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London : Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1936. First edition. A murder mystery set in the Lake District – “ingenious detective story ... The narrator, Richard Carleton, succeeds to a Cumberland property by the death of his half brother and nephews. The house, or rather one room of it, is ransacked and the butler murdered on the night when he comes to take possession. A body is afterwards found on the moors ...” (Northern Whig, 30th March 1936).
Crown 8vo (20cm). (288),[ii]pp. Frontispiece map. Family tree. Original orange cloth lettered in black; a couple of trifling marks; some light edge-spotting, but a very good, bright and sound copy in the map-illustrated dust-jacket by Ralph Mott (1888-1959) – the second state jacket, price-clipped by the publisher and overprinted with a fresh price – the jacket with just minor wear and faint creasing, lightly fingered on rear panel, but also very good; a bright and cheerful copy.

£125

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London : Jarrold & Sons, 1902. First edition. An uncommon fantasy of identity switching from the irrepressible “R. Andom” – different identities assumed by means of a “magic green packet of transmigration tablets” – “The hero ... is projected into the twenty-first century through the agency of an explosive clock, and this is how he comes in contact with the Identity Exchange ... To those who like fun fast and furious, the story may be cordially commended” (The Scotsman, 10th November 1902). Later republished as “The Marvellous Adventures of Me”.
Crown 8vo (20cm). 286,[vi],[16]pp. Numerous illustrations by Charles Harrison (1860-1943). Original pinkish-brown pictorial cloth, blocked and lettered in black and red; a few faint marks; some rusting to staples; just a touch shaken, but a good copy of an engaging fantasy.

£100

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London : Picador, (2006). First edition. “It was not the dead that seemed to Quirke uncanny but the living” - the first of Banville’s addictive Quirke series, written initially under his “Benjamin Black” pseudonym - we meet the pathologist in the morgue long after midnight in 1950s Dublin. “It’s soaked in my recollections. It is more connected to the circumstances of my life than my Banville books” (John Banville).
Demy 8vo (23cm). [viii],(390),[ii]pp. Original black boards, lettered in silver; a very good copy indeed in the dust-jacket - the jacket also very good indeed.

£50

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London : William Heinemann, 1923. First trade edition. A sequence of fifty plates – Beerbohm at his finest and funniest – includes portrait caricatures of H. G. Wells, Arnold Bennett, Aldous Huxley, Rudyard Kipling, Osbert and Sacheverell Sitwell, Frederic Manning, E. V. Lucas, etc., with a particularly delightful rendering of a communist Sunday school.
Demy quarto (29cm). viii pp. Colour frontispiece and forty-nine plates, with captioned tissue guards. Original tan cloth, lettered in gilt and blocked in blind; some mild discolouration to cloth; some very minor spotting, but a very good copy in the substantial remains of the dust-jacket, with front rear and panels almost complete.

£125

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London : Thomas Nelson & Sons, [1913]. First edition. His first book and a classic of crime fiction - “Contrasted with the turgid narratives of its own period, its civilized effortlessness and engaging humor are as twin beacons in a fog ... ‘Trent’s Last Case’ stands truly first among modern examples of the genre. It is one of the great cornerstones of the detective story” (Haycraft).
Crown 8vo (20cm). [ii],(376),[ii]pp. Colour frontispiece by Percy Bell Hickling (1876-1951) of the “Woman in Black”. Original blind-stamped blue cloth, lettered in gilt; just a touch of rubbing at extremities; some spotting of edges, but otherwise a very good, bright and sound copy.

£250

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London : Chatto & Windus, 1977. First edition. Signed by Dirk Bogarde on the title-page. “A most enviable piece of (largely) pastoral recall, nostalgic to the point of being aromatic with the smells, colours, sounds, characters of English pre-war rural life, further embellished by the author’s own pen-and-ink sketches, in the style of E. H. Shepard” (Birmingham Daily Post, 2 April 1977). The first and most celebrated of Bogarde’s sequence of autobiographies.
Medium 8vo (23cm). [xii],268pp. Photo plates and seventeen illustrations by the author. Original bright blue boards, ruled, blocked, and lettered in gilt; a few faint marks, but overall a very good, clean and sound copy in the jacket designed by the author, also very good.

