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London : Bliss Sands & Co., 1896. First edition. A presentation copy, inscribed and signed by the author to Sir James R. Fergusson - this the barrister Sir James Ranken Fergusson (1835-1924), F.S.A., J.P., etc., of Spitalhaugh, and with Ashby-Sterry's autograph note on his St. Martin's Chambers, Trafalgar Square notepaper, referring to the book, the gift, Spitalhaugh, etc., laid in. A light and charming tale that opens with "a silvery symphony of girlish laughter" as Guy and Ralph meet Phyllis and Dora at the source of the Thames and a party is got up for a canoe trip down-river as far as Laleham.
Post 8vo (21cm). [viii],(260),[iv]pp. Erratum slip. Fifteen plates by William Hatherell (1855-1928). Original pictorial cloth gilt; top edge gilt; some slight wear at foot; tiny scratch to spine; a touch shaken; a few spots, but overall a very good copy. Laid in is a press-cutting giving a brief obituary notice of Ashby-Sterry, author of "Snailway Guides", "Cucumber Chronicles", etc. - "He knew the Thames as intimately as he knew London".

£125

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London : Faber & Faber, (1938). First edition. A play in prose and verse - intrigue and conflict between two imaginary neighbouring countries, with pronounced echoes of contemporary politics.
Demy 8vo (23cm). (124),[iv]pp. Original red cloth, lettered down spine in gilt; a few slight spots, but a very good and bright copy in a very lightly rubbed and slightly chipped dust-jacket. Bloomfield A18a.

£125

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London : John Walker & Co., 1917. Third edition. An attractive and clearly laid-out London atlas (first produced in 1908), the principal maps showing London from Wood Green and Tottenham down to Tooting and Streatham, and from Ealing, Acton and Chiswick across to East Ham and Barking on a scale of three-and one-quarter inches to the mile. Additional smaller scale maps cover the electric railways, the theatres, and the environs, with an index map, plans of St. Paul's, Westminster Abbey, the Tower and the metropolitan boroughs, and there is also statistical information, including population figures for the boroughs, etc., and a complete index to streets, public buildings, etc.
Demy 8vo (23cm). xii,64,68,[iv]pp - the sixty-four principal map pages printed in colour, with the omnibus and tram-routes given a distinctive hue. Original cloth; lightly sunned, with small mark to spine; a little shaken; endpapers slightly cracked, but a good and serviceable copy. Pencilled ownership inscription.

£100

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London : Chapman & Hall, 1909. First edition. Thirty spritely and whimsical essays from Beerbohm - on "Seeing People Off", "The Decline of the Graces", "The Naming of Streets", "The Humour of the Public", etc.
Foolscap 4to (21cm). viii,326,[ii]pp. Original blue cloth, with white paper spine label ruled and lettered in black; label and endpapers a little tanned, but a very good and partly unopened copy. From the collection of the architectural historian, Professor Derek Linstrum, and with one of his distinctive Italian hand-made paper protective dust-jackets.

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London : William Heinemann, 1925. First edition. Beerbohm in fine form with a series of studies of the luminaries of the day - Stanley Baldwin, Arnold Bennett, Frank Brangwyn, Austen Chamberlain, Joseph Conrad, Walter de la Mare, Lloyd George, Edmund Gosse, Augustus John, Rudyard Kipling, Ramsay MacDonald, George Moore, Bertrand Russell, George Bernard Shaw, Walter Sickert, Osbert and Sacheverell Sitwell, Lytton Strachey, H. G. Wells, and many more.
Demy 4to (29cm). viii,[102],[ii]pp. Colour frontispiece. Fifty-one half-tone plates, each with a captioned tissue guard. Original orange-yellow cloth, lettered across spine in gilt, with publisher's device in blind on lower cover; a little spotting of edges and prelims, but a very good and bright copy in the dust-jacket - a little worn and creased at spine. 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 24.

£200

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[London] : Privately Printed for her Friends, [1891]. First edition. A valuable study of the London poor and servant classes - "the conditions, needs, loveableness, and nobility of the life of a fraction of the working classes ... giving bona fide instances of real events" - with essays and examples of the amusements of the very respectable, socialities and manners, "keeping company", recovery from destitution, girls' friendships, social gifts, the sickness of the poor, the familiarity of death, old age, irreligion, etc. With a moving memoir of the author (sister to A. C. and E. F. Benson), who had abandoned a literary career to work among the poor, by her father, Edward White Benson (1829-1896), then Archbishop of Canterbury.
Crown 8vo (20cm). (xx),256,[ii]pp. Original maroon cloth; lightly worn and somewhat faded; a little shaken; small tape-marks to endpapers, but a serviceable copy of a scarce book. With a 1905 inscription to Gemma Creighton (b.1887) - daughter of the historian and Bishop of London, Mandell Creighton - from "M. B." - presumably either the author's mother, Mary, or her sister, the writer Margaret Benson.

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London : Constable & Co., (1941). First edition. Emmeline Pocock, daughter of the warden of All Saints, tries to see out the war in her sound-proof room - disturbances from the university town - tangled love drama, the eccentric provost, the sensational reports of Mr Jericho, the volcanic Lady Caroline Paltry, the melancholic Lord FitzCricket, poltergeists, etc.
Crown 8vo (20cm). [xii],(194),[ii]pp. Three plates by the author. Original magenta cloth, lettered across spine in silver; slight touch of wear at foot; some spotting, mainly of endpapers and edges, but a very good copy in the original Berners dust-jacket - lightly worn and very slightly tanned, with some minor chipping at extremities (not affecting design or lettering), but also very good.

£100

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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 (17cm). 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; neat price alteration in ink on spine, but an excellent copy of this fragile production, just faintly bruised at corners. Kirkpatrick A7.

£100

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New York : Ace Books, (1953). First edition. His first book and a landmark of twentieth-century counterculture, written under a pseudonym in the aftermath of shooting dead Joan Vollmar, the mother of his son, in a drunken party game in Mexico City - "I am forced to the appalling conclusion that I would never have become a writer but for Joan's death ... I have had no choice but to write my way out". The original publication, published as an "Ace Double", bound tête-bêche in "two books in one" format, with an abridged reprint of Maurice Helbrant's 1941 "Narcotic Agent".
Foolscap 8vo (17cm). (150); (170)pp. Original pictorial wrappers - the Helbrant artwork (handcuffs applied to sorrowful woman in undress with drug paraphernalia on table) clearly attributed to Al Rossi, and the Junkie artwork (man restrains blonde attempting to reach syringe) probably by the same hand; orange edges; a touch of rubbing and mild creasing; very faint tape mark; a couple of pencil inscriptions; text a little tanned, but still overall a very good copy. Maynard & Miles A1a.

