899]. First edition. A dying request, a kiss and its consequences, haunted houses, ghosts, secret panels, snowstorms, etc. SOLD |
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JACOBI, Charles Thomas, 1853-1933 : THE PRINTER’S HANDBOOK OF TRADE RECIPES, HINTS, & SUGGESTIONS RELATING TO LETTERPRESS AND LITHOGRAPHIC PRINTING, BOOKBINDING, STATIONERY, ENGRAVING, ETC. London : Chiswick Press, 1891. Second edition. First published in 1887, but “much useful matter has [now] been added, and an attempt has been made to classify it”. Jacobi was manager of the Chiswick Press and provides much useful advice. With chapters on the Composing Room; Machine and Press Work; Inks, Varnishes, etc.; Warehouse Work and Stationery; Mucilages; Stereotyping and Electrotyping; Lithography; Engraving and Process Work; Bookbinding, etc. £20 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 43544 – or simply click on the button
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JESSUP, Richard, 1925-1982 : THREAT. London : Victor Gollancz, 1981. First British edition. “A brilliant scheme to obtain four million dollars by a highly original form of extortion” from a luxury hotel-cum-apartment block. By the author of “The Cincinnati Kid”. £10 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 43843 – or simply click on the button
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KEATING, H.R.F. (Henry Reymond Fitzwalter), 1926-2011 : INSPECTOR GHOTE HUNTS THE PEACOCK. London : Collins for The Crime Club, (1968). First edition. Ghote comes to a cold and drizzling London for an international conference, but becomes involved in investigating the disappearance of a radiant niece. £15 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 23439 – or simply click on the button
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KEATING, H.R.F. (Henry Reymond Fitzwalter), 1926-2011 : INSPECTOR GHOTE PLAYS A JOKER. London : Collins for The Crime Club, (1969). First edition. The Inspector is ordered to prevent a murder – the murder of a flamingo in Bombay Zoo. £15 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 24194 – or simply click on the button
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“KENT, Brad” – [HUGHES, Denis Talbot, 1917-2008] : CATALYST. London : Curtis Warren, [1952]. First edition. Writer and anthropologist moves to a remote cottage on Dartmoor – strange girl without memories found on the moor is frightened of the blue lichen. “This story marked the start of Hughes’s transformation from ‘straight-SF’ hackery to intriguing science-fantasy” (Harbottle & Holland A261). SOLD |
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KING, Philippa : WHEN MIDNIGHT CAME – . London : C. Arthur Pearson, [1935]. First edition. “At last one of the employment agencies had sent her to Rudolph Meyer, who was in need of a secretary. Rudolph Meyer was something of a mystery. He had made his first appearance in London society two years before, and was supposed to have lived mainly in the East ...”. Published in 1935 in Pearson’s “Big Threepennies” series. SOLD |
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KIPLING, Rudyard (Joseph Rudyard), 1865-1936 : A CHOICE OF KIPLING’S PROSE : SELECTED WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY CRAIG RAINE. London : Faber & Faber, (1987). First edition. An extensive selection from across the full range of Kipling’s work, edited and selected by Craig Raine. £10 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 17033 – or simply click on the button
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KNIGHT, Charles, 1791-1873 : CAPITAL AND LABOUR ; INCLUDING THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. London : Charles Knight & Co., 1845. First edition of Knight’s “Capital and Labour” – based in part on his earlier “Results of Machinery” (1831), but much amplified and with the statistics updated. Charles Knight, author, pioneer of popular and populist publishing, and social reformer, on the mutual dependence of capital and labour, the introduction of mass-production, etc. – his little books and pamphlets were said (by Thomas Spring-Rice, Melbourne’s Chancellor of the Exchequer) to have “effected more good for the suppression of outrage than a regiment of horse”. SOLD |
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KUMMER, Frederic Arnold, 1873-1943 : LADIES IN HADES. New York : Dell Publishing Co., [1950]. First Dell edition. The famous bad women of history sit down to discuss love and life – Eve, Salome, Helen of Troy, Delilah, Cleopatra, Lucrezia Borgia, Anne Boleyn, the Queen of Sheba and others set the record straight. Originally published in 1928 as “Ladies in Hades : A Story of Hell’s Smart Set”. Dell Mapback 415. SOLD |
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LAMBERT, J.W. (Jack Walter), 1917-1986 & RATCLIFFE, Michael : THE BODLEY HEAD 1887-1987. London : Bodley Head, (1987). First edition. A centenary history of this distinguished publishing house, with much incidental material on Aubrey Beardsley, Max Beerbohm, Arnold Bennett, Jonathan Cape, John Davidson, George Egerton, Kenneth Grahame, Graham Greene, Allen Lane, John Lane, Richard le Gallienne, Elkin Mathews, Max Reinhardt, William Watson, Oscar Wilde, etc. SOLD |
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LAMBOURNE, Lionel & HAMILTON, Jean : BRITISH WATERCOLOURS IN THE VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM : AN ILLUSTRATED SUMMARY CATALOGUE OF THE NATIONAL COLLECTION. London : Sotheby Parke Bernet Publications, (1980). First edition. A handsome listing of over 5,600 works by some 1,600 artists – with biographical notes (many of the minor artists being documented for the first time) and at least one example of each artist’s work illustrated. £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 25587 – or simply click on the button
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LANG, Harry : THE CORPSE ON THE HEARTH. London : T. V. Boardman & Co., (1948). First British edition. Old Elijah Mellor makes the contents of his will known before he dies – four murders ensue. The unconventional detective Tod Frick investigates. Set in San Francisco and surrounds. First published in Philadelphia in 1946. £10 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 41725 – or simply click on the button
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“LE BRETON, Thomas” – [FORD, Thomas Murray, 1854-1932] : MRS. MAY’S LATEST : EDITED BY THOMAS LE BRETON. London : Herbert Jenkins, (1929). First edition. The last of the thoughts of Gladys Alicia May – on New Year resolutions, tea leaves, choosing a woman, going to the dogs, Hackney Downs, and much more besides. £20 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 31156 – or simply click on the button
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LE QUEUX, William (William Tufnell), 1864-1927 : THE SEVEN SECRETS. London : Selwyn & Blount (1928), [ca.1930]. An attractive paperback edition in Selwyn & Blount’s Super Sixpenny series. Classic whodunit – wealthy Londoner murdered – Was it the young wife? Her beautiful sister? One of the servants? Secrets in every corner of the house. First published in 1903. SOLD |
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LEE, Brian North, 1936-2007 : EARLY PRINTED BOOK LABELS : A CATALOGUE OF DATED PERSONAL LABELS AND GIFT LABELS PRINTED IN BRITAIN TO THE YEAR 1760.
