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

London : Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, 1948. First edition. A short history of Egyptian, Roman and Venetian glass, followed by full sections on composition and properties (including colour; plant; manufacture (cut glass, pressed glass, window glass, plate glass, tubing, optical glass, etc.), products and uses, etc. The numerous illustrations include photographs of glassware from the "Britain Can Make It" exhibition of 1946. With a bibliography.
Demy 8vo (23cm). xii,274,[ii]pp. Illustrations. Original cloth; mild discolouration of edges of covers, but otherwise a very good copy.

£20

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London : Faber & Faber, (1937). First edition. “The amusement to be obtained from a simple yet ingenious puzzle, and the pride of quickly solving it, sets up a well-being far more important in keeping the doctor away than any number of apples”. A brain-teaser (with some nice seasonal touches) for every day of the year (not forgetting leap-years) – with solutions at the end – and hints on how to tackle similar problems.
Crown 8vo (20cm). (232)pp. Diagrams, etc. Original pale blue cloth, lettered in red; a little sunned; some spotting, mainly of edges; a good copy in the striking dust-jacket by Edward Bawden (1903-1989) – the jacket a little chipped and slightly tanned, but essentially complete and a most uncommon survival. A few internal pencil marks perhaps suggesting less than assiduous application to the problems by a previous owner.

£75

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London : Robert Hale, (1971). First edition. An intriguing examination from this prolific American author of the whole field of ghosts, hauntings, apparitions, manifestations, poltergeists, spirit voices, etc., with chapters on individual cases — “Borley Rectory”, “The Dark Lady of Bognor Regis”, “The Affair at Tedworth”, etc. With a bibliography, index, etc. There would appear to be no equivalent American edition.
Demy 8vo (23cm). (192)pp. Original violet boards, lettered in silver; top edge purple; very slightly bruised at foot, but otherwise a very good copy in the stylish C. R. Evans dust-jacket — price-clipped and just a touch sunned, but with only a hint of wear and also very good.

£50

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London : George Routledge & Sons, [ca.1885]. A fresh edition of Pepper’s extraordinary compilation, first published in 1861. A richly illustrated account, aimed primarily at “youthful readers” – but evidently quite sophisticated ones – of mining and metals. With individual chapters on coal; alchemy; gold; silver; lead; copper; tin; mercury; iron; aluminium; antimony; arsenic; barium; bismuth; cadmium; calcium; cerium; chromium; cobalt; donarium and others; magnesium; manganese; molybdenum; nickel; niobium and others; potassium; platinum; palladium and pelopium; rhodium and ruthenium; sodium; strontium; tantalum, titanium, and others; tungsten; uranium and others; zinc; zirconium, etc.
Crown 8vo (20cm). viii,(504)pp. 300 illustrations. Original pictorial cloth gilt over bevelled boards; all edges gilt; a touch dulled; some rubbing and wear; endpapers cracking; a few spots, but a serviceable copy. Gift inscription dated Christmas 1885 from Henry C. Embleton to R. R. Drake – the Yorkshire mining engineer Henry Cawood Embleton (1854-1930) and Rowland Ramsay Drake (1869-1891).

SOLD

London : William Heinemann (Medical Books), 1931. First edition. An attempt at demystifying and encouraging good and safe practice in the largely unregulated first great age of make-up – with chapters on the cure of ugliness; care of the face; care of the hands; materials used; cold cream; vanishing creams; emollient creams – both greasy and non-greasy; mud-pack treatment; face powder; rouge and lipstick; toilet waters and lotions; care of the hair; preparations for the hair, and the problem of superfluous hair.
Crown 8vo (20cm). xii,184pp. Original decorative boards in a stylish art-deco design by Bernard Venables (1907-2001); some minor wear and a few spots, but overall a very good copy.

£40

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[London : Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, 1939]. First edition. A comprehensive view of the world of the pre-war sweet-shop, toffee-hammers, dorothy bags and coconut ice – with material on stock, ordering, window displays (with some wonderful plates), serving, staff, accounts, fitting and layout, tax, insurance, and the additional lines (cigarettes, ice cream, biscuits and books – with eleven pages on running a library).
Demy 8vo (23cm). [iv],332,[iv]pp. Plates. Diagrams, Tables, two folding. Original cloth; some minor spotting to edges and lower cover, but overall a very good copy.

£20

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London : John Wallis, [ca.1800]. A race-game in spiral form, with an accompanying sheet of directions – the game featuring 100 numbered or pictured spaces from the start (the first space is a prison) to the winning laurel wreath at the centre. For simple addition just one teetotum was used, but for subtraction, multiplication and division, two were in play – the product of which governed the next move. Some fiendish forfeits include requests to repeat (from memory) the long measure table (three barley-corns = one inch), the dry measure table (four bushels = one comb), the wine measure table, the ale measure table, the avoirdupoise [sic] table, etc. Difficult wholly to see the amusement measure in all this, but evidently a popular game in its day, with a version known dated 1791, another dated 1798 on the slip-case (which, like the present example, was printed by Biggs & Co. of Crane Court) – and later versions to at least 1820.
Copper engraving, aquatint and letterpress on paper, with original hand-colour. Two sheets, each 316 x 348mm (approx. 12-1/2” x 13-3/4”). Dissected and mounted on canvas. Some minor wear, marking and slight creasing, but in very good order for a scarce and ephemeral production. A couple of indistinct manuscript annotations to lower border.

SOLD

London : Weidenfeld & Nicolson, (1968). First British edition. “Watson, 40, is American. He was a gangling, crew-cut, Anglophile student of twenty-two when he went to Cambridge and met Dr. Francis Crick. Two years later they had solved the problem of DNA ... But the discovery was not made by supermen. In London yesterday Watson, whose book reveals the failings, foibles and petty jealousies of many scientists still well known in Britain, spoke of the bumbling way in which the discovery was made” (Daily Mirror, 16th May 1968).
Demy 8vo (23cm). xvi,(236),[iv]pp. Illustrations. Portraits. Diagrams. Facsimiles. Original purple boards, blocked and lettered in gilt; top edge lilac; a very good, clean and sound copy in the Dorothy Judd dust-jacket – the jacket price-clipped, and with some minor wear to extremities, but also very good.

£125

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