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

New York : Macmillan Co., 1942. First edition. A tour-de-force from the English artist in exile – “There is a universality about the people of the earth that is healing, and it matters little whether one be talking with a tobacco farmer in North Carolina or a plowman in Devonshire. So, I knew, my sole chance of adjustment over here, in the country of my adoption, and my best cure for the incomparable fret of nostalgia as well as my only hope of becoming one with my new land, would be to wander among the workers on this earth and learn their habits and their lore”. Cotton-picking, water-mills, corn-shucking, hog-killing, sorghum-boiling, tobacco-harvesting, and much else of the American South, described and depicted in her searingly dramatic illustrations.
Demy 4to (272 x 203mm). (viii),(158),[ii]pp. Numerous wood-engraved illustrations (some full-page), headpieces, tailpieces, etc., by the author. Bound in an exquisite full tan morocco executed in 2001 by Rona Smith (1934-2004), winner of the Designer Bookbinders Finishing Award the following year – the binding with a recessed panel enclosing a silhouette onlay of a detail from the book; black lettering; sprinkled top edge; a fine copy, housed in its clamshell cloth box.

£2,000

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 14121 – or simply click on the button

London : Hodder & Stoughton, (1957). First edition. Dagobert embraces suburban domesticity and a regular job – and yet somehow manages to become involved in the production of a West End play put on by some decided oddballs and misfits, the most eye-catching of whom is the flame-haired Viennese siren known as Zizi. But she will not say who tried to kill her – and Jane buys a hat. “Excellent villain; very good fun. Never mind the plot” (Illustrated London News, 5th October 1957).
Crown 8vo (20cm). 192pp. Original red boards, ruled blocked and lettered in gilt; very faint spine-crease; edges spotted, but otherwise a very good, crisp and sound copy in the pictorial dust-jacket – the jacket price-clipped, with some very light wear, a touch of tanning, and a tiny inked date on rear panel, but otherwise also very good. Small bookseller’s label of Alberts Bookshop of Perth on front pastedown.

£100

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 32059 – or simply click on the button

London : William Heinemann, 1920. First edition : the first issue, in black boards with white lettering. Loosely inserted is a single-page signed autograph letter from Arlen, on his Stanhope Place notepaper, charmingly postponing a luncheon engagement. A publisher’s presentation copy of his first book, blind-stamped as such on the title-page. “Who is Michael Arlen? In a little pocketable volume ... we have a highly amusing and in many respects a penetrating criticism of certain phases of life in London ... a delicious little essay ... I don’t know quite whether to believe in Michael – whether he is really an Armenian or a detached Englishman looking at London with the eyes of an artistic nomad. True, his outlook is un-English, but his familiarity with the poetic and artistic gods of our generation, and with some of our most recondite literary traditions, makes me suspicious” (London Chronicle, 15th January 1920).
Foolscap 8vo (18cm). [xii],(178),[ii]pp. Illustrations by Michel Sevier (1886-1941). Original boards, decorated and lettered in white, and blocked in blind on rear cover; a touch of wear to extremities; front joint tender and slightly split; text just lightly tanned, but a good copy of a very fragile production. Later gift inscription dated 1931.

£200

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46670 – or simply click on the button

London : Collins, 1947. First edition. Armstrong’s stirring, magnificent, once best-selling and now unjustly forgotten novel – “The story of an English family, set against the background of Lancashire before, during and after the American Civil War ... the real spirit of the book lies in the drama of the self-imposed sufferings of the Lancashire people, who deliberately chose starvation rather than ... back the Southern States of America in their fight to maintain slavery. This attitude was described by Lincoln as ‘sublime Christian heroism’ ... principles were held more precious than national commercial gain” (The Sphere, 14th June 1947).
Demy 8vo (22cm). 928pp. Original red-pink cloth, lettered in black; just lightly bruised, but otherwise a very good copy in the pictorial dust-jacket – the jacket with minor repair and reinforcement at head and tail, but also very good.

SOLD

London : Secker & Warburg, (1971). First edition. Signed by multiple award-winning John Banville on the title-page — loosely inserted is a 2008 ticket for “An Evening with John Banville”, the occasion at which the book was signed. Night Spawn, Night’s Pawn, Knight’s Pawn — his sometimes disavowed first novel, a fantasy political thriller of sorts set on a Greek island and then in Athens — “crotchety, posturing, absurdly pretentious”, in his own words, but for at least one online commentator, “I am left stunned. I think I have been bludgeoned by beauty”.
Post 8vo (21cm). (224)pp. Original maroon boards, lettered in gilt; just a hint of bruising, but a very good, clean and bright copy in the Mike Dempsey dust-jacket, equally very good.

£400

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44931 — or simply click on the button

London : Picador, (2006). First edition. “It was not the dead that seemed to Quirke uncanny but the living” - the first of Banville’s addictive Quirke series, written initially under his “Benjamin Black” pseudonym - we meet the pathologist in the morgue long after midnight in 1950s Dublin. “It’s soaked in my recollections. It is more connected to the circumstances of my life than my Banville books” (John Banville).
Demy 8vo (23cm). [viii],(390),[ii]pp. Original black boards, lettered in silver; a very good copy indeed in the dust-jacket - the jacket also very good indeed.

£50

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46042 – or simply click on the button

London : Jonathan Cape, (1980). First edition. Signed by Julian Barnes on the title-page. His first novel – a passage to adulthood and marriage in Betjeman’s Metroland, via a spell in Paris with the exciting Annick during les événements of 1968. Filmed in 1997 with Christian Bale and Emily Watson.
Post 8vo (21cm). 176pp. Original grey boards, blocked and lettered in silver; sliver of sunning at foot, but otherwise a very good, bright, clean and sound copy in an equally very good dust-jacket – a design by Craig Dodd – the jacket price-clipped by the publisher and with the revised price (£6.50) over-sticker.

£400

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44127 – or simply click on the button

London : André Deutsch, (1955). First edition. Inscribed at length and signed by Fred Bason. Further thoughts of the name-dropping Cockney book-runner, edited and introduced by Michael Sadleir (1888-1957). Portrait frontispiece by Nicolas Bentley. “Practically demands to be read at one sitting, and enjoyed for its sometimes disingenuous gems. It is impossible not the find Mr. Bason engaging” (Vernon Fane in “The Sphere”, 10th December 1955). With Bason’s “Fred (Saturday Book) Bason” bookseller’s address label on rear free endpaper.
Crown 8vo (20cm). 184pp. Portrait. Original red cloth, blocked and lettered in gilt; endpapers a little tanned; some creasing to first and last leaves, but otherwise a very good and bright copy in the Len Deighton dust-jacket, on which Bason has neatly inscribed “Edited by Michael Sadleir” on the front panel – the jacket also very good.

£50

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46406 – or simply click on the button

London : William Heinemann, 1913. First edition. Edwardian society dissected and made playful in an inspired sequence of Max caricatures – Asquith, Balfour, Sir Edward Carson, Caruso, Roger Fry, Lloyd George, George Grossmith, Thomas Hardy (see illustration), John Masefield, George Moore, Auguste Rodin, Lord Rosebery, George Bernard Shaw, etc.
Crown 4to (24cm). (viii),[4],2,[ii]pp – forty-eight tipped in plates and two full-page illustrations. Original green pictorial cloth gilt in a Beerbohm design; just a hint of rubbing and a touch of bruising, but a very good copy. Small decorative bookplate of Richard Thompson.

£100

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45354 – or simply click on the button

London : Folio Society, 1966. First edition to include Beerbohm’s own illustrations, taken from his own personal copy of the book, heavily illustrated and annotated, and now at the University of Tulsa. This edition includes ten of the most resonant of his images – portraits on the endpapers and eight coloured plates. Further Beerbohm illustrations were not to appear until 1985. “A diaphanous novel possessed of a delayed explosive charge that detonates today with surprising power ... the finest, and darkest, kind of satire: as intoxicating as champagne, as addictive as morphine, and as lethal as prussic acid” (Robert McCrum).
Demy 8vo (211 x 132mm). 228pp. Eight coloured plates. Bound in a distinguished designer binding by Ann Thornton of maroon morocco, with grey corner insets, ruled and lettered in gilt; all edges gilt; an excellent copy in its own clamshell box.

SOLD

London : Edward Arnold, 1898. First edition. “The most amazing stories a man ever dared to tell” (publisher’s announcement in the St. James’s Gazette, 22nd December 1898). Despite a similarity in appearance to the author’s and illustrator’s earlier “Bad Child’s Book of Beasts”, the publishers felt it necessary to flag up in the same announcement that “This is not a child’s picture-book” – more of a rasping satire on imperial ambition, and in particular “the sensational explorer, the commercial empire-builder, and cosmopolitan traveller who paints the map red” (Spectator).
Foolscap 4to (22cm). 80pp. Illustrations throughout by B. T. B. – Lord Ian Basil Gawaine Temple Blackwood (1870-1917). Original buckram-backed pictorial boards; some inevitable light wear and fingering; endpapers tanned, but a good copy of a vulnerable item. Pencilled ownership of D. Pye-Smith – Desmond Edward Pye-Smith (1887-1974), bookseller and publisher – and later pictorial bookplate of J. Martin.

