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

London : Henry G. Collins / Liverpool : George Philip, (1848). A neatly worked pocket-map of London from Paddington and Brompton across to Greenwich and the East India Docks - and from Kingsland down to Camberwell - on a scale of two inches to the mile. There are keyed references to the public offices, inns of court, theatres, etc. The map was originally published by James Gilbert and Edward Grattan in 1840.
Line engraving on paper, with original hand colour. Engraved surface 283 x 438mm (approx. 11-1/8" x 17-1/8"). Dissected, mounted on linen and folding into the original cloth case with a printed label bearing the cover-title "Gilbert's New Map of London, for 1848 ...", with the variant joint imprint of George Routledge of London and George Philip of Liverpool; some wear to folds; some soiling; cloth case somewhat marked, but a good copy of a rare map. Howgego 371 - an unrecorded state between 371.2 and 371.3.

SOLD

London : W. Collins Sons & Co., (1924). First edition : a review copy, with the publishers' small blind-stamp on title-page. "Acclaimed, attacked, parodied, and read, to the most fabulous degree of best-sellerdom ... a romance suited to its decade - cynical, sophisticated, yet sentimental, highly coloured, and glittering. If the colours later faded, and the glitter became mostly tarnished tinsel, the book certainly cast a spell in its day and influenced many young writers. The character of the heroine, Iris Storm, set a new fashion in fatal charmers; and Arlen's pictures of London café society were as exact as glossy photographs" (ODNB). Filmed both in 1928 and in 1934 - as "A Woman of Affairs" (with Greta Garbo) and "Outcast Lady" (with Constance Bennett) respectively.
Post 8vo. (viii),(330),[iv],[2]pp. Original brown cloth, ruled and lettered in gilt across spine, ruled in blind and lettered in gilt on upper cover; lightly worn and a little bruised; a few minor marks and spots; a few leaves a little roughly opened, but a good copy in the pictorial dust-jacket by Nick - a little worn, nicked, slightly chipped and a little soiled, with a repaired tear - but complete and not unattractive. Pencilled ownership inscription of Sybil Monica Saunders dated 1924.

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London : Faber & Faber, (1936). First edition : [one of 2,350 copies]. An early collection of thirty-one poems. "Faber invented a bloody title while I was away without telling me. It sounds like the work of a vegetarian lady novelist" - later published in the USA under Auden's preferred title of "On this Island".
Demy 8vo. 68pp. Original light grey cloth, lettered down spine in gilt; light spotting of edges and endpapers, but a very good copy in a lightly worn dust-jacket - sunned at spine. Neat ownership inscription simply noting "Cluff". Bloomfield & Mendelson A13a.

£200

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London : Faber & Faber, (1940). First British edition : [one of 2,000 copies]. One of the finest and most celebrated collections of poetry of the twentieth century, including the first appearance in book form of "Lay your sleeping head, my love ...", "Musée des Beaux Arts", "Spain 1937", "In Memory of W. B. Yeats", "September 1, 1939", "Funeral Blues", etc. "Certainly his best collection of poems ... Auden was for many of us the last poet we learnt by heart" (Cyril Connolly).
Demy 8vo. (126),[ii]pp. Original red cloth, lettered down spine in gilt; faint marking to foot of upper cover; slight spotting of edges and endpapers, but otherwise a very good copy in a lightly worn, slightly chipped and faintly sunned dust-jacket. Bloomfield & Mendelson A22b. Connolly (Modern Movement) 90.

SOLD

London & New York : John Lane, The Bodley Head, 1899. First edition : the American-printed sheets of the scarcer (and probably earlier) of the two London impressions, with the half-title and the plain title-page. Beerbohm with twenty essays on royalty, actors, the sea-side in winter, sign-boards, music halls, Covent Garden, and much else besides.
Foolscap 4to. [viii],(202),[ii]pp. Original green cloth, with white paper spine label ruled and lettered in black; spine-label slightly tanned; spine a little darkened; small and regular mark to upper cover; a few slight marks and spots, but still a very good copy. From the collection of the architectural historian, Professor Derek Linstrum, and with one of his distinctive Italian hand-made paper protective dust-jackets. Gallatin & Oliver 4a.

£125

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London : William Heinemann, 1912. First edition. Mischievous and highly entertaining parodies of Arnold Bennett, A. C. Benson, G. K. Chesterton, Joseph Conrad, John Galsworthy, Thomas Hardy, Frank Harris, Henry James, Rudyard Kipling, George Meredith, George Moore, George Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells, etc.
Foolscap 4to. (viii),(198),[ii]pp. Original blue cloth, ruled, blocked and lettered in gilt, with publisher's device in blind on lower cover; a few faint marks; some spotting of edges and endpapers, etc., but a very good and bright copy. From the collection of the architectural historian, Professor Derek Linstrum, and with one of his distinctive Italian hand-made paper protective dust-jackets. Gallatin & Oliver 10.

SOLD

London : William Heinemann, [1922]. First edition : the special issue, limited to 380 numbered copies signed by Max Beerbohm. Beerbohm sees the (very) funny side of Ford Madox Brown, Robert Browning, Holman Hunt, George Meredith, John Stuart Mill, John Everett Millais, Coventry Patmore, Christina Rossetti, George Augustus Sala, Algernon Swinburne, Alfred Tennyson, Oscar Wilde, etc.
Crown 4to. [2],(x),[44]pp. Coloured frontispiece and twenty-two tipped-in coloured caricatures, each with a titled tissue guard. Original ivory cloth over bevelled boards, ruled and lettered in gilt; just a touch of bruising; endpapers partly tanned, but a very good copy in the original dust-jacket - a little worn and slightly torn. Small bookseller's label of Fred Power of Bradford and a neat pencilled note that this copy comes from the collection of Monsignor [John] O'Connor, also of Bradford - reputed to be the original of G. K. Chesterton's 'Father Brown' - and certainly the priest who guided Chesterton to catholicism and to whom "The Secret of Father Brown" is dedicated. From the collection of the architectural historian, Professor Derek Linstrum, and with one of his distinctive Italian hand-made paper protective dust-jackets. Gallatin & Oliver 18a.

£250

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London : Chatto & Windus, 1902. First edition.
Crown 8vo. [viii],360pp. Bound, without the inserted advertisements sometimes found, in a neat contemporary half-roan, with marbled sides, got up as a somewhat downbeat prize binding for the Henbury Church Lands charity, with a contemporary (1904) inscription awarding the book as a Standard Five prize for Gertrude Salter for her "good work and good conduct" - this Gertrude Salter of Bristol, the daughter of a local plumber; very slightly rubbed; a few slight marks and spots, but a good and serviceable copy of a difficult major early novel. Later pencilled ownership inscription of Dr. F. G. A. Shenton.

£200

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London : John Murray, 1940. First edition. An early collection of twenty-five poems, including "Upper Lambourne", "Myfanwy", etc.
Crown 8vo. (xx),(67),[i]pp. Silhouette portrait frontispiece by Apollo. Ribbon marker. Original blue pebbled cloth; paper title label on spine; a few minor marks, but a very good copy in a lightly worn and slightly marked dust-jacket - a little darkened at spine and a slightly creased on lower panel. Contemporary pencilled ownership inscription of Michael Fletcher.

