American Literature
London, The Readers Library, [1928].
UK Film tie-in edition. Small 8vo. Original red cloth decorated in gilt to upper cover. Dust-jacket.
Norris was among the highest-paid novelists in America, and this little tie-in exists because of the 1927 film: Mary Pickford's last silent picture, a shopgirl romance co-starring Charles "Buddy" Rogers, whom Pickford, in cinema's slowest-burning subplot, married a decade later after divorcing Douglas Fairbanks. The Readers Library specialised in these small cheap film editions with wrap-around pictorial jackets, printed on cheap paper that was already apologising as it left the binders; toned text-blocks are simply what the species looks like. Collected now almost entirely for the jackets, silent-film ephemera in book form, and increasingly appreciated as exactly that.
American Literature
London, Alvin Redman, 1961.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.
Miller (1884–1960) was an enormously industrious American writer, decades of magazine serials and novels, mostly Southern romances and a genteel line in historical Christmas novellas involving the Lincolns and Jeffersons. This UK edition appeared from Alvin Redman the year after her death. Redman was a small London house whose back-list is quietly sought after by the collecting cognoscenti.
American Literature
London, Gollancz, 1957.
First UK edition, ninth impression (film tie-in issue). 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket.
Ferber's 1952 doorstop about Texas: cattle empires, oil money, and the Benedict marriage strained across both. Texans received the work about as warmly as you'd expect a state to receive a book pointing out its vulgarity at length. Its afterlife belongs to George Stevens' 1956 film, which won him the Best Director Oscar and gave James Dean his third and final role: he died in September 1955, before release, making Jett Rink a posthumous performance and the film a permanent object of sometimes morbid fascination. A tie-in impression, so the collecting interest here is really the jacket, with Taylor, Hudson and Dean on the upper cover.
American Literature
London, Jonathan Cape for The Travellers' Library, 1951.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original red cloth. Dust-jacket.
The first edition of this compilation, with no US equivalent. This volume, number 226 in the series, was the final title issued in the New Travellers' Library, the short-lived 1950–51 revival of Jonathan Cape's prestigious inter-war reprint series
American Literature
London, Cassell, 1947.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 8s6d.
Mary Jane Ward (1905–1981) was an American novelist whose semi-autobiographical The Snake Pit was made into an Oscar-winning film. The novel was based on Ward's involuntary committal to Rockland State Hospital in upstate New York in 1941, and it generated public support for important political reforms in psychiatric institutions and mental health care.
American Literature
...with a foreword by Courtney Ryley Cooper
Boston, Little, Brown, 1938.
First edition, first printing. 8vo. Original cloth, gilt. Dust-jacket.
An account of the FBI's pursuit of notorious criminals, likely ghostwritten by Hoover's close associate Courtney Ryley Cooper, who collaborated with Hoover on articles and film screenplays. The book details the rise and fall of figures including Ma Barker, John Dillinger and 'Machine Gun' Kelly.
American Literature
London, Cassell, 1947.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 8s6d.
Mary Jane Ward (1905–1981) was an American novelist whose semi-autobiographical The Snake Pit was made into an Oscar-winning film. The novel was based on Ward's involuntary committal to Rockland State Hospital in upstate New York in 1941, and it generated public support for important political reforms in psychiatric institutions and mental health care.
American Literature
A true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
London, Hamish Hamilton, 1966.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.
Considered by many to be the prototypical true crime novel, In Cold Blood details the 1959 Clutter family murders in the small farming community of Holcomb, Kansas; Capote learned of the quadruple murder before the killers were captured, and spent six years working on the book, which he described as a "non-fiction novel."
American Literature
London, Picador, 1985.
First UK hardback edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.
The eighth novel by Underworld author Don DeLillo; widely considered DeLillo's breakout work, it won the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction, was included in Time's List of the 100 Best Novels and is generally regarded as a cornerstone example of postmodern literature.
American Literature
London, Michael Joseph, 1964.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.
A first UK edition of American writer & civil rights activist James Baldwin's first non-fiction book, first published in the US in 1955. The ten essays collected here include Baldwin's critiques of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin and Richard Wright's Native Son, alongside reflections on his decade living in Paris.
American Literature
A short history
New York [London], Alfred A. Knopf, 1929.
First UK edition, on US sheets. 8vo. Original cloth-backed patterned boards. Dust-jacket, priced 10s6d.
A satirical overview of American history from "discovery" to the present, featuring explanatory diagrams and caricatures by the author. The book did not sell well, seemingly a contributing factor to the author & illustrator's suicide in 1931.
American Literature
Around the world in 100 days...foreword by Lowell Thomas
New York & London, D. Appleton-Century Company, 1935.
First edition, first printing. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced $2.00 with code 3289**** to foot of inside front flap.