£100

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London : Collins for The Crime Club, (1962). First edition. “Miss Jane Marple was sitting by her window” – the last of her true country village mysteries. “The story is of an apparently unmotivated murder at a fête held in Miss Marples’s village, where a famous film star has recently bought the local mansion ... classic Christie sleight-of-hand technique” (Birmingham Daily Post, 4th December 1962).
Crown 8vo (185 x 188mm). (256)pp. Bound in an elegant recent half chestnut morocco, banded and gilt; some spotting of edges and prelims but otherwise a handsome copy.

£250

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London : Richard Bentley, 1840. First edition. The fourth of the Leatherstocking Tales (although the third in terms of chronology) – the Pathfinder (Hawkeye) escorts a young woman to the shores of Lake Ontario. “We are prepared to meet another escape through the woods, like that in ‘The Last of the Mohicans’ – another race over the waters, as in former sea romances – or another land siege, like the fearful leaguer of the blockhouse ... but in place of any one of these stirring passages, Mr. Cooper gives us all three. The interest of the story is unflaggingly maintained” (The Athenæum). “The most beautiful and natural, the simplest, the truest, and owing the least to mere art – of all Mr. Cooper’s novels” (The Atlas).
Three volumes. Royal 12mo (197 x 119mm). [iv],320,(v)-viii – the preface misbound at the rear; [ii],348; [ii],(340)pp. Bound, without final blanks, in a smart and unworn twentieth-century half dark green calf, banded and gilt; top edges gilt; occasional spotting and browning, a few slight creases, but overall a very good set. With the nautical bookplate of the distinguished collector Robert James Hayhurst (1929-2016) in the first volume.

£400

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[Paris] : Publié sous les auspices de La Société Internationale des Intérêts Commerciaux, pour les Chemins de Fer de l’État, par Devambez, [1930]. First edition. The well-known French playwright and screenwriter with a witty response to Anita Loos (1889-1981) and her “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” (1925). From the library of Anita Loos, with her delightful portrait bookplate by Frank Walts (1877-1941), and two small “From the estate of Anita Loos” stamps. “Four letters twenty two post cards two night letters and one cable from his sweet, sweet Annabel Flowers to her darling, darling George Sabran”. Produced as English-language promotional and publicity material for both French State Railways and a range of French businesses, with overt plugs for perfumes, dresses, resorts, hairdressers, hats, jewels, cars, hotels, restaurants, shoes, etc., and even Kellner the body-builder of the Champs-Élysée. A leaflet list of “firms recommanded [sic]” is loosely inserted.
Crown 4to (24cm). [64]pp. Coloured illustrations throughout. Original wrappers; just lightly rubbed and slightly bruised; a touch shaken; a hint of tanning, but otherwise a very good copy in the silver dust-jacket, lettered and decorated in red and black – the jacket similarly lightly worn and slightly bruised, with a short tear at head, but in good condition for a fragile survival. Just three copies (Bibliothèque Nationale. Cambridge, and California) traced in major libraries.

£500

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London : Faber & Faber, 1960. First edition. The fourth and the final instalment of the Alexandria Quartet – Darley returns to an Alexandria at war. “As well as being a rounding-off and, in many ways, an explanation of the previous three books, ‘Clea’ is also a work on its own ... different, perhaps less subtle but, on the whole more moving” (The Sphere, 6th February 1960). One of the most memorable and extraordinary performances in twentieth-century fiction.
Demy 8vo (21cm). (288)pp. Original tangerine cloth, blocked in green and lettered in gilt; light spotting of edges and endpapers, but otherwise a very good copy in the dust-jacket – the jacket very lightly marked, with a handful of nicks and short repaired tears, but complete and attractive still.

£50

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London : Faber & Faber, (1958). First edition. “As for sport (said Antrobus), the very word makes me uneasy. I’ve never believed in its healing power. Once I was forced to referee a match between H.M.S. Threadbare and the French Fleet which resulted in my nearly being dismembered”. Ten Antrobus tales of diplomatic life, each neatly captured in a full-page Nicolas Bentley illustration.
Post 8vo (21cm). 94,[ii]pp. Illustrations and decorative chapter headings by Bentley. Original turquoise cloth, lettered in yellow; a single tiny edge-spot, but otherwise a very good, clean and sound copy in the Bentley dust-jacket – the jacket also very good.