London : Private Libraries Association & the Bookplate Society, 1976. First edition. An impressive catalogue of the known labels, with an historical introduction, appendices of early American labels, printers’ gifts, book stamps, etc. £10 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 21138 – or simply click on the button
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LEONARD, Elmore (Elmore John), 1925-2013 : GET SHORTY. New York : Delacorte Press, (1990). First edition. Chili Palmer discovers that there’s not a world of difference between loan-sharking in Miami and movie-making in Hollywood. Filmed in 1995, with John Travolta, Gene Hackman, Rene Russo, Danny DeVito, James Gandolfini, etc., and more recently in a rather different television version with Chris O’Dowd, etc. SOLD |
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LEONARD, Elmore (Elmore John), 1925-2013 : MR. PARADISE. London : Viking, (2004). First British edition. April in Detroit – eighty-four-year-old rich and retired lawyer Anthony Paradiso likes the company of young women – vultures circle and people end up dead. £10 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 42925 – or simply click on the button
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“LESTRANGE, Paul” : LOVE WAS FOLLY. Stone : Curzon Publishing Co., [ca.1947]. First edition. Danny King can’t see the man he has come to meet in the crowded West End cafe. In the Curzon Crime & Passion series, distributed by Murray & Nichols. £20 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 32978 – or simply click on the button
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“LOCKRAN, Gerry” – [LOUGHRAN, Gerald Cranston Frederick, 1942-1987] : SMILES AND TEARS. Leicester : Waddling Duck Press, 1983. First edition : limited to fifty copies, set and hand-printed by Toni Savage and his family. Three poems from the well-known blues musician. SOLD |
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LOGUE, Christopher, 1926-2011 : WAND AND QUADRANT. Paris : Collection Merlin, 1953. First edition : one of 300 ordinary copies (of 600). His first book, a collection of twenty-five poems, etc., published under the Merlin imprint of the Olympia Press. SOLD |
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LOOS, Anita (Corinne Anita), 1889-1981 : GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES. New York : Popular Library, [1948]. A fresh edition of the 1925 classic, here enlivened with a famous cover by Earle Kulp Bergey (1901-1952). £10 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 29961 – or simply click on the button
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MACDONALD, Betty, 1908-1958 : THE EGG AND I. London : Hammond, Hammond & Co., 1946. First British edition of the enduringly funny 1945 American best-seller. Chicken-farming for amateurs. With the Val Biro designed bookplate of the novelist, Paul Tabori (1908-1974). SOLD |
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“MACDONALD, John Ross” – [MILLAR, Kenneth, 1915-1983] – contributor : MANHUNT. VOL. 2, NO. 5, JULY 1954. New York : Flying Eagle Publications, 1954. An action-packed issue of the American monthly, featuring “Find a Victim”, a complete Lew Archer novella by John Ross Macdonald; James T. Farrell’s novelette, “I Want a French Girl”; Evan Hunter’s Matt Cordell short story, “Return”, and further contributions from Richard Marsten, Charles Beckman, Muriel Burns, etc. SOLD |
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MACDONELL, A.G. (Archibald Gordon), 1895-1941 : LORDS AND MASTERS. London : Macmillan & Co., 1936. First edition. A satirical novel, set in South Kensington, in which “men arrange the affairs of the world, while women stand back and admire”. £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 28020 – or simply click on the button
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MACDONELL, A.G. (Archibald Gordon), 1895-1941 : FLIGHT FROM A LADY. London : Macmillan & Co., 1939. First edition : in a dust-jacket over-printed with Macmillan’s Overseas Library information and restrictions on lower flap. An epistolary novel in which the hero flies round the world to escape the “cold blue eyes” of the lady. £15 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 27880 – or simply click on the button
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MARSHALL, Rosamond, 1893-1957 : CELESTE THE GOLD COAST VIRGIN. New York : Dell Publishing Co., [1950]. First paperback edition. LA at the turn of the century – “Celeste’s mother, born and reared in London’s slums and a former lusty Barbary Coast queen, now operates a fashionable restaurant in Los Angeles which is a cover for less reputable activities. Honest in her own way, Dolly adores her daughter and tries to shield her from all sin, the world’s and her own”. Originally published simply as “Celeste” the previous year. Dell 382 – in the mapback format. £10 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 41865 – or simply click on the button
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McCOLLUM, R.R. : PASSION HAS RED LIPS. New York : Magazine Productions, (1951). First edition. To Jessie Evans “men were like a doctor’s prescription: To be taken twice daily; as needed. But when she met a rough, earthy guy named Mike, who wanted her – but who refused to be slave to her beauty – Jessie learned to love like a woman – not a tyrant queen of hearts!” No 108 in the Rainbow Romance series. £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 41756 – or simply click on the button
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McKENNA, Marthe (Marthe Matilde), 1892-1966 : LANCER SPY : A STORY OF WAR-TIME SECRET SERVICE AND ESPIONAGE. London : Jarrolds Publishers London, [1944]. A paperback edition of this spy novel from a real spy – the Belgian Marthe Cnockaert, first awarded the Iron Cross and then later sentenced to death by the Germans. Her autobiography, “I was a Spy!” (1932) had a preface by Churchill and was filmed in 1933, with Madeleine Carroll, Herbert Marshall and Conrad Veidt. She and her husband, Jock McKenna, then went on to write a succession of popular spy novels – in the present example, first published in 1937, the brilliant and steely Colonel John Templeman needs to disappear for a few hours. SOLD |