Pierrot was born in Chicago in 1898, but grew up in Washington state, and came to Detroit to edit The American Boy magazine; he went on to found the World Adventure Series at the Detroit Institute of Arts.
American Literature
London, Leonard Parsons, 1925.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Cut signature of author to title-page, with cut signature of the actor Leslie Banks to another page. Original cloth. Dust-jacket.
The first UK of this short story collection by US author & journalist Connell, with his cut signature affixed to the title-page. The collection includes his most well-known story, 'The Most Dangerous Game', to the first page of which someone has affixed the cut signature of the actor Leslie Banks, who starred in the 1932 RKO film adaptation.
American Literature
London, Wm. Collins Sons... by The London Book Co., [1931].
First edition thus. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket.
A novelisation of the screenplay by Luther Trent for the film of the same name by RKO Radio Pictures, this book was released in the same year.
American Literature
London, Michael Joseph, [1947].
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original pictorial cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 10/6.
Rare. The author's first novel, and a literary precedent, being the first book by a black woman to sell more than a million copies. The story follows Lutie Johnson, a young Black woman, and her spirited struggle to raise her son amid the violence, poverty, and racial dissonance of Harlem in the late 1940s.
American Literature
London, Constable, 1935.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, price-clipped.
The first volume of what became known as the 'Williamsburg Trilogy', followed by Homage to Blenholt (1936) and Low Company (1937). Uncommon.
American Literature
New York & London, D. Appleton, 1928.
First edition, first printing. 8vo. Original blue cloth with printed title labels. Dust-jacket, priced $2.50.
'There is a delightful part of Paris that most foreigners never see... lts people are the truest citizens of Paris - the workmen, roustabouts, apaches and their girls, who drop into the cafes and little bars to chatter and make love and quarrel.' (jacket blurb)
American Literature
A Mystery Story
New York, Frederick A. Stokes, 1919.
First edition, first printing. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, original price on spine redacted with price $1.35 printed below; further similar redaction to price on lower panel.
A wonderful example of this dark romance set amongst San Francisco society.
American Literature
New York, New Directions, 1951.
First edition in play form, first printing. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, price-clipped to inside front flap.
One of McCullers's most affecting portrayals of adolescence, identity, loneliness and belonging. First published in novel form in 1946.
American Literature
London, Heinemann, 1954.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 10s6d.
Settle's debut novel, an acid satire about a wealthy, small-town theatrical group manipulated by a charismatic, wheelchair-bound director, blending elements of Southern Fiction and historical fiction with sharp social commentary. It marks the starting point of a career that would later encompass the acclaimed 'Beulah Quintet,' for which Settle won the National Book Award.
American Literature
London, Heinemann, 1954.First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 10s6d.Settle's debut novel, an acid satire about a wealthy, small-town theatrical group manipulated by a charismatic, wheelchair-bound director, blending elements of Southern Fiction and historical fiction with sharp social commentary. It marks the starting point of a career that would later encompass the acclaimed "Beulah Quintet," for which Settle won the National Book Award.
American Literature
New York, Macmillan, 1918.
First edition, first printing. 8vo. Original pictorial boards, rebacked in later plain board. Facsimile dust-jacket.
A posthumous collection of short stories, the title piece following a naturalist's encounter with a mysterious extraterrestrial artefact in the South Pacific, blending adventure with emerging sci-fi themes.
American Literature
and the first forty-nine stories
London, Jonathan Cape, 1939.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, price-clipped.
Collecting Hemingway's only full-length play, set amid espionage and moral conflict in the Spanish Civil War, alongside nearly all of his short stories published to that date, this volume is central to understanding his influence on 20th-century short fiction.
American Literature
London, Jonathan Cape, 1952.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original pictorial boards. Dust-jacket, priced 7s6d.
A symbolic tale of endurance and dignity, one of Hemingway's late masterpieces and the work that secured his 1954 Nobel Prize in Literature.
American Literature
New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1937.
First edition, first printing. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced $2.50.
Following Florida fishing-boat captain Harry Morgan's descent into smuggling and violence during the Depression, Hemingway blends social critique with his spare, hard-edged style; it is his only novel set largely in the United States and reflects the economic dislocation of the era.
American Literature
London, Macmillan, 1976.
UK uncorrected proof copy. 8vo. Plain brown wrappers.
Doctorow's weaving of real historical figures (e.g. Houdini, J.P. Morgan, Evelyn Nesbit, Emma Goldman) with fictional ones helps give it both documentary weight and narrative drama. It's one of his most recognised works. The use of ragtime (music, culture) as metaphor and structural mood is significant.
American Literature
London, Picador, 1998.
First hardback edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.
