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

London : John Mortimer; Parry, Blenkarn & Co., 1844. First edition. Ainsworth at the height of his fame with a tale of political intrigue and power at the court of Queen Anne — the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough; Robert Harley, first Earl of Oxford; Henry St. John, first Viscount Bolingbroke, etc. “Many would have backed Ainsworth’s talent against Dickens’s in 1840” (John Sutherland).
Three volumes. Demy 12mo (188 x 111mm). viii,(300); iv,(296); iv,(384)pp. Frontispiece and two etched plates in each volume by George Cruikshank. Bound in a superb later (turn of the century) half crimson morocco, banded and gilt in a rose design, by Lucien Broca (1839-1910) of Soho — the finest finisher in London at this time; all edges gilt; marbled sides and endpapers; marbled sides just lightly rubbed; a couple of spots, but overall a fine, clean and handsome set. Contemporary circular white morocco book-labels of Alexander Lawson Duncan (1859-1917) of Chalfont Grove and Jordanstone House, Perthshire.

SOLD

London : Henry J. Drane, [1903]. First edition — the printed title slightly at odds with the cover title. Beautiful English heiress Stella Carlyon goes missing in China and metamorphoses into the goddess of a piratical cult, worshipped by priests and acolytes — aristocratic cousin Eric to the rescue. Beddoes was a retired Royal Navy commander with an uncommon understanding of China — “this thrilling story needs to be read through and through to be appreciated” (Dundee Courier, 9th December 1903).
Crown 8vo (20cm). 387,[i]pp. Frontispiece by W. F. Coles. Original pictorial blue-green canvas over bevelled boards, blocked in yellow and black, and lettered in gilt on spine; some light wear to extremities; mark to lower cover; faint crease to first few leaves; some spotting, mainly to prelims and endpapers; a touch shaken, but a good copy of an uncommon Rider Haggardesque title. Bleiler p.18. Locke (Spectrum) I.30.

SOLD

London : Secker & Warburg, (1964). First edition. “Albert Jones made it from layabout to property racketeer in three months flat ... Against a backdrop of Manchester’s bright lights and slum streets — its tearaways and whores, students and sharp operators — this picaresque story offers unusual realism and rare entertainment”. An interesting and in some ways the archetypal sixties novel — Bird’s first book, written as a young advertising executive, long before he became famous as the doyen of marketing men.
Post 8vo (21cm). 224pp. Original violet boards, blocked and lettered in silver; a very good copy in the Robert Petty dust-jacket — the jacket just faintly used, but also very good.

£75

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44527 – or simply click on the button

London : Archibald Constable, 1906. A standard set of “what remains the most famous biography in any language, one of Western literature’s most germinal achievements: unprecedented in its time in its depth of research and its extensive use of private correspondence and recorded conversation” (Gordon Turnbull in ODNB). Boswell on Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), first published in 1791, and here edited by Augustine Birrell (1850-1833), retaining all the prefatory matter of the earliest editions.
Six volumes. Foolscap 8vo (170 x 104mm). Frontispieces. Bound in a most attractive near contemporary half polished calf, banded and prettily gilt, by John Ramage (1836-1911) & Co.; contrasting labels; top edges gilt; marbled sides and endpapers; very lightly rubbed, but a very good clean and sound set.

£500

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

London : Hodder & Stoughton, (1936). First British edition. The fifth and last of the Richard Hannay novels (although he does make a brief appearance in one later book). “Three men stood on a hill in an African kraal, and swore life-long loyalty to a fourth man and his descendants ... in two well-directed leaps we are in the thick of a kidnapping plot as menacing and as credible as any of the author’s best inventions ... from the first chapter one realises that men who feel as they do about duck-shooting and the English spring can never be allowed to lose whatever game they are playing” (The Sphere, 1st August 1936).
Crown 8vo (20cm). 318,[ii]pp. Endpaper map. Original green cloth, ruled in blind and lettered in gilt; a few faint marks; some light spotting, mainly of edges, but a very good copy in the map-illustrated dust-jacket by Chesterman — the jacket with some light discolouration at head, a short repaired tear on back panel, a couple of marks and slight nicks, but complete, bright and otherwise very good. Blanchard A115.

SOLD

London : Milestone Publications, (1953). First edition. “Johnny Farrell’s first assignment was simple enough — to locate Kay Burnett in the windy city and return her to her rich pa”. Irresistible female crook throws a spanner in the works. “Jack Cairo” was a Milestone house-name, but generally used by Foden.
Crown 8vo (19cm). 128pp. Original pictorial stapled wrappers — blonde smokes smokingly; some minor rubbing and light wear; spine a little spotted; a few slight marks; staples a touch rusted, but a good copy of a scarce and fragile production. No copy located in any major library worldwide.

