Modern Literature
London, Robert Hale, 1975.
First edition, first impression. Signed presentation copy from the author. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.
Timperley (1920–1988) published 66 novels in 33 years, most with Hale, but is best remembered for her ghost stories, with "Harry" filmed several times; she also wrote an advice column as Jane Blythe. Signed presentation copy. Jacket by Biro.
Modern Literature
London, Robert Hale, 1965.
First edition, first impression. Signed presentation copy from the author. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.
A novel by Rosemary Timperley (1920–1988), who published 66 novels in 33 years, most with Hale, but is best remembered for her ghost stories, which appear in many anthologies; her story "Harry" has been filmed several times.
Detective Fiction
London, Robert Hale, 1968.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.
Melissa Aubrey, emotionally fragile and bound for Europe by sea, is given a small book to deliver to an export company in Palma by a mysterious stranger, and is drawn into foreign espionage. A non-series novel by Dorothy Gilman (1923–2012), creator of the Mrs Pollifax spy series (from 1966; filmed 1970) and an MWA Grand Master (2010). First published by Doubleday in 1967. Jacket by Colin Andrews.
Detective Fiction
London, Robert Hale, 1969.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.
When a Cadillac crashes through the barrier of a new highway, a gunman on the run, a sullen teenager, a jaded working girl, a guilt-stricken widower and a mistress seeking a fresh start are caught in the pile-up that follows. First published in the mid-1950s. MacDonald (1916–1986), creator of Travis McGee, was an Edgar Grand Master. Jacket by Barbara Walton, a prolific 1950s–60s jacket designer.
Detective Fiction
London, Robert Hale, 1976.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Dust-jacket.
Modern Literature
London, Robert Hale, 1984.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.
A historical novel set on Dartmoor and in the Victorian provincial theatre. According to the jacket, Charlotte Wells, who after a hard and lonely childhood on Dartmoor is living an indulged social life with her wealthy aunt and uncle in Exeter, returns briefly to the Moor to visit her troubled stepmother, Leah. At Crick Farm she meets Eddie, the companion of her childhood, but rejects him for a more aristocratic suitor; then, once engaged, she runs off with a gypsy dancer to seek a career on the stage. Among "the tawdry glitter and near-poverty of provincial Victorian theatres" she finds passion, cruelty and hardship, along with "the heady lure of fame".
Modern Literature
London, Robert Hale, 1967.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.
The author's second novel, set in New Zealand. Holden would become most famous for her 1971 novel, The Witnesses. In Val Biro jacket.
Non-Fiction
Warrior Queen of the Britons
London, Robert Hale, 1937.
First edition, first impression. Signed by the author. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket.
Spence was one of the great productive eccentrics of Scottish letters: journalist, poet, pioneering (if increasingly speculative) mythographer of Mexico and the Celts, author of a shelf of Atlantis volumes, and a founding father of political Scottish nationalism. The jacket is by Arthur Barbosa, decades before his celebrated Flashman and Patrick O'Brian wrappers made him the presiding artist of British historical mischief.
Detective Fiction
London, Robert Hale, 1968.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket.
No relation to the mouse people, though one suspects she tired of saying so. Doris Miles Disney was a prolific American suspense writer, with some 47 novels under her belt, several filmed for television, who specialised in quiet domestic menace. This is the UK retitling of Night of Clear Choice (Doubleday, 1967).
Disney is a modestly collected author, and the Hale UK editions turn up less often than the American firsts, scarcity of the accidental rather than the celebrated sort, which is often where the sensible collecting is.
Detective Fiction
London, Robert Hale, 1960.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket.
Father Joseph Bredder, a Franciscan priest in Los Angeles - formerly a professional boxer and decorated Marine - investigates.
Detective Fiction
London, Robert Hale, 1964.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket, priced 10/6.
A popular US author, writing twenty-two crime novels between 1942 and 1962, today best known for her thirteen-novel Gridley Nelson police detective series, about an empathetic Princeton-educated, private-income-blessed, prematurely white-haired New York City cop.
Thriller Fiction
Chase (James Hadley, pseud. René Lodge Brabazon Raymond) Believe this… You’ll Believe Anything
London, Robert Hale, 1975.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.
Thriller Fiction
London, Robert Hale, 1955.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket.
London, Robert Hale, 1973.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.
London, Robert Hale, 1956.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.
London, Robert Hale, 1977.
First hardback edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.
Detective Fiction
London, Robert Hale, 1959.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket, priced 10/6.
Attractive hardback edition of this crime thriller.
Detective Fiction
London, Robert Hale, 1960.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket, priced 10/6.
One of the scarcer Rutledge titles, potentially one of two titles published only in the UK.
Detective Fiction
London, Robert Hale, 1972.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket, price-clipped.
"There were overtones of witchcraft at work when the body of Mrs. Lovibond, a vicious-tongued cleaning woman, was discovered at the bottom of the Guy Fawkes bonfire in a Sussex village." (jacket blurb)
Detective Fiction
London, Robert Hale, 1970.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket, priced 21/-.
This UK hardcover collects two novellas, Border Town Girl and Linda, originally published as paperback originals in 1956. The stories combine rustic Florida settings with MacDonald's signature social undercurrents.
Detective Fiction
London, Robert Hale, 1977.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.
An Inspector Lovick title.
London, Robert Hale, 1937.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
One of a handful of thrillers by Edwards published before the Second World War, with the uncommon Youngman Carter jacket.
London, Robert Hale, 1937.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
One of a handful of thrillers by Edwards published before the Second World War, with the uncommon Youngman Carter jacket.
Detective Fiction
Chase (James Hadley, pseud. René Lodge Brabazon Raymond) Cade
London, Robert Hale, 1966.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.
London, Robert Hale, 1963.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.
London, Robert Hale, 1965.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.
London, Robert Hale, 1959.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.
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
London, Robert Hale, 1974.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.
Detective Fiction
London, Robert Hale, 1979.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.
Detective Fiction
London, Robert Hale, 1968.
First edition, first impression. Presentation copy from the author. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.
Detective Fiction
London, Robert Hale, 1972.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.
Detective Fiction
London, Robert Hale, 1978.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.
Detective Fiction
London, Robert Hale, 1974.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.
Detective Fiction
London, Robert Hale, 1973.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket, priced £1.70.
The thirteenth McGee title sends the detective to Costa Rica coastlines, investigating contraband and political upheaval under a deceptively soft, tropical-sounding title.
Detective Fiction
London, Robert Hale, 1977.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.
Detective Fiction
London, Robert Hale, 1970.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.
Detective Fiction
London, Robert Hale, 1976.
First edition, first impression. Signed presentation copy from the author. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.
Detective Fiction
London, Robert Hale, 1956.
First edition. 8vo. Original red cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 10/6.
Lawrence's historical novel is a fictionalised biography of the Egyptian pharaoh-queen Hatshepsut. The author compares Hatshepsut to Elizabeth I.
Detective Fiction
London, Robert Hale, 1959.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket, priced 10/6.
An attractive crime fiction title by the authors of the Encyclopedia of Superstitions.
Detective Fiction
London, Robert Hale, 1958.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original black boards. Dust-jacket, priced 10/6.
Great jacket artwork on this crime fiction title by the authors of the Encyclopedia of Superstitions.
Detective Fiction
London, Robert Hale, 1974.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.