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MEREDITH, Christopher, 1954- : SNARING HEAVEN. Bridgend : Seren Books, (1990). First edition. A collection of thirty-nine poems, including “On Hay Bridge”, “Monsters”, “Margam Park”, etc. “He writes with freedom and perhaps unfashionable eloquence” (Michael Hofman). £10 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 16521 – or simply click on the button
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MILFORD, H.S. (Sir Humphrey Sumner), 1877-1952 – editor : THE OXFORD BOOK OF ENGLISH VERSE OF THE ROMANTIC PERIOD 1798-1837. London : Oxford University Press, 1935. First edition. A fine and comprehensive anthology of the Romantic Movement – beginning, wittily enough, with William Combe in search of the picturesque, and ending with the young Tennyson and Browning. SOLD |
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MILLER & SON LTD., L. – publishers : NO REFUGE FROM FEAR [COVER TITLE]. London : L. Miller & Son, [ca.1950]. First edition. Set in New York in wartime: vital blueprints go missing – Daisy Hamilton blames herself for being careless with the keys. £20 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 43229 – or simply click on the button
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MILLS, Arthur (Arthur Frederick Hobart), 1887-1955 : PARIS AGENT. Redhill : Wells Gardner, Darton & Co., (1947). First paperback edition. Never married Bay Stratton has a slightly mysterious role at the embassy in Paris – Miss Sims the mannequin tells him that “An ordinary, modern girl, who knew how to take care of herself, would make you nervous”. She’s right. Originally published by Collins in 1935. £10 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 42961 – or simply click on the button
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“MISTRAL, Bengo” – [WARD, B.] : PIRATES OF CEREBUS. London : Gannet Press, [1953]. First edition. Magoth escapes from the Penal Asteroid of Halma – he has discovered a way to speed up evolution and intends to seize control of the Four Planets. “While biographical information is sparse, one fact remains extremely plain: Ward must rate as the all-time worst-ever SF author! ... He displays a stunning lack of astronomical knowledge that makes the book compulsive reading – in the hope that it can’t get any worse! But it does ... Possibly the worst SF novel ever published” (Harbottle & Holland A306). SOLD |
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MITCHELL, Gladys (Gladys Maude Winifred), 1901-1983 : A HEARSE ON MAY-DAY. London : Michael Joseph, (1972). First edition. Strange goings-on in an English country village – folklore unhallowed by custom elsewhere – “a cosy read only to those of sound mind sitting by a good fire and a well-lighted room and, preferably, not alone or late at night”. Dame Beatrice solves the case. SOLD |
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MITCHELL, Gladys (Gladys Maude Winifred), 1901-1983 : THE MURDER OF BUSY LIZZIE. London : Michael Joseph, (1973). First edition. A respectable don and his family visit the remote island of Great Skua, a haunt of suspected gun-runners. Murder, witches, ornithologists, and Dame Beatrice is supposedly writing her memoirs. SOLD |
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“MOLYNEAUX, C.B” – [BROWN, Charles Molyneux, 1891-1964] : DEATH CALLED TWICE. Manchester : T. A. & E. Pemberton, [1949]. First edition. “Old man Rutledge, as Tony Lantz called him, had been a whiz of a detective in his day, and had built himself a regular medieval castle up here in the Catskills when he went into retirement” ... the floodlights are still on come the morning. One of three murder mysteries written by the Memphis writer under this pseudonym – none apparently published in the United States. £15 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 42956 – or simply click on the button
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MORLAND, Nigel, 1905-1986 : SHANGHAI STORY. London : Martin & Reid, [ca.1946]. First edition. Morland using his experiences as a journalist in the Far East with a mystery set in the weeks before Pearl Harbour. SOLD |
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MORROW, Ann : MOONLIGHT IN VENICE. London : Hamilton & Co. (Stafford), [1949]. First edition. Ann gives the gondolier a charming smile, pats her auburn hair, and almost falls out of the gondola. £15 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 43288 – or simply click on the button
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MOSLEY, James, 1935- : BRITISH TYPE SPECIMENS BEFORE 1831 : A HAND-LIST. Oxford : Oxford Bibliographical Society, 1984. First edition. An annotated finding list of 220 typefounders’ and fifty-four printers’ specimens, with appendices of related material. Oxford Bibliographical Society Occasional Publication No.14. £10 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 21411 – or simply click on the button
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MUIR, Augustus (Charles Augustus Carlow), 1892-1989 : THE GREEN LANTERN. London : Methuen & Co., (1933). First edition. “I promised ... to try to write for your especial delectation a yarn about London – one of those knuckle-duster and thick-ear yarns that you like so much, with a West End hotel of sybaritic splendour, a sinister little riverside tavern run by an unpleasant yellow-faced man with narrow eyes and a benign suavity of manner, and a heroine of Madonna-like beauty, and, of course, missing documents of vital importance. Here you are then ...” – the strangely neglected Muir – somewhere between John Buchan and Peter Cheyney on the spectrum – delivers all this and more in a first-rate thriller. SOLD |
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OXFORD BIBLIOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY : STUDIES IN THE BOOK TRADE : IN HONOUR OF GRAHAM POLLARD. Oxford : Oxford Bibliographical Society, 1975. First edition. An impressive collection of essays on various aspects of the history of the book trade – by Giles Barber, Nicolas Barker, Terry Belanger, Harry Carter, John Carter (on Pollard himself), John Dreyfus and Peter Isaac, J. D. Fleeman, Michael Harris, Anthony Hobson, Richard Hunt, Paul Morgan, A. N. L. Munby, Howard Nixon, David Rogers, Michael Turner, and David Vaisey. SOLD |
