Sci-Fi & Fantasy
A Romance of Marvel and Mystery
London, "Review of Reviews" Office, [1900].
The Masterpiece Library. 1. Edited by W. Stead. [bound in Hicklings' Almanack Handbook of Norfolk 1896] 8vo. Original printed red wrappers.
Stead's rare abridged edition of Haggard's gothic lost kingdom narrative set in the African interior, here intriguingly bound at the end of Hicklings' Norfolk Almanack for 1896. Stead was a pioneering investigative journalist and crusading newspaper editor, considered to be one of the most famous Englishmen to die in the sinking of the Titanic at the time. He launched the Masterpiece Library of Penny Popular Novels in 1893 and it eventually ran to about 100 novels. It was touted as 'the most efficient agency that has yet been devised for making our best literature familiar to the mass of the nation.' Punch dubbed the series "Penny Steadfuls". The novels were abridged into 30,000 to 40,000 words from novels which were originally six or eight times as long. They were, however, hugely popular with the much enlarged reading public of the time. She for example sold 500,000 copies in Stead's abridgement.
London, Newnes, 1938-39.
3 issues (complete). Large 8vo. Original pictorial stapled wrappers.
Published by George Newnes Ltd, which paid respectable rates and obtained good-quality material, these three issues comprise a complete run of the magazine Fantasy, edited by T Stanhope Sprigg. The short-lived periodical included stories by significant authors such as John Wyndham, Eric Frank Russell and John Russell Fearn. John Beynon was one of the pseudonyms used by John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris (1903–1969), the British science fiction writer best known for The Day of the Triffids, The Kraken Wakes and The Midwich Cuckoos.
Modern Literature
Jackson (Neville, pseud. Gerald Marcus Glaskin) No End to the Way
London, Barrie & Rockliff, 1965.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.
A novel chronicling a homosexual relationship, published under the pseudonym Neville Jackson by Gerald Marcus Glaskin (1923–2000), a Perth-born Australian author; it is recognised as the first overtly gay Australian novel, and was banned in Australia for over a year after publication despite remaining in print in Britain for twenty years.
Sci-Fi & Fantasy
A Grotesque Romance
London, C. Arthur Pearson, [c.1903/4].
'Cheap edition'. 8vo. Original yellow pictorial wrappers printed in red, priced 6'.
Originally published as a serial in Pearson's Weekly in 1897, then in book form the same year, this is a relatively rare edition of Wells' sci-fi classic, made more so by the presence of the fragile original wrappers.
Detective Fiction
London, Faber & Faber, 1971.
First edition, first impression. Signed by the author on the title-page and again on promotional bookplate. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket, price-clipped.
The fourth novel in P.D. James's Adam Dalgliesh series, in which Chief Superintendent Dalgliesh is called in to investigate the deaths of two student nurses at the hospital nursing school of Nightingale House. The novel earned an Edgar Award and a Silver Dagger, and is widely regarded as James's breakthrough into the international market.
Modern Literature
London, Andre Deutsch, 1965.
First edition. 8vo. Original brown boards. Dust-jacket, priced 21s.
The first of only three novels by the Nigerian playwright, novelist and Nobel Prize winner Wole Soyinka, set in the 1960s, in post-independence and pre-civil war Nigeria, mainly in Lagos. Professor Soyinka recently celebrated his 90th birthday and a host of events were staged around the world to commemorate the occasion including the release of two documentaries and a feature film centred around his work and life.
Modern Literature
London, Selwyn & Blount, 1926.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
A relatively obscure title, seemingly involving a love triangle in bohemian London.
Non-Fiction
...with a preface by Field-Marshal Sir George F. Milne
London, Heath Cranton, 1930.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket.
A memoir of the Macedonian Campaign of the First World War, prefaced by Field-Marshal Sir George Milne, who commanded British forces in the Salonika theatre.
![Phillimore ([Mrs] Lion) In the Carpathians](https://lycanthiabooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/88251-300x300.jpg)
![Alternative view of Phillimore ([Mrs] Lion) In the Carpathians](https://lycanthiabooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/88251_2-300x300.jpg)
London, Constable, 1912.
First edition, first impression. Inscribed presentation copy from the author. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 10/6.
A travel narrative of a journey through the Carpathian mountain region, of interest as a pre-First World War account of a part of Central Europe that would soon be radically transformed.
![General Staff Canadian Army and Air Force. [Exercise Eskimo]. Canadian Army and Air Force Winter Warfare Research Programme](https://lycanthiabooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/88250-300x300.jpg)
![Alternative view of General Staff Canadian Army and Air Force. [Exercise Eskimo]. Canadian Army and Air Force Winter Warfare Research Programme](https://lycanthiabooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/88250_2-300x300.jpg)
1944 [-] 1945 Exercise Eskimo "Dry Cold".
