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

London : David Bogue, 1851. First edition. A sumptuously produced collection of etchings, “illustrative of the monuments and architecture of London, in the first, fourth, twelfth, and six succeeding centuries, with descriptions and historical notices”. Archer was a gifted antiquary, as well as a meticulous artist and engraver, and he here searches out out-of-the-way survivals of London's past not noticed or pictured elsewhere – portions of London Wall, Roman survivals, mediaeval remains and interiors, the houses of Milton and Dryden, the Fleet River underground, ancient street monuments and signs, etc.
Imperial 4to (368 x 267mm). Paginated in individual sequences, following the original issue in parts. Thirty-seven etched plates, the images finely printed on india-paper and captioned in red. Wood-engraved plan. Handsomely bound in a late nineteenth-century full polished russet calf, banded and gilt; top edge gilt; the upper board with a finely executed polychromatic “JTS” monogram in an oval frame; marbled endpapers; bound by Frank Murray – Francis Edwin Murray (1854-1932) – bookseller and bookbinder, with branches in Derby, Leicester and Nottingham in the 1890s; some minor rubbing and wear; slight blemish to upper cover; a sprinkling of internal marks and spots, but a very good copy of a large and weighty volume. Coloured bookplate matching the onlaid cover monogram to front pastedown.

SOLD

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 (23cm). (126),[ii]pp. Original red cloth, lettered in gilt; very mild tanning of endpapers; a few edge-spots, but a very good, bright and sound copy in the original orange and black dust-jacket – very faintly sunned, a little rubbed, very slightly creased, with a few minuscule nicks, chips and tiny flaws, but overall still in very good state. Bloomfield & Mendelson A22b. Connolly (Modern Movement) 90.

SOLD

London : Eveleigh Nash & Grayson, 1927. First edition of this collection of eleven translations of Balzac’s “most spell-binding” stories, including “At the Sign of the Cat and Racket”, “The Unknown Masterpiece”, “The Atheist’s Mass”, etc. Translated variously by Clara Bell, Ellen Marriage and John Gilmer, and edited and introduced by George Saintsbury (1845-1933).
Crown 8vo (191 x 124mm). (548)pp. Bound in an elegant later half green morocco, banded and gilt, for Asprey’s; all edges gilt; silk headbands; marbled endpapers; overall a very good copy.

£250

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London : John Murray, (1966). First edition : one of 100 special numbered copies on handmade paper, bound in white buckram, and signed by Betjeman. A collection of thirty-four new poems, with a verse preface, including “Cornish Cliffs”, “Monody on the Death of a Platonist Bank Clerk”, “The Cockney Amorist”, “Cricket Master”, etc.
Crown 8vo (20cm). x,(82),[iv]pp. Original white buckram, lettered in gilt; top edge gilt; marbled endpapers; a very good copy in the original glassine dust-jacket – the fragile jacket with just a couple of chips.

£400

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London : Thomas Nelson & Sons, (1910). First edition. Buchan in South Africa with a Haggardesque tale of uprising, myth, fabulous necklace, etc.
Crown 8vo (180 x 116mm). vi,(376),viii pp. Frontispiece map. Bound in an attractive recent half green morocco, banded and gilt; original cloth backstrip preserved at rear; a very good and clean copy. Attached to the verso of the front free endpaper is a contemporary prize label of the North Merchiston Continuation Classes – made out to James B. Campbell for general excellence. Blanchard A21.

£400

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London : Cassell & Co., (1927). First edition. The fourth of the Father Brown volumes – ten short stories and pieces, including “The Song of the Flying Fish” and “The Red Moon of Meru”. Dedicated to Father John O’Connor of Bradford – reputed to be the original of ‘Father Brown’ – and certainly the priest who guided Chesterton to catholicism.
Crown 8vo (188 x 119mm). [viii],(310),[ii]pp. Bound in an elegant recent half black morocco, banded and gilt; top edge gilt; original cloth backstrip preserved at rear; a few very faint spots, but a very good copy.

£250

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London : Longmans, Green & Co., 1900. First edition. Churchill’s personal account of the early months of the Boer War and his extraordinary adventures in South Africa. A particularly interesting copy in having been annotated in pencil in numerous places by an eye-witness to a number of the military actions – at Spion Kop, etc. At one point the anonymous annotator identifies himself as the field officer of the East Surreys who pointed out to Churchill “an expansive bullet of a particularly cruel pattern” being used by the Boers. For the most part the officer accepts Churchill’s account – “Very well described. I watched all this”, etc. – adding and identifying a name here and there, but elsewhere he bluntly corrects with a “Wrong” and other tokens of disagreement.
Crown 8vo (187 x 121mm). xiv,498,[ii] + 32pp advertisements dated October 1899. Maps & plans (three folding, one coloured). Bound in an elegant recent half crimson morocco, banded and gilt; sprinkled edges; a few spots; a few slight creases; one corner missing, not affecting text, but overall a very good and interesting copy. Woods A4.

