ASH RARE BOOKS – ANTIQUARIAN RARE AND FINE BOOKS – FIRST EDITIONS – ANTIQUE MAPS AND PRINTS
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CATALOGUE 125 : NOTHING TOO EXPENSIVE (15) | |
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AINSWORTH, William Harrison, 1805-1882 : THE TOWER OF LONDON. A HISTORICAL ROMANCE. London : Henry G. Bohn, 1845. “Sixth edition”. Ainsworth's best-selling tale of Lady Jane Grey, the nine-day queen, and the historical events at the Tudor court of 1553-1554 – notable especially for the close collaboration between the author and his artist, George Cruikshank (1792-1878), who together made numerous visits to the Tower to get the physical details absolutely correct. First published in instalments in 1840 – “Many would have backed Ainsworth's talent against Dickens's in 1840” (John Sutherland). SOLD |
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“AIRD, Catherine” – [McINTOSH, Kinn Hamilton, 1930- ] : PASSING STRANGE. London : William Collins Sons & Co. (The Crime Club), (1980). First edition. Signed by Catherine Aird on the title-page. The ninth Inspector Sloan mystery. Motiveless murder at the flower show. £50 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 21822 – or simply click on the button
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AMBLER, Eric (Eric Clifford), 1909-1998 : DIRTY STORY : A FURTHER ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF ARTHUR ABDEL SIMPSON. London : Bodley Head, (1967). First edition. The further adventures of the anti-hero of “The Light of Day” (filmed as “Topkapi”) – the “interpreter, chauffeur, waiter, pimp, pornographer, and guide” in search of a valid passport in Athens. SOLD |
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AMES, Delano (Delano L.), 1906-1987 : CORPSE DIPLOMATIQUE. London : Hodder & Stoughton, (1950). First edition. “But, madam, you have a husband who asks many questions – why, I do not know. You have a husband who suddenly says ‘Bang!’ A husband who speaks of knives, and poisoned coffee and of bombs. A husband who makes me very, very nervous”. The fourth in the delightful Dagobert and Jane Brown series – “Those meeting the Browns for the first time have a treat in store. Here they are detecting with wit on the Riviera” (Aberdeen Press, 28th October 1950). SOLD |
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AMIS, Kingsley (Sir Kingsley William), 1922-1995 : ONE FAT ENGLISHMAN : A NOVEL. London : Victor Gollancz, 1963. First edition. Tubby Roger St. John Micheldene pursues the wife of a Danish philologist through American academe – “Kingsley Amis is, indeed, very good at destroying other people’s snobberies and promoting his own. One Fat Englishman is a better, funnier novel than anything Amis has done since Lucky Jim” (Daily Herald, 14th November 1963). SOLD |
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AMIS, Kingsley (Sir Kingsley William), 1922-1995 : I WANT IT NOW. London : Jonathan Cape, (1968). First edition. Amis takes precise aim at the idle and very rich, with some body-blows too at the new breed of television personalities – “What I like most about him, however, is his ability to pick off a character with a single sentence rather like a sniper wiping out an enemy with a single bullet” (Michael Billington in the Birmingham Daily Post, 14th December 1968). SOLD |
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AMIS, Kingsley (Sir Kingsley William), 1922-1995 : THE RIVERSIDE VILLAS MURDER. London : Jonathan Cape, (1973). First edition. How Mr Hakim died – Amis in sparkling form with a book both a coming-of-age novel and a genuine murder mystery. SOLD |
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AMIS, Kingsley (Sir Kingsley William), 1922-1995 : THE OLD DEVILS. London : Hutchinson, (1986). First edition. His Booker Prize winning novel – people with a past decline into old age – “the most outrageously funny Amis novel for many years as well as the most overtly serious” – “It stands comparison with any English novel of the century” (Martin Amis). SOLD |
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ARLEN, Michael, 1895-1956 : MAY FAIR : BEING AN ENTERTAINMENT PURPORTING TO REVEAL TO GENTLEFOLK THE REAL STATE OF AFFAIRS EXISTING IN THE VERY HEART OF LONDON ... London : W. Collins Sons & Co., (1925). First edition. A prologue and twelve short stories in Arlen’s best vein – his last great success – London’s “charming people” and their “follies, misadventures, and galanteries”. Includes “The Ace of Cads”, “The Battle of Berkeley Square”, “The Ghoul of Golders Green”, etc. “Whatever he writes is a sheer delight to the student of style” (Edinburgh Evening News, 12th June 1925). SOLD |
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ARLEN, Michael, 1895-1956 : MAN’S MORTALITY : A STORY. London : William Heinemann, (1933). First edition. International Aircraft and Airways Inc. collapses in 1987 after fifty years of oligarchy in guarding and upholding peace (by war and tyranny if necessary) – a “Pax Aeronautica” tale, providing an interesting contrast and a rather less optimistic vision than that of H. G. Wells’s “The Shape of Things to Come”, which was published in the same year. “Truthfully, I am not certain of Mr. Arlen’s conclusions. At any rate, he has given us a story the tremendous drive of which shatters all criticism, leaving only an excited admiration ... a splendid story splendidly told” (Richard King in “The Tatler”, 1st February 1933). £50 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 43692 – or simply click on the button
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AUDEN, W.H. (Wystan Hugh), 1907-1973 : CITY WITHOUT WALLS AND OTHER POEMS. London : Faber & Faber, (1969). First edition. A late collection of thirty-six poems, etc., including “Bird Language”, “The Song of the Devil”, the “Eight Songs from Mother Courage” sequence, etc. “A major poet wonderfully articulate at his slippered unease” (Keith Brace, Birmingham Daily Post, 4th October 1969). £40 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45557 – or simply click on the button
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BARKER, Felix (Richard Felix Raine), 1917-1997 & HYDE, Ralph, 1939-2015 : LONDON AS IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN. London : John Murray (Publishers), (1982). First edition. From the grand to the curious, if not from the bizarre to the preposterous – some of the many architectural projects proposed – but rejected and never built – over a period of four hundred years. An extraordinary, richly illustrated and highly entertaining survey of London as it might have been. Signed on the title-page by the co-author, Ralph Hyde. £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44091 – or simply click on the button
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BATSFORD, Harry, 1880-1951 : LONDON : WORK AND PLAY : A SERIES OF ILLUSTRATIONS. London : B. T. Batsford, (1950). First edition. A delightful evocation of mid-twentieth-century London – eighty-four atmospheric photographs of the essential scenes, chosen from various sources, captioned and introduced by the publisher, Harry Batsford. £50 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45815 – or simply click on the button
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“BELL, Josephine” – [BALL, Doris Bell Collier, 1897-1987] : THE SEEING EYE. London : Hodder & Stoughton, (1958). First edition. Avant garde art critic found murdered in the Westminster Art Gallery – suspects with motives abound: safe-robbing old lag; talented art student; neurotic friend (and his psychiatrist); egotistical eye-surgeon, etc. The Wintringhams investigate. SOLD |
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BENNETT, H.S. (Henry Stanley), 1889-1972 : ENGLISH BOOKS & READERS 1603 TO 1640 : BEING A STUDY OF THE HISTORY OF THE BOOK TRADE IN THE REIGNS OF JAMES I AND CHARLES I. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, (1970). First edition. The third and final volume of Bennett’s masterly analysis of supply and demand in the early English book trade, continuing the story from the death of Elizabeth I to the outbreak of the Civil War. An account of the total output of the press, irrespective of quality – “the nature of the subject matter and the demand it set out to meet”. With chapters on inception; patronage; regulation; piracy; translation; literacy; variety (religion, law, education, medicine, information, arithmetic and science, geography and travel, history, news, literature); printers, booksellers and readers. £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 43446 – or simply click on the button
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BENSON, E.F. (Edward Frederic), 1867-1940 : THE FREAKS OF MAYFAIR. London & Edinburgh : T. N. Foulis, (1916). First edition. Benson’s perennially popular fictional studies of the anthropology of Mayfair society – “The Compleat Snobs”; “Aunt Georgie” and his passion for embroidery; the gossips; “The Sea-Green Incorruptible”; “The Grizzly Kittens”, incapable of growing old gracefully; social climbers – both vertical and horizontal, etc. SOLD |
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BERNERS, Lord (Gerald Hugh Tyrwhitt-Wilson, 14th Baron), 1883-1950 : FAR FROM THE MADDING WAR. London : Constable & Co., (1941). First edition. Emmeline Pocock, daughter of the warden of All Saints, tries to see out the war in her sound-proof room – disturbances from the university town – tangled love drama, the eccentric provost, the sensational reports of Mr Jericho, the volcanic Lady Caroline Paltry, the melancholic Lord FitzCricket, poltergeists, etc. £50 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 35939 – or simply click on the button
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BESANT, Sir Walter, 1836-1901 : FIFTY YEARS AGO. London : Chatto & Windus, 1892. Second edition : a revised and slightly expanded version of the original 1888 publication. Besant’s entertaining and richly illustrated account of life and society (principally in London) in 1837 – the year of the accession of Queen Victoria and in Besant’s view the year in which all that we think of as nineteenth-century really began. SOLD |
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BEVAN, G. Phillips (George Phillips), 1830-1889 : TOURISTS’ GUIDE TO THE COUNTY OF SURREY; CONTAINING FULL INFORMATION CONCERNING ALL ITS FAVOURITE PLACES OF RESORT. London : Edward Stanford, 1887. Third edition. An attractive guide, first published in 1879 and containing a general description of the county, detailed itineraries of forty-four suggested excursions, mainly by rail and road, but with also a river-trip from London Bridge to Richmond and Kingston. The advertisements, dated for 1889-1890, give a countrywide selection of hotels, restaurants, schools, etc. £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 35124 – or simply click on the button
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BOOTH, Charles G. (Charles Gordon), 1896-1949 : KINGS DIE HARD. London : Hammond, Hammond & Co., (1949). First edition. The plane crash-landed in the desert in a raging sandstorm ...” – an Anatole Flique novel, copyrighted in 1948, published in January 1949 and apparently never published in the USA. “A crisp style and originality of handling that lifts it from the conventional American thriller” (Western Morning News, 16th March 1949). £40 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 27591 – or simply click on the button
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BOTTARI, George L. (George Leo), 1919-2016 : MABEL AND MEN. New York : Falcon Books, (1952). First edition. His first novel – “Her beauty is fabulous, her passion insatiable” – Mabel deals with the suave rogue, the happy clown, the romantic hero and the virile lover. Falcon No. 23. £50 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 41680 – or simply click on the button
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BOTTARI, George L. (George Leo), 1919-2016 : OFF LIMITS! New York : Magazine Productions, (1953). First edition. “A suspense-packed novel of the guys, the dames, the joints, the creeps who surround our army camps and prey on our soldiers”. No. 130 in the Rainbow Book series. £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 41734 – or simply click on the button
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BOYD, William, 1952- : THE BLUE AFTERNOON. London : Sinclair-Stevenson, (1993). First edition. Signed by William Boyd on the title-page. “His name is Salvador Carriscant and thus begins Kay Fischer’s journey into the past of this beguiling and seductive older man who claims to be her father” – “Achingly memorable” (The Times). £50 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45776 – or simply click on the button
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BOYD, William, 1952- : RESTLESS. London : Bloomsbury, (2006). First edition. Signed by William Boyd on the title-page. “In 1939 Eva is a beautiful 28-year-old living in Paris. As war breaks out she is recruited for the British Secret Service ... she learns to become the perfect spy”. £50 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45759 – or simply click on the button
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BOYD, William, 1952- : LOVE IS BLIND : THE RAPTURE OF BRODIE MONCUR. London : Viking, (2018). First edition. Signed by William Boyd on the title-page. “Moving from Edinburgh in 1894 to the far-flung Andaman Islands in 1906, and smoothly landing in various European cities in between, Boyd’s affecting novel follows a young Scotsman’s ardent pursuit of a woman and its treacherous consequences”. £50 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45779 – or simply click on the button
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BROOKE, Rupert (Rupert Chawner), 1887-1915 : THE LETTERS OF RUPERT BROOKE : CHOSEN AND EDITED BY GEOFFREY KEYNES. London : Faber & Faber, (1968). First edition. An extensive selection of letters from Rugby, Italy, Cambridge, Grantchester, Lulworth, Germany, Canada, the South Seas, army camps and the Aegean – charting the whole of Brooke’s short life. £40 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 27776 – or simply click on the button
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BROOKNER, Anita, 1928-2016 : A MISALLIANCE. London : Jonathan Cape, (1986). First edition. “Blanche Vernon is one of those discreet, smart women one sees in restaurants alone ...” — “Miss Brookner writes exquisitely: her moulding of every sentence is a delight ... her impeccable evocations of mood — wet, lonely London summers are her forte — her small flares of wisdom and understanding, and her many moments of utter cleverness” (The Observer). £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 10040 – or simply click on the button
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BROPHY, John, 1899-1965 : THE NIMBLE RABBIT. London : Chatto & Windus, 1955. First edition. A comedy of manners on the world of publishing, writing, literary prizes, etc. – set in New York, London and Paris. “Here’s tremendous fun, with a lot of sense. Although about authors and publishers, it talks shop only in the widest sense, and anyone who can read will enjoy John Brophy’s digs at the pseudo-intellectual no-story novel, in which category ‘The Nimble Rabbit’ resoundingly does not fall” (The Sketch, 19th October 1955). SOLD |