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“PAGE, Marco” – [KURNITZ, Harry, 1909-1968] : FAST COMPANY. New York : Pocket Books, (1943). First paperback edition. “Rare Books and Raw Murder Mix”. Originally published in 1938 – and made into a film starring Melvyn Douglas the same year, a sequence of events that led to the former reporter Harry Kurnitz becoming a witty and stylish Hollywood screenwriter (Hatari, Pretty Baby, Shadow of the Thin Man and many more). £15 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 29953 – or simply click on the button
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“PAGE, Marco” – [KURNITZ, Harry, 1909-1968] : THE SHADOWY THIRD. New York : Pocket Books, (1949). First paperback edition. Dave Calder hired to solve the disappearance of a heavily insured violin. Owner then murdered – list of suspects reads like a telephone directory. First published in 1946. £10 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 29981 – or simply click on the button
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PARKER, Eric, 1870-1955 : SURREY GARDENS. London : B. T. Batsford, 1954. First edition. A charming exploration of eighty Surrey gardens – the wild-life, the writers, and the gardens themselves. £15 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44207 – or simply click on the button
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PAYNE, Elizabeth : LOVE IN LONDON. Dublin : Pillar Publishing Co., [1946]. First edition. Gillian Dale – rich, beautiful and “the loneliest creature in creation” – takes advantage of her mother’s absence to catch a train to London and take a job as a shop assistant. SOLD |
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PAYNE, Laurence (Laurence Stanley), 1919-2009 : SPY FOR SALE. London : Hodder & Stoughton, (1969). First edition. “She had an open sports car, an Aston Martin, a white one. They always do, don’t they ...”. £15 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 24498 – or simply click on the button
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PAYNE, Laurence (Laurence Stanley), 1919-2009 : TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN. London : Hodder & Stoughton, (1982). First edition. Mark Savage, film star turned private investigator, with a pretty vet in darkest Dyfed. £10 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 24500 – or simply click on the button
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PAYNE, Laurence (Laurence Stanley), 1919-2009 : MALICE IN CAMERA. London : Hodder & Stoughton, (1983). First edition. Mark Savage, film-star turned private eye, returns to Elstree – someone is out to sabotage a movie. £10 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 24501 – or simply click on the button
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PEARCE, Michael, 1933- : THE MINGRELIAN CONSPIRACY : A MAMUR ZAPT MYSTERY. London : HarperCollins (Collins Crime), (1995). First edition. Gareth Owen, the Mamur Zapt, and a Russian Grand Duke in Cairo in 1908. £15 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 43180 – or simply click on the button
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PEARSON, E.V. : JUDGE NOT. London : F. M. Mowl, [ca.1934]. Second edition. “A powerfully written story” (Hampshire Telegraph, 21st June 1929) – a well-bred, mysterious, young widow living in a Derbyshire village, the vicissitudes of her daughter’s life, etc. – “One of the finest novels published recently” (Hull Daily Mail, 11th June 1929). Originally published in hardback in 1929 and here in undated ninepenny paperback form from Frederick Matthew Mowl’s 1932-1936 Duke Street address. SOLD |
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PHILIP & SON, George – publishers : HOW TO SEE LONDON : MAPS AND GAZETTEER. London : George Philip & Son, [1950]. An attractive post-war edition of this London guide which first appeared in 1937. Includes suggested itineraries; a double-page map of the exit roads in two colours; four similar sectional maps of the approaches by road; a double-page map of the environs; a coloured indexed map of the theatres, etc.; three coloured double-page maps of central London at a scale of four inches to the mile; a coloured map of the inner London railways, etc.; a gazetteer; notes on places of interest, and an index to the street plans, with notes on places of worship and the underground railways on lower wrapper. SOLD |
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PHILLPOTTS, Eden, 1862-1960 & BENNETT, Arnold (Enoch Arnold), 1867-1931 : THE SINEWS OF WAR : A ROMANCE OF LONDON AND THE SEA. London : T. Werner Laurie, [1906]. First edition. Their first collaboration – “That monster, London, was just lying down to rest. The clocks of the Strand churches and the Strand hotels, keeping nocturnal vigil, showed a quarter to one under the February moon ...” – later published in the USA as “Doubloons”. £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 28008 – or simply click on the button
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PLAYER & SONS, John – publishers : AN ALBUM OF CRICKETERS : 1938. [London] : John Player & Sons, 1938. A complete set of the fifty coloured cigarette cards in the original printed album – thirty-four English and sixteen Australian cricketers, including some of the most famous names in the history of the game: Les Ames, Denis Compton, Bill Edrich, Tom Goddard, Alf Gover, Wally Hammond, Len Hutton, Eddie Paynter, Hedley Verity, Cyril Washbrook, Don Bradman, Jack Fingleton, Lindsay Hassett, Stan McCabe, Bill O’Reilly, etc. SOLD |
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POWELL, Lester, 1912-1993 : A COUNT OF SIX : A NOVEL. London : Collins, 1948. First edition. Powell’s popular radio private eye, the Irishman Philip Odell, makes his first appearance in book form – a thriller set in the American Zone of post-war Germany – the hunt for the six scientists who know the secret of Hitler’s bacteria gas. £10 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 22458 – or simply click on the button