SOLD

London : Jonathan Cape (1983). First edition. “This is not a fairy-tale. This is about REAL WITCHES” – Dahl in top form in Norway and Bournemouth. Filmed by Nicolas Roeg in 1990, with Anjelica Huston, Mai Zetterling, Rowan Atkinson, Bill Paterson, etc.
Medium 8vo (25cm). (208pp). Numerous illustrations by Quentin Blake. Original boards, blocked and lettered in gilt; a hint of bruising to one corner; top edge very faintly spotted; very mild tanning of text, as always, but still a very good copy in the Blake dust-jacket – the jacket faintly sunned, with some very mild edge-wear, a crease to the front flap, and a couple of tiny marks, but also very good.

SOLD

London : A. C. Fifield, 1908. First edition. The first appearance of the book which made Davies’ name – a tramp by road and rail on both sides of the Atlantic in the late nineteenth century. A work of “primitive splendour and directness” (Osbert Sitwell). “Another effect of this book on me is to make me realize what a slave of convention I have been all my life. When I think of the way I worked tamely for my living during all those years when Mr. Davies, a free knight of the highway, lived like a pet bird on titbits, I feel that I have been duped out of my natural liberty” – from the preface by George Bernard Shaw.
Crown 8vo (184 x 113mm). [2],xiv,(296),[viii]pp. Bound in a handsome recent half red morocco, banded and gilt, by Bayntun-Riviere; top edge gilt; marbled endpapers; trimmed a touch tight at head, but otherwise a very good copy in an attractive binding.

£400

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London : J. M. Dent & Sons, 1911. First edition : although 1,500 copies were printed, 200 were sent to New York to make up the American edition – and 890 were later pulped, leaving a maximum of 410 surviving copies. “A new stage of intimacy in the Anglo-Italian love affair and one of the happiest of travel books” – Cyril Connolly citing this among his 100 Key-Books of the Modern Movement.
Crown 8vo (20cm). viii,302pp. Title-page in olive and red. Frontispiece and twenty-three plates. Map of Sorrento and Capri. Original olive cloth, blocked and lettered on upper cover in dark green, and blocked and lettered across spine in gilt; top edge gilt; lightly rubbed and very slightly worn; a few slight marks; two very faint horizontal creases to spine, endpapers a little tanned; some occasional spotting; just a touch shaken, but overall a very good and still bright copy of a notoriously difficult title. Connolly 20. Woolf A13a.

£400

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London : Barrie & Jenkins (1975). First edition. What caused the Indian Mutiny? It began with Lord Palmerston commissioning Flashman at Balmoral – the Siege of Cawnpore, Lucknow, etc., with notable appearances from Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, Lord Cardigan, Florence Nightingale, etc.
Demy 8vo (22cm). 336pp. Endpaper maps. Original red boards, lettered in silver; a few faint marks; a few edge-spots, but a very good copy in the Arthur Barbosa dust-jacket – the jacket just faintly sunned, but also very good.

£250

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London : William Collins Sons & Co. (Crime Club), (1980). First edition. Lovejoy witnesses the murder of a fellow dealer – the dead man had recently bought some “unimportant” items from the estate of a local doctor. One of the more difficult Lovejoy titles to find.
Post 8vo (21cm). 204,[ii],[4]pp. Original red boards, blocked and lettered in gilt; some light spotting of edges; row of brown adhesive spots to front free endpaper, as of something tipped-in having been removed, but otherwise a very good, clean and sound copy in the Colin Thomas dust-jacket – the jacket very good indeed.

SOLD

London : Arthur Barker, 1934. First editions of the two separately published volumes of Graves’ “I Claudius” masterpiece. “I, Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus This-that-and-the-other (for I shall not trouble you yet with all my titles) who was once, and not so long ago either, known to my friends and relatives and associates as ‘Claudius the Idiot’, or ‘That Claudius’, or ‘Claudius the Stammerer’, or ‘Clau-Clau-Claudius’ or at best as ‘Poor Uncle Claudius’, am now about to write this strange history of my life ...”.
Two volumes. Demy 8vo (213 x 132mm). 494; (576)pp. Folding genealogical tables. Bound in a handsome recent half blue morocco, banded and gilt; the original cloth backstrips preserved at the rear of each volume; a few internal marks and spots, but overall a very good and sound set. Higginson A42a / A43a.

£750

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[London] : Privately printed, 1974. First edition : one of 500 copies (of 536) numbered and signed by Robert Graves. A collection of twenty poems, with Graves’ own foreword – “At least I never repeat myself, and I have never yet been accused of imitating my contemporaries or predecessors”. Includes “Earlier Lovers”, “The Moon’s Tear”, “The Ugly Secret”, etc. Printed at the Stellar Press at Hatfield.
Royal 8vo (26cm). (48)pp. Original red cloth, lettered in gilt; a very good, bright, clean, and sound copy in the dust-jacket – the jacket with just two tiny nicks, but also very good.