£75

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London : Hutchinson, (1998). First edition. Signed by Sebastian Faulks on the title-page. “It would take a mile-long essay to do justice to the many virtues of Sebastian Faulks' wonderful new novel. This riveting account of a young Scotswoman’s odyssey through wartime London, and on into a perilous secret mission in Vichy France, deserves the highest praise ... Proustian cogitations, masterful narrative, and zestful pen portraits. A beautiful, near-masterpiece” (Independent on Sunday). Filmed with Cate Blanchett, etc., in 2001.
Medium 8vo (25cm). [vi],393,[i]pp. Original blue boards, lettered in gilt; a very good copy in the David Oliver dust-jacket – the jacket with just a hint of creasing at head, but also very good.

£100

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London : Hodder & Stoughton, (1956). First edition. A review copy, with the publishers’ slip loosely inserted. “An ample, populous, up-to-the-minute romance, largely about neo-Bohemians and Espresso bars. A strange world to Nell Sely, who has grown up in the wilds as a parson’s daughter” (Illustrated London News, 19th January 1957). “Miss Gibbons has excelled herself. Her book has not only charm but something far better – perspicacity” (Elizabeth Bowen, The Tatler, 24th October 1956).
Post 8vo (21cm). 315,[i]pp. Original blue boards, ruled, blocked and lettered in gilt; a touch dusty but otherwise a very good, clean and sound copy in the dust-jacket – the jacket a little rubbed and very slightly frayed along top edge but clean and presentable.

£60

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London : William Heinemann, 1931. First edition : [one of 1,000 copies]. A collection of forty-five poems, including “Thief”, “Castle”, “Bay of Naples”, “To the Reader over my Shoulder”, “Dragons”, “The Age of Certainty”, etc. “It must also be remarked about Mr. Graves that though a modern of the moderns, and for all his exclusiveness, there is nothing freakish in his technique. The above extract, for example, might quite well have come out of Shakespeare” (Liverpool Daily Post, 4th March 1931).
Post 8vo (21cm). [xii],(90),[ii]pp. Original maroon cloth, overprinted in a white cobbled design [by William Nicholson]; mauve paper labels, printed in black, on spine and upper cover; a few faint edge-spots, but a very good, crisp and sound copy, with the spare title-label tipped in at rear. With the ownership inscription of Clare Pakenham.

£50

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London : William Heinemann, (1951). First edition. Adultery and broken hearts in Clapham – the basis of both the 1955 film with Deborah Kerr and Van Johnson, and the 1999 film with Julianne Moore and Ralph Fiennes.
Crown 8vo (19cm). [vi],(238)pp. Original grey cloth, lettered in gilt; some tanning of outer leaves; a few edge spots; slight flaw to final leaf, but otherwise a very good copy in the dust-jacket – the jacket lightly tanned, but with just minimal wear and a couple of slight nicks, and also very good.

£200

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London : for J. Dodsley, and T. Shrimpton, Bath, 1779. Second and best edition, corrected and enlarged to three volumes from the earlier two volumes published in 1769 and 1775. A fascinating compendium of Harington family papers, chiefly those of the mischievous Sir John Harington, translator of Ariosto, godson of Elizabeth I, alternately in and out of favour at both her court and that of James I & VI, but always at the centre of affairs – with his sometimes scurrilous accounts of the leading clergy; his report to Elizabeth on the Earl of Essex in Ireland; correspondence with Elizabeth, James, Prince Henry, Essex, Burleigh, Cecil, and others; conversations, letters and speeches by Elizabeth; his treatise on play; a letter to Isaac Newton on harmonic ratios from a later family member, with Newton’s detailed reply and a diagram; a letter from Prince Rupert at the time of the Civil War; earlier letters from John Cheke to King Edward, Somerset, Bishop Gardiner, Queen Mary, etc.; letters from Roger Ascham, and so much more. Edited by Henry Harington (1755-1791).
Three volumes. Post 12mo (164 x 96mm). [8],(xxii),[10],296; (xviii),326; [4],(vi),312pp. Miniature engraved portrait of Elizabeth I, said to be taken from a plate given by Elizabeth herself to Isabella Harington in 1554; two folding plates. Bound in elegant nineteenth-century half tan roan, ruled and tooled in gilt; green labels; marbled sides; some mild rubbing; tiny areas of surface abrasion and insect damage to two volumes; a few minor internal marks, spots and signs of use, but a good set. From the notable collection of Robert James Hayhurst (1929-2016), with his bookplate.

