Revised Edition London, G.W. Bacon, [?1877].Colour lithographic allegorical map, with printed explanation to lower right in English only; 570 x 430 mm., backed onto card.The first slightly revised edition of Rose's famous 'Octopus' map of Europe, first published in 1877 - the map was rapidly reissued for distribution in other countries, reflected in the imprint and the language of the attendant description. Rose is best known for two such political cartoon maps of Europe, this one and Angling in Troubled Waters (1899). Most of his maps were published as broadsheets and separate folding publications on relatively thin paper, and as a result rarely appear in particularly good condition.Russia sprawls across the continent as a monstrous octopus, tentacles tightening around Finland, Poland, Bulgaria, the Crimea and Persia. Turkey, a turbaned figure lying across the Bosphorus, keeps his pistol drawn to guard the gold watch at his waist - Constantinople - while Greece pinches at his elbow. Germany bristles with weapons, France takes aim across the Rhine, Italy dances in her new freedom and Spain sleeps. Britain looks on from the sidelines, umbrella and claymore in hand, determined at least to save the Turk's watch.

[with] The Story of Sophia. A Novel
Leipzig, Tauchnitz, 1884.

Tauchnitz 'Copyright Edition'. 8vo. Late 19th/early 20th century green cloth lettered in gilt to spine.

The first work, a Gothic romance of the Tuscan hills with vampiric vibes, is a considerably darker book than its title suggests. An English Catholic gentleman travels to Siena to visit the friend of his schooldays, the Marquis Gonzago, and finds him a recluse in a vast villa deep in an ilex forest where nothing flowers, no bird nests, and the very worms are said to die in the shadow. The villa was built by the Marquis's uncle, Cardinal Flavio, who abducted a peasant girl from beneath a pagan satyr in the woods, went through a sham marriage with her in an outbuilding, and had her murdered, inevitably leaving a curse that she will haunt the head of the house until a life is taken for a life. Elliot builds the haunting with unusual patience and by corroboration: the dead girl's cold hand laid on her grandfather's in the night; a jewelled figure in a mud-draggled white robe beckoning two men from the trees; the sham marriage re-enacted before a terrified traveller, the door opening of itself on a tall figure all in red with attendants bearing lights.

What raises the book above the ordinary revenant tale is the manner of the killings. The Marquis's betrothed is found dead a week before their wedding, visited by a slight veiled stranger with a quantity of fair hair, purple marks like the impress of small fingers on her throat; and the novel closes with a second body discovered beneath the ruined satyr, unmarked save for two small purple marks low on the throat over the windpipe, a few threads of yellow hair clutched in the dead hand which shrivel to dust at a touch. Frances Minto Elliot (1820-98), better known for her social histories of Italy and her Diary of an Idle Woman volumes, moved in a considerable literary circle: Wilkie Collins dedicated Poor Miss Finch to her, and Marian Halcombe's conversation in The Woman in White is said to be founded on her. The 1884 F.V. White edition carried a printed dedication to F. Marion Crawford, then at the outset of the career that would produce 'For the Blood is the Life' - likewise a tale of an Italian revenant. This Leipzig Tauchnitz Copyright Edition was issued in the Collection of British Authors for continental circulation; Tauchnitz published by agreement with authors and paid royalties at a time when international copyright was weak, issuing its editions close to first publication rather than as later reprints.

London, Collins Crime Club, 1959.

First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket, priced 10s6d.

A distinctive smell of smoke presages a series of murders in a quiet village, and proves a puzzling case for Inspector Arnold and Desmond Merrion. One of the last Merrion cases (Street died in 1965, having written some seventy novels under the Burton name alone).

London, Hodder & Stoughton, [1927].

First edition. 8vo. Original cloth. Early issue dust-jacket, priced 3/6.

A fast-paced thriller concerning Valman Dain, an inventor whose devices include a mechanism for eavesdropping on conversations through the telephone network. Austin James Small (1894–1929) went to sea as a boy, boxed as a Royal Navy heavyweight champion during the First World War, and was encouraged to write by Jack London, adopting the pen name "Seamark" to satisfy Admiralty regulations.

London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1930.

First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.

A travelling salesman's case of soap is exchanged for one containing a quarter of a million pounds' worth of diamonds. Austin James Small (1894–1929), who wrote as "Seamark" in Britain and under his own name in America, ran away to sea as a boy, travelled the world, and served in the Royal Navy during the First World War, where he was a champion heavyweight boxer; he met Jack London, was encouraged by him to write, and took the Seamark pseudonym to comply with Admiralty regulations.

The Story of a Great Conspiracy
London, Geoffrey Bles, 1924.

First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth.

A non-series thriller turning on a great conspiracy, published in the United States as The White Menace - a title which points plainly enough at the drug traffic that is its subject. This is Street's first book under the Rhode name, preceding the appearance of Dr Priestley by a year, and thus the beginning of a career that would run to something in the region of a 140 detective novels. Street (1884–1964) held the MC and OBE, served as an artillery officer and MI7 propagandist during the First World War and afterwards as Information Officer for Dublin Castle.

London, Collins Crime Club, 1944.

First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, price-clipped.

The 39th Priestley novel, and one of the group of wartime titles in which Street drew directly on Home Front machinery for his settings.

London, Blackie & Son, n.d..Reissue. 8vo. Original blue cloth. Dust-jacket,Wilkie Collins's first collection of six short stories, originally published in 1856. The book is a series of tales supposed to be told to poor travelling portrait-painter, William Kerby, who is forced to abandon his profession for six months in order to save his sight.

and Other Novels
Sauk City, Wisconsin, Arkham House, 1964.

First edition, first printing. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.

The second of the 3-volume Derleth collected edition that established Lovecraft's texts in hardcover for a generation, gathering the longer works: the title novella, 'The Case of Charles Dexter Ward', 'The Shunned House,' 'The Dreams in the Witch-House,' 'The Statement of Randolph Carter' and others, with an introduction by Psycho author Robert Bloch.

London, Geoffrey Bles, 1935.

'Popular Edition', second impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 5/-.

The fifth appearance of Lancelot Priestley, first published by Bles in 1928 following directly on The Murders in Praed Street, and belonging to the run of late-1920s titles in which the series took its settled shape - Priestley presiding, Harold Merefield in attendance, Inspector Hanslet of Scotland Yard supplying the official view for Priestley to dismantle.

1911-1924
Sauk City, Wisconsin, Arkham House, 1965.

First edition, first printing. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.

The first of the five volumes of Lovecraft's correspondence, covering from 1911, when he was 21, to 1924 and the collapse of his brief marriage, with letters to Rheinhart Kleiner, Maurice W. Moe, Frank Belknap Long, Clark Ashton Smith and his aunt Lillian D. Clark.

London, Collins Crime Club, 1947.

First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 8/6.

Desmond Merrion, an amateur sleuth formerly of Naval Intelligence, and his wife are on holiday in the seaside town of Croylehaven, where the eccentric Croyle family and their crumbling Castle Croyle hold dark secrets and, ultimately, murder.