SOLD

London : William Heinemann, (1948). First edition. “If one knew, he wondered, the facts, would one have to feel pity even for the planets? If one reached what they called the heart of the matter?” – the moral crisis of Henry Scobie in Sierra Leone – and the heart of Greene.
Crown 8vo (180 x 119mm). [vi],(298)pp. Bound in a smart recent half red morocco, lettered in gilt; a few edge-spots, but otherwise a very good and attractive copy.

£400

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London : for the Proprietors, by William Clarke; J. Murray; S. Bagster [and others], 1815-1818. First edition. A charming compilation, originally published in monthly parts, bringing images and descriptions of out of the way architecture and antiquities throughout England, Wales and Scotland. The images, many of them the earliest known of the various towns, buildings and architectural features, were supplied by an array of local and travelling artists, including principally John Hassell, George Arnald, Frederick Wilton Litchfield Stockdale, Luke Clennell and William Deeble – the plates engraved by Greig himself, some from his own designs, as well as Thomas Higham, Edward John Roberts, William Wallis, John Charles Varrall, Deeble himself and numerous others. Although generally ascribed to Greig’s former partner, the artist and engraver James Sargant Storer, Storer was by now working with his son on other projects – his name appears nowhere in the credits and the work would appear undoubtedly to be Greig’s, he himself engraving around one third of the plates. The engraved plates are supplemented by hundreds of anonymous but exquisitely worked head and tailpieces giving further detail.
Seven volumes. Foolscap 8vo (157 x 99mm). 336 engraved plates. Head and tailpieces. Bound in a stylish nineteenth-century half tan calf, banded and richly gilt; burgundy labels; marbled sides; sprinkled edges; some minor rubbing; a few faint signs of age and use; some browning and spotting, but a very pretty set. Ownership inscription of J. Atkins in each volume.

£500

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London : Faber & Faber, (1996). First edition. Heaney’s first post-Nobel collection of poems – some forty poems, including “The Rain Stick”, “Poet’s Chair”, “At the Wellhead”, etc.
Demy 8vo (23cm). [2],(xiv),478,[ii]pp. Original green boards, lettered in orange; a very good copy indeed, in the dust-jacket – also very good indeed.

£100

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London : Faber & Faber, (1998). First edition. A very extensive selection of Heaney’s work, “as close to being a ‘Collected Poems’ as the author cares to make it”, also including a few poems not previously published in earlier collections, some translations, and “Crediting Poetry”, his Nobel Prize acceptance speech.
Demy 8vo (23cm). [2],(xiv),478,[ii]pp. Original green boards, lettered in orange; a very good copy indeed, in the dust-jacket – also very good indeed. Contemporary (1998) gift inscription on front free endpaper.

SOLD

London : Collins, 1936. First edition. “South Riding is unquestionably the greatest novel we have been privileged to publish ...” say the publishers on the front flap of the dust-jacket. The critics agreed – “For South Riding is a book you can walk about in. A book in which you come up against life on every page. A book in which the seasons pass and men and women and children fail and succeed, in which poverty is recognised as a very present evil, in which fallible and not always disinterested human beings work together for common ends ... None of your love-in-a-bandbox plots for Winifred Holtby. She wanted the earth – She sanely accepted life as it is, and had eager visions of what it could become. And, at the end of her short, passionately experienced life, she left us, in her generosity, a great book” (Daily Herald, 5th March 1936).
Post 8vo (21cm). (xviii),(590)pp. Original pale green cloth, lettered in violet; some very minor signs of age and use; a few faint spots; endpapers a little tanned, but a very good copy in the dust-jacket – the jacket just lightly used, with a few tiny nicks, but also very good.

SOLD

London : for J. F. & C. Rivington ; T. Payne & Son ; R. Baldwin and others, 1790. An important eighteenth-century edition of Hoyle, revised by Charles Jones – and including for the first time a section on “Goff, or Golf” – “Light Balls are used when playing with the wind, and heavy ones against it”. Although compressed into the last few pages of the book, this would appear to be the first extended description of golf in any work of this kind. Also included are sections on cricket (the Star and Garter Rules of 1774), tennis (“a net hangs across the middle”), billiards, etc., as well as whist, chess, backgammon, etc.
Crown 12mo (161 x 91mm). viii,290,[ii]pp. Two plates (billiards). Bound in a robust modern (late twentieth-century) full pigskin; red morocco title label, a few very minor marks; one leaf slightly nicked, but a very good, clean, crisp and attractive copy. Donovan & Murdoch 330. ESTC T87522.

