Modern Literature

Showing 1–36 of 285 results

£85



London, Geoffrey Bles, 1931.

First UK edition. 8vo. Original grey cloth. Dust-jacket.

The first UK edition of this work by prolific Austrian author Baum, originally published in German the year before.

£110



London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1931.

First edition. Publisher's file copy. 8vo. Original blue cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.

Evocative jacket artwork on this tale about a young man using his fists and heart to navigate his wanderlust around Canada & Alaska.

£135



London, Secker & Warburg, 1959.

First edition. 8vo. Original burgundy boards. Dust-jacket, priced 18s.

A very good first edition of the author's first book, set against a backdrop of redbrick academia.

£125



London, Collins, 1939.

First edition. Signed by the author on front endpaper. 8vo. Original black cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7s6d.

An attractive first edition, enhanced further by being signed by the author on the front free endpaper.

£395



London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1926.

First edition. 8vo. Original blue cloth. Dust-jacket.

A very good first edition of this uncommon Buchan work, the third of five novels featuring his character Leithen, here entangled in a web of deadly superstition and danger on a small Greek island.

£125



London, Hutchinson, [1927].

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

An uncommon title in jacket. The story is set in historical Canada and follows the endeavours of man to secure his legacy.

£150


A Book of Confessions
London, Thornton Butterworth, 1924.

First edition. 8vo. Original pale sage cloth. Dust-jacket, correctly priced 7/6.

Highly attractive example of the first edition of this novel by the author of Limehouse Nights. The work describes growing up in London's East End, and is often believed to be largely autobiographical, although the author would comment in later years, "this has been taken to be my personal story, but it is a mixture. A few passages here and there have some autobiographical basis, but the treatments is at five or six removes from the actual." Scarce in the jacket, let alone in such condition.

£150



London, Hutchinson, [1938].

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

A very attractive first edition by the woman who not only married Dennis Wheatley but also convinced him to take up writing. "A riot of romance set in the most glamorous town in Europe," according to the publisher's preferred jacket blurb.

£295



London, John Lane The Bodley Head, 1927.

First edition. 8vo. Original black cloth lettered and ruled in pink. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.

An attractive first edition by this Scottish author, one of his 'lunatic at large' series of books.

£295



London, Eveligh, Nash & Grayson, [1922].

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

The continuing Wodehousian adventures of adventures of Mr. Francis Mandell-Essington, the basis for the 1927 silent film The Lunatic at Large.

£95



London, Hodder & Stoughton, [1928].

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

Colver was a prolific author, best remembered today perhaps for her Joan Foster series.

Modern Literature

Conquest (Joan) Veiled Lover

£150



London, Jarrolds, [1938].

First edition. Signed presentation copy from the author. 8vo. Original yellow cloth. Dust-jacket, later issue ('7th thousand') priced 2/6.

Signed by the author on front free endpaper. Great jacket artwork.

£125



London, Hutchinson, [1937].

First edition. 8vo. Contemporary lending-library cloth. Dust-jacket, with price-sticker of 2/- to spine.

"A romantic story of impulsive youth", according to the rather lovely dust-jacket's blurb.

£85



London, John Long, 1938.

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

The author's first novel, a tale of a neglected housewife and her internal struggle with making the right choice when tempted by an affair.

£325



London, Hutchinson, [1934].

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

A shipwreck leads to the formation of a new community. Uncommon in jacket.

£275



London, Thornton Butterworth, 1928.

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

A very nice, jacketed first edition in English of Diehl's novelised take on the life of Heinrich Heine.

£75



London, Nicholson & Watson, 1939.

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

Attractive jacket artwork on this uncommon first edition about the divisive effect a legacy gift has on a town.

£35



London, Skeffington, 1952.

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

"Here is a delightfully witty compound of frolic, fantasy and satire, which describes what happens when an African magician gets busy in an English village..." (jacket blurb)

£225



London, Heinemann, 1951.

First edition. 8vo. Original grey cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 10s6d, stamped 'overseas edition' to foot of lower panel.

First edition of Greene's meditation on love, hate and faith.

£135



London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1936.

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

A very good first UK edition of one of Zane Grey's popular westerns.

£375



London, Constable, 1953.