Ottawa, Department of National Defence, 1945.
Vol.I & II (only, of 3), 8vo. Original pictorial cloth.
Two volumes of rare military technical reports documenting Exercise Eskimo, a significant joint winter warfare field trial conducted in northern Canada during the final stages of World War II. Involving approximately 1,750 personnel from the Canadian Army and the Royal Canadian Air Force, the exercise was designed to test the impact of sub-Arctic winter conditions on combat efficiency and military equipment across a wide range of operational areas — from clothing, rations, and the army postal service to tanks and heavy machinery. The volumes compile core observations, technical data, prototype equipment evaluations, and formal recommendations for future winter operations, and are illustrated with photographs throughout. One volume includes five large fold-out maps in rear pockets covering the Advance, Withdrawal, Lines of Communication Operations, Air Operations, and Winter Climatic Zones.
Fairy & Folktales
London, Chapman & Hall, '1878' (manually added in ink).
'New Edition'. 8vo. Full green calf, gilt roll borders with cornerpieces to covers, spine elaborate gilt compartments with contrasting leather title label.
Samuel Lover (1797–1868) was an Irish songwriter, composer, novelist, and portrait painter, chiefly in miniatures. He first published Legends and Stories of Ireland in 1832, illustrated by himself, drawing on his knowledge of rural Ireland, its customs and characters. A fine binding.
Detective Fiction
London, Jarrolds, December 1932.
First UK edition, second impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 2/6.
J.H. Wallis (1885–1958) was an American writer who produced a number of mysteries during the 1930s, several of which appeared in UK editions through Jarrolds.
Detective Fiction
London, T.V. Boardman, 1957.
First edition, UK issue. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket, priced 10s6d.
A hardboiled/noir mystery novel issued as part of Boardman's American Bloodhound series (No. 140), which reprinted or published British first editions of American crime fiction throughout the 1950s.
Detective Fiction
London, Hutchinson, [1927].
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
A detective novel by the American collaborative writing team of Alice MacGowan and her sister Grace MacGowan Cooke.
Early Stories from Black Mask. Edited and with an introduction by Joseph T. Shaw
New York, Simon & Schuster, 1946.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket.
A collection of fifteen stories selected from Black Mask magazine by its editor Joseph T. 'Cap' Shaw, widely regarded as the first anthology to attempt to cover the hard-boiled genre, and a landmark in the history of American crime fiction.
Sci-Fi & Fantasy
London, Jonathan Cape, 1967.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original purple boards. Dust-jacket.
A pleasing first UK edition of Pynchon's second novel, simultaneously a satire of 1960s California counter-culture, a meditation on paranoia and information theory, and an unresolved mystery that deliberately withholds its own solution. Hard to find in such good order.
Non-Fiction
London, Constable, 1937.
'New edition'. 8vo. Original cloth.
First published in 1922, Belloc's controversial study argues that the Jews constitute not a minority religion but a separate nation.
Peking & Tientsin, La Librairie Francaise, 1923.
Square 8vo. 4 pages publisher's adverts at rear, 'First Thousand copies' printed to title verso. Original buff wrappers with mounted photograph to upper cover.
A guidebook and photographic record of the Buddhist temple complexes in the hills west of Peking, produced locally in a limited print run for the expatriate and tourist community in China.
War, Invasion & Spy
London, Hutchinson, 1971.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.
Forsyth's first novel, it won the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Novel and was immediately acclaimed as one of the finest thrillers of its generation. Adapted as a major film in 1973 and the inspiration for the TV series starring Eddie Redmayne in 2023.
![Alternative view of [Sammelband].- [Various. Early 20th Century Russian Sammelband]](https://lycanthiabooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/88238_2-300x300.jpg)
various places, , 1903-7.
8vo. Green cloth with leather spine label lettered and bordered in gilt.
A collection of five scarce Russian language pieces, spanning some of the most volatile years of the early twentieth century Russian history, consisting of fiction (the influential German pacifist novel Lay Down Your Arms! featured on title stamp), worker poetry and important political articles. The works address and represent many of the causes and consequences of the 1905 Russian Revolution (The First Russian Revolution), as for instance raised by Vladimir Nabokov in his autobiography, Speak, Memory, including the harsh conditions for workers caused by industrialisation, the poverty experienced by the peasant population, the spread of revolutionary and liberal ideas, and the disastrous Russo-Japanese War.