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BROTTON, Jerry (Jeremy Richard), 1969- : A HISTORY OF THE WORLD IN TWELVE MAPS. London : Allen Lane, (2012). First edition. “In this scintillating book, Jerry Brotton argues that far from being scientific objects, maps of the world are unavoidably partial and subjective, intimately bound up with the systems of power, authority and creativity of particular times and places”. £20 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45949 – or simply click on the button
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BROWNING, Robert, 1812-1889 : LA SAISIAZ : THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. London : Smith, Elder & Co., 1878. First edition. Two long poems, Browning in elegiac mode following the death of Annie Egerton Smith at La Saisiaz in 1977. SOLD |
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BROWNING, Robert, 1812-1889 : PARLEYINGS WITH CERTAIN PEOPLE OF IMPORTANCE IN THEIR DAY : TO WIT : BERNARD DE MANDEVILLE ... London : Smith, Elder & Co., 1887. First edition. The major work of Browning’s later years – literary and historical dialogues with Bernard de Mandeville, Daniel Bartoli, Christopher Smart, George Bubb Dodington, Francis Furini, Gerard de Lairesse, and Charles Avison. £40 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 17673 – or simply click on the button
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BUTLER, Gwendoline, 1922-2013 : COFFIN’S GAME. London : Collins Crime (HarperCollins), (1997). First edition. Signed by Gwendoline Butler on the title-page. Coffin’s wife is missing – an unidentifiable corpse is found beside her handbag after a terrorist explosion in London’s Second City. £40 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 21816 – or simply click on the button
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CAMPBELL, Patrick – [GLENAVY, Patrick Gordon Campbell, Third Baron, 1913-1980] : HOW TO BECOME A SCRATCH GOLFER. London : Anthony Blond, (1963). First edition. “A birdie of a book” from the late lamented Paddy Campbell. “May be read with enjoyment (as I have just proved) even by people who don’t know a mashie from a mashed potato” (The Sphere, 13th July 1963). £50 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45731 – or simply click on the button
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“CAPELLI, Ace” : DEAD ON TIME. London : Ralph Stokes for the Gaywood Press, [ca.1952]. First edition. “I was a construction gang foreman, not a private eye or a cop. I’ll admit that my one taste of hoodlums some weeks ago had whetted my appetite for the detecting racket” – Ace Capelli was a house name used variously by Betty Williams (Dail Ambler), Geoffrey Pardoe, Stephen Frances (Hank Janson) and Norman Lazenby. Although over thirty Capelli titles are known, only fourteen or so are represented in major collections. £50 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44503 – or simply click on the button
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“CAPELLI, Ace” : SAY YOUR PRAYERS, SISTER. London : Ralph Stokes for the Gaywood Press, [ca.1952]. First edition. “There were seven names on the list from the commissioner, and one name on that list would have paid a million dollars to get hold of it. That name handled the new drug racket that was sweeping the town and threatening the whole of the States” – Ace Capelli was a house name used variously by Geoffrey Pardoe, Stephen Frances (Hank Janson) and Norman Lazenby. Although over thirty Capelli titles are known, only fourteen or so are represented in major collections. £50 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44702 – or simply click on the button
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“CAPELLI, Ace” : DON’T DIE TOO SOON. London : Ralph Stokes for Gaywood Press, [ca.1953]. First edition. “Both wore black overcoats, and black fedoras with snap brims. They looked like two black crows. On the table were two battered briefcases. Rio’s case held the barrel and the magazine, while Frank’s held the butt end of a Thompson sub-machine-gun” – campaigning newspaperman brutally shot down. Ace Capelli was a house name used variously by Geoffrey Pardoe, Stephen Frances (Hank Janson) and Norman Lazenby. Although over thirty Capelli titles are known, only fourteen or so are represented in major collections. £50 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44703 – or simply click on the button
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“CAYWOOD, Mark” – [GIDDY, Maud Evelyn, 1899-1986] : VIRGINIA’S QUEST. London : Arthur Gray (Books), [1934]. First edition under this title. “When I first saw the yacht she was lying at anchor in Rushcutter’s Bay, Sydney Harbour” – a sharebroker yearns to return to the South Seas. Shanghaied on the yacht of the beautiful Virginia Mortimer, he is offered a thousand pounds to pilot the yacht on a secret mission. Originally published as “Paradise Island” in 1927, giving rise to a legal case concerning a contemporary book of the same title. SOLD |
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CHAMBERS, Robert, 1802-1871 : TRADITIONS OF EDINBURGH. London & Edinburgh : W. & R. Chambers, 1912. A delightfully illustrated edition of Chambers’ engaging exploration of the byways of Edinburgh history. First published in 1825 and extensively revised in 1868, shortly before his death, the present edition adds an introduction by his grandson, Charles Edward Stuart Chambers (1859-1936) – also a publisher, further notes, and some delightful coloured illustrations by the Scottish artist James Riddel (1857-1928). “A famous book in sumptuous new raiment ... a fund of unfailing entertainment to the mind, and a joy to the eye” (Manchester City News, 1912). £40 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 42855 – or simply click on the button
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CHANCELLOR, E. Beresford (Edwin Beresford), 1868-1937 : THE XVIIITH CENTURY IN LONDON : AN ACCOUNT OF ITS SOCIAL LIFE AND ARTS. 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). £50 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45817 – or simply click on the button
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CHANCELLOR, E. Beresford (Edwin Beresford), 1868-1937 : LOST LONDON : BEING A DESCRIPTION OF LANDMARKS WHICH HAVE DISAPPEARED PICTURED BY J. CROWTHER CIRCA 1879-87 ... [London] : At the Chiswick Press, for Constable & Co. and Houghton Mifflin, 1926. First edition : limited to 1,025 copies. The artist John Crowther was commissioned either side of 1880 by Sir Charles Chadwyck-Healey to make water-colours of London buildings under threat from redevelopment – Beresford Chancellor describes a selection of sixty of them in a circular tour – Chelsea (where Crowther was living in 1881), Westminster, Whitehall, the Strand, the Borough, and home via Stockwell, Vauxhall and Battersea. £40 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 42780 – or simply click on the button
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CHANCELLOR, E. Beresford (Edwin Beresford), 1868-1937 : LONDON’S OLD LATIN QUARTER : BEING AN ACCOUNT OF TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD AND ITS IMMEDIATE SURROUNDINGS. London : Jonathan Cape, (1930). First edition. A diligently researched history of this area of London – with much on Bedford Square, Charlotte Street, Rathbone Place and Fitzrovia as well as the Tottenham Court Road. An appendix of known local trade cards is provided by Sir Ambrose Heal. SOLD |
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“CHASE, James Hadley” – [RAYMOND, René Brabazon, 1906-1985] : SAFER DEAD. London : Robert Hale, (1954). First edition. Staff writers for a monthly crime magazine investigate the strange disappearance of an unknown showgirl in small town America. £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45329 – or simply click on the button
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“CHASE, James Hadley” – [RAYMOND, René Brabazon, 1906-1985] : YOU’VE GOT IT COMING. London : Robert Hale, (1955). First edition. “The world is made up of smart guys who get rich and suckers who stay poor” – Harry Griffin decides to hijack an aircraft and steal a collection of industrial diamonds. £40 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45334 – or simply click on the button
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“CHASE, James Hadley” – [RAYMOND, René Brabazon, 1906-1985] : A COFFIN FROM HONG KONG. London : Robert Hale, (1962). First edition. “Sitting, facing me in the clients’ chair was a lovely-looking Chinese girl, her hands folded rather primly in her lap ... she looked peaceful and not even surprised. From the small bloodstain over her left breast, I guessed she had been shot quickly and expertly ... she had been dead for some hours”. Cracking Hadley Chase novel, filmed in German in 1964 by Manfred R. Köhler as “Ein Sarg aus Hongkong”, with Heinz Drache, Elga Andersen, Greta Chi, etc. £40 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45283 – or simply click on the button
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“CHASE, James Hadley” – [RAYMOND, René Brabazon, 1906-1985] : THIS IS FOR REAL. London : Robert Hale, (1965). First edition. “Robert Henry Carey was a spy who had defected to Russia and when the news leaked out that he had changed sides again an intensive and ruthless manhunt was on. From the glamour and nerve-shattering noise of Paris the hunt switches to the violent and scorched wastelands of Senegal”. £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45276 – or simply click on the button
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“CHASE, James Hadley” – [RAYMOND, René Brabazon, 1906-1985] : YOU HAVE YOURSELF A DEAL. London : Robert Hale, (1966). First edition. “On a dark, lonely quai of Paris’s 4th arrondissement, a woman is found suffering from amnesia, with the initials of the top Chinese atomic scientist tattooed on her buttock” – the second Mark Girland spy thriller. “Hadley Chase once again proves himself master of the thriller” (Bristol Evening Post, 29th September 1966). £40 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45333 – 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. An early Cheyney “dark” novel of counter-espionage – the all-wise Quayle, Shaun O’Mara, Ricky Kerr – “The women, of course, dress superbly, move like angels, are as beautiful as diamonds and, with one notable exception, behave abominably”. £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44580 – or simply click on the button
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CHEYNEY, Peter (Reginald Southouse), 1896-1951 : I’LL SAY SHE DOES! London : Collins, 1945. First edition. Lemmy Caution is now attached to U. S. Army Intelligence in Paris – “We watch him track an enemy agent, first across Paris, then through the glades of Surrey. The scene is rich with dames, james, babies, mommas and frails; and this guy or bozo Confucius does not fail to inspire” (Elizabeth Bowen in The Tatler, 12th December 1945). £50 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44761 – or simply click on the button
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CHEYNEY, Peter (Reginald Southouse), 1896-1951 : DARK HERO. London : Collins, 1946. First edition. Rene Berg, ex-Chicago gunman, awakens in a German concentration camp. His greatest moment awaits. “Quite the best book of his career ... the story of a Chicago gunman of Prohibition days, turned patriot and intelligence man ... Even Mr. Cheyney’s style, usually as staccato as a sawn-off machine-gun in action, has been considerably smoothened, without any noticeable loss of pace. It is as if he now used a silencer” (The Sphere, 23rd March 1946). £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 41357 – or simply click on the button
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CHEYNEY, Peter (Reginald Southouse), 1896-1951 : “G” MAN AT THE YARD : A LEMMY CAUTION STORY. Henfield : Poynings Press, (1946). First edition. Lemmy Caution comes to London in pursuit of Esmeralda Vandellin, but needs help from Scotland Yard. £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45267 – or simply click on the button
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CHEYNEY, Peter (Reginald Southouse), 1896-1951 : DANCE WITHOUT MUSIC : A MYSTERY NOVEL. London : Collins, 1947. First edition. A new private detective in Caryl Wylde O’Hara – and the story of Leonora Ivory, Alexis Ricaud and his heroin-addicted wife, Esmeralda, etc. “A perfect case, probably the most perfect case that Mr. Cheyney, with as good an eye for a pretty plot as for a pretty woman, has ever devised”. Set mainly in London, with excursions to Maidenhead, the Sussex coast and Torquay. £20 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 39043 – or simply click on the button
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[CITY OF LONDON : ACT OF PARLIAMENT] : ANNO SEXTO GEORGII III. REGIS. CAP. XXVI. AN ACT FOR THE BETTER PAVING, CLEANSING, AND ENLIGHTENING, THE CITY OF LONDON, AND THE LIBERTIES THEREOF; AND FOR PREVENTING OBSTRUCTIONS AND ANNOYANCES WITHIN THE SAME; AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES THEREIN MENTIONED. London : by Mark Baskett ... and by the Assigns of Robert Baskett, 1766. A long and complex act expressing a determination to get a firm grip on the maintenance of the City, with provisions for proper record-keeping; the employment of non-freemen on necessary works; the publishing of contracts; the exclusion of common councilmen from contracting; the designation of streets to be paved; powers for regulating signage; a time-limit of one hour on wagons standing in the streets; barring barrows from foot pavements; the names of streets to be properly displayed, with (for the first time) “every house, shop, or warehouse ... to be marked or numbered”; rules on water-pipes and pavements; the watering of streets; footways to be cleaned daily; lamps and their placing and maintenance; much on the collection of and payment of rates; tolls and turnpikes, etc. £50 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45195 – or simply click on the button
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CLARK, Leonard, 1905-1981 : THE HEARING HEART. London : Enitharmon Press, 1974. First edition : [one of 230 copies (of 500) in hardback]. A collection of thirty poems, printed at the Daedalus Press. Includes “Children of Islington”, “The Day Hardy Died”, “Learning by Heart”, etc. £20 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 11554 – or simply click on the button
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CLEGG, Arthur (Arthur Duckering), 1914-1994 : PICTURES OF THE THIRTIES : A LETTER TO MARY. London : Reality Press, (1975). First edition. A presentation copy, inscribed “Best wishes” and initialled on the title-page by the author, the influential political activist Arthur Clegg. Loosely inserted is an accompanying signed single-page 1976 autograph letter from Clegg to the recipient, a Mrs Thomas. A long poem, illustrated by Jan Flavell. £40 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 12146 – or simply click on the button
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COMPTON-BURNETT, Ivy (Dame Ivy), 1884-1969 : A FATHER AND HIS FATE. London : Victor Gollancz, 1957. First edition. A father and three daughters – “A normal part of life may not be a thing to dispense with”. “This great author has made blood-relationship and its attendant psychological maladies her subject. Grim would be the result were it not for Miss Compton-Burnett’s exquisite humour, and the breath-taking twists and turns of each household drama” (The Tatler, 28th August 1957). £20 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 17807 – or simply click on the button
