Weird & Supernatural
London, Heinemann, 1906.
First UK edition, second impression. 8vo. Original pictorial yellow cloth.
A solid first edition, second impression, of this tale of the supernatural by Mapp and Lucia creator E.F. Benson.
Weird & Supernatural
London, Isbister, 1904.
First edition, fourth printing. Title printed in red & black. 8vo. Original dark blue cloth blocked in white to upper cover and lettered in gilt to spine.
An early printing of this famous collection of supernatural tales, recounted from the perspective of an old Roman Catholic priest.
Detective Fiction
London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1936. First edition. 8vo. Original black cloth with yellow spine label. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6. The second of two Buchanesque thrillers by Cannan, right down to the style of the jacket artwork. The author was well known for her detective fiction and children's stories.
Detective Fiction
London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1935. First edition. 8vo. Original black cloth with yellow spine label. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6. The first of two Buchanesque thrillers by Cannan, right down to the style of the jacket artwork. The author was well known for her detective fiction and children's stories.
Detective Fiction
London, Collins Crime Club, 1945.
First edition, third impression. 8vo. Original orange cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 4s6
Mrs Warrander uncovers the truth behind a murder during an undergraduates' dance.
Modern Literature
Dawe (W. Carlton); [Beardsley (Aubrey, illustrator)] Yellow and White
London & Boston, John Lane; Roberts Bros, 1895.
First edition. 8vo. Original pale green cloth decorated in gilt.
One of the famous Keynotes series published by Lane, featuring designs presumed to be by Aubrey Beardsley. Tales of the pursuit of interracial marriage by white civil servants and the barriers they faced, and similar, by an Australian author. Uncommon.
Detective Fiction
London, The Literary Press, [c.1930].
First edition thus. 8vo. Original green cloth lettered in gilt. Dust-jacket, correctly priced 2/-.
An early edition of this well-known Hollywood murder mystery, made into a 1929 film with Chester Conklin.
Modern Literature
London, Herbert Jenkins, 1938.
First edition. 8vo. Original orange cloth, lettered in black. Dust-jacket, priced 3/6.
Excellent atmospheric jacket artwork and a scarce dust-jacket. A tale of blackmail & murder, from the grandfather of Fay Weldon.
Horror & Gothic
London, Nimmo, n.d. [1940s].
Popular reprint edition. 8vo. Original blue cloth. Dust-jacket.
An attractive and collectable edition of King's classic of modern horror, memorably transferred to the big screen in 1933 starring Boris Karloff.
Detective Fiction
London, Sheed & Ward, 1946.
First edition. 8vo. Original grey boards. Dust-jacket, priced 10s 6d.
A religious reflection on the Old Testament, from priest & crime writer Knox, who previously attempted to codify the detective fiction genre through his own ten commandments, Knox's 'Ten Rules for Detective Fiction'. Knox was also the subject of Evelyn Waugh's The Life of Ronald Knox (1959).
Detective Fiction
Macdonald (John Ross, pseud. Kenneth Millar) The Drowning Pool
New York, Knopf, 1950.
First edition (stated on copyright page). 8vo. Original green patterned cloth. Dust-jacket, correctly priced $2.50
The first edition of John Ross Macdonald's second Lew Archer title, preceding the UK edition by two years; subsequently the inspiration for the 1975 Paul Newman film of the same name.
Detective Fiction
London, Collins Crime Club, 1939. First edition. 8vo. Original orange cloth lettered in black. Dust-jacket, without price (Colonial issue?) A Haycraft Queen Cornerstone, and a scarce first edition in the original jacket. This is the eighth novel to feature Roderick Alleyn, and the third novel in which Alleyn's love interest, the painter Agatha Troy features, hastening the imminent departure of Nigel Bathgate (Alleyn's "Watson").
Detective Fiction
London, Michael Joseph, 1954.
First edition. 8vo. Original black boards. Dust-jacket, priced 10s6d.
The 27th title in Mitchell's long-running series featuring the psychoanalyst and amateur sleuth Mrs Bradley.
Detective Fiction
London, Michael Joseph, 1977.