£500

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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 (19cm). 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.

£100

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New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 1940. First edition. "It was a warm day, almost the end of March, and I stood outside the barber shop looking up at the jutting neon sign of a second floor dine and dice emporium ...". His second and most widely celebrated novel - a Haycraft-Queen cornerstone of the genre.
Crown 8vo (182 x 122cm). [viii],276,[iv]pp. Bound in an elegant recent half blue morocco, banded, and lettered in gilt; original cloth upper panel and backstrip preserved at rear; a handful of minor marks, but a very good and attractive copy. Bruccoli II-1a.

£750

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London : Hamish Hamilton, 1949. First edition : precedes the American edition. "The pebbled glass door panel is lettered in flaked black paint: "Philip Marlowe - Investigations". It is a reasonably shabby door at the end of a reasonably shabby corridor ... Come on in - there's nobody in here but me and a big bluebottle fly".
Crown 8vo (183 x 115mm). 256pp. Bound in a smart recent half red morocco; original cloth spine preserved at rear; small spot on fore-edge, but otherwise a very good copy indeed, attractively bound. Bruccoli X-1.

£250

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London : Collins, 1942. First edition. The first and scarcest of Cheyney's "dark" novels of counter-espionage - set in wartime London.
Crown 8vo (20cm). (192)pp. Original sand cloth, blocked and lettered in green; a very good and sound copy in the original dust-jacket - a stylish design in black and white - just very slightly worn. Contemporary gift inscription dated Xmas 1942 and small bookseller's label of T. W. Griggs & Co. of Durban.

SOLD

London : Bantam Books (Todd Publishing Group), (1947). First edition. A collection of six short stories, including "The Peacock Fan" and "The Black Mantilla".
Foolscap 8vo (17cm). 64pp. Original pictorial stapled wrappers in a design by Winslade; staples a little rusted; wrappers very slightly rubbed and with some faint creasing, but still a very good copy of a scarce book. Only the British Library copy located in the major UK libraries.

SOLD

London : Collins for The Crime Club, (1941). First edition. "His wife sat knitting a Balaclava helmet of khaki wool. It was the spring of 1940 ..." - Tuppence and Tommy Beresford - fifth columnists - seaside boarding house.
Crown 8vo (186 x 118mm). 192pp. Bound in a smart recent half burgundy morocco; original cloth spine preserved at rear; a very good and clean copy, attractively bound.

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London : Duckworth & Co., (1910). First edition. Superbly illustrated with sixty-four plates, many in colour, from water-colours by Harry Rountree (1878-1950). Although Darwin had previously contributed to other publications, this was his first full-length book - and one of the finest golf books ever produced - a countrywide tour of the great courses in their prime. "Thanks to Bernard, golf has acquired the sturdiest literature of any game. The best is Darwin's ... because he showed the writers who came after him how golf could and should be written" (H. W. Wind).
Crown 4to (224 x 177mm). [viii],(254),[ii]pp. Sixty-four plates. Contemporary quarter turquoise morocco, richly banded and gilt in French style; top edge gilt; some very minor wear to joints and hinges; a few scattered spots, but a very good copy. With the book-label of and in the distinctive style of binding favoured by Mme Danaë Vagliano of Cannes, pre-war captain of the French Ladies' Golf Team (after whom the international Vagliano Trophy is named), and the mother of Hélène Vagliano, heroine of the French Resistance. Donovan & Murdoch 14410.

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London : Charles Dickens, 1879. First edition : the hardback issue. A splendidly informal handbook produced by the younger Dickens, eldest son of the novelist. A mass of detailed and practical information - bus timetables, postal information, church services, newspaper offices, the names of professsional envelope addressers (and prices), etc., alongside some lively and often irreverent asides on Victorian mores - "Ladies Shopping without male escort, and requiring luncheon, can safely visit any of the great restaurants - care being always taken to avoid passing through a drinking bar" - "Opium Smoking Dens, - The best known is that of one Johnstone, who lives in a garret off Ratcliff-Highway ... a similar establishment of a slightly superior - or it might be more correct to say a shade less nauseating - class is that of Johnny Chang ...". With a fine array of contemporary advertisements.
Foolscap 8vo (17cm). 352pp. Maps. Original cloth; some very minor wear, a little faint marking, endpapers a touch strained, but still a very good copy.

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London : Chapman & Hall, 1839. First edition : bound from the original monthly parts published between April 1838 and October 1839. This copy with both the early misprints, "visiter" for "sister" (p.123) and "latter" for "letter" (p.160) - Eckel noting that the first of these was picked up by Dickens in proof and that it is an error "rarely seen".
Demy 8vo (211 x 131mm). xvi,624pp. Portrait frontispiece after Daniel Maclise and thirty-nine etched plates by "Phiz" (H. K. Browne). Bound (without half-title) in an attractive contemporary full plum diced calf, richly worked in gilt and blind; all edges gilt; marbled endpapers; a little rubbed and slightly scuffed; neat repair at foot of spine, with replacement head and tail-bands; some minor signs of age and use, with some occasional spotting and browning, but a good copy in an aristocratic comtemporary binding - with the Panshanger bookplate, with its strawberry-leaf coronet and entwined Cs, of George Augustus Frederick Cowper, Sixth Earl Cowper (1806-1856).

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London : Chapman & Hall, 1844. First edition : bound from the original monthly parts published between January 1843 and July 1844.
Demy 8vo (212 x 131mm). xiv,[2],624pp. Frontispiece, vignette title and thirty-eight plates by "Phiz" (H. K. Browne). Bound (without half-title) in a pleasant contemporary half black calf, banded and gilt; marbled sides and edges; binding very slightly rubbed; the plates a little browned and spotted in places, with one plate more heavily marked; a few faint creases and a few slight signs of age and use; but overall a very good copy.

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London : Bradbury & Evans, 1848. First edition : bound from the original monthly parts published between October 1846 and April 1848.
Demy 8vo (215 x 134mm). xvi,624pp. Etched frontispiece, extra-title and thirty-eight plates by Hablot Knight Browne ("Phiz"). Bound up, with the half-title but without the errata leaf, in a pleasant contemporary half plum calf, banded and gilt on broad bands; some minor rubbing and slight scuffing; some browning, spotting and mild discolouration to some plates, but the text clean and crisp and overall a very good and sound copy.

