Children's Books
London, Grant Richards, 1903.
Early edition. Small 4to. Original pictorial brown cloth.
Helen Bannerman (1862-1946) wrote this story during a long railway journey in India, and sent it to her two small daughters whom she had just left to be educated in her native Scotland. It was eventually published as the fourth title in the "Dumpy Books" series, in 1899, and its success apparently inspired the format of Beatrix Potter's "Peter Rabbit" books. It is today quite a controversial juvenile, but since the original publication it has gone through countless printings and translations as well as sequels, imitations, and parodies.
Detective Fiction
London, Grant Richards, 1921.
First edition. 8vo. Original pale blue boards. Dust-jacket, priced 2/-.
More stories from the murky world brought to life poetically in 1916 by Burke in "Limehouse Nights". Uncommon in the jacket.
Modern Literature
Burke (Thomas); Nevinson (C.R.W., jacket artist) Limehouse Nights
London, Grant Richards, 1917.
Fourth printing. 8vo. Original brown cloth. Later issue dust-jacket (c.1921), price-clipped.
An early printing of Burke's famous tales of London's then Chinatown at the early part of the 20th century, in a slightly later but scarce dust-jacket. The work garnered both opprobrium and praise upon its publication in 1916, with some feeling it painted a morally damaging picture of Chinese immigrants cohabiting with white women, in part worsened by the developing trend for so-called "Yellow Peril" fiction by mostly US authors. Jacket artwork by the artist C.R.W. Nevinson, who became famous as a war artist.
Detective Fiction
and other stories of the Principality
London, Grant Richards, [1931].
First edition. 8vo. Original red cloth lettered in black to spine. Dust-jacket, correctly priced at 7/6.
A very good first edition of this compilation of thrilling tales set in Monte Carlo.
Weird & Supernatural
London, Grant Richards, 1931.
First edition. 8vo. Original black boards lettered in white. Dust-jacket, price-clipped.
An intriguing weird & supernatural tale, born from opiates taken by the author during a convalescence - elements include automatic writing and Christian allegory, set against an often brutally described backdrop of war... Rare.
Modern Literature
London, Grant Richards, 1925.
First edition. 8vo. Original yellow cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
An intriguingly Hardy-esque novel by John Cowper Powys, preceding his breakthrough work Wolf Solent.