£250

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London : Duckworth & Co., 1913. First edition : Roberts’ variant (1), with the cancel title dated 1913. “Review copies have been noted both with the bound-in title without date and with the tipped-in title with date ... as Duckworth’s records were destroyed during the war, a final solution to these bibliographical problems may be impossible” (Roberts). “No other English novelist of our time has so great a power to translate passion into words, but that is neither the beginning nor end of his art” (London Evening Standard, 30th May 1913).
Crown 8vo (186 x 119mm). (viii),(424) + (20)pp advertisements. Bound in a smart recent half blue morocco, banded and gilt; marbled sides; a few slight marks and spots; one leaf chipped, with the loss of four letters, but a good copy, attractively bound. Roberts A4.

£500

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London : Weidenfeld & Nicolson, (1996). First edition. Signed by John Lawton on the title-page. The second of the much-admired Frederick Troy series – Chief Inspector Troy is assigned to bodyguard and spy on Nikita Khrushchev on his visit to England – “A splash of Greene, a twist of Deighton, a small measure of history – Lawton has produced a thrilling cocktail” (The Times).
Royal 8vo (25cm). [x],416,[vi]pp. Original maroon boards, lettered in gilt; the merest hint of bruising, but a very good copy indeed – bright, clean and sound – in an equally very good dust-jacket.

£100

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London : Weidenfeld & Nicolson, (1998). First edition. Signed by John Lawton on the title-page. The scarce third novel in the much-admired Frederick Troy series – it is 1963 – a defection, a ministerial resignation, an overdose and a suicide – all echoes of very real events – an “unputdownable narrative of spying, sexual intrigue, political scandal and murder ... a haunting novel, transcending the bounds of genre fiction” (A. N. Wilson in the Daily Telegraph).
Royal 8vo (25cm). [viii],440pp. Original black boards, lettered in silver; an excellent copy, bright, clean and sound, in an equally fine dust-jacket.

£100

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London : Viking, (2017). First edition : the “exclusive signed edition”, signed by John le Carré on an additional preliminary leaf dated September 2017. Both a prequel and a sequel to “The Spy who Came in from the Cold” – a swansong for George Smiley, Peter Guillam, Bill Haydon, Jim Prideaux and other memorable spies of fiction. “Poignant and brilliant” (Robert McCrum in The Guardian).
Medium 8vo (25cm). [2],[vi],264,[ii]pp. Original black boards, blocked and lettered in silver; a fine copy in the dust-jacket.

£125

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London : Jonathan Cape, (1922). First British edition and first edition under this title. The first appearance of Doctor Dolittle, who shuns his human patients in favour of his animal ones – “Heartily recommended ... There they will read, among other strange beasts, of the ‘pushmipullyu’, or ‘marvellous two-headed animal from the jungles of Africa’, and also watch it go through its incredible performances under the Doctor’s care” (The Scotsman, 7 December 1922).
Post 8vo (21cm). (186),[vi]pp – including integral pictorial endpapers. Over thirty black and white illustrations, some full-page, by the author. Original blue cloth, lettered in black and blocked pictorially in blind; a touch of bruising and a few faint signs of use; occasional light spotting, mainly of edges, but a very good copy of an instant classic.

£400

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London : Hamish Hamilton, (1962). First edition. A collection of fourteen sparkling essays, including Nanny in the young Mitfords’ nursery; her thoughts on chic (English, French and American); on reading for pleasure; a hilarious visit to non-U Russia; an essay on Ireland, with a subversive lapse into bad language, and much else besides. Later published in France as “Snobismes et Voyages”.
Post 8vo (21cm). [viii],144pp. Six plates on coloured stock by the inimitable Osbert Lancaster. Original red and black weave boards, blocked and lettered in silver; some spotting, mainly to top edge and prelims, but otherwise a very good, bright and sound copy in the Osbert Lancaster dust-jacket – the jacket price-clipped, with a single short tear and some mild discolouration to the rear panel, but otherwise also very good.

