MAX BEERBOHM FIRST EDITIONS AT
ASH RARE BOOKS
43 HURON ROAD
LONDON SW17 8RE
UNITED KINGDOM

New York : Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1896. First edition : precedes the London edition by four days. Beerbohm’s first regularly published book – “Dandies and Dandies”, “The Pervasion of Rouge” and five further essays which immediately established his reputation – “These papers are really very brilliant, and almost every page would yield a quotation worth giving” (York Herald, 17th June 1896).
Crown 8vo (19cm). [viii],(166),[ii]pp. Original decorative cloth, enamelled and gilt in an art-nouveau design of butterflies, ribbons and mirrors by Margaret Neilson Armstrong (1867-1944); top edge gilt; a little very minor rubbing; tiny bruise to one corner; some spotting, especially to endpapers, prelims and edges, but a very good, bright, and partly unopened copy of one of the most attractive productions of the 1890s.

£250

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London & New York : John Lane, The Bodley Head, 1899. First edition : the American-printed sheets of the scarcer (and probably earlier) of the two London impressions, with the half-title and the plain title-page. Beerbohm with twenty essays on royalty, actors, the seaside in winter, sign-boards, music-halls, Covent Garden, and much else besides.
Foolscap 4to (18cm). [viii],(202),[ii]pp. Original green cloth, with white paper spine label, ruled and lettered in black; spine label slightly tanned; spine a little darkened; small and regular mark to upper cover; a few slight marks and spots, but still a very good copy. From the collection of the architectural historian, Professor Derek Linstrum (1925-2009), and with one of his distinctive Italian hand-made paper protective dust-jackets. Gallatin & Oliver 4a.

£100

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London : William Heinemann, 1911. First edition : the variant binding in smooth brown cloth, the spine lettered in upper and lower case. Just 2,150 copies were issued in this form, the remainder being put in a more robust library binding. “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) – “Mr Beerbohm in his way is perfect” (Virginia Woolf).
Post 8vo (21cm). [viii],350,[ii]pp. Original brown cloth, lettered in gilt, and with the publisher’s device in blind on lower cover; a few faint marks and minor signs of age and use; mild tanning of endpapers, but overall a very good, sound, and rather better than usual copy. Book-label of a modern Connecticut collector.

£400

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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, 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

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New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 1930. First separate and first trade edition. Some 150 of Beerbohm’s sparkling theatre reviews written for the “Saturday Review” between 1898 and 1910. Commencing with “Why I Ought Not to Have Become a Dramatic Critic”, we have Beerbohm laced with wit and charm on Cyrano de Bergerac, Macbeth, Hamlet (Princess of Denmark), much else on Shakespeare and George Bernard Shaw, Punitive Pantomime, First Nights, Last Acts, Pinero, Wilde, The Invariable Badness of Amateur Acting, Kipling, Music Hall, Sarah Bernhardt, Dan Leno, Conrad, Henry Irving, with also much on Ibsen, Henry James, Granville Barker, J. M. Barrie, W. S. Gilbert, and so many more. Originally published as volumes eight and nine of the strictly limited edition “Works” published in London 1922-1928, but here with a fresh preface for a more generally available edition – “Any one who looks into these pages will find, besides many remarks that are relevant to drama anywhere and at any time, many remarks that are relevant to life only. And so perhaps Mr. Knopf’s faith in the book will not be punished”.
Two volumes. Demy 8vo (222 x 145mm). [xii],380; [x],381-(750), (xiv),[2]pp. Title-pages in red and black. Bound in a stylish recent half black morocco, banded and gilt; marbled sides, by Trevor Lloyd, with his stamp; a few very minor marks; number stamps on two preliminary leaves; a few pencil marks; a couple of nicks, but overall a very good set.

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