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CONNELLY, Michael, 1956- : THE NARROWS. London : Orion, (2004). First British edition. Signed by Michael Connelly on the title-page. The killer called The Poet returns – Harry Bosch and Rachel Walling in league and at odds with the FBI. £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44171 – or simply click on the button
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CONNELLY, Michael, 1956- : THE OVERLOOK. London : Orion Books, (2007). First British edition. Signed by Michael Connelly on the title-page. Hieronymus Bosch once more, the thirteenth in the series – physicist murdered, deadly radioactive chemicals missing – “The best crime fiction uses the extreme nature of death to explore the fragile realities of life, and Connelly is writing the best detective fiction out there” (Spectator). £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 42330 – or simply click on the button
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CONNELLY, Michael, 1956- : THE DROP : A NOVEL. New York : Little, Brown & Co., (2011). First edition. Harry Bosch is on the Deferred Retirement Option Plan (DROP) – DNA from a 1989 rape and murder makes no sense at all – and then there’s political conspiracy and dark history. £20 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 42338 – or simply click on the button
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CORBETT, James, 1887-1958 : THE HOUND OF DEATH. London : Herbert Jenkins, [1944]. First edition. The suicide of gambling man Colonel Trevor brings Inspector Jimmy Brigg to a suburban greyhound track – and then, just as an outsider wins, a man falls dead. A nicely observed murder mystery from the veteran crime-writer. £50 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45730 – or simply click on the button
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“CREED, Will” – [LONG, William, 1922- ] : DEATH WEARS A GREEN HAT. London : Walter Edwards (Publishers), 1946. First British edition. Gossip columnist dead in Manhattan. Originally published in New York earlier in 1946. £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 32901 – or simply click on the button
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DAVIES, Philip, 1950- & KEATE, Delcia, 1955- : IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST : LONDON’S CIVIC ARCHITECTURE AT RISK. London : English Heritage, 1995. First edition. An evocative survey of architectural treasures across the Greater London area at risk from disuse and disrepair. £20 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 34663 – or simply click on the button
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DE KOCK, Paul (Charles Paul), 1793-1871 : THE BRIDE OF THE FIRST NIGHT. London : Camden Publishing Co., [ca.1920]. First published as “La Mariée de Fontenay-aux-Roses” in 1872 and here translated into English by “Bree Narran” – the Australian author-publisher William Nicholas Willis (1858-1922). SOLD |
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DEUTSCH, Babette, 1895-1982 : ANIMAL, VEGETABLE, MINERAL. New York : E. P. Dutton & Co., 1954. First edition. Attached to the front pastedown is an envelope addressed to Louis Untermeyer – containing a single-page 1963 typed letter (signed with forename), on her own purple-headed notepaper, from Babette Deutsch to Untermeyer – concerning the selection of poems for an anthology. A carbon copy of Untermeyer’s earlier letter to Deutsch is also enclosed. A collection of thirty-two poems, including “Fountain and Unicorn”, “Homage to Paul Klee”, “Ballade for Braque”, “Letter to Wallace Stevens”, etc. SOLD |
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DICKENS, Charles (Charles John Huffam), 1812-1870 & OTHERS : DOCTOR MARIGOLD’S PRESCRIPTIONS. THE EXTRA CHRISTMAS NUMBER OF ALL THE YEAR ROUND. London : Chapman & Hall, 1865. First edition. “To be taken immediately” – a tale in eight chapters – the first, sixth and last by Dickens – “may take rank with his most delightful and felicitous masterpieces. The character of Doctor Marigold ... is a creation as complete and as perfectly inimitable in its way as any one among the most famous of the other creations of our novelist” (The London Sun, 6th December 1865). The additional chapters were provided by Rosa Mulholland, Charles Allson Collins, Hesba Stretton, George Walter Thornbury, and Mrs Gascoyne. £50 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 43678 – or simply click on the button
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DONALDSON, William, 1935-2005 & MITCHELL, Julian, 1935- – editors : GEMINI. London : Gemini, 1957-1958. First edition. All five issues of the original run of this Oxford and Cambridge literary periodical, before it merged with “Dialogue” to last for a further six issues. Includes contributions from W. H. Auden (his poem “Island Cemetery”), Bernard Bergonzi, Malcolm Bradbury, Alan Brownjohn, Geoffrey Hill (two poems), Harold Hobson, Ted Hughes (four poems), Elizabeth Jennings, Jenny Joseph, Peter Levi, C. Day Lewis, Dom Moraes, Sylvia Plath (two poems and a story), Andrew Sinclair, Stevie Smith (two poems and an essay), Stephen Spender, and many more. SOLD |
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DOUGALL, Bernard, 1908-1972 : THE SINGING CORPSE. London : T. V. Boardman & Co., (1944). First British edition. Murder in the world of supper clubs, gaming houses, night clubs and exclusive dance bands – the author also wrote lyrics for Jerome Kern. Originally published in the USA in 1941. £20 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 30376 – or simply click on the button
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“DRAYTON, Ricky” – [BARNES, Michael Lethbridge Gorell, 1926-1982] : HELL AND HIGH WATER. London : Scion, (1951). First edition. “Right then Marcelle was doing a good job of intoxicating me, sitting there in a Bikini that wouldn’t have made a moth’s hors d’oeuvre, singing a smoochy ditty in a voice that would have been a swell contralto if there hadn’t been so much gin in it”. Murder and mayhem in New Orleans. £50 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45904 – or simply click on the button
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DURRELL, Lawrence (Lawrence George), 1912-1990 : CLEA : A NOVEL. London : Faber & Faber, 1960. First edition. The fourth and the final instalment of the Alexandria Quartet – Darley returns to an Alexandria at war. “As well as being a rounding-off and, in many ways, an explanation of the previous three books, ‘Clea’ is also a work on its own ... different, perhaps less subtle but, on the whole more moving” (The Sphere, 6th February 1960). One of the most memorable and extraordinary performances in twentieth-century fiction. £50 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45852 – or simply click on the button
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EASTON, John, 1895-1967 : POSTAGE STAMPS IN THE MAKING (F. J. MELVILLE) : REWRITTEN AND COMPLETED BY JOHN EASTON. London : Faber & Faber, (1949). First edition. Although the first part of this book was published by Frederick John Melville (1882-1940) in 1916, it was never completed and “since that date there have been considerable developments in all processes used for printing postage stamps ... while this book is, therefore, broadly based on Melville’s earlier work it covers a much wider field”. A printer’s absorbing, highly detailed, and fully illustrated technical account, covering design, papermaking, the Perkins process, intaglio plates, lithography, letterpress, embossing, rotary photogravure, perforating, ink and gum, etc. SOLD |
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EDMUNDS, Will H. : POINTERS AND CLUES TO THE SUBJECTS OF CHINESE AND JAPANESE ART ... London : Sampson Low, Marston & Co., [1934]. First edition : limited to 1,000 copies – this copy not n umbered. An alphabetical listing of subjects and their significance, from the abacus and air castles to wrestling and writing, together with both Chinese and Japanese chronological tables, listings of Chinese, Buddhist and Japanese subjects and people, a glossary, etc. SOLD |
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FAULKS, Sebastian, 1953- : ON GREEN DOLPHIN STREET. London : Hutchinson, (2001). First edition. Signed by Sebastian Faulks on the title-page. The ending of the Eisenhower years, the Kennedy campaign, Washington 1959 – a novel to the jazz rhythms of Miles Davis and John Coltrane. “Both tense and affecting ... At the end one releases the breath one has unconsciously been holding ... a modern epic” (Anita Brookner). £40 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45650 – or simply click on the button
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FINN, Ralph L. (Ralph Leslie), 1912-1999 : FREAKS AGAINST SUPERMEN. London : Gaywood Press, [1950]. First edition. Finn was a prize-winning short story writer before being tempted by the pulp publishers Gaywood to produce some sex-and-space science fiction potboilers for their new series. The present tale sees the world decimated by the “Sickness”, a mutant new race of supermen, etc., and (perhaps against the odds) is a thoroughly competent example of the British sci-fi of the period. Finn is also remembered for his football books and his childhood autobiography “Grief Forgotten : The Tale of an East End Jewish Boyhood”. £50 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44758 – or simply click on the button
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FIRTH, N. Wesley (Norman Wesley), 1920-1949 : FUTURISTIC STORIES [COVER TITLE]. London : Hamilton & Co. (Stafford), [1946]. First edition. One of just two known issues of this short-lived science fiction magazine – three stories – Firth’s “The Lords of Zorm” and “Laughter of the Gods”, the latter written under his “Earl Ellison” pseudonym, and “The Timeless Dimension” by “Rice Ackman”, almost certainly another Firth pseudonym. £40 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45698 – or simply click on the button
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[FIRTH, N. Wesley (Norman Wesley), 1920-1949] – “FIRTH, Sheila A.” : ORCHID LADY. London : Hamilton & Co. (Stafford), [1948?]. First edition. A charming tale which opens in Petticoat Lane on a Sunday morning and the prettiest girl in the market is serving jellied eels. Firth here using the name of his daughter, Sheila Ann Firth (1945-2018), as one of his many pseudonyms. Also includes an additional story – “Her Next-Door Rival”, by Eve Calvert. SOLD |
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“FLANEUSE” : FLESH AND FOLLY. London : Phoenix Press, (1940). [Second edition]. Young Robbo Millingford is troubled – “the call of the Flesh was sounding loudly in his ears, and he only hoped that when he answered it, the response would not be inspired by Folly”. First published by Modern Fiction in 1929. £40 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45260 – or simply click on the button
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FORD, Richard, 1944- : WILDLIFE. New York : Atlantic Monthly Press, (1990). First edition. Signed by Richard Ford on the title-page. His highly acclaimed fourth novel – on the edge of the Great Plains and “coming out into the world as it is and not as we had hoped, but as it resolutely is”. SOLD |
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FORD, Richard, 1944- : WOMEN WITH MEN : THREE STORIES. London : The Harvill Press, (1997). First British edition. Signed and dated (4th September 1997) by Richard Ford on the title-page. Three stories of men and women at the essential moments of truth – “One of the glories of modern American writing” (Jonathan Raban). £40 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 38526 – or simply click on the button
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FORSTER, E.M. (Edward Morgan), 1879-1970 : NORDIC TWILIGHT. London : Macmillan & Co., 1940. First edition. “This pamphlet is propaganda. I believe that if the Nazis won they would destroy our civilisation ...”. In the Macmillan War Pamphlets series. £20 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 10135 – or simply click on the button
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FRANCIS, Sir Frank Chalton, 1901-1988 – editor : THE BIBLIOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY 1892-1942 : STUDIES IN RETROSPECT. London : for the Bibliographical Society, 1949. A reprint of the original 1945 edition. A collection of essays, including F. S. Ferguson, on English Books before 1640; F. C. Francis, The Bibliographical Society; a Sketch of the First Fifty Years; E. P. Goldschmidt, The Study of Early Bookbinding; W. W. Greg, Bibliography – A Retrospect; W. A. Jackson, America; Michael Sadleir, The Development During the Last Fifty Years of Bibliographical Study of Books of the Nineteenth Century; Victor Scholderer, Early Printed Books; Harold Williams, The Eighteenth Century; F. P. Wilson: Shakespeare and the ‘New Bibliography’, etc. With a list of the Society's publications, 1892-1942. £30 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 26071 – or simply click on the button
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FROST, Robert, 1874-1963 : NOTES BY ROBERT FROST ON HIS LIFE AND EARLY WRITINGS. Amherst : Friends of the Amherst College Library, 1991. First edition : one of 3,000 copies. An autobiographical essay originally compiled for John Gallishaw in the early 1920s. With an introduction by William H. Pritchard. £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 24414 – or simply click on the button
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GOLDING, Louis, 1895-1958 : SUNWARD. London : Chatto & Windus, 1924. First edition. Sketches of travel through Italy to Messina and Sicily, via Bolzano, Verona, Padua, Bologna, Ravenna, Rimini, Naples, Capri, etc., with mention of Norman Douglas, etc. “A rich tapestry, woven with fine language in a design of poetry, fancy, and fantasy. We enjoy every glowing strand of it” (Clarion, 7th November 1924). £40 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 27260 – or simply click on the button
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GOLDING, William (Sir William Gerald), 1911-1993 : THE SCORPION GOD : THREE SHORT NOVELS. London : Faber & Faber, (1971). First edition. “Golding at his playful, ironic and mysterious best” The title story set in ancient Egypt, together with “Clonk Clonk” from a primitive matriarchal society, and “Envoy Extraordinary” from Imperial Rome. SOLD |
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“GONZALES, Don Manoel” : LONDON IN 1731. London : Cassell & Co., 1888. First separate edition. Originally published in 1745 as part of “A Collection of Voyages and Travels”, this engaging account of early eighteenth-century London purports to have been written by a Portuguese traveller. In his introduction, Professor Henry Morley (1822-1894) dismisses that notion – “he writes of London altogether like one to the City born”. But Morley is equally persuaded that the account is not by Daniel Defoe, as has been plausibly claimed – “the clearness of detail upon London commerce, may strengthen the general impression that the description comes rather from a shrewd, clear-headed, and successful merchant than from a man of letters”. In Cassell’s “National Library” series. SOLD |
