London, Amalgamated Press, March 1933 to December 1937.

Fifteen weekly issues, numbers 215, 253, 261, 264, 267, 268, 277, 278, 279, 281, 284, 285, 286, 296 and 461. 4to. Original pictorial wrappers.

A selection of fifteen issues of the Amalgamated Press's weekly crime and mystery story paper, which began in February 1929 and closed in May 1940 after paper rationing. Each issue carried a complete mystery as its lead story, supported by a running serial and shorter fiction. The paper became The Thriller Library in 1937, and the last issues were published as War Thriller.The run includes three Simon Templar stories by Leslie Charteris, 'On the Night of the 13th', 'After the Murder' and 'The Race Train Crime'. It also has two instalments of Barry Perowne's Raffles series, which began in the paper in January 1933. Other lead stories are by John G. Brandon, Hugh Clevely, Murdoch Duncan, Roland Daniel and Oscar Schisgall. The serials include William B. Seabrook's Jungle Ways (three instalments) and Richard Essex's Slade of the Yard (six instalments), as well as Roy Vickers's The Secret Sin. The 1937 issue, in the Thriller Library period, carries an instalment of Dashiell Hammett's The Great Knockover.

and other Stories
London, John Murray, 1929.

First edition, first impression. Signed by the author. 8vo. Original red cloth lettered in gilt.

The first edition of this compilation, inscribed by the author 'Yours sincerely Arthur Conan Doyle' on title-page; the primary title is about the discovery of a sunken city of Atlantis by a team of explorers, led by Professor Maracot.

Illustrated in Colour
London, Henry Frowde & Hodder & Stoughton, 1913.

Small 4to. Original gilt-pictorial cloth. Dust-jacket. Original box.

An illustrated gift edition of the Grimms' fairy tales with colour plates by Noel Pocock, a prolific English illustrator of the 1910s–30s noted for a delicate, romantic style, including "Hansel and Gretel", "Tom Thumb", "Rumpelstiltskin" and "The Goose Girl". Jacob (1785–1863) and Wilhelm (1786–1859) Grimm began publishing their collection in 1812. Present with its dust-jacket and original box.

...translated by Charles Hope Lumley
Paris, The Fortune Press, 1929.

First UK edition, trade issue. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket.

Louÿs's satirical erotic fantasy (1901), in which the easy-going King Pausole of Tryphème rules by two laws, "harm no one" and "do as you please". Pierre Louÿs (1870–1925) also wrote Aphrodite and Songs of Bilitis. Translated by Charles Hope Lumley, with illustrations by Beresford Egan (1905–1984), a Beardsley-influenced exponent of Art Deco; adapted as an operetta by Arthur Honegger in 1930.

Newly Translated...
London, Faber & Faber, 1930.

First edition thus. 8vo. Original gilt-pictorial red cloth. Dust-jacket, price-clipped.

Forty of Andersen's tales newly translated from the Danish by M. R. James (1862–1936), Provost of Eton and master of the English ghost story, with colour plates by Christine Jackson.

London, Elkin Mathews, 1905.

First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original pictorial boards.

Dunsany's first book: an invented mythology, with its own pantheon, gods and geography, illustrated by Sidney Sime. Dunsany (Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron Dunsany, 1878–1957) published more than 90 books; his early work is thought to have laid the groundwork for the fantasy genre, and influenced Lovecraft, Tolkien and Le Guin. Sime illustrated most of his early work, up to 1922.

London, G. Bell, 1958.

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

A 1958 children's fantasy, compared to the Narnia books, in which a boy, Roger, and his toy animals, brought to life, enter a world where time runs differently. Green (1918–1987), a pupil of C. S. Lewis and a member of the Inklings, encouraged Lewis to publish The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and became best known for his retellings of myths and legends. Illustrated by John S. Goodall (1908–1996).

London, Robert Hale, 1975.

First edition, first impression. Signed presentation copy from the author. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.

Timperley (1920–1988) published 66 novels in 33 years, most with Hale, but is best remembered for her ghost stories, with "Harry" filmed several times; she also wrote an advice column as Jane Blythe. Signed presentation copy. Jacket by Biro.

London, Robert Hale, 1965.

First edition, first impression. Signed presentation copy from the author. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.

A novel by Rosemary Timperley (1920–1988), who published 66 novels in 33 years, most with Hale, but is best remembered for her ghost stories, which appear in many anthologies; her story "Harry" has been filmed several times.

Comprising: The Fellowship of the Ring, 12th impression; The Two Towers, 9th impression; The Return of the King, 8th impression.
London, George Allen & Unwin, 1962-61..

3 vol., first editions. Large 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jackets.

A three-volume set of later impressions (12th, 9th and 8th) of the first edition of Tolkien's epic, as published by Allen & Unwin in 1954–55 (The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, The Return of the King), before the revised second edition of 1965. The quest to destroy the One Ring, begun by Frodo Baggins in the Shire, draws on the world of The Hobbit (1937). It is widely considered one of the most influential fantasy works, shaping the modern genre and fuelling fantasy's growth in the 1960s; it had sold more than 150 million copies by 2007, and was voted Britain's best-loved novel in the BBC's Big Read of 2003. Adapted as an animated film by Ralph Bakshi (1978), as a BBC radio serial (1981), and in Peter Jackson's films (2001–03), the last of which won eleven Academy Awards. With Tolkien's maps.

New York & London, D. Appleton-Century, 1937.

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

Edith Wharton's ghost stories, gathered in the year of her death in a volume selected by her and introduced by her own preface, in which she says she aims for "a cold shiver down one's spine" rather than terror. The stories, written between 1902 and 1937, include "Kerfol", "The Lady's Maid's Bell", "The Eyes", "Afterward" and "All Souls'", the last the final story she wrote. They use the supernatural to look at violence within marriage, ageing, corrupt new fortunes and the darkness within the self. Wharton (1862–1937) was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, for The Age of Innocence (1920). The book is sometimes confused with her earlier Tales of Men and Ghosts (1910).

A voyage of exploration and discovery in Central Africa
London, Sampson Low, Marston, Low, & Searle, 1874.

Second UK edition. 8vo. Advertisements dated October 1873. Original green pictorial cloth decorated in gilt and black, gilt edges.

The first of Verne's Voyages extraordinaires (Cinq semaines en ballon, 1863), and the book that made his name: Dr Samuel Fergusson, his manservant Joe and the hunter Dick Kennedy cross Africa by hydrogen balloon, from Zanzibar towards Senegal, passing Lake Victoria, Lake Chad and Timbuktu, in a journey that takes in the search for the source of the Nile. An instant success in France, it made Verne financially independent and led to a long-term contract with his publisher Hetzel.