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.

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.

or The Pearl of the Pacific
London, Sampson Low, Marston, 1896.

First UK edition. 8vo. Original green pictorial cloth decorated in gilt, blue, black & white, gilt edges.

Verne's L'Île à hélice (1895): a French string quartet travelling to San Diego is diverted to Standard Island, a vast artificial island cruising the Pacific for the wealthiest, whose rival Larboardite and Starboardite factions fall into dangerous dispute. This first English edition (W. J. Gordon, with 80 illustrations) was heavily cut and altered, passages critical of Americans and the British being removed; the full text was not translated until 2015.

Diary of J.R. Kazallon, Passenger... Translated from the French by Ellen Frewer
London, Sampson Low, Marstonm Low, & Searle, 1875.

First UK edition. 8vo. Original green cloth decorated in gilt and black, gilt edges.

Verne's shipwreck novel, told as the diary of the passenger J. R. Kazallon: the British ship Chancellor, sailing from Charleston with eight passengers, catches fire and founders, leaving the survivors on a raft to face storms, starvation, mutiny and cannibalism. Spoiler alert - only eleven of the 28 aboard survive.

London, Sidgwick & Jackson, 1977.

First UK edition, first impression. Signed by the author. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.

Menolly joins the Harper Hall on Pern as its first female apprentice, shunned by most of the girls and doubted by several masters, but excels and becomes the Masterharper's personal apprentice. The second of the Harper Hall trilogy, and the fourth Pern book. McCaffrey (1926–2011) was the first woman to win a Hugo for fiction and received the 1999 Margaret A. Edwards Award. Signed by the author.

London, John Long, 1966.

First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket, priced 15s.

One of Rendell's non-series psychological suspense novels: the wealthy Alice Whittaker marries a younger teacher, who joins her family firm; when she falls ill she suspects she is being poisoned. US title In Sickness and in Health.

London, Heinemann, 1965.

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

Chinua Achebe's third novel, set in 1920s colonial Nigeria: Ezeulu, chief priest of Ulu for the six Igbo villages of Umuaro, refuses to call the New Yam Feast, with ruinous consequences as missionary and colonial pressures grow. Part of Achebe's African Trilogy with Things Fall Apart and No Longer at Ease, it won the first Jock Campbell/New Statesman Prize. Achebe (1930–2013) signed this copy.

London, Penguin, 1948.First Penguin paperback edition. 8vo. Original green & white wrappers.Hercule Poirot, travelling home from the Middle East, boards the Orient Express at Istanbul; when snow strands the train in Yugoslavia, the American passenger Samuel Ratchett is found stabbed in his compartment, and with no police on board Poirot takes up the case. First published by Collins Crime Club in 1934 (in the US as Murder in the Calais Coach); Robert Barnard called it “the best of the railway stories”. Filmed in 1974 (Albert Finney), for television in 2010 (David Suchet) and in 2017 (Kenneth Branagh). This is the first Penguin edition.

New York, R.H. Russell, 1899.

Oblong 8vo. Original buckram lettered in red.

A collection of sketches by E. W. Kemble (1861–1933), illustrator of the first edition of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and of Pudd'nhead Wilson and the Uncle Remus stories. Kemble is best known today for his caricatures of African Americans, which ranged from overtly racist to more humane studies. Published in New York by R. H. Russell.

A novel
London, Hutchinson New Authors, 1964.

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

Orlando Patterson's first novel, set in the Dungle, a Kingston slum built on the city's rubbish dump. Two prostitutes, Dinah and Mary, hope to escape, while a group of Rastafarians waits at the docks for a ship that Haile Selassie has supposedly sent to repatriate them. Drawing on Camus's Myth of Sisyphus, it is seen as a landmark of Caribbean writing. Patterson (b. 1940) became a Harvard sociologist and the author of Slavery and Social Death.

London, MacDonald & Co., [1945].

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

Penelope Shadow, a timid woman who dreads being alone, becomes a successful writer of historical novels, hires Terry Munce as her housekeeper, and marries him, only to fear that he is trying to kill her. Domestic suspense that begins as comic domestic fiction. "Peter Curtis" was Norah Lofts (1904–1983), better known for historical fiction such as Jassy (filmed 1947), who used the name for her mysteries.