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London : John Murray, 1945. First edition. An early collection of twenty-four poems, including "Parliament Hill Fields", "South London Sketch, 1944", "May-Day Song for North Oxford", "In a Bath Teashop", etc.
Crown 8vo. vi,54pp. Original red cloth; paper title label ruled and lettered in black on upper cover; covers faintly flecked and mottled as usual; mild spotting of edges; slight bubbling of endpapers, but a very good copy in a chipped, spotted and slightly marked and soiled dust-jacket. Faint Times Book Club stamp on rear endpaper.

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Bristol : J. W. Arrowsmith, 1903. First edition. The Hon. Arthur Bligh with seven stories - "The Golf Cure", "A Draco of Cricket", etc.
Crown 8vo. 298,[ii]pp. Original maroon cloth, blocked and lettered in gilt and red; lightly rubbed; a few slight marks; some spotting of endpapers and edges, but a very good copy of an uncommon title. Contemporary ownership inscription of A. L. Pelham - presumably the author's uncle, the Hon. Arthur Lowther Pelham (1850-1929). Padwick 6102.

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London : Erskine Macdonald, (1916). First edition : [one of 1050 copies]. Edmund Blunden's first regularly published work - a collection of twenty-one poems.
Foolscap 8vo. 36,[viii]pp. Original pale brown wrappers, ruled, blocked and lettered on upper cover in pale blue; publisher's device on lower cover in pale blue; further lettered on upper cover and spine in dark blue; an excellent copy of this fragile production, with just the faintest hint of wear to tips. Kirkpatrick A7.

£100

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[London : W. J. Adams / Manchester : Bradshaw & Blacklock, 1879]. A bound set of twenty-eight folding maps - Antwerp, Berlin, Brussels, Cologne, Constantinople, Dresden, Florence, Frankfurt-on-Maine, Geneva, Genoa, Ghent, The Hague, Hamburg, Lyons, Marseilles, Mayence, Milan, Munich, Naples, Ostend, Palermo, Paris, Rome, Trieste, Turin, Venice, Verona and Vienna.
Pott 4to. Original linen-backed yellow wrappers; a little external wear and fraying; the first map (Paris) detached and a little torn and split; some minor splitting and wear to a handful of further maps, but the majority in very good state.

£200

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New York : Dell Publishing Co., [1951]. First edition in book form - a classic novella from the subtle and versatile Fredric Brown, originally published in "Mystery Book Magazine" the previous year - but here under its own name and with delicious cover art (quizzical brunette in low-cut red dress, furs and long red gloves) by the young Robert Stanley (1932-1997) - just at the outset of his career. No. 33 in the short-lived sequence of thirty-six Dell Dime series.
Foolscap 8vo. 64pp. Original stapled wrappers; small and faint crease to upper wrapper, but an excellent copy of a fragile production.

£200

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London : Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co., 1925. An interesting edition of Bulwer Lytton's celebrated story of the Ghost of Oxford Street, first published in "Blackwood's Magazine" in 1859 as "The Haunted and the Haunters : or, The House and the Brain", and here with an essay by Harold Armitage on Lytton as a mystic, as well as a mass of material on the ghosts associated with the mill at Willington on which Lytton is thought to have based the story.
Crown 8vo. (viii),165,[iii]pp. Portrait frontispiece. Plate. Illustrations. Original red boards, ruled and lettered in black; a little wear to extremities; mild tanning of endpapers, but a very good copy in the chilling Munch-meets-art-deco dust-jacket - just a little chipped and tanned, the price neatly clipped from the spine and the lozenge-shaped excision neatly repaired with matching paper.

SOLD

London : W. Collins Sons & Co. for The Crime Club, (1935). First British edition. "Should clergymen drink cocktails? Well, after all ..." - a Poirot mystery - "Mrs. Christie at the top of her form ..." (Dorothy L. Sayers in her Sunday Times review). Towards the end of 1935 Collins advertised this title as "the biggest selling detective story ever published under the Crime Club imprint". First published in the USA as "Murder in Three Acts" (1934).
Crown 8vo. 252,[iv]pp. Bound in a smart recent full burgundy morocco, banded and lettered in gilt; marbled endpapers; original cloth upper cover and backstrip preserved at rear; an excellent copy, fresh, clean and sound. Hubin p.80.

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London : Collins for The Crime Club, (1949). First edition. "I first came to know Sophia Leonides in Egypt towards the end of the war ...".
Crown 8vo. 192pp. Original red cloth, blocked and lettered across spine in black; a few very minor signs of age and use; mild spotting of edges and endpapers, but a very good copy in a price-clipped dust-jacket - skilfully repaired and restored at extremities. Barzun & Taylor 760. Hubin p.79.

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London : John Ebers & Co. / Edinburgh : William Blackwood, 1829. First edition. The second year of publication for this very early Christmas annual for children - with "something found to please, and little to offend even the most scrupulous parent" - with contributions including the first appearance of Maria Edgeworth's novella "Garry Owen; or, The Snow-Woman"; pieces on the squirrel, the dormouse, and the kingfisher from Mary Howitt; tales of childhood heroes from Barbara Hofland; a song and a story from Mary Russell Mitford; a visit to the zoo with "Mrs Markham" [i.e. Elizabeth Penrose]; a poem, "The Name of England", from Felicia Hemans, and much else besides.
Foolscap 8vo. [2],viii,240pp. Numerous illustrations and decorations. Bound in a neat nineteenth-century full polished calf, marbled edges and endpapers, by Riviere, now neatly rebacked and repaired to style; a very good copy.

£250

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London : Bradbury & Evans, 1848. First edition : bound from the original monthly parts published between October 1846 and April 1848. Etched frontispiece, extra-title and fifty plates by "Phiz" (Hablot Knight Browne) - fifty rather than the usual thirty-eight plates because this copy contains both the sets of additional plates prepared by Browne and separately published by Chapman & Hall in 1848 - a set of four formal portraits and a second set of eight highly animated renditions of the principal characters, both demonstrating Browne operating well beyond his usual range of quirky caricature. Cook noted as early as 1879 that these fine extra plates "being very scarce, and now much sought after, bring high prices".
Demy 8vo. xvi,624,[ii]pp. Bound up, with the half-title and the errata leaf, in a smart later (early twentieth-century) half tan calf, banded and elaborately gilt, by Fazakerley of Liverpool; contrasting red and green labels; top edge gilt; marbled sides and endpapers; some mild rubbing; some browning and spotting to plates, mainly to outer edges, but a very good and sound copy. With the armorial bookplate of Frances Maude Henderson (b.1880) - also of Liverpool.

