MICHAEL INNES FIRST EDITIONS AT
ASH RARE BOOKS
43 HURON ROAD
LONDON SW17 8RE
UNITED KINGDOM

London : Victor Gollancz, 1938. Second impression, published a month after the first. His third book – a classic early Appleby, with the violent death of a Scottish laird and a doom-laden castle setting – and a Haycraft-Queen cornerstone. “Michael Innes is as guileful as he is douce. With grace and urbanity, with a subtle wit and a devilish ingenuity, he persuades the reader time and again to guess wrong. To me, anyhow, the final revelation of the real murderer came as a shock of surprise” (Lettice Cooper in the Yorkshire Post, 15th June 1938).
Crown 8vo (20cm). 286,[ii]pp. Original black cloth, lettered in red; some very minor wear; a few faint marks; a sprinkling of edge spots, but otherwise a clean and sound copy in the dust-jacket – the jacket a little tanned, worn and chipped, with the loss of a few letters and the price clipped out from the spine, but an uncommon survival of a distinctive and heavily lettered pre-war Gollancz jacket.

£50

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46146 – or simply click on the button

London : Victor Gollancz, 1972. A hardback reissue of the scarce original 1941 publication. John Appleby finds himself on an island in the South Pacific, which has a number of interesting inhabitants including a group of archaeologists and a Nazi spy ring. “One transformation scene after another. It is all exciting and brilliant, and has the intelligence you expect” (Illustrated London News, 2nd August 1941).
Post 8vo (21cm). (168)pp. Original red boards, lettered in gilt; small and faint mark to top-edge, but otherwise a very good, bright, clean and sound copy in the dust-jacket – the jacket just slightly bruised at tips, but also very good.

£20

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46148 – or simply click on the button

London : Victor Gollancz, 1972. A hardback reprint of Innes’ scarce wartime classic, first published in 1942 – numerate horse stolen, two missing young women, Bloomsbury mansion rebuilt up the Amazon, experiments in the supernatural, etc. “An odd and startling piece of delicatessen to find in the meaty earthbound larder of detective fiction ... There is a brilliant madness in this book” (Punch).
Post 8vo (21cm). [ii],(152),[ii]pp. Original red boards, lettered in gilt; mild bruising at foot; faint band of tanning to front endpaper; top edge a little spotted, but otherwise a very good copy in a very good dust-jacket.

£20

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46149 – or simply click on the button

London : Victor Gollancz, 1945. First edition. Detective-Inspector Appleby meets his future wife Judith Raven. “Dead men ‘set’ like turnips, domestic animals turn to stone, the tales of a forgotten novelist coming true – a whole brood of Ravens in the Manor, and at its gates a tribe of rustics earthier than Cold Comfort Farm – it is all quite crazy, lavishly ingenious and extremely good fun” (Illustrated London News, 30th March 1946).
Crown 8vo (19cm). 152pp. Original blue cloth, lettered in gilt; just a hint of bruising but a very good and clean copy in the original yellow dust-jacket – the jacket with just a touch of tanning and a couple of tiny nicks but also very good.

£100

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46151 – or simply click on the button

London : Victor Gollancz, 1946. First edition. A baronet murdered in his study. The tale told in part by his widow and in part by the police sergeant – “a triumph of storytelling, humour and wit. Impersonation and a visit to Australia is a tour-de-force. A passing reference to ‘poor Insp Appleby’ suggests the mood” (Barzun & Taylor 1901).
Crown 8vo (19cm). (192)pp. Original blue cloth, lettered in gilt; spine a little sunned, and faded at tips where the jacket is a little damaged; endpapers lightly tanned; a few faint edge spots, but otherwise a very good and sound copy in the Gollancz yellow dust-jacket – the jacket a little worn and tanned at spine, with a short tear to the rear panel and a few faint marks and spots, but a welcome survival of a fragile item. Small stamp of D. A. McLean, Belfast bookseller, on rear endpaper.