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London : Faber & Faber, (1967). First edition : in the primary binding, lettered in gilt rather than silver. A collection of forty poems, five stories and a radio play.
Demy 8vo (23cm). 184pp. Original quarter red cloth, with grey cloth sides, blocked and lettered on spine in gilt; a hint of tanning to endpapers, but a very good and bright copy in the Berthold Wolpe dust-jacket – design in red and grey on white – just lightly used and slightly tanned. With the 1969 ownership inscription of Brian Morse. Sagar & Tabor A12a.i.

£100

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Woodford Green : Poet and Printer, (1971). ~ First edition : limited to 200 copies, with an additional “no more than thirty” copies for academic or review purposes. In theory, half of the 200 copies were to be distributed by the publisher and half given to Hughes, but there was evidently a certain amount of muddle. The present example has the additional colophon indicating that it was printed as one of the review copies, but it is from Hughes’ own personal stock and numbered 59/88 below his signature. A collection of twelve poems, including the title-poem, as well as “Bones”, “Amulet”, “Snow Song”, etc.
Post 8vo (21cm). (28),[iv]pp. Original cream paper-backed red and black patterned boards, lettered on spine and upper cover in black; a very good copy indeed. Sagar & Tabor A28.

SOLD

[Shrewsbury : C. Hulbert, 1826]. A charming and extremely rare miniature twin-hemisphere map of the world by Charles Hulbert of Shrewsbury – author, historian, publisher, bookseller, printer and stationer. Surrounding the map are depictions of a stately home, what appears to be a tropical forest, a bridge over a gorge, an elephant and a camel. Engraved by Smith and Greaves and evidently originally intended to accompany Hulbert’s “The Select Museum of the World, or, One Thousand Descriptions of Remarkable Antiquities, Curiosities, Beauties & Varieties of Nature and Art in Asia, Africa, America and Europe” (1822-1826), the four volumes of which were also issued separately as “Museum Africanum”, “Museum Americanum” etc.
Copper line engraving on paper. Later hand colour. Engraved surface 77 x 120mm (approx. 3” x 4-3/4”). Some mild browning, outer blank margins a little soiled, but a very good example of a fragile production. A guaranteed genuine antique map.

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London : S. D. Frances, [1948]. First edition. The second full-length Hank Janson title, and probably definitive in terms of fully establishing his modes of characterisation, gritty dialogue and overall style. “Sheila was disguised as a boy until another fella tried to strip away her pants. That started a rumpus which involved the important citizens ...”. The subject of forty-seven destruction orders from local magistrates.
Crown 8vo (19cm). (5)-111,[v]pp. Original pictorial stapled wrappers – a leggy blonde in stockings and disarray in a design by Reginald Heade; tiny chip at foot; some creasing to wrappers; staples a little rusted; a few faint marks, but a good and sound copy of an elusive early title. Just three copies (Bodleian, British Library and Trinity College, Dublin) located in major libraries worldwide. Williams & Holland 2.

£100

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London : for Longman, Hurst, Rees & Orme, 1808. First edition. Lamb’s hugely influential rediscovery of the Elizabethans and Jacobeans, many of the specimens of their work culled from “plays which are to be found only in the British Museum and in some scarce private libraries” – Francis Beaumont, George Chapman, Thomas Decker, John Fletcher, John Ford, Fulke Greville, Ben Jonson, Thomas Kyd, Christopher Marlowe, John Marston, Philip Massinger, Thomas Middleton, George Peele, Cyril Tourneur, John Webster, and many more – “the most striking anthology perhaps ever made from English literature” (Edmund Blunden).
Crown 8vo (185 x 113mm). xii,484pp. Bound, without half-title, in a very handsome later (early twentieth century) full blue crushed morocco, banded and richly gilt, by Robert Riviere & Son; all edges gilt; inner gilt dentelles; marbled endleaves; some very minor rubbing and a hint of bruising, but a very good copy.

£500

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London : John Murray, (1977). First edition. On foot across Europe at the age of eighteen in the 1930s – “like a tramp, a pilgrim, or a wandering scholar” through Holland, Germany, Vienna, Prague, and on into Hungary – the first instalment of a famous journey reconstructed from maps, memories, and a diary – fascinating on every page. One of the twentieth-century classics – a “sublime masterpiece” (William Dalrymple).
Demy 8vo (23cm). [viii],(292),[iv]pp. Portrait frontispiece. Double-page map. With the elusive errata slip – “for ‘water-hog’ read ‘water-hag’”, etc. – in duplicate. Original boards; a few very faint spots, but a very good copy in the dust-jacket by John Craxton (1922-2009) – just faintly sunned (as usual) and lightly spotted on flaps and rear panel, but still very good.