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POWELL, Violet (Violet Georgiana, Lady), 1912-2002 : THE LIFE OF A PROVINCIAL LADY : A STUDY OF E. M. DELAFIELD AND HER WORKS. London : William Heinemann, (1988). First edition. A full-length study of the life and works of E. M. Delafield (1890-1943) – “a novelist of a distinctive and remarkable talent” as well as the author of the abidingly entertaining “Diary of a Provincial Lady”. SOLD |
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PRESS, John (John Bryant) 1920-2007 : GUY FAWKES NIGHT AND OTHER POEMS. London : Oxford University Press, 1959. First edition. Signed by John Press on the title-page. Loosely inserted is a 1985 2pp autograph letter from Press, signed with forename, concerning a reading by women poets, etc. A collection of fifty-five poems, including “Kipling in Excelsis”, “The Backs in February”, “Salthouse, Norfolk”, “Advice to Sadists”, etc. £20 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 17004 – or simply click on the button
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PRICE, Anthony (Alan Anthony), 1928-2019 : TOMORROW’S GHOST : A NOVEL. London : Victor Gollancz, 1979. First edition. Typist and army widow shows an unexpected aptitude for espionage – plus David Audley, Jack Butler, et al. “One of the very finest, and most subtle ... of this remarkable writer” (Patrick Cosgrave). SOLD |
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PRICE, Anthony (Alan Anthony), 1928-2019 : HERE BE MONSTERS : A NOVEL. London : Victor Gollancz, 1985. First edition. An American former army major is pushed off a cliff in France the day after the D-Day anniversary ceremonies – prompting a crisis within British Intelligence. Even Audley comes under suspicion. “Diabolically ingenious” (Christopher Pym). SOLD |
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PRICE, Anthony (Alan Anthony), 1928-2019 : FOR THE GOOD OF THE STATE : A NOVEL. London : Victor Gollancz, 1986. First edition. Two KGB rivals confront each other – but on Exmoor. Polish dissidents involved and David Audley has been playing politics. “Can only add to his reputation” (Financial Times). SOLD |
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PRICE, Anthony (Alan Anthony), 1928-2019 : A NEW KIND OF WAR : A NOVEL. London : Victor Gollancz, 1987. First edition. David Audley’s early years in espionage – Greece and Germany in 1945 and the mysterious unit known as TRR-2. SOLD |
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PYNCHON, Thomas (Thomas Ruggles), 1937- : MASON & DIXON. London : Jonathan Cape, (1997). First British edition. Pynchon’s Grand Tour of the Enlightenment’s dark hemisphere. £20 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 39095 – or simply click on the button
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“QUEEN, Ellery” – [NATHAN, Daniel, 1905-1982 & LEPOFSKY, Manford, 1905-1971] : THE GLASS VILLAGE. London : Victor Gollancz, 1954. First British edition. “A first-rate story of New England mayhem, in which those familiar characters, Queen père et fils, are temporarily discarded and the near-lynching and sleuthing are done by the locals. Original, violent and ingenious” (The Sphere, 11th September 1954). £15 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44451 – or simply click on the button
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RABELAIS, François, ca.1490-1553 : GARGANTUA AND PANTAGRUEL : SELECTIONS FROM THE WORKS OF FRANCIS RABELAIS. London : John Westhouse, 1945. First Brandt edition. Seventeenth-century translations of Rabelais by Sir Thomas Urquhart (1611-1660) and Peter Anthony Motteux (1660-1718), here combined with the extraordinary illustrations of Rolf A. Brandt (1906-1986). Introduction by Denis Saurat. £15 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 42929 – or simply click on the button
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“REED, Mark” – [DANIELS, Norman Arthur, 1905-1995] : HOUSE OF A THOUSAND DESIRES. New York : Falcon Books, (1953). First edition. “The attractive redhead walked into an elevator and said ‘Twenty-two, please’. Nick Brett followed close on her heels and said ‘Forty’. But before he reached the fortieth floor of the Hotel Lorenz, New York’s palatial home-away-from-home, Nick found himself knee-deep in shocking violence and sordid love ...”. SOLD |
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“REED, Van” – [HUGHES, Denis Talbot, 1917-2008] : HOUSE OF MANY CHANGES. London : Curtis Warren, (1952). First edition : the wrappers issue. “When creation which is contrary to all the accepted laws of Nature springs directly from Genius in the grip of Evil the results may well take a form so terrible as to be beyond human understanding ...”. Mad scientist, laboratory horror, allegorical fantasy – “charmingly bizarre” (Harbottle & Holland A268). £20 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 30578 – or simply click on the button
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“RÉNIN, Paul” – [GOYNE, Richard, 1902-1957] : THE SEVENTH NIGHT. London : Federation Press, (1927). First edition. A great white yacht beneath a tropical moon – young Madeline is shocked by her beast of her husband, Lord Farlingham. £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 30435 – or simply click on the button
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“RÉNIN, Paul” – [GOYNE, Richard, 1902-1957] : SCANDAL. Hanley : R. & L. Locker, (1946). First edition. “The cave man secured his woman by knocking her down with a club and carting her off to his subterranean lair. David Thurston knocked her down in Fleet Street with an eight-cylinder sports car, and got her that way. Which amounted to much the same thing – except that comedy ended there, and drama began”. SOLD |
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“RÉNIN, Paul” – [GOYNE, Richard, 1902-1957] : THE GIRL WITHOUT A SOUL. [Leicester] : Beacon Publishing Co., [ca.1948]. First edition. Renin with “the most modern of seductive vampires, who brings mingled glamour, tawdry splendour, and shameful disillusion wherever she goes”. £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 31453 – or simply click on the button