£500

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London : Bradbury & Evans, 1850. First edition, in book form, bound from the original monthly parts published between May 1849 and November 1850. "Of all my books I like this the best. It will be easily believed that I am a fond parent to every child of my fancy ... but, like many fond parents, I have in my heart of hearts a favourite child, and his name is 'David Copperfield'".
Demy 8vo. (xvi),624pp. Frontispiece, extra engraved title and thirty-eight etched plates by H. K. Browne ("Phiz"). Bound up, without half-title, in a handsome recent half crimson morocco, gilt on broad bands; marbled sides and edges; internally some minor marks, chips, short tears and small flaws, with occasional spotting, but still an attractive copy.

SOLD

London : for the Author, 1829. First edition. Occasionally combative on parish politics, with at least five pages of censure on the blunders of the audit committee, but a thorough, well-researched and entertaining history of Bloomsbury and St. Giles - an area including Bedford Square, Russell Square, the British Museum, Seven Dials, High Holborn and Lincoln's Inn Fields, etc. - with material on the alms-houses, burial-grounds, local residents, parish history, the squares, immigrants, the poor, workhouses, etc. Occasional errors, etc., have been neatly corrected in manuscript.
Demy 8vo. (viii), 432,[vi]pp. Folding map by James Wyld, engraved by Nathaniel Rogers Hewitt, inserted in pocket. Bound in a highly elaborate later (mid twentieth-century) full navy morocco, banded and gilt, with a complex design of threading, rules, petals and green inlays on both upper and lower covers; top edge gilt; marbled endpapers; just a hint of wear and bruising; occasional slight browning and spotting; small splits to folds of map, but otherwise a very good copy in a very handsome binding.

£250

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London : The St. Catherine Press, (1916). First edition : [one of 500 copies]. His celebrated "breathless catalogue" of the children's games of the London streets - Egg-in-Cap, Queenie, Hot Rice, French Cricket, Live Os, Chipstone, Sausage, Knock Him Down Donkey, Polish Banker, Gutter-Spout, Flies round the Jam-Pot, Stiff Bloaters, Solomon Silent Reading, and so many more. Based on an essay for the "English Review" and rejected by a number of publishers before being published on commission by the St. Catherine Press.
Crown 8vo. [viii],162,[ii]pp. Original tan buckram, blocked and lettered in gilt; top edge gilt; very lightly sunned; a few slight marks; some spotting, but a very good copy. Woolf A18a.

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London : George Newnes, [1903]. First edition. Eight further stories of Brigadier Gerard.
Crown 8vo. x,374pp. Sixteen plates by William Barnes Wollen (1857-1936). Original blue cloth, blocked and lettered across upper cover and spine in gilt; just a hint of rubbing; a few slight spots, but a very good, bright and sound copy. Green & Gibson A27a.

£250

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London : Hodder & Stoughton, 1892 [but 1891]. First edition. A popular schoolboy cricketing allegory which remained in print for many years - "Life is simply a cricket match - with Temptation as bowler".
Narrow crown 8vo. 58,[ii]pp. Original red and white diagonally striped silk, with title on white silk label on upper cover; top edge gilt; covers lightly tanned and slightly soiled; outer leaves a little tanned; a few marks, etc., but a good copy of a fragile and attractive production. Gift inscription dated Christmas 1891 to Frederick J. Partridge from his uncle and aunt.

SOLD

Edinburgh & London : William Blackwood & Sons, 1860. First edition : in the slightly plainer Carter 'B' binding - (no precedence established, Carter's earlier hypothesis disproved, and the most likely explanation of the differing binding styles simply that the edition was bound in two different binding establishments - the 'A' binding by Burn, the 'B' by Edmonds & Remnants).
Three volumes. Post 8vo. (viii),(362),[ii]; (viii),(32); (viii),(314) + (16)pp. Original cloth, decorated in gilt and blind, by Edmonds & Remnants, with their ticket; lightly worn and very slightly chipped at tips; some marking to outer corners of covers; some mild spotting and browning; one gathering a little loose; endpapers cracking in first volume, but overall a very good and still bright set. Illegible contemporary ownership inscription in each volume, that in the first now obscured by the later armorial bookplate of Michael Holland, who was perhaps the author of the pencilled note that the set was acquired at Sotheby's for £5 in 1930. Sadleir 816a. Carter (Binding Variants) pp.110-111. Wolff 2060.

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London : Methuen & Co., (1908). First edition. Now one hundred years since its first publication, but still timeless and undimmed.
Crown 8vo. [vi],302,[ii]pp. Frontispiece by Graham Robertson. Bound in a pleasant later half blue calf, banded and gilt; contrasting red and green labels; top edge gilt; just very slightly rubbed; some uneven and occasional spotting and browning to text, but still an attractive copy of this enduring classic.

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Ludlow : G. Nicholson, (1809). A charming pocket edition of this once hugely popular guide for young women, giving advice on religion and moral conduct, friendship, behaviour, love and marriage, etc. Compiled by Gregory after the death of his wife in 1761 to enshrine her opinions on the education of their daughters, the work was never intended for publication, first appearing posthumously in 1774. It may also incorporate the advice of Gregory's friend, the celebrated bluestocking Elizabeth Montagu, who (unlike Mary Wollstonecraft) is known to have approved its "philosophical simplicity". The present edition also includes a life of Dr. Gregory, Mr. Tyrold's advice to his daughter from Mrs D'Arblay's "Camilla" and "A Picture of the Female Character as it Ought to Appear when Formed" by George Horne.
Small 8vo - 89 x 55mm. (xxiv),96pp. Engraved frontispiece by W. Hawkins after William Marshall Craig - dated 1809 and giving the publisher's later Stourport imprint. Contemporary red sheep, ruled and lettered in gilt; occasional mild tanning, but a very good copy.

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London : C. Arthur Pearson, 1895. First edition : in the primary binding of pictorial cloth-gilt. Valdar the Asa, son of Odin, doomed to eternal reincarnation and turning up at crucial moments in the history of the world - "In what new age of the world had I awakened?" - an epic saga from "Britain's first really prolific specialist writer of science fantasy" (Locke).
Foolscap 4to. (viii),416pp. Sixteen striking plates by Harold Hume Piffard (1867-1938). Original red cloth, ruled in black and blocked and lettered in black and gold on upper cover, ruled and lettered across spine in gilt; some minor wear to extremities; front endpaper neatly replaced; a few slight marks and spots, but a very good copy. Dated (1907) ownership inscription of Margaret Goodwin and small bookseller's label of John W. Miller of Ramsgate.

£200

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London : F. V. White, 1899. First edition. Flying-machines, secret rays and political skulduggery in the goldfields of Alaska - the usual high-flown mix from the writer who "might well claim to be the first professional science-fiction writer in English" (Bleiler).
Crown 8vo. [viii],302,10pp. Frontispiece (They saw strange shapes hovering above them). Original maroon cloth, lettered across upper cover and spine in gilt; publisher's device in blind on lower cover; lightly rubbed and a little sunned; endpapers a little tanned; front endpaper slightly cracked; mild spotting of edges; a touch shaken, but still a nice copy of an interesting and uncommon publication. Blind-stamp of W. H. Smith & Son on front free endpaper and the contemporary ownership inscription of Claud H. Vivian on front paste-down and upper cover - this Claud Hamilton Vivian (1849-1902), a barrister before retiring to Anglesey.

