PUBLISHING HISTORY AT
ASH RARE BOOKS
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UNITED KINGDOM

Folkestone : William Dawson & Sons, (1976-1977). First edition. A useful supplement to STC and Wing, adding a full title-index to books sometimes otherwise difficult to locate. The first volume covers the STC period 1475-1640, the second the Wing period 1641-1700.
Two volumes. Crown 4to (26cm). [ii],176; [iv],318,[ii]pp. Original cloth; top edges just a touch dusty, but otherwise a very good set.

£40

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London : Chatto & Windus, 1882. First edition. A ground-breaking compilation, giving the text and illustrations of many of the famous chap-books in an accessible and convenient form for the first time and illuminating their history with real scholarship.
Crown 8vo (20cm). xvi,486,[ii]pp. Numerous illustrations and facsimiles. Original pictorial cloth gilt; a very good and bright copy.

£50

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Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, (1970). First edition. The third and final volume of Bennett’s masterly analysis of supply and demand in the early English book trade, continuing the story from the death of Elizabeth I to the outbreak of the Civil War. An account of the total output of the press, irrespective of quality – “the nature of the subject matter and the demand it set out to meet”. With chapters on inception; patronage; regulation; piracy; translation; literacy; variety (religion, law, education, medicine, information, arithmetic and science, geography and travel, history, news, literature); printers, booksellers and readers.
Demy 8vo (23cm). [2],xiv,(54),[ii]pp. Original boards; a few edge-spots, but a very good copy in a price-clipped and just slightly nicked dust-jacket – also very good. Occasional pencil marks and notes (in my hand). Bookseller’s label of Henry Sotheran Ltd. on front paste-down.

£25

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London : Longman Group, (1974). First edition. Eleven essays on the history of publishing – by Brian Alderson (Tracts, Rewards and Fairies : the Victorian Contribution to Children’s Literature); David Daiches (Presenting Shakespeare); Annabel Jones (Disraeli’s Endymion); Hans Schmoller (The Paperback Revolution), etc. Edited, and with a historical introduction on the Longman firm, by Lord Briggs.
Imperial 8vo (28cm). viii,468pp. Illustrations, some in colour. Original buckram; top edge a little dusty, otherwise very good in lightly marked and somewhat spotted dust-jacket.

£40

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Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, (1987). First edition. A sequence of over 350 letters from Lewis Carroll to his publishers, indicating the extent to which Dodgson thought about (and insisted upon) the physical format of his productions – also illustrating many facets of Victorian publishing. Edited and introduced, the notes quoting extensively from the Macmillan replies, by Morton N. Cohen and Anita Gandolfo. A volume in the Cambridge Studies in Publishing and Printing History series.
Medium 8vo (24cm). [2],(x),384,[iv]pp. Illustrations. Portraits. Original cloth; very good indeed in a just faintly marked dust-jacket.

£40

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Edinburgh & London : W. & R. Chambers, 1882. First edition. The autobiography of the distinguished Scottish publisher William Chambers, partner with his brother Robert in “W. & R. Chambers”, founder of “Chambers’s Journal”, “Chambers’s Encyopaedia”, etc. Contains material on many of the leading writers and public figures of the day.
Crown 8vo (19cm). (118)pp. Portrait frontispiece. Original armorial cloth gilt; slightly rubbed and a little sunned; rear endpaper slightly strained; a few creases, but a good copy.

£20

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New Haven : Yale University Press, (1988). First edition. A full-scale history of periodical publishing for children in England, drawing on her doctoral thesis, with special emphasis on readership and perception.
Medium 8vo (24cm). x,272,[vi]pp. Illustrations. Original cloth; very good in a just faintly rubbed dust-jacket.

£20

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London : Victor Gollancz, 1987. First edition. A weighty biography of one of the most influential publishers and public campaigners of the twentieth century, Victor Gollancz (1893-1967) – “I hate everything that is pro and anti (different peoples). I am only one thing: I am pro-humanity”. With much passing reference to Clement Attlee, Violet Bonham Carter, Winston Churchill, Communism, Daphne du Maurier, Adolf Hitler, the Labour Party, Harold Laski, the Left Book Club, Stanley Morison, George Orwell, Frank Pakenham, etc.
Medium 8vo (24cm). [ii],782pp. Plates, portraits, etc. Original boards; top edge faintly spotted, but a very good copy in the dust-jacket, just slightly nicked and lightly spotted.

