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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). “So great are these masterpieces of French fiction that the introduction ... is quite unnecessary. Balzac’s short stories are essentially original and powerful – and tragic. The volume opens with El Verdugo (The Executioner), one of the most powerful of his tales, but The Maranas is undoubtedly the greatest achievement in this excellent collection” (Dundee Courier, 3rd June 1927).
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

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 42568 – or simply click on the button

London : Chatto & Windus, (1926). First British edition. “The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and beauty in the world”. Old money, new money, the defining novel of the Jazz Age, originally published in New York the previous year.
Crown 8vo (186 x 123mm). [vi],218pp. Bound in an elegant recent full blue-black morocco, banded and gilt; top edge gilt; marbled endpapers; a handful of minor marks and spots, but a very good copy.

SOLD

London : Duckworth & Co., 1900. First edition : of the 1,000 sets of sheets originally printed, only 500 were bound for the British market by the publishers, while some 250 were used for a colonial edition, and another 150 or so later destroyed unsold. The first mention of the Forsyte family (one chapter is headed “Salvation of a Forsyte”) in this famously uncommon early Galsworthy novel published under his “John Sinjohn” pseudonym. “Greta, the motherless girl, is altogether delightful. So is the hero, Alois Harz, the Bohemian painter; and so too is Christian, the other heroine, so to speak, whom he marries ... the characters are delightfully sketched, with a good deal of verisimilitude ... a decidedly readable story” (The Bookseller, 25th December 1900).
Crown 8vo (184 x 121mm). [vi],(258)pp. Bound in an elegant recent half crimson morocco, banded and gilt; marbled sides; some mild tanning to outer leaves, but otherwise a handsome copy of a book seldom encountered.

£400

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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

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 32090 – or simply click on the button