£50

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46445 – or simply click on the button

New York : Century Co., 1915. First edition. A handsomely illustrated history of the French Revolution, in six parts, differing in tone from Belloc’s earlier and more formal history published in 1911. The present version was never published in the UK.
Demy 8vo (225 x 150mm). [vi],(302)pp. Colour frontispiece. Plates. Portraits. Bound in a handsome contemporary half red morocco, banded and gilt; top edge gilt; marbled sides and endpapers; a few minor signs of age and use; occasional mild spotting and browning, but overall a very good copy. With the pictorial bookplate of the collector Roy McWilliams.

£125

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 43647 – or simply click on the button

London : Michael Joseph, (1950). First edition. “Mr Bentley begins his second thriller on the River, under the shadow of Big Ben, and takes us on to one of the less reputable night clubs to meet Victor Skinner, hero of the last war turned proprietor; ‘Snow’ White, his sinister young assistant; and lovely Rose, a hostess with a conscience ... What a difference the mere choice of words can make – here is blood-and-thunder refined by wit and elegance of phrase” (Liverpool Evening Post, 29th November 1950). Filmed by Vernon Sewell in 1953 with Dermot Walsh, Sydney Tafler and Mary Germaine, with scenes set in a Charing Cross Road bookshop.
Crown 8vo (20cm). 254,[ii]pp. Original black cloth, blocked and lettered in silver; endpapers lightly tanned, but a very good, bright and sound copy in the Patrick Gierth dust-jacket, and the rare promotional “The new Nicholas Bentley thriller for Christmas” wraparound band – both also very good.

£100

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46610 – or simply click on the button

London : Putnam & Co., (1942). First edition in English of “Vinter-Eventyr” – a collection of eleven short stories on themes suggested by occupied Denmark – themes of courage and resilience, pride and shame, freedom and death, etc. Includes “The Invincible Slave Owners”, “The Heroine”, “Sorrow-Acre”, etc. “All the greatest works of art are allegorical in the sense that they imply more than they state, and illuminate human nature everywhere” (L. P. Hartley reviewing the book in “The Sketch”, 21st April 1943).
Post 8vo (21cm). 290,[ii]pp. Original red cloth, lettered in gilt; some faint spotting of edges, but a very good, bright and sound copy in the Robin Darwin dust-jacket – the jacket price-clipped, a touch darkened and slightly spotted, but with only very minor wear, a couple of nicks and single short tear, and also very good, particularly for a book produced under wartime conditions. Contemporary ownership inscription of Frances Christie.

£200

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45602 – or simply click on the button

London : Richards Press, (1940). First edition. “Mr. Bramah records the honey-tongued raconteur’s latest stories. They have all the inimitable qualities of the earlier collections ... the most delicate wit, and the shrewdest of observations on human life” (Daily News, 20th March 1940). “Needs no description ... as good as ever, and Mr. Bramah’s genius with the idiom has not failed” (Illustrated London News, 20th April 1940). The last of the five collections of Kai Lung stories published in Bramah’s lifetime – a series begun forty years earlier.
Crown 8vo (20cm). 320 + 16pp publisher’s catalogue. Original mustard cloth, lettered and decorated in black; endpapers slightly tanned, but a very good, bright and sound copy indeed in the dust-jacket by Harold Hookway Cowles (1896-1987) – the jacket also very good, with just minor wear at head, a couple of nicks and short tears to folds, with a suggestion of mild creasing and a few faint marks to the rear panel. Small label of Brewers Bookshop, Hong Kong, attached to rear pastedown.

£250

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45606 – or simply click on the button

London : Macmillan & Co., [1941]. First edition. Heart-breaking personal essays on aspects of London “bombed, burned and battered”, illustrated with poignant and evocative photographs of the Blitz.
Crown 8vo (20cm). (xviii),(302)pp. Eight plates. Original red cloth, lettered in gilt; a few tiny patches of fading where the jacket is chipped; endpapers very lightly tanned; first few leaves very slightly creased, but otherwise a very good copy in the striking dust-jacket by the poster artist G. R. Morris – lightly tanned, a little worn, nicked and slightly chipped, with an unobtrusive tear to lower panel. Contemporary ownership inscription dated April 1941.

£50

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 42260 – or simply click on the button

London : William Heinemann, (1968). First edition. “Probably the finest ear of our times” (The Observer) – Burgess with the sequel to “Inside Mr Enderby”, published in 1963 under the pseudonym of “Joseph Kell”. “Technically, Mr. Burgess is perhaps the most accomplished novelist writing in English today” (The Tablet).
Crown 8vo (20cm). [viii],(243),[ii],[3]pp. Original brown boards, lettered in gilt; some spotting of edges, but otherwise a very good copy in the Bruce Macdonald dust-jacket – the jacket just lightly used and slightly tanned, but also very good. Contemporary 1968 ownership inscription of the author and editor Justin Beecham Wintle, with an associated inscription on rear free endpaper.

£50

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46380 – or simply click on the button

New York : Hyperion, (1992). First edition. Signed by James Lee Burke on the half-title. “Dave Robicheaux finds himself entangled with the Sonnier family, childhood friends whose lives have been unalterably shaped by abusive parents” – oilman Weldon Sonnier is bound to the CIA, the Mob, and the Klan. “No-one captures Louisiana culture as well as James Lee Burke ... it is also possible that no one writes better detective novels” (Washington Post).
Medium 8vo (25cm). [x],(306),[iv]pp. Original cloth-backed boards; mild spotting of top edge, but otherwise a sparkling copy in a pristine dust-jacket.

£50

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 42297 – or simply click on the button

London : Constable & Co., (1932). First edition. Burke in familiar territory in the dark lanes and byways of East End London – dismissing the stereotypes and pointing up the colour, the people, the river and the commerce – the book brought magnificently to life by the atmospheric lithographs of the bohemian Pearl Binder (1904-1990), later Lady Polly Elwyn-Jones – with sketches from her studio, studies of Aldgate, Wapping, Brick Lane, etc.
Demy 8vo (23cm). (viii),(164),[iv]pp. Sixteen plates. Smaller illustrations in text. Original blue cloth, lettered in gilt; a few spots, mainly to edges; frontispiece just slightly chipped, but otherwise a very good copy in the striking dust-jacket – a pictorial monochrome design of the East End at night by Binder, lettered in bright pink – the jacket just a little worn and slightly frayed, with a short repaired tear, but a rare and welcome survival, featuring an illustration not included in the book. Contemporary (1934) ownership inscription of Kate M. Woodbridge.

£200

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45816 – or simply click on the button

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

£100

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

London : Eyre & Spottiswoode, (1971). First edition. The recipient of the first ever Whitbread Novel of the Year award, her earlier novel “A Slanting Light” having taken the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1963. A novel framed around the making of a documentary on a forgotten Jewish poet (said to be based on Isaac Rosenberg). “We see not only human nature, often treacherous and fallible in action, but a panoramic view of English and Jewish life on many levels of society over the last fifty years”. The present copy is inscribed by the author on the title-page, “To Martyn with warmest good wishes and thanks for everything, Gerda” — the recipient being bookseller Martyn Goff (1923-2015), architect of the Bedford Square Book Bang held that summer, and soon to become the driving force behind the Booker Prize.
Demy 8vo (23cm). (430),[ii]pp. Original blue boards, lettered in silver; slight bruise at foot; some spotting of edges, but otherwise a very good copy in the purple dust-jacket — the jacket lightly sunned, with a hint of tanning, some mild edge-wear and a couple of slight scuffs, but still complete, bright and also very good.

SOLD

London : George Newnes, (1924). First edition. Fourteen William stories, including “William and Photography”, “William and the Black Cat”, “William the Showman”, “William Enters Politics”, etc.
Crown 8vo (19cm). [iv],250,[ii]pp – including integral front endpapers. Illustrations, some full-page, by Thomas Henry. Original red cloth, lettered in black; faint crease to lower cover; a few edge-spots, but overall a very good, fresh and sound copy. Neat gift inscription dated May 1924.

£75

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44461 – or simply click on the button

London : Jonathan Cape, (1978). First edition. “A densely plotted story of police work in a German-occupied Britain in 1941 ... Historical realism, intrigue, suspense, violence, love and atmosphere are all woven into what may well be hailed as the author’s most important book so far” (Kent Evening Post, 20th October 1978).
Demy 8vo (23cm). (350),[ii]pp. Original black boards, blocked and lettered in silver; top edge pink; tiny scuff to front board; a few faint marks, but a very good copy in the Raymond Hawkey dust-jacket – the jacket just a touch sunned, but also very good.

£50

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46394 – or simply click on the button

London : Diprose & Bateman / Diprose, Bateman & Co., 1868-1876. First edition : the desirable later issue of about 1880, with the preliminaries of the second volume reset to include a nineteen-page memoir of the recently deceased author John Diprose by John Baker Hopkins (1830-1888) – “He knew everybody in St. Clement Danes, and everybody in St. Clement Danes knew him”. Diprose, local bookseller, “long known as a publisher, a printer and a dabbler in literature in that historical and important locality ... tells us all about St. Clement’s Danes: its antiquities, buildings, streets, courts, lanes and alleys; the nobility of wit, art and fashion that inhabited them in the olden time; and the thieves, highwaymen, debauchees, demireps, drabs and disgraceful dregs of pauperism and crime who succeeded them” (Weekly Dispatch, 2nd January 1869).
Two volumes. Foolscap 4to (22cm). iv,332,[ii], errata slip; (xxvi),[ii],(388)pp. Maps, plates (some folding), portraits, illustrations. Original decorative cloth gilt over bevelled boards; all edges gilt; just a touch sunned; some very slight wear to extremities; a few slight creases, but a very good and bright set of a handsome production.