First edition. 8vo. Original blue cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 12s6d.

The scarce third title in Hamilton's 'Gorse' trilogy.

£295



London, Hamish Hamilton, 1953.

First edition. 8vo. Original red cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 11s.

Hartley's famous novel about a young boy's summer at a friend's grand estate in Norfolk, where he becomes an unwitting messenger in a tragic love affair, encapsulated by the famous opening line: "The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there."

£175



London, Robert Hayes, 1921.

First edition. 8vo. Original green boards. Dust-jacket, priced 2/6.

First edition of the book born from the original play of the same name. Rare in the jacket.

£85



London, Methuen, 1946.

First UK edition. 8vo. Original purple boards lettered in green to spine. Dust-jacket, priced 5s.

Isherwood's semi-autobiographical novel on the world of film-making in Britain during the atrocities of Nazism.

£225



Edinburgh & London, William Hodge, 1924.

First edition. 8vo. Original red cloth lettered in gilt.

An uncommon collection of stories with a unifying theme of 'movement', written by a Scottish judge.

Modern Literature

Jones (Idwal) Steel Chips

£85



London, Alfred A. Knopf, 1930.

First UK edition (on US sheets). 8vo. Original grey boards. Dust-jacket, price-clipped.

A socialist novel set in the fictionally titled " Atlas Iron Works". Uncommon.

£350


[The Great Wall of China]
Berlin, Gustav Kiepenheuer Verlag, 1931.

First edition. 8vo. Original blue cloth.

The first edition of this uncommon posthumous work by Kafka. Max Brod, Kafka's friend and literary executor was instructed by Kafka to destroy his unpublished work. Brod ignored the request, publishing the novels and collected works between 1925 and 1935. Brod edited a collection of prose and unpublished stories as Beim Bau der Chinesischen Mauer, including the story of the same name.

£150



London, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1937.

First edition. 8vo. Original orange cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 15s.

Autobiography of the key founder of the Vorticist movement.

£95



London, Martin Secker, 1919.

First edition. 8vo. Original blue cloth. Dust-jacket.

"In contrast to his grimmer Sylvia and Michael, published the same year, [Poor Relations] was a light-hearted comedy about the ups-and-downs of playwright." Wikipedia.

£195



London, Jonathan Cape, 1971.

First UK edition. 8vo. Original dark brown boards. Dust-jacket, priced £1.50.

Marquez's mesmerising collection of short stories depicting the disparities of town and village life in South America, of the frightfully poor and the outrageously rich, of memories and illusions, and of lost opportunities and present joys.

£225



London, Collins, 1957.

First edition. 8vo. Publisher's review slip loosely inserted. Original black boards. Dust-jacket, priced 16s.

Mason's most well-known work, inspired by the time he spent at the Luk Kwok Hotel in 1956 and the prostitution services he observed offered there.

£85


Translated from the Spanish by Vivian Verst
London, Stanley Paul, [1926].

First English edition. 8vo. Original pale yellow cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.

A vivid account of Madrid society life, a bestseller in Spain upon publication.

£150


The Story of Eamon Revelle
Dublin, Martin Lester, [c.1925].

First edition. 8vo. Original green boards. Dust-jacket, priced 7/-.

First edition of an uncommon work by Irish author James Murphy, set during a key historical moments in Irish history.

£95



London, Jarrolds, [1929].

First edition. 8vo. Original light blue cloth decorated and lettered in black. Dust-jacket.

Issued for Jarrolds' 'Jay Library', uncommon in the original Youngman Carter dust-jacket.

Modern Literature

Pound (Ezra) ABC of Reading

£275



London, Routledge, 1934.

First edition. 8vo. Original red cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 4s6d.

Pound's guide to reading and understanding literature, emphasising the importance of clear, concise language and the study of classic texts for learning about poetic techniques and literary greatness.

Modern Literature

Pound (Ezra) Selected Poems.

£200


Edited by T.S. Eliot
London, Faber & Gwyer, 1928.

First trade edition. 8vo. Original green cloth.

Including all but 16 of the poems contained in Personae, Pound's own collection of his poems published in New York in 1926, and adding five early poems grouped as 'Early Poems Rejected by the Author and Omitted from His Collected Edition.'