£125

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London : Hutchinson & Co. (Publishers), (1959). First edition. Hadfield's delightful fiction of a rural arcadia - a retreat to the "more enjoyable depths of an almost mythical East Anglia, where a backwoodsman peer lives in a private railway train, playing vintage jazz as an accompaniment to the amorous dalliance of three gorgeously amoral daughters ... extraordinary moonlight encounters, a drinking scene of classic proportion, a traction engine rally, and a comic cricket match which is the first serious rival to that of Macdonell's England, Their England".
Post 8vo. (292)pp. Original green cloth, ruled, blocked and lettered in gilt and white across spine; faint mark on top edge, but a very good copy in the original pictorial Philip Gough dust-jacket - a little sunned, lightly worn and with some minor repair.

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London : Longmans, Green & Co., 1887. First edition. One of the great publishing successes of the nineteenth century and "the lost-race novel par excellence, setting up many of the motifs and fictional patterns that became an integral part of the sub-genre" (Bleiler).
Crown 8vo. [viii],(280)pp. Portrait frontispiece, plates and illustrations by Charles Henry Malcolm Kerr (1858-1907). Bound in a smart recent half burgundy morocco; original cloth gilt upper cover and spine preserved at rear; a few slight marks and spots; a few leaves with some mild discolouration at foot, but otherwise a very good copy. Bleiler p.89. Scott 7. Whatmore F6.

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London : Cassell & Co., (1916). First edition. A late Allan Quatermain title - "one of the strangest of all the adventures which have befallen me in the course of a life that so far can scarcely be called tame or humdrum".
Crown 8vo. [viii],344pp. Coloured frontispiece and three plates by A. C. Michael. Original brown cloth, ruled and lettered in blind on upper cover, lettered across spine in gilt; a touch of rubbing; mild spotting of edges and endpapers, but a very good copy. Contemporary "Royal Naval War Libraries" stamp on front pastedown - although the book has evidently never seen library use. Scott 66. Whatmore F43.

£100

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London : Osgood, McIlvaine & Co., (1896) [but 1895]. First edition : the putative first issue, with gatherings A-H all in first state, with page numbers on all the partially blank pages. Purdy's evidence that Hardy's own copy, the three copyright copies and five early presentation copies are all in this form is cogent in suggesting that this is indeed the first issue. Although not an uncommon book, rare in this early form. With an etched frontispiece of "Christminster" by Henry Macbeth-Raeburn (1860-1947) and Hardy's map of Wessex at rear.
Post 8vo. (viii),(520)pp. Original dark green cloth, blocked on upper cover in gilt, blocked and lettered across spine in gilt; top edge gilt; some very minor external wear and mild bruising; a few faint marks; just a touch shaken, but overall still a very good copy. Purdy pp.86-91.

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London : William Heinemann, 1893. First edition in English : the advertisements dated October 1892. Translated from the Norwegian by Edmund Gosse and William Archer.
Crown 8vo. [viii],(228),[iv],16pp. Portrait frontispiece. Original cloth in two shades of green, lettered across upper cover and spine in contrasting greens, blocked with publisher's monogram in pale green on lower cover; lightly rubbed; very mild tanning of endpapers, but a very good and sound copy.

£125

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London : William Heinemann, 1897. First edition in English : limited to 1,000 copies. Translated and introduced by William Archer.
Crown 8vo. [2],x,202,[ii],8pp. Original cloth in two shades of green, lettered across upper cover and spine in green and black, blocked with publisher's monogram in pale green on lower cover; lightly rubbed and faintly marked; endpapers a little tanned; some slight marks and spots, but a very good and sound copy. With the attractive contemporary bookplate of Maud Wynne, and a brief inscription to her dated 1897 from G.W.

SOLD

London : New Fiction Press, [1953]. First edition. Hank Janson of the Chicago Chronicle and the case of a good man turned sour by a false conviction. The book became the subject of nineteen destruction orders from local magistrates and one of the books featured in the January 1954 Old Bailey obscenity trial - as a result of which both the publisher and distributor were sentenced to prison. This gave rise to a question in the House of Commions as to how many copies had been bought for distribution to the armed services - and the slightly evasive response that a small quantity had been purchased by the NAAFI.
Crown 8vo. 142,[ii]pp. Original pictorial stapled wrappers - a sultry blonde in clinging lilac by the incomparable Reginald Heade (1901-1957); very slightly rubbed and creased at spine, but a very good copy of a rare and fragile survival. Only the British Library copy (no longer held in the secret 'Suppressed Safe' but still with a 'Private Case' shelfmark) located in any major UK library.

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London : Longmans, Green & Co., 1904. First edition. An extensively illustrated survey of daily life in the remoter corners of nineteenth-century Surrey - with over 300 photographs by the author of houses, cottages, farms, furniture, firesides, candlesticks, ornaments, crockery, tools, etc. - many from her own collection, now donated to the Guildford Museum.
Royal 8vo. xx,320pp. Numerous illustrations. Original decorative cloth gilt; lightly rubbed; covers a little mottled; just a little shaken, but still a very good copy. With the attractive pictorial bookplate of E. L. Turner - "The Wicked Borroweth and Payeth Not Again" - and a neat but illegible ownership inscription on half-title.

SOLD

London : Egoist Press, 1923. Third edition : the first issue, one of just 107 copies (of 500) issued by the Egoist Press before Jonathan Cape acquired the sheets in 1924. His first book, a collection of thirty-six poems, originally published in very small editions by Elkin Mathews in 1907 and 1918.
Foolscap 4to. [40]pp. Original green cloth, lettered on upper cover and spine in gilt; just a touch dulled; endpapers a little tanned; a few spots, but a very good copy. Inscription dated Easter 1931 to "My dear Flo" - and the ownership label of Florence Hilda Ineson (b. 1884) of Batley, Yorkshire. Slocum & Cahoon pp. 9-10.

SOLD

London : The London Printing & Engraving Co., 1893. First edition. A highly interesting and unusual compilation - a brief survey of the well-known London landmarks, followed by histories and notices of hundreds of London shops, businesses, manufacturers, hotels, importers, and commercial enterprises of all kinds, many with illustrations, including Marshall & Snelgrove; Jay's Mourning Warehouse on Regent Street; Peter Jones at Sloane Square; John Brinsmead & Sons, Pianoforte Makers; Anthony Kitchen, art metal-worker, of Oxford Street; Wills & Segar, floral decorators, of Onslow Crescent; the Great Tower Street Tea Company; W. &. G. Buszard, bridecake manufacturers; Arding & Hobbs of Clapham Junction: H. R. Mopsey & Co., ironmongers, of Wandsworth; C. Holz, theatrical and private wigmaker, of Covent Garden and many, many more.
Demy 4to. [ii],(33)-(282)pp - the pagination irregular, but always thus and as the Guildhall Library copy. Numerous illustrations. Original cloth; a little worn, with one corner slightly chewed; some discolouration to upper cover and foot of spine; front endpaper cracked at hinge; prelims lightly tanned, but a good and useful copy of a rare and extremely valuable source-book for London history.