SOLD

Manchester : John Heywood, 1895. First edition. The authentic memoirs of the legendary Manchester detective, widely thought to be a model for Sherlock Holmes — an unorthodox policeman who relied on a mastery of disguise as well as a network of informers. The man who solved the Manchester Cab Murder, he became the first Superintendent of the Manchester C.I.D. in 1897. Reminiscences of thieves, card-sharpers, fraudsters, burglars, race-course crooks, bullies and cadgers, bogus railway bonds, confidence tricks, arsonists, anarchists, gambling hells, and much else. A supplementary volume was published at his own expense in 1901.
Demy 8vo (23cm). 464pp. Portrait frontispiece. Illustrations. Original green armorial cloth gilt; top edge gilt; lightly rubbed and a little worn; cloth a little discoloured in places; internally clean and a reasonable copy of a difficult title.

£100

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44554 – or simply click on the button

London : John Pearson, 1872. Second collected edition. “Writing is a kind of lottery in this fickle age, and dependence on the stage is as precarious as the cast of a die”. All nineteen of Centlivre’s plays, from the “The Perjur’d Husband”, which “went off with general applause” in 1700, to “The Artifice” of 1722, including “The Wonder” (1714) — which Garrick chose for his farewell performance in 1776 — and “The Busie Body” (1709) — another Garrick favourite, which ran to forty editions before 1884; “The Gamester” (1705) — probably her most popular; “The Man’s Bewitch’d” (1709) — with its heroine’s rousing chorus of “Give Me Liberty and Love”, and “The Gotham Election” (1715) — the first English play to deal with vote-rigging and considered too dangerous ever to be staged, as well as “The Platonick Lady” (1706), “The Perplex’d Lovers” (1712), etc. With facsimiles of the title-pages of the only earlier collected edition of 1760-1761.
Three volumes. Crown 8vo (179 x 111mm). [2],xii,376; [ii],380; [ii],372pp. Bound in a fine later (mid twentieth-century) half chestnut morocco, banded and ruled in gilt, by Oliver & Boyd of Edinburgh; top edges gilt; a couple of scuffs to bottom edges; one leaf torn and repaired, without loss, but otherwise a very good set indeed — sound and clean. With the nautical book-plate of the collector George G. Stevenson in each volume.

SOLD

London : B. T. Batsford, [1920]. First edition. “This very handsome quarto, which contains a wealth of information, very difficult to acquire, reproduces a series of illustrations even more difficult to get possession of. The subject is divided into eight sections, which include street topography, pleasure resorts, clubs, coffee houses and taverns ... great houses and public buildings, churches, and so on. Its pictures alone are a delight, not least the wonderful photographs of the interiors, and such buildings as remain” (The Graphic, 12th November 1921).
Crown 4to (26cm). (viii),(272),[ii]pp. Frontispiece and numerous plates, giving 191 images in total, many from contemporary sources. Original cloth gilt; just a hint of bruising; some mild spotting and browning of outer leaves, but a very good copy in the illustrated dust-jacket — just lightly rubbed and a little worn, but also very good.

£50

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44694 – or simply click on the button

London : Collins for The Crime Club, (1951). First edition. A foray into the spy thriller genre — secret summit of the super-powers, etc. “The usual spirited young creature is Victoria Jones, a London typist with a gift of mimicry and genius for telling lies” (Illustrated London News, 28th April 1951).
Crown 8vo (20cm). 256pp. Original orange-red cloth, blocked and lettered in black; a very good copy indeed in the dust-jacket — a typographic design in green and red on cream — just faintly rubbed, with a single short tear to back panel, but also very good.

SOLD

London : Methuen & Co., (1911). First edition. “The man who says he has no illusions has at least that one” — Conrad with his classic of terrorism, set variously in St. Petersburg and Geneva and published 5th October 1911. “Any hesitation seems to lie, not in over-estimating, but in doing justice to the rare truth and beauty of Mr. Conrad’s latest book. No Englishman could have written it” (The Sketch, 25th October 1911).
Crown 8vo (20cm). [viii],(378) + (32)pp advertisements dated September 1911. Original red cloth, lettered and decorated in gilt; just a touch sunned; a hint of bruising; mild tanning of endpapers, but a very good copy. With the pictorial bookplate, designed by Oswald Tozeau, of Brand Whitlock (1869-1934), American author, journalist, lawyer and politician.

