Modern Literature
London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1925.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
A tale of Californian fortunes made through mining and lost through high living. Attractive jacket artwork.
Modern Literature
London, Hutchinson, 1937.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original buckram with leather spine label. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
'Written partly as a diary and partly in novel form Thoruna tells the amusing and piquant story of Sir Reginald H - who was ordered by his doctor to take a holiday and decided to go on a trip to Sweden. By accident he met Thoruna, a bright young thing whose trustee he was and, much to his embarrassment, she decided to accompany him.' (jacket blurb)
Modern Literature
London, Jonathan Cape, 1976.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket, priced £3.50.
Jeffrey Archer's first novel and the book that launched his career as a bestselling author. Its commercial success established the formula, slick plotting and high-stakes finance, that would dominate his later fiction.
Modern Literature
Minton (John, artist).- Garnier (Christine) White People Smile at Me
London, Putnam, [1952].
Colour proof for the original dust-jacket, with 1 (of 4) loose sheets representing the 4-stage colour process (yellow, pink, green & black) used to create the design.
An attractive jacket design by the highly collectable British artist John Minton, for Garnier's novel about French West Africa.
Modern Literature
London, Collins, [1932].
First edition, first impression. Signed by the author on title-page. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
Uncommon, especially signed.
Modern Literature
The Education of Anthony Dare; Anthony Dare's Progress
London, Collins, 1923-25.
3 vols. First editions, first impressions. 8vo. Original blue cloth blocked in orange. Dust-jackets, priced 7/6.
A nice group of these novels, by an author whose work was popular in his lifetime and appreciated for its realism.
Modern Literature
London, Collins, 1933.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
More in the vein of the author's most famous work, The Blue Lagoon (1908).
Modern Literature
London, Thornton Butterworth, 1929.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, stating 'Overseas Edition'.
The first English edition of Cañas y barro, a naturalist novel set among the marshlands and fishing communities of the Albufera near Valencia.
Modern Literature
London, Cassell, 1932.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 8/6.
The first UK edition of second in the Norwegian author's 'August' trilogy.
Modern Literature
London, Collins, 1938.
First edition, first impression. Publisher's file copy. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7s6d.
The ups & downs of a pavement artist in London, from the author of I am your brother.
Modern Literature
London, Rex Collings, 1972.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original brown cloth. Dust-jacket, priced £3.50.
An epic tale of a group of rabbits seeking a new home, exploring themes of survival and freedom, far removed from the more soporific tales of Beatrix Potter. Uncommon, especially in such near fine condition.
Modern Literature
London, Michael Joseph, 1939.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket, priced 8/6.
A nostalgic novel recounting the life of a Welsh mining family through the eyes of its youngest son, charting industrial hardship, communal solidarity and social change. It was adapted into the celebrated 1941 film directed by John Ford, winning multiple Academy Awards.
Modern Literature
London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1958.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.
An attractive first edition, about a man's realisation that he is not an island - topical themes regarding children refugees.
Modern Literature
London, Peter Owen, 1973.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket, priced £2.75.
A satirical novel following an impulsive young Tokyo man sent to teach in a provincial school, by Japan's first modern novelist.
Modern Literature
A tale of the seaboard
London & New York, Harper & Brothers, 1904.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth.
Set in the fictional South American republic of Costaguana, Nostromo explores political corruption, imperialism, and moral decay through the fate of a charismatic dockworker entrusted with a fortune in silver.
Modern Literature
London, Edward Arnold, 1908.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth.
Forster's best-known and most accessible novel follows the emotional and moral awakening of Lucy Honeychurch, a young Englishwoman whose experiences in Italy challenge the social conventions of Edwardian England.
Modern Literature
London, Longmans, Green, 1955.
First edition, second impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.
A London-set novel exploring class, sexuality and shifting post-war morals, characteristic of Freeman's sharp observational style; she later gained notoriety for The Leather Boys (1961), a landmark in queer British fiction.
London, Hutchinson, 1915.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Title printed in red & black. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 6s.
Albanesi was a popular bestselling novelist of the early twentieth century, highly readable, though never canonised, and early first editions in jacket are distinctly uncommon.
Modern Literature
London, André Deutsch, 1972.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.
The first edition of this pivotal work in Naipaul's career, for which he won the Booker Prize.
Modern Literature
O’Brian (Patrick, pseud. Richard Patrick Russ) The Wine-Dark Sea
London, HarperCollins, 1993.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.
The sixteenth novel in O'Brian's acclaimed Aubrey/Maturin series continues Captain Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin's maritime adventures during the Napoleonic Wars, here voyaging across the Pacific with espionage, pursuit and scientific intrigue.
Modern Literature
London, Heinemann, 1957.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.