£400

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London : Bradbury & Evans, 1857. First edition : bound from the original monthly parts published between December 1855 and June 1857. With the "Rigaud" for "Blandois" misprints from p.469 to p.473, later corrected.
Demy 8vo (209 x 132mm). xiv,(626)pp. Frontispiece, extra engraved title and thirty-eight plates by H. K. Browne ("Phiz"). Bound (without the errata slip) in a highly attractive Victorian half tan polished calf, banded and gilt; marbled sides; sprinkled edges; some very minor rubbing, with a little wear to the edges of the boards; plates with some spotting and browning, but the text clean and crisp and overall a very good copy. With the armorial bookplate, engraved by Allan Wyon, of Robert William Llewellyn J.P. (1848-1912), of Court Colman and Baglan Hall in Wales and the (later) bookseller's label of Simmons & Waters of 10 Spencer Street, Leamington Spa - the trading name of Arthur W. Waters who published his Clearance List No. 300 of Book Bargains in 1917.

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London : Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts & Green, 1864. First edition. The antiquary and illustrator James Doyle (brother of Richard, uncle of Arthur Conan) compiles and illustrates a sumptous chronicle of England from the invasion of Julius Caesar to the death of Richard III. Long celebrated as perhaps the finest example of Victorian colour-printing, with the glowing colours of Doyle's illustrations engraved and printed by Edmund Evans (1826-1905) in eight to ten overlays on a hand-press - "as bright as if they had just been painted" (ODNB) - and, as Evans later recalled, "the most carefully executed book I have ever printed".
Post 4to (262 x 200mm). [2],viii,462pp. Eighty-one coloured illustrations. Bound in an equally lavish contemporary full red sealskin, banded and richly gilt in compartments and on edges; panelled boards with trophy corners; all edges gilt and gauffered with fleurs-de-lys; marbled endpapers; some minor rubbing and faint wear; one leaf slightly marked; another torn without loss, but a handsome copy of a handsome book. With a contemporary (October 1864) gift inscription from Albert Goodman to Mrs and Mrs George Ekins Daintree - George Ekins Daintree (1828-1919), a farmer, and his wife Caroline Sarah Ruston (1829-1921), who were living at Pidley-cum-Fenton in Huntingdonshire at this time.

£400

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London : for Longman, Brown, Green & Longmans, 1847. First edition. A useful and well-organised companion covering the political institutions, religion, learning and arts, naval and military affairs, commerce and agriculture, and the manners and customs prevailing in six distinct periods - the British period to AD 449, the Saxon period, the Norman period, the Early English period (1216-1483), the Middle English (1483-1603) and the later English period (1603-1689), with appendices covering source materials and later authors, early place-names, Saxon place-name elements, etc. James Eccleston was the headmaster of Bishop Vesey's Grammar School at Sutton Coldfield from 1842 to 1849, but is said then to have fled to Tasmania to avoid his creditors.
Demy 8vo (215 x 134mm). xii,(464)pp. Numerous wood-engraved illustrations and facsimiles. Bound in a pleasant contemporary full russia, banded and gilt; inner gilt dentelles; all edges gilt; marbled endpapers; marker ribbon; lightly rubbed and a little scuffed; occasional slight spotting, but a very good copy. Tipped in on two slips of engraved Eton notepaper is an inscription from "his sincere friend", C. Cholmeley Puller to Henry Emerson "on his leaving Eton Easter 1857" - the donor being Christopher Cholmeley Puller (1840?-1902), in later life a senior civil servant at the Treasury.

£125

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London : Faber & Faber, (1939). First edition : in the earlier (cream) dust-jacket. Set at Wishwood, a stately home in the north of England. First performed at the Westminster Theatre in March 1939, with Michael Redgrave, Helen Haye, etc.
Demy 8vo (23cm). 136pp. Original grey cloth, lettered down spine in red; just slightly darkened; a few slight spots, but a very good and sound copy in the dust-jacket - just slightly nicked and faintly tanned. Gallup A33a.

£100

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London : for A. Millar, 1749. Second edition - or the second impression of the first edition - "call it what you will" - wrote Wilbur L. Cross, Fielding's bibliographer, of this bibliographical conundrum, which, as Cross also noted, "long passed as the first [edition]" (Cross II.122). The book appeared in two different forms within a few weeks. Almost identical at first glance, the publisher making no distinction, but when laid out side by side the minute differences page by page are legion. Priority is naturally given to copies with the errata leaf and the array of cancels, as opposed to those like the present set, with a corrected and tidied text, but the printing of the variant forms appears to have overlapped, and to what extent in terms of distribution the corrected version may have overtaken the earlier version, necessarily delayed by the time-consuming business of inserting cancels, is perhaps worth pondering.
Six volumes. Post 12mo (165 x 100mm). (lxiv),214,[ii]; [ii],324;[ii],370,[ii]; [ii], 312; [ii],294; [ii],304pp. Contemporary calf, now rebacked, recornered, refurbished and re-labelled to style; two new headbands; endpapers replaced; some occasional marks, light creases, mild discolouration and small flaws, not affecting text; two leaves in vol.iii perhaps supplied from another copy; overall a good, sound, attractive and early copy of one of our earliest and greatest novels. Early ownership inscription of Thomas Lewis in first three volumes.

£2,000

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London : Edward Arnold, 1910. First edition.
Crown 8vo (20cm). [iv],(344),[ii]pp. Bound in an elegant recent half burgundy morocco, preserving the original cloth spine and upper cover at rear; some occasional slight spotting; lacks final advertisement leaf; a handful of faint creases, but a very handsome copy. Kirkpatrick A4.

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London : Smith, Elder & Co., 1879. First edition. Twenty-four essays from the Pall Mall Gazette on various shady people encountered over a prolonged period spent more or less undercover on the underside of London life - the vagabond, one of the London lazzaroni, a peasant patriot, a Fenian chief, tramps, the kitchen-man, raising the wind, the advertisement cheat, long firms, the Polish count, the religious imposter, an itinerant quack, etc.
Crown 8vo (20cm). [2],x,232pp. Original cloth; a touch of rubbing; some spotting, mainly of edges; corner neatly cut from front free endpaper, but a very good and bright copy. With the contemporary ownership stamps of William Gibson (d. 1907), a farmer and J. P. of Heathfield House, Ballygowan, Co. Down.

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London : Wertheim & Macintosh; Seeleys, 1853. First edition. Garwood, an Oxford-educated clergyman, but born in Whitechapel and the curate of St. Mary Spital Square from 1832 to 1846, with a classic study of five specific segments of London society - criminal and destitute London juveniles, or the ragged-school class; Greenwich and Chelsea pensioners; the London cab-driver; the London omnibus man; and the Irish of London, each with background history and a wealth of current statistics.
Crown 8vo (19cm). (xii),(318)pp. Original jade-green decorative cloth gilt, by Remnant & Edmonds, with their ticket; some slight wear at tips; spine a little darkened; some mild spotting, but a good and sound copy.