£400

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44581 – or simply click on the button

London : T. Fisher Unwin, 1925. First edition. Four short stories previously unpublished in book form — “The Warrior’s Soul” — a moving tale of Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow, written during the Great War; “Prince Roman” — the Polish Patriot; “The Tale” — moral dilemmas at sea in the Great War, and “The Black Mate” — one of his earliest ventures into fiction. With a foreword by R. B. Cunninghame Graham (1852-1936). Published posthumously to the delight and acclaim of contemporary reviewers — “A substantial addition to Conrad’s best work” (The Scotsman); “one of the most remarkable books of short stories ever issued” (Daily Dispatch); “No unconsidered trifles ... They are of the stuff by which he will be judged” (Manchester Guardian).
Crown 8vo (21cm). (288)pp. Original holly cloth, ruled and lettered in gilt; some spotting of edges; one leaf with a slight production blemish; endpapers lightly tanned, but otherwise a very good, bright and sound copy in the original dust-jacket in a design by Edmondo Lucchesi (1871-1964) — the jacket just slightly creased, with a couple of tiny nicks, but also very good, clean and fresh.

£250

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44697 – or simply click on the button

London : John Murray, (1927). First edition. The last of the Sherlock Holmes books, a dozen final stories with no loss of power, including “The Adventure of the Illustrious Client”, “The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone”, “The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire”, etc. Two of the stories are narrated by Holmes himself, rather than Watson. In announcing this positively final appearance, Conan Doyle noted, “I fear that Mr. Sherlock Holmes may become like one of those popular tenors who, having outlived their time, are still tempted to make repeated farewell bows to their indulgent audiences”.
Crown 8vo (187 x 120mm). 320pp. Bound in an elegant recent half burgundy morocco, banded and gilt; marbled sides; a little spotting, mainly of edges, but a very good copy.

SOLD

London : John Murray, (1929). First edition of this collection of all four of the novels — “A Study in Scarlet”, “The Sign of Four”, “The Hound of the Baskervilles”, and “The Valley of Fear” — with an interesting new preface by Conan Doyle on their genesis: “Having endured a severe course of training in medical diagnosis, I felt that if the same austere methods of observation and reasoning were applied to the problems of crime some more scientific system could be constructed. On the whole, taking the series of books, my view has been justified, as I understand that in several countries some change has been made in police procedure on account of these stories. It is all very well to sneer at the paper detective, but a principle is a principle, whether in fiction or in fact”.
Crown 8vo (187 x 121mm). (x),(640),[vi]pp. Bound in a smart recent half red morocco, banded and gilt; marbled sides; top edge red; some mild tanning of outer leaves; some faint edge-spots, but a very good copy.

SOLD

[London : for A. Churchill, J. Knapton & others, 1720]. A most attractive early eighteenth-century parish map, engraved on a generous scale of just under two inches to 600 feet — Clerkenwell Green, Clerkenwell Close and the surrounding streets — Turnmill Street running south, St. John’s Gate and Lane, eastwards across St. John Street to what is now the Goswell Road, and north across open fields past the “Ducking Pond”, “Black Marys Hole” and the “Madd House” to “New River Pond”, “Sadlers Well” and the fringes of Islington. A numbered key gives the names of thirty-five smaller streets, courts and alleys. Originally produced for the 1720 edition of John Stow’s “Survey of London”.
Copper line engraving on paper. Engraved surface 355 x 282mm (approx. 14” x 11-1/8”). Mild tanning to original central fold; some minor surface creases, but overall in very good and clean state. A guaranteed genuine antique map. Adams 25/054.

SOLD

London : Chatto & Windus, 1909. First edition. Dr Thorndyke, first of the modern forensic detectives, here appearing in eight stories, including “The Anthropologist at Large” and “The Blue Sequin”. Introduced in Freeman’s preface as “a somewhat new departure in this class of literature” — as indeed it was, with illustrations to back up the forensics. A Haycraft-Queen “cornerstone” of detective fiction.
Crown 8vo (20cm). (xii),288pp + 32pp inserted catalogue dated September 1908. Ten plates — six atmospheric studies by Henry Matthew Brock (1875-1960) and four “micro-photographs” of the evidentiary specimens. Plan. Facsimiles. Original pictorial cloth; a few faint marks; some very mild rubbing and wear; endpapers lightly tanned, but a very good copy of a major contribution to the field.

£400

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 40711 – or simply click on the button

London : William Collins Sons & Co. (Crime Club), (1978). First edition. Lovejoy is broke, but has the clues to an amazing find. His means of financing the treasure hunt are idiosyncratic. The second Lovejoy novel.
Post 8vo (21cm). 192,[iv]pp. Original red boards, blocked and lettered in gilt; a very good copy in the Colin Thomas dust-jacket — the jacket just very faintly rubbed, but also very good.

