The science of the super-normal
London, G. Bell & Sons, 1933.

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

Hans Driesch (1867–1941) was an eminent German experimental embryologist and philosopher, famous for the neo-vitalist concept of "entelechy" and for his Gifford Lectures (The Science and Philosophy of the Organism, 1907–08); he was also a serious psychical researcher, a member of the Society for Psychical Research from 1913 and its President in 1926–27. He was also, in 1933, the first non-Jewish academic to be dismissed from his chair (at Leipzig) by the Nazi regime, on account of his pacifism and open hostility to Nazism. Translated by Theodore Besterman. With a foreword by physicist & prominent spiritualist Sir Oliver Lodge.

London, Ivor Nicholson & Watson, 1950.

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

One of this US author's most enduring works, and a genuine landmark: a noir told largely from inside the head of its killer, Dix Steele, an embittered ex-airman prowling post-war Los Angeles, widely regarded as one of the first modern serial-killer novels and a strikingly proto-feminist subversion of the form.

London, W. Wetton [&c.], 1826.

First edition. 12mo. Half-title. 19th century full calf with gilt-roll border to covers, spine gilt compartments within gilt-decorated raised bands, with contrasting leather title label.

This work collects hundreds of recipes for fermented beverages - wines (foreign and domestic), malt liquors, cider, perry, vinegar, spirits, liqueurs, cordials, and compounds - alongside a wealth of supporting information. It opens with a history of wine and a treatise on brewing (porter and various ales), then turns to the fermentation and distillation of spirits "of every denomination," including alcohol, brandy, rum, geneva (gin), and whisky. A fourth section covers cider, perry, mead, and vinegar, followed by chapters on cellaring wines, beers, porters, ales, and spirits, with guidance on refining and managing flavour, colour, and concentration as they age. The book closes with three technical chapters: data on hydrometers and saccharometers for the distiller, the Parliamentary laws governing licensed vendors (innkeepers and publicans among them), and several tables for converting weights and measures.

London, Secker & Warburg, 1978.First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.Originally published in the US as a Dell paperback, this hardback edition is considered one of the scarcer Leonard editions, particularly in such good condition.

Translated by Claud W. Sykes
London, The Ace Publishing Co., [1938].

First English edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 5/-.

FFA 17 memoir, drawn from the author's own combat reports and illustrated with photographs he took on observation duties - jaunty in tone against a grim backdrop of heavy casualties, and the second of a trilogy of his air-war memoirs.

Latham, NY, British American Publishing, 1990.

First edition, first printing. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket, priced $19.95.

The American author's first novel, published when he was 26. The author has gone on to win multiple awards for his tightly wrought thriller fiction.

London, Ward, Lock, 1937.

First edition, first impression. Signed by the author on title-page. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, price-clipped, with publisher's code '743' on spine.

An early work by the creator of the Poldark saga, opening in Raj India and Singapore, before finding its true centre in Cornwall and the Scilly Isles. Uncommon, especially signed. The jacket artist Nina Miller Davidson (1895–1957) was a Scottish watercolourist and stained-glass designer who also produced a number of book jackets.

London, Methuen, 1948.

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

The third of Enid Blyton's six Malory Towers boarding-school novels (1946–51), set at a clifftop Cornish girls' school modelled on Benenden, where Blyton sent her daughters.

London, for William Marsh, 1827.

First edition, issue with corrected frontispiece title. 8vo. Later half morocco with marbled boards.

The frontispiece was erroneously published with the title 'Entrance to the Rownie River'. This copy has the corrected title pasted down - 'Entrance to the Kowie River'. Anonymously published selection from the letters of the 1820 settler, Thomas Phillips, to his sister, Mrs Catherine Richardson.

London, John Long, [1948].

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

John Creasey (1908–1973) was one of the most prolific authors who ever lived: around 600 books under his own name and some two dozen pseudonyms, and the founder of the Crime Writers' Association and a Mystery Writers of America Grand Master. The Toff is the Hon. Richard Rollison, his debonair gentleman-sleuth, who began in the story-papers in 1933 and ran to nearly sixty novels.

A Peter Chambers Caper
London, Boardman, 1964.

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

One of the 'American Bloodhound Mystery' series. Another hardboiled Chambers caper, in the Denis McLoughlin jacket.

A Peter Chambers Caper
London, Boardman, 1963.

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

One of the 'American Bloodhound Mystery' series, in the jacket by collectable artist Denis McLoughlin.