£25

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46153 – or simply click on the button

London : Victor Gollancz, 1948. First edition. “A bewildering number of bodies ... a queer family that procreates in triplets ... Appleby, retired Yard man, urbanely says, ‘A beautiful murder’, and solves the whole riddle in a night” (Hull Daily Mail, 27th March 1948).
Crown 8vo (19cm). 208pp. Original blue cloth, lettered in gilt; spine lettering a touch dulled; top edge a little spotted; endpapers lightly tanned but overall a very good, clean and sound copy in the dust-jacket – the jacket slightly chipped at head and a little tanned, with a handful of faint marks and spots but also very good.

£50

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46154 – or simply click on the button

London : Victor Gollancz, 1949. First edition. “He has a laboratory in which he cracks atoms much as you and I might crack nuts” – Innes in the atomic age, with stolen plans and foreign powers. “If Henry James had written a detective story, with crime, investigation and arrest complete, it would have been rather like a novel by Mr. Innes” (The Sketch, 6th July 1949).
Crown 8vo (20cm). (326),[ii]pp. Original red boards, lettered in black; a touch bruised; tiny mark on front free endpaper, but still a very good and sound copy in the dust-jacket – the jacket worn, chipped, and neatly repaired, with some repaired short nicks and tears, and a little marking on the rear panel.

£25

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46155 – or simply click on the button

London : Victor Gollancz, 1951. First edition. Regarded as one of his three best books – “Most of the excitement centres round a mysterious house, surrounded by a high wall, in the vicinity of Oxford, and also – of all places – in the Bodleian Library ... There is a hunt for a missing document, hunts for missing people, and as much shooting as in an American gangster story” (Western Evening Herald, 2nd October 1951).
Crown 8vo (20cm). 304pp. Original red-pink cloth, lettered in black; just a touch bruised; top edge lightly spotted; very slight spotting to final few leaves and rear free endpaper, but otherwise a very good copy in the dust-jacket – the jacket with minor wear and a few slight marks, but also very good.

£50

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46156 – or simply click on the button

London : Victor Gollancz, 1954. First edition. Innes in anecdotal mood, with “Appleby’s First Case”, “The Spendlove Papers”, “Tragedy of a Handkerchief”, “A Derby Horse”, and nineteen further stories. Later published in the USA as “Dead Man’s Shoes”.
Crown 8vo (20cm). (224)pp. Original red boards, lettered in gilt; a few faint edge-spots, but otherwise a very good copy in the dust-jacket – the jacket price-clipped, with some minor wear, and a couple of unobtrusive short repaired tears, but still very presentable.

£25

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46159 – or simply click on the button

London : Victor Gollancz, 1955. First edition. “I doubt if ever he has started a novel better than this; a man emerging from the sea to interrupt a lover’s rendezvous, his pursuers sweeping the shore in obvious agitation, the thwarted lovers no less agitated, and for the first few pages no reader any the wiser and full of expectancy” (The Sphere, 12th February 1955).
Crown 8vo (20cm). (224)pp. Original red boards, lettered in gilt; a very good, clean and sound copy in the dust-jacket – the jacket with a few slight marks and spots, but still bright and with minimal wear.

£25

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46160 – or simply click on the button

London : Victor Gollancz, 1956. First edition. “As a detective story something of a sell – there is no murder in it; in fact so far as I could make out no crime at all. As a story it is a success, in its bizarre and wholly personal Innes way ... [but] not enough corpse and too much library” (Elizabeth Bowen in The Tatler, 18th April 1956).
Crown 8vo (20cm). (224)pp. Original red boards, lettered in gilt; mild spotting of edges and endpapers, but a good and sound copy in the dust-jacket – the jacket price-clipped and a little rubbed and tanned, with some chipping and wear at head.