£200

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46677 – or simply click on the button

London : Ward, Lock & Co., (1938). First edition. Detective-Sergeant Frank Osborne of the CID waits for his girl on the corner of Jermyn Street – but his attention is distracted by the blonde in white and her red hat. “Another first-rate crime story, with real, flesh and blood characters in it. The plot is complicated, but there is nothing inherently improbable ... with realistic scenes of hustle and tea-drinking at Scotland Yard” (Saturday Review, 19th March 1938).
Crown 8vo (20cm). 288pp. Original tan cloth, lettered in brown; mild creasing to spine; some spotting to edges and prelims, but otherwise a very good copy.

£50

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 40635 – or simply click on the button

London : Macmillan & Co., 1908. First edition. Twenty-three essays and poems on bookish themes – Some Books and their Associations; The Passionate Printer; The Happy Printer; Two Modern Illustrators (Kate Greenaway and Hugh Thomson); Samuel Rogers; Samuel Pepys; Thackeray’s Esmond; Milton; Fresh Facts about Fielding, etc. “To appreciate the book, for itself, lock, stock and barrel – or, rather, binding, matter, and print – it is good to feed a little on the literary food of Austin Dobson ... It is a pleasure reflected and enjoyed. Mr Dobson’s affection for books is breathed from this volume” (Woolwich Gazette, 13th November 1908).
Post 8vo (204 x 132mm). xii,232pp. Frontispiece and twelve plates – five by Kate Greenaway, the remainder by Hugh Thomson; bound in a near contemporary handsome half blue crushed morocco, banded and gilt; by Sangorski & Sutcliffe; silk headbands; top edge gilt; some mild rubbing and fading; endpapers lightly tanned at edges, but otherwise a very good copy of an attractive production. Small book-seller’s label of W. & G. Foyle on rear paste-down.

£125

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45808 – or simply click on the button

London : Rupert Hart-Davis, 1961. First edition. Durrell in Patagonia and elsewhere in Argentina. Penguins, elephant seals, guanocos, armadillos and agoutis, rheas, macaws and parrots, seriemas, and “ingenuity in dealing with such diverse mammals as a half-starved ocelot and a peccary with pneumonia, to say nothing of his crazy and unsuccessful attempt to catch a vampire bat with his own frozen toe as bait” – “Enjoy Mr. Durrell’s exquisite and gently humorous approach to the animal kingdom, as well as his appreciation of human beings and his faultless prose ... Do not on any account miss this book” (E. D. O’Brien in the Illustrated London News, 4th November 1961).
Demy 8vo (23cm). (236)pp. Over thirty charming illustrations by Ralph Thomas. Original tan boards, lettered in silver; a very good copy in the Ralph Thomas dust-jacket – the jacket price-clipped and with some light repair and reinforcement at head and tail, but otherwise also very good.

£50

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46693 – or simply click on the button

London : Collins, 1968. First edition. “Rosy, the elephant bequeathed to Adrian Rookwhistle by a reprobate relative, turned out to be a handful: not alone because of her size but also because of her fondness for strong drink” – an “almost true story” from Durrell. The film rights were acquired by Columbia Pictures, and it was reported in The Bookseller (23rd December 1967) that “Casting is under way – with much excitement in the animal world”.
Post 8vo (21cm). (256)pp. Original red weave boards, ruled and lettered in gilt; a very good copy in the Jack Larkin dust-jacket – the jacket price-clipped, but with only minimal wear and also very good. Contemporary ownership inscription partially hidden under the front flap.

£50

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46686 – or simply click on the button

London : Faber & Faber, (1958). First edition. “As for sport (said Antrobus), the very word makes me uneasy. I’ve never believed in its healing power. Once I was forced to referee a match between H.M.S. Threadbare and the French Fleet which resulted in my nearly being dismembered”. Ten Antrobus tales of diplomatic life, each neatly captured in a full-page Nicolas Bentley illustration.
Post 8vo (21cm). 94,[ii]pp. Illustrations and decorative chapter headings by Bentley. Original turquoise cloth, lettered in yellow; a single tiny edge-spot, but otherwise a very good, clean and sound copy in the Bentley dust-jacket – the jacket also very good.

£75

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46045 – or simply click on the button

Edinburgh : Privately Printed at the Tragara Press, (1974). First edition : limited to 115 numbered copies, all hand-printed. “Certain Landfalls”, “Postmark”, “Picture of Geishas”, and “A Patch of Dust” – here in an outstanding designer binding by multiple prize-winning bookbinder, Dominic Riley.
Royal 8vo (240 x 141mm). [ii],[10],[ii],[2]pp. Bound, retaining the original paper wrappers, in a 2003 Dominic Riley binding of red morocco, with stripes of tans, blacks and greys, with black lettering; charcoal top edge, with flicks of gilt; an excellent copy, complete with its decorated clamshell cloth box.

£2,000

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 19201 – or simply click on the button

London : Jonathan Cape, (1977). First edition. Partly autobiographical and described by Fowles himself as “an exploration of what it is to be English” – “It is probably the most stylish, well-written and genuinely distinguished novel of the year ... a rich, powerful, beautiful book that will greatly enhance Fowles’ reputation” (Michael Unger, Liverpool Daily Post, 8th October 1977). His “best book so far ... the only writer in English who has the power, range, knowledge and wisdom of a Tolstoy or James” (Saturday Review).
Post 8vo (21cm). 704pp. Original brown boards, ruled, blocked and lettered in gilt; top edge blue; a very good copy indeed – bright, clean, and sound – in the Mon Mohan dust-jacket – the jacket also very good indeed.

£50

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46397 – or simply click on the button

London : William Heinemann, (1917). First edition. “A great book ... It is indeed a red-letter day for the reviewer when such a book comes his way” (Pall Mall Gazette). Love, freedom, betrayal – a woman’s life through the Galsworthy mirror. “He strikes the note of impending doom all through; and the dedication of his story to Mr Thomas Hardy may be taken as a forewarning of a double dose of relentless destiny” (The Scotsman, 3rd September 1917).
Crown 8vo (20cm). [vi],438,(4)pp. Original red cloth, lettered in gilt and blind, blocked on rear cover in blind; just a hint of rubbing and faint wear; outer leaves lightly tanned; a few edge spots, but overall a very good copy of an uncommon title.

£75

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46440 – or simply click on the button

London : William Heinemann, 1931. First edition : [one of 1,000 copies]. A collection of forty-five poems, including “Thief”, “Castle”, “Bay of Naples”, “To the Reader over my Shoulder”, “Dragons”, “The Age of Certainty”, etc. “It must also be remarked about Mr. Graves that though a modern of the moderns, and for all his exclusiveness, there is nothing freakish in his technique. The above extract, for example, might quite well have come out of Shakespeare” (Liverpool Daily Post, 4th March 1931).
Post 8vo (21cm). [xii],(90),[ii]pp. Original maroon cloth, overprinted in a white cobbled design [by William Nicholson]; mauve paper labels, printed in black, on spine and upper cover; a few faint edge-spots, but a very good, crisp and sound copy, with the spare title-label tipped in at rear. With the ownership inscription of Clare Pakenham.

£50

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46046 – or simply click on the button

London : Cassell & Co., (1946). First edition. A collection of forty poems, printed at the Curwen Press. Includes “Dawn Bombardment”, “The Worms of History”, “The Twelve Days of Christmas”, etc. – “some of them very charming; some delightfully neat and witty; and all provocative of thought” (Daily News, 27th February 1946).
Crown 8vo (20cm). [viii],40pp. Original turquoise cloth, ruled and lettered in gilt; a few edge-spots, but a very good and bright copy in the original turquoise dust-jacket, printed in black – just lightly rubbed and faintly sunned at spine, but also very good.

£50

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46441 – or simply click on the button

London : Richard Bentley, 1843. First edition. Sam Slick arrives in England in the unexpected guise of an Attaché to the American Legation at the Court of St. James. A sharp satire on English life by the first Canadian international best-selling author – “If our old friend, Sam Slick, be not the very wittiest person in the world, he is assuredly one of the most humorous. He is one of the few whose humour hath always point and purpose in it, and is ‘near about’ the only Yankee we have ever made acquaintance with who succeeded in warming us to feelings of hearty trustful cordiality” (Morning Post, 8th August 1843).
Two volumes. Post 8vo (193 x 110mm). vi,(278); vi,(290)pp. Bound, without half-titles, in a smart contemporary half tan calf, banded and gilt; contrasting red and green labels; marbled sides; silk ribbons; sprinkled edges; a little rubbed, marked, and slightly scuffed; a few spots, a couple of press creases, but still overall a very good copy. Armorial bookplates and ownership inscriptions of the well-to-do barrister, Justice of the Peace, and Deputy Lieutenant, Sir Mervyn Lloyd Peel (1856-1929) of Danyrallt.