£50

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London : André Deutsch, (1963). First edition. “Marks the first time this very distinguished West Indian author has written a novel which deals exclusively with the English against their own background. The result is completely successful ... beautifully written, restrained and sensitive” (The Sphere, 8 June 1963).
Post 8vo (21cm). (160)pp. Original tan boards, ruled, blocked and lettered in gilt, top edge lilac; a handful of edge spots. but a very good, clean and sound copy in the Leonard Rosoman dust-jacket – the jacket lightly used, a touch nicked and sunned, with some strengthening and repair on verso.

£100

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London : C. Arthur Pearson, 1913. First edition. An exemplary and thoroughly illustrated guide to the art of creating amusing hand shadows – animal forms, with rabbit, wolf, elephant, tortoise, crocodile, etc. – birds, with pigeon, vulture, swan, rooster, etc. – character studies, with postman, rake, vagrant, Wellington, Bismarck, etc. – with some more complex shapes made with the aid of accessories, and finally a section on mounting a whole shadow pantomime.
Crown 8vo (19cm). 109,[iii]pp – including integral endpapers with advertisements. Eighty-five diagrams. Original pictorial boards, with price revision overlays; lightly rubbed and very slightly bruised, but a very good copy of a fragile production. From the collection of magician Paul Daniels (1938-2016), with his portrait bookplate and blind-stamp on the half-title.

£100

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London : Tinsley Brothers, 1870. First edition. “It belongs to what may be called the ‘Mysteries of London’ school ... One of the heroines – there are two – is, although in many respects charming and innately good, yet, influenced by a false sense of duty, participant in a murder, so far as knowledge of the crime and the procuring the necessary poison are concerned; while the other is a sort of wild cat ... There are of course detectives, and crime-hunts, and stealthy, watchful movements, and crafty hidings away ... [and] life-like descriptions of queer London haunts” (Morning Post, 1st December 1870).
Three volumes. Crown 8vo (180 x 100mm). vi,(284); vi,286; vi,(276)pp. Bound, with half-titles, in a pleasing recent half tan calf, banded and gilt; red labels; marbled sides. A few slight internal marks and a number of slight corner creases, but a very good set of an intriguing and uncommon title. Just four copies, only one (British Library) in the UK, located in major libraries worldwide.

£750

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London : Constable & Co., 1925. First edition. Isabelle de Charrière (1740-1805), known as Zélide, “lived in her father’s moated castle in Holland, like a fairytale princess in a tower. She was the clever, sexy, mercurial young Dutch blue-stocking with whom Boswell fell disastrously in love in 1764 ... this tender, funny, faintly salacious portrait of a ‘belle-esprit’ is one of the most exquisite biographical miniatures ever written (Richard Holmes)” – a best-seller in its day and winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize – “Its success proves that sheer literary quality will make a book go” (James Milne, in the Graphic, 14th November 1925).
Demy 8vo (220 x 144mm). (viii),(216),[iv]pp. Two portrait plates and two silhouettes. Bound in an elegant later red calf, banded and gilt; blue labels; marbled sides and endpapers; top edge gilt; silk ribbon; just a touch dulled; some minute wear to a corner; a handful of spots, but a very good copy. With the small silver book-label of A. Constable Maxwell of the Chateau de Vallamand in Switzerland on the front endpaper.

£125

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London : Constable & Co., 1928. First edition. “You can introduce almost any measure of Socialism or Communism into England provided you call it by some other name. Propose Socialistic confiscation of the incomes of the rich, and the whole country will rise to repel such Russian wickedness. Call it income-tax, supertax, and estate duties, and you can lift enough hundreds of millions from the pockets of our propertied class to turn the Soviet of Federated Russian Republics green with envy”. Begun as a letter to his sister-in-law, Shaw’s mansplaining apologia for socialism eventually ran to eighty-four chapters. He later claimed that although he had taken “the utmost pains to make it intelligible, clear, lucid, unambiguous, simple, and unmistakeable ... only one man in the civilized world has understood it; and that man is Albert Einstein”.
Medium 8vo (25cm). xxxvi,(496)pp. Original decorative green cloth gilt; top edge gilt; mild discolouration of endpapers; edges a little spotted, but otherwise a very good, bright, sound and unworn copy in the striking dust-jacket – an uncredited design by Eric Kennington (1888-1960) – the jacket a touch spotted, and little worn and torn, with some minor repair, but virtually complete and attractive still.