Modern Literature
Conrad (Joseph) and Ford Madox Hueffer. The Nature of a Crime
London, Duckworth, 1924.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket.
Modern Literature
London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1914.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth.
Modern Literature
London, Grant Richards, 1931.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Contemporary orange cloth without imprint. Dust-jacket.
Modern Literature
London, Heinemann, 1924.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original decorative cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 5s.
Later work from a writer now receiving revived academic interest for her proto-modernist sensibility and role in literary networks. Scarce in the jacket.
Modern Literature
London, Herbert Jenkins, 1927.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 3/6.
A light interwar comedy/adventure novel typical of the Herbert Jenkins output.
![Alternative view of Onions ([George] Oliver) Admiral Eddy](https://lycanthiabooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/87530_2-300x300.jpg)
Modern Literature
London, John Murray, 1907.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth.
A work of nautical interest, by an author best remembered today for his ghost stories.
Modern Literature
London, Constable, 1936.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
An adventure novel set in the French Foreign Legion milieu, by American journalist and adventure writer Rourke.
Modern Literature
London, Chapman & Hall, 1942.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, price-clipped.
A novel of wartime dislocation and personal awakening set during the Second World War, exploring emotional and moral strain on relationships. Comfort was of course later famous as the author of The Joy of Sex, something he came to resent slightly as it overshadowed his other writings, such as the present work.
Modern Literature
London, Harrap, [1937].
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 8/6.
A roman-à-clef based on the life and discovery of radium, dramatising the scientific, political and moral implications of radioactivity. Originally published in German (Radium, 1936).
Modern Literature
London, The Bodley Head, 1959.
First edition. 8vo. Original blue boards. Dust-jacket, priced 13s 6d.
Modern Literature
London, Peter Owen, 1958.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket, priced 16s.
Set in early post-war Japan, the novel follows a declining aristocratic family - the young woman Kazuko, her opium-addicted brother Naoji and their widowed mother - as they try to adapt to societal change, westernisation and personal ruin...
Modern Literature
London, Peter Owen, 1959.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket, price-clipped.
A harrowing semi-autobiographical novel by Japanese author Dazai in which the narrator, Ōba Yōzō, records his lifelong sense of alienation, his descent into addiction and despair, and his feeling of being 'disqualified as a human being'.
Modern Literature
A Novel...
London, Peter Davies, 1952.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 11s6d.
Theodora Keogh (born Theodora Roosevelt) was an American novelist, part of the Roosevelt family, writing under the name Theodora Keogh from the 1950s; she is now regarded as an early writer of lesbian pulp-fiction and psychological novels.
Modern Literature
and other stories
London, Macmillan, 1904.
First UK edition. 8vo. Original blue blind-tooled cloth lettered in yellow.
Wharton explores marriage, societal expectation and individual compromise; the title-story sees a professor publish a faux scientific work and become trapped by his own success.
Modern Literature
London, Arthur Barker, 1937.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
Set in 1930s France, the novel centres on a free-spirited mother who after many years is reunited with her formerly proper daughter on a visit to assess her fiancé.
Modern Literature
London, John Murray, 1941.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 9s6d.
A wartime novel by Loveday Prior that continues themes from her earlier novel The Valley of Exile (1939) and addresses the rise of totalitarianism.
Modern Literature
A just possible story
London, Methuen, 1908.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth, spine gilt.
The Greek god Apollo returns to earth in human form to investigate the nature of mortal men.
Modern Literature
Dell (Draycot M.) and Walter W. Ellis. A Little Bit of Fluff
...illustrated with scenes from the photo-play
London, Readers Library, n.d. [c.1928].
Small 8vo. Orginal gilt-stamped red cloth. Dust-jacket.
A novelisation of Draycot Dell and Walter W. Ellis's hit farce. Bashful clerk Bertram Tully tries to retrieve a compromising letter, triggering mistaken identities, jealous husbands and door‑slamming chases.
Modern Literature
and other poems
London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1919.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Title printed in red & black. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 6/-.
The first published book by Oman, an author best remembered today for her retelling of the Robin Hood story and a biography of Nelson. The collection of poems draws upon her war work as a probationary VAD nurse in Oxford, Dorset, London and France in 1918–1919. Scarce in the jacket.
London, Hurst & Blackett, [1924].
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
Romantic melodrama about two lovers separated by social barriers who endure hardship before finding happiness. A bestseller in its day, it is rarely seen now.
Modern Literature
London, Heinemann, 1955.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 13s6d.
Set in French-occupied Vietnam, this Greene novel centres on jaded British journalist Thomas Fowler and idealistic American aid worker Alden Pyle, who vie for the affections of Phuong.