£75

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44544 – or simply click on the button

London : Jonathan Cape, (1927). First edition. “I have tried to give a picture of an exasperatingly complex personality in the easiest possible terms ... I have attempted a critical study of ‘Lawrence’ — the popular verdict that he is the most remarkable living Englishman, though I dislike such verdicts — I am inclined to accept”. Written with his subject’s approval and with the full assistance of family and friends.
Post 8vo (195 x 129mm). [ii],453pp. Plates. Portraits (seven by Eric Kennington). Four folding maps in red and black. Bound in a stylish later half tan crushed morocco, banded and gilt with crescents and scimitars, by Bayntun-Riviere; top edge gilt; marbled endpapers; just a hint of tanning to edges, but a very good copy, finely bound.

SOLD

London : Macmillan & Co., 1888. First edition. Five stories from Hardy, “Fellow-Townsmen” — placed among the finest and most memorable of all his output; “The Withered Arm” and “The Three Strangers” — two outstanding horror stories; the much-admired “Interlopers at the Knap”, and “The Distracted Preacher” — a surprisingly comic cameo. Just 750 copies were printed, and only 634 of those issued in the original two volumes.
Two volumes. Foolscap 8vo (168 x 109mm). [vi],(248); [vi],212pp. Bound, without the preliminary blanks and two advertisement leaves, in an elegant later (mid-twentieth-century) half red crushed morocco, banded and gilt, by Bayntun of Bath; top edges gilt; marbled endleaves; just a touch sunned; one corner very lightly worn; a few faint marks, but overall a very good set.

SOLD

London : Faber & Faber, (1957). First edition : [one of 2,000 copies]. His uncommon first book — a collection of forty poems, dedicated to Sylvia Plath, whom he had married the previous year. An attractive association copy — the review copy sent to fellow poet Roy Fuller (1912-1991), with the publishers’ review slip, Fuller’s pencilled notes on the reverse of the slip, and his inked ownership inscription. Fuller’s review appeared in the “London Magazine” in January 1958.
Demy 8vo (23cm). [ii],(60),[ii]pp. Original blue cloth, lettered in yellow; a very good copy in the Berthold Wolpe dust-jacket — also very good, with some minimal restoration to tips. Sagar A1.

SOLD

London : Hurst & Blackett, 1855. First edition. Hunt’s charming and “anecdotical” history of the fashionable suburb, with material on Kensington Gore, Kensington House, the High Street, the church, Holland House, Kensington Palace and Gardens, and much more.
Two volumes. Post 8vo (21cm). x [but viii],306,[ii] + 16pp advertisements; vi,288 + (24)pp advertisements dated March 1855. (The presumed first issue, without the tipped-in preface leaf). Original orange cloth gilt, by Leighton Son & Hodge, with their ticket; just a hint of wear; some mild sunning; the startling royal blue endpapers slightly cracked in a few places, but a handsome set still.

SOLD

London : S. D. Frances, [1948]. First edition : a variant with the price printed on the upper wrapper in blue rather than black. Although Frances had used the Hank Janson pseudonym twice before on unrelated books, this is the elusive first book of the first series of Hank Jansons proper, where author and hero become one — it was also the beginning of his extraordinary collaboration with the cover artist, Reginald Heade (1901-1957). Although published in an edition of 10,000 copies (Holland pp.59-61), the subsequent destruction orders imposed by various local authorities and the notoriety that attached to the 1954 and 1955 obscenity trials have made this a scarce book.
Foolscap 8vo (19cm). 112pp. Original stapled pictorial wrappers — a fine design by Reginald Heade of an alluring blonde, strapless and with an incredible cigarette holder; a little worn and creased, with some slight chipping; price stamped on upper wrapper; tape-marks on verso of upper wrapper; staples just lightly rusted; a good copy of a difficult title. Only the British Library copy located in major libraries worldwide. Williams & Holland 1.

£125

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 33525 – or simply click on the button

London : Tinsley Brothers, 1877. First edition : in the primary binding. “The leading idea in the tale is this: at Birmingham there is an immense property without an owner, and two years ago over 100 claimants from America and other countries held a family council there ... Something similar (under different names of localities etc.) forms the nucleus of my novel which shows how this vast property influences the lives of many people” (Jefferies in a letter of July 1876). His rare third novel, intended to appeal to lovers of the sensational in the style of Wilkie Collins — “He certainly succeeds in seizing on his reader’s attention from the first start, and his story, with all its faults, is never for a moment dull or trivial” (The Graphic, 25th August 1877).
Three volumes. Crown 8vo (20cm). [iv],(250),[ii]; [iv],278; [iv],(290)pp. Original dove-grey cloth, lettered in gilt, and ruled and blocked in black and gilt; spines a little darkened; a little rubbed; some slight splash-marks and faint spots; two endpapers a little cracked; a little shaken in places; a few minor internal marks and small flaws, but overall a good set of a notable rarity — ranked by Sadleir as the scarcest of all Jefferies’ novels.

