Detective Fiction
London, Newnes, n.d..
'Newnes' Sixpenny Copyright Novels' edition. 8vo. Original pictorial wrappers.
An uncommon wrappered edition of Doyle's Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.
Detective Fiction
London, Newnes, n.d..
'Newnes' Sixpenny Copyright Novels' edition. 8vo. Original pictorial wrappers.
An uncommon wrappered edition of Doyle's Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
Detective Fiction
London, Newnes, n.d. [c.1903].
8vo. Original pictorial wrappers, stapled internally.
Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson investigate a missing treasure, a secret pact from colonial India, a one-legged man, and a mysterious islander. An attractive and uncommon wrappered edition.
Children's Books
London, Jonathan Cape, 1982.
First edition, first impression. Signed by the illustrator on the title-page. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket, priced £6.50.
A very good first edition of one of Dahl's best-loved novels; a central title in late 20th-century children's literature. This copy further enhanced by being signed by the illustrator, Sir Quentin Blake.
Sci-Fi & Fantasy
London, Readers Library, September 1927.
First UK edition, fourth impression. Small 8vo. Original gilt tooled cloth. Dust-jacket, with the title mentioned on rear inside flap of the jacket.
The book of the famous silent film that is held by many to be one of the defining moments in cinematic history, not least as the first feature length science fiction feature. The film was directed by Fritz Lang, who developed the story with Thea von Harbou. Set in a futuristic city sharply divided between the working class and the city planners, the son of the city's mastermind falls in love with a working class prophet who predicts the coming of a saviour to settle their differences. This fourth printing was issued within a few months of the first, indicating the demand.
Non-Fiction
Being the Book of the Federation of Progressive Societies and Individuals
London, George Allen & Unwin, 1934.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7s6d.
Essays articulating the aims of interwar progressive movements: pacifism, rationalism, sexual reform, socialism and internationalist co-operation. Contributors include Olaf Stapledon, Francis Meynell and H.G. Wells.
to Portarlington and Geelong
Melbourne, Howard Smith Co. Ltd, n.d..
Landscape 4to. Original decorative wrappers with inset colour illustration to the upper cover.
Company-issued promotional booklet advertising excursion routes on the S.S. Edina, known throughout Australia as "The Old Lady of Port Phillip", with scenic photography and route details for Port Phillip Bay and Geelong.
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.
London, Macmillan, 1942.
First Macmillan edition. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 10s6d.
A collection of Churchill's political articles and speeches tracing European affairs in the lead-up to the Second World War, documenting his repeated warnings about German rearmament and appeasement.
Sci-Fi & Fantasy
London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1960.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, price-clipped.
A near-future SF thriller involving suspended animation, space travel and the ethics of scientific experimentation.
Detective Fiction
London, The Modern Publishing Company, n.d..
8vo. Advertisement endpapers. Original red cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 2/-.
"An intensely exciting detective story." (jacket blurb)
Detective Fiction
London, The Modern Publishing Company, n.d..
8vo. Advertisement endpapers. Original red cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 2/-.
"An intensely exciting detective story." (jacket blurb)
Fairy & Folktales
and other tales
Edinburgh, for William Blackwood and John Murray, 1818.
First edition. 2 vols. 8vo. Half-titles. 20th century full green calf with elaborate gilt and blind-tooling including radiating gilt foliate designs to covers, spines with onlaid leather title labels.
A historical novel from the pen of "The Ettrick Shepherd," set during the Covenanter unrest in 17th-century Scotland, interwoven with folklore involving a house "brownie" spirit.
Weird & Supernatural
seven stories and a play London, Chatto & Windus, 1935.First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original blue cloth lettered in silver. Dust-jacket.A collection of supernatural and eerie tales. Blends historical and Gothic elements, showing Irwin's talent for uncanny atmosphere.
War, Invasion & Spy
London, Routledge, [1938].
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 10s 6d with small stamp above price 'Overseas Edition'.
A semi-autobiographical novel about Polish–Soviet border smugglers in the interwar period, depicting violence, camaraderie and outlaw culture along the Eastern frontier. The work attracted some controversy in later years as some of the details were proven either embellished or fabricated, made more complicated still by the author's potential involvement in espionage.
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.
Detective Fiction
London, Frederick Muller, 1937.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
A mid-1930s social comedy-drama.
African literature
(Nongquase the Liberator)
[Eastern Cape], Lovedale Press, [1955].
First edition. 8vo. Original blue wrappers printed in black.
The scarce first edition of this play by one of the founding fathers of South African literature, Herbert Isaac Ernest Dhlomo, taking as its subject the prophet Nongquase who triggered the devastating Xhosa cattle-killing movement and famine (1854–1858). The Lovedale Press was born from a mission created in the 19th century just north of Alice in the Eastern Cape; it primarily produced religious publications but did also champion black writers and political thinkers, including among its alumni journalist Daisy Makiwane, poet Isaac Williams Wauchope, musician & composer John Knox Bokwe, and anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko.
![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.
