Morton (J.B.) Gallimaufry
£125
London, Jonathan Cape, 1936.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket.
One of Morton’s Beachcomber collections published under his own name rather than the pseudonym, gathering the comic whimsies, parodies, spoof news items and surreal sketches featuring his recurring characters.
In stock
Neat contemporary ownership inscription to front free endpaper, minor foxing; cloth slightly mottled at spine; jacket worn and chipped at edges, spine toned.
Plates.
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and other Naval Stories. As originally Told to the Marines by one of themselves.
Portsmouth, Charpentier, 1896.
True first edition. 8vo. Original purple cloth stamped in gilt.
A rare collection of nautical tales, many of a weird and supernatural bent. The collection is referenced in Bleiler's Guide to Supernatural Fiction, the main entry given to the 1899 Simpkin, Marshall edition, but noting 'There is an earlier edition of this book (Charpentier; Portsmouth, England 1896), which has not been seen.'
William Price Drury (1861-1949) was himself in the Royal Marines, as was the previous owner of this copy, General Sir Lewis Stratford Tollemache Halliday.
Weird & Supernatural
First edition thus.
London. Reader's Library, [1934 according to COPAC but could be earlier]
Death by poisoning in a locked bedroom at Staups, an isolated manor house on the Yorkshire Moors. Weird elements, a supposedly cursed jewel and sacrificial knives looted from the temple of Aztec descendants living in Central America, Author’s first crime novel, published in the UK by Bles in 1927.
Weird & Supernatural
London, Stanley Paul, 1909.
First edition. 8vo. Original (variant) blue cloth.
A key work in Hope Hodgson's canon, here in a seemingly unknown variant binding (the normal is red cloth, with green also being recorded). The tale recounts a ship crew's strange & terrifying experience as their reality comes into contact with an alternative, darker mirror world. Bleiler was a huge fan of Hope Hodgson, calling his novels "visionary accounts that have no real parallels in English literature". Of this particular title he noted:
"One of the great sea novels. highly original in detail and well done. Although it is overshadowed as visionary horror by the more spectacular The House on the Borderland and The Night Land, as a work of art, it is finer." (The Guide to Supernatural Fiction).
A revised version of the ending was anthologised, under the title "The Silent Ship".
Weird & Supernatural
First edition. Collection of eighteen stories.
London, Longmans, 1930
"Short stories with an Egyptian setting, some of which are fantasy and weird, and some at least of which first appeared in magazines under the pen name of 'Abu Nadaar' ..." - Locke, A Spectrum of Fantasy, p. 161. The title story was reprinted in POWERS OF DARKNESS (1934), one of Philip Allan's anthologies in the "Creeps" series. Rare in d/w
Weird & Supernatural
London, Methuen, 1918.
First edition. 8vo. Original pale blue cloth, lettered in black.
An early and uncommon Sax Rohmer first edition, set in Egypt with the inscrutable Abu-Tabah taking on the villain role from Fu Manchu. The book is notable for introducing a more explicitly weird & supernatural element.