£750

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44710 – or simply click on the button

London : Grant Richards, 1898. First edition. Laurence Gray, young man of humble background from Blackburn made good, is wrongfully arrested for murder on the day of his engagement to the beautiful Geraldine Lucas. On the one hand a powerful indictment of the penal system, on the other “a chaotic conglomeration of sensational incidents, flung together in an inartistic fashion” (Dundee Advertiser, 12 May 1898).
Crown 8vo (20cm). (viii),316,[iv]pp. Frontispiece and seven dramatic plates by the always entertaining Stanley Llewellyn Wood (1866-1928). Original pictorial mustard cloth, reproducing one of the Wood plates; spine a touch darkened; endpapers slightly cracking; a few minor marks and spots, but still an attractive copy.

£100

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 41607 – or simply click on the button

London : Printed for the author ... and published by J. H. Jackson, 1842. First edition. A handsomely illustrated local history, covering Islington, Holloway, Highbury, Barnsbury, Newington Green, Stroud Green, etc., taking in turn the early and manorial history, parish government, the St. Mary’s district and its later subdivisions — the St. John’s district, St. Paul’s district, Holy Trinity, the chapelries of St. Peter, St. James, All Saints and St. Stephen — the parts of Islington village in the parish of Clerkenwell, charities, biographical notes on local worthies, etc. Compiled by the younger Samuel Lewis, son of the publisher of topographical dictionaries.
Demy 4to (30cm). [xx],486pp. Extra engraved pictorial title. Maps of Islington and Finsbury, the former a folding plan by John Dower. Steel engraved views, mainly by Henry Griffiths after Edward Duncan (1803-1882). Woodcut views, facsimiles, portraits and coats of arms. Folding table. Original cloth, much restored and refurbished, with a plainly lettered new spine and fresh endpapers; a little bumped at head; very occasional spotting or browning, but a good, sound and serviceable copy.

SOLD

Paris : E. Plon, Nourrit & Cie., [1894]. First edition. The lighter side of London life and fashion as seen by the popular and irrepressible Belgian caricaturist — Charing Cross Station, lunch-hour on the Strand, Royal Ascot, Hyde Park and Rotten Row, Kensington, Piccadilly Circus, the Lowther Arcade, Piccadilly and Park Lane, Henley, the Music-Hall, Christmas parties, Kensington Gardens, Maidenhead, and so much more — sketches, studies and wry observation.
Landscape foolscap folio. (26cm). 32 leaves. Illustrated throughout, frequently in colour, with full-page plates and medleys of smaller studies. Original pictorial cloth; lightly rubbed and slightly worn; front endpaper cracked and torn; some minor internal marks and short tears, but overall still a good copy of a delightful compilation.

£200

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 40849 – or simply click on the button

London : Macmillan & Co., 1877. A standard edition of the poetry, printed on india paper and published in Macmillan’s “Globe Edition” series. Bound in 1883 in a very handsome binding, with fore-edge painting, for the Cambridge scholar-bookseller Robert Bowes (1835-1919) as a gift for his wife Fanny Bowes (1831-1903) on her birthday in June of that year. Inscribed and initialled by Bowes with his wife’s name and the date — with a further later inscription in a different hand commemorating her death in 1903. With Bowes’ personal “Quod Vis Potes” bookplate bound in. Bowes was a nephew of the publisher Alexander Macmillan (1818-1896) and his partner in the Cambridge bookshop of “Macmillan & Bowes”, while his wife Fanny Bowes was Macmillan’s sister-in-law. Sold together with the companion edition of “Poetical Works of Walter Scott” (1878), bound to match and evidently part of the original gift.
Two volumes. Foolscap 8vo (174 x 115mm). (xii),(626); (xliv),(560)pp. Bound in handsome full citron morocco, banded and extra gilt; all edges gilt; hand-painted endleaves in a design of tulips for Milton and thistles for Scott, the designs repeated in concealment beneath the gilt of the fore-edges and only revealed when the pages are fanned open; spines a little darkened and with some minor rubbing, but otherwise in very good order and an extremely rare example of a personalised binding of this type.

For more on these bindings, see my Bookhunter on Safari blog-post of 5th June 2020.

£1,000

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44687 – or simply click on the button

Philadelphia : Printed only for Subscribers by George Barrie, [ca.1896]. First American edition, limited to 1,000 numbered copies on hand-made paper, of this elegant rendition of Montesquieu’s famous satire on French and European civilisation, viewed through the prism of two fictional Persian travellers. The forthright and unafraid iconoclasm of the apostle of freedom, once “extolled to the clouds ... as the man of genius who had rediscovered the title-deeds of the human race”. First published in 1721 and translated into English the following year, but here in its first complete translation, as privately printed in England in 1892. Translated, with an introduction and biography, by the poet John Davidson (1857-1909), and graced with the delightful illustrations of the curious hermit artist Charles Édouard de Beaumont (1821-1888), etched by Émile Boilvin (1845-1899). Published in George Barrie’s impressive “Bibliophilist’s Library” series.
Two volumes. Demy 8vo (224 x 149mm). [6],xlviii,(204); [6],vi,(236)pp. Portrait frontispiece and eight etched plates — each plate with a tissue guard and a duplicate etching printed in bistre. Index. Bound in a handsome contemporary half red morocco, banded and gilt; top edges gilt; marbled endpapers; some very minor rubbing and wear to corners; mild tanning to opening leaves, but a very good set. With the nautical bookplate of George G. Stevenson in each volume.

