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London : British Library, (1986). First edition. A fully illustrated survey - techniques of reproduction, early British children's books, nonsense and fantasy, Edmund Evans and his artists, gift books, etc.
Crown 4to. 80pp. Numerous illustrations, some in colour. Original wraps; faint crease to lower wrap; faint mark at foot of title-page, but otherwise a very good copy.

£10

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Totowa : Rowman & Littlefield, 1971. Fourth edition. Extensive bibliographies grouped under the subject headings of printing, book-collecting, illustrated books, broadsides and pamphlets, book-production, paper, publishing and book-selling, and special subjects.
Two volumes. Crown 8vo. [xvi],310; [vi],311-(610)pp. Original cloth; very mild spotting of edges; a few leaves lightly bruised, but a very good set.

£30

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Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, 1954. First edition : limited to 750 numbered copies. Essays by Theodore C. Blegen (A Glorious Court), James Ford Bell (Bound Fragments of Time), Stanley Pargellis (Rare Books and the Scholar), Colton Storm (The Specialized Collection), and Louis B. Wright (American Book Collectors).
Crown 8vo. [x],(70)pp. Original half cloth; just a little dulled, but a good and sound copy.

£15

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London : George Routledge & Sons, 1907. First edition. A straightforward guide to setting up children's home libraries; the household library; professional and workshop libraries; the school library; the small municipal library; classification; cataloguing; book selection, etc.
Foolscap 8vo. (vi),154pp. Original cloth; top edge gilt; some light wear and a short split; endpapers tanned; a few leaves roughly opened; but a good and serviceable copy.

£10

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Edinburgh & London : William Blackwood & Sons, 1862. First edition of "A Vision of Mighty Book Hunters", "The Prowler and the Auction-Haunter" and other fine essays on book-buying by the Scottish historian John Hill Burton. A book greeted by "The Saturday Review" on its first appearance as "beyond measure delightful to those who are in any degree members of the above mentioned fraternity".
Crown 8vo. viii,384pp - and with the rare publisher's announcement slip. Original quarter roan; a little rubbed; some marking to lower cover; neat manuscript number on title-page; text a little fingered in places; some marks, but still a very good copy. From the collection of the late Barry Bloomfield, former Director of Collection Development at the British Library - and himself a book-hunter of no little accomplishment.

£185

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[London] : Cambridge University Press, 1947. First edition : one of the copies issued in cloth, with the plates not included in the wrappers issue. A major exhibition catalogue, with a foreword by Sadleir and an introduction by Carter.
Demy 8vo. (xiv),(50)pp. Sixteen plates. Original cloth; a hint of rubbing; endpapers slightly spotted, with a short repaired tear to rear free endpaper; but a very good and bright copy in the original dust-jacket - lightly worn and slightly tanned.

£20

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Princes Risborough : Shire Publications, (1982). First edition. A compact and useful little beginners' guide.
Foolscap 8vo. 80pp. Plates. Illustrations. Original wrappers; a hint of rubbing, but a very good copy.

£10

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Leamington Spa : James Hall, 1981. First edition. Essays by Nicolas Barker, Christopher de Hamel, Mirjam Foot, Lotte Hellinga, Anthony Hobson, Bernard Middleton, Sir Karl Popper, Lord Wardington and others on an eclectic selection of material acquired from the noted bookseller, Alan Gradon Thomas (1911-1992).
Pott folio. x,(74),[iv]pp. Numerous illustrations. Original cloth gilt; faint spotting of top edge, but a very good copy in just slightly creased dust-jacket.

£15

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London : for the Bibliographical Society, 1949. A reprint of the original 1945 edition. A collection of essays, including F.S.Ferguson, English Books before 1640; F.C.Francis, The Bibliographical Society; a Sketch of the First Fifty Years; E.P.Goldschmidt, The Study of Early Bookbinding; W.W.Greg, Bibliography - A Retrospect; W.A.Jackson, America; Michael Sadleir, The Development During the Last Fifty Years of Bibliographical Study of Books of the Nineteenth Century; Victor Scholderer, Early Printed Books; Harold Williams, The Eighteenth Century; F.P.Wilson: Shakespeare and the 'New Bibliography', etc. With a list of the Society's publications, 1892-1942.
Demy 4to. (viii),(216)pp. Original holland-backed boards; top edge gilt; a few faint marks; slight rubbing to corners, but a very good copy. From the collection of the late B.C.Bloomfield, former President of the Bibliographical Society.