Weird & Supernatural
and other stories New York, Doubleday & Company, 1970.First US edition, first printing. Inscribed presentation copy from the author to Richard [Dalby], with accompanying typed letter to the same signed by the author. 8vo. Original cloth-backed boards. Dust-jacket, priced $3.95.A collection of short stories displaying Aiken's characteristic blend of historical imagination, folklore tone, and quiet strangeness... An attractive association copy, having been sent by the author to the editor and literary researcher Richard Dalby, famous for his anthologies of ghost stories. Richard Dalby was a known collector and editor who had a significant professional relationship with Aiken, who frequently inscribed and signed her books for him. Aiken's story 'The Traitor' appeared in Dalby's 1992 anthology Modern Ghost Stories, and this letter would suggest that they were considering further stories by her to similarly anthologise.
Weird & Supernatural
Saxon (Peter, pseud. W. Howard Baker) The Vampires of Finistere
London, Howard Baker, 1970.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket, priced 21/-.
A horror/occult novel involving a sinister cult and vampirism set on the remote coast of Brittany; part of the broader late-60s/early-70s British pulp-horror wave. "Peter Saxon" was a house pseudonym used by various writers for Remploy/Howard Baker imprints, most often by W. Howard Baker himself, to whom this book is most often attributed.
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.
Non-Fiction
London, OUP, 1925.
First edition, first impression. Signed presentation copy (inscribed in vol.I). 2 vol. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jackets.
An ethnographical account of the Northern provinces of Nigeria together with a report on the 1921 decennial census.
Fairy & Folktales
London, Lindsay Drummond, 1949.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 12/6.
A collection of the stories told by the Arab Tribes of the Lower Euphrates.
War, Invasion & Spy
A Prophetic Novel
London, Grayson & Grayson, 1934.
First edition. 8vo. Original black cloth lettered in red.
A prophetic novel indeed, anticipating Churchill's anxiety at the potential readiness of Germany to have at its disposal long-range, high-speed bomber planes. The work was inspired by Stanley Baldwin's 1932 speech to the House of Commons in which he described the threat aerial bombing represented, and suggested that preemptive offence would be the only defence in such circumstances.
African literature
Homecoming of a Negro from Eton
London, Satellite Books, 1978.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket, priced £3.50.
Autobiographical account of Onyeama's return to Nigeria after his schooling at Eton, reflecting on race, cultural identity and the psychological legacy of institutional racism. A key work in Black British/West African postcolonial life-writing, now widely recognised as historically important testimony.
edited with introduction and notes by H.A. Rose
London, OUP, 1927.
First edition thus, first impression. 8vo. Original blue cloth lettered and ruled in gilt. Dust-jacket, priced 18/-.
A study of Sufi orders and ceremonial practice in the Ottoman Empire, originally compiled by Brown (a U.S. diplomat in Istanbul) in the mid-19th century and reissued here with scholarly additions by H.A. Rose.
Detective Fiction
London, Collins Crime Club, 1937.
First edition, first printing. 8vo. Original orange cloth.
A solid first edition of this classic Hercule Poirot title, a difficult book to find in good order.
Detective Fiction
London, Collins Crime Club, 1940.
First edition. 8vo. Original orange cloth.
Decent first edition of this tale of a tangled web of love, jealousy, and murder, seeing Hercule Poirot investigate the death of a young woman accused of poisoning her rival.
Detective Fiction
London, Collins Crime Club, 1952.
First UK edition. 8vo. Original orange cloth. Dust-jacket, price-clipped.
A decent first UK edition of this famous village 'whodunit', playfully placing Poirot in the scene rather than Miss Marple.
Detective Fiction
London, Collins Crime Club, 1931.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth.
One of Christie's early non-Poirot, non-Marple mysteries, valued for its atmospheric Dartmoor setting and tightly engineered plotting.
Detective Fiction
and other stories
London, Collins Crime Club, 1936.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth.
The first Christie short-story collection published by the Crime Club; important as it showcases her interest in psychological and speculative motifs outside the conventional puzzle-plot.
Detective Fiction
London, Robert Hale, 1951.
First edition, first impression. Signed presentation copy from the author. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket, priced 10/6.
A monastery-set murder mystery in which Boscobell investigates a suspicious death among a religious order. Uncommon signed.
Detective Fiction
New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1933.
First edition, first printing. 8vo. Original decorative cloth. Dust-jacket.
A locked-room/maritime murder mystery aboard an Atlantic liner, notable for the presence of multiple psychologists (satirising the era's fascination with psychoanalysis perhaps, though the work is written by a psychologist) attempting to solve the crime. The second book in King's "Obelist" trilogy.
Detective Fiction
London, Jarrolds, [1944].
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, price-clipped.
A mid-century "psychological house" novel, adjacent to the tradition of domestic supernatural fiction; not widely known today but of interest to collectors of mid-20th-century women's suspense writing.
Detective Fiction
London, Hamish Hamilton, 1963.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket, priced 12s6d.
Inspector Maigret investigates the murder of a petty thief whose apparent laziness conceals long-habitual criminal caution. A nice edition for collectors, enhanced by the Youngman Carter (husband of Margery Allingham) jacket.