£250

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

London : W. G. Moss; and sold by Simpkin and Marshall; and West, Hastings, 1824. First edition : the variant in royal 8vo format (it was also issued in a larger and smaller forms). The standard history, although fewer than 150 copies were subscribed for. The text is generally thought to have been written around Moss’s attractive illustrations by William Herbert (1772-1851), the antiquary and librarian. Moss himself, here described as “Draughtsman to His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge”, was a London painter who exhibited at the Royal Academy until 1827, but thereafter seems to have found employment as a clerk at the General Post Office. He died at Kennington in 1854. The present copy has interesting additional matter bound in — an additional illustration (see below), a four-page prospectus for the never-published “The History and Antiquities of the Rape of Hastings”, again to be by (or illustrated by) Moss, bearing the plaintive pencilled note “NB Save this leaf this work will not be finished”. This is followed by twenty-two leaves, fourteen of which are blank, the remainder carrying 17pp of manuscript transcription of a document of 1541 relating to Hastings, signed at the end Mr. Chas. Gay 1827.
Royal 8vo (241 x 153mm). [2],xiv,206,[ii]p. Folding town plan of Hastings. Etched facsimile of a page from Domesday in two colours. Eighteen engraved plates, many in proof state, engraved by a clutch of distinguished engravers from Moss’s designs. And the additional illustration — a small stipple-engraved portrait of Sir Cloudesley Shovell by Penny mounted out to fit the page area and inserted facing p.150. Contemporary half calf, banded and gilt; marbled sides, edges and endpapers; the binding neatly restored and refurbished; some wear and rubbing to edges; occasional slight spotting and minor creasing, but overall a very good copy. Later inscriptions to preliminary and final blanks.

£250

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 32846 – or simply click on the button

[London : George Virtue, 1832]. One of the most attractive and popular of all antique maps of the county, decorated with a foliate border, coats of arms, allegorical figures and inset views of Westminster Bridge and Buckingham Palace. Originally engraved in 1832 by William Schmollinger (1811?-1869) for Moule’s part-work series “The English Counties Delineated” (London : 1830-1837) — and here in early state, before the addition of railways, etc.
Steel line engraving on paper. Original hand colour. Engraved surface 200 x 256mm. Trimmed a little tight (as usual); a few slight spots and specks, but overall in very good and clean state. Rare in this early state and with original colour. A guaranteed genuine antique map.

£125

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 43916 – or simply click on the button

London : M. A. Pittman, 1831. First edition. The first book from the pen of “unquestionably the greatest hunting correspondent of all time” (Higginson) — with everything one might wish to know about high-bred racers and hunters — bran mashes, broken wind, capped hocks, Cherry’s elastic pads, clipping, colic, curbs, docking, farcy, firing, founder, frog, megrims, rowels, spavins, splents and so much more — in entertaining anecdote and detailed practice.
Medium 8vo (224 x 138mm). (viii),(504),[ii] + 8pp advertisements dated January 1832. Bound in a lavish later (early twentieth-century) half crimson morocco, banded and gilt with horse and horseshoes, by Root & Son; top edge gilt; ribbon marker; marbled endpapers; binding skilfully touched up in one or two places; occasional minor spotting, but a very handsome copy. Podeschi 138 — not noting the inserted advertisement leaves of the present copy.

£250

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 26762 – or simply click on the button

London : Hutchinson & Co. (Publishers) / Jonathan Cape, (1960-1964). A first edition set of her scandalous trilogy — the separately published “The Country Girls” (1960) — Irish girls in black underwear, banned in Ireland, publicly burnt by her parish priest in Tuamgraney — “By turns beautiful and bawdy, funny and haunting ... often referred to as the quintessential tale of Irish girlhood, it is not the novel that broke the mould: it is the one that made it” (Eimear McBride); “The Lonely Girl” (1962) — filmed in 1964 as “The Girl With Green Eyes”, with Rita Tushingham, Lynn Redgrave, Peter Finch, etc. — and the darker concluding volume set in London, “Girls in Their Married Bliss” (1964).
Three volumes. Post & crown 8vo (21 & 20cm). (224); (254),[ii]; 190,[ii]pp. Original boards (black, mauve, blue); a few faint marks; some mild spotting to the endpapers of the first volume and edges of the second, but very good copies in the original pictorial dust-jackets by Jillian Willett, Hofbauer and David Fawcett respectively — the jackets with some minor rubbing and a couple of nicks, the back panel of the second a little splashed, but complete and overall also very good. Ownership stamp of the Raffin Stud, Castletown, County Meath, in the second volume.