£30

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Edinburgh & London : William Blackwood & Sons, 1932. First edition. The second and scarcer of Garnett's volumes of anecdotes and memories of books and book-collecting.
Crown 8vo. vi,(320)pp. Coloured pictorial extra-title. Original cloth; some spotting of edges, but a very good copy in the original pictorial dust-jacket - a little worn, torn, scuffed, creased and repaired, but still complete.

£40

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New York : Grolier Club, 1984. First edition : limited to 1,000 copies. Papers by Robert Giroux (The Future of the Book), Frank Stella (An Artist's View of Prints), G. Thomas Tanselle (The Evolving Role of Bibliography, 1884-1984), and others.
Royal 8vo. (xii),146pp. Original cloth; a little bowed, but otherwise very good indeed.

£20

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London : Cambridge University Press, 1963. First edition. The Sandars Lectures for 1961 - detailing the history in four chronological stages - with added appendices on the Royal Music Library, classified lists of collectors, etc.
Crown 4to. xvi,(178),[ii]pp. Eight plates. Original cloth; very good in the original Kenneth Farnhill dust-jacket - price-clipped and very slightly rubbed.

£25

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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.
Demy 8vo. (20)pp. Original wrappers; lower wrap slightly dusty and nicked, but a nice copy of a scarce and fragile production.

£15

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London : British Printing Machinery Association, 1980. First edition. The catalogue of the related 1980 exhibitions held at the National Exhibition Centre and elsewhere - describing 188 items in Birmingham, 95 in Aberystwyth, 49 in Cambridge, 100 in Manchester, etc. With an introductory essay by Ruari McLean.
Royal 8vo. (140),[iv]pp. Colour plates. Original pictorial wraps; very good in dust-jacket.

£20

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London & Chesham : Gramol Publications, 1945. First hardback edition - a revised and enlarged version of the original 1944 publication. A masterly summary - how to begin, what to collect, how to tell a first edition, how to tell if a book is complete, how to judge values, a short history of the book - and how to read a bookseller's catalogue.
Crown 8vo. 128pp. Plates. Original cloth; very faint spotting of top edge, but a very good copy in a torn and slightly chipped dust-jacket. With the ownership inscription of B.C.Bloomfield, bibliographer of Auden and Larkin.

£20

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London : B.T.Batsford, (1979). A reprint of the original 1954 edition, with a fresh preface updating the list of recommended reading, etc. An illustrated history and collectors' guide to English children's books, with checklists of the most important authors, the publishing history of the major works, etc.
Crown 4to. (256)pp. Colour plates. 107 illustrations. Original boards; a few faint marks, but a very good copy in a just slightly dusty and price-clipped dust-jacket.

£25

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New York : Praeger Publishers, (1971). First edition : the American issue. A well illustrated and wide-ranging survey of (mainly British) illustrated books of the nineteenth century - with chapters on chapbooks; Thomas Bewick and George Cruikshank; line engraving; the periodicals; the Dalziels; the advent of colour; fin-de-siècle; foreign influence; America, etc.
Crown 4to. (xvi),(288)pp. Five colour plates. Numerous monochrome illustrations. Original orange cloth, blocked and lettered on spine in gilt; top edge black; a very good and bright copy in the dust-jacket.

£40

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London : Athlone Press, 1962. First edition. A study of the growth of collecting autograph letters between the early eighteenth century and about 1914. With chapters on the Early Collectors; William Upcott; Dawson Turner; Other Nineteenth Century Collections, etc.
Demy 8vo. viii,(118),[ii]pp. Plates. Original cloth; mild spotting of edges, but a very good copy indeed in a just lightly sunned dust-jacket. With the pencilled ownership inscription of B.C.Bloomfield, former Director of Collection Development at the British Library.

£25

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Winchester : St. Paul's Bibliographies, 1988. First edition : limited to 500 copies. Conference papers by Christopher de Hamel, T.A.Birrell, Robin Myers, Julian Roberts, Esther Potter, etc.
Foolscap 4to. (118),[ii]pp. Original laminated boards; very good.