1. Lay Down Your Arms! by Bertha von Suttner, published by Altshuler, St Petersburg, 1905. Third Russian edition. Von Suttner's classic anti-war novel first published in Germany in 1889 as Die Waffen nieder! Von Suttner was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1905 also, being the second female Nobel Laureate (after Marie Curie).
2. On the All-Russian Workers' Congress, published by Provincial Colleague, Moscow in 1907, and containing a collection of articles from the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party; authored by: Aleksandr Arkhangelsky, Lazar Solomonovich Yezhov, Akhmed Tsalikov.
3. Songs of Working Life by Fedor Postupaev, published by Donskaya Rech, Rostov-on-Don, 1904 (approved by the censor, May 7 1904). A collection of proletarian poetry, describing both agricultural and industrial life. The publisher's offices were frequently raided by the authorities and their books confiscated or burned as they were seen as inciting worker unrest in Tsarist Russia. Postupaev was a self-taught poet who held radical views, including the immediate confiscation of land from exploiters and its fair and equal redistribution.
4. Songs of Labour, published by Donskaya Rech, Rostov-on-Don, 1903 (approved by the censor, December 4, 1903). An anthology containing poems and songs such as 'It is Dawning', and 'Comrade' by Innokenty Omulevsy, Dubinushka by Leonid Trefolev, Ivan Bunin's 'Worker's Songs', Konstantin Blamont's 'The Blacksmith', and 'Song of the Ploughman' by Aleksey Koltsov, as well as translations of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Thomas Hood, and Ferdinand Freiligrath.
5. A Short History of the French People by Paul Lacombe, published by Donskaya Rech, Rostov-on-Don, 1904 (approved by the censor, October 4, 1903). A Russian translation of Lacombe's 1878 French work, significant because Russian revolutionaries regarded the French Revolution as a model for their own movement.
![[De Morgan (John)] He, a companion to She.](https://lycanthiabooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/88237-300x300.jpg)
![Alternative view of [De Morgan (John)] He, a companion to She.](https://lycanthiabooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/88237_2-300x300.jpg)
Victorian Literature
Being a History of the Adventures of J. Theodosiu Aristophano on the Island of Rapa Nui in Search of His Immortal Ancestor
New York, Norman L. Munro, 1887.
Munro's Library, Vol.50, No.721. 8vo. Original pictorial wrappers.
One of two works written anonymously by John De Morgan as parodies to H. Rider Haggard's novel She.
![[Tiphaigne de la Roche (Charles François)] Giphantia:](https://lycanthiabooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/88236-300x300.jpg)
![Alternative view of [Tiphaigne de la Roche (Charles François)] Giphantia:](https://lycanthiabooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/88236_2-300x300.jpg)
Sci-Fi & Fantasy
or a View of What Has Passed, What Is Now Passing, and, During the Present Century, What Will Pass, In the World
London, Robert Horsfield, 1761.
First edition in English. 2 vols. 8vo. Main title printed in red & black, part title with woodcut decoration. Uniformly bound by Glenn Malkin in modern speckled calf with geometric gilt design and blind-tooled roll & cogs decorations to covers, spines with raised bands and gilt rules with contrasting leather title labels. Housed in leather-backed marbled board compartmentalised slipcase.
A scarce imaginary voyage, considered to be one of the earliest works of utopian science fiction. This work is also considered a cornerstone book in any collection of photographic literature, and photography's first fictional work (see Roosens & Salu History of Photography, No. 10421).
Originally published in France in 1760 as Giphantie (an anagram of the author's name), this work is credited with one of the earliest mentions of photography, in Chapter 17: "That window, that vast horizon, those thick clouds, that raging sea, are all but a picture... Thou knowest that the ways of light, reflected from different bodies, make a picture and paint the bodies upon all polished surfaces, on the retina of the eye, for instance, on water, on glass. The elementary spirits have studied to fix these transient images; they have composed a most subtile matter, very viscous, and proper to harden and dry, by the help of which a picture is made in the twinkle of an eye... [the] impression of the images is made the first instant they are received on the canvas, which is immediately carried away into some dark place; an hour after, the subtile matter dries, and you have a picture so much the more valuable, as it cannot be imitated by art nor damaged by time" (pages 95-96).
Glenn Malkin began binding professionally in 2008 and has since won numerous awards for his design bindings in national and international competitions.
American Literature
...with a foreword by Courtney Ryley Cooper
Boston, Little, Brown, 1938.
First edition, first printing. 8vo. Original cloth, gilt. Dust-jacket.
An account of the FBI's pursuit of notorious criminals, likely ghostwritten by Hoover's close associate Courtney Ryley Cooper, who collaborated with Hoover on articles and film screenplays. The book details the rise and fall of figures including Ma Barker, John Dillinger and 'Machine Gun' Kelly.