£200

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London : for Longman, Hurst, Rees & Orme, 1807. First edition. An extensive collection of quotations from Sidney, given under a multitude of headings – Man, Birth, Education and Study, Reason and Wisdom, Virtue, Glory, and over fifty more, including Courtesy, Friendship, Curiosity, Custom, Justice, Woman, Love, Faith, etc. – interspersed with occasionally lengthy notes, remarks, and interpretation by Jane Porter (La Penserosa) (1776-1850), the well-respected pioneering historical novelist. Edited, introduced, and dedicated to Gustavus IV of Sweden, by Porter.
Two volumes. Crown 12mo (165 x 97mm). Engraved frontispieces. vi,(xvi),222,[ii]; [vi],225,[i]pp. Bound, without half-titles, in a most attractive nineteenth-century full polished mottled calf, banded and gilt; boards ruled and framed in gilt and blind; sprinkled edges; marbled endpapers; faint cracking to joints, but still entirely firm; a few very minor internal marks and spots, but otherwise a very good set.

£250

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London : John Murray, (1950-1961). A complete first edition set of the four volumes of Stark’s autobiography – the first volume signed by the author on the half-title. From her picaresque childhood, through her life and travels in the Arab and Persian world, to World War II – “It is difficult to know which to admire more, her vivid description of her experiences or the realism of the lessons which she draws from them ... Our future is uncontrollable if we are unable to read our past” (Sir Charles Petrie in The Illustrated London News, 28th October 1961).
Four volumes. Demy 8vo (23cm). (xiv),346; (xvi),(342),[ii]; (xvi),(288); xii,(298),[ii]pp. Numerous plates – many from the author’s own photographs; portraits; maps, some double-page, etc. Wood-engraved decorations by Reynolds Stone. Original green cloth, lettered in gilt, with facsimiles of the author’s signature on upper covers; the first volume a little faded; some edge-spotting, chiefly to the final volume, but otherwise a very good set in the Frank Quilter dust-jackets – the first price-clipped, a little worn, nicked and chipped, with repairs at head; the second price-clipped, a little chipped, with repaired tears to foot at folds; the third with slight chipping at head and some repaired nicks; the fourth very good, with only a hint of wear. The first volume with the decorative bookplate of Jean A. Callander of Westwood, Falkirk, the third and fourth with unrelated inscriptions.

£500

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London : Faber & Faber, (2002). First edition : the uncommon hardback issue of Stoppard’s trilogy of plays set in nineteenth-century Russia and London, first directed at the Olivier Theatre by Trevor Nunn in the summer of 2002. “Heroically ambitious and wildly uneven ... it contains passages of breathtaking beauty and surprising ordinariness. But I wouldn’t have missed it for worlds and at its heart it contains a fascinating lesson about the nature of drama ... I think it is time we began to appreciate Stoppard not for his intellectual legerdemain, but for what he is actually best at: exploring the mystery of existence, the anguish of the human heart and the stranger fact that it is our apprehension of death that gives joy and intensity to life” (Michael Billington in The Guardian, 5th and 7th August 2002).
Three volumes. Post 8vo (21cm). [xii],114,[ii]; [xii],106,[x]; [xii],(120),[xii] pp. Original black boards, lettered on spine in pale yellow; a fine set in the original pictorial dust-jackets – also fine.

£400

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London : Hurst & Blackett, 1865. First edition. “This book deals not so much with the London of the ghost-stories ... as with the London consecrated by manifold traditions – a city every street and alley of which teems with interesting associations, every paving-stone of which marks, as it were, the abiding-place of some ancient legend or biographical story; in short this London of the present haunted by the memories of the past”. With separate chapters on Charing Cross, Drury Lane, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, Long Acre, St. Giles, St. Martin’s Lane, the Savoy, Somerset House, the Strand, Temple Bar, etc., and a fund of out-of-the-way anecdote of Londoners past.
Demy 8vo (212 x 134mm). (xvi),(518),[ii]pp. Wood-engraved illustrations by Frederick William Fairholt, F.S.A. (1814-1866). Bound, without half-title, in smart recent half green morocco, banded and gilt; top edge gilt; marbled sides; some marking to title-page; a few spots and slight creases, but handsome copy.