First edition. 8vo. Original burgundy boards. Dust-jacket, priced £3.75.
A nice copy of this later Mrs Bradley title by "The Great Gladys".
Detective Fiction
New York, Appleton-Century, 1932.
First edition. 8vo. Original yellow pictorial cloth. Dust-jacket, priced $2.00.
One of the few Mundy titles to be serialised after publication in book-form. A Criminal Investigation Division of India caper, featuring Chullunder Ghose, and a Thuggee sect.
Talbot Mundy was an English writer of adventure fiction. Based for most of his life in the United States, he also wrote under the pseudonym of Walter Galt. Best known as the author of King of the Khyber Rifles and the 'Jimgrim' series, much of his work was published in pulp magazines.
Weird & Supernatural
New York, Appleton-Century, 1935.
First edition. 8vo. Original yellow pictorial cloth. Dust-jacket.
"Perhaps the most intensely mythic and symbolic of all Mundy's work." (Taves, Philosophy Into Popular Fiction: Talbot Mundy and The Theosophical Society)
Talbot Mundy was an English writer of adventure fiction. Based for most of his life in the United States, he also wrote under the pseudonym of Walter Galt. Best known as the author of King of the Khyber Rifles and the 'Jimgrim' series, much of his work was published in pulp magazines.
Modern Literature
London, Hutchinson, [1925].
First edition. 8vo. Original light purple cloth blocked in black. Dust-jacket, priced 7s6d.
Some of this Devonshire author's best short stories, distinctly scarce in the original dust-jacket.
Sci-Fi & Fantasy
New York, Frederick A. Stokes, February, 1910.
Second edition. 8vo. Original red pictorial cloth.
The second edition of this weird sci-fi tale of Egyptologists and suspended animation, published within one month of the first edition. Scarce.
Weird & Supernatural
And other Dartmoor Legends
London & Exeter, Andrew Melrose; James G. Commin, [1901].
First edition. 8vo. Original pictorial cloth.
An intriguing collection of atmospheric folk tales from Devon; titles include 'The Vengeance of Belus', 'The Bards of the Wood of Wistman', 'The Nymph Tamara' and 'The Pixies of Ockington Wood'.
Horror & Gothic
London, Cassell, 1936.
First UK edition. 8vo. Original black cloth with red spine label. Dust-jacket, correctly priced 7/6.
A rare Sax Rohmer edition, in which an ancient Egyptian secret intriguingly like atomic power is unleashed. Distinctly hard to find in the original dust-jacket.
Detective Fiction
London, Stanley Paul, 1953.
First edition. 8vo. Original green boards. Dust-jacket, price-clipped with price sticker of 6/-.
An uncommon first edition thriller by an enigmatic author.
Modern Literature
London, Faber & Faber, 1955.
First edition. 8vo. Original brown cloth, spine gilt. Dust-jacket, priced 12s6.
A departure from the Nigerian author's previously preferred first person narrative, Tutuola's Simbi and the Satyr of the Dark Jungle was his third book, an imaginative tale with a theme of slavery that runs through it. The main gift inscription here is interesting, written by one 'David', asking "Does this represent the beginning of a West African literature?".
Modern Literature
and his dead Palm-Wine Tapster in the Deads' Town
London, Faber & Faber, 1952.
First edition. 8vo. Original orange cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 10s6d.
"This astonishing story…was written in English by a West African, and is in part the product of African folk-lore, stimulated by European inventions." (jacket).
A very good copy of this debut novel by Nigerian author Amos Tutuola, the first African novel published in English outside of Africa, praised by Dylan Thomas as "brief, thronged, grisly and bewitching". Tutuola's works, often drawing upon Yoruba traditions & folklore, were well received in the UK & US (far more than they were originally in his home country), drawing international acclaim and helping open up African writing to a wider audience.
Given the recent prices achieved by this and other similar works by African authors at auction it seems probable that we are experiencing something of a, possibly overdue, reappraisal & resurgence of interest in these writers.
The jacket is designed by the well-known artist & illustrator Barnett Freedman.