SOLD

London : William Heinemann, (1927). First edition. Kay Harker seeks the stolen fortune of his sea-faring great-grandfather - a celebrated fantasy novel for children.
Crown 8vo. (328)pp. Bound in a handsome recent half blue morocco, banded and gilt; original cloth spine and front panel preserved at rear; a few slight marks and faint creases; one leaf with a tiny nick at margin, but overall a fine and clean copy. Bleiler p.135.

SOLD

London : William Heinemann, (1935). First edition. Kay Harker and the battle for the magical box.
Crown 8vo. [viii],(418),[iv]pp. Pictorial head- and tailpieces. Bound in a handsome recent half blue morocco; original cloth spine and upper panel preserved at rear; top edge lightly discoloured; light spotting of edges, but otherwise a most attractive copy.

SOLD

London : William Heinemann, (1930). First edition : the state with the dropped "t", giving the incorrect reading "won'" rather than "won't" at the end of line 14 on p.147. This is usually said to be the earlier variant, although on what evidence is unclear. The Maugham novel on the nature of authorial reputation plausibly said (although strenuously denied) to be based on the life of Thomas Hardy.
Crown 8vo. [iv],270pp. Bound in a handsome recent half blue banded morocco, retaining the original cloth sides; occasional mild spotting, but a very good and attractive copy. Stott 26.

SOLD

London : Longmans, Green & Co., (1960). First edition. "Nowhere in Scotland is more evocative of a specific book than Sandaig, near Glenelg, Inverness-shire, which Maxwell disguised as Camusfeàrna ..." (ODNB). Otters, nature and the basis of the 1968 film, with Bill Travers, Virginia McKenna, etc.
Demy 8vo. x,(212)pp. Photographs by the author. Illustrations in text by Michael Ayrton, Peter Scott and others. Bound in a smart recent half blue morocco, banded and gilt; original linson backstrip preserved at rear; faint crease to one leaf, but otherwise a very good and clean copy. Neat contemporary ownership inscription of V. Leigh.

£250

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London : Methuen & Co., (1926). First edition. "Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin ...".
Crown 8vo. (xiv),(160)pp. Illustrations by Ernest H. Shepard. Bound in an elegant recent full green morocco, retaining the original front endpaper map; top edge gilt; original cloth gilt upper cover preserved at rear; very mild tanning to map; a few very minor marks and spots, but overall a very good copy. Housed in a slip-case.

SOLD

London : Methuen & Co., (1929). First edition. The first appearance of Milne's Toad-orientated dramatisation of "The Wind in the Willows" - and a classic in its own right.
Crown 8vo. (xvi),(168),8pp. Bound in a smart recent half blue morocco, retaining the original cloth gilt of the upper and lower cover; original backstrip retained at rear; top edge gilt; a few minor spots, but otherwise a handsome copy in an attractive binding.

SOLD

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London : Hamish Hamilton, (1945). First edition. "There is a photograph in existence of Aunt Sadie and her six children sitting round the tea-table at Alconleigh. The table is situated, as it was, is now, and ever shall be, in the hall, in front of a huge open fire of logs. Over the chimney-piece, plainly visible in the photograph, hangs an entrenching tool ...".
Crown 8vo. (196)pp. Bound a smart recent half blue morocco, banded and gilt; top edge gilt; original cloth backstrip preserved at rear; mild tanning of text edges, but otherwise a very good copy.

SOLD

London : J. M. Dent & Sons, (1945). First British edition. Her first children's book - first published in the USA in 1943 as "The Magic Bed-Knob, or, How to Become a Witch in Ten Easy Lessons" - and the basis of the later "Bed Knobs and Broomsticks" film.
Crown 8vo. 112pp. Illustrations, some full-page, some in colour, by Joan Kiddell-Monroe (1908-1972). Original pictorial cloth - a flying bedstead design by Kiddell-Monroe; lightly rubbed; shadow of an old inscription on lower cover; a few faint edge-spots; final vignette outlined in ink, but a clean and sound copy of a scarce book. The endpapers are covered with childish calculations relating to school-marks and sketches - the calculations showing Nigel Brown gaining an A+, Mary Wardale an A, Lesley Dowley a B-, and Karen Land a "below average" C.

SOLD

London : Hutchinson & Co., 1908. First edition. The third of the Sir Percy Blakeney adventures.
Crown 8vo. (352) + (32)pp advertisements dated Autumn 1908. Bound in a smart recent full blue morocco, banded and gilt; marbled endpapers; original cloth upper cover and backstrip preserved at rear; half-title lightly tanned; some occasional spotting, but a very good copy. Faint ownership blind-stamp of St. Malo, Pierremont Gardens, Darlington, on half-title.

SOLD

London : Pall Mall Gazette Office, 1892. First edition. A lively and comprehensive guide to the 1892 House of Commons, with biographical notes ("mems" about members), over 500 portraits of members, election details, electoral maps, an index giving ages, professions, education and "fads", an index to unsuccessful candidates, etc.
Crown 4to. x,128,xi-xii pp - the wrappers included in pagination. Illustrations. Portraits. Maps. Advertisements. Original pictorial wrappers; lightly worn and slightly chipped; one advertisement leaf slightly chipped; mild spotting of edges, but a good copy of a mine of information.

SOLD

London : privately printed by A. V. Huckle & Son, The Ramsden Press, (1929). First edition. A well-illustrated and attractively produced tour of Clapham and its older houses, former residents, etc., with appendices including material on the Windmill Inn, sports and pastimes - cricket, golf, etc., the ponds, the flora and fauna, the geology, fossils, the wells, etc.
Demy 4to. xx,(122),[ii]pp. Plates. Illustrations. Three maps, one folding. Printed in red and black throughout. Original cloth; a touch bruised; a few spots, but a very good and bright copy in the dust-jacket - just lightly worn and with the price neatly clipped from spine. Small bookseller's label of Nicholl's of Birchington.

£100

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London : for Robert Faulder, 1791. Second edition. A popular London history compiled by the Welsh naturalist and traveller Thomas Pennant - and "much more palatable than the usual antiquarian stodge" (Adams). Pennant's discursive approach, "composed from the observations of perhaps half my life", takes in a variety of topics, including antiquities, archery, bagnios, breweries, burials, coffins, duels, fires, wines and much else. Originally published the previous year, but here in amplified form and with the addition of three extra engravings, including the fine map of Elizabethan London engraved by Samuel John Neele and the panoramic view of London at the time of the Great Fire by Peter Mazell.
Post 4to. vi,[2],(480),[viii]pp. Frontispiece, engraved title and thirteen engraved plates, some folding, by Mazell and others. Folding engraved map. Contemporary mottled calf, with later full rebacking and repair to corners in morocco; endpapers rejointed; the plates washed and reinserted with fresh guards; some offsetting; minor repairs to some plates; map a little creased, but a good copy, sound and strong. Adams 67.