£125

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London : William Heinemann, (1943). First edition.
Crown 8vo (182 x 116mm). [vi],236,[ii]pp. Bound in a smart recent half black morocco, banded and gilt, with the backstrip of the original cloth bound in at the rear; a very good and attractive copy of a difficult wartime Greene.

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London : Chatto & Windus, 1874. First edition : with the (earlier) advertisements dated September 1874. Thirty-seven illuminating essays and pieces on London life at the extremes from the campaigning journalist, James Greenwood - "The Lambeth Casual" - illustrated with evocative studies of London life by the gifted Alfred Concanen (1835-1886). Includes A Visit to Tiger Bay, An Evening at a Whitechapel Gaff, Sunday Evening with the Fancy, Amongst the Music-Hall Luminaries, At the Death-Bed of a London Dragon, At a Knocking Out (a savage attack on the ringing of auctions), Going Hopping in Kent, At a Gaol Delivery, At a Sugar Baking, At a Penny Wedding, A West-End Cholera Stronghold, and much more.
Crown 8vo (20cm). viii,364 + 40pp. Twelve lithotint plates by Concanen. Original pictorial cloth gilt; spine a little worn and faded; a little shaken; some minor spotting, mainly of edges; but a good copy of one of the best books of its kind. With the contemporary armorial bookplate of Harcourt Skrine - the Rev. Harcourt Skrine (1817-1886) of Sunbury-on-Thames.

£200

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London : Tinsley Brothers, 1872. First edition. Hardy's scarce second novel, published by Tinsley "in an edition presumably of 500 copies" in June 1872, having been rejected by Macmillan as "very slight and rather unexciting" the previous year. Tinsley recollected it as one of the "best press-noticed" books he ever published, but it sold poorly and many of the first edition sheets were subsequently remaindered in one volume form.
Two volumes. Crown 8vo (20cm). [vi],(216); [vi],216pp. Bound, complete with half-titles, in a smart recent half crimson morocco, banded and gilt; marbled sides; text somewhat spotted in places, with a few marks, faint creases and small flaws, but overall a very good copy of an elusive title. Purdy pp. 6-8. Sadleir 1117. Wolff - not listed.

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London : Chatto & Windus, (1988-1992). A complete first edition set of this magisterial biography of George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) - the individual volumes sub-titled "The Search for Love : 1856-1898", "The Pursuit of Power : 1898-1918", "The Lure of Fantasy : 1918-1950" and "The Shaw Companion" - the last comprising "The Last Laugh : 1950-1992", as well as the appendices, complete notes, a cumulative index, etc.
Five volumes, bound in four. Medium 8vo (25cm). viii,486,[ii]; (x),422; (x),544,[ii]; viii,490,[vi]pp. Plates. Portraits. Original boards; a very good set in the dust-jackets - the jackets just faintly creased in one or two places.

£100

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London : Hutchinson & Co., 1908. First edition : the earlier variant in larger format and in the slightly more elaborate binding, with double rules at head and tail of spine. Hudson in St. Ives, Zennor, Land's End, etc.
Demy 8vo (23cm). viii,(324),[iv]pp. Eight plates & forty-one illustrations by A. L. Collins. Original decorative cloth gilt; top edge gilt; some spotting throughout, but otherwise a very good, bright and sound copy. Contemporary ownership inscription of Alfred Trapnell, a Bristol smelter and refiner, dated 1908. Payne A26a).

£100

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London : Richard Bentley & Son, 1880. First edition. A gossipy and readable history of French high society from the death of Louis XIV to the demise of Marie Antoinette - libertinage, seeking interviews with Satan, un fanfaron de vices, an actress's dinners, rival gambling houses, les devotionettes, the coiffure of Madame de Gontaut, and much else besides.
Two volumes. Post 8vo (21cm). (xii),(368); (xii),(386),[ii]pp. Errata slips. Six Woodburytype portraits. Original cloth - a delightful example of Victorian design, the blue cloth elaborately blocked in an overall white floral design, with gilt fleurs-de-lys; spines just lightly rubbed and a touch darkened; slight spotting of edges, but a very good set. Attractive and distinctive circular bookplate with the initials M. H. in each volume.

£125

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London : S. D. Frances, [1950]. First edition. A nicely observed murder tale that commences with a failed playwright turned theatre-critic - and a party at the house of the successful playwright who has undermined him. The book rattled up thirty-two destruction orders from local magistrates. Later republished under the Roberts & Vinter imprint as "Sentence for Sin" in 1960.
Crown 8vo (19cm). 125,[iii]pp. Original pictorial stapled wrappers; a saucy blonde wench in lilac lifts her skirts - a design by Reginald Heade; some very minor creasing and edge-wear; more pronounced diagonal crease to lower wrapper; a few slight spots, but a very good copy - the staples clean and without rust. Stamps of Jones the Bookseller of Clitheroe Market on lower wrapper and verso of title-page. Only the British Library copy located on COPAC. Williams & Holland 18.

£200

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London & Paris : 1909. First edition : limited to 330 copies for private circulation - this being the perhaps earlier state without the attribution to the fictitious Lord Kidrodstock. The tale of a London boy from Shepherdess Walk sent to Lady Flayskin's unusual educational establishment by his rich step-father of Portland Place - published in a spiced-up version in more recent years as "Lady F. - the transgender erotic classic".
Demy 8vo (23cm). 272pp. Bound in a smart recent half black morocco; marbled sides; first and last leaves slightly tanned; a few small flaws, but a very good copy.

SOLD

London : Macmillan & Co., 1899. First edition. "In summer all right-minded boys built huts in the furze-hill behind the college - little lairs whittled out of the heart of the prickly bushes, full of stumps, odd root-ends, and spikes, but, since they were strictly forbidden, palaces of delight".
Post 8vo (195 x 122mm). (xii),272,[ii]pp. Bound in a smart recent half red morocco; top edge gilt; original cloth gilt sides retained; a most attractive copy. Stewart 195.

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London : Hogarth Press, 1959. First edition : the first issue, with the potentially libellous passage, "There was a fire at the piano-works almost every year ...", still present on p.272.
Post 8vo (21cm). [iv],(282),[ii]pp. Illustrations by John Ward. Original green boards, blocked and lettered across spine in gilt; a very good copy in the original John Ward dust-jacket - a pictorial design in sepia, ochre, green, black and white - just very slightly worn and very lightly tanned.

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London : Chapman & Hall, 1867. First edition. Mark Lemon, editor of "Punch" and close friend of Charles Dickens, here with the book edition of his popular and engaging illustrated lectures on London history - "an arm-in-arm companion through some of the broadways and byways of London, recalling past times and their belongings, and not altogether forgetting new times and their improvements".
Demy 8vo (23cm). (viii),348pp. Numerous illustrations, plan, facsimiles. Original cloth gilt; just a touch of wear; a few spots; a touch shaken; endpapers just starting, but a very good and still bright copy. With the contemporary armorial bookplate of H. R. Abadie - Major-General Henry Richmond Abadie (1841-1915), later Lieutenant-Governor of Jersey.