London, Robert Hale, 1968.

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

Melissa Aubrey, emotionally fragile and bound for Europe by sea, is given a small book to deliver to an export company in Palma by a mysterious stranger, and is drawn into foreign espionage. A non-series novel by Dorothy Gilman (1923–2012), creator of the Mrs Pollifax spy series (from 1966; filmed 1970) and an MWA Grand Master (2010). First published by Doubleday in 1967. Jacket by Colin Andrews.

London, Robert Hale, 1969.

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

When a Cadillac crashes through the barrier of a new highway, a gunman on the run, a sullen teenager, a jaded working girl, a guilt-stricken widower and a mistress seeking a fresh start are caught in the pile-up that follows. First published in the mid-1950s. MacDonald (1916–1986), creator of Travis McGee, was an Edgar Grand Master. Jacket by Barbara Walton, a prolific 1950s–60s jacket designer.

London, Collins Crime Club, 1966.

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

A campus mystery set at the fictional University of Hardgate: a lecturer accused of administrative irregularities threatens to reopen the old murder of a student by an unknown seducer; the faculty splits, fear spreads and a new murder follows.

London, W.H. Allen, 1983.

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

Peter James's financial thriller: London stockbroker Peter Rocq is lured into using insider information for easy money, and ends up facing very dangerous men. James (b. 1948) wrote spy and financial thrillers before the supernatural novels and the Brighton-based Roy Grace series, which has sold about 21 million copies and became the ITV drama Grace; he received the CWA Diamond Dagger in 2016.

London, Collins, n.d. [c.1928].

Collins' 6D Novels series. Large 8vo. Original pictorial wrappers.

Generally regarded as the first full-length locked-room mystery. In a lodging house in Bow, in London's East End, the landlady Mrs Drabdump cannot wake her lodger, the young idealist Arthur Constant. When the door is broken open, he is found with his throat cut in a room locked and bolted from the inside, with no weapon to be found. Two detectives compete to solve the case: the retired policeman George Grodman, now a celebrity author, and his old rival Inspector Edward Wimp of Scotland Yard.

An inexpensive reprint, no. 104 in Collins' "6d Novels" series ("Better than a Magazine"). The pictorial front wrapper carries the tag line "The perfect crime: can you solve it?", and the rear wrapper an OXO advertisement.

London, Hodder & Stoughton, n.d..

8vo. Original orange cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 3/6.

The third Bulldog Drummond novel (1924). Drummond's enemy Carl Peterson is hired by a diamond syndicate to stop Professor Goodman's method of making artificial diamonds, but plans to seize the secret himself; Drummond is drawn in because his friend Algy Longworth is engaged to the professor's daughter. "Sapper" was H. C. McNeile (1888–1937), creator of Drummond.

London, Editions Poetry London, 1945.

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

Nabokov's first novel in English and the first published under his own name, written in Paris in 1938–39 after nine Russian novels as V. Sirin. The narrator, V., researches a biography of his half-brother, the novelist Sebastian Knight, answering a rival biography, and the book ends by hinting that V. may be Sebastian himself. First published by New Directions in 1941; this is the first UK edition. Critics have seen it as an early forerunner of postmodernism.

London, Griffith & Farran, 1876.

'New Edition'. 8vo. Original green cloth decorated and lettered in black & gilt.

Verne's 1864 classic of subterranean exploration: Professor Lidenbrock, his nephew Axel and the guide Hans follow a coded note into Iceland's Snæfellsjökull volcano, meeting a vast underground sea and prehistoric creatures before being thrown out of Stromboli. The anonymous Griffith & Farran translation of 1871, in which the characters are renamed Hardwigg, Harry and Gretchen, was the first in English; this is the 1876 "New Edition", with Riou's engravings. Filmed by Fox in 1959, with James Mason.

London, Hodder & Stoughton, n.d..

Second edition. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 3/6.

Sapper's collection of stories featuring Ronald Standish, a Secret Service agent, first published in 1936; this is the second edition. "Sapper" was H. C. McNeile (1888–1937), a Royal Engineers officer awarded the Military Cross, who took his pen-name from Royal Engineers slang and created Bulldog Drummond.