£750

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44681 – or simply click on the button

London : Jonathan Cape, (1933). First edition. The daughter of a county family marries the son of one of the tenants and is rejected by her kith and kin — a fine and unsentimental novel of Irish life. “From this straightforward account of the lives of a few Irish families we get an almost complete conception of the problem of Ireland” (Aberdeen Press, 12th October 1933).
Crown 8vo (20cm). (414),[ii]pp. Original olive cloth, blocked and lettered in yellow; edges spotted, but otherwise a very good copy in the stylish dust-jacket — slightly darkened at foot of spine and with just a touch of edge-wear, but also very good.

£125

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 43020 – or simply click on the button

London : Secker & Warburg, 1949. First edition. “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen ...”. The most compelling and chilling novel of the twentieth century — not least in that it now appears to have been widely adopted as an instruction manual. “Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it”.
Crown 8vo (183 x 121mm). 312pp. Bound in a smart recent dark green full morocco, banded and gilt; all edges gilt; a couple of minor internal marks, but overall a very good, clean and sound copy, handsomely bound.

SOLD

London : Chatto & Windus / Exeter : James G. Commin, 1904. A “new and complete” library edition : limited to 600 numbered sets. “The most curious papers of the sort I ever saw” — the extraordinary treasure trove of the letters and papers of several generations of the Paston family of Norfolk and London, chronicling their lives, tribulations, successes and failures, as they rose from humble beginnings to high society — “They are the richest source there is for every aspect of the lives of gentlemen and gentlewomen of the English middle ages ... The history of the family in the fifteenth century is theirs alone” (ODNB). Although collections of the letters had appeared from 1787 onwards, this edition, with nearly 1,100 letters and papers, edited by James Gairdner (1828-1912) of the Public Record Office, was much the most comprehensive to appear until modern times.
Six volumes. Demy 8vo (218 x 157mm). Bound in a smart mid-twentieth-century half blue crushed morocco, banded and gilt; top edges gilt; spines just a touch darkened, but a very good set — clean and sound. With the nautical bookplate of the notable collector George G. Stevenson in each volume.

£500

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44684 – or simply click on the button

New York : Charles Scribner’s Sons, (1993). First edition. A review copy of her Pulitzer Prize winning second novel, with the publishers’ promotional biographical notes, etc., loosely inserted — “The story is a dark comedy that revolves around Quoyle, a third-rate newspaper hack who ends up in Newfoundland reporting the shipping news for a rough-and-ready local weekly”.
Medium 8vo (24cm). [xii],(338),[ii]pp. Original turquoise cloth-backed grey boards; an excellent copy in the original Paul Gamarello dust-jacket — also excellent and without the usual fading to the spine.

SOLD

London : Faber & Gwyer / Faber & Faber, (1928-1936). A first edition set of the three separately published volumes — “This is fiction, but with a difference — for the author, who wishes at present to remain anonymous, has himself lived the life of a hero” — the first two volumes were published anonymously, the first in an edition of just 1,500 copies. “The most satisfying piece of autobiography to be published in our time. All the equipment of a novelist is Sassoon’s. But what novel could equal in fascination this true story? The three books give him a place unique in English letters” (Howard Spring in the Evening Standard, 3rd September 1936).
Three volumes. Crown 8vo (183 x 113mm). (396),[iv]; 334,[ii]; 280pp. Bound, without one initial blank leaf, in a handsome recent full navy crushed morocco, banded and gilt; all edges gilt; a couple of tiny marks; mild tanning of outer leaves in one volume, but a very good set.

£1,500

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

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

£400

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 34502 – or simply click on the button

London : Macmillan & Co., 1956. First edition. The sixth novel in the “Strangers and Brothers” sequence, taking Lewis Eliot through the war years, from Munich in 1938, via the end of one marriage and the beginning of another, to the unsettled post-war years.
Crown 8vo (20cm). (viii),(400)pp. Original red cloth, lettered in gilt; top edge a touch dusty, but otherwise a very good, bright and sound copy in the Robert Micklewright dust-jacket — a pictorial design in black and ochre on white — also very good, with just the lightest signs of age and wear. Neat ownership inscription of W. G. Lock.