£200

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 43128 – or simply click on the button

London : Faber & Faber, (1946). First edition. “Of Cyril Hare’s detective stories my only complaint is, that they are too infrequent: he is a writer for the fastidious, combining legal cool thinking with a muffled compassion for human nature ... combines an amusing satire on wartime control (he calls it the Pin Control) with a watertight plot ... its personnel, thrown on their own resources, devise a grim joke which has a still grimmer end” (Elizabeth Bowen in The Tatler, 29th May 1946).
Crown 8vo (20cm). (184)pp. Original red cloth, lettered in gilt; tiny mark to spine; rear endpaper starting; a few edge spots, but a good and still bright copy in the dust-jacket – the jacket a little dusty, with a faint splash-mark, some minor wear and a few short tears, but sill presentable and a welcome survival. Neat contemporary ownership inscription of Muriel Laird.

SOLD

London : Faber & Faber, (1984). First edition : the first issue, with the integral endpapers. One of the most celebrated collections of poems of modern times – over forty poems from Heaney at the height of his powers. “Many of these poems have a tough rind as though the author knew for his purposes deferred comprehension was better than instant. Obliquity suits him. Heaney’s talent, a prodigious one, is exfoliating and augmenting here” (Richard Ellman).
Post 8vo (21cm). (124),[iv] – including integral endpapers. Original black boards, ruled and lettered in gilt; a very good copy indeed – bright, clean and sound, in an equally unflawed dust-jacket.

£200

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46657 – or simply click on the button

London : Faber & Faber, (1996). First edition. Heaney’s first post-Nobel collection of poems and 1996 Whitbread winner – some forty poems, including “The Rain Stick”, “Poet’s Chair”, “At the Wellhead”, etc. “Anyone who reads poetry has reason to rejoice at living in the age when Seamus Heaney is writing” (Richard Tillinghast in the New York Times Book Review).
Demy 8vo (23cm). [x],70pp. Original green boards, lettered in gilt; a very good copy indeed in the dust-jacket – the jacket equally very good.

£100

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46674 – or simply click on the button

London : John Murray, (2016). First edition. The third in the Jackson Lamb Slow Horses series – Catherine Standish is inexplicably abducted from Aldersgate, River Cartwright is given an ultimatum, and then a body is dumped outside a fashionable restaurant where a well-known floppy-haired politician is lunching and eyeing up a red-haired waitress.
Medium 8vo (25cm). [vi],361,[i]pp. Original black boards, lettered in silver; just a hint of bruising, but a very good copy in the London skyline dust-jacket by Keenan – the jacket very slightly sunned, but also very good.

£150

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46696 – or simply click on the button

London : Collins for The Crime Club, (1971). First edition. “Reginald Hill is as much a real novelist as he is a thriller writer ... he insists on more than the superficial and creates real people ... two men on a walking holiday in the Lake District are accused of raping and murdering two girls. One man escapes the police to prove his innocence, but his most pressing need is to survive among the fells and crags” (Yorkshire Post, 24th June 1971).
Post 8vo (21cm). 192pp. Original red boards, blocked and lettered in gilt; just a hint of bruising; some spotting of edges and prelims, but otherwise a very good copy of a difficult early title in the Margaret Murray dust-jacket – the jacket just a little worn at foot and with a few creases to the rear panel, but also very good.

£75

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46673 – or simply click on the button

London : Hamish Hamilton, (1983). First edition. “It was a Monday afternoon in November and already growing dark, not because of the lateness of the hour – it was barely three o’clock – but because of the fog, the thickest of London pea-soupers, which had hemmed us in on all sides since dawn – if indeed there had been a dawn” – Hill’s celebrated gothic horror, well-known in its adaptations for stage, screen and radio, and as a school set text for those not old enough to remember pea-soupers.
Medium 8vo (24cm). [x],160,[vi]pp. Illustrations by John Lawrence. Original olive boards, blocked and lettered in gilt; a touch of sunning, but a very good, clean and bright copy in the Lawrence dust-jacket – the jacket also with a hint of sunning, but also very good.

£250

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46688 – or simply click on the button

London : Victor Gollancz, 1948. First edition. “A bewildering number of bodies ... a queer family that procreates in triplets ... Appleby, retired Yard man, urbanely says, ‘A beautiful murder’, and solves the whole riddle in a night” (Hull Daily Mail, 27th March 1948).
Crown 8vo (19cm). 208pp. Original blue cloth, lettered in gilt; spine lettering a touch dulled; top edge a little spotted; endpapers lightly tanned but overall a very good, clean and sound copy in the dust-jacket – the jacket slightly chipped at head and a little tanned, with a handful of faint marks and spots but also very good.

£50

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46154 – or simply click on the button

London : Victor Gollancz, 1951. First edition. Regarded as one of his three best books – “Most of the excitement centres round a mysterious house, surrounded by a high wall, in the vicinity of Oxford, and also – of all places – in the Bodleian Library ... There is a hunt for a missing document, hunts for missing people, and as much shooting as in an American gangster story” (Western Evening Herald, 2nd October 1951).
Crown 8vo (20cm). 304pp. Original red-pink cloth, lettered in black; just a touch bruised; top edge lightly spotted; very slight spotting to final few leaves and rear free endpaper, but otherwise a very good copy in the dust-jacket – the jacket with minor wear and a few slight marks, but also very good.

£50

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46156 – or simply click on the button

London : Richard Bentley & Son, 1884. First edition : just 625 sets were printed, of which only 425 were initially sent for binding. “Meadow and brook, wheat-fields and hills – a simple landscape, yet such as is not to be surpassed by any on earth. A common landscape – there are hundreds such in England – yet beyond compare. There are none like it elsewhere in the wide world” – Jefferies in his element in his native Wiltshire, with a novel characterised as “a sad little episode of cottage life, very tragic in its termination” (Reading Mercury, 20th September 1884). “Human nature, especially rustic human nature, has seldom if ever had a closer student or a more picturesque exponent” (The Graphic, 20th September 1884).
Two volumes. Crown 8vo (20cm). [ii],296; [ii],(328)pp. Decorative initials, head and tailpieces. Original green pebble-grain cloth, ruled and lettered in gilt; just a hint of rubbing and bruising; some spotting, mainly of edges and prelims, but a very good, bright and sound set.

£500

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45605 – or simply click on the button

London : Richard Bentley, 1843 [but 1842]. First edition. “It gives us the home, private and personal memoirs of royalty from William III and his Queen Mary to George II; and lets us into the stories of their courtly circles, and their recreations when released from the miseries of ceremony and etiquette ... having once begun with them, it will be found a difficult matter to lay them down until the word finis stares the untired reader in the face ... altogether one of the most entertaining works with which our lighter literature has ever been adorned” (The Globe, 7th January 1843). With individual chapters on the monarchs, consorts, mistresses, children, and other notables, including the Dukes of Marlborough and Buckingham, Viscount Bolingbroke, Francis Atterbury, Abigail Masham, Robert Harley, Beau Fielding, the Earl of Chesterfield, Lady Mary Wortley Montague, Mary Bellenden, Sir Robert Walpole, George Bubb Doddington, etc.
Three volumes. Demy 8vo (217 x 131mm). xx,496; xx,(442); (xviii),460pp. Engraved portrait frontispieces. Bound, without the half-title to vol.iii, in a handsome later half red calf, banded and gilt; black title-labels; marbled boards, endpapers and edges; some minor rubbing and slight scuffing, but a very good, clean and sound set. With the armorial bookplate in each volume of Laurence Currie (1867-1934), banker, director of railway and insurance companies, member of the Council of India and of the Royal Commission on University Education in London, and author of a book on Napoleon and his marshals.

£200

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46655 – or simply click on the button

New York : Grossman Publishers, 1971. First edition. A delightful sequence of sixty-six photographs of books and people reading from the Hungarian master photographer, the son of a Budapest bookseller — photographs from throughout his career — Hungary in 1915; Paris in the 1920s, 1930s, and again in the 1960s; New York from the 1930s to 1970; Connecticut in the 1950s; Buenos Aires in 1962; New Orleans in 1966; Japan in 1968, etc.
Foolscap 4to (22cm). [64]pp. Illustrations throughout. Original white boards, ruled and lettered in black; tiny sliver of tanning to foot, but a very good copy indeed in the Jacqueline Schuman designed jacket — price-clipped and just faintly tanned at spine — but without the yellowing usually encountered, and also very good. Gift inscription on half-title from Jan to her Mom — “you taught me much more than any book could ever say”.

SOLD

London : Victor Gollancz, 1987. First edition. His first novel – young Englishman trapped in Tokyo, an enforced marriage, and a collision with the world of Japanese organised crime. Winner of Somerset Maugham and Betty Trask awards. “This is a fine book, its comedy nicely underplayed, making the world seem big and frightening after reading it, and the business of crossing frontiers only for the brave” (Sunday Telegraph, 22nd February 1987).
Demy 8vo (23cm). [iv],(156)pp. Original green boards, lettered in gilt; slight production flaw to pp.143-48, but otherwise a very good, crisp and sound copy in the dust-jacket – the jacket just lightly sunned to spine, but also very good.

£50

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44055 – or simply click on the button

London : Jonathan Cape, (1955). First edition : the trade issue. Lawrence of Arabia on his time spent pseudonymously in the R.A.F. – “I wrote it tightly, because our clothes are so tight, and our lives so tight in the service. There is no freedom of conduct at all ... I wanted to bring out the apartness of us”.
Crown 4to (26cm). [ii],206pp. Original blue buckram, blocked in gilt and blind, and lettered in gilt; top edge blue; some spotting of endpapers, but otherwise a very good, bright and sound copy in the dust-jacket – the jacket with a few faint marks, but also very good.