SOLD

London : Longman, Brown, Green & Longmans, 1843. First edition : the second issue, with the variant title. “A vigorous, dashing sketch of the prairies of California, the wildernesses of the Rocky Mountains, and the swamps of Texas” (Court Journal). Originally issued a little earlier as “Narrative of the Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet in California, Sonora and Western Texas”, Sadleir suggests that the book was relaunched with a more exciting title specifically for the gift-books for boys market. Scarce in either incarnation, Marryat’s novel, full of factual information drawn from (unacknowledged) contemporary sources and his own visit to the Americas, is perhaps the earliest children’s book with an American Wild West setting. It is certainly the first work of fiction to contain Mormon characters and remains an important source of information on the pre Gold Rush California of the 1830s.
Three volumes. Demy 12mo (195 x 115mm). viii,312; [ii],318; [ii],(300)pp. Folding lithographic map by William Lake of the Pacific coast and territories of the Shoshones, Umbiquas, Cayuses, Nez Perces, Flatheads, etc. Bound, without half-titles (if actually called for in this issue) and final imprint leaf in vol.ii, in a smart later (early twentieth-century) half tan calf, by Henry Young & Sons of Liverpool, banded and richly gilt; contrasting maroon and tan labels; marbled sides and endpapers; top edges gilt; a few minor marks, spots and small flaws, but a very good set. Sadleir 1586b. Wolff 4525a.

£500

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London : Smith, Elder & Co., 1902. First edition. Mason’s enduring tale of courage, cowardice and redemption – made into popular films on at least seven occasions from 1915 onwards, of which perhaps the most memorable is that directed by Zoltan Korda and starring Ralph Richardson, C. Aubrey Smith, and June Duprez.
Crown 8vo (181 x 117mm). viii,338,[vi]pp. Bound in a handsome recent full walnut crushed morocco, banded and gilt, by Bayntun-Riviere; all edges gilt; marbled endpapers; very occasional mild spotting, but overall a very good copy indeed, most attractively bound.

£1,000

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[London : for Thomas Bowles and John Bowles], 1727 [but ca.1732]. A handsome map of the world in hemispheres – the extremes of the earth as yet unknown in Europe – California shown as an island, the coastlines of “New Zeeland”, “New Holland” and “Japon” hazy and incomplete. Inset between the spandrels are a map of the North Pole, notes on the prevailing trade-winds and the northern and southern signs of the zodiac, while along the lower border is a frieze depicting the people and riches of the earth. Originally produced in 1727 for Moll’s “Atlas Minor”, but here in a slightly later but still early impression.
Copper line engraving on paper. Original outline hand colour. Engraved surface 198 x 262 (approx. 7-3/4” x 10-1/4”). Some very minor dustiness in a few small places, but overall in very good and clean state. A guaranteed genuine antique map.

SOLD

London : for Richard Phillips, 1803. First collected edition of the convention-defying Lady Mary Wortley Montagu – with an extensive selection of her letters from Constantinople, Venice and other foreign parts, a selection of poems, some of the essays, her translation of Epictetus, etc. Anonymously edited, with a memoir, by James Dallaway (1763-1834), from materials supplied by her son-in-law, Lord Bute – apparently in exchange for the suppression of other manuscripts held by Richard Phillips, the publisher.
Five volumes. Crown 8vo (187 x 108mm). Two engraved portraits. Nine facsimiles, some folding, one on two plates. Bound in an attractive (probably Scottish) contemporary mottled calf, prettily gilt with guilloche bands, small tools, etc.; red morocco labels; lemon edges; marbled endpapers; ribbon markers; the upper cover of one volume slightly pitted; a few slight nicks, chips, creases and faint discolourations; one leaf slightly damaged at gutter, but overall a very good and highly attractive set. With the contemporary ownership inscriptions of F. Forbes.

SOLD

[London : George Virtue, 1836]. A most attractive antique map of the West Riding, decorated with a “gothick” border, an inset view of Harewood House, a white rose, coats of arms, mythical figures, etc. Originally engraved in 1836 by William Schmollinger (1811?-1869) for Moule’s part-work series “The English Counties Delineated” (1830-1837) – and here in very early state, before the addition of railways, etc.
Steel line engraving on paper. Original hand colour. Engraved surface 205 x 265mm (approx. 8” x 10-3/8”). Trimmed a little tight to margins; a few minor marks and spots, but overall in very good and clean state. Rare in this early state and with original colour. A guaranteed genuine antique map. Many other counties are available in this Thomas Moule series.

£125

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London : Faber & Faber, (1971). First edition. A collection of thirty-four poems, mainly from the years 1960-1961, and including “Parliament Hill Fields”, “Stillborn”, “Heavy Women”, “Love Letter”, “Small Hours”, etc.
Demy 8vo (23cm). 64pp. Original blue cloth, lettered down spine in gilt; a very good copy in the dust-jacket – also very good, fresh and unworn.