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“REVILLE, Paul” : TRIBULATION. London : Gramol Publications, (1930). First edition. A story which opens on a simmering Shaftesbury Avenue just before theatre time – “There were, too, the usual men of a type germane to the district after dark, aimless, like grim shadows; there were, too, the usual women of a type with aims that lead to nowhere, slowly moving shadows across the screen of night”. SOLD |
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RIVERS, Isabel – editor : BOOKS AND THEIR READERS IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND. Leicester : Leicester University Press / New York : St. Martin’s Press, 1982. First edition. Essays by Terry Belanger, John Valdimir Price, Isabel Rivers, etc., on various aspects of writing, publishing and reading in the eighteenth century. SOLD |
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ROBERTS, Michael (William Ernest), 1902-1948 – editor : THE FABER BOOK OF MODERN VERSE. London : Faber & Faber, (1951). Second edition : an expanded version of the most influential anthology of the period. Originally published in 1936, it “formed the taste of a generation”. The present edition incorporates a supplement of more recent work, chosen and introduced by Anne Ridler, principally of the poets who emerged during the Second World War. SOLD |
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ROBINSON, L.J. (Leslie John) : A DICTIONARY OF GRAPHICAL SYMBOLS. London : F. C. Avis, (1972). First edition. An absorbing and compelling dictionary of symbols, from the letter A to the meteorological symbol for zodiacal light, via Lithuanian accents and logotype – accents, alphabets, book reference marks, borders, commercial signs, conventional symbols, initial letters, mathematical characters, ornaments, printing peculiars, representative foreign alphabets, scientific marks, type founts, zodiacal signs, etc. £20 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 43651 – or simply click on the button
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RODELL, Marie F. (Marie Freid), 1912-1975 : MYSTERY FICTION : THEORY AND TECHNIQUE. London : Hammond, Hammond & Co., (1954). First British edition. An interesting guide to literary craftsmanship from the well-known literary agent – with chapters on clues, suspense, taboos, plotting, etc. With an introduction by Maurice Richardson. “One of the most entertaining textbooks ever written” (Vincent Starrett). £10 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 26368 – or simply click on the button
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ROLFE, Frederick (Frederick William), 1860-1913 : DON RENATO : AN IDEAL CONTENT. A HISTORICAL ROMANCE BY FR. ROLFE (BARON CORVO). London : Chatto & Windus, 1963. First published edition : the trade issue. Rolfe’s long-lost early novel, set in Rome in the early sixteenth century, first printed and prepared for publication in 1908-1909 but never issued. Edited and introduced by Cecil Woolf. £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 29829 – or simply click on the button
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ROYER, Louis-Charles, 1885-1970 : DESIRE (LE DÉSIR). Hanley : Harborough Publishing Co., (1950). First edition in English. Originally published in Paris in 1942. SOLD |
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ROYER, Louis-Charles, 1885-1970 : BEWITCHED. London : Harborough Publishing Co., (1952). First edition in English of “Les Ensorcelées” (originally published in 1944 as “Vaudou : Roman de Moeurs Martiniquaises”). Royer was the author of “L’Amour chez les Soviets” (1932) and other similar works. SOLD |
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“SAPPER” – [McNEILE, Herman Cyril, 1888-1937] : TINY CARTERET. London : Hodder & Stoughton, [1930]. First edition. “Tiny Carteret stretched out a hand like a leg of mutton and picked up the marmalade. On the sideboard what remained of the kidneys and bacon still sizzled cheerfully on the hot plate; by his side a cup of dimensions suitable for a baby’s bath gave forth the fragrant smell of coffee. In short, Tiny Carteret, half-way through his breakfast ...”. Rugby-playing hero ventures forth – sinister organisation based in Switzerland, compromising photographic negative, the honour of a Balkan queen, the happiness of an English duke’s daughter, the security of the state, London night-clubs, Parisian hotels, murder and mayhem – “a story of thrilling adventure and ingenuity the like of which has seldom been written” (Western Mail, 14th August 1930). £40 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44584 – or simply click on the button
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SCUPHAM, Peter, 1933-2022 : THE AIR SHOW. Oxford : Oxford University Press, 1988. First edition. Inscribed, signed and dated (1988) by Peter Scupham on the half-title. A collection of fifty-seven poems, including “Blackpool, by Night”, “Bigness on the Side of Good”, “V. E. Day”, etc. SOLD |
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SHAFFER, Peter (Sir Peter Levin), 1926-2016 : SHRIVINGS : A PLAY IN THREE ACTS. London : André Deutsch, (1974). First edition. Philosopher and pacifist is pushed to the very limits of his ideals by a ferocious and turbulent former pupil. Originally produced unsuccessfully as “The Battle of Shrivings” in 1970, the present heavily revised version was published in hope that “the play itself now give me at last some kind of peace”. SOLD |
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“SHANE, Mark” – [NORWOOD, Victor (Victor George Charles), 1920-1983] : JAIL & FAREWELL. London : Alexander Moring, [ca.1956]. [Second edition]. Red Miller, reformed con-man turned private eye, witnesses an old pal fall to his death in a police siege. In a secret pocket inside the dead man’s shirt is a book – “I had more than a vague idea that the book was old, very old – and maybe valuable”. Bookseller gets murdered. Some other “guys claimed to be antiquarian booksellers, but didn’t know Aristotle from a hole in the ground”. Originally published in 1953 under Reg Carter’s earlier Comyns imprint, but here under the Moring imprint he acquired on his release from prison in 1955. £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 43123 – or simply click on the button