London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1931.

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

The second of Sapper's two Jim Maitland books, after the 1923 collection of stories, and the only novel. Monocled adventurer Maitland is drawn into a hunt for treasure that takes him from England to South America, with piracy on the high seas and a terror-filled island; the Science Fiction Encyclopedia classes it as lost-race fiction, featuring ape-men. US title Guardians of the Treasure. "Sapper" was H. C. McNeile (1888–1937), creator of Bulldog Drummond. Jacket by Hastain.

A Bulldog Drummond Novel
London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1937.

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

The tenth and last Bulldog Drummond novel by Sapper, published in the year of his death. Drummond, the demobilised officer turned gentleman-adventurer, first appeared in 1920 and became hugely popular in novels, stage, film and radio; after McNeile's death the series was continued by Gerard Fairlie. "Sapper" was H. C. McNeile (1888–1937), a Royal Engineers officer awarded the Military Cross.

London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1933.

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

The first collection of Sapper's stories featuring Ronald Standish, a Secret Service agent. "Sapper" was H. C. McNeile (1888–1937), a Royal Engineers officer awarded the Military Cross, who took his pen-name from Royal Engineers slang and created Bulldog Drummond, the gentleman vigilante of novels, stage, film and radio.

London, Hodder & Stoughton, n.d..

8vo. Original red cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 3/6.

A Sapper volume, a collection of short stories and published in 1927, the year of John Walters.

London, Sampson Low, Marston & Company, n.d..

'Cheap Edition'. 8vo. Original pictorial cloth.

Verne's Le Sphinx des glaces (1897), a continuation of Poe's Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. The schooner Halbrane sails from the Kerguelen Islands to rescue the survivors of the Jane, among them Captain Len Guy's brother, and a mysterious sailor aboard proves to be Pym's companion Dirk Peters. Translated by Mrs Cashel Hoey (1898); this is a Sampson Low Cheap Edition. Verne (1828–1905) was a founding figure of science fiction.

From The Lieutenant and Others, The Human Torch and No Man's Land
London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1927.

First edition. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 3/6.

First edition of fifteen of Sapper's First World War tales, gathered from his earlier collections The Lieutenant and Others, The Human Touch and No Man's Land. In "The Awakening of John Walters", a dim, easygoing soldier, captured in a night raid, turns the tables on his captors and carries a German officer back to his own lines. "Sapper" was H. C. McNeile (1888–1937), Royal Engineers officer and creator of Bulldog Drummond.

London, Hodder & Stoughton, [1930s].

Early edition. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 3/6.

The fourth Bulldog Drummond novel (1926); this is a later Hodder printing. Drummond's enemy Carl Peterson obtains the secret of Robin Gaunt's new chemical weapon and plans a series of spectacular crimes; the book ends in Peterson's death. "Sapper" was H. C. McNeile (1888–1937), whose gentleman-adventurer Drummond, introduced in 1920, spawned many films and sequels by Gerard Fairlie.

...With an Introduction by William Rose
London, Sidgwick & Jackson, 1932.

First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, price-clipped to inside front flap.

First UK edition of Rilke's Geschichten vom lieben Gott (1900): thirteen tales, framed as stories to be told to children, about God and children's questions, among them "The Tale of God's Hands" and "The Song of Justice". Translated by M. D. Herter Norton, with an introduction by William Rose. Rilke (1875–1926), the German-language poet of the Duino Elegies, wrote the stories in 1899.

London, Hodder & Stoughton, [1930s].

Early edition. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 3/6.

The fifth Bulldog Drummond novel, first published in 1928; this is a later H&S printing. With Carl Peterson dead, his mistress Irma Peterson vows revenge on Drummond and kidnaps his wife, Phyllis. The title alludes to Kipling.

London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1934.

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

A collection of twelve short stories by Sapper. In the title story a narrator befriends the aloof City businessman Henry St. John Carruthers, who seems never to have laughed, and who rescues a naive young man from a confidence trick. Others include "The Snake Farm" and "The Great Magor Diamond". "Sapper" was H. C. McNeile (1888–1937), creator of Bulldog Drummond.