Historical Fiction
A Drama of Divided Germany
London, Macmillan, 1932.
First UK edition. 8vo. Original yellow cloth. Dust-jacket, clipped to front inside flap but with stamped price $2.00 present, possibly for export.
A political novel set amid the turmoil of late Weimar Germany, portraying a society destabilised by economic collapse, ideological extremism, and the erosion of democratic institutions. Its protagonist, a schoolteacher who persuades himself he can remain apolitical, is drawn into a world squeezed between "Hitlerites, Agrarians, and Communists." Written from a broadly left-democratic perspective, the novel captures the febrile atmosphere of the early 1930s; the original German edition appeared in 1932.The author Frank, an Austrian-born writer, journalist, and screenwriter would later be associated with films produced during the Nazi period, including Reitet für Deutschland, a commercially successful work endorsed by the regime and subsequently banned by the Allies in 1945.
Historical Fiction
A Romance of Life and Death
London, Hutchinson, 1895.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth.
Historical fiction by Irish journalist, novelist, dramatist and poet, Frankfort Moore. "The book abounds with Gothic passages steeped in ritual eroticism...Egyptomania and Egyptology; occult and cult form, and ancient cults as a sociological and religious history of gothic taste." (The Palgrave Handbook of Steam Age Gothic, p.245)
Historical Fiction
London, Grant Richards, 1924.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 6/-.
Sulky & obstinate, Typhon is not the son his well-to-do Athenian parents think he should be. Not knowing what else to do, they reach out to their friends Epicurus and Menander, the great Hellenic philosophers of old.
Historical Fiction
Translated from the Russian by Natalie A. Duddington
London [&c.], J.M. Dent, 1927.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket.
Merezhkovsky (1865–1941) was a major Russian Symbolist writer and religious thinker, and this work forms part of his broader interest in religious history and spiritual crisis.
Historical Fiction
London, Arrow Books, 1964.
Arrow Books edition. 8vo. Original pictorial wrappers.
Matters was an Australian-born journalist and labour activist, and his book became one of the more frequently cited Ripper theories, influencing later writers despite its speculative nature.
Historical Fiction
A Tale of the Boxer Revolution
London [&c.], Blackie & Son, n.d. [c.1907?].
8vo. Original pictorial cloth. Dust-jacket.
Captain F.S. Brereton's imperial adventure drops young British heroes into the 1900 Boxer rising in China.
Historical Fiction
London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1930.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
Romantic/adventure novel in the style of The Prisoner of Zenda.
Historical Fiction
London, Jonathan Cape, 1923.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7s6d.
An early novel by John Brandane, the pen-name of Scottish physician John MacIntyre, who specialised in fiction and drama rooted in Highland settings and Scottish identity.
Historical Fiction
Graeme (Bruce, pseud. Graham Montague Jeffries) Ten Trials to Tyburn
London, Hutchinson, n.d. [c.1945].
Early impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 9/-.
This Terhune case begins with the death of "Peter the Hermit," a local vagrant. The police find a foreign newspaper and a jewelled comb on the body.
Historical Fiction
Preedy (George R., pseud. Marjorie Bowen) The Fair Young Widow
London, Herbert Jenkins, [1939].
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original orange cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
"George Preedy" was one of several pseudonyms used by Marjorie Bowen, whose output spanned historical fiction, supernatural tales, and thrillers. Under this name, she often explored darker, more mature themes than in her historical romances.
Historical Fiction
London, John Murray, 1932.
First omnibus edition. 8vo. Original red cloth. Dust-jacket, multiple small price stickers for 12/6.
Comprising Rodney Stone, Uncle Bernac, Exploits of Brigadier Gerard and Adventures of Gerard. An attractive edition.
Historical Fiction
A Tale of the Christ
London, Robert Hayes, [c.1925].
Film tie-in edition. 8vo. Original red boards. Dust-jacket, priced 2/6.
Attractive film tie-in edition with jacket depicting the famous chariot race scene, presumably issued to coincide with the 1925 silent film adaptation starring Ramon Novarro. The book was first published in 1880, considered "the most influential Christian book of the nineteenth century", no less.
Historical Fiction
and other stories
London, Ivor Nicholson & Watson, 1936.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original red cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
A collection of short stories of a historical bent, based in Rome and Greece in the first century.
Historical Fiction
Lartéguy (Jean, pseud. Pierre Lucien Jean Osty) The Centurions.
Translated from the French by Xan Fielding
London, Hutchinson, 1961.
First UK edition. 8vo. Original red textured cloth. Dust-jacket, price-clipped.
A gripping novel about French paratroopers who, after their experiences as PoWs in Indochina, apply counterinsurgency tactics during the Algerian War. The significance of its translation by Xan Fielding lies in Fielding's own experience as a British intelligence officer during World War II and his familiarity with guerrilla warfare, especially in occupied Crete.
Historical Fiction
and his wife Messalina
London, Arthur Barker, 1934.
First edition. 8vo. Original black cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 10/6.
The continuing story of the Roman Empire as told from the perspective of the (now) Roman Emperor Claudius. Uncommon in the dust-jacket.
Historical Fiction
Higgins (Jack, pseud. Harry Patterson) In the Hour Before Midnight
London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1969.
First edition. 8vo. Original black boards. Dust-jacket, priced 25s.
A consideration of the origins and methods of the Sicilian mafia, by the author of The Eagle Has Landed.
Historical Fiction
London, Heinemann, 1966.
First edition. 8vo. Original terracotta boards. Dust-jacket, priced 30s.
The first volume of Scott's famous 'Raj Quartet'.
Historical Fiction
Durban, South Africa, Knox Publishing Company, n.d. [1942].
8vo. Original green cloth.
An interesting volume regarding the queen of the 18th Dynasty of Ancient Egypt, great royal wife to Pharaoh Akhenaten.
Historical Fiction
London, Sampson Low, Martson, Searle, & Rivington, 1891.
First UK edition. 8vo. Original pictorial cloth.
A decent first UK edition of this surprisingly scarce Verne title, an adventure novel by Jules Verne about the life of a family in Lower Canada (present-day Quebec) during the Lower Canada Rebellion of 1837 and 1838 that sought an independent and democratic republic for Lower Canada.
Historical Fiction
London, Nash & Grayson, 1930.
First edition. 8vo. Original blue cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
A historical novel, set against the backdrop of the English Civil War, and it explores themes of love, loss, and redemption. Plus great dust-jacket.