PUBLISHING HISTORY AT
ASH RARE BOOKS
43 HURON ROAD
LONDON SW17 8RE
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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Oxford : Oxford University Press, (1990). First paperback edition. An excellent collection of twenty essays – Brian Alderson on Collecting Children’s Books, Julia Briggs on Women Writers, Humphrey Carpenter on Beatrix Potter, Hugh Brogan on Tolkien, etc. With a foreword by Iona Opie.
Demy 8vo (22cm). xvi,424pp. Illustrations. Facsimiles. Original wrappers; a few faint marks, but a very good copy.

£15

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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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London : Thames and Hudson, 1985. First edition. A personal account of a long association with the distinctive and determined publishing house. Craker joined Walter Neurath as sales manager almost at the outset.
Demy 8vo (23cm). 192pp. Original boards; slight spotting of edges, but a very good copy in the dust-jacket.

£15

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London : Hutchinson, (1994). First edition. Maurice Girodias and his authors – one of the most bizarre tales in all twentieth-century publishing – with much on Dominique Aury, Samuel Beckett, William Burroughs, J. P. Donleavy, Lawrence Durrell, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kahane, Christopher Logue, Henry Miller, Vladimir Nabokov, Alexander Trocchi, Miriam Worms, etc.
Medium 8vo (25cm). [xx],332pp. Plates. Original boards; very good in dust-jacket.

£15

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Charlottesville : University Press of Virginia, (1992). First edition. An absorbing study of the impact of new printing technology on the handling and shaping of texts – with chapters on composition, proofing, printing, reprinting, authors, authorial control – and much on Matthew Arnold, Robert Browning, George Eliot, Alfred Tennyson, Anthony Trollope, etc.
Medium 8vo (24cm). (xiv),192,[ii]pp. Original cloth-backed boards; very good in a just faintly marked dust-jacket.

£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 : Hamish Hamilton, [1957]. First edition. A full listing of the entire early output of the distinguished publishing house, listed initially by author, with dates, price, size, etc., and then by title and lastly by subject (fiction, plays, poetry, children’s books, foreign language editions, law, medicine, periodicals), etc.
Demy 8vo (23cm). [iv],136,[iv]pp. Original boards; lightly sunned; slight spotting of edges, but a good and sound copy. No copy located in any major library worldwide.

£25

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London : Oxford University Press, 1968. First edition. A pioneering study of the pre-history, rise and influence of the literary agent in England and America – with much on Arnold Bennett, Walter Besant, Curtis Brown, William Heinemann, J. B. Pinker, A. P. Watt, etc., and an extensive bibliography of material relating to the conditions of authorship.
Demy 8vo (23cm). [viii],(136)pp. Original boards; very faint spotting of edges and endpapers, but otherwise very good in a rubbed dust-jacket.

£10

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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.

£40

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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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[Glasgow] : W. & R. Holmes (Books), 1953. First edition. An expanded version of a paper given to the Glasgow Biblographical Society, etc. – a history of Scottish publishing, with a bibliography.
Demy 8vo (22cm). 28pp. Original stapled wrappers; just a touch sunned; staples very lightly rusted; small stamp of the British Library of Political & Economic Science Pamphlet Collection on verso of title-page (and with their accountant’s receipt for the book’s purchase loosely inserted); overall a very good copy of a scarce work.

£20

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London : Gerald Duckworth & Co., (1995). First edition. Essays in recollection and memory of the managing director of Duckworth’s – by Beryl Bainbridge, Neville Braybrooke, John Haycraft, Francis King, A. L. Rowse, George Weidenfeld, and others.
Demy 8vo (23cm). viii,152pp. Plates. Portraits. Illustrations. Original boards; a very good copy in the dust-jacket – the jacket just very slightly creased, but also very good.

£15

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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.

£20

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Cambridge : Lutterworth Press, (1998). First edition. A biography (by two of his daughters) of the colourful Marcus Morris (1915-1989), founder of the “Eagle” and its sister papers, “Girl”, “Swift” and “Robin”, with much on the artists and writers and on the publishing conditions of the mid twentieth century. With a foreword by Sir Tim Rice.
Medium 8vo (25cm). (312)pp. Colour plates. Illustrations. Original boards; very good in the dust-jacket – also very good.

£20

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High Wycombe : Rivendale Press, (2000). First British edition. The turbulent life of Leonard Smithers (1861-1907) – publisher not only to Oscar Wilde, Aubrey Beardsley, Ernest Dowson and Arthur Symons, but also to Sir Richard Burton. With appendices on Smithers and the erotic book trade; his rare book catalogues, etc., and a checklist of his publications.
Medium 8vo (24cm). xvi,430,[ii]pp. Portraits. Illustrations. Facsimiles. Original black cloth, blocked and lettered in silver; a couple of faint marks, but a very good copy indeed in an equally very good dust-jacket.

£40

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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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London : Cassell & Co., (1958). First edition. A full-length history of the celebrated publishing house by the celebrated book-collector and bibliographer – with much on John Cassell, Desmond Flower, Newman Flower, Thomas Dixon Galpin, Rider Haggard, W. E. Henley, George William Petter, Wemyss Reid, and much passing reference to the leading authors and illustrators of the period.
Royal 8vo (26cm). x,(300),[ii]pp. Illustrations. Portraits. Original buckram; faint tape-marks and tanning to endpapers, but otherwise a very good copy in a price-clipped dust-jacket.

£20

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London : George Allen & Unwin, (1965). Second edition. A revised and slightly augmented version of the original 1939 edition of this much-admired and valuable history.
Demy 8vo (23cm). 500,[iv]pp. Plates. Original cloth; a very good copy in a sunned, spotted and slightly fingered dust-jacket.

£25

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Manchester : Manchester University Press / New York : Barnes & Noble, (1967). Second edition : revised throughout by J. W. Saunders. The best edition of this elegant study, first published in 1909. Authors, patrons, censors, publishers, theatre, etc. – with much incidental reference to Nicholas Breton, Thomas Dekker, Michael Drayton, Robert Greene, Gabriel Harvey, Thomas Heywood, Ben Jonson, Thomas Nashe, William Shakespeare, Sir Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser, etc.
Post 8vo (21cm). x,248,[ii]pp. Original cloth; a few slight marks and edge-spots, but a very good copy in a faintly sunned and lightly marked but unworn and good dust-jacket.

£15

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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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London : Hutchinson & Co., (1973). First edition. Memoirs of the distinguished publisher, with much incidental material on authors and their work – in particular Thomas Mann, George Orwell and Angus Wilson.
Medium 8vo (25cm). (xvi),310,[ii]pp. Plates. Portraits. Original cloth; edges lightly spotted, but a very good copy in the original dust-jacket – just lightly used.

£15

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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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Ipswich : W. E. Harrison & Sons, 1949. First edition. A presentation copy, inscribed to G. Bodley Scott and signed by S. F. Watson. A detailed and illustrated monograph, with material on Reginald Oliver, Anthony Scoloker, John Oswen, John Overton, William Prynne, William Weekly, John Daye, John Bagnall, Charles Punchard, John Bush, Alfred Piper, etc., etc.
Demy 8vo (23cm). [viii],46,[x]pp. Plates. Facsimiles. Illustrations. Original red cloth; spine lettering much faded; some spotting to edges, but a good and sound copy.

£20

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