£100

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London : Secker & Warburg / Colophon Press, (1999). First edition : number 30 of 100 special numbered copies (of 112) in cloth, signed by David Lodge. The novella based on his 1998 play - here with a foreword on the nature of adaptation by the author - and a frontispiece by Philip Byrne.
Demy 8vo (23cm). [xii],(116),[ii],[4]pp. Frontispiece. Original orange cloth, lettered down spine in black and repeating the Byrne illustration on the upper cover; just a hint of tanning to text, but otherwise in fine state.

£100

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Woodford Green : Poet & Printer, (1972). First edition : [one of 400 copies]. A collection of twelve poems, illustrated with colour-printed lino-cuts by Brian Ferran. Loosely inserted is the Poet & Printer compliments slip, initialled and dated 27 March 1972 by the publisher, Alan Tarling.
Post 8vo (20cm). (24)pp. Illustrations. Original grey wrappers, blocked with a purple illustration and lettered in black on upper wrapper; a fine copy, still in the original red-printed Poet & Printer grey paper packaging (matching the wrappers). From the collection of the late Barry Bloomfield, bibliographer of Auden and Larkin, to whom the package is addressed.

£125

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New York : Boni & Liveright, 1925. First edition. Gentlemen prefer blondes - fate keeps on happening - London is really nothing - Paris is devine - the central of Europe - brains are really everything.
Crown 8vo (187 x 122mm). (218),[ii]pp. Illustrations by Ralph Barton. Bound in a smart recent half red morocco, retaining the original cloth sides; mild spotting, mainly of edges, but a very good copy in a handsome binding.

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London : Longmans, Green & Co., 1876. First edition. A valuable and beautifully illustrated history of coaching - with chapters on most aspects of the history, the coaches and the roads, as well as "some road slang terms". Illustrated with striking colour-printed plates (finished with hand colour) by Hanhart and woodcuts in the text. As well as Captain Malet's own work, this edition also collects together for the first time all the "Nimrod" [Charles James Apperley] essays on the subject.
Foolscap 4to (24cm). (xvi),(404)pp. Errata slip. Coloured frontispiece and nine coloured plates. Woodcuts in text. Original pictorial cloth gilt; very lightly worn at spine tips and a little sunned; a few minor internal marks, nicks and slight creases, but a very good copy.

£250

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London : William Heinemann, (1933). First edition. A celebrated collection of stories of the Far East (including "Footprints in the Jungle") - at least five of which have been filmed or televised.
Crown 8vo (19cm). [viii],(340),[iv]pp. Original blue cloth, blocked in black and lettered in gilt and black; some slight flecking to cloth; a few edge-spots, but a very good and bright copy in the original dust-jacket - a striking design of pagodas in black and bronze - just lightly rubbed. Pencilled ownership inscription of Wilson Bryant. Stott 30.

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London : Philip Allan, (1934). First edition. Lurid accounts of, inter alia, Black Magic; the Camorra and Carbonari; Chinese Secret Societies; the Goats; the Ghost Circle; the Gorgons (a secret society of women, who love open-air life and cocktails); the Grey Sisters; the Hell Fire Clubs; Leopard and Panther People; the Mafia; Mummy Worshippers; Rosicrucians; Sophienism; the Thirteen Society; Thugs, and more.
Crown 8vo (20cm). vi,(280),[ii]pp. Original cloth; lightly rubbed and a little dull; a few slight marks; mild spotting of edges, but a good copy of an uncommon title.

£75

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London : Longman, Green, Longman & Roberts, 1860. First edition. A detailed study, based on Okely's observations during a three-year tour as a Travelling Bachelor of Cambridge University, and covering the interiors and piers of basilican, round, polygonal and square churches; the facades and buttresses; towers and their decoration; vaulting, etc.
Royal 8vo (27cm). xii,228pp. Sixteen plates of details, engraved by Henry Adlard from the author's drawings. Original blind-stamped cloth, by Westleys & Co., with their ticket; some slight wear at head; endpapers crudely but effectively repaired with stout tape; some occasional spotting, but a good copy. Contemporary ownership inscription of W. Wissenden. From the library of the distinguished artist and architectural historian Geoffrey Scowcroft Fletcher (1923-2004), with his 1971 ownership inscription and occasional annotation.

£100

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London : Martin Secker & Warburg, (1969). The complete set of all four volumes - all second impressions of the original 1968 edition. A presentation set, inscribed to Barry [Bloomfield], signed and dated (1972) by the co-editor, Ian Angus. An extensive selection - the volumes individually titled "An Age Like This : 1920-1940", "My Country Right or Left : 1940-1943"; "As I Please : 1943-1945" and "In Front of your Nose : 1945-1950". Edited by Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus.
Four volumes. Demy 8vo (22cm). (xxiv),574,[ii]; (xvi),(478),[ii]; (xvi),(436); (xviii),(556),[ii]pp. Portrait frontispiece and facsimile to each volume. Original cloth; a very good set in lightly sunned and very slightly nicked dust-jackets - the first alone price-clipped.

£125

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London : Neville Beeman, [1897]. First edition. A highly interesting and varied collection of forty-seven articles on out of the way London and Londoners from the journalist and later news-agency proprietor, A. T. Camden Pratt - including A Haunt of Highwaymen, The Romance of Millbank, The Art and Practice of Forgery, The Clapper Carrier, The Gagger and his Ways, The Dosser at Home, The Professional Bailer Out, Babel on the Wool Exchange, A Market of Human Flesh and Blood, The Diamond Club, The London of Dickens, In a Refrigerator, A Chat about Oriental Manuscripts, A Visit to Newgate, The End of the Old Bailey, Orientalism at Woking, The Cab Horse at Home, The Art and Practice of Disguising, The Trickeries of Trade, Curious Powers of City Companies, and much else besides.
Medium 8vo (23cm). [viii],276pp. Original cloth; a little rubbed and slightly marked; endpapers a little browned and text lightly tanned, but a good copy of an unusual title. With the contemporary ownership inscription and label of George Percy Skelsey (b.1867), a notary's clerk of 153 St. John Street Road, Clerkenwell, London.

£75

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[London : Rock & Co., ca. 1845]. An unusual and attractive street-plan of London on a scale of just under four inches to the mile. The principal buildings are shown pictorially in thumbnail sketches, and the area covered extends north to Highbury College, east to Stepney Green, south to Walworth and west to Bayswater. The earliest state of the map, before the addition of the Rock imprint.
Steel line engraving on paper. Engraved surface 460 x 597mm (approx. 18-1/4" x 23-1/2"). Dissected, mounted on linen, and folding into a slightly later cloth case; some slight wear to folds; some mild browning and a few spots, some largely illegible pencilled annotation to margins, but otherwise in very good state. Howgego 394/01.