SOLD

London : Constable & Co., [1919]. First edition : the variant issue, with the addition of the pictorial Rackham endpapers in place of the original plain ones. “Clerk Colvill”, “Chevy Chase”, “Hynd Horn”, “The Bailiff’s Daughter of Islington”, “The Fair Flower of Northumberland” and many other traditional ballads, with sixteen tipped-in tissue-guarded colour plates by Rackham and numerous black-and-white illustrations in the text.
Crown 4to (254 x 188mm). (10),170,[ii]pp. Sixteen colour plates. Text illustrations. Bound in a smart recent half blue morocco, banded and gilt, and retaining the original cloth sides decorated with Rackham designs in gilt and blind; original Rackham front endpaper preserved; occasional light spotting; a few minor creases, but a very good copy – handsomely bound.

£400

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London : James Reynolds, [ca.1850]. One of the well-known series of educational diagrams on card published by James Reynolds of the Strand. The diagram displays the earth’s annual rotation round the sun, with markers of the seasons, solstices and equinoxes, set within an oval framework of the signs of the zodiac. Corner notes add information on the size, speed and rotation of the earth, as well as on the zodiac. Six lines of longer text below the image offer a clearly written explanation of the phenomena of the seasons.
Steel line engraving on card, with original hand colour. 228 x 287mm (approx. 9” x 11-1/4”). Faint darkening to outer edges; a few very minor spots and specks, but overall in very good state.

£100

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Edinburgh : Archibald Constable & Co., 1826. First edition. Scott in the thick of the Civil War – Cromwell, Charles II, etc. Written rapidly to earn his way out of financial difficulties, the reviewers found the novel flawed and occasionally wayward in its history, but it became a huge commercial success and remains one of his most popular titles.
Three volumes. Crown 8vo (190 x 121mm). xvi,(316); [ii],332; [ii],370pp. 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). Bound (without half-titles) in a neat near contemporary silk-cloth, leather labels; a little sunned, some minor wear, occasional slight spotting, but otherwise a very good set. With the armorial “Fide et Constantia” bookplate of William John Lee in each volume.

£100

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London : Methuen & Co., (1930). The first edition of this enduring classic – “the result of years of research in golf-clubs, gun-rooms, green-rooms, etc. ... for Pheasant read Peasant, throughout”. Illustrated by John Reynolds (1909-1935).
Crown 8vo (183 x 121mm). xii,116,8pp. Bound in a handsome recent half red morocco, banded and gilt; original cloth decorated front panel preserved at rear; a few faint marks and spots, but a very good and attractive copy of a difficult title.

£500

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London : W. H. Allen, 1959. First edition. His second book, winner of the Hawthornden prize, the title novella memorably filmed by Tony Richardson, with Tom Courtenay and Michael Redgrave, in 1962. With eight further short stories, including “On Saturday Afternoon”, etc.
Post 8vo (21cm). 176pp. Original grey cloth, blocked and lettered in gilt; a touch of fading; endpapers very lightly tanned, but a very good copy in the original Mona Moore dust-jacket – just lightly used.

£200

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London : Edward Moxon, 1850. First edition : the putative first issue, with the misprints “the sullen” for “thee, sullen” on p.2, and “baseness” for “bareness” on p.198. Tennyson on love and death – “one of the key works of the nineteenth century, and one which has been described antithetically as the epitome of Victorian scepticism and of Christian faith ... a great work of art precisely because it contains no single clear moral” (Christopher Rush).
Foolscap 8vo (169 x 105mm). (viii),210,[ii]pp. Bound, complete with half-title and final blank, in an elegant later (early twentieth-century) full burgundy morocco, banded and gilt, by Zaehnsdorf; top edge gilt; ruled turn-ins; lilac silk endleaves; spine a touch sunned, a handful of spots, but a very good copy in a superior binding.

SOLD

London : Edward Moxon, 1855. First edition. A major collection of Tennyson’s poetry (and his own favourite to the end of his days), which added not only “Come into the garden, Maud”, but also “Half a league onward”, “Theirs not to reason why” and “Cannon to the right of them” to the universal canon of most quoted lines.
Foolscap 8vo (165 x 99mm). [viii],154pp. Bound, with the half-title, but without the separately printed advertisement leaves, in an elegant near contemporary full tan calf, banded and richly gilt; all edges gilt; marbled endleaves; some very minor rubbing and faint wear, but a very good copy. Armorial bookplate of A. T. Higginson – seemingly Alexander Tweed Higginson (1842-1912) of Montreal.

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London : for A. Bettesworth, 1726. First edition. “I may, without vanity, affirm that the following treatise upon angling, is the most perfect and compleat of any that has hitherto appeared in print ...” – and so it probably was, becoming the standard eighteenth-century work, combining practical instruction on fishing with the making of flies, descriptions of the individual fish, the laws of angling as then understood, material on rock-fishing and sea-fishing, an extensive glossary of the “technical words, and phrases”, and a selection of appetising fish recipes, etc.
Crown 12mo (167 x 93mm). (xii),(189),[iii]pp. Bound in a neat recent half calf, red label, marbled sides; half-title supplied in facsimile; leaf E3 expertly repaired, with some forty words supplied, in whole or in part, in facsimile; occasional light browning and a few spots, but otherwise a most attractive copy of a scarce book. ESTC T67673.