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SHARPE, Tom (Thomas Ridley), 1928-2013 : WILT ON HIGH. London : Martin Secker & Warburg, (1984). First edition : in the primary dust-jacket (designed by Red Ranch). Wilt resurfaces teaching at the Fenland Tech – complications ensue, with drug-dealing, Inspector Flint, accusations of voyeurism, and the local US airbase. £15 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 10018 – or simply click on the button
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SIGERSON, Dora, 1866-1918 : A DULL DAY IN LONDON AND OTHER SKETCHES. London : Eveleigh Nash, (1920). First edition. A collection of twenty posthumously published sketches and slight pieces from the Irish poet, Dora Sigerson Shorter. With an introduction from Thomas Hardy, whose poem “How She Went to Ireland” commemorates her funeral in Dublin. SOLD |
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SIMMONS, John – editor : BIBLIOGRAPHY IN BRITAIN : A CLASSIFIED LIST OF BOOKS AND ARTICLES PUBLISHED IN THE UNITED KINGDOM. Oxford : Oxford Bibliographical Society, 1963-1972. A complete set of all six issues of the journal, covering the publication years 1962-1967. £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 20342 – or simply click on the button
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SIMOND, Louis, 1767-1831 : AN AMERICAN IN REGENCY ENGLAND : THE JOURNAL OF A TOUR IN 1810-1811. London : Robert Maxwell, (1968). Originally published in 1815 as “Journal of a Tour and Residence in Great Britain”, the French-born American Simond gives a fascinating and complete portrait of the British social life of the period. Based in London but travelling all across England and as far afield as the Welsh hills and the Scottish Highlands, talking to anyone and everyone – in country-houses and gardens, at trials and prize-fights, in ironworks and coalmines, in asylums, prisons and hospitals. Edited and introduced by Christopher Hibbert. SOLD |
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SINCLAIR, Robert (Robert George), 1900-1985 : EAST LONDON : THE EAST AND NORTH EAST BOROUGHS OF LONDON AND GREATER LONDON. London : Robert Hale, (1950). First edition. A stylish exploration of the history of the “blind and wayward growth” of the parts of London east of Aldgate. In the Hale County Books series. SOLD |
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SMILES, Samuel, 1812-1904 : GEORGE MOORE : MERCHANT AND PHILANTHROPIST. London : George Routledge & Sons, 1879. An undesignated reprint of the original 1878 edition. A biography of the wealthy lace-merchant George Moore (1806-1876) – a perfect Smiles subject, an entirely self-made man, a fortune made through application and perseverance, and benevolence on a large and wide-ranging scale, much of his charitable work carried out in secret. SOLD |
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SNOW, C.P. (Charles Percy Snow, 1st Baron), 1905-1980 : CORRIDORS OF POWER. London : Macmillan & Co., (1964). First edition. The ninth – and probably the best known – of Snow’s “Strangers and Brothers” sequence. SOLD |
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SREBRNIK, Patricia Thomas, 1950- : ALEXANDER STRAHAN : VICTORIAN PUBLISHER. Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, 1986. First edition. A life of Alexander Stuart Strahan (1833-1918), with interesting material on George Macdonald, Alfred Tennyson, Anthony Trollope and other Strahan authors, as well as the other publishers of the day. SOLD |
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“STATTEN, Vargo” – [FEARN, John Russell, 1908-1960] : THE AVENGING MARTIAN. London : Scion, (1951). First edition. Venus and its mighty scientific civilisation are dying, plans are made to take the air and the water from a neighbouring planet populated by strange creatures who “walk upright on two legs and possess round-shaped bodies crowned with queer furry mats.” £20 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 41440 – or simply click on the button
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“STATTEN, Vargo” – [FEARN, John Russell, 1908-1960] : MAN FROM TO-MORROW. London : Scion, (1952). First edition. Meteorites with rivets light up a Sussex night, a curious stranger rescues sparky young journalist Glenda Carlyle from unwanted attentions in an alley off Fleet Street. £20 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 41437 – or simply click on the button
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“STATTEN, Vargo” – [FEARN, John Russell, 1908-1960] : THE G-BOMB. London : Scion, (1952). First edition. The elders of Mars covet the planet Earth. They have failed twice (1914-1918 and 1939-1946) to persuade humanity to destroy itself – time to unleash the Gravity Bomb. £20 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 41451 – or simply click on the button
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“STRUTHER, Jan” – [ANSTRUTHER, Joyce, 1901-1953] : SYCAMORE SQUARE AND OTHER VERSES. London : Methuen & Co., (1932). First edition. The author of “Mrs Miniver” with ten poems, including “The Muffin Man”, relating to a quiet and small London square, followed by ten on the London telephone districts, Avenue, Frobisher, Gulliver, Mayfair, Victoria, etc., and a further eight whimsical pieces on contemporary topics. Illustrated throughout with great charm by Ernest H. Shepard. £15 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 37341 – or simply click on the button
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SWIFT, Graham (Graham Colin), 1949- : EVER AFTER. London : Picador, (1992). First edition. “These are, I should warn you, the words of a dead man ...”. £20 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 38038 – or simply click on the button
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SYMONS, Julian (Julian Gustave), 1912-1994 : THE MAN WHO KILLED HIMSELF. London : Collins for The Crime Club, (1967). First edition. “So well plotted and so wickedly funny that it easily stands as a leading contender for honours as the best mystery novel of this year and a few other years as well” (Stanley Ellin). SOLD |