£200

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London : Routledge, Warne & Routledge, 1859. First edition. A charming illustrated guide to the games of the mid nineteenth century - athletic games (touch, high barbaree, sling the monkey and many more); country games; games with balls (egg-hat, feeder, golf, football, fives, tennis and many more); games with marbles (snops and spans, bounce eye and many more); games with buttons; games with tops; games with hoops; kites; rhymes and calls; party romps; table games; games with toys; forfeits and penances.
Foolscap 8vo (18cm). iv,106,2 + 16pp adverts paginated (48)-64. Wood-engraved frontispiece and ninety or so illustrations, diagrams, etc. Original pictorial cloth gilt; minor wear at head, but otherwise a very good and still bright copy of a scarce book. Blind-stamp of W. H. Smith on front free endpaper.

SOLD

London : Smith, Elder & Co., 1849. First edition. The lamps of Sacrifice, Truth, Power, Beauty, Life, Memory and Obedience - the first of Ruskin's works to bear his name and one of the nineteenth century's greatest and most influential texts, illustrated with his own stone-etched plates.
Crown 4to (27cm). (xii),(206) + 16pp advertisements. Fourteen lithographed plates. Promotional slip for the forthcoming "Stones of Venice". Original cloth in an elaborate design in blind; top edge gilt; skilfully rebacked and repaired, retaining the original cloth spine; endpapers replaced; corners lightly worn; a few minor marks and spots, but overall still a very good copy.

£250

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London : Nathaniel Cooke, 1853. First edition in English of this amiable and much-quoted primary source on Victorian London. An acute overseas visitor shines a light on London street life, the London squares, life on the Thames, the London police, Newgate, the Post Office, the London of fogs and gaslight, the City, the Bank of England, Hyde Park, the haunts of fashion, the newspapers and periodicals, the theatres, and much else. Originally published as "Wanderungen durch London" (1852-1853) and here in a translation by Otto von Wenckstern (1819-1869), translator of Goethe, writer on slavery, the Schleswig-Holstein question, etc.
Crown 8vo (21cm). xii,290pp. Frontispiece, extra pictorial title and six lively plates of street scenes by William McConnell (1832?-1867). Original decorative cloth, elaborately blocked in gilt and blind; a touch sunned; some minor rubbing and wear; front free endpaper neatly excised; a few slight marks and spots, but still overall a very good copy. With the contemporary armorial bookplate of the book-collector John Rowden Freme (1821-1872) of Wepre Hall in Flintshire, and the later pencilled ownership inscriptions of A. Fraser.

£150

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Edinburgh : Archibald Constable & Co., 1826. First edition. With the two cancel-leaves reported by Worthington in all copies examined - the title-page to vol.i and leaf L4 in vol.iii (the latter in second state).
Three volumes. Crown 8vo (190 x 121mm). xvi,(316); [ii],332; [ii],370pp. Bound (without half-titles) in a neat near contemporary silk-cloth, leather labels; a little sunned, some minor wear, occasional slight spotting, but a very good set. With the armorial "Fide et Constantia" bookplate of William John Lee in each volume. Worthington 19.

£125

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London : T. Fisher Unwin, 1894. First edition : a presentation copy from the publisher, with his perforated presentation stamp on the half-title. Lives and studies of the Earl of Bothwell, the necromancer Sir Edward Kelley, the witchfinder Matthew Hopkins, Judge Jeffreys, Titus Oates, Lord Lovat, the libertine Colonel Francis Charteris, the thieftaker Jonathan Wild, the gentleman highwayman James Maclaine, Fighting Fitzgerald, Wainewright the poisoner, and the bushranger Ned Kelly - compiled by A. F. Pollard, J. W. Allen, Arthur Vincent and others.
Demy 8vo (221 x 139mm). xx,(374),[ii]pp. Frontispiece and sixteen plates, portraits, etc. Bound in an elegant later half crushed morocco, banded and gilt; top edge gilt; marbled endpapers; some very minor wear to extremities; a few slight spots; a few tiny chips, but a handsome copy.

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London : Grant Richards, 1901. First edition : the first issue, with the correct reading "The Yellow Danger" on verso of half-title. One of the best-remembered of Shiel's extraordinary fictions - a diamond-laden meteorite grants a social reformer wealth and power. "A writer of imperial imagination who combines the scientific qualities of Wells with the mystery of Poe and the goes off on a line of romantic imagination that is all his own ... sensible people ought to have a complete set of Shiel" (Rebecca West).
Crown 8vo (20cm). viii,496pp. Original pictorial cloth; top edge gilt; expertly recased and refurbished; endpapers and preliminary blank replaced; just a hint of wear; a few minor marks, but a very good copy.

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London : David Bogue, 1849. First edition. Twenty-three essays of London life edited by the humorous Albert Smith, "mountaineer and poetaster", and illustrated by "Gavarni" - Hippolyte Guillaume Sulpice Chevalier (1804-1866). The plates, drawn directly on to the blocks by Gavarni and rendered in a combination of engraving and lithotint by Henry Vizetelly, are among his finest work, wonderful studies of living groups lifted from the streets of Victorian London. The essays (by Smith, Shirley Brooks, Horace Mayhew and others) sparkle with memorable description: of Vauxhall Gardens in decline, smoke-blackened and deafened by "the steaming, gleaming, screaming train"; of the hot-potato seller, "Soyer of the millions"; of the barmaid as a kind of "moral salamander ... in the midst of the amorous furnace", as well as the opera, the street-beggar, the casino, music, Covent Garden market, the orange-girl, marriage in high life, Regent Street, Greenwich Fair, the parks, etc.
Post 4to (28cm). [viii],116pp. Engraved frontispiece, portrait title and twenty-two plates. Original elaborate cloth gilt (in a design by John Leighton); a little sunned and slightly marked, but the cloth neatly restored and refurbished; endpapers rejointed; some occasional spotting, mainly of edges and prelims, with the plates generally clean; overall a very good copy of a difficult title. Small and faint stamp of J. M. Piguera on front endpaper.

£150

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London : C. Smith, 1825. An attractively worked plan of London on a scale of just under four inches to the mile - extending north to Pentonville, east to Limehouse, south to Newington Butts and west to Knightsbridge. Below the map is an index to some 350 of the principal streets, with their locations in numbered squares. A highly popular map of the period appearing a number of successive revisions between 1801 and 1843.
Copper line engraving on paper, with original hand colour. Engraved surface 413 x 620mm (approx. 16-1/4" x 24-1/2"). Dissected, mounted on linen, and folding into the original paste-paper slip-case, with Smith's octagonal engraved label; case worn; some light pinkish discolouration to both map and case in a few places, but otherwise in very good state. Howgego 225/15.