Ellis's notorious novel American Psycho, first published in 1991 in paperback, was only issued in hardback in Britain in 1998 by Picador after years of censorship controversy. The book, a satirical and shocking portrait of consumerism, narcissism, and violence through the Wall Street psychopath Patrick Bateman, is a landmark of postmodern American fiction.
American Literature
London, Peter Davies, 1953.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, price-clipped.
One of a series of provocative mid-century novels exploring sexuality, psychology and bohemian life by Keogh, themes that prefigured and influenced later counter-cultural and queer writing.
American Literature
London, Heinemann, 1932.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original red cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
A light-hearted comedy set in a Maine coastal resort, exploring small-town social pretensions, class condescension and family dynamics.
American Literature
London, Arthur Barker, 1933.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original blue cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
The tale of a woman from New York returning to rural Iowa; its Midwestern reflections struck a chord with Depression-era America. The book was adapted by its author into the 1933 MGM film The Stranger's Return, directed by King Vidor and starring Miriam Hopkins and Lionel Barrymore.
American Literature
The Second Glad Book
London, Sir Isaac Pitman, 1915.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original red cloth lettered and decorated in gilt. Dust-jacket, priced 6/-.
Pollyanna's transition into adulthood and the continuation of her optimistic philosophy...
American Literature
New York & London, Scribner's, 1930.
First edition. Inscribed presentation copy from the author. 8vo. Original cloth with inset colour illustration.
A narrative set in the American West, depicting the experiences of two brothers who spend a summer on a relative's ranch. Excellently illustrated by Wyeth. With full-page inscription to the half-title from the author, including a poem attributed to Badger Clark, the cowboy poet.
American Literature
London, Arthur Barker, 1966.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket, priced 25s.
A World War II novel about twelve military prisoners offered a chance at redemption through a dangerous mission behind enemy lines. Famously adapted for film, which enjoyed an all-star cast including Lee Marvin and Telly Savalas.
American Literature
and other stories
London, Hodder & Stoughton, [1927].
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original blue cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
A collection of short stories that delve into themes of kindness, resilience, and the human spirit. The titular story, "Little Pardner," exemplifies Porter's characteristic warmth and moral insight.
American Literature
London, Chatto & Windus, 1951.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original blue cloth. Dust-jacket, 9s6d.
A collection of six stories featuring Gavin Stevens, the county attorney of Faulkner's fictional Yoknapatawpha County. Stevens investigates various crimes, offering insights into human nature and justice. The stories blend elements of mystery and Southern Gothic.
American Literature
and other stories
London, Macmillan, 1905.
First UK edition, Colonial issue. 8vo. Original dark blue cloth lettered in gilt with blind-stamped decoration to upper cover.
The title story follows Ralph Orth, a writer who inherits an English estate and becomes obsessed with portraits of two children, leading to supernatural experiences. Gertrude Atherton (1857–1948) was an American novelist known for her works on women's rights and historical fiction. She was a prominent literary figure in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
American Literature
and other stories
London, Heinemann, 1927.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original green cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
A collection of short stories from the author of Giant, focusing on ordinary working-class Americans, exploring themes of ambition, family dynamics and societal expectations. Uncommon.
American Literature
Twain (Mark, pseud. Samuel Langhorne Clemens) Life on the Mississippi
London, Chatto &Windus, 1883.
First UK edition. 8vo. Original red pictorial cloth lettered in gilt.
Life on the Mississippi is a memoir by Mark Twain recounting his experiences as a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River before the American Civil War. Collectors often seek copies with the advertisements dated March 1883 at the rear, indicating the first impression
American Literature
London, Eveleigh Nash, 1916.
First UK edition. 8vo. Original peach cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 3/6.
A collection of 24 short stories by O. Henry, showcasing his characteristic wit, wordplay, and surprise endings. Notable stories include "The Ransom of Red Chief," where two kidnappers find themselves overwhelmed by their spirited captive, and "The Whirligig of Life," which humorously explores the unpredictability of human relationships.
American Literature
London, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1965.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original blue boards. Dust-jacket, priced 30s.
Berger's famous work, a fictional memoir of Jack Crabb, a white man raised by Native Americans, offering a satirical perspective on the American West. The book received critical acclaim for its unique narrative and was adapted into a successful film in 1970, starring Dustin Hoffman.
American Literature
New York, A New Directions Books, 1959.
First edition, first printing. 8vo. Original red cloth. Dust-jacket, priced $3.25.
This play centers on Chance Wayne, a drifter and aspiring actor who returns to his hometown with faded movie star Alexandra Del Lago.
American Literature
London, John Lehmann, 1950.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original green cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7s6d.
Recently widowed American actress Karen Stone moves to Rome to find solace. As she navigates her grief and the challenges of aging, she becomes entangled with a young Italian gigolo, leading to a complex exploration of love, loneliness and self-discovery.