£20

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46161 – or simply click on the button

London : Victor Gollancz, 1956. First edition. Eighteen short stories, including “Dangerfield’s Diary”, “False Colours”, “Enigma Jones”, “Murder on the 7.16”, and “The Lombard Books”, with its alarming suggestion of the uses of literary forgery.
Crown 8vo (20cm). (190),[ii]pp. Original red boards, lettered in gilt; a touch bruised; some spotting and marking of edges and endpapers; a good copy in the dust-jacket – the jacket chipped at head and lightly tanned. Small bookseller’s label of Parkers of Oxford on front pastedown.

£25

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46162 – or simply click on the button

London : Victor Gollancz, 1958. First edition. His twentieth crime novel – “he takes his scholastic victim out of the cloisters, shoots him in the library of an English country house – and calls in Appleby to discuss crime and Shakespeare with the erudite suspects” (Elizabeth Hickson in the Weekly Dispatch, 23rd March 1958).
Crown 8vo (20cm). (206),[ii]pp. Original red boards, lettered in gilt; top edge a little spotted, but otherwise a very good copy in the dust-jacket – the jacket with just a hint of wear and with a small mark on the rear panel, but also very good.

£40

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46164 – or simply click on the button

London : Victor Gollancz, 1959. First edition. “The disappearance of a biologist who was working on a bacteriological warfare project – has most of the usual good qualities: good talk, inconsequential and even crazy characters, John Appleby, the general feeling of intelligence” (Birmingham Daily Post, 3rd November 1959).
Crown 8vo (20cm). 192pp. Original red boards, lettered in gilt; a little dulled; edges faintly spotted, but a good and sound copy in the dust-jacket – the jacket price-clipped, a little marked, chipped and repaired, and extensively reinforced with masking tape.

£20

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46165 – or simply click on the button

London : Victor Gollancz, 1960. First edition. “It is the measure of Michael Innes’ ingenuity with words that he can reduce murder to the level of farce and yet maintain the thrills equally with the laughs ... a delightful piece of nonsense in which a somewhat naive Colonel Petticate (retired) pushes his novelist wife over the side of their yacht and then has to face the task of keeping her – and her books – alive” (Liverpool Daily Post, 6th July 1960). “An unashamed personal favourite of mine” (H. R. F. Keating, including the book in his “100 Best”).
Crown 8vo (20cm). 192pp. Original red boards, lettered in black; a few faint spots, a hint of tanning to endpapers, but a very good copy in the dust-jacket – the jacket a touch tanned, with a couple of tiny nicks, but also very good. With the bookplate of the distinguished collector Peter Apap Bologna (1941-2019) on front pastedown.

£40

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46166 – or simply click on the button

London : Victor Gollancz, 1964. First edition. “This yarn of the great art conspiracy that went wrong is just about the best Innes since his very early days. Suspense and satire struggle mightily for supremacy” (Liverpool Daily Post, 7th October 1964). “Here Innes writes with his best skill and uncommon directness” (Barzun & Taylor).
Post 8vo (21cm). 192pp. Original red boards, lettered in gilt; a hint of tanning to the front endpaper, but otherwise a very good copy in the dust-jacket – the jacket with some slight reinforcement at head, some minor wear, and a couple of tiny nicks. Bookseller’s label of the Austral Bookshop of Melbourne to front pastedown.

£20

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46168 – or simply click on the button

London : Victor Gollancz, 1966. First edition. “Although his earlier books are now classics, some of his recent books are, in their own way, as attractive ... a young out-of-work actor who is persuaded to impersonate the heir to a rich, feudally-minded old lady ... an intelligent, relaxed comedy with criminal overtones” (Birmingham Daily Post, 15th October 1966).
Crown 8vo (20cm). (192)pp. Original red boards, lettered in gilt; some spotting of edges, but otherwise a very good copy in the yellow dust-jacket printed in magenta and black – the jacket a little marked, with some minor wear, few nicks and one short tear. With the bookplate of the distinguished collector Peter Apap Bologna (1941-2019) on front pastedown.