London, Faber & Faber, 1969.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 15s.
Heaney's second collection of poetry, preceded by his widely acclaimed Death of a Naturalist (1966). The poems graphically depict the author's rural upbringing, from the local forge to the banks of Lough Neagh, concluding with his iconic poem 'Bogland'.
Modern Literature
New York, Thomas Seltzer, 1923.
First edition, first printing. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced $2.00.
Constance Antonina (Nina) Boyle (1865–1943) was a British journalist, campaigner for women's suffrage and women's rights, welfare worker, and novelist, and one of the pioneers of female police officers in Britain. In April 1918, she was the first woman to submit a nomination to stand for election to the House of Commons. Apart from her journalism and campaigning, Boyle wrote mostly adventure or mystery novels featuring strong, capable women characters.
Detective Fiction
London, Geoffrey Bles, 1932.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket.
Golden Age detective novel set in the world of theatre. Andreas (1898–1975) was a prolific German novelist, journalist and screenwriter.
Thriller Fiction
London, Odhams, [1921].
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket.
A thriller set against the backdrop of Revolutionary Russia, a popular subject for British popular fiction of the immediate post-war years. Jepson (1863–1938) was principally a writer of adventure and detective fiction, who also wrote supernatural and fantasy stories; he used the pseudonym R. Edison Page for some short stories and collaborated with John Gawsworth, Arthur Machen and others.
Modern Literature
London, Calder & Boyars, 1966.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.
The author's first novel, examining the strength of a marriage in modern times.
Modern Literature
London, Jonathan Cape, 1958.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original pictorial cloth. Dust-jacket.
A novel dealing with the growing estrangement of a well-to-do married couple and the means by which harmony is restored, lauded by Philip Larkin as the subtlest of all Pym's books. Larkin sparked a resurgence of interest in this author when he named her one of the twentieth century's most underrated authors in a 1977 Times Literary Supplement survey.
Detective Fiction
London, Melrose, 1937.
First UK edition. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
Uncommon edition of this murder-mystery about a string of rubies - the famous 'Blood of Buddha'.
Detective Fiction
London, Arthur Barker, 1953.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.
Spillane's sixth Mike Hammer novel, widely considered one of his most important, not least for its adaptation as Robert Aldrich's 1955 film noir classic of the same name, starring Ralph Meeker.
Sci-Fi & Fantasy
A Space Odyssey
London, Hutchinson, 1968.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.
One of the most culturally significant novels science fiction has produced. The novel was based on the screenplay written by Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick, developed concurrently with Kubrick's landmark 1968 film. Both the American (New American Library) and this British first editions appeared in 1968; the first British printing is considered less common than its American counterpart.
American Literature
London, Cassell, 1947.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 8s6d.
Mary Jane Ward (1905–1981) was an American novelist whose semi-autobiographical The Snake Pit was made into an Oscar-winning film. The novel was based on Ward's involuntary committal to Rockland State Hospital in upstate New York in 1941, and it generated public support for important political reforms in psychiatric institutions and mental health care.
Modern Literature
London, Hurst & Blackett, [1920].
Fifth edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 2/-.
The story of a woman who, while travelling through the Cornish countryside, discovers the journal of a couple who, unable to marry, remained devoted to one another. Gertrude Eliza Page (1872-1922) was an Anglo-Rhodesian novelist, best known for Paddy the Next Best Thing (1908), which was adapted as a British silent film in 1923.
Modern Literature
London, Jonathan Cape, 1970.
First UK edition. 8vo. Original blue boards. Dust-jacket.
A very nice first UK edition of this famous multi-generational story by Colombian writer and Nobel Laureate Gabriel García Márquez, published three years after the South American edition.
Detective Fiction
London, Stanley Paul, [1939].
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket.
The gradual conquest of China by Japan as the foundation of a Pan-Asiatic Empire provides the backdrop for this tale about an eventual Japanese-led invasion of India and extension of dominion through Southern Asia, classified as a future war title by Bleiler (p.80).
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.
(and other incidents)
London, Hutchinson, [1935].
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6. With loosely inserted promotional flyer.
A collection of short stories by the brother of journalist Sir Philip Gibbs and novelist Arthur Hamilton Gibbs, often with a focus on relationships and romance. Excellent jacket artwork by Hawes.
Modern Literature
London, Hurst & Blackett, 1938.
First edition, first impression. Signed presentation copy from the author. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
An uncommon title in the Youngman Carter jacket, especially signed by the author, a writer whose fiction engages with questions of human consciousness and illusion, apparently.