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TAYLOR, Barry, 1956- – editor : FOREIGN-LANGUAGE PRINTING IN LONDON 1500-1900. Boston Spa & London : British Library, 2002. First edition. Essays by various hands on aspects of the international press in London: German printing and bookselling in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; chapters on printing in Dutch, French, Italian, Greek, Russian, Polish, Hungarian and the Scandinavian languages, etc. £20 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 41339 – or simply click on the button
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THEROUX, Paul (Paul Edward), 1941- : SAINT JACK : A NOVEL. 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. £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 42931 – or simply click on the button
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THEROUX, Paul (Paul Edward), 1941- : KOWLOON TONG. 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. £20 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 42930 – or simply click on the button
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THOMAS, Dylan (Dylan Marlais), 1914-1953 : THE COLLECTED LETTERS OF DYLAN THOMAS. London : J. M. Dent & Sons, (1985). First edition. The voluminous correspondence of the poet, with much passing reference to W. H. Auden, T. S. Eliot, Richard Hughes, Pamela Hansford Johnson, Glyn Jones, Louis MacNeice, Edith Sitwell, Henry Treece, Vernon Watkins, etc. Edited by Paul Ferris. £20 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 34031 – or simply click on the button
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TRAVERS, Ben (Benjamin), 1886-1980 : HYDE SIDE UP. London : John Lane, The Bodley Head, (1933). First edition. “The name of Ben Travers is, in itself, sufficient to conjure up visions of the most excruciatingly funny happenings. ‘Hyde Side Up’ is welcome, not only because it is indeed a very funny novel, but it is now over seven years since the reading public had an offering from the author of ‘A Cuckoo in the Nest’, ‘Rookery Nook’, etc.” (Exeter & Plymouth Gazette, 30th June 1933). Based on Travers’ own popular talking picture, “Plunder”. “Without doubt the funniest novel of the year”. SOLD |
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TRUESDELL, June, 1918-1996 : THE MORGUE THE MERRIER. London : T. V. Boardman & Co., (1947). First British edition. Crime and comedy as a honeymoon is interrupted by murder – Julius Gilbert (fat, complacent, student of Spinoza) investigates. Originally published in New York in 1945. SOLD |
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UPWARD, Edward (Edward Falaise), 1903-2009 : THE UNMENTIONABLE MAN. 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. £15 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 24950 – or simply click on the button
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“VALOIS, Jean-Paul” – [WILLIS, Ernest Lister Hale (Lisle), 1919-1988] : CHERE AMIE. London : Edwin Self & Co., [ca.1952]. First edition. “A fascinating story of the modern Paris underworld with all the romantic and glamorous aspect of life with artist’s models and midinettes”. One of the earliest “Valois” titles and frankly hilarious in its Franglais – “The température inside the room seemed to leap hundreds of degrees! The air was électrique, so that even Danielle Javenne could feel it in the garde-robe ...”. SOLD |
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VERNEY, John (Sir John), 1913-1993 : FINE DAY FOR A PICNIC. London : Hodder & Stoughton, (1968). First edition. Satirical and still fresh fable of town-planning in Sussex. £10 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 20738 – or simply click on the button
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“WADE, David” – [DANIELS, Norman Arthur, 1905-1995] : RAISE THE DEVIL. New York : Falcon Books, (1952). First edition. “I pointed to the drink in her glass. ‘What is it?’ ‘An aphrodisiac’, she said blandly. ‘Why do you need that stuff?’ – ‘I’m going to take you home with me’, she told me”. Classic noir, with a Black Dahlia type serial killer on the loose. No. 35 in the Falcon series. SOLD |
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WHITE, Edmund (Edmund Valentine), 1940- : THE FLÂNEUR : A STROLL THROUGH THE PARADOXES OF PARIS. London : Bloomsbury Publishing, (2001). First edition. A sixteen-year sojourn in Paris, wandering “through the streets and avenues and along the quays, into parts of Paris virtually unknown to visitors and indeed to many Parisians ... an exhilarating adventure with a most seductive companion”. £20 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44452 – or simply click on the button
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WILLIS, W.N. (William Nicholas), 1858-1922 : WHY GIRLS GO WRONG : HOW THE WHITE SLAVE GANGS WORK. London : Anglo-Eastern Publishing Co., [ca.1924]. A reprint of an early Willis title, first published in 1913, but here issued from Anglo-Eastern’s 1919-1931 address in Waterloo Road, with advertisements for other titles issued in the early 1920s. Classic account, both lurid and journalistic, of young women being lured into prostitution in London’s West End. With a preface by William Sinclair, Archdeacon of London and Canon of St. Paul’s. SOLD |
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WODEHOUSE, P.G. (Sir Pelham Grenville), 1881-1975 : SERVICE WITH A SMILE. London : Herbert Jenkins, (1962). First British edition : in the primary binding, lettered in gilt. “The morning sun shone down on Blandings Castle, and the various inmates of the ancestral home of Clarence, ninth Earl of Emsworth, their breakfasts digested, were occupying themselves in their various ways ...”. SOLD |
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WODEHOUSE, P.G. (Sir Pelham Grenville), 1881-1975 : THE GIRL IN BLUE. London : Barrie & Jenkins, (1970). First edition. A Gainsborough miniature goes missing – hanging in the balance are the future of Mellingham Hall; the peace of mind of Homer Pyle, who suspects his sister, Bernadette (Barney) Clayborne, of kleptomania; the happiness of a young heir and both his fiancées; the prospects of a gold-digging actress; the employment of a fake butler, and much else besides. SOLD |
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