£20

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46169 – or simply click on the button

London : Victor Gollancz, 1966. First edition. “John Appleby is perhaps the most sophisticated sleuth ever created, the hero of superior, old-style detective stories in which intellectual excitement and gut-level suspense are combined”.
Crown 8vo (20cm). 192pp. Original red boards, lettered in gilt; a little bumped at head; endpapers a touch tanned; old inked price on front free endpaper, but otherwise a very good and clean copy in the dust-jacket – the jacket price-clipped, a little worn, nicked and chipped, and with a couple of tears at folds.

£20

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46170 – or simply click on the button

London : Victor Gollancz, 1968. First edition. “Elegant, urbane narrative festooned with ripe rural characters, sees Sir John Appleby solving the mystery of a corpse in the son et lumiere control box at a stately home” (Birmingham Mail, 23rd August 1968). “Strong talents at their best. The amount of ironic social criticism and deft characterisation of scenes and people would serve another author for six books” (Barzun & Taylor). Later published in the USA as “Death by Water”.
Post 8vo (21cm). (190),[ii]pp. Original red boards, lettered in gilt; a couple of tiny nicks to three leaves at rear, but otherwise a very good copy in the dust-jacket – the jacket just lightly used, with just a touch of wear to the extremities.

£20

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46171 – or simply click on the button

London : Victor Gollancz, 1969. First edition. Introducing Appleby’s son, young Bobby – “Together they investigate an ingenious, amusing, and profitable art fraud with agreeable overtones of practical joke and problems of deduction ... pleasant characters behaving rather well; settings of various degrees of elegance; a whiff of ‘Varsity nostalgia, and a clink of port glass and decanter. In short, civilized, beguiling reading ... consummate craftsmanship and expertise” (Illustrated London News, 11th January 1969). Later published in the USA as “Picture of Guilt”.
Post 8vo (21cm). (222),[ii]pp. Original orange-red boards, lettered in gilt; a touch of bruising to bottom edge, but otherwise a very good, clean and sound copy in the dust-jacket – the jacket price-clipped, a touch darkened, with some light wear and some short repaired tears, but still presentable.

£20

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46172 – or simply click on the button

London : Victor Gollancz, 1970. First edition. “Another manifestation of Mr Innes’ capacity for harnessing the genius of the English upper class to the crimes and pursuits of the lower orders ... another tale of mystery and (candour demands) imagination, when Sir John Appleby and his sprig Bobby once again unravel skullduggery and caddery” (Illustrated London News, 10th January 1970).
Post 8vo (21cm). (176)pp. Original red boards, lettered in gilt; light spotting of top edge, but otherwise a very good copy in the dust-jacket – the jacket with a few faint marks, but only minimal wear, and also very good.

£20

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46173 – or simply click on the button

London : Victor Gollancz, 1971. First edition. “Another brilliant Innes novel in which Sir John Appleby’s son, Bobby, playing an early-morning round of golf, hits his ball into a bunker and finds a body which has been shot in the head. A girl is near. When he returns after phoning the police the body has vanished and so has the girl” (Manchester Evening News, 7th January 1971).
Post 8vo (21cm). 192pp. Original red boards, lettered in gilt; faint bruising at foot; top edge a touch dusty, but otherwise a very good, bright, and sound copy in the dust-jacket – the jacket just very slightly bruised and lightly creased.

£25

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46174 – or simply click on the button

London : Victor Gollancz, 1972. First edition : with the ISBN correction sticker over the original number on the verso of the title-page. Appleby stumbles upon a Palladian mansion – dotty professor, saturnine butler, woman in white, art thieves, South American conspirators, corpse, murderers, gun battle, etc. “There is not a dull moment or page ... one of Michael Innes’ best Appleby mysteries” (Nottingham Guardian, 8th March 1972).
Post 8vo (21cm). (192)pp. Original red boards, lettered in gilt; just a hint of bruising; a sprinkling of spots to top edge, but otherwise a very good copy in the dust-jacket – the jacket with a similar hint of bruising, but also very good.