£100

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46446 – or simply click on the button

London : Weidenfeld & Nicolson, (2001). First edition. Signed by John Lawton on the title-page. London in the Spring of 1941 – German spy, American captain, Cockney policeman, his precocious daughter – and Sergeant Troy of the Yard. “Wonderfully captures the atmosphere of wartime London ... original and entertaining” (Robert Harris). “One of the most entertaining thrillers I have read in years” (Sunday Telegraph).
Medium 8vo (25cm). [x],322,[iv]pp. Original brown boards, lettered in gilt; a very good, bright, clean and sound copy in the dust-jacket – the jacket just a touch sunned, but otherwise also very good.

£100

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46466 – or simply click on the button

London : Weidenfeld & Nicolson, (2005). First edition. London in 1959 – still scarred by war – corruption in rebuilding – new breeds of Londoner – Kray-like thugs brought up in wartime and now merciless – and Troy’s past come back to haunt him. “A sublimely elegant historical novelist, as addictive as crack” (Daily Telegraph).
Medium 8vo (25cm). [viii],(344)pp. Original black boards, lettered in silver; a hint of bruising at foot, but otherwise a very good, bright, sound and clean copy in the dust-jacket – the jacket just a touch sunned, but also very good.

£50

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46468 – or simply click on the button

London : Chatto & Windus, 1936. First edition. “The essence of her story lies in the reaction of two respectable but unhappy married couples to the intoxicating stimulus of care-free and self-possessed youth, personified by a brother and sister, Hugh and Clare, who descend upon a dreary industrial town in the North, and sow unrest in their train” (Yorkshire Post, 27th August 1930). “I think Rosamond Lehmann is the best of the younger generation of English novelists ... at the head of the world of fiction that derives on the female side from Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield and on the male side from Joyce and Lawrence” (Hugh Walpole).
Crown 8vo (20cm). [xii],318,[ii]pp. Original mustard cloth, lettered and decorated in blue; some spotting of edges, but otherwise a very good copy in the jaunty dust-jacket – the jacket lightly worn at head and a little dulled at spine, but still very good. With the striking ex-libris label of Michael Howson on the front free endpaper.

£200

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46697 – or simply click on the button

London : Ward, Lock & Bowden, 1896. First edition in this form. His first novel having been banned in Russia, Le Queux dedicated his second to the Tzar – the sensational but highly sympathetic memoirs of a Jewish Russian nihilist activist. “That I have been compelled to bestow fictitious names upon the actors in these dramas, add and suppress certain incidents, and change the scene in more than one instance, is obvious; nevertheless, I anticipate that many will recognise in Anton Prèhznev’s stories solutions of more than one sensational mystery that has startled Europe”. Twelve of the fifteen extraordinary individual tales, many set in London, had earlier appeared in “Strange Tales of a Nihilist” (1892), but all have here been revised and to some extent re-written; two now appear under different titles, and three have been added, including “The Velvet Paw” – on a foggy December evening in London, Prèhznev is followed on to the underground at Temple tube station by a tall auburn-haired young woman, dressed all in black.
Crown 8vo (20cm). 320pp. Original green decorative pictorial cloth, lettered in gilt on spine, and blocked and lettered in red and black; lightly rubbed; endpapers a little tanned, but a very good copy of an uncommon title – most of the institutional copies being of the “colonial edition” in a plain binding. W. H. Smith & Son blind-stamp and contemporary (London 1896) ownership inscription of Stewart Foulis.

£200

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45450 – or simply click on the button

London : Chapman & Hall, 1845. First edition : in the more elaborate and earliest binding. Clearly modelled on Dickens’ treatment of social issues in his Christmas books, Lever tackles the Irish issue of absentee landlords – “a very pretty little volume ... dedicated to his children with a desire to inculcate this truth, ‘that prosperity has as many duties as adversity has sorrows’ ... painted with his customary force of genius and his usual glowing and effective colouring” (Liverpool Mail, 29th March 1845).
Pott 4to (18cm). [iv],(204)pp. Four etched plates, pictorial title, and wood-engraved illustrations by “Phiz” – Hablot Knight Browne (1815-1882). Original decorative green cloth, blocked in gilt and blind in a design of harps, shamrocks, etc.; all edges gilt; a touch sunned; a few slight marks; some spotting and browning, mainly to plates, but a very good, bright and sound copy.

SOLD

London : Secker & Warburg, (1963). First edition. A sometimes abrasive view of London and Londoners from behind the wheel of a London taxi. Levinson was not only a cab-driver of thirty years’ experience, but also a successful novelist, and a man with a full entry in the ODNB. Among the incidents recounted are his upbraiding of Winston Churchill for jumping the queue at Waterloo, and the woman he found naked when he walked in to collect her luggage. “Mr. Levinson pulls no punches. His book is revealing, provocative and amusing”.
Crown 8vo (19cm). (192)pp. Original blue boards, ruled and lettered in silver; tiny bruise at head; edges a little spotted, but otherwise a very good copy in the Helen Craig dust-jacket – the jacket lightly worn at extremities, with a couple of nicks, but also very good.

SOLD

London : Jonathan Cape, (1969). First British edition. An “essential companion” to “Under the Volcano” – Lowry’s return to the scene. Edited by Lowry’s widow, Margerie Bonner, and his first biographer, Douglas Day, from 700 pages of Lowry’s notes and drafts. “I welcome the chance to read these pages, which come from the draft-plan of another masterpiece” (Dominic Le Foe in The Illustrated London News, 12th July 1969).
Post 8vo (21cm). xviii,[2],(256)pp. Original black boards, blocked and lettered in gilt; top edge lilac; an unusually good copy, the book very good indeed, the jacket fresh, white, unworn and the lettering unfaded.

£50

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 42270 – or simply click on the button

London : Jonathan Cape, (2001). First edition. “McEwan’s finest achievement. Brilliant and utterly enthralling in its depiction of childhood, love and war, England and class” – filmed in 2007 with Keira Knightley, James McAvoy, etc.
Medium 8vo (24cm). (372),[iv]pp. Original black boards, lettered in silver; a very good, bright and clean copy in the Chris Frazer Smith photographic dust-jacket – the jacket also very good barring just a suggestion of creasing at head.

SOLD

London : MacGibbon & Kee, (1969). First collected edition of the celebrated London trilogy – the powerful MacInnes novels originally published separately between 1957 and 1960, and treating in full-on fashion the social phenomena of the era – the first wave of black immigration, the emergence of the teenager as an economic entity, and the eternal trinity of prostitutes, ponces and policemen – “themes of which no other contemporary novelist has yet shown himself properly aware ... No responsible novelist before Mr MacInnes had taken the trouble to find out” (from the introduction by Francis Wyndham).
Medium 8vo (24cm). [2],x,626,[ii]pp. Original grey canvas; red title-panel, blocked and lettered in gilt; top edge purple; a few faint marks and minor signs of age of use, but a good and sound copy in the Horace Ové dust-jacket – the jacket lightly worn, with a few short tears, a light patch of mild discolouration at head, and slight spotting to the flaps, but complete and striking still.

£50

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46259 – or simply click on the button

London : Macmillan & Co., 1893. A voluminous late Victorian publisher’s catalogue dated 1st November 1893 – over 200 pages of alphabetical entries from Abbey to Ziwet, giving authors, titles, editions, sizes and prices, with a table of sizes.
Demy 8vo (22cm). 206,[ii]pp. Original wrappers; a little rolled, marked and a touch dusty, but a good copy. No copy located in any major UK library.

£50

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46024 – or simply click on the button

London : Longman, Brown, Green & Longmans, 1843. First edition : the second issue, with the variant title. “A vigorous, dashing sketch of the prairies of California, the wildernesses of the Rocky Mountains, and the swamps of Texas” (Court Journal). Originally issued a little earlier as “Narrative of the Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet in California, Sonora and Western Texas”, Sadleir suggests that the book was relaunched with a more exciting title specifically for the gift-books for boys market. Scarce in either incarnation, Marryat’s novel, full of factual information drawn from (unacknowledged) contemporary sources and his own visit to the Americas, is perhaps the earliest children’s book with an American Wild West setting. It is certainly the first work of fiction to contain Mormon characters and remains an important source of information on the pre Gold Rush California of the 1830s.
Three volumes. Demy 12mo (195 x 115mm). viii,312; [ii],318; [ii],(300)pp. Folding lithographic map by William Lake of the Pacific coast and territories of the Shoshones, Umbiquas, Cayuses, Nez Perces, Flatheads, etc. Bound, without half-titles (if actually called for in this issue) and final imprint leaf in vol.ii, in a smart later (early twentieth-century) half tan calf, by Henry Young & Sons of Liverpool, banded and richly gilt; contrasting maroon and tan labels; marbled sides and endpapers; top edges gilt; a few minor marks, spots and small flaws, but a very good set. Sadleir 1586b. Wolff 4525a.

