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
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.
Modern Literature
London, Herbert Jenkins, 1932.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6 with later sticker of 3/6.
Cecil Grey's 1932 adventure follows Leo Martin, the handsome, resourceful son of a drunken fish wife. He leaves the slums, distinguishes himself in the Foreign Legion and returns to England to breed horses and marry his childhood sweetheart.
Modern Literature
London, John Lane The Bodley Head, 1923.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
The author, later 1st Baron Brand of Eydon, wrote only a few fiction titles. Surviving first editions in jackets are rare.
Modern Literature
London, Chatto & Windus, 1965.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, price-clipped.
Tamara Dragadze's novel is steeped in Moroccan culture, with references to Casablanca, couscous, djellabas and Ramadan.
Modern Literature
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.
Modern Literature
London, Putnam, 1936.First edition, first impression. Signed presentation copy from the author, inscribed to front free endpaper, dated 1968. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7s6d.Bryan Guinness's comedy follows young Esther, sent to the seaside town of Mudmouth to cure her melancholy and infatuation with a communist.
Modern Literature
London, The Harvill Press, 2005.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original board. Dust-jacket, priced £12.99.
Murakami is often credited with blending modern pop culture, myth, Japanese religious/spiritual traditions (especially Shintō), and psychological mystery. Kafka on the Shore is particularly significant for being one of his more ambitious, large-scale works, tightly integrating these themes, and for its acclaim in both Japan and globally.
London, Putnam, !938.
Second UK edition, fourth impression. 8vo. Original blue cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 3s6d.
A canonical work of the Weimar period, reflecting the economic collapse, rise of unemployment, societal anxieties preceding Nazism.
Modern Literature
London, Macmillan, 1961.
First edition. 8vo. Original blue/green cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 13s6d.
"Safety does not come first. Goodness, Truth, and Beauty come first. Follow me." A first edition of Muriel Spark's most famous novel.
![Bodenham West, The Throwbacks, first edition, [1935]](https://lycanthiabooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/87376-300x300.jpg)
Modern Literature
London, Skeffington, [1935].
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
A tale of family rivalries and resentments, a man purchases a title by cheating his poorer relatives; the daughter of the aristocrat makes overtures to a poor male cousin.
![Eleanor Morse, She Left Her Husband, first edition, [1934]](https://lycanthiabooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/87375-300x300.jpg)
Modern Literature
London, Hutchinson, [1934].
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
"...an exquisitely drawn picture of an unhappy marriage followed by a much-needed separation and offers an original solution to marital difficulties." (jacket blurb)
![P.G. Wodehouse, The Heart of a Goof, Tenth impression, [c.1926]](https://lycanthiabooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/87370-300x300.jpg)
Modern Literature
London, Hebert Jenkins, n.d. [c.1926].
Tenth impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 5/-.
A collection of nine comic short stories, all narrated by "the Oldest Member" of a golf club.
Modern Literature
and other stories
London, Secker & Warburg, 1958.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 13s6d.
Short story collection by John Prebble, best known later for his historical works such as Culloden and The Highland Clearances.
Modern Literature
London, Constable, 1932.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
Brandane continues his exploration of Highland life, rural character and social change, themes for which he was well-known as both a playwright and a novelist.
![P.G. Wodehouse, A Century of Humour, First edition, [1935].](https://lycanthiabooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/87341-300x300.jpg)
Modern Literature
London, Hutchinson, [1935].
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original pictorial mustard-yellow cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 3/6.
This anthology, edited by the master humorist P.G. Wodehouse, gathers a wide selection of comic writing to showcase the breadth of English humour as it evolved into the 20th century, reflecting Wodehouse's own role not just as a comic novelist but also as a curator of the tradition he epitomised.
Modern Literature
London, Talmy, Franklin, 1971.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket, priced £2.50.
First UK edition of The Dice Man, recounting the life of a psychiatrist who surrenders decisions to dice rolls, launching a bizarre cult-classic trajectory.
Modern Literature
London, Bentley, 1895.
First edition. 8vo. Original black cloth, spine gilt.
"Scylla or Charybdis? (1895) has a mother hiding her infamous past from her son and obsessing about his love even to the extent of being jealous of other women, a plot to some extent anticipating Lawrence's Sons and Lovers (1913). The novel questions social conventions in revealing how destructive they can be to quiet people who might have once stepped aside from the proper path." [Wikipedia]
Modern Literature
London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1966.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket, priced 25s.
Geoff Brown's 1966 debut novel I Want What I Want boldly portrays Wendy Ross's transition from Roy Clark, exploring early-era transgender experience in 1960s England. The novel was adapted into a 1972 British drama film of the same name, directed by John Dexter and starring Anne Heywood as Wendy/Roy.
Modern Literature
London, Heinemann, 1973.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket.
The final in the author's A Dance to the Music of Time series.
Modern Literature
London, Heinemann, 1973.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket.
The 11th in the author's A Dance to the Music of Time series.
Modern Literature
London, Heinemann, 1966.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket.
The 8th in the author's A Dance to the Music of Time series.