£25

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46175 – or simply click on the button

London : Victor Gollancz, 1973. First edition. “Concerns Miss Priscilla Pringle, a lady detective-novelist of some small fame, who encounters in a first class railway carriage a man that she suspects of being at least a criminal and probably a murderer. She is prompted to engineer a small deception, hoping that a greater fame may result, but Appleby has to show her that life is not like detective stories, at least not like hers” (Cambridge Daily News, 17th February 1973).
Post 8vo (21cm). (192)pp. Original red boards, lettered in gilt; a very good copy in a very good dust-jacket.

£25

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46176 – or simply click on the button

London : Victor Gollancz, 1974. First edition. The owner of a great house is murdered – suspects include his mistress and her lover (his scapegrace nephew); his young and unfaithful wife; her lover, who is a house-guest; his son just returned unannounced from Argentina; his over-efficient secretary; a shady art-dealer, and the puzzling Miss Kentwell.
Post 8vo (21cm). 192pp. Original red boards, lettered in gilt; just the hint of a bruise at foot; a faint suggestion of tanning to endpapers, but overall a very good copy in the yellow dust-jacket, printed in magenta and black – the jacket also very good.

£25

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46177 – or simply click on the button

London : Victor Gollancz, 1974. First edition. Innes introducing a new sleuth in Charles Honeybath – “An eminent portrait painter is persuaded to take a strange commission where he is smuggled off to an unknown destination for a fortnight. When he has completed his portrait and returns home, he finds himself wanted by the police” (Birmingham Daily Post, 28th November 1974).
Post 8vo (21cm). 192pp. Original red boards, lettered in gilt; just slightly bruised; some faint marking to top edge, but overall a very good copy in the price-clipped and similarly slightly bruised yellow dust-jacket.

£20

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46178 – or simply click on the button

London : Victor Gollancz, 1975. First edition. A collection of fifteen Appleby short stories, set variously in Italy, Scotland, Cornwall, Lausanne, Venice and elsewhere, and including a faked poltergeist, an exploding antique, the over-painting of a portrait, a London taxi-cab on the Simplon Pass, etc.
Post 8vo (21cm). (208)pp. Original red boards, lettered in gilt; a few trifling signs of age and use, but a very good copy indeed in the original dust-jacket – the jacket also very good indeed.

£40

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46179 – or simply click on the button

London : Victor Gollancz, 1976. First edition. “Rich tycoon brother is accidentally killed in storm. Feckless other brother, near twin, survives and returns to impersonate him and milk off all the lolly. Sir John Appleby, retired super-cop, the perfect gent of women’s mag fiction, takes an interest when brother becomes a neighbour. Dry-sherryish, scholarly jokey, rambles a bit: keep your Catullus crib handy, baby” (The Scotsman, 11th December 1976).
Post 8vo (21cm). 192pp. Original red boards, lettered in gilt; the palest of tanning to endpapers, but otherwise a very good, clean, and sound copy in the dust-jacket – the jacket just very faintly creased at head, but also very good.

£25

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46180 – or simply click on the button

London : Victor Gollancz, 1977. First edition. “Glimpses of the art world appear often in Mr Innes’s thrillers and now he has an artist as a detective, Charles Honeybath, RA. The Haven is a private manor-house retiral home for the wealthy and the daft, which figures in Charles’s plans until his old friend is murdered there. Elegantly dotty, intricate as old lace, wrought with loving care” (The Scotsman, 28th January 1978).
Post 8vo (21cm). (192)pp. Original red boards, lettered in gilt; just a hint of bruising; small pen tick on front free endpaper; text edges with a few small and faint marks, and a touch of bruising, but otherwise a very good copy in the original yellow dust-jacket – also very good.