£200

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London : Richard Bentley, 1865. First edition. “From the building of the first bridge at London to the startling incident of a few days since” – the history of London in highly entertaining story and anecdote, with sections of Historic Sketches; Remarkable Duels; Notorious Highwaymen; Rogueries, Crimes and Punishments; Love and Marriage; Supernatural Stories; Sights and Shows, and Public Amusements; Strange Adventures and Catastrophes; Remarkable Persons; and Miscellanous. “The indefatigable prince of compilers has once more plied his industrious scissors to good purpose” (Illustrated London News, 24th June 1865).
Three volumes. Crown 8vo (190 x 118mm). viii,324; viii,320; viii,(332)pp. Bound, without half-titles, in an attractive contemporary half tan calf, banded and gilt; contrasting red and green labels; marbled sides, edges and endpapers; lightly rubbed; a few very minor marks, small flaws and slight creases; slight spotting of prelims; text very slightly tanned, but still a nice set. Gift inscriptions dated 1886 in each volume and the more recent book-labels of Oliver Ray.

£250

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London : Longmans, Green & Co., (1944). First British edition. “The history of a people with the politics left out” – Trevelyan’s magisterial survey of English life over six centuries – “a series of successive scenes ... for in Chaucer’s time the English people first appear as a racial and cultural unit ... ... unless we become a totalitarian state and forget all our Englishry, there will always be something mediaeval in our ways of thinking, especially in our idea that people and corporations have rights and liberties which the State ought in some measure to respect, in spite of the legal omnicompetence of Parliament”.
Demy 8vo (214 x 134mm). xii,628pp. Maps, some double-page, two coloured; diagram. Bound in an elegant, slightly later, half navy crushed morocco, banded and gilt; top edge gilt; marbled endpapers; a very good copy. Small Times Book Club stamp in two places.

£125

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London : Chapman & Hall, 1881. First edition. Lucy and Ayala Dormer left destitute by the death of their gifted but improvident artist father. “Possibly the most unjustly neglected of all Trollope’s novels ... and yet it is one of the most charming ... the lightest and airiest of them all, it has a gaiety and happiness and playfulness that Trollope ... never exceeded ... what vigour of scene and creation, what vitality of action and dialogue it contains” (Hugh Walpole). “The author has not written a better or pleasanter novel for a good many years” (Pall Mall Gazette, 28th May 1881).
Three volumes. Crown 8vo (189 x 121mm). iv,280; iv,272; iv,(278)pp. Bound (without final blank, no half-titles or advertisements called for) in an elegant later (mid-twentieth-century) half red morocco by Sangorski & Sutcliffe; top edges gilt; one or two tiny marks and edge-spots, but a very good, clean and fresh set of an uncommon late title.

£850

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London : for J. Clark & R. Hett; E. Matthews, and R. Ford, 1726. First edition. A popular and much reprinted text, with very clear expositions and worked examples of the problems and principles, intended to lead on “to the higher speculations of the great Sir Isaac Newton and his followers”. Dedicated to John Eames (1686-1744), recently elected to the Royal Society on Newton’s recommendation and himself a serious scholar of physics. “The same perspicuity of thought and ease of expression which distinguish his other works running through the whole of this, I don’t question but the world will meet with equal pleasure and satisfaction in the perusal” (from Eames’ preface). Watts was perhaps better known as a hymn-writer, but was also the author of such works as “Logic, or The Right Use of Reason in the Enquiry After Truth” (1724), which became the standard text on logic at Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard and Yale.
Post 8vo (196mm x 16mm), [2](xiv),(220)[xii]pp. Title-page in red and black, six folding plates. Contemporary full calf, silk headbands; rebacked, labelled, banded and gilt to style; sprinkled edges; some light wear; neat repair to title-page, not affecting lettering; some occasional internal marking and spotting; small ink stain to fore-edge but a good, sound and attractive copy of an important and accomplished work, particularly good on the use of maps and globes.

