Jacket with a few minor marks but overall a lovely copy.
Jacket artwork by Candem.
£375
London, Constable, 1932.
First UK edition. 8vo. Original orange cloth stamped in yellow. Dust-jacket, priced 7s6d.
The first UK edition of the second in Dos Passos’s ‘USA Trilogy’, in which he evaluates the damage done by World War I. Nineteen Nineteen focuses on the fear and social unrest on the home front.
In stock
Jacket with a few minor marks but overall a lovely copy.
Jacket artwork by Candem.
Weird & Supernatural
London, Constable, 1927.
First edition. 8vo. Original brown cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
Uncommon first edition, with witchcraft in large part serving as a metaphor for womanhood; the main character is not magical, but has been stigmatised and shunned by her community for her illegitimate children and for practising abortion.
American Literature
New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1992.
First edition, first printing. 8vo. Original black cloth lettered in gilt. Dust-jacket, priced $11.00.
The first edition of the first book in the 'Border trilogy' by the recently deceased Cormac McCarthy, a best-selling work that was adapted into a 2000 film starring Matt Damon and Penélope Cruz, directed by Billy Bob Thornton.
Sci-Fi & Fantasy
London, Constable, 1939.
First edition. 8vo. Original black cloth lettered in gilt to spine. Dust-jacket, correctly priced 7/6.
Hamilton's famous satirical novel that offers a critical view of contemporary British society through the lens of a fantastical and dystopian world. Hamilton, known for his plays and novels that often explored the darker aspects of urban life and the psyche, uses this work to skewer the class system, commercialism and the dehumanising aspects of industrialisation.
The novel's significance in 20th century literature lies in its blend of social critique and fantasy, a combination that was somewhat unconventional at the time. Hamilton's use of a parallel world to mirror and exaggerate the issues of his own society makes Impromptu in Moribundia a precursor to the later works of dystopian fiction that would become more prominent in British literature. It stands as a unique and imaginative critique of the socio-political climate of the era, reflecting the anxieties and criticisms of the interwar period.