£500

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 39428 – or simply click on the button

London : William Heinemann, (1924). First edition. “A singularly interesting and well-written novel of breathless adventure ... the book is so well written, its adventures so abundant, that I would wish to end with unqualified praise and say that this should be, and will be, one of the books that all must read” (The Sphere, 8th November 1924).
Crown 8vo (20cm). [viii],332pp. Original blue cloth, ruled in blind and lettered in gilt; top edge blue; very lightly rubbed; endpapers a little tanned; edges and prelims somewhat spotted, but still a pleasant copy in the original pictorial dust-jacket – the jacket a little sunned, lightly worn, with some very shallow chipping, a couple of short repaired tears and a few tiny nicks, but still an uncommon and attractive survival.

£125

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45686 – or simply click on the button

New York : George H. Doran Co., (1925). First edition. Published a month earlier than the London edition and retaining a textual integrity which the British publication did not – two separate libel actions having necessitated changes in the names of characters in the latter, as well as the substitution of the fictional place-names of Tching-Yen, Pleasant Vale, and The Mount, for the real places of Hong Kong, Happy Valley, and The Peak. “Like many other of Mr. Maugham’s stories, the scene of his latest – and best – book is laid ‘East of Suez’. The theme, a loveless marriage and its disastrous aftermath, though old as the hills, is invested with modernity and freshness by means of a photographic realism” (Nottingham Journal, 21st May 1925). Filmed in 1934 (Greta Garbo), and in 2006 (Naomi Watts).
Crown 8vo (192 x 127mm). (290)pp. Bound in an attractive recent half red morocco, banded and gilt; a handful of minor marks and spots, but a very good copy.

£400

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45445 – or simply click on the button

London : Cassell & Co., (1929). First edition in English of “Climats” (1928) – a story of love and jealousy, a man and two women – “the familiar triangle in an unfamiliar construction” (The Graphic, 19th October 1929) – from a French author immensely popular in the English-speaking world in the interwar years. Translated by Dr Joseph Collins (1866-1950).
Crown 8vo (20cm). [iv],(314),[ii]pp. Original black cloth, ruled and lettered in gilt; just slightly bruised; edges spotted, but a very good copy in the original pictorial dust-jacket – lightly sunned, with a small repair at head and a little light wear, but also very good.

£50

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 43245 – or simply click on the button

London : Stanley Rivers & Co., [1870]. First edition. Highly entertaining sketches – studies in the London streets, sitting at a play, in a cab, sketches in court (with some particularly good varieties of witness), outsiders of society and their homes, afternoons in the park, life in London, housekeeping in Belgravia, Billingsgate in the early morning, etc. With illustrations by Sir William Schwenk Gilbert in his “Bab” mode, and others. “To many, especially those not so familiar with the scenes of the metropolis as its denizens, this will prove an amusing volume. It is abundantly illustrated, and some of the drawings are full of point and vigorous humour” (The Queen, 7th October 1871).
Crown 8vo (20cm). [viii],344pp. Numerous illustrations. Original brown cloth, blocked a lettered in gilt, and ruled in blind; lightly worn; slightly shaken; mild spotting of prelims, but a good copy of an uncommon book. Ownership initials on half-title.

SOLD

New York : Mysterious Press, (1985). First edition : the specially bound issue, limited to 300 numbered copies signed by Ed McBain. The book designed by Richard Oriolo. “The lady was extraordinarily naked ...” – so begins the novel as the Deaf Man taunts the police with mysterious messages.
Demy 8vo (22cm). [2],[x],250,[iv]pp. Original black cloth, blocked and lettered in silver; a few faint marks to top edge, but otherwise a very good bright and sound copy indeed in the original slip-case – the slip-case also very good indeed.

SOLD

New York : Gemini Smith / Playboy Press, (1971). First edition. The richly illustrated life and times of a much-banned author — writing, painting, California, Paris, childhood — “Today’s naked generation has learned nearly everything from him — everything, that is to say, except his bookishness, his capacity for recapturing innocence, his sense of wonder, his sense of words ... Miller talking his life instead of writing it (he has written it already) ... Durrell thinks that Miller’s lifework is the best confessional writing since Rousseau. He is probably right” (Anthony Burgess in the New York Times, 2nd January 1972).
Foolscap folio (32cm). (208)pp. Photographs, portraits and illustrations throughout, some in colour. Original navy cloth, lettered in gilt; a very good, bright and clean copy in the Bradley Smith / Nicole de Jurenev dust-jacket — the jacket also very good, with just very minor edge-wear.

£100

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45011 – or simply click on the button

London : Hamish Hamilton, (1956). First edition. The celebrated Alan Ross “U and Non-U” essay, with Nancy Mitford’s further thoughts, Evelyn Waugh’s reproof, further interventions from “Strix” and Christopher Sykes, a poem by John Betjeman, and illustrations by Osbert Lancaster.
Post 8vo (21cm). 114,[ii]pp. Illustrations. Original red weave boards, blocked and lettered on spine in silver; mild tanning of endpapers, but otherwise a very good copy in the original Osbert Lancaster dust-jacket – a design in pale blue, grey, black and white – the jacket just lightly worn, with some mild tanning and spotting on the rear panel, but also very good.

SOLD

London : André Deutsch, (1958). First edition. His second novel. An election farce in the smallest and most backward county in Trinidad – “his human comedy is unmatched; utterly convincing, yet full of glee” (Illustrated London News, 12th July 1958).
Crown 8vo (20cm). 240pp. Original light blue boards, blocked and lettered in gilt; sliver of fading at head, where the jacket is worn; some spotting of edges, but otherwise a very good copy in the original Robert Micklewright dust-jacket – the jacket a little worn at head and slightly nicked, a little spotted and soiled on lower panel, but in complete and acceptable condition.

SOLD

Boston : Atlantic Monthly Press, 1918. First edition. One of the classics of the field, a much-reprinted and thoroughly engaging account of Newton’s avid book-collecting career, his preference for inscribed copies, essays on some of his favourite authors – Charles Lamb; James Boswell; Hester Thrale (“it may at once be admitted that as a mother Mrs Thrale was not a conspicuous success”); William Godwin (A Ridiculous Philosopher); William Dodd, the Macaroni Parson; the then still unmentionable Oscar Wilde – Newton’s favourite booksellers and bookshops, his frequent visits to London, other collectors, etc.
Demy 8vo (211 x 140mm). (xxii),(356)pp. Colour frontispiece. Plates. Portraits. Facsimiles. Bound in a smart contemporary half russet morocco by Sangorski & Sutcliffe; banded and gilt; top edge gilt; marbled sides and endpapers; some minor rubbing and wear, with some skilful restoration to front joint, but still overall a very good copy. From the library of Sir Hugh Walpole (1884-1941), notable book-collector as well as novelist, with his distinctive Brackenburn book-label.

£200

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46698 – or simply click on the button

London : Pedigree Books (Edwin Self), (1961). First edition. “Here, for the first time, is a serious book written about teenagers, by a teenager and in a language that has delighted teenagers in America and Britain. It is written mainly in the now famous Kookie-talk” – the story of Fenella the clinker from way out – “Orbit strictly unknown. Destination nowhere!” – a cult classic of the beat generation, with a seven-page glossary of Kookie-talk for “Bods from Squaresville”.
Crown 8vo (18cm). (160)pp. Original pictorial wrappers – a design by M. Atkinson; wrappers rubbed, lightly worn, slightly creased and a little split; minor discolouration in places, but a reasonable copy. Just a single copy (British Library) located in major UK libraries.

£50

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 42786 – or simply click on the button

London : Secker & Warburg, 1949. First edition. “Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it”. The most compelling and chilling novel of the twentieth century – not least in that it now appears to have been widely adopted as an instruction manual. “Every statue and street and building has been re-named, every date has been altered ... History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right”.
Crown 8vo (184 x 122mm). 312pp. Bound in a smart recent full dark green morocco, banded and gilt; top edge gilt; a very good, clean and sound copy, handsomely bound.

SOLD

Cambridge : Macmillan & Co., 1861. First edition : one of the 2,000 copies of the first impression, with the roman rather than gothic half-title, just four notes on p.323, etc. The original appearance of a perennial favourite – close on 300 of the finest poems in the language from seventy-five or so poets – from Sir Thomas Wyatt, Marlowe and Shakespeare, to Shelley and Keats. With a preface and some extensive notes by Palgrave.
Foolscap 8vo. [4],[viii],332pp. Engraved vignette by Charles Henry Jeens (1827-1879) after Thomas Woolner (1825-1892). Bound in a smart recent half crimson morocco, banded and gilt – retaining the original cloth gilt (the priced, earliest variant) at rear; a handful of spots, a small flaw to the final leaf, but a very good copy. Contemporary ownership inscription on title-page and some neat pencil markings to margins in places.

£400

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 22522 – or simply click on the button

London : Victor Gollancz, 1952. First edition. Owen of the Yard investigates the murder of an unassuming commercial traveller in Pending Dale – “What is distinction? ... in the works of Mr. E. R. Punshon we salute it every time” (Dorothy L. Sayers).
Crown 8vo (20cm). (224)pp. Original red boards, lettered in gilt; text lightly tanned, but a very good copy of an elusive book in the Gollancz yellow dust-jacket – price-clipped, a little spotted and with a few tiny nicks, minuscule chips and a couple of short tears, but otherwise itself very good.