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“GREEN, Henry” – [YORKE, Henry Vincent, 1905-1973] : DOTING : A NOVEL. London : Hogarth Press, 1952. First edition. His final novel. A middle-aged London couple have evenings apart – satisfactory until a younger woman appears. “Mr. Green is a law unto himself – in ideas, treatment and style. His gifts are indisputedly immense ... a remarkable achievement” (Birmingham Weekly Mercury, 25th May 1952). SOLD |
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GREENE, Graham (Henry Graham), 1904-1991 : A SORT OF LIFE. London : Bodley Head, (1971). First edition. An illuminating segment of autobiography, taking Greene’s life past his first encounter with espionage and up to his first genuine success with the publication of “Stamboul Train” in 1932 — complete with the changes in the text made off the cuff from a telephone box to ward off a threatened libel action from J. B. Priestley. “I have tried, however unsuccessfully, to live again the follies and sentimentalities and exaggerations of the distant time, and to feel them, as I felt them then, without irony”. £50 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44921 — or simply click on the button
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GREENE, Graham (Henry Graham), 1904-1991 : MONSIGNOR QUIXOTE. London : Bodley Head, (1982). First British edition. Quixote reinvented for a twentieth-century tour of Spain – faith, communism and catholicism. “A powerful late work ... a mixture of entertainment and deep human awareness” (Malcolm Bradbury) – “Graham Greene’s best, most absorbing, adept and effortless novel” (The Spectator). SOLD |
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GREENE, Hugh (Sir Hugh Carleton), 1910-1987 – editor : THE RIVALS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES : EARLY DETECTIVE STORIES. London : Bodley Head, (1970). First edition. A collection of thirteen stories featuring London detectives from the 1891-1914 period – by Clifford Ashdown, Guy Boothby, Ernest Bramah, William le Queux, Arthur Morrison, Baroness Orczy, Max Pemberton, etc. Selected and introduced by Sir Hugh Greene. £20 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 31924 – or simply click on the button
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GREENE, Hugh (Sir Hugh Carleton), 1910-1987 – editor : THE CROOKED COUNTIES : FURTHER RIVALS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES. London : Bodley Head, (1973). First edition. A collection of thirteen stories from before the Great War – crime in the shires – by M. McD. Bodkin, Ernest Bramah, Dick Donovan, J. S. Fletcher, Jacques Futrelle, Fergus Hume, Arthur Morrison, Victor L. Whitechurch, etc. Selected and introduced by Sir Hugh Greene. £20 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 21807 – or simply click on the button
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“GRIDBAN, Volsted” – [FEARN, John Russell, 1908-1960] : I CAME – I SAW – I WONDERED. London : Scion Distributors, [1954]. First edition. The half-title has been excised by the publishers and the Scion Distributors imprint pasted over the earlier Scion Ltd. on both title-page and final leaf – presumably a reflection of Scion’s internal wrangles and legal difficulties at that time. Strangely dressed stranger comes calling on a cold and wet February night on the outskirts of London – and sits down with a dictionary. Although the first two Volsted Gridban novels had been written by E. C. Tubb, subsequent Scion titles under this name all seem to have been written by the indefatigable John Russell Fearn. SOLD |
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“GRIFF” – [FAWCETT, Frank Dubrez, 1891-1968] : GOODBYE TOMORROW. London : Modern Fiction (London), [1951]. First edition. “I’m surprised you didn’t join the police force,” she said. I’d squatted on that springy, tubular metal chair she’d indicated. “I was always bottom of my class. But that ain’t low enough for the I.Q. the dicks insist on. And I couldn’t match up to their high standard of dishonesty and corruption”. Rich private eye for kicks Don Danby takes on an insurance case. £50 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45681 – or simply click on the button
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“GRIFF” – [FAWCETT, Frank Dubrez, 1891-1968] : CROOKED COFFINS. London : Modern Fiction (London), [1952]. First edition. “If a guy is a private eye, which is the other word for private detective or inquiry agent, he oughta keep his hands off his lady clients, if any. Tonio Folari didn’t do that” – and Maria Speratta is quick to teach him a lesson. “You just can’t leave off, once you start. You go hurrying, thirsty. You lose sleep. You miss your love-date. But you get forgiven when you say: ‘I’ve been reading Crooked Coffins’. Yes, folks – this book does that to you – and everybody”. £50 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45682 – or simply click on the button
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“GRIFF” : DEVIL’S DAUGHTER. London : Modern Fiction (London), [1952]. First edition. “They say that the Devil was in cahoots with Uncle Sam at the time when Pittsburg got built. I’d not know, but I’m not denying that the gory, upleaping flames of the great blast furnaces, and writhing, unearthly-yellow glows of the steel ovens look mighty like it”. Well-off private eye Don Danby has a body fall on him soon after he arrives. £40 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45758 – or simply click on the button
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“GRIFF” : YOU PAY THE PRICE. London : Modern Fiction (London), [1952]. First edition. Man hits an abandoned parked car on his way to Chicago – it’s riddled with bullets and a dead blonde falls out. Then a spray gun is planted in his car. £40 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45674 – or simply click on the button
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“GRIFF” – [NEWTON, William (William Simpson), 1923-2009] : BULLETS FOR SNOOPERS. London : Modern Fiction (London), [1953]. First edition. Con-men, pimps, gamblers, gun-men and their women gather in a bar in San Francisco and talk of an escape from Alcatraz. The “Griff” house-name was used by at least half a dozen authors, but the present title is attributed to William Simpson Newton. £50 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45679 – or simply click on the button
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“HALLIDAY, Andrew” – [DUFF, Andrew Halliday, 1830-1877] – editor : THE SAVAGE-CLUB PAPERS. London : Tinsley Brothers, 1867. First edition. A collection of stories, poems and occasional pieces by the gifted members of the Savage Club, assembled to afford some charitable relief to the young widow of one of their former members. Contributors include E. L. Blanchard, Andrew Halliday himself, W. S. Gilbert, Tom Hood, Arthur Locker, J. R. Planché, Clement W. Scott, Arthur Sketchley with one of his Mrs Brown stories, G. L. M. Strauss, Walter Thornbury, Artemus Ward, etc. With illustrations by a string of well-known artists, including Frederick Barnard, George Cruikshank, Gustave Doré, George Du Maurier, W. S. Gilbert, Ernest Griset, Arthur Boyd Houghton, Harrison Weir, etc. – engraved apparently free of charge by some of the best engravers in London. £40 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44418 – or simply click on the button
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“HALLIDAY, Andrew” – [DUFF, Andrew Halliday, 1830-1877] – editor : THE SAVAGE-CLUB PAPERS. SECOND SERIES. London : Tinsley Brothers, 1869. First edition. Stories, poems and occasional pieces by the gifted members of the Savage Club, assembled to finance their charitable work. Contributors include Dion Boucicault, George Manville Fenn, George Grossmith, Andrew Halliday himself, Arthur Locker, John Oxenford, J. R. Planché, George Augustus Sala, Walter Thornbury, etc. With illustrations by Frederick Barnard, George Cruikshank, Gustave Doré, Gordon Thompson, Harrison Weir and many others, all engraved by the Dalziel Brothers. £40 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44419 – or simply click on the button
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HAMBURGER, Michael, 1924-2007 : OWNERLESS EARTH : NEW & SELECTED POEMS. Cheadle : Carcanet Press, (1973). First edition. Signed by Michael Hamburger on the title-page. A collection of over 100 poems. SOLD |
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HAMMETT, Dashiell (Samuel Dashiell), 1894-1961 : DEAD YELLOW WOMEN. New York : Lawrence E. Spivak, (1947). First edition. A collection of six short stories (including four featuring the Continental Op) previously unpublished in book form, edited and introduced by Ellery Queen. Jonathan Press Mystery J29. £50 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 30447 – or simply click on the button
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HAMPSON, Rodney : LONGTON POTTERS : 1700-1865. Stoke-on-Trent : City Museum & Art Gallery, (1990). First edition. A detailed and invaluable reference guide incorporating the available facts relating to over 600 master potters and over 300 earthenware and china businesses which flourished in the southernmost and busiest of the six towns of the Potteries – businesses, principals, works, products and reference notes. Volume 14 in the Stoke “Ceramic History” series. £30 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 43463 – or simply click on the button
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“HARKON, Franz” : SPAWN OF SPACE. London : Scion, (1951). First edition. The crash of a spaceship on a Pacific island releases monster Zimmos – “the entire novel is a disaster” (Harbottle & Holland A223). The same characters appear in “Interstellar Espionage” by “Astron del Martia” (presumably the same author) published by Gaywood the following year £40 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45693 – or simply click on the button
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HARPER Charles G. (Charles George), 1863-1943 : MORE QUEER THINGS ABOUT LONDON. London : Cecil Palmer, (1924). First edition. Illustrated essays on various London topics – Doggett’s Coat and Badge; Door-Knockers; Statues; Keystones; Water-Gates; Ely Place and Hatton Garden; Belgravia; the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street; the City Liberties; the City Wards, etc. A sequel to the author’s “Queer Things about London. Strange Nooks and Corners” (1923). SOLD |
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HARRIS, Sir John (John Hobbis), 1874-1940 : A CENTURY OF EMANCIPATION. London : J. M. Dent & Sons, (1933). First edition. Written to mark the centenary of Britain’s decision to abolish slavery – a history and an examination of systems of slavery and semi-slavery post 1833, focussing on the aftermath of slavery and the continued existence of over five million slaves at the time of writing. With much on Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, Dr. Lushington, Lord John Russell and William Wilberforce, and on slavery in South Africa, China, the Congo, the French Colonies, India, Jamaica, Kenya, Mauritius, the Portuguese Colonies, Sierra Leone and Zanzibar. A copy with an interesting provenance, presented by the Secretary of the Anti-Slavery Society in 1956 to the late Barry Cambray Bloomfield (1931-2002) for his work in cataloguing the Society’s library. SOLD |
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HARTLEY, L.P. (Leslie Poles), 1895-1972 : THE HIRELING. London : Hamish Hamilton, (1957). First edition. A fragile widow, an ex-army chauffeur, love, obsession, and repudiation. “On his day there is no more subtle novelist writing than L. P. Hartley, and few as satisfying. In The Hireling he is very much on his day ... a triumph of the novelist’s art” (Daily News, 10th July 1957). Memorably filmed in 1973, with Robert Shaw, Sarah Miles, etc. £50 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44764 – or simply click on the button
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HASSALL, Joan, 1906-1988 : THE WOOD ENGRAVINGS OF JOAN HASSALL. London : Oxford University Press, 1960. First edition. “Wood-engraving is a laborious way to illustrate books. Joan Hassall may need a week, or even longer, to engrave a single illustration”. An attractively produced sequence of nearly 200 of her engravings, thoughtfully introduced by Ruari McLean (1917-2006), with a bibliography of books illustrated to 1958. SOLD |
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HEMINGWAY, Ernest (Ernest Miller), 1899-1961 : THE SPANISH WAR. London : Fact, (1938). First edition. Hemingway with eye-witness reportage of the Spanish Civil War – the saving of Madrid; the Aragon Front; Teruel; Franco advancing; final despatches. Published as No. 16 in the “Fact Monograph a Month” series. There would appear to be no equivalent American edition. SOLD |
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HILL, Alexandra, 1989- : LOST BOOKS AND PRINTING IN LONDON, 1557-1640 : AN ANALYSIS OF THE STATIONERS’ COMPANY REGISTER. Leiden & Boston : Brill, (2018). First edition. The first attempt fully to analyse the books and other printed materials entered for publication in the Stationers’ Register to 1640, but which no longer survive. The author’s estimate of the sheer extent of loss – perhaps 20,000 pieces of printing in all – books, ballads, news-books, broadsides, religious tracts, almanacs, plays, verse, music, etc., are dealt with in turn – perhaps skews our entire understanding of the period. With an extensive and useful bibliography. In the “Library of the Written Word” series. £40 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45206 – or simply click on the button
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HILL, Geoffrey (Sir Geoffrey William), 1932-2016 : TENEBRAE. London : André Deutsch, (1978). First edition. A fine collection, including the Lachrimae sonnet sequence. £40 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 38418 – or simply click on the button
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HILL, Susan, 1942- : AIR AND ANGELS. London : Sinclair-Stevenson, (1991). First edition. Signed by Susan Hill on the title-page. “Thomas Cavendish, a distinguished cleric and don in his mid-fifties, lives with his spinster sister and collection of exotic birds. His life is celibate and irreproachable. He is the obvious man to be offered the mastership of this [Cambridge] college. But, walking by the river, Thomas sees a young girl in white standing on the bridge” – “As light as a feather but as powerful as flight” (The Observer). £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45983 – or simply click on the button
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(HODGSON, Pat) : ERIC FRASER : AN ILLUSTRATOR OF OUR TIME. A TRAVELLING EXHIBITION SPONSORED BY BRITISH GAS. [London] : British Gas, (1991). First edition. A well-illustrated survey of the work of Eric Fraser (1902-1983), designed to accompany the 1991-1993 touring exhibition. Loosely inserted are the flyer for the exhibition, with additional information, and a related press-cutting. SOLD |