£500

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London : Duckworth, 1930. First edition. Waugh on his travels – Monte Carlo, Naples, Messina, Haifa, Port Said, Cairo, Malta, Crete, Constantinople, Athens, Corfu, Venice, Ragusa, Barcelona, Algiers, Malaga, Gibraltar, Seville and Lisbon – “piquant and entertaining, and, of course, pleasantly outspoken ... a jolly book, then, in which Mr. Waugh manages to advertise quite a number of picturesque objects, including himself. I enjoyed every word of his book, and have no hesitation in recommending it” (Ralph Straus in The Bystander, 1st October 1930).
Demy 8vo (23cm). 206,[ii]pp. Frontispiece by the author; double-page map; sketch map and three photo plates of Barcelona. Original blue cloth, lettered in gilt; a little sunned and faded; endpapers tanned; some spotting, mainly of edges and prelims; a good copy in the dust-jacket – the jacket expertly repaired and restored in places.

£500

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London : Chapman & Hall, (1936). First edition. A collection of eleven short stories, including “Period Piece”, “Excursion in Reality”, “Love in the Slump”, “Bella Fleace Gave a Party”, etc. “One of the few living authors who is incapable of being a bore. One of the few whose books are worth buying and keeping ... Mr. Waugh is the much-imitated author of our time. Yet we all know that he is inimitable” (Daily Mirror, 30th June 1936).
Crown 8vo (20cm). [ii],(238),[ii]pp. Frontispiece in two colours by Thomas Derrick (1885-1954) – a design also used on the elusive dust-jacket. Original lizard pattern red and black cloth, lettered in gilt; faint mark to top edge; some mild spotting of edges, but a very good copy, still bright and unworn.

£400

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London : Chapman & Hall, (1936). First edition. A collection of eleven short stories, including “Excursion in Reality”, “Love in the Slump”, and “Bella Fleace Gave a Party”. “One of the few living authors who is incapable of being a bore. One of the few whose books are worth buying and keeping ... ‘Excursion in Reality’ is a brilliant study of the unreality of cinema production ... Mr Waugh is the much-imitated author of our time. Yet we all know that he is inimitable” (Daily Mirror, 30th June 1936).
Crown 8vo (20cm). [ii],(238)pp. Frontispiece in two colours by Thomas Derrick (1885-1954). Original lizard pattern red and black cloth, lettered in gilt; spine just a touch sunned; a scattering of edge spots, but a very good copy, bright, sound and unworn.

£350

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London : Chapman & Hall, (1938). First edition. “Up to a point, Lord Copper” – the wrong Boot is sent to Ishmaelia. “Mr. Evelyn Waugh has let himself go with a whoop on the trail of sensational journalism ... easily the funniest book of the season” (Illustrated London News, 25th June 1938). The present copy has the front panel of the original dust-jacket laid in to the front free endpaper – the rare and quickly suppressed earlier version of the jacket, with the “Daily Beast” masthead clearly mimicking that of Beaverbrook’s “Daily Express”, and making the butt of Waugh’s satire all too plain. This was rapidly replaced by a plainer jacket with the masthead removed.
Original lizard pattern red and black cloth, lettered in gilt; just a touch rubbed and faintly sunned; some spotting, mainly of edges and prelims, but otherwise a very copy. Contemporary ownership inscription – Vinicombe, dated July 1938.

£500

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London : A. H. Bullen / Dublin : Maunsel & Co., 1906. First edition. “I walked among the seven woods of Coole ...” – fifteen poems (some previously published in a limited edition), including “In the Seven Woods”, “Never Give all the Heart”, “The Withering of the Boughs” and “Under the Moon”, together with much revised versions of three verse plays (“The Shadowy Waters”, “On Baile’s Strand” and “The King’s Threshold”). Yeats’ preface provides a highly interesting commentary on his work at this period. “We have gradually come to think of Mr. Yeats as the greatest of the younger poets who use the English tongue” (Daily News).
Crown 8vo (20cm). xvi,(280)pp. Original decorative blue cloth gilt in a design by Althea Gyles (1867-1949); just very faintly rubbed and bruised; mild tanning of endpapers, but a very good and bright copy. Neat contemporary gift inscription dated Xmas 1906 and later decorative bookplate of Ronald and Jay Hamilton.

£400

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