£15

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Pinner : Private Libraries Association, (1967). First edition : limited to 1,400 copies. A very pleasantly produced and illustrated biography of the celebrated nineteenth century bookman, author of "Bibliomania", etc.
Demy 8vo. [ii],(46)pp. Portrait frontispiece, facsimiles, etc. Original boards; very faint spotting of top edge, but otherwise very good in a lightly sunned dust-jacket, with a short tear on lower panel.

£10

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London : Constable & Co., [1938]. First separate issue. A separately published offprint from Constable's "New Paths in Book Collecting: Essays by Various Hands" (edited by John Carter, London, 1934), put out in Constable's attractive "Aspects of Book-Collecting" series. An elegant examination of the importance and primacy of the serialisations of nineteenth-century fiction.
Crown 8vo. [ii],247-(278)pp. Original wrappers; a touch sunned; very slight spotting of edges, but a very good copy.

£20

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London : Studio Vista, (1972). First edition. A well-illustrated survey - with chapters on the historical background; the father of the detective story (Edgar Allan Poe); the evolution of the roman policier; the early Victorians; Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins; the hansom cab era; the immortals of Baker Street; after Holmes; the lady sleuths; the modern writers; collecting first editions, etc. Photographs by Gabriel Monro.
Royal 4to. (144)pp. Colour plates. Illustrations. Original cloth; top edge spotted, but a very good copy in a just lightly sunned dust-jacket.

£25

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Manchester : Manchester Polytechnic Library, in association with Bracken Books and Studio Editions, 1988. First edition. A descriptive catalogue of the 2649 items in this handsome collection. Arranged by themes - and with indices of authors, editors, translators, contributors, illustrators, engravers, local publishers, etc. Introduction by Peter Stockham.
Demy 4to. [viii],(204)pp. Tipped-in colour frontispiece. Colour plates. Illustrations. Original boards; very good indeed in the dust-jacket.

£35

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London : André Deutsch, (1963). Fourth edition. A revised and enlarged version of Seymour Smith's recommendations and suggestions as to the contents of a good and serviceable library, originally published in 1943. With sections on memoirs, biographies, essays, fiction, history, philosophy and religion, poetry, drama, travel, etc., and advice as to the best editions.
Post 8vo. 384pp. Original boards; very lightly bruised, edges a little spotted, but a very good and sound copy.

£10

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London : Arts Council, 1953. First edition. The exhibition catalogue - with full descriptions of the impressive array of sixty-seven books. With an introduction by Wilfrid Blunt.
Crown 8vo. [viii],(48)pp. Original stapled wrappers; wraps a little tanned; mild rusting of staples and slight consequent holing to wraps, but a good copy of a fragile production.

£10

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Cleveland & New York : World Publishing Co., (1957). First edition. A presentation copy, inscribed, signed and dated (1957) by Bill Targ. Essays by Richard Altick, Jacob Blanck, Marchette Chute, F. J. Harvey Darton, August Derleth, Iona and Peter Opie, Ellery Queen, Vincent Starrett, and other cognoscenti on various aspects of children's books and their collecting - "with emphasis on the great rarities, classics, and highspots".
Medium 8vo. (508),[iv]pp. Plates. Facsimiles. Original cloth; very good in a sunned and lightly tanned dust-jacket.

£50

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New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 1980. First edition. Inscribed (to the bibliographer Barry Bloomfield) and signed by the author, the New York bookseller, Robert A. Wilson. A clearly laid-out guide for the novice first edition collector - with chapters on what, how, who, dealers, auctions, condition, identification, bibliographies, housing, fakes, investment, disposing, definitions, etc.
Demy 8vo. xiv,(272)pp. Illustrations. Original cloth; very good indeed in dust-jacket.

£20

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Los Angeles : William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, 1969. First edition. Papers respectively on "The Book Collector as Public Benefactor" and "The Private Collector and the Literary Scholar", with much interesting material on the great book collectors.
Medium 8vo. [2],(viii),(92),[ii]pp. Original stapled wrappers; slight crease to preliminary blank, but a very good copy.

£10

To confirm availability and to purchase this book please note the stock number 28435 and go to the database. Enter the number in the stock/order number box - press the search button - and a shopping basket should appear. Or simply call us or e-mail books@ashrare.com.