SOLD

London : Chapman & Hall, 1949. First edition. Her third novel, written in 1943, but remaining unpublished for six years, apparently because of the perception that she was no longer fashionable.
Crown 8vo (20cm). (202),[ii]pp. Original dove-grey cloth, the spine enamelled in pink and lettered in gilt; top edge pink; a very good, clean and sound copy - the pink wash on the spine fresh and clear - in the original pink, white and black dust-jacket, decorated with a Stevie Smith drawing - just faintly tanned, very slightly rubbed and just lightly used.

£150

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London : Bradbury & Evans, 1858. First edition. "It may be a recommendation to the lover of light literature to be told, that the following story does not involve the complication of a plot ...".
Demy 8vo (214 x 133mm). (xii),412pp. Hand-coloured frontispiece and twelve hand-coloured etchings by John Leech. Numerous illustrations, decorative initials, etc., also by Leech, in text. Bound in a later full sprinkled calf, ruled and decorated in gilt in a late eighteenth-century pattern; contrasting red and tan labels; marbled endpapers; lightly rubbed; internally a few minor marks; text a touch brittle, with a few nicks and small flaws, but overall a very good copy of an attractive production.

£200

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London : J. M. Dent, The Orion Publishing Group, (1993). First edition : one of 250 numbered copies signed by R. S. Thomas and specially bound. The complete R. S. Thomas, published to commemorate his eightieth birthday.
Medium 8vo (25cm). (xii),548pp. Frontispiece facsimile. Original blue cloth, ruled, blocked and lettered across spine in gilt; facsimile signature on upper cover; a few faint marks, but a very good copy indeed in the original cloth slip-case.

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London : Hutchinson & Co., 1898. First edition. Memoirs of Lord George Bentinck, John Gully, the Chifneys, Colonel Mellish, John Scott, Sir Tatton Sykes, Lord Palmerston, the earls of Derby and Rosebery, the Marquis of Hastings, Prince Soltykoff, Baron Meyer de Rothschild, Richard ten Broeck, Pierre Lorillard, Harry Custance, Tom Cannon, Fred Archer, the Duke of Portland, and a host of other racing legends.
Demy 8vo (211 x 140mm). viii,378pp. Thirty-two portrait plates. Bound (for Hatchard's) in a contemporary half red morocco, banded and gilt with racing motifs; top edge gilt; a little rubbed and lightly worn; some occasional spotting, but still a handsome copy of an attractive production.

SOLD

London : Tinsley Brothers, 1878. First edition. A scarce collection of forty-one entertaining and sometimes moving journalistic essays and articles on London life and Londoners in the nineteenth century. With material on the Ghosts of the London Midnight, the Ugliest Street in London, Some Curious Performers, Saturday Night at the Cat, Girl Labour, the Stable Side of Mayfair, Baldwin's Gardens, London Society in a Flat, the Foreign Settlement in Soho, Rooked in the City, Outsiders of Society, Lodgers in the Suburbs, the Servants' Registry Office, A Shady Industry (the Tallyman), a Police Court Morning Performance, Cockney Cave-Dwellers, Madman's Paradise (the Hanwell Asylum), Home-Wreckers, the Sunday Rag-Fair, Poor Old Horses, Retired Tradesmen, and much else.
Demy 8vo (23cm). vi,(470),[ii]pp. Eight lively plates of London scenes by William McConnell, George du Maurier, Paul Gray, E. Buckman and others. Original cloth gilt; some minor rubbing and marking; lightly string-marked; a touch shaken; mild spotting of edges, but a very good and bright copy. With the book-label of the Robert Raikes Reference Library at Gloucester and the associated 1911 Dancey Gift label.

£200

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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 (20cm). xii,206,[ii]pp. Endpapers and illustrations by Mary Shepard (1909-2000). Original yellow cloth, blocked and lettered in blue-black; some very minor wear at foot; a few marks and spots, mainly to edges, but otherwise a very good copy.

SOLD

London : Chapman & Hall, 1873. First British edition. One of Trollope's best and most enjoyable - and "one of the most entertaining, worthless, attractive women in the history of the novel: the totally amoral Lizzie Eustace" (P. D. James). "The novel is rare in fine state, for it had great library popularity ... few copies in good original condition have survived the zeal of contemporary readers" (Sadleir, writing in 1928).
Three volumes. Crown 8vo (184 x 122mm). viii,354; viii,(364); viii,(354)pp. Bound, complete with half-titles, in a smart later (early twentieth-century) half holly-green morocco, banded and gilt; top edges gilt; marbled sides and endpapers; one leaf slightly loose; one gathering in vol.ii with a short gutter tear throughout, perhaps occasioned in binding, with some attendant repairs; a few small marks, nicks, short tears, tiny chips and minor mends; but overall a very good set in a handsome binding. Contemporary ownership inscriptions of Mary Smith to two half-titles. Sadleir 39.

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London : Pickering, 1847. An important and attractively produced edition of Henry Vaughan "Silurist", the introductory biographical essay by Henry Francis Lyte (1793-1847) rescuing the poet from the almost total neglect of two centuries. Reprints both parts of the "Silex Scintillans" sequence - originally published in 1650 and 1655 respectively - and includes "They Are All Gone into the World of Light" and the very finest of Vaughan's poetry. Printed by Whittingham at the Chiswick Press.
Foolscap 8vo (18cm). (lxxii),(232)pp. Bound (without half-title) in an elegant nineteenth-century full olive roan, banded and gilt, by Andrew Grieve of Edinburgh, with his stamp; all edges gilt; inner gilt dentelles; marbled endpapers; spine a little tanned; some rubbing to extremities and joints, but a good copy.

£100

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London : J. M. Dent & Co., 1895. First edition. One of Wells' earliest adventures in science fiction - a fallen angel struggling to cope with life in an English village.
Crown 8vo (191 x 124mm). viii,252pp. Bound in a smart recent half red morocco, preserving the original cloth spine and upper cover (the regular variant with, rather than without, the angel in gilt) at rear; top edge gilt; a few minor marks and spots, but a very good and attractive copy. Hammond B2. Locke (Spectrum) I.228.