£250

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London : Frederick Warne & Co., 1910. First edition. Cover design, endpapers and colour illustrations by the author.
Pott 4to. (86)pp. Pictorial label, frontispiece and twenty-six illustrations in colour; title vignette in black and white, all by Beatrix Potter. Rebound in a smart recent half blue morocco, banded and gilt, retaining the original boards, lettered in white, with hexagonal pictorial onlay on upper cover; pictorial front endpaper retained; a few tiny marks, but overall in very good and clean state. Linder p.429. Quinby 18.

SOLD

London : Jonathan Cape, (1963). First British edition. His first book.
Post 8vo. 492,[iv]pp. Original black boards, blocked and lettered on spine in silver; top edge lilac; a very good, bright, clean and sound copy in the white Leigh Taylor dust-jacket, printed in violet and black, with just minimal wear, a few faint and tiny marks, and a slight crease to the inner front flap. Small bookshop label on front paste-down.

SOLD

London : Duckworth, (1925). First edition. Signed by Dorothy Richardson on the half-title. The eighth volume in her celebrated "Pilgrimage" series - Miriam in lodgings near St. Pancras. It was May Sinclair who in 1918 first coined the phrase "stream of consciousness" - in a review of an earlier Richardson novel.
Crown 8vo. 238,[ii]pp. Original purple cloth, lettered across spine in gilt, ruled in blind on upper cover, and with publisher's device in blind on lower cover; just a hint of sunning and wear to tips; a few faint edge-spots; mild tanning of endpapers, but a very good copy in the dust-jacket - a pictorial design in black, white and red - a little worn, soiled and chipped, and very slightly defective at foot of lower panel. In a slightly bizarre touch, the front flap of the jacket advertises "a real novel of Mayfair from within" - the first book by a new young author - Barbara Cartland. Smyers 8.

SOLD

London : Frank Cass & Co., 1966. A facsimile reprint of the complete run of probably the best of the literary journals of the 1920s, with contributions from Richard Aldington, Iris Barry, Edmund Blunden, Kay Boyle, Richard Church, A. E. Coppard, Hart Crane, E. M. Forster, William Gerhardi, Robert Graves, Aldous Huxley, D. H. Lawrence, Wyndham Lewis, C. K. Scott Moncrieff, Edwin Muir, Liam O'Flaherty, T. F. Powys, Edgell Rickword, Siegfried Sassoon, Allen Tate, Arthur Waley, etc. Here provided with an introductory essay by Malcolm Bradbury.
Four volumes in three. (xx),[4],488; [viii],440; [x],344,[iv],176pp. Original cloth; mild spotting of edges; a few faint marks, but a very good set.

£100

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London : William Heinemann, 1919. First edition : [one of 2,000 copies]. A collection of sixty-four poems, a dozen or so previously unpublished and forming, in Sassoon's words, his definitive "tract against war".
Crown 8vo. (96)pp. Original red cloth, with white paper title-labels printed in black (in a design by William Nicholson) on upper cover and spine; spine a little sunned and very slightly dented and bruised; a few edge-spots; lacks front free endpaper; endpapers faintly tanned, but otherwise a very good copy, without the usual chipping, wear and discolouration to the fragile labels. With the contemporary ownership inscription of E. J. Ingram. Keynes A20.

£400

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London : by William Stansby for Joh[n] Helme, 1614. First edition. The first of the great historical works of John Selden, lawyer, linguist and antiquary - an exhaustive anthropology of monarchy, nobility, rank, title and the bases of feudalism and the law itself - displayed across a sweeping range of place and time - based on early English sources as well as "a mature and almost unparalleled grasp of continental evidence and scholarship" (ODNB). With an introductory eulogy in verse by Ben Jonson.
Pott 4to. [xxxviii],(434)pp. Bound in an attractive recent quarter calf, marbled sides; some browning and slight discolouration; two leaves with small holes (not affecting text); some underlining and annotation; a few minor marks, but a very good copy. STC 221.

SOLD

London : For the Institution, by James Truscott, 1846. First edition. A wide-ranging lecture, covering the aims and purposes of such institutions, and moving on to ancient history, Egypt, Greece, Rome, the rise of English literature, astronomy, electricity, light, chemistry, natural history, botany, geology, etc. Semple was a well-regarded physician, the editor of "Memoirs on Diphtheria" (1859), and author of "On Cough" (1858), "A Manual of Diseases of the Heart" (1875), etc. This would appear to be his earliest published work. The pamphlet also includes a list of officers, a 4pp list of members, etc.
Demy 8vo. 44pp. Disbound. A few slight spots, but overall in very good condition. Not located in any of the COPAC libraries.

SOLD

London : Faber & Faber, (1947). First edition. The scarce second novel in the "Strangers and Brothers" series.
Crown 8vo. 392pp. Original blue cloth, lettered across spine in gilt; spine titling just a touch dulled; endpapers lightly tanned, but otherwise a very good copy in the dust-jacket - just a touch darkened at spine and with a single unobtrusive repaired tear.

SOLD

London : D. C. Thomson & Co., [1931]. First edition. Soskice was Ford Madox Ford's younger sister, best remembered for her "Chapters from Childhood : Reminiscences of an Artist's Granddaughter" (1921), but here with a tearful romance - "Nevertheless, a few months later Rhoda and her sister, pretty, wilful Phyllis, dressed in deep mourning, sat motherless and friendless, alone in the threadbare little room". Red Letter Novels No. 270.
Foolscap 4to. 160pp. Original stapled pictorial wrappers - masher in striped tie seemingly wearing lipstick; lightly rubbed; mild tanning of text; a touch of rusting to staples, but a very good copy of an extremely rare book. Only the British Library copy located in any of the major UK libraries.

£200

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London : Longman, Brown, Green & Longmans, 1847. First edition. Originally published in substantially different form in "Bell's Life in London" as "Sporting Sketches", between October 1846 and June 1847.
Demy 8vo. [viii],(330),[ii]pp + 32pp advertisements dated October 1847. Eight etched plates by "Phiz" (Hablot Knight Browne, 1815-1882). Bound, complete with half-title, in a later (mid twentieth-century) full crimson polished calf, banded and gilt with sporting motifs, by Birdsall; contrasting green and tan labels; top edge gilt; inner gilt dentelles; upper and lower panel of the original decorative cloth bound in at rear; a touch sunned; a few minor marks, slight scuffs and small flaws, but overall a very good copy in a handsome binding by the celebrated Northampton bookbinding firm, founded in the eighteenth century and which continued trading until 1961.

£250

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London : Bickers & Son, 1874. First edition. Tom Taylor, editor of "Punch", playwright and professor of English, with a charming and well-researched history of Leicester Square and the great and famous associated with it - with material on the Sidneys, Charles I, Cromwell, the snow-queen Elizabeth of Bohemia (Queen of Hearts), Peter the Great, Swift, Prince Eugene, Isaac Newton, Leicester House (the Pouting-Place of Princes), William Hogarth, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and much else besides. The work also includes an account by Richard Owen, curator of the Hunterian Museum, of its founder, the surgeon and anatomist, John Hunter (1728-1793). Handsomely produced by the publishers, themselves at No.1 Leicester Square at this period, and illustrated with engraved and Woodburytype plates, some folding, as well as folding maps from rare early sources.
Crown 8vo. (viii),(496) + 4pp. Two folding maps. Plates, some folding. Original pictorial cloth gilt; some very minor wear, a touch shaken, but still a very good copy.