£25

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London : Ackermann, 1983. First edition. A richly illustrated and meticulously researched history of the celebrated art publishing and art dealing concern founded by Rudolph Ackermann (1764-1834). With much incidental material on Henry Alken, William Combe, John Buonarotti Papworth, Augustus Pugin, Thomas Rowlandson, George Stubbs, and other authors and artists; a checklist of the Ackermann books, games, and music; a bibliography, etc.
Demy 4to (31cm). 256pp. Illustrations throughout, many in colour. Original boards; top edge a touch dusty, but otherwise a very good copy indeed in the dust-jacket – the jacket also very good.

£25

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London : George Allen & Unwin, (1976). First edition. A lavishly illustrated survey, with chapters on the Comic Paper, the Comic Hero, the Comic Kid, the Comic Animal, the Comic Age, the Comic World, the Comic War, and the Comic Artist.
Demy 4to (29cm). 144pp. Illustrated throughout. Original pictorial boards; just a touch of rubbing and sunning; mild spotting of edges, but a very good copy.

£25

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New York : Pierpont Morgan Library / Toronto : Oxford University Press, (1975). First edition. A lavishly produced exploration of 225 treasures from the Pierpont Morgan Library, with bibliographical notes and short discussions of each. With a preface by Charles Ryskamp and an interesting essay by the historian by J. H. Plumb on “The First Flourishing of Children’s Books”.
Royal 4to (31cm). [2],(xxx),(266),[ii]pp. Colour plates. Over 300 monochrome illustrations. Original cloth; very good in a just lightly rubbed dust-jacket.

£40

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London : Enitharmon Press, 1998. First edition : one of 185 regular copies (of a total limitation of 250 numbered copies). Loosely inserted is a 1999 signed autograph note, on an Enitharmon compliments slip, from the publisher, Stephen Stuart-Smith.
Crown 4to (27cm). (80)pp. Portrait frontispiece. Tipped-in facsimiles. Original blue cloth, with printed paper labels; very good.

£20

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Leiden & Boston : Brill, (2018). First edition. The first attempt fully to analyse the books and other printed materials entered for publication in the Stationers’ Register to 1640, but which no longer survive. The author’s estimate of the sheer extent of loss – perhaps 20,000 pieces of printing in all – books, ballads, news-books, broadsides, religious tracts, almanacs, plays, verse, music, etc., are dealt with in turn – perhaps skews our entire understanding of the period. With an extensive and useful bibliography. In the “Library of the Written Word” series.
Medium 8vo (25cm). [xii],224,[viii]pp. Figures and graphs, some coloured. Original yellow cloth, lettered in blue; a very good copy indeed in the dust-jacket – the jacket equally very good.

£25

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London : Hurst & Blackett, 1885. First edition. The earliest history of the subject, tracing the illustrated periodical from the earliest English news-books to the Victorian illustrated newspapers and magazines. Compiled by Mason Jackson, himself a notable engraver and art editor of the “Illustrated London News” for nearly twenty years.
Demy 8vo (23cm). xii,(364)pp. Numerous illustrations and facsimiles. Original decorative cloth gilt, expertly repaired, restored and refurbished; a few faint marks, but a very good copy. W. H. Smith Library blind-stamp on front free endpaper.

£50

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London : Privately Printed, 1946. First edition : limited to 500 copies. A bibliographical monograph on the concept of rarity in collecting, combined with a case-study on the complex publishing history of George Bernard Shaw’s “An Unsocial Socialist” (1887). With a short, even curt, introductory note by Shaw on Loewenstein’s “abominable drudgery” in the field of Shaw biography and bibliography (Loewenstein was founder of the Shaw Society).
Demy 8vo (22cm). (20)pp. Original wrappers; wrappers slightly dusty and nicked, but a good copy of a fragile production.

£20

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London : Cambridge University Press, 1966. First edition. A monumental study of the Press in the time of Queen Anne – providing the first detailed study of a hand-press printing house and its workings. With a bibliography of items printed at the Press, lists of principal types and ornaments, etc. The second volume provides a transcript of all the original documents on which the study is based.
Two volumes. Imperial 8vo (28cm). (xvi),432; [2],(x),(382),[ii]pp. Plates. Illustrations. Facsimiles. Folding tables. Original cloth; a very good bright and sound set in just faintly rubbed and price-clipped dust-jackets.