£25

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46181 – or simply click on the button

London : Victor Gollancz, 1978. First edition. Archivist searching for literary treasure in the family papers falls to his death from a castle overlooking a Cornish beach. Sir John Appleby is on the spot – “But the real appeal of the book to the connoisseur is the way Mr. Innes writes: no other writer in crime fiction has his confidence, or his skill at spinning words into long threads of literate, witty prose” (Birmingham Daily Post, 29th November 1978).
Post 8vo (21cm). 192pp. Original red boards, lettered in gilt; very mild tanning of endpapers, but otherwise a very good, clean and sound copy in the distinctive Gollancz yellow dust-jacket – the jacket just faintly sunned, but with minimal wear and also very good.

£20

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46182 – or simply click on the button

London : Victor Gollancz, 1980. First edition. “Michael Innes isn’t so savage about his contemporary world, but is, as he has always been, a pleasure to read ... Paternal, but unsentimental, for the rebellious young. One of his young characters has become, without understanding why, entangled in a burglary, and his life is threatened by a criminal gang. An agreeable uncle, scholarly, cosmopolitan, sedentary, a good specimen of an Innes character, gets jerked out of his self-indulgent existence” (C. P. Snow in the Liverpool Daily Post, 24th January 1980).
Post 8vo (21cm). 190,[ii]pp. Original red boards, lettered in gilt; a very good copy, clean and bright, in the yellow dust-jacket, printed in magenta and black – the jacket with just minimal signs of age and use, and also very good.

£20

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46183 – or simply click on the button

London : Victor Gollancz, 1981. First edition. “Rooted firmly in the most English of soil – perhaps explaining its attractive eccentricity ... No body is needed here to whip up the excitement of an aristocratic family thrown into confusion by a vanishing priceless miniature. Charmingly narrated, the story is full of wit and cheek” (Coventry Evening Telegraph, 24th July 1981).
Post 8vo (21cm). 192pp. Original red boards, lettered in gilt; just a hint of bruising, but otherwise a very good, clean and sound copy in the dust-jacket – the jacket similarly with just a hint of bruising, but also very good.

£30

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46184 – or simply click on the button

London : Victor Gollancz, 1984. First edition. Sir John Appleby has retired to the country, but a near neighbour is planning to disappear on the back of an extravagant fraud.
Post 8vo (21cm). (184)pp. Original red boards, lettered in gilt; a handful of very faint edge-spots, but otherwise a very good copy indeed in the Gollancz yellow dust-jacket, printed in magenta and black – the jacket also very good indeed.

£20

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 43842 – or simply click on the button

London : Victor Gollancz, 1984. First edition. Sir John Appleby has retired to the country, but a near neighbour is planning to disappear on the back of an extravagant fraud.
Post 8vo (21cm). (184)pp. Original red boards, lettered in gilt; a few slight marks to text edges, but otherwise a very good copy in the Gollancz yellow dust-jacket – the jacket with a couple of tiny indentations, but also very good.

£20

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46187 – or simply click on the button

London : Victor Gollancz, 1986. First edition. “The murder of Lord Osprey, stabbed with an oriental dagger, and in the library too. The conventions are properly observed. There’s an omniscient butler, Bagot. The moat gleams darkly, guarding its secrets. Inspector Ringwood sets up his ‘incident room’ in the ballroom, which dazzles with mirrors, chandeliers and trompe l’oeil. The house guests include another title, a QC, and two or three experts on numismatics” – “As enjoyable as any encounter with an old and valued friend” (Rachel Laurence in the Liverpool Daily Post, 8th January 1987).
Post 8vo (21cm). 188pp. Original red boards, lettered in gilt; a couple of tiny marks to fore-edge, but otherwise a very good, clean, and sound copy in the dust-jacket – the jacket with just a slight suggestion of creasing, but also very good.

£20

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46188 – or simply click on the button