£50

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 43044 – or simply click on the button

London : Anthony Blond, (1959). First edition. “A first novel of great power and compassion. Its author, Simon Raven, has a great gift as a story teller and creator of character ... A young officer in command of a small detachment in some imaginary island shoots the young soldier with whom he has been having an affair for disobeying orders during a terrorist attack. The officer is court-martialled on a charge of murder. The whole argument turns on his state of mind at the time of the shooting. Was he acting as a soldier or a slighted lover?” (Daily News, 28th January 1959).
Crown 8vo (20cm). 254,[ii]pp. Original black boards, blocked and lettered in gilt; just a touch bruised; very mild tanning of endpapers, but a very good copy in the Symonds dust-jacket – in first state, without the press reviews on the rear flap – a touch sunned, but otherwise very good with only minimal wear and signs of use.

SOLD

Broze : The Winged Lion, (1997). First edition. Eleven stories – “chilling, gruesome, disturbing” – culled from magazine appearances between 1975 and 1994 and previously unpublished in book form – death on the golf course at Sandwich; playing backgammon in Mongolia; a medieval racing tip, and much else besides.
Demy 8vo (22cm). [vi],(106)pp. Original maroon boards, blocked and lettered in gilt; just a touch of bruising, but a very good copy in the Annie Shrager dust-jacket – the jacket lightly sunned, with some minor bruising, but also very good.

£50

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46517 – or simply click on the button

London : Lindsay Drummond, [1944]. First edition. A collection of twenty-one wartime short stories – from Mulk Raj Anand (Lottery), John Heath-Stubbs (That on Parched Mountains), J. F. Hendry (The Catacomb of Love), Rayner Heppenstall (The Bird has Flown), Inez Holden (To-day at the Bureaucracy), Gwyn Jones (Take us the Little Foxes), Mary Lavin (The Statue in the Grounds), John Pudney (The City of Copious Libations), Alan Ross (Pain), William Sansom (From the Water Junction) and others, including the two editors themselves. With biographical notes on the contributors.
First edition. Demy 8vo (23cm). [ii],(186)pp. Original mustard cloth, ruled, blocked and lettered in cerise; very lightly rubbed and just lightly bruised; some spotting, mainly to edges; a couple of tiny creases, but still overall a very good copy in the striking Henry Moore dust-jacket – the jacket a little rubbed and slightly darkened, but with just minor wear and also very good.

SOLD

London : Hamish Hamilton, (1962). First edition. Two early Shaffer plays, recently successfully revived. Shy Bob, awkward Doreen (first played by Maggie Smith) and a disastrous date – and the tale of a pompous accountant, eccentric private eye (first played by Kenneth Williams) and a frustrated wife (Maggie Smith again). “A comic prize that the stage offers seldom” (Illustrated London News, 26th May 1962).
Crown 8vo (20cm). (108)pp. Original tan boards, ruled and lettered in silver; a few spots, but a very good copy in the Angus McBean photographic dust-jacket – just slightly edge-worn but also very good.

SOLD

London : Constable & Co., 1924. First trade edition. Shaw’s well-known play, premiered in New York and first staged in London on the 26th March 1924, with Sybil Thorndike in the title-role – here prefaced by his lengthy and absorbing introduction on the St. Joan legend – fact and fancy; guilt or innocence; voices and visions; her place in literature; the fairness of her trial; credulity, modern and medieval, etc.
Crown 8vo (19cm). lxiv,114,[ii]pp. Original pale green cloth, lettered in gilt; a handful of edge spots; a couple of leaves roughly opened, but overall a very good copy. Loosely inserted are the substantial remains of the original dust-jacket – front and back panels, both flaps, and the lettering portion of the spine.

£50

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46692 – or simply click on the button

London : Gerald G. Swan, (1942). Her first crime novel – and we meet the curious investigator Jacob Chaos. Murder in a madhouse – Dr Royd has been killed and any number of people had good cause.
Crown 8vo (19cm). (224)pp. Plan. Original blue cloth, lettered in gilt; front free endpaper neatly excised; text a little tanned, but otherwise a very good copy in the striking original dust-jacket – a little trimmed, slightly marked and very lightly worn and nicked, but also very good.

£50

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 42594 – or simply click on the button

New York : Viking Press, 1954. First edition. “One night Mack lay back on his bed in the Palace Flophouse and he said, ‘I ain’t never been satisfied with that book Cannery Row. I would have went about it different’“ – the sequel.
Post 8vo (22cm). x,(274),[iv]pp. Title-page in red and black. Original pale lemon cloth, lettered in red and decorated in blue; top edge red; very slightly bruised at foot; very mild tanning of endpapers and edges, but sill overall a very good copy in the Paul Galdone dust-jacket – the jacket just lightly rubbed and slightly worn at extremities, with a few faint marks and minuscule nicks, and some light repair and reinforcement, but complete and attractive still. Neat contemporary ownership inscription.

£200

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46685 – or simply click on the button

London : Faber & Faber, (1994). First edition. Adds the 1991 “In the Native State” to earlier collections of similar title. Eight plays, including “Albert’s Bridge”, “Artist Descending a Staircase”, “The Dog it was that Died”, etc.
Post 8vo (21cm). [2],viii,(284),[x]pp. Original black boards, ruled and lettered in white; a very good copy in the dust-jacket – the jacket also very good. From the collection of Professor Ira Nadel (1943-2021), Stoppard’s biographer.

SOLD

London : Hollis & Carter, (1956). First edition. Professor Taylor demonstrating in this sweeping tour-de-force just why she became the first woman to hold an academic chair in geography – navigation by sun, sea, tide, current and stars – navigation without compass or chart – navigation with compass and chart – navigation with quadrant, octant and chronometer. Phoenicians and Greeks; Irish and Norsemen; the Mediterranean; the eastern and western oceans; the Portuguese; the English awakening; Edward Wright and the true chart; the longitude solved. “A perfect title for a book that is not only deeply learned, but proves the point that detachment from, and deep absorption in the subject is the ideal condition of writing. The whole mystery, and wonder, and achievement of man’s ventures through the oceans ... has in a sense been lifted into a level of poetry” (James Hanley in Truth, 11th January 1957).
Demy 8vo (209 x 132mm). xii,(296)pp. Plates. Maps. Diagrams. Illustrations. Bound in a striking 1996 designer binding by Margaret Willmer – black goatskin over sculptured boards, with tan goatskin medallions, and blue, red and tan onlays; suminagashi marbled endpapers; an excellent copy, housed in a custom-made ribbon-tied cloth case – the case a little sunned, but otherwise very good.

£750

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46689 – or simply click on the button

London : Macmillan & Co., 1884. First edition. Two plays, the first put on at the Lyceum in 1881 with Henry Irving and Ellen Terry, and the second at the St. James in 1879 with the Kendals.
Foolscap 8vo (18cm). [iv],146,[ii]pp. Original green cloth, ruled and lettered across spine in gilt; slight browning of endpapers, but a very good, bright and unworn copy. With the contemporary armorial bookplate of C. M. Ingleby of Valentines at Ilford – Clement Mansfield Ingleby (1823-1886), the Shakespearian scholar.

SOLD

London : Smith, Elder & Co., 1855 [but 1854]. First edition. The last of Thackeray’s Christmas stories, a satirical fairy tale, wonderfully illustrated with Thackeray’s own numerous sketches. “But in the meanwhile, and for a brief holyday, let us laugh and be as pleasant as we can. And you elder folks – a little joking and dancing and fooling will do even you no harm. The author wishes you a merry Christmas, and welcomes you to the Fire-side Pantomime”.
Crown 8vo (177 x 129mm). iv,128pp. Eight plates. Numerous illustrations in text. Bound in a handsome early twentieth-century full tan calf, banded in gilt, by Riviere; red labels; all edges gilt; inner gilt dentelles; marbled endleaves; slight scratch to rear board; some internal marks and spots; one leaf with a short repaired tear, but still an attractive copy in a fine binding.

£250

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46132 – or simply click on the button

London : Hamish Hamilton, (1984). First edition. Signed by Paul Theroux on the title-page. Young American woman at large in London, underpaid for her academic work at the Hemisphere Institute of International Studies, enters the worlds both of the escort agency and international terrorism. The basis of the 1986 film “Half Moon Street”, with Sigourney Weaver, Michael Caine, etc.
Demy 8vo (23cm). [vi],(138)pp. Original black boards, blocked and lettered in silver; a very good copy in the black and silver Don Macpherson dust-jacket – also very good.

£50

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46619 – or simply click on the button

London : John Murray, 1876. First edition. A very useful dictionary, based on personal visits, of what are now the London suburbs – from Abbey Wood to Yiewsley, with short histories, notes on the principal buildings, population figures, etc. “Until now ... there has been nothing approaching Mr. Thorne’s work in fulness of detail or convenience of arrangement. If Londoners remain any longer ignorant of the many attractive spots that are still to be found just beyond their own doors, it will not be for want of pleasant and trustworthy guidance” (Pall Mall Gazette, 16th February 1877).
Two volumes. Post 8vo (21cm). vi,410 + 20pp advertisements dated October 1876; [ii],411-794,[ii] + 32pp adverts dated January 1876. Original cloth, ruled and lettered in gilt, and blocked in blind; some light wear to extremities; a few faint marks; endpapers sightly cracked; a touch shaken, but a good and serviceable set.