SOLD

London : Edward Moxon, 1855. First edition. A major collection (and Tennyson's own favourite to the end of his life) which added not only "Come into the garden, Maud ...", but also "Half a league onward ...", "Their's not to reason why ..." and "Cannon to the right of them ..." to the universal thesaurus of most quoted lines. The present copy has been interleaved and heavily annotated by the literary editor Richard Herne Shepherd (1840-1895), Tennyson's first bibliographer and a man greatly influential in fashioning the taste for collecting contemporary writers. A 4pp manuscript introduction, signed by Shepherd, gives the rationale for the annotation, tracking the numerous alterations made to the poems by Tennyson from the first author's proofs (to which Shepherd evidently had access), recording "important and interesting variations", preserving "a very fine and characteristic passage of over thirty lines" entirely omitted from the eventual published text of "Maud", and the whole "affording an insight into the poet's method of work and minute and conscientious elaboration of his first draught".
Foolscap 8vo. [vi],154,[ii]pp. Bound, without the inserted advertisements generally found, in what was once a handsome turn-of-the-century full turquoise morocco by Zaehnsdorf, banded, gilt and decorated with small flowers in gilt and red; top edge gilt; marbled endpapers - the binding rubbed and worn and the spine now blackened in a botched repair which has the sole merit of having reattached the upper cover. With the bookplate of Nellie Joseph - this presumably the Nellie Rose Joseph born in Clapham in 1871, the daughter of Isaac Joseph, a prosperous commission agent then living at 43 Grafton Square.

SOLD

London : Bradbury & Evans, 1848. First edition, bound from the original monthly parts published between January 1847 and July 1848. The parts all in first state, with the "rustic" heading to the first chapter and the notorious "Marquis of Steyne" wood-engraving (p.336). This illustration is said to have been suppressed, under threat of court action, for its allegedly libellous resemblance to the Third Marquis of Hertford. This has been disputed, but the portrait certainly only appears in the earliest copies of the book - and disappeared very early in the book's life cycle.
Demy 8vo. xvi,624pp. Etched plates and highly entertaining text illustrations by Thackeray himself. Bound, without half-title, in a contemporary half green calf, banded and gilt in a floral design, by [Wareing Hargreave] Webb of Liverpool (1804-1856), with his blind-stamp; marbled sides; binding a little rubbed, lightly worn and slightly scuffed at corners; plates spotted in varying degrees, but the text clean; a good copy in a pleasant contemporary binding.

SOLD

London : Drapers' Record, [1896?]. First edition. A handsome late Victorian work on the textile district of the City of London - a somewhat broadly drawn area taking in much of the western end of the Square Mile - St. Paul's, Cannon Street, Paternoster Row, Newgate Street, Cheapside, Gresham Street, Basinghall Street, Aldersgate Street and the contiguous smaller thoroughfares. The text, by John Wells Thatcher, represents a rather more general history of the area than the title might imply. The delightful illustrations by William Luker (1862-1934) are very much in the style of the London histories he produced for the Leadenhall Press, and include some of the then-remaining textile warehouses as well as the better-known sights.
Royal 4to. (xvi),(208)pp [this copy bound without the usual 8pp list of subscribers]. Illustrations throughout, many full page. Original cloth gilt; top edge gilt; a little rubbed, a few minor marks, but a very good copy. Contemporary gift inscription from Tiny and Jim to their father, dated Christmas 1896.

£200

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London : J. M. Dent & Sons, (1954). First edition. With the original preface and musical setting by Daniel Jones.
Crown 8vo. (x),(102)pp. Bound in a smart recent half black morocco, banded and gilt; top edge gilt; original cloth spine and upper cover preserved at rear; a few faint and minor internal marks, but an excellent copy. Rolph B21.

SOLD

Haverfordwest : for the Author by Joseph Potter, 1822. First edition. A scholarly study of the last great leader of Welsh rebellion, Owen Glendower (1359?-1416?), compiled by the rector of Aberporth. The present copy has a number of pencilled corrections to the text.
Demy 8vo. [ii],2,[viii],(xxiv),240pp. Bound in a Victorian half roan, somewhat rubbed and worn; marbled edges and endpapers; some occasional light discolouration to text, with a few marginal chips, marks and short tears, but a good and serviceable copy.

SOLD

London : J. Johnston, [1817]. First edition : the first issue, with the imprint of J. & T. Agg on verso of title-page. The jingling, jingoistic and rollicking verse life of Captain Bowsprit, "a true British tar" - "Now every English heart of oak / Leap'd joyous when the morning broke / And show'd the French fleet scatter'd round, / Far as the eye's remotest bound ..." - illustrated with superb hand-coloured aquatint plates by Charles Williams.
Medium 8vo. [iv],280,[ii]pp. Pictorial extra-title and twenty-four aquatint plates, all with full original hand colour. Bound, without the advertisement leaf, in a later (twentieth-century), full crimson morocco by the London bookbinders, William Root & Son, banded and extra gilt with nautical motifs; inner gilt dentelles; top edge gilt; binding a little rubbed at joints and corners, but still very handsome; some mild spotting of edges; some minor marking and repairs to some plates, but overall a most attractive example of the early nineteenth-century colour-plate book. With the armorial bookplate of George Seton Veitch F.S.A.S., a nineteenth-century Scottish banker. Abbey (Life) 347. Tooley 484.

£750

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London : Henry G. Bohn, 1842. Second and best edition, amplifying and extending his earlier "Dictionary of Printers" (1839). A mine of bibliographical lore, "interspersed with biographical sketches of eminent booksellers, printers, type-founders, engravers, bookbinders and paper makers, of all ages and countries, but especially of Great Britain. With bibliographical and descriptive accounts of their principal productions and occasional extracts from them. Including curious particulars of the first introduction of printing into various countries, and of the books then printed. Notices of early bibles and liturgies of all countries, especially those printed in England or in English. A history of all the newspapers, periodicals, and almanacks published in this country. An account of the origin and progress of language, writing and writing-materials, the invention of paper, use of paper marks, etc." - the present edition adding "a continuation to the present time, comprising recent biographies, chiefly of booksellers, and A Practical Manual of Printing".
Royal 8vo. vi,32,116,(33)-996,12pp - including the separately paginated Manual (dated 1838) and the supplement. Twelve plates (one folding). Illustrations in text. Bound in a stout and workmanlike modern cloth; top edge gilt; some browning of text and edges; occasional spotting or browning to plates; last leaf repaired at inner margin, but a good and useful copy of an uncommon book.

SOLD

London : Gerald Howe, (1934). First edition. "If you want to find Cherry-Tree Lane all you have to do is ask the Policeman at the cross-roads ...". Her scarce first book for children.
Crown 8vo. xii,206,[ii]pp. Endpapers and illustrations by Mary Shepard (1909-2000). Bound in a stylish recent half blue morocco, banded and gilt; top edge gilt; original pictorial cloth upper cover and spine laid in at rear; a few faint marks, two leaves with short marginal tears, but otherwise a very good copy.

