FIRST EDITIONS AND DESIGNER BINDINGS AT
ASH RARE BOOKS
43 HURON ROAD
LONDON SW17 8RE
UNITED KINGDOM

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

Andoversford : Whittington Press (1982). First edition : limited to 175 numbered copies, signed by both author and illustrator. Thirteen poems from writer-publisher Gant, with five wood-engraved illustrations from Howard Phipps (b.1954), hand-set on mould-made paper at the Whittington Press.
Post 4to (265 x 190mm). [32]pp. Bound in a handsome designer binding of full chocolate morocco, with ivory inlays and closely worked gold tooling; just a touch sunned, but an excellent copy in its felt-lined and morocco-lipped slip-case.

£750

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46705 – or simply click on the button

London : J. M. Dent & Sons, (1940). First edition. “Find your ideal woman and marry her opposite” – Gibbings forsakes the lonely atolls of the Pacific for a “narrow-minded and biased” journey downstream – illustrated with his distinctive wood-engravings.
Demy 8vo (223 x 148mm). x,(230)pp. Fifty wood engravings. Bound in a handsome designer binding from 2012 by Wendy Smith – full grey morocco, with onlays inspired by Gibbings’ work in brown and green; a touch sunned, a few faint spots to prelims, but otherwise a very good copy in its decorative slip-case.

£500

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46704 – or simply click on the button

Oxford : Perpetua Press, (1993). First edition. Twenty-three poems by Robert Gittings, beautifully printed by Vivian Ridler at the Perpetua Press, each accompanied by a brass rubbing, from churches as far afield as Wensley in Yorkshire and Burghill in Herefordshire, by the poet’s daughter Clare Gittings – all finding their origins in a family tradition of Christmas cards. Foreword by Christopher Fry.
Demy 4to (283 x 203mm). [iv],(56),[iv]pp. Twenty-three full-page illustrations. Bound in a handsome 2009 designer binding By Chris Hicks – full blue morocco, with morocco hinges, silk headbands, etc., with gilt onlays and tooling on the front cover based on the Wensley angel; an excellent copy housed in its custom-made clamshell cloth box.

£1,000

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 20189 – or simply click on the button

London : Faber & Faber, (1963). First edition. His first prose work – eleven Kiplingesque stories on the real manner of the evolution of the owl, whale, fox, polar bear, hyena, tortoise, bee, cat, donkey, hare and elephant.
Foolscap 4to (210 x 151mm). 72pp. Six full-page illustrations by George Adamson (1913-2005). Bound in an attractive designer binding of full blue morocco, with onlays of hand and balloons in white, red and tan; a very good copy housed in its red cloth slipcase.

£500

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46702 – or simply click on the button

London : Methuen & Co., (1938). First edition. An extensive and handsomely illustrated dictionary of silhouette artists, prefaced by introductory chapters on the origins and history; china, glass, jewellery and boxes; albums and scrap-books; the silhouette in America; the shadow theatre; fakes and forgeries, etc.
Demy 4to (280 x 210mm). (xxx),154,(ii)pp. Over 100 plates, 10 in colour. Bound in a striking late twentieth-century designer binding – full black morocco, boldly lettered in recessed red onlay on the front cover and in raised letters in blind on the rear cover; a handsome copy.

£750

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46703 – or simply click on the button

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

Bath : Old School Press, 2001. First edition : one of twenty copies (of 230) reserved in sheets for binders and signed by both Andrew Motion and the illustrator, Simon Brett. Four extended poems from the then Poet Laureate, delicately hand-printed on Magnani paper, illustrated with evocative and atmospheric wood-engravings by Simon Brett.
Post 4to (271 x 190mm). [48]pp. Four wood-engraved illustrations. Bound in black morocco, with delicately shaded pale morocco onlays, in an exquisite designer binding by Kate Holland, winner of the 2006 Mansfield Medal and First Prize for Best Book in the annual Designer Binders’ competition – the present binding dating from the same period; delicately marbled edges and endpapers; the binding housed in its original velvet-lined black cloth box, decorated with a crescent moon. A fine copy of a beautiful book.

£2,000

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44018 – or simply click on the button

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