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HOGARTH, Paul (Arthur Paul), 1917-2001 : ARTHUR BOYD HOUGHTON. London : Gordon Fraser, 1981. First edition. A richly illustrated study of the painter, illustrator and draughtsman Arthur Boyd Houghton (1836-1875), with notes on his work in public collections, a list of his work in books and magazines, etc. £20 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 21161 – or simply click on the button
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HOLST, Spencer, 1926-2001 : THE LANGUAGE OF CATS AND OTHER STORIES. London : Jonathan Cape, (1971). First British edition. “A cross between Hans Christian Andersen and Franz Kafka” — twenty of the famous New York underground performer’s miniature stories and fables, including “The Zebra Storyteller”, “The Santa Claus Murderer”, “Bullfinch and Goblin”, “The Hidden Ballroom at Versailles”, etc. £40 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44913 – or simply click on the button
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HOOD, Thomas, 1835-1874 : PEN AND PENCIL PICTURES. London : Hurst & Blackett, 1857. First edition. His first book – a collection of whimsical essays, poems, stories, etc., from the younger Tom Hood – enlivened with his own illustrations. £40 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 13025 – or simply click on the button
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HUDSON, W.H. (William Henry), 1841-1922 : EL OMBÚ. London : Duckworth & Co., 1902. First edition : the cloth issue. Two short stories and two novellas, all set in South America. “They are, really, studies in anthropology ... descriptive cameos – there is no word wanting, there is no word wasted – he gives us precisely the true impression as none but a master of the craft could give it” (Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 30th April 1902). £50 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 12912 – or simply click on the button
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HUDSON, W.H. (William Henry), 1841-1922 : DEAD MAN’S PLACK AND AN OLD THORN. London : J. M. Dent & Sons, 1920. First edition : in the primary binding of green cloth. Two Hudson stories, handsomely printed on laid paper. “We knew Mr. Hudson could make beautiful things, but even he has not made anything more beautiful than this story, unless it may be the second story ... They are like a finer lyric” (Review in the Manchester Guardian). “A little crock of gold ... A masterpiece” (The Nation). SOLD |
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HUDSON, W.H. (William Henry), 1841-1922 : A HIND IN RICHMOND PARK. London : J. M. Dent & Sons, 1922. First edition. The great naturalist’s final thoughts – on deer, on ears, the wind, ways back to nature, smell, noses, sense of direction, migration, sound, music, art and the unanswered questions. £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 10376 – or simply click on the button
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HUGHES, Ted (Edward James), 1930-1998 : GAUDETE. London : Faber & Faber, (1977). First edition : with the misprint “soelmn” for “solemn” on p.75. “An Anglican clergyman is abducted by spirits into the other world” – a narrative poem which began as a film scenario. £50 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 40513 – or simply click on the button
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HUGHES, Ted (Edward James), 1930-1998 : FLOWERS AND INSECTS : SOME BIRDS AND A PAIR OF SPIDERS. London : Faber & Faber, (1986). First edition. A collection of seventeen poems, with striking full-colour illustrations by Leonard Baskin. Includes “Cyclamens in a Bowl”, “Sketch of a Goddess”, “Sunstruck Foxglove”, “Big Poppy”, etc. £40 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45738 – or simply click on the button
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HUTTON, W.R. (William Richard), 1913-1998 : BROADWAY RACKET. London : Hamilton & Co. (Stafford), [1946]. First edition. Tim Regan’s wife abandons him on the same day that the police are tipped off about his planned bank robbery – five years on he emerges from prison. A rather more literate text than the usual Hamilton fare. £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45221 – or simply click on the button
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JACKSON, Stanley : AN INDISCREET GUIDE TO SOHO. London : Muse Arts, [1946]. First edition. “Soho lost a few teeth in the Blitz and her cheeks are a little sunken but she still speaks with the same authentic accent” – a vibrant portrait of 1940s Soho by a popular journalist – the whirligig of restaurants, clubs and joints, wide boys, spivs, dippers, steamers, and so much else. “There really are two Wardour Streets; one smokes cigars and the other Woodbines”. SOLD |
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JAGGER, Arthur : MURDER INTENDED. Glasgow : McKenzie Vincent & Co., [ca.1950]. First edition. Murder on the outskirts of St Albans – Scotland Yard is called in. £20 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45916 – or simply click on the button
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JAMES, P.D. (Phyllis Dorothy), 1920-2014 : DEATH OF AN EXPERT WITNESS. London : Faber & Faber, (1977). First edition. A young girl found murdered in East Anglia, but then a second death at the forensic laboratory investigating the case – Commander Dalgleish is called in. “One of the most unusual and puzzling cases of his career”. £50 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44841 – or simply click on the button
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JAMES, P.D. (Phyllis Dorothy), 1920-2014 : DEATH IN HOLY ORDERS. London : Faber & Faber, (2001). First edition. Signed by P. D. James on the title-page. Death at an Anglican theological college on a bleak East Anglian coast – Commander Dalgleish looks into it. SOLD |
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“JANSON, Hank” – [FRANCES, Stephen Daniel, 1917-1989] : DON’T DARE ME, SUGAR. London : S. D. Frances, [1950]. First edition. Interesting not least for a fascinating tongue-in-cheek passage at the end of the first chapter where a forward young woman lectures Hank on spanking, perversion, frustration and sublimation. £50 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 34013 – or simply click on the button
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“JANSON, Hank” – [FRANCES, Stephen Daniel, 1917-1989] : THE LADY HAS A SCAR. London : S. D. Frances, [1950]. First edition. A nicely observed murder tale that commences with a failed playwright turned theatre-critic – and a party at the house of the successful playwright who has undermined him. The book rattled up thirty-two destruction orders from local magistrates. Later republished under the Roberts & Vinter imprint as “Sentence for Sin” in 1960. £50 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 36253 – or simply click on the button
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“JANSON, Hank” – [FRANCES, Stephen Daniel, 1917-1989] : MURDER. London : New Fiction Press, [1952]. First edition. The first book in the fourth Janson series – Sheila Lang comes back into his life. The subject of twenty-two destruction orders from local magistrates (Holland p.323). £50 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 34230 – or simply click on the button
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“JANSON, Hank” – [FRANCES, Stephen Daniel, 1917-1989] : CORRUPTION. London : Top Fiction, [1953]. First edition : in the variant wrapper with the coloured advertisement for the forthcoming “Nyloned Avenger” on the rear panel. The last book of the fourth series and the first under the Top Fiction imprint – with a theme of a high-class call-girl racket being used to ensnare public officials, the book opens with an unusual corruption trial at which no defence is offered. Top Fiction Ltd. was a new company hurriedly formed by Reg Carter after police raids and seizures at the premises of the Janson publishers, printers and distributors in September 1953 (Holland pp.135-136). Later republished under the Roberts & Vinter imprint as “Secret Session” in 1960. £50 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45196 – or simply click on the button
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“JANSON, Hank” – [FRANCES, Stephen Daniel, 1917-1989] : DESERT FURY. London : New Fiction Press, [1953]. First edition : the variant with the silhouette advertisement on the lower wrapper, listing fifty-five Janson titles, four still in preparation, and the Anne Shelton “Hank Janson Blues” adverts on both inner wrappers. The final book in Janson’s Persian trilogy – “Mada herself will face the anger and punishment of her just but merciless father”. Evidence adduced at Janson’s trial suggests that the book may have been written in part by Geoffrey Pardoe (1890-1953). The book concludes with a 6pp “Personal Letter” from Janson to his readers on the subject of science fiction and his forthcoming book, “The Unseen Assassin”. £50 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 30828 – or simply click on the button
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KANE, Henry, 1908-1988 : HALO FOR NOBODY. London : T. V. Boardman & Co., (1949). First British edition : precedes the Boardman hardback of 1950. “One of the best pulp mystery writers ever to walk this misbegotten world” (Robert K. Lewis). Originally published in the USA in 1947 – the author’s first book, introducing Peter Chambers, sybarite, who drinks like a camel but holds his liquor like a revenue agent. Later republished as “Martinis and Murder”. £20 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 30121 – or simply click on the button
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KAVANAGH, P.J. (Patrick Joseph), 1931-2015 : A SONG AND DANCE. London : Chatto & Windus, 1968. First edition. His first novel, winner of the Guardian Fiction Prize – set in London and the South of France – “cold indifference ... tugs at them like a dirty wind”. £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 41320 – or simply click on the button
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“KAYE, Barbara” – [MUIR, Barbara Kenrick Gowing, 1908-1998] : STEPS IN THE DARK. London : Hurst & Blackett, (1968). First edition. A broken engagement, a mysterious death in Austria, a row with a reporter, and terror in an Alpine village. Signed by the author, as “Barbara Kaye”, on the title-page and further inscribed on the front free endpaper with love to Elizabeth – this being the crime writer “Elizabeth Ferrars” (pseudonym of Morna MacTaggart) and signed Marie, i.e. “Marie Muir”- another of Barbara Muir’s pseudonyms – one author playfully addressing the other under their assumed names. £40 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45859 – or simply click on the button
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“KENT, Larry” : HOMICIDE HELL : I HATE CRIME! Sydney : Cleveland Publishing Co., [1959]. First edition. “‘I always thought he was the toughest man I’d ever seen’, the fat man said. He beamed at me. ‘The title now goes to you, Mr. Kent’”. No 570 in the “I Hate Crime” series. £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 42493 – or simply click on the button
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KINSELLA, Thomas, 1928-2021 : DOWNSTREAM. Dublin : Dolmen Press, 1962. First edition. A collection of twenty-five poems, including “Wedding Morning”, “Cover Her Face”, “Tyrant Dying”, “Mirror in February”, etc. “Kinsella stands with Joyce as one of the great innovators in modern Irish literature” (Gerard Smyth, Irish Times, 22nd December 2021). £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 40634 – or simply click on the button
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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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LANE, Charles : COOPER HENDERSON AND THE OPEN ROAD : THE LIFE AND WORKS OF CHARLES COOPER HENDERSON 1803-1877. London : J. A. Allen & Co., (1984). First edition. The first full-scale study of the Victorian coaching painter, Charles Cooper Henderson, with notes of paintings in public collections, a list of all the known prints made from his work, etc. £20 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 30657 – or simply click on the button
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LARIAR, Lawrence, 1908-1981 : DEATH IS THE HOST. New York : Red Circle Magazines, (1943). First edition under this title. The well-known cartoonist with his first murder mystery – comic-book artist accompanies a friend to a weekend party with an odd group of people – a secretary who could not type, a reformed gangster, a teetotal tobacco magnate, a libellous reporter, etc. Originally published by Phoenix Press as “Death Paints a Picture” earlier that same year. Red Circle Crime Novel Selection (CNS) 6. £20 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 41700 – or simply click on the button
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“LATOUR, André” – [SOWMAN, Gordon William, 1918-1982] : PASSION’S MISTRESS. London : Kaye Publications, [1953]. First edition. “Gaspard Luclaire was in the mood for love. His whole being ached for romance – but not the sordid kind ...”. He finds Nicolette at a village fete in North Africa. £50 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44136 – or simply click on the button
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“LATOUR, André” – [SOWMAN, Gordon William, 1918-1982] : PARIS HONEYMOON. London : Kaye Publications, [1954]. First edition. The beautiful Renate dreams of escape from her tawdry life on a tropical island. Lorenzo, a handsome visitor, offers her an opportunity. £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45148 – or simply click on the button
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“LE CARON, Henri” – [BEACH, Thomas Miller, 1841-1894] : TWENTY-FIVE YEARS IN THE SECRET SERVICE : THE RECOLLECTIONS OF A SPY. London : William Heinemann, 1892. “Fifth edition” – i.e. the fifth impression of the original 1892 edition of this best-selling memoir of the “prince of spies” or “the champion spy of the century”. Working for the British authorities, Le Caron infiltrated Fenian groups in the United States to the extent that he became Lieutenant-Colonel and acting Adjutant-General of the Irish Republican Army. In later life he required round-the-clock protection from Scotland Yard after testifying against Parnell. SOLD |
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“LE CARRÉ, John” – [CORNWELL, David John Moore, 1931-2020] : SMILEY’S PEOPLE. London : Hodder & Stoughton, (1980). First edition. The last duel with Karla. £50 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45938 – or simply click on the button
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LEON, Donna, 1942- : BLOOD FROM A STONE. London : William Heinemann, (2005). First British edition. Signed by Donna Leon on the title-page. Death of an illegal immigrant in Venice – Commissario Guido Brunetti finds there is more to it. “Donna Leon has a wonderful feel for the hidden evils that lie below the facade of the magical city, and Brunetti, sturdy family nan and cynic, is an endearing guide to the machinations of Italian society” (The Times). £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 38594 – or simply click on the button