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London : The Sunday Referee and The Parton Bookshop, (1934). First edition : just 500 copies were printed, this copy being one of the second batch of 250 to be bound, with an additional inserted leaf bearing [February 1936] advertisements. The most remarkable debut in all twentieth-century English-language poetry – written before and published just weeks after Thomas’s twentieth birthday and already containing several of his greatest poems – “I See the Boys of Summer in Their Ruin”, “The Force that Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower”, “Where Once the Waters of Your Face”, etc.
Demy 8vo (23cm). [2],[ii],[3]-36,[iv]pp. Original black cloth with rounded back, lettered up spine in Dutch gilt; very slightly rubbed and a touch dulled; some spotting to endpapers and outer leaves, but a good and sound copy in the rare original dust-jacket – the jacket also with a sprinkling of spots, but barring a couple of short nicks and a slight crease, in very good state. A loosely inserted press-cutting of a 1953 obituary notice remarks that the book’s “impact was immediate and profound ... this poet had created an idiom ... he had disturbed the roots of our language”.

£1,000

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London : J. M. Dent & Sons, (1954). First edition. A collection of the radio scripts – stunning in their use of language. Twelve are personal – reminiscences of childhood, memories of Christmas, quite the best account of the Festival of Britain ever written, etc. – and ten further broadcast essays: Dylan Thomas on Wilfred Owen, on Welsh poets, on De La Mare, on Sir Philip Sidney, on reading poetry, and on poetry itself. With a perceptive introduction by Aneirin Talfan Davies on “the deliberate skill of the craftsman who weighed every word and every syllable”.
Crown 8vo (20cm). x,(182)pp. Portrait frontispiece. Original blue cloth, lettered in gilt; a sprinkling of edge-spots, but a very good, bright and sharp copy in the dust-jacket – the jacket with a hint of rubbing, but also very good. Rolph B23.

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Exeter : Printed (and sold) by R. Trewman, 1777. First edition. An attractive provincial masonic miscellany, compiled, printed and published by the Exeter bookseller Robert Trewman. Comprises various charges and addresses – on masonry, initiation, charity, masters of lodges, etc., with prayers, laws for lodges, ceremonies of consecration, installation and laying foundations, funerals, etc., a rebuttal of objections to freemasonry, material on Freemasons’ Hall, the antient masons, the York masons, together with anthems, odes, an extensive selection of songs, a list of English lodges, etc., and a list of some 260 mainly local subscribers.
Crown 8vo (182 x 108mm). (xxiv),266,[ii]pp. Engraved frontispiece by John Kirk of London after Brother John Chubb of Bridgewater. Bound in a later (early twentieth-century) half sprinkled calf; green label; marbled sides; lightly rubbed; title-page a little dusty; some light internal marks, creases, and faint marginal discolouration in places, but a good copy. Eight names of members of the Wilson family inscribed on verso of frontispiece, apparently all in the same hand. From the collection of Albert Edward Collins Nice (1898-1969). ESTC T105458 – noting just four copies.

£250

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London : Smith, Elder & Co., 1867. First edition. Julia Brabazon marries for money, but her reprobate husband dies leaving her a rich widow. What now for Harry Clavering, her jilted former suitor, recently engaged to Florence Burton? One of Trollope's finest studies of marriage and morality, featuring also Sophie Gordeloup, one of his most wicked women – “But Trollope was best at that very thing: writing about women born out of their time” (Max Egremont).
Two volumes. Demy 8vo (222 x 140mm). [iv],314; [iv],(310)pp. Sixteen subtle and sensitive plates by Mary Ellen Edwards (1838-1934). Bound, without the advertisement leaves, in an elegant early twentieth-century half blue morocco, banded and gilt; top edges gilt; marbled endpapers; some light rubbing and minor wear; some internal marks and spots, but a good set – “fine copies are very scarce” (Sadleir). From the library of Mary Louise Curtis Bok (1876-1970), later Zimbalist, philanthropist and founder of the Curtis Institute of Music, with her distinctive bookplate in each volume. Sadleir 27.

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London : Chapman & Hall, (1942). First edition. The bright young things – “the wreckage of the roaring twenties”, in Waugh’s phrase, face the realities of the phoney war – with Basil Seal in counter-intelligence, Ambrose Silk, Peter Pastmaster, Angela Lyne, etc., and cameo roles for Parsnip and Pimpernel (based on Auden and Isherwood). “The greatest English novel of the Second World War” (John Keegan).
Crown 8vo (20cm). (256)pp. Original grey canvas; top edge blue; mild tanning of spine, etc.; some spotting of edges and prelims, but a very good copy of this wartime production in the fragile original Fish dust-jacket - a pictorial design in orange, white, black and grey - a little sunned as always, lightly worn and slightly chipped, with a few short tears, but attractive still. Rex Whistler designed Book Society ex-libris label on front pastedown.