SOLD

London : Van der Elst Press, [ca. 1940]. First edition. Seven self-published stories from the improbable Violet van der Elst - entrepreneur, propagandist and campaigner for the abolition of the death penalty, as well as "author, composer, artist, traveller; psychic and humanitarian". The lower wrapper advertises "Shavex", the brushless shaving cream on which her fortune was founded.
Crown 8vo. 80pp. Original pictorial stapled wrappers - caped violinist plays to a vapid brunette; some minor wear; spine a little chipped and split at extremities; staples a little rusted, but a very good copy of a scarce and fragile production. No copy located in any major UK library.

SOLD

London : for Thomas Tegg, 1827. An attractive dictionary (originally published in 1791) - especially good on the more articulated received pronunciation of the period, with a readily followed guide to correct usage - "in which the sounds of letters, syllables and words, are critically investigated and systematically arranged ... [with] rules to be observed by the natives of Scotland, Ireland and London, for avoiding their respective peculiarities ...".
Demy 8vo. (712)pp. Extra engraved title (dated 1823). Bound in an attractive contemporary pale plum calf, ruled and gilt; a little minor scuffing and surface wear; some light browning, spotting, and fingering; but a very good copy.

£200

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London : Chapman & Hall, (1936). First edition. A collection of eleven short stories, with a frontispiece by Thomas Derrick.
Crown 8vo. [ii],(238)pp. Frontispiece in two colours. Bound in an elegant recent full burgundy morocco, banded and gilt; marbled endpapers; original cloth upper cover and spine preserved at rear; some light spotting, mainly of edges; a few slight creases, but overall a very good copy in an attractive binding.

SOLD

London : T. Fisher Unwin, 1909. First edition. A young woman rejects surburban conventions for science, socialism, suffragettes and living in sin - and Wells fictionalises his relationship with his mistress Amber Reeves (1887-1981), who gave birth to his daughter later in 1909. Macmillan flatly declined to publish the book and Canon Lambert railed "I would just as soon send a daughter of mine to a house infected with diphtheria or typhoid fever as put that book into her hands".
Crown 8vo. 352pp. Original brown cloth, ruled in blind and blocked and lettered in gilt on upper cover, lettered across spine in gilt; very minor wear at head and tail; mild tanning of endpapers; a few slight marks, but a very good copy. With the contemporary bookplate of the mathematician Philip Worsley Wood (1880-1959), designed by P. Boddy and dated 1909.

£125

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London : Macmillan London, (1983). First edition. Signed by the author (as Mary Wesley) on the title-page. Her scarce and startling first novel.
Post 8vo. [iv],(218),[ii]pp. Original blue boards, lettered on spine in silver; text a little tanned as always, but otherwise a very good, bright and sound copy in the original dust-jacket - incorporating an L. S. Lowry picture - fresh, clean and unworn.

£250

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London : Collins, 1938. First edition. His memorable treatment of Merlin and the Arthurian legend, with his own illustrations.
Post 8vo. (340)pp. Illustrations. Bound in a handsome recent half black morocco, banded and gilt; original cloth backstrip preserved at rear; very faint and minor spotting of outer leaves, but a fine, bright and elegantly bound copy.

SOLD

London : Leonard Smithers & Co., 1899. First edition : limited to 1,000 copies - this copy not numbered and out of series. Wilde's most famous and most enduring play, published quasi-anonymously after his fall from grace, just eighteen months before he died.
Foolscap 4to. [xvi],(152)pp. Bound in a smart recent full green morocco, banded and gilt; a few minor marks, tiny spots and faint creases, but a very good copy, handsomely bound. Mason 381.

£2,000

To confirm availability and to purchase this print please note the stock number 35679 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.

London : Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington, 1883. First edition. Essays on old Sadler's Wells, old Highbury Barn, Norton Folgate, Portman Market, three Lyceums, etc.
Crown 8vo. [viii],(216)pp - but without the errata slip or advertisements sometimes found. Original cloth; mild rubbing to extremities; text edges lightly browned; a few spots, but a very good copy of an uncommon book. With an 1892 inscription to Emma Roper from her brother, Alma Roper (b.1865) - here describing himself as "a man out of work", but who later became a civil servant, writer and editor of books on bankruptcy.

£100

To confirm availability and to purchase this print please note the stock number 35126 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.

London : Herbert Jenkins, (1938). First British edition. Impecunious baronet, hideous house, rich potential buyer, breach of promise, etc.
Crown 8vo. (312),[viii]pp. Bound in a smart recent half russet morocco, banded and gilt; marbled sides; a few minor marks and spots, but overall a very good copy. Connolly 72(i). Jasen 58a. McIlvaine A59b.

£125

To confirm availability and to purchase this print please note the stock number 34812 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.

London : Herbert Jenkins, [1947]. First British edition. The sixth Blandings castle novel - with Veronica Wedge - "the dumbest beauty listed in the pages of Debrett".
Crown 8vo. 252pp. Original orange cloth, blocked and lettered in black; just a hint of rubbing; a few edge spots, but a very good copy in the dust-jacket - a pictorial design by Frank Ford of a bare-shouldered beauty simpering at bespectacled gent - just lightly worn and with a single short tear. Connolly 81 (i). Jasen 65a. McIlvaine A66b.

SOLD

London : Duckworth & Co., 1915. First edition : [one of 2,000 copies]. Her first book - "absolutely unafraid" as E. M. Forster described it.
Crown 8vo. [viii],458,[vi] + (16)pp. Bound in a smart recent full green morocco, banded and gilt; top edge gilt; a few slight spots, faint creases and minor signs of use, but a very good copy in an attractive binding. Kirkpatrick A1a.

SOLD

To confirm availability and to purchase this print please note the stock number 35678 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.

London : Leonard & Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press, 1937. First edition. Her last novel - three generations of the life and society of the Pargiter family over the fifty year period broadly matching her own life-span.
Crown 8vo. [iv],(470),[ii]pp. Bound in a pleasant recent half blue morocco, banded and gilt; original cloth backstrip preserved at rear; a few slight creases, but a very good copy - attractively bound. Kirkpatrick A22a. Woolmer 423.

SOLD

New York : Dell Publishing Co., [1951]. First separate edition. "A cheap and evil girl sets a hopped-up killer against a city" - a celebrated tale from the master of noir, here writing under his William Irish pseudonym - with one of the most famous of all pulp fiction covers - Bill Fleming's haunting image of a drug-crazed green face smoking a reefer over the body of a green-eyed brunette in a clinging magenta gown. Originally published in "Detective Fiction Weekly" in 1941 and here issued as No. 11 in the short-lived series of Dell Dime novellas.
Foolscap 8vo. [64]pp. Original stapled wrappers; lightly rubbed; a few slight internal marks, but a very good copy of a fragile production. Contemporary ownership inscription and stamps of Joe Rozanski, who has also added a handful of manuscript page numbers.

£200

To confirm availability and to purchase this print please note the stock number 29980 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.