![Len Deighton, [The Harry Palmer quartet], 4 vol., first editions, 1962-66.](https://lycanthiabooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/85928-300x300.jpg)
![Alternative view of Deighton (Len) [The Harry Palmer quartet].](https://lycanthiabooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/85928_2-300x400.jpg)
War, Invasion & Spy
Comprising: The IPCRESS File; Horse Under Water [with original crossword slip]; Funeral in Berlin; Billion-Dollar Brain
London, Hodder & Stoughton; Jonathan Cape, 1962-66.
First editions, first impressions. 4 vol. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jackets, all correctly priced.
An unusually good set of the first quartet of Deighton's "Harry Palmer" novels (although the character is never actually named in the books); increasingly difficult to find as a set and in comparable condition, here with the original crossword slip in the second book as called for. The stories' popularity received an additional bolstering from the three film versions made starring Michael Caine, and have enjoyed ongoing success for fans of spy fiction, not least as a counterpoint to Fleming's James Bond novels.
African literature
Johannesburg, A.P.B. Bookstore, 1947.
First edition. 8vo. Original brown cloth. Dust-jacket.
A solid first edition of this the second book (of three) published in the author's life-time. Bosman is widely regarded as South Africa's greatest short-story writer.
Modern Literature
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
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.'
Modern Literature
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.
Children's Books
London, Gardner, Darton, 1908.
Fifth edition. 8vo. Original yellow/gold pictorial cloth. Pictorial dust-jacket.
Attractive collection of fairy tales, in the highly uncommon dust-jacket.
A Romance of England under the Blitz
London [&c.], Hurst & Blackett, [1942].
First edition. 8vo. Original orange cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 8/6.
Attractive jacket artwork on this war-time first edition.
Modern Literature
London, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1937.
First edition. 8vo. Original orange cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 15s.
Autobiography of the key founder of the Vorticist movement.
Horror & Gothic
Traduction Nouvelle Précèdès de Souvenirs intimes sur la Vie de l'Auteur Par P. Christian
Paris, Lavigne, 1843.
Large 8vo. Original, black ripple-grain cloth, heavily blocked in gilt to the spine, upper and lower covers, with borders to both covers blocked in blind. All edges gilt. Yellow endpapers.
Generally, a nice copy of a handsome edition rare in the original cloth boards and of especial note for the illustrations.
The contents, newly translated by P Christian (and preceded by a 13-page memoir of Hoffmann's life) comprise: (1) 'The Song of Antonia', 'Salvator Rosa', (3) The Adventures of Young Traugott', (4) 'Annunziata', (5) 'The Cooper of Nuremburg', (6) 'Olivier Brusson', (7) 'Pharaoh's Bank', (8) 'The Chain of Destinies', (9) ' Coppelius', (10) 'King Trabacchio', (11) ' Berthold the Mad', (12) 'The Mystery of the Desert House', (13) 'The Walled Door', (14) 'The Agate Heart, (15) 'Fascination', (16) 'The Lost Reflection', (17) 'Heroic Story of Minister Klein-Zacu'
Sulpice Guillaume Chevalier (1804-66), who worked under the pseudonym 'Gavarni', was originally a contributor to la Mode, specialising in fashion drawings. 'His lithographs give an insight into the manners and morals of his time …' Using every technique in a brilliant way, he described the social life of the upper classes, of the stage and in particular the habits of the Parisian of the 1840s and 1850s – Man, Artists Lithographs p. 43.
Sci-Fi & Fantasy
London, Cassell, 1923.
First edition. 8vo. Original brown cloth decorated and lettered in black. Dust-jacket.
Further reflections on utopian models, by the author of War of the Worlds and The Invisible Man.
War, Invasion & Spy
London, Gifford, 1938.
First edition. 8vo. Original brown cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
An uncommon first edition, recounting one British woman's bravery in the face of the Spanish Civil War.
Detective Fiction
London, Herbert Jenkins, 1953.
First edition. 8vo. Original red boards. Dust-jacket, correctly priced 9/6.
A very good first edition of this crime thriller by an author who remains somewhat enigmatic.
Modern Literature
London, Nelson, 1937.
First edition. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
The first edition of this prolific author's second book; she would go on to write across a range of genres, including mystery and supernatural.
Aviation
Solo Along the Arctic Air Route
London, Edinburgh & Glasgow, William Hodge, 1936.
First edition. 8vo. Original blue cloth. Dust-jacket, price-clipped.
An account of the first solo flight from Great Britain to Canada via Greenland.
Detective Fiction
London, Collins, 1922.
First edition. 8vo. Original blue cloth lettered and ruled in red.
Uncommon first edition of this pre Inspector French title.
Detective Fiction
Bellairs (George, pseud. Harold Blundell) Death of a Busybody
London, Thrilling Book Club, 1942.
First book club edition. 8vo. Original orange cloth.
The second Littlejohn title, published the same year as the first edition by John Gifford. Scarce.
War, Invasion & Spy
London, Hutchinson, 1942.
First edition. Signed presentation copy from the author. 8vo. Original black cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 10/6.
A signed & inscribed first edition of Wheatley's wartime espionage classic, set against the background of Vichy France and the occupied territories in 1940.
Detective Fiction
London, The Bodley Head, 1931.
First edition. 8vo. Original sage cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
A distinctive first edition by Australian author Rees.
Detective Fiction
Second Series
London, Bliss, Sands and Foster, 1896.
First edition. 8vo. Publisher's advertisements. Original green pictorial cloth.
The first of prolific writer Meade's literary collaborations, an early example of a medical mystery.
Detective Fiction
the private memoirs of Wayne Armitage
London, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1936.
First UK edition. 8vo. Original green cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7s6d.
A murder mystery set amongst US expats and local characters in a town in France. Frank Sherwin was an English artist known for his paintings and designs for railway destinations around the British Isles.
Detective Fiction
Innes (Michael, pseud. John Innes Mackintosh Stewart) Stop Press
London, Gollancz, 1939.
First edition. 8vo. Original black cloth lettered in red to spine. Dust-jacket.
The fourth in Innes' series featuring John Appleby, Detective Inspector of Scotland Yard. A Golden Age of Detective Fiction classic.
Modern Literature
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.