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LEONARD, Elmore (Elmore John), 1925-2013 : THE HOT KID. London : Weidenfeld & Nicolson, (2005). First British edition. “Hot cars, gun molls, speakeasies, bank robbers and murder ... set in Oklahoma during the 1930s”. £20 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 40885 – or simply click on the button
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LEONARD, Elmore (Elmore John), 1925-2013 : ROAD DOGS. London : Weidenfeld & Nicolson, (2009). First British edition. Celebrity bank-robber Jack Foley is out of prison – “a masterpiece of duplicity” (Washington Post). £20 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 39596 – or simply click on the button
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“LESTRANGE, Paul” : WILD WEEK-END! [COVER TITLE]. Stone : Curzon Publishing Co., [1948]. First edition. “A handsome young bachelor comes back to his lonely house at dusk and finds a strange and very lovely girl crooning in his bath. A guest arrives, and the bachelor and his glamorous gatecrasher have to pose as man and wife. Then the fun becomes really lively”. In the “Passion Series”, distributed by Murray & Nichols. £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45224 – or simply click on the button
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LEVI, Primo, 1919-1987 : OTHER PEOPLE’S TRADES. London : Michael Joseph, (1989). First (British) edition in English of “L’Altrui Mestiere” (1985). Forty-four essays on everything from astronomy to linguistics and zoology, with autobiographical pieces and on the nature of writing. Translated from the Italian by Raymond Rosenthal. £20 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 38601 – or simply click on the button
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LINEBAUGH, Peter, 1942- : THE LONDON HANGED : CRIME AND CIVIL SOCIETY IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. London : Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, (1991). First edition. A fine and detailed study of poverty, community and society in the shadow of the gallows in eighteenth-century London. £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 28517 – or simply click on the button
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MACBETH, George (George Mann), 1932-1992 : THE SAMURAI. London : Quartet Books, (1976). First British edition. The Scottish poet with a torrid tale of a far-right Japanese grouping – with the theft of some antique Japanese swords in London, the British secret services become involved. Rejoiced in by “The Library Journal” as having “too much action in this wild, hilarious, ultimate take-off on the Bond-type novel for one to bother with analysis ... If you can manage to slow down for a second, you may also notice that Macbeth can write”. £20 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44844 – or simply click on the button
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[MACDONALD, Philip, 1900-1980] – “PORLOCK, Martin” : MYSTERY IN KENSINGTON GORE. London : Literary Press, [ca.1936]. First paperback edition. Macdonald with a London mystery under his Martin Porlock pseudonym. Originally published by Collins in 1932, and soon translated into German and Spanish. “This week I urge on your attention Martin Porlock’s Mystery in Kensington Gore ... Mr. Porlock is simply surging to the front wave of mystery concocters. Speed, surprises and fine sleuthing for your money – he hands you them all!” (Daily Herald, 10th March 1932). SOLD |
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McEWAN, Ian (Ian Russell), 1948- : THE INNOCENT. London : Jonathan Cape, (1990). First edition. Signed by Ian McEwan on the title-page. “It is 1955 and post-war Berlin is crawling with subterfuge” – a young British technician involved in electronic surveillance encounters a beautiful young German called Maria. SOLD |
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MANKELL, Henning (Henning Georg), 1948-2015 : THE WHITE LIONESS. London : Harvill Press, (2003). First British edition. The disappearance of a blameless estate agent in Southern Sweden leads Kurt Wallander to a plot against the newly freed Nelson Mandela. First published as “Den Vita Lenjoninnan” in Stockholm in 1993 and here in the translation by Laurie Thompson first published in the United States in 1998. £20 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44845 – or simply click on the button
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MARSHALL, Herbert (Herbert Menzies), 1841-1913 & MARSHALL, Hester, 1886-1973 : CATHEDRAL CITIES OF FRANCE. London : William Heinemann, 1907. First edition. A charming and richly illustrated record of summer visits over five years, put together by the gifted water-colour artist Herbert Marshall and his daughter. Boulogne, Amiens, Laôn, Rheims, Soissons, Rouen, Evreux, Lisieux, Bayeux, St. Lô, Coutances, Le Mans, Angers, Tours, Blois, Chartres, Orleans, Bourges, Nevers, Moulins, Limoges, Périgeux, Angoulême, Poitiers, La Rochelle, Bordeaux, Sens, Auxerre, Troyes, Meaux, Senlis, Beauvais, and Paris. £40 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 42854 – or simply click on the button
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MENDELSON, Edward, 1946- : EARLY AUDEN. London : Faber & Faber, (1983). First British edition. A dedication copy, with the publishers’ compliments slip loosely inserted, and from the collection of Barry and Valerie Bloomfield, the dedicatees. Professor Mendelson had collaborated with Barry Bloomfield on the Auden bibliography. A history and interpretation of the work to 1939. £40 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 29574 – or simply click on the button
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MENDELSON, Edward, 1946- : LATER AUDEN. New York : Farrar, Straus & Giroux, (1999). First edition. A presentation copy, inscribed to “Barry & Val [Bloomfield] – who let this happen” and signed with forename by the author. (Mendelson had earlier collaborated with Barry Bloomfield on Auden’s bibliography). The highly thought-of biography of Auden’s later life. £40 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 27707 – or simply click on the button
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MOORE, Nicholas, 1918-1996 : A WISH IN SEASON : POEMS. London : Fortune Press, [1941]. First edition. An early collection of twenty-six poems, including “Poem for Billie Holiday” and poems to fellow poets W. H. Auden, George Barker, G. S. Fraser, etc. £20 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 22113 – or simply click on the button
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MORLEY, Scott : LOLITA IN SOHO. London : Modern Fiction (London), [1960]. First edition. “The intimate story of what happened to a young girl who fell for the illusions of security offered by a married man. Her subsequent life as an ‘intimate’ strip-tease girl in Soho, with all its perils, at the mercy of a soulless procurer ... appears at an opportune time, when the whole country is up in arms against the evils of prostitution in our big cities” – i.e. the well-worn formula of salaciousness tarted up as moral outrage. The text is interspersed with advertisements for Modern Fiction’s more usual line of pulp fiction paperbacks by “Ben Sarto”, “Griff”, etc. SOLD |
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NELSON, James G., 1929-2015 : PUBLISHER TO THE DECADENTS : LEONARD SMITHERS IN THE CAREERS OF BEARDSLEY, WILDE, DOWSON ... High Wycombe : Rivendale Press, (2000). First British edition. The turbulent life of Leonard Smithers (1861-1907) – publisher not only to Oscar Wilde, Aubrey Beardsley, Ernest Dowson and Arthur Symons, but also to Sir Richard Burton. With appendices on Smithers and the erotic book trade; his rare book catalogues, etc., and a checklist of his publications. SOLD |
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NESBO, Jo, 1960- : PHANTOM. London : Harvill Secker, (2012). First edition in English of “Gjenferd” (2011). Harry Hole is back in Oslo – but his ghosts are catching up with him. “From the moment he steps off the plane, someone is watching his every move and tracing his every call”. Translated by Don Bartlett. £20 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44628 – or simply click on the button
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ORCZY, Baroness Emmuska Magdalena, 1865-1947 : THE WAY OF THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL. London : Hodder & Stoughton, (1933). First edition. “The house had once been the home of a rich Austrian banker who had shown the country a clean pair of heels as soon as he felt the first gust of the revolutionary storm blowing across the Rue de la Monnaie. That was early in ’89” £50 Currently on display at Bryars & Bryars in central London, please enquire about availability – books@ashrare.com |
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“ORWELL, George” – [BLAIR, Eric Arthur, 1903-1950] : ORWELL : THE WAR COMMENTARIES. London : Gerald Duckworth & Co. / British Broadcasting Corporation, (1985). First edition. The rediscovered texts of George Orwell’s wartime radio broadcasts, transmitted weekly from December 1941 (Pearl Harbor) through to February 1943. Passages originally deleted by the wartime censor have been restored where legible. “The first large-scale unpublished work of Orwell’s to appear since his early death in 1950”. Edited, introduced and extensively annotated by the late W. J. (Bill) West (1942-1999), who discovered the lost original manuscripts. £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 43464 – or simply click on the button
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PARKER, Harry, 1884-1959 : NAVAL BATTLES FROM THE COLLECTION OF PRINTS FORMED AND OWNED BY COMMANDER SIR CHARLES LEOPOLD CUST ... London : Parker Gallery, 1911. First edition : a variant with the Parker Gallery label pasted over the original T. H. Parker imprint. A catalogue of the collection of 287 prints, with extensive descriptive and historical notes, an index of artists and engravers, a general index, etc. – the whole forming an illuminating history of the British navy. With an interesting introduction by the naval historian, Commander Charles Napier Robinson (1849-1936). £40 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 26730 – or simply click on the button
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PARSONS, F.G. (Frederick Gymer), 1863-1943 : THE EARLIER INHABITANTS OF LONDON. London : Cecil Palmer, (1927). First edition. An anatomist brings thirty years’ experience of physical anthropology to a study of the mental and physical characteristics of early Londoners and their descendants, with perhaps even the evolution of a new head form. With chapters on the Palæolithic and Neolithic; the Beaker Folk; the Coming of the Celt; Caesar and London; London under the Roman; Picts, Scots and Saxons; Saxon London; London and the Danes, etc. £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45822 – or simply click on the button
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PHILLIPS, Hugh, 1886-1972 : THE THAMES ABOUT 1750. London : Collins, 1951. First edition. A magisterial and copiously illustrated survey of the topographical and social history of the London river-front in the mid-eighteenth century. The area covered runs from Woolwich round to Hampton Court via the City and Westminster. £50 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45395 – or simply click on the button
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PHILLIPS-BIRT, Douglas (Douglas Hextall Chedzey), 1920-1978 : THE CUMBERLAND FLEET : TWO HUNDRED YEARS OF YACHTING 1775-1975. London : Royal Thames Yacht Club, (1978). First edition. A handsomely illustrated history of the Royal Thames Yacht Club, first instituted when the Duke of Cumberland presented a cup in 1775. With much passing reference to the America’s Cup, the Channel Match, the New York Yacht Club, the Royal Yacht Squadron, etc. £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 39142 – or simply click on the button
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POWELL, Anthony (Anthony Dymoke), 1905-2000 : BOOKS DO FURNISH A ROOM : A NOVEL. London : William Heinemann, (1971). First edition. The tenth volume in the series, as the “Dance to the Music of Time” enters its final movement. Austerity in post-war literary London, the eccentric and egotistical X. Trapnel, the rascally Widmerpool, now an M.P., and Pamela Flitton — “probably the vilest, rudest, most odious woman in fiction ... sulky, ill-bred, beautiful”, as Elizabeth Harvey put it in a contemporary review. £50 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44969 – or simply click on the button
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PRICE, Anthony (Alan Anthony), 1928-2019 : SION CROSSING : A NOVEL. London : Victor Gollancz, 1984. First edition. Oliver St. John Latimer, plump economist and spy-catcher, receives a request from the CIA. His rival, David Audley, also becomes involved. “First-class civilised entertainment” (Anthony Lejeune). £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44547 – or simply click on the button
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RAVEN, Simon (Simon Arthur Nöel), 1927-2001 : SHADOWS ON THE GRASS. London : Blond & Briggs, (1982). First edition. Raven’s hilarious cricketing reminiscences – cricket at Charterhouse, Cambridge, Bangalore, Kenya, Aden and Corfu – feuds, scandals, intrigues, liaisons, loves, hates, tragedies, comedies, farces – “from the virtuous to the vicious, from the clever and beautiful to the dreamy and debased”. SOLD |
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RAVEN, Simon (Simon Arthur Nöel), 1927-2001 & OTHERS : THE PRINTER’S DEVIL : A MAGAZINE OF NEW WRITING. Tunbridge Wells : South East Arts, (1991). The second issue of this literary magazine. Features “The Proselyte”, a short story by Simon Raven, followed by a twenty-one page interview with Raven himself. Also includes is Martyn Ford on “The Bibliophiles”; an illuminating twelve-page biographical assessment of the novelist and naturalist Jocelyn Brooke (1908-1966) by David Kennedy, plus new poems from Kennedy (3), Ian Caws (3), Elizabeth James, Matthew Sweeney (6), short stories from John Burnside, Mark Illis, Terry James, Stephen Ormsby, Nicky Singer and Helen Slavin, reviews, etc. Edited by Sean O’Brien and Stephen Plaice. SOLD |
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“RÉNIN, Paul” – [GOYNE, Richard, 1902-1957] : DESIRE. London : Phoenix Press, [ca.1940]. [Second edition]. Handsome libertine and remittance man John Galway falls for a South Seas beauty. Originally published by Gramol in about 1930 and here published by Phoenix from their pre-1942 Elephant Road address. £40 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 41307 – or simply click on the button
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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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“RÉNIN, Paul” – [GOYNE, Richard, 1902-1957] : MY LIFE WITH DIANA. [Leicester] : Beacon Publishing Co., [ca.1949]. First edition. “Diana Wilton looked extremely attractive that afternoon sitting on the lounge in the smart sitting-room of her Chelsea flat and smiling across at me through the drifting smoke of her cigarette”. According to his publishers, Paul Rénin “knows women better than they know themselves” – suspicious wife, glamorous widow, famous actress, etc. £40 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 31452 – or simply click on the button