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London : Chapman & Hall, [1948]. First edition. Waugh unhappy in California and the Whispering Glades – sharp satire on the Los Angeles funeral industry, the ex-pats of Hollywood, the movie business itself, and "that impersonal insensitive friendliness which takes the place of ceremony in that land of waifs and strays".
Crown 8vo (20cm). [xii],144pp. Illustrations by Stuart Boyle. Original dark blue cloth, lettered in gilt; top edge blue; a few faint marks, but a very good copy in the Boyle dust-jacket – the jacket just a touch dusty and with a few spots, but also very good.

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Boston : Little, Brown & Co., (1954). First edition. A collection of a dozen Waugh stories and sketches, some of which had previously been separately published or included in collections, but with others reprinted from magazines, etc. Includes “Bella Fleace Gave a Party”, “Winner Takes All”, “An Englishman’s Home”, etc. There was no equivalent UK edition.
Post 8vo (22cm). [vi],(290)pp. Original cloth, lettered in gilt; a touch bruised, some light marking to cloth, but a good and sound copy in the dust-jacket – the jacket a little tanned to spine, as usual, but showing just minor signs of use and wear.

SOLD

London : Secker & Warburg, 1940. First edition. An uncommon late Wells – as a World War develops he advances a grim choice between revolution and destruction – “I mean exactly what I say, the disastrous extinction of mankind”. He proposes a “way to a world realisation of collective unity”, via scientifically planned and directed socialism, the rule of law, and total freedom of speech. “The book is full of things that bite and sting ... He is at any rate thoroughly alive. And towards the end he rejoices ... ‘The world has never been so awake’”(Aberdeen Press, 1st January 1940).
Post 8vo (21cm). (192)pp. Original grey cloth, ruled and lettered in red; top edge red; some marks and spots of discolouration to cloth; mild tanning of endpapers, but a good copy in the seldom seen original dust-jacket by William Kermode (1895-1957) – the jacket with some light repair and restoration to edges. Contemporary (January 1940) ownership inscription of A. L. Weyers.

SOLD

London : Faber & Faber, (1935). First edition. The perilous journey home through Devon rivers of a twenty-pound salmon – “a rare and beautiful book that should take its place as a classic among the few that are written at once with a poet’s insight and a naturalist’s knowledge” (New York Times).
Crown 8vo (184 x 119mm). (320)pp. Title-page and colophon decorations by C. F. Tunnicliffe. Bound in an attractive later half russet morocco, banded and gilt with salmon, by Bayntun; top edge gilt; a few slight spots; very mild tanning of endpapers, but a very good copy.

£250

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London : Barrie & Jenkins, (1974). First edition. The final Jeeves & Wooster novel – later published in the USA as the “The Cat-Nappers”. Aunt Dahlia wants Bertie to steal something – and Jeeves’ aunt also appears.
Post 8vo (21cm). 176pp. Original blue boards, blocked and lettered in gilt; a very good, bright and sound copy in the Osbert Lancaster dust-jacket – the jacket with the very faintest signs of age and use, but also very good.

SOLD

London : Hogarth Press, (1943) [i.e. 1944]. First edition. Eighteen short stories, twelve of them either previously unpublished or unpublished in book form. With a foreword by Leonard Woolf. “All the great qualities of Mrs. Woolf’s work are to be found in this volume ... the magical power of observation, the finest sensibility of the age, the loving command of language ... that elusiveness which is at the same time, in Mrs. Woolf’s hands, a kind of precision” (Birmingham Daily Post, 11th February 1944).
Crown 8vo (19cm). 124pp. Original red cloth, lettered in gilt; small patch of fading at head; some marking to covers; text slightly tanned, as usual; a good copy of a frail wartime publication, in the fragile original black and white Vanessa Bell dust-jacket – chipped at head, not affecting lettering, lightly marked, with a few short nicks and tears, but in better than usual order.

£200

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London : James Wyld, 1891. An attractive circular map of the environs of London on a scale of half an inch to a mile, extending north beyond Hertford and Ware, east to Tilbury, south to Dorking and Edenbridge, and westwards to Windsor and Eton. Coloured circles indicate places respectively within four miles and twelve miles of Charing Cross. Originally published in 1832 and revised and updated by Wyld’s son and grandson until the present version, which is the last known.
Lithograph on paper with delicate original hand colour. Printed surface 620 x 610mm (approx. 24-3/8” x 24”). Dissected, mounted on linen, and folding into a Wyld cloth case, with paper labels (cover title “Wyld’s New Map of Country Round London”); case a little worn and spine label chipped; pinholes to upper margin of map; a few slight creases, but the map overall in very good state. Ownership stamp of James Scott in two places, with some pencilled addition to the map beyond the south-west corner. Hyde D&H 344 – not listing this edition.

£400

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