SOLD

Manchester : R. Aikman & Son for the Presbyterian Historical Society of England, [1947]. First edition. An absorbing account of missionary publishing – much of it concerned in the provision of vernacular texts in far-flung parts of the world. Includes a bibliography of publications. The Society’s Annual Lecture for 1947 and its Special Publication No.3.
Demy 8vo (24cm). 46pp. Original printed wrappers; a little minor wear and tanning; a few faint marks, but a good copy.

£20

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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

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London : John Murray, (1934). First edition. Inscribed, signed and dated (1934) by James Milne. Reminiscences of the journalist and novelist, literary editor of the “News Chronicle” and founder in 1903 of “Book Monthly”. Includes mention of Edward Clodd, Thomas Hardy, George Meredith, R. L. Stevenson, Alfred Tennyson, H. G. Wells, etc.
Post 8vo (22cm). (xiv),316,[iv]pp. Plates. Portraits. Original cloth; a few very minor signs of age and use, but a very good copy.

£25

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London : Adam & Charles Black, 1957. First edition. An attractively produced history of the distinguished Scottish publishing house, compiled by an old A. & C. Black author.
Post 8vo (21cm). [xiv],(116)pp. Plates, some coloured. Portraits. Original cloth gilt; spine just a touch sunned; a few faint spots, but a very good copy in the original slip-case – somewhat worn and slightly split.

£20

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Charlottesville : University Press of Virginia, (1992). First edition. A mine of material on Victorian publishing and the influence of the market-place on authorial ambition and choice. With much passing reference to Bradbury & Evans, Chapman & Hall, Charles Dickens, Harper & Brothers, Charles Lever, George Smith and Smith, Elder & Co., Anthony Trollope, etc. In the “Victorian Literature and Culture” series.
Medium 8vo (24cm). (xiv),(302),[iv]pp. Original cloth-backed boards; a few faint marks, but a very good copy in a very good dust-jacket.

£25

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Boston Spa & London : British Library, 2002. First edition. Essays by various hands on aspects of the international press in London: German printing and bookselling in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; chapters on printing in Dutch, French, Italian, Greek, Russian, Polish, Hungarian and the Scandinavian languages, etc.
Medium 8vo (25cm). (viii),(274),[vi]pp. Facsimiles. Original boards; just slightly bruised, but a very good copy in the dust-jacket, likewise just lightly bruised.

£20

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London : Martin Secker & Warburg, (1986). First edition. An illustrated memoir of the distinguished publishing house – Martin Secker (1882-1978), Fred Warburg (1898-1981), Roger Senhouse, Tom Rosenthal et al. “They published what they liked and did their weeping in private” (Frank Swinnerton).
Post 8vo (21cm). (88)pp. Illustrations. Original cloth gilt; very good indeed.

£20

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London : Library Association, (1975). A reprint (with minor corrections) of the 1971 third edition. A fine history of the production, distribution and accessibility of scientific literature – with chapters on scientific incunabula, scientific books before 1600, the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, the rise of scientific societies, scientific periodicals, scientific bibliographies and bibliographers, private libraries, science publishing, etc. With an extensive bibliography.
Demy 8vo (23cm). (x),508,[ii]pp. Plates. Original cloth; a few very minor signs of age and use, but a very good copy.

£20

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Edinburgh & London : William Blackwood & Sons, 1954. First edition. A history of the publishing house founded by William Blackwood I (1776-1834) – with much also on George Eliot, Ian Hay, James Hogg, John Gibson Lockhart, John Murray II, Margaret Oliphant, Sir Walter Scott, John Wilson (Christopher North), etc.
Crown 4to (26cm). [2],(x),(284)pp. Plates. Portraits. Folding table. Original cloth gilt; just a hint of rubbing; mild spotting of edges, but a very good copy.

£25

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Cambridge : Oleander Press, (1979). First edition. The case-studies include material on numerous small presses, including the Blackstaff, Centaur, Ceolfrith, Gaberbocchus, Gogmagog, Hippopotamus, Keepsake, Mandeville, Menard, Oxus, Taurus, Trigram and Writers Forum Presses, as well as firms like Blond & Briggs, Marion Boyars, etc.
Foolscap 4to (22cm). (x),268,[ii]pp. Original boards; slightly bruised, with a few faint signs of use, but a very good copy in the dust-jacket, also very good.

£20

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