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“RÉNIN, Paul” – [GOYNE, Richard, 1902-1957] : THE WOMAN IN THE CASE. London : Phoenix Press, [ca.1950]. [Second edition]. Young Mayfair socialite left penniless. Reported to have originally been published by Modern Fiction in 1948, although no copy of this edition has been traced. Published from Phoenix’s post-1949 Kennington Lane address. £30 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 43099 – or simply click on the button
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“RÉNIN, Paul” – [GOYNE, Richard, 1902-1957] : SOCIETY SINNERS. London : Phoenix Press, [ca.1950]. First edition. “The girl in the thin kimono panted the words of fury and defiance as she tore her lips away from the man in whose arms she lay writhing ...”. Published from Phoenix’s post-1949 Kennington Lane address. £50 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 43098 – or simply click on the button
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RICHARDS, Grant (Franklin Thomas Grant), 1872-1948 : CAVIARE. London : Grant Richards, 1912. First edition. A most attractive presentation copy, inscribed, signed and dated (January 1912) by Grant Richards to his eldest son, Gerard Franklin Grant Richards (1901-1916). His first novel and our first introduction to the elegantly raffish ‘Amiable Charles’, here heading south to winter in Monte Carlo and beyond. SOLD |
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ROBERTS, W.J. (William James) : SOME OLD LONDON MEMORIALS. London : T. Werner Laurie, [1907]. First edition. A charming pocket companion – author and reader in search of out-of-the-way fragments of antiquity across London – the things we generally miss – “Some of them will be known to you, others will not be familiar, because, being trifling, they are often overlooked”. Delightfully illustrated with the author’s own photographs. SOLD |
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ROSA, Vicki : PALM BEACH PLAYGIRL. London : Bush Publications, 1948. First edition. “From the torrid atmosphere of Palm Beach, to the warm Atlantic seaboard, she was known as the PLAYGIRL. This strange being was the cause of many tragedies, and broken hearts”. The first novel published by the firm that went on to become Brown, Watson Ltd. £40 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 33918 – or simply click on the button
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“ROSS, Gene” – [NEWTON, William (William Simpson), 1923-2009] : TWO SMART DAMES. Stoke-on-Trent : Archer Press, (1949). First edition. Private-eye Shaun O’Malley’s partner gets killed. Enter Elvira, “a girl with a nice figure, a nasty mind, and a husband too fond of the booze” – but Louisa’s pretty smart too. £50 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 32767 – or simply click on the button
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“ROSS, Gene” – [NEWTON, William (William Simpson), 1923-2009] : “LADY, THROW ME A CURVE”. Stoke-on-Trent : Archer Press, [1950]. First edition. The beautiful Carole comes calling on private-eye Shaun O’Malley. £50 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 32881 – or simply click on the button
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ROSTEN, Leo (Leo Calvin), 1909-1997 : DARK CORNER : A NOVEL. London : Walter Edwards (Publishers), 1946. First British edition. The novella on which the classic 1946 Henry Hathaway film noir starring Lucille Ball, Clifton Webb, William Bendix, etc., was based. SOLD |
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ROYAL COMMISSION ON HISTORICAL MONUMENTS (ENGLAND) : AN INVENTORY OF THE HISTORICAL MONUMENTS IN LONDON. VOLUME II. WEST LONDON. EXCLUDING WESTMINSTER ABBEY. London : His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1925. First edition. A general historical introduction followed by an illustrated borough-by-borough inventory of all the known survivals dating from pre-1714. Covers rather more of London than the title might imply – Battersea, Chelsea, Finsbury, Fulham, Hammersmith, Hampstead, Holborn, Islington, Kensington, Lambeth, Paddington, St. Marylebone, St. Pancras, Stoke Newington, Wandsworth and Westminster. With supplementary material on the early heraldry, a glossary, index, etc. £50 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 21298 – or simply click on the button
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RUTTER, Frank (Francis Vane Phipson), 1876-1937 & OTHERS – editors : ART AND LETTERS : AN ILLUSTRATED QUARTERLY. London : Frank Cass & Co., (1970). A facsimile reprint of the complete run of all ten issues of the influential quarterly originally published between 1917 and 1920. With contributions from Richard Aldington, T. S. Eliot, Ronald Firbank, Stephen Hudson, Ford Madox Hueffer, Aldous Huxley, Wyndham Lewis, Katherine Mansfield, Wilfred Owen, Ezra Pound, Herbert Read, Dorothy M. Richardson, Isaac Rosenberg, Frank Rutter, Siegfried Sassoon, Walter Sickert, Edith Sitwell, Osbert Sitwell, Sacheverell Sitwell, etc. – as well as illustrations by H. Gaudier-Brzeska, Harold Gilman, Charles Ginner, Nina Hamnett, E. McKnight Kauffer, Wyndham Lewis, John Nash, Paul Nash, C. R. W. Nevinson, Lucien Pissarro, Walter Sickert, Edward Wadsworth, and others. Frank Cass Library of English Little Magazines No. 16, edited by B. C. Bloomfield. £50 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 35849 – or simply click on the button
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“SAGAN, Françoise” — [QUOIREZ, Françoise, 1935-2004] : SUNLIGHT ON COLD WATER. London : Weidenfeld & Nicolson, (1971). First edition in English of “Un Peu de Soleil dans l’Eau Froide”. Troubled Parisian journalist at the point of despair escapes to the country, where he meets a new and extremely respectable married woman. “A sad love story set in Paris and Limoges, told with brevity, compassion and elegance. Sagan misses nothing” (Daily Mirror, 4th November 1971). “It is when love becomes immoderate that tragedy enters”. £40 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44995 – or simply click on the button
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“SARTO, Ben” – [FAWCETT, Frank Dubrez, 1891-1968] : SOHO SPIVS. London : Modern Fiction, [1948]. First edition. “These ‘spivs’, as they are named, have no identity cards, no ration books, no clothing or other coupons of legal acquisition. They are, in a civic sense, outlaws”. Post-war London memorably evoked as swell-looking “Yorkshire Alice”, popular with thieves and con-men, is knifed to death in a Soho alley. Correspondence from 1947 between Fawcett and his publisher, Edwin Turvey, reveals that the original manuscript was mislaid for a time, but that Fawcett was paid £33 for this “very good Sarto indeed” and Perl probably £5 for the cover. £50 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45699 – or simply click on the button
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SAUMAREZ, Philip, 1710-1747 : LOG OF THE CENTURION : BASED ON THE ORIGINAL PAPERS OF CAPTAIN PHILIP SAUMAREZ ON BOARD HMS CENTURION, LORD ANSON’S FLAGSHIP DURING HIS CIRCUMNAVIGATION 1740-44. London : Hart-Davis, MacGibbon, (1973). First edition. Extracts from the long-lost log-books, discovered in Guernsey along with other letters and documents, and giving a new perspective on this celebrated voyage. Edited, introduced, and with commentary by Leo Heaps. £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 28601 – or simply click on the button
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“SAXE, Baron de” : THE DEMI-MONDE OF PARIS. London : Camden Publishing Co., [ca.1930]. An undated reissue of typical Camden Publishing fare, apparently first issued in 1916 and perhaps written, or at least edited, by the Australian author William Nicholas Willis (1858-1922). Dora Stuyvesant, quiet daughter of the leader of the American community in Paris, is introduced to society – somewhat in the shadow of her flamboyant older sister Sybil. SOLD |
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SCOTT, Clement W. (Clement William), 1841-1904 : ROUND ABOUT THE ISLANDS : OR, SUNNY SPOTS NEAR HOME. London : Tinsley Brothers, 1874. First edition. Genial rambles and excursions in various parts of the British Isles – with chapters on London after Dark, the Alexandra Palace, The Last Man in London, the Royal Academy, Connemara, Co. Clare, Blarney, Killarney, Scarborough, the Isle of Thanet, Hayling Island, Weston-super-Mare, Goodwood, the Isle of Wight, Sark, etc. Scott was the best-known theatre critic of the period. The startling frontispiece of a flying bat-like journalist is by his brother-in-law, George du Maurier (1834-1896). £50 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 12911 – or simply click on the button
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SCUPHAM, Peter, 1933-2022 : THE GIFT : LOVE POEMS. Richmond : Keepsake Press, (1973). First edition : one of just thirty numbered copies in cloth (of 200) – signed by Peter Scupham. A collection of fifteen poems, with four coloured linocuts by Anthea Lawrence. Includes “Demure”, “As If”, “Languages”, etc. Loosely inserted is the compliments slip of Roy Lewis, the publisher of the Keepsake Press books. £50 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45691 – or simply click on the button
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“SHANE, Mark” – [NORWOOD, Victor (Victor George Charles), 1920-1983] : THEY KILL TO LIVE. London : Alexander Moring, [ca.1956]. [Second edition]. “It’s close to sundown, and way ahead lights are winking up along the sprawling sucker-trap that is the Hellfire Strip, wide open merry-go-round of the good-time dolls and the sugar-daddies ...” – a pacy tale set in Las Vegas. Originally published under Reginald Carter’s earlier Comyns imprint in 1953. £40 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45933 – or simply click on the button
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SHERIDAN, Richard Brinsley (Richard Brinsley Butler), 1751-1816 : THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. London : William Tegg & Co., 1851. An attractively bound collected edition of Sheridan, with a perceptive biographical and critical introduction by Leigh Hunt (1784-1859). Includes “The Rivals”, “St. Patrick's Day”, “The Duenna”, “A Trip to Scarborough”, “The School for Scandal”, “The Camp”, “The Critic” and “Pizarro”. First published in this form in 1841. £50 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 29271 – or simply click on the button
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SIMS, Mary : THE CITY OF LONDON : PICTORIAL MAP [COVER TITLE]. London : Golden Galleon Press, [ca.1960]. A handsome map of the Square Mile of the City of London, with many of the principal buildings shown pictorially. Extends from Chancery Lane across to Aldgate East, north to Barbican and south to the river. The plan is flanked by the arms of the twelve great Livery Companies and at the foot is frieze depicting the Lord Mayor’s Show. The suggested date of about 1960 is reinforced by a reference to the Mermaid Theatre at Puddle Dock, which opened in 1959. SOLD |
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SINCLAIR, William Macdonald, 1850-1917 : MEMORIALS OF ST. PAUL’S CATHEDRAL. London : Chapman & Hall, 1909. First edition. A substantial history of St. Paul’s from the earliest times, with additional material on the organists, the library, Paul’s Cross, the memorials, etc., and extensive quotation from the diary of Robert Green, Dean’s Verger from 1852 to 1900, on life in the nineteenth century cathedral. With illustrations by Louis Weirter. £40 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 21324 – or simply click on the button
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“SINGER, Bant” – [SHAW, Charles Herbert, 1900-1955] : DON’T SLIP DELANEY. London : Collins, 1954. First edition. “Delaney should never have been there at all, out on the Sydney waterfront in the dark. He should have been with Kathy ...” – the third of the Dennis Delaney detective novels. £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45266 – or simply click on the button
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SINGER, John – editor : NEW SHORT STORIES : 1945-1946. Glasgow : William MacLellan, (1946). First edition. Inscribed, signed and dated (1981) by John Singer. Thirty-one new short stories – by Mulk Raj Anand, Anna Kavan, Hugo Manning, Hugh MacDiarmid, Henry Miller (Murder in the Suburbs), Elizabeth Taylor (Husbands and Wives), Fred Urquhart, John Waller, etc. SOLD |
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SOLZHENITSYN, Alexander (Aleksandr Isaevich), 1918-2008 : STORIES AND PROSE POEMS. London : Bodley Head, (1971). First edition in English. Six novellas and short stories, together with sixteen poems from the winner of 1970 Nobel Prize, “for the ethical force with which he has pursued the indispensable traditions of Russian literature”. Translated by Michael Glenny. “His new collection, with its stoical, plain, inward beauty, movingly reminds us that Solzhenitsyn seems never to have written a line that was not somehow tinged with hope” (Kirkus Review). £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45050 – or simply click on the button
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STARK, Freya (Freya Madeline), 1893-1993 : ROME ON THE EUPHRATES : THE STORY OF A FRONTIER. London : John Murray, (1966). First edition. “This is the history of the long frontier of the Euphrates through eight centuries of Roman warfare”. A panoramic survey of the power-sapping travails of Rome on the eastern outskirts of empire – the Seleucid kings, the Parthians, the Armenian wars, etc. – and a message of “the uselessness of war across a frontier whose trade was able to benefit both sides”. £40 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45967 – or simply click on the button
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“STATTEN, Vargo” – [FEARN, John Russell, 1908-1960] : ANNIHILATION. London : Scion, [1950]. First edition. Originally titled “Fool’s Paradise” and the second in the Vargo Statten series. The summer of 1980 has been the hottest in history and Ken is working on increasing the capacity of the Channel Tunnel. Addressing a convention in 1952, Fearn claimed this as his best novel (Harbottle & Holland A125). £40 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 30691 – or simply click on the button
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“STATTEN, Vargo” – [FEARN, John Russell, 1908-1960] : WANDERER OF SPACE. London : Scion, [1950]. First edition. Anchored between Mars and Jupiter in the year 2150, the royal space cruiser Starwind awaits a royal event. Queen Maylion of Earth is about to give birth to a future king or queen. £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 41427 – or simply click on the button
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“STATTEN, Vargo” – [FEARN, John Russell, 1908-1960] : THE CATALYST. London : Scion, (1951). First edition. Scott and Nancy Andrews, chief investigators of the interplanetary deeps, pioneers of both Mars and Venus, now in 1980 encounter an inhospitable Mercury – except that it is covered in diamonds. They bring back a small cinder rock, “not knowing that it is a catalyst which will turn water to gold. It is lost in the sewers of London and earth is threatened” (Harbottle & Holland A132). £30 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45207 – or simply click on the button