SOLD

London : J. Johnston, 1820. “Third edition” – i.e. a fresh impression of the original 1820 publication. The naive and pedantic “Doctor Syntax, learned sage, The pride and glory of the age” – with a series of comical adventures and mainly misadventures in London – an anonymous revival of this fictional character first invented by William Combe, but here set against some highly recognisable London scenes. The tale commences with Syntax and his wife Dolly poring over a map of London at the tea-table; arrival at the White Horse in Fetter Lane; robbed in St. Giles; behind the scenes at the opera; at a masquerade; rehearsing his play; in Hyde Park; at the Royal Academy; to Richmond by river; at Vauxhall Gardens; overboard at London Bridge; at the House of Commons; in a gambling den; at St. Paul’s; at the Bank of England; presented at Court to the Prince Regent; and the fate of the play, etc.
Royal 8vo (257 x 160mm). iv,[2],(320)pp. Hand-coloured aquatint frontispiece, pictorial title and eighteen delightful hand-coloured plates, sometimes attributed to Thomas Rowlandson or Robert Cruikshank, although the first is signed by Charles Williams (fl.1797-1830). This copy misbound and lacking the “Doctor Syntax at the Exhibition” plate, but with the “Doctor Syntax at Vauxhall Gardens” plate in duplicate in its stead. Bound in an elegant recent quarter chestnut morocco; a tall copy, the text leaves untrimmed; some internal marks; some occasional browning and spotting, but an attractive example of a highly entertaining production.

£250

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 39616 – or simply click on the button

London : Chapman & Hall, 1876. First edition. The fifth of the Palliser novels — Plantagenet Palliser is persuaded to head a fragile coalition government. Glencora disobeys an order. Lizzie Eustace reappears. “As regards the public, The Prime Minister was a failure. It was worse spoken of by the press than any novel I had written ... I do not think it probable that my name will remain among those who in the next century are known ... but if it does, the permanence of success will probably rest on the characters of Plantagenet Palliser, Lady Glencora ...” (Anthony Trollope).
Four volumes. Crown 8vo (187 x 123mm). vi,(338); iv,342; vi,346; vi,(348)pp. No half-titles called for. Bound in a smart later (early twentieth-century) half red morocco; top edges gilt; marbled sides and endpapers; silk ribbons; sides lightly rubbed, with some slight scuffing to lower cover of the final volume; a few very minor internal marks, spots and small flaws, but overall a very good set in a handsome binding. Monogram bookplates — probably of George Capel Cure (1853-1943) of Blake Hall, Ongar — engraved by Allan Wyon (1843-1907), together with the more recent bookplate of the notable modern collector Robert James Hayhurst (1929-2016).

SOLD

London : Tallis Press, 1905. First edition. His first thriller — the assassination of the Foreign Secretary. Launched in a blaze of publicity Wallace could not afford, the front cover advertises a total of £500 in prizes to anyone capable of solving the final mystery. The present copy has the original numbered and perforated competition slip at the rear.
Crown 8vo (19cm). 224,[ii]pp. Folding frontispiece. Perforated competition slip. Original amber cloth, lettered in black; spine just a touch dulled; some spotting, mainly of edges and opening leaves, but a very good copy.

SOLD

London : Leonard Smithers & Co., 1899. First edition : limited to 1,000 copies — this copy not numbered and out of series. Wilde’s most famous and most enduring play, published quasi-anonymously after his fall from grace, just eighteen months before he died. “If I am occasionally a little over-dressed, I make up for it by being always immensely over-educated”.
Foolscap 4to (210 x 149mm). [xvi],(152)pp. Bound in a smart recent full green morocco, banded and gilt; a few minor marks, tiny spots and faint creases, but a very good copy, handsomely bound. Mason 381.

SOLD

London : Herbert Jenkins, (1968). First British edition. Safe-crackers, butlers, bankers, a maiden aunt, a cook, policemen and public houses in the Vale of Evesham. Originally published in New York a few weeks earlier with a slightly different text.
Post 8vo (21cm). (190),[ii]pp. Original green boards, lettered in silver; a very good, bright, clean and sound copy in the original Osbert Lancaster dust-jacket — the jacket just with a hint of tanning, but also very good.

SOLD

London : John Long, (1906). First edition. A German plot to infiltrate and conquer — “Entitled to more respectful attention than the wild and whirling efforts of the ordinary sensational novelist ... Mr. Wood shows what a source of peril these foreigners might become if only it occurred to some potentate of Europe to utilise them as allies in case of an invasion ... There are quite half a score of good points in it to which we ourselves should like to draw special attention” (London Evening Standard, 17th May 1906).
Crown 8vo (20cm). 320 + (8)pp advertisements dated March 1906. Original blue pictorial cloth, blocked with the London skyline in red, white and black on the upper cover, and lettered in gilt on spine; a sprinkling of edge-spots; endpapers very slightly tanned, but a very good copy.

SOLD