£100

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45414 – or simply click on the button

London : Ward, Lock & Co., (1938). First edition. Doctor Lomax is a known proponent of euthanasia. One morning his mother, suffering from an incurable illness, is found dead. Conclusions are drawn. His fiancée is young barrister Octavia Bayne. In the days before Platt gave up the law to become a writer, it was in his office that Count Esterhazy dictated the confession which unravelled the Dreyfus Affair.
Crown 8vo (19cm). 316,[iv]pp. Original red cloth, lettered in black; some minor fading; some spotting, mainly of prelims and edges, but otherwise a very good copy in the pictorial dust-jacket by Joseph van Abbé (1889-1954) – tanned at spine, price-clipped, a little rubbed, lightly worn, slightly creased, with some repairs and reinforcement at head, tail and rear folds, but still an attractive survival. Gift inscription dated 1947 and small blurred stamp on front free endpaper.

£50

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 42415 – or simply click on the button

London : Tinsley Brothers, 1872. First edition : in the primary binding. “The wine here is altogether of the same vintage with which Mr. Trollope’s many readers have been familiar for some dozen years and more; the only novelty consists in the fashion of the cup ... It is thoroughly readable, very amusing, and shows all Mr. Trollope’s skilfulness of hand in manipulating nothings until they are made into some thing” (The Graphic, 29th June 1872).
Post 8vo (21cm). [iv],(354),[ii] + 16pp inserted advertisements dated May 1872. Original brown cloth, lettered in gilt and ruled and decorated in black; just a hint of bruising and the mildest signs of age and use; outer leaves lightly tanned, but still an exceptionally good, bright and fresh copy. With the armorial bookplate of William F. Gumbleton.

£750

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46676 – or simply click on the button

London : Chapman & Hall, 1881. First edition. Lucy and Ayala Dormer left destitute by the death of their gifted but improvident artist father. “Possibly the most unjustly neglected of all Trollope’s novels ... and yet it is one of the most charming ... the lightest and airiest of them all, it has a gaiety and happiness and playfulness that Trollope ... never exceeded ... what vigour of scene and creation, what vitality of action and dialogue it contains” (Hugh Walpole). “The author has not written a better or pleasanter novel for a good many years” (Pall Mall Gazette, 28th May 1881).
Three volumes. Crown 8vo (189 x 121mm). iv,280; iv,272; iv,(278)pp. Bound (without final blank, no half-titles or advertisements called for) in an elegant later (mid-twentieth-century) half red morocco by Sangorski & Sutcliffe; top edges gilt; one or two tiny marks and edge-spots, but a very good, clean and fresh set of an uncommon late title.

£850

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45711 – or simply click on the button

London : Chapman & Hall, (1932). First edition. His third novel – a scathing satire on the modernisation of the Azanian empire. “The main theme is handled with all the savage serenity and cunning innocence at Mr. Waugh’s command. The side-shows in London are flicked off with all his deft and shocking originality. Oh – and please bear in mind throughout that it is meant to be funny. If you can ...” (Daily Herald, 6th October 1932).
Crown 8vo (20cm). (304)pp. Frontispiece map. Original lizard pattern red and black cloth, lettered in gilt; some spotting to edges and prelims, but otherwise a very good copy in the dust-jacket – the jacket lightly worn, with a chip at head and a few short tears, but with the spine professionally cleaned and looking bright and sharp.

SOLD

London : Chapman & Hall, (1938). First edition. “Up to a point, Lord Copper” – the wrong Boot is sent to Ishmaelia. “Mr. Evelyn Waugh has let himself go with a whoop on the trail of sensational journalism ... easily the funniest book of the season” (Illustrated London News, 25th June 1938). The present copy has the front panel of the original dust-jacket laid in to the front free endpaper – the rare and quickly suppressed earlier version of the jacket, with the “Daily Beast” masthead clearly mimicking that of Beaverbrook’s “Daily Express”, and making the butt of Waugh’s satire all too plain. This was rapidly replaced by a plainer jacket with the masthead removed.
Original lizard pattern red and black cloth, lettered in gilt; just a touch rubbed and faintly sunned; some spotting, mainly of edges and prelims, but otherwise a very good copy. Contemporary ownership inscription – Vinicombe, dated July 1938.

£250

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45737 – or simply click on the button

London : Contact Publications, [1950]. First edition. One of apparently only three contemporary spin-offs of the Dick Barton radio phenomenon – and the most significant. Nine Dick Barton stories by the original BBC scriptwriters (later to write “The Archers”), all appearing in book form for the first time, with six of them as yet un-broadcast. With numerous stirring text illustrations, cover design and colour frontispiece by George Mitchell.
Crown 4to (26cm). 160pp. Illustrations almost throughout. Original cloth-backed pictorial boards; some minor rubbing and mild wear; a few slight marks, but still overall a very good copy.

£50

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44438 – or simply click on the button

London : Cassell & Co., (1923). First edition. Journalist from Sydenham and other earthlings find themselves in Utopia, an evolved civilisation in a world without government or religion, “as clean as starlight and as sweet as cold water on a dusty day” – “Let it be said at once, in this book Mr. Wells is at his best. Indeed, if one had to name the novel that represents his many-sided genius most completely, one could hardly fail to name ‘Men Like Gods’“ (Sylvia Lynd in the Daily News, 8th March 1923).
Crown 8vo (20cm). viii,304pp. Original green cloth, blocked and lettered in gilt and blind (Currey’s ‘B’ variant); a sliver of fading at head and tail; some tanning of endpapers; a few edge spots, but a very good and sound copy in the grey dust-jacket, lettered in purple – the jacket just slightly darkened and faded at spine, but fresh and unworn.

£250

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45610 – or simply click on the button

London : Ernest Benn, (1928). First edition. An absorbing collection – twenty-six newspaper articles and a lecture on strangely modern topics – Wells on “What is Fascism?”; “Communism and Witchcraft”; “Delusions about World Peace”; “Fuel-Getting in the Modern World”, etc. “The book palpitates with controversy, and bowls out many popular institutions and personalities; but it commands attention ... as the most stimulating and far-sighted work of political criticism and suggestion produced in these days” (Illustrated London News, 17th March 1928).
Crown 8vo (20cm). (xii),(302),[ii]pp. Original brown cloth, lettered in gilt; a touch bruised; very mild tanning of endpapers, but a very good copy in the striking dust-jacket by Mabel Alleyne (1896-1961) – the jacket a little nicked and worn, with some repair and reinforcement in places and a small sticker on the front flap, but essentially complete and a welcome survival.

£125

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46671 – or simply click on the button

London : Hodder & Stoughton, (1944). First edition. Have you met Clubfoot, Valentine Williams’ super spy? “No one can tell a crook story as he can ... what verve, what gusto, what conviction there is in Mr. Williams’ thrillers” wrote Dorothy L. Sayers at various times of the former war correspondent, veteran of real-life drama in every corner of Europe. “Clubfoot makes his appearance again, this time as the Führer’s personal emissary in North Africa and Italy, and later as the new Gestapo chief in Rome, trying to track down the secret dossier of the Führer himself that is in the hands of the Prussian generals who are plotting against him”.
Crown 8vo (20cm). 256pp. Original red cloth, ruled and lettered in white; some spotting to rear pastedown, but a very good copy in the stylish original dust-jacket – the jacket a little rubbed and worn, with some small nicks and tiny chips, but complete and attractive still.

£100

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46675 – or simply click on the button

London : Herbert Jenkins, 1930. First British edition : with the witty preface not included in the American edition which appeared two weeks earlier. “Jeeves and the Impending Doom”, “Jeeves and the Song of Songs” and nine further famous tales – the third Jeeves & Wooster short story collection. “Mr. P. G. Wodehouse is again up to his quite inimitable best. As amusing a book as you will find” (The Tatler, 20th August 1930).
Crown 8vo (19cm). 312,[viii]pp. Original orange cloth, ruled, blocked and lettered in black; just a hint of rubbing; endpapers a little tanned; some spotting of edges and prelims, but a very good, bright and sound copy.

£400

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46019 – or simply click on the button

London : Herbert Jenkins, (1937). First edition : in the primary binding of scarlet cloth. A splendid collection of nine short stories, with Lord Emsworth, Blandings Castle, Mr Mulliner, the Oldest Member, the Drones Club, Ukridge, etc.
Crown 8vo (19cm). 312,[viii]pp. Original cloth, blocked and lettered in black; a few faint marks and a couple of hairline splits to cloth; mild tanning of endpapers; some spotting of edges and closing advertisement leaves, but a good and still attractive copy.

£75

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45589 – or simply click on the button

London : Macmillan & Co., 1908. A collection of fifty historical tales of heroism and self-denial intended as “a treasury for young people”, or “a mother’s storehouse for reading aloud to her boys” – Alcestis and Antigone, The Pass of Thermopylae, The Shepherd Girl of Nanterre, The Keys of Calais, Sir Thomas More’s Daughter, The Children in the Wood of the Far South, etc. Originally published in 1864.
Foolscap 8vo (154 x 98mm). (xii),454pp. Engraved pictorial title-page. Bound in a very pretty contemporary half navy calf, banded and gilt; red label; top edge gilt; a few trifling signs of age, but a very good, clean and partially unopened copy. With the attractive 1914 bookplate of Maude Hawke (1888-1976), etched by her Tyneside neighbour, Sir Henry John Fanshawe Badeley (1874-1951), and the later 1950 ownership inscription of David Fyfe Anderson.

£50

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 42770 – or simply click on the button