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“STATTEN, Vargo” – [FEARN, John Russell, 1908-1960] : DEADLINE TO PLUTO. London : Scion, (1951). First edition. It is the year 2060 and a massive meteorite hits Pluto head on, threatening the equilibrium of the solar system – Captain Mark Rapier is sent to investigate. “A desperate race against time and human nature ensues as the crew rebels against the iron discipline of the ship’s captain” (Harbottle & Holland A135). £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 41432 – or simply click on the button
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“STATTEN, Vargo” – [FEARN, John Russell, 1908-1960] : PETRIFIED PLANET. London : Scion, (1951). First edition. Married couple return from a maiden voyage to Venus to find the Earth stopped in time – “A well-written and fascinating exploration of the ‘frozen time’ theme, usually confined to short stories” (Harbottle & Holland A159). £30 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 43093 – or simply click on the button
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STOPPARD, Tom (Sir Thomas), 1937- : AFTER MAGRITTE. London : Faber & Faber, (1973). A reprint of the original 1971 edition. Signed by Tom Stoppard on the half-title. A surreal farce – “the dialogue operates like a railway junction with a madman switching over the points” (Irving Wardle in The Times). First performed at the Ambiance Lunch-Hour Theatre Club, “with outstanding success” in 1970, with Prunella Scales and Stephen Moore in the leading parts. SOLD |
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STOPPARD, Tom (Sir Thomas), 1937- : NIGHT AND DAY. New York : Grove Press, (1979). First American edition. Stoppard in darkest Africa – a despot not unlike Idi Amin, communist-backed revolution, a mine-owner, a couple of contrasting journalists, etc. “Fleet Street gets a well-aimed kick in the pants” began “The Stage” review of the original 1978 London production, with John Thaw, Diana Rigg, etc. SOLD |
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STOPPARD, Tom (Sir Thomas), 1937- : THE REAL THING. Boston & London : Faber & Faber, (1984). First American edition : the wrappers issue. “I can’t write love ... loving and being loved is unliterary”. A revised version of the original 1982 London publication. SOLD |
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STOPPARD, Tom (Sir Thomas), 1937- : THE INVENTION OF LOVE. London : Faber & Faber, (1997) [but 1998]. The second printing of the original 1997 publication, but the first printing of the final text – there is a fresh introductory note dated January 1998 by Stoppard – “This text is slightly altered in places where I have brought it into line with the performance at the Royal National Theatre”. The life of A. E. Housman, with guest appearances from the bibliographer A. W. Pollard, Walter Pater, John Ruskin, Frank Harris, W. T. Stead, Jerome K. Jerome, and Oscar Wilde – “the most emotionally powerful and enthralling play of his career” (Evening Standard). SOLD |
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STOPPARD, Tom (Sir Thomas), 1937- : ROCK ‘N’ ROLL. London : Faber & Faber, (2006). First hardback edition. Preceded by a paperback sold at the Royal Court during the play’s opening run, but this version has been revised to bring the text into line with the actual performance, and also includes an important introduction by Stoppard, vital to understanding the intentions of the play. With notes and an explanatory timeline. SOLD |
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“STORME, Michael” – [DAWSON, George Herbert, 1916-1980] : HOT DAMES ON COLD SLABS. New York : Leisure Library, (1952). First American edition. Three women from the Mid West head for the big city (Chicago) in search of husbands – they find the price is steep. “Nightclubs, cars, bedrooms, undressings, confrontations, beatings, shootings, leerings. An America of the mind” (John Fraser). Originally published by Archer in the UK in 1950. £40 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 26993 – or simply click on the button
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“STORME, Michael” – [DAWSON, George Herbert, 1916-1980] : TIPTOE THRO’ A GRAVEYARD. London : Harborough Publishing Co., [1953]. First edition. Ambulance chasing and insurance fraud with Molly Pykeron and a Cadillac in Miami. SOLD |
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SUMNER, Heywood, 1853-1940 : A GUIDE TO THE NEW FOREST. Ringwood : Charles Brown & Son, (1925). Second and best edition : a revised, corrected and expanded version of the original 1924 publication. A most attractive guide in dictionary form, compiled and illustrated by the archaeologist and antiquary Heywood Sumner. With a list of Forest terms, a bibliography, etc. £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 28696 – or simply click on the button
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SWIFT, Graham (Graham Colin), 1949- : LAST ORDERS. London : Picador, (1996). First edition : in the earlier (pre-Booker) dust-jacket. Mourning, fellowship and ritual on the road to Margate – winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction as well as the Booker – and turned into the 2001 film with Michael Caine, Bob Hoskins, etc. £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 27717 – or simply click on the button
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TARKINGTON, Booth (Newton Booth), 1869-1946 : CLAIRE AMBLER. New York : Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1928. First edition. “You like men to be in love with you but not to trouble you by telling you” – Tarkington’s popular novel of the evolution of a flapper, “slim, lovely, alluring, modern to her painted fingertips ... will thrill younger readers and startle and amuse their fathers and mothers”. SOLD |
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THWAITE, Anthony (Anthony Simon), 1930-2021 : HOME TRUTHS. Hessle : Marvell Press, (1957). First edition. Inscribed, signed and dated (1963) by Anthony Thwaite. His first full-length collection – forty poems, including “The Plausible Bird”, “The Silent Woman”, “The Conjuror”, etc. SOLD |
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TRELOAR, Sir William Purdie, 1843-1923 : WILKES AND THE CITY. London : John Murray, 1917. First edition. An engaging and well-researched life of one Lord Mayor of London – the turbulent and magnificent John Wilkes (1725-1797) – by one of his successors in that office. Duels, the “North Briton”, general warrants, habeas corpus, expulsions from the Commons, the Middlesex elections, the mayoralty and all the rest. £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 43426 – or simply click on the button
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“TREVOR, William” – [COX, William Trevor, 1928-2016] : FAMILY SINS & OTHER STORIES. London : Bodley Head, (1990). First edition. A collection of a dozen short stories, including “In Love with Ariadne”, “Honeymoon in Tramore”, “Coffee with Oliver”, etc – “the bewildering complexities of the human condition ... devastating insight, elegiac compassion and densely textured economy”. £50 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 43075 – or simply click on the button
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“TREVOR, William” – [COX, William Trevor, 1928-2016] : THE PIANO TUNER’S WIVES. Alton : Clarion Publishing, [1996]. First edition : one of 249 numbered copies (ex 499) in hardback signed by both author and illustrator. A Trevor short story of marriage in youth and marriage in age, with colour illustrations by Paul Hogarth. £50 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45443 – or simply click on the button
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“TREVOR, William” – [COX, William Trevor, 1928-2016] : DEATH OF A PROFESSOR. London : Colophon Press, 1997. First edition : one of 200 copies (ex 232) finely printed on mould-made paper, and numbered and signed by William Trevor. “The roomful of important men expectantly await the one whom another has already dubbed the party’s ghost ...” – a Trevor short story. £50 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45444 – or simply click on the button
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“VANE, Roland” – [McKEAG, Ernest Lionel, 1896-1974] : SILKEN DIVANS. London : Phoenix Press, [ca.1946]. First edition. As they arrive in Paris, Madge Bradley rather regrets having become travelling companion to the fat, ugly, flashily-dressed, and intolerably rich widow, Mrs Brent. Published by Phoenix from their mid-1940s Deacon Street address. £75 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44730 – or simply click on the button
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“VANE, Roland” – [McKEAG, Ernest Lionel, 1896-1974] : THE DEVIL’S PLAYGROUND. London : Modern Fiction, [1949]. First edition. Pretty secretary Claire Norton, orphaned in the war, sexually harassed from her last job, lands a new position with celebrated author “John Mallory” – who turns out to be a Joan Mallory, with a handsome artist nephew. Passport required for a new world of Biarritz, Cauterets, Pau and the Pyrenees. £50 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45704 – or simply click on the button
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“VANE, Roland” – [McKEAG, Ernest Lionel, 1896-1974] : THE SERPENT. London : Phoenix Press, [ca.1950]. First edition. “Doris Devereaux tossed her shingled, blonde head defiantly and there was a look of obstinacy in her deep blue eyes. Doris was a remarkably pretty girl” – and she wanted to go on the stage. Her bachelor uncle and guardian, himself not averse to the company of actresses and chorus girls, raises objections. Published from Phoenix’s post-1949 Kennington Lane address. £40 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45848 – or simply click on the button
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“VANE, Roland” – [McKEAG, Ernest Lionel, 1896-1974] : SINFUL SISTERS. Cleveland : Kaywin Publishers, (1951). First American edition. June and Lorna share a London flat – Lorna shameless and mercenary, her sister quite the reverse – “sinister side-streets of Soho and the garish glamour of London night clubs”. Originally published by Archer in the UK the previous year. Archer Book 52. £40 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44042 – or simply click on the button
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WALLACE, Edgar (Richard Horatio Edgar), 1875-1932 : THE TERRIBLE PEOPLE. London : Hodder & Stoughton, [1926]. First edition : the first issue, listing just twenty-one titles on the verso of the half-title – and in the primary binding, without the crimson circle and signature device. “Harry the Lancer came into Burton Street Station to show his ‘brief,’ for he was out of Dartmoor only that Monday, having served twenty-one months short of seven years ...”. £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 34096 – or simply click on the button
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WATSON, Colin, 1920-1983 : SNOBBERY WITH VIOLENCE : ENGLISH CRIME STORIES AND THEIR AUDIENCE. London : Eyre Methuen, (1979). Second edition : a slightly revised version of Watson’s interesting 1971 study of the crime story as the mirror of its times and social attitudes. £20 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 26373 – or simply click on the button
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WESKER, Arnold (Sir Arnold), 1932-2016 : CHIPS WITH EVERYTHING : A PLAY IN TWO ACTS. London : Jonathan Cape, (1962). First edition. Square-bashing with the RAF – the class system examined – and the undermining of a rebel. “A drama of striking power, intensity and conviction” (New York Post). £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 36804 – or simply click on the button
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“WEST, Nathanael” – [WEINSTEIN, Nathan Wallenstein, 1903-1940] : A COOL MILLION : THE DISMANTLING OF LEMUEL PITKIN. London : Neville Spearman, (1954). First British edition. The dismantling of the American Dream and the rise of fascism – a sharp satire originally published in New York in 1934. SOLD |
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WHITE, J. Eric : CUPID ON THE TRAPEZE AND OTHER STORIES. London : James Macmillan, [ca.1948]. First edition. Nine stories in various settings, London, Russia, India, Constantinople, etc. £50 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 32937 – or simply click on the button
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WILDEBLOOD, Peter, 1923-1999 : WEST END PEOPLE : A NOVEL. London : Weidenfeld & Nicolson, (1958). First edition. Wildeblood is best-known for his “Against the Law” (1955) – an account of his imprisonment for homosexuality which led more or less directly to the Wolfenden Report and decriminalisation – but he appears here in much lighter vein with an amusing novel of Soho life – gang warfare interferes with one of the area’s staple industries and Cora and the working girls are obliged to found the National Youth Movement for the Prevention of Hooliganism in Soho (NYMPHS for short). £40 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45824 – or simply click on the button
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WILSON, Colin (Colin Henry), 1931-2013 : THE SCHOOLGIRL MURDER CASE. London : Hart-Davis, MacGibbon, (1974). First edition. Murder mystery – a young woman dressed as a schoolgirl found dead in a Hampstead garden, the trail leads to an occult bookshop in Red Lion Square – Saltfleet of Scotland Yard investigates. £20 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44848 – or simply click on the button
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“YATES, Dornford” – [MERCER, Cecil William, 1885-1960] : THE HOUSE THAT BERRY BUILT. London : Ward, Lock & Co., (1945). First edition. “As I see it, Major Pleydell, the exact position is this. When you and your cousins inherited White Ladies, the cost of maintaining the place as your father and his brother had maintained it was less than three thousand a year. To-day it is nearly eight thousand – eight thousand pounds”. £25 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 38549 – or simply click on the button
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ZANGWILL, Israel, 1864-1926 : THE OLD MAIDS’ CLUB. London : William Heinemann, 1892. First edition. “The Old Maids’ Club was founded by Lillie Dulcimer in her sweet seventeenth year. She had always been precocious, and could analyse her own sensations before she could spell. In fact, she divided her time between making sensations and analysing them ...”. Twenty entertaining tales from the annals of the club, including the very funny “Algebra of Love”, “The Man in the Ironed Mask”, “The Old Young Woman and the New”, “The Mysterious Advertiser”, “The Beautiful Ghoul”, etc. – “Two books for the holiday season, to be read lounging in a hammock, or under the shadow of a cliff, are Mr. Zangwill’s ‘Old Maids’ Club’, and Mr. Grossmith’s ‘Diary of a Nobody’. The former is very droll in places ...” (Cheltenham Looker-On, 20th August 1892). “Worth all the inanities of Jerome K. Jerome and all the thin fun of Barry Pain bundled together” (Glasgow Evening Post, 30th June 1892). £50 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 43554 – or simply click on the button
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