£350

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London : Macmillan & Co., 1892. First edition. Montagu Williams Q.C., variously choolmaster, soldier, actor, dramatist, journalist, leading barrister and police magistrate known in the East End as "the poor man's magistrate" with a fine series of lively essays (all based on true stories) portraying life across Victorian London - down east with East End Shows, Match Girls, Sclater Street Birds, Griddlers or Street Singers, the London Hospital, Clerkenwell Green, Ratcliff Highway, Sunday at the East End (including cricket in Bethnal Green), Burglarious Bill, From the East End to Ramsgate, etc. - and up west with Climbing the Ladder (enter plutocracy), Descending the Ladder, Modern Stockbrokers, Huckstering Hymen (the marriage market), the Company Promoter, Things Theatrical, Covent Garden, Floss and Floss (lawyers), the Road to Ruin, Moneylenders, Talent in Tatters, and the London Season. With a preface by Charles Dickens Jr.
Crown 8vo (20cm). xii,244pp. Original cloth gilt; one corner slightly bumped, a few minor marks and faint signs of age and use, but a very good and bright copy.

£100

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London : Edward Stanford, 1872. First edition. A fine map of the country on a scale of five miles to the inch, adroitly using colours to pick out the areas served by the plethora of independent railway companies. The map further gives detail of churches with vicarages, rectories or curacies, chapels of ease, parks, mail roads, turnpike roads, canals, mileages from London, and county, parliamentary and diocesan boundaries. Additional tables give miles of track, population served, population per mile, and areas covered by the principal railway companies, as well as distance tables for the principal ports. Compiled by the civil engineer Richard Price Williams, born in Lancashire about 1828 and living in Greenwich at this time. He is also known for maps of of London's water supply, historic population, etc.
Lithograph on paper, with full original hand colour. Printed surface 2100 x 1770mm (approx. 82-1/4" x 69-3/4"). Dissected, mounted on linen, and assembled in four separate segments, each with marbled guards and printed labels; a few minor marks, but overall in very good condition.

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London : Herbert Jenkins, 1930. First British edition : with the humourous preface not included in the American edition which appeared two weeks earlier. "Jeeves and the Impending Doom", "Jeeves and the Song of Songs" and nine further famous tales - the third Jeeves & Wooster short story collection.
Crown 8vo (178 x 119mm). 312,[viii]pp. Bound in a smart recent full red morocco, banded and gilt; top edge gilt; a few tiny edge-spots, but a very good copy. Faint blind-stamp of Claremont, Ramsey, Huntingdon at head of preface. Connolly 48.(i). Jasen 43a. McIlvaine A42b.

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London : Herbert Jenkins, (1933). First edition. The third and last of the Mulliner collections - nine short stories including the much-loved "Strychnine in the Soup".
Crown 8vo (20cm). 312,[viii]pp. Original orange cloth, ruled, blocked and lettered in black; just very faintly sunned; edges a little spotted, but a very good and sound copy. Connolly 57. Jasen 49. McIlvaine A48a.

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London : Herbert Jenkins, (1936). First edition : in the variant orange binding. A memorable collection of eleven short stories, including the classic "Uncle Fred Flits By" and one of Wodehouse's personal favourites, "The Amazing Hat Mystery". The contents differ slightly from that of the later American edition.
Crown 8vo (19cm). 312,[viii]pp. Original orange cloth, ruled, blocked and lettered in black; just a few faint signs of age and use, but a very good, bright and firm copy. Contemporary (1938) ownership inscription of Ole Quistedt. Connolly 68. Jasen 55. McIlvaine A55a.

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London : Herbert Jenkins, (1937). First edition : in the variant orange cloth. A splendid collection of nine short stories, with Lord Emsworth, Blandings Castle, Mr Mulliner, the Oldest Member, the Drones Club, Ukridge, etc.
Crown 8vo (19cm). 312,[viii]pp. Original orange cloth, ruled, blocked and lettered in black; just a few faint signs of age and use, but a very good, bright and firm copy. Contemporary (1939) ownership inscription of Ole Quistedt. Connolly 71. Jasen 57. McIlvaine A57a.

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London : Herbert Jenkins, [1949]. First edition. The fifth Jeeves & Wooster novel - with the debut of Catsmeat Pirbright and the continuing saga of Gussie Fink-Nottle and Madeline Basset.
Crown 8vo (20cm). 246,[ii]pp. Original orange cloth, lettered across upper cover; ruled, blocked and lettered across spine; blocked and lettered on lower cover - all in black; a few edge spots, a few tiny creases, but a very good, bright and overall clean copy in the original pictorial Frank Ford dust-jacket - lightly sunned, a little worn, with a few short nicks and slight tears, price-clipped by the publisher with a revised price stamped on flap, but otherwise complete and still attractive. Connolly 85. Jasen 68. McIlvaine A69a.

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London : Herbert Jenkins, (1963). First British edition. Jeeves, Wooster, Gussie Fink-Nottle, Madeline Bassett - "moulder of men".
Crown 8vo (20cm). (190),[ii]pp. Original red boards, blocked in blind on lower cover and lettered across spine in gilt; a very good, sharp, bright and clean copy in the original dust-jacket, printed in blue, black and ochre - just very faintly tanned and with the mildest of rubbing. Connolly 109.(i). Jasen 85a. McIlvaine A86b.

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London : Tinsley Brothers, 1868. First edition. A justly celebrated and much-quoted study of the Victorian working-class, based firmly on Wright's own experiences of being out of work in the East End of London. With general chapters on working men, their homes and wives, their politics, the church and trade unionism, followed by "phases of the inner life" - our court, my club-house, pay-day, a workman's morning call, the night shift, Saturday trading, street booksellers, Easter with the unwashed, out of collar, tramps and tramping, unemployment, etc.
Crown 8vo (20cm). (xii),292pp. Original cloth gilt, neatly recased and refurbished; new endpapers; some minor wear at extremities; a few slight spots and small flaws, but a good copy of a scarce title.

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London : Charles H. Kelly, [1894]. An attractive illustrated edition of Wright's "Great Army", first published in two volumes under a slightly different title in 1875. Wright, also the author of "The Great Unwashed", with a series of powerful pen-portraits of representative characters and incidents - Captain Rust, Bible Braidy, The Sugar-Bags Defence Fund, Old Fend-Off, The Button-Hole Queen, Shiny Smith, Gutter Children, The Rasper, The Genuine Minder, Duke Soap-Suds the Second, and many more - "a truer conception of the real state of the London poor than many elaborate reports of philanthropic society or religious mission" (contemporary review).
Foolscap 8vo (18cm). (viii),534,[ii]pp. Eight plates, some signed T. G. - perhaps Tom Griffiths. Original pictorial cloth gilt; some minor wear at extremities; small faint mark to spine; endpapers cracking; some light spotting, mainly to edges; a touch shaken, but a good and serviceable copy. Prize label of the Norfolk Street, Hyde, PSA Society made out to John Smith and dated 1894 on front paste-down.

£100

To confirm availability and to purchase this book please note the stock number 36618 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.