Children's Books
London, George Newnes, 1945.
First edition. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket.
The third of the 'Naughtiest Girl' series by Enid Blyton, recounting the ongoing adventures & misadventures of Elizabeth Allen & chums at the progressive boarding school Whyteleafe. The series was rebooted in 1999 by British author Anne Digby. Due to the war-time production values the Blyton titles from the series are all tricky to find in good condition.
Children's Books
Edinburgh & London, W. & A.K. Johnston, 1934.
First edition. 8vo. Original sewn pictorial wrappers.
A scarce early Blyton work, featuring alongside the titular teapot a pixie called Dimble Dumble, Mr Tweaky and his Magic Pockets and the Chocolate Cock... the last two mentioned fortunately not connected...
Weird & Supernatural
London &c., Ward, Lock, 1914.
First edition. 8vo. Original blind-tooled green cloth lettered in gilt.
A fresh & bright first edition of this art-theft tale by Irish writer Bodkin, creator of Paul Beck and the bicycling lady detective Dora Myrl. A wonderful Velasquez painting is stolen from a house in County Galway.
Detective Fiction
Boileau (Pierre) and Thomas Narcejac. The Living and the Dead.
Translated by Geoffrey Sainsbury.
London, Hutchinson, 1956.
First UK edition. 8vo. Original red boards. Dust-jacket, priced 12/6 (i.e. second issue, with 10/6 clipped and 12/6 added).
First edition in English of this novel by Boileau & Narcejac, authors credited with creating an authentically French subgenre of crime fiction. Famously the basis for the 1958 Hitchcock film Vertigo, starring James Stewart and Kim Novak.
Children's Books
London, Collins, 1958.
First edition. Signed & dated by the author in the month of publication. 8vo. Original pink cloth. Dust-jacket, correctly priced 8s 6d.
"Things are always happening to me. I'm that sort of bear".
The book that started it all! When the Peruvian bear with a penchant for marmalade sandwiches tootled into everyone's lives in 1958, few could have predicted what a phenomenon Paddington Bear would become, subsequently starring in over twenty books by Michael Bond, as well as numerous TV series and film adaptations. The first book is a known rarity, but exceedingly uncommon signed and dated thus in the year of publication. A cornerstone of 20th century children's literature.
Modern Literature
London, Chapman & Hall, 1927
First edition, second impression. Large 8vo. Tipped-in slip. Plates. Original cloth. Dust-jacket.
Inscribed by the author E.H. Bostock, most famous for the Glasgow Zoo and Circus on New City Road, as well as cinema and variety house interests in Paisley, Hamilton and Wishaw; he opened a cinema in the Zoo and Circus. His animals were internationally famous and appeared in such films as The Rajah's Sacrifice (1916).
The foreword notes: "Mr. Bostock has been called the Barnum of Britain. Judged by the magnitude and multitude of his enterprises, he may well claim the title, for he has been a pioneer of modern entertainment as well as a practitioner of older forms."
Detective Fiction
London, Pawling and Ness Ltd., 1934.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. 1p. advertisements. Original red cloth. Dust-jacket, correctly priced at 3/6.
A rare title in the jacket: "The author served his apprenticeship to fiction in the highly imaginative school of boys' papers, and was for a time associated with the late Edgar Wallace." (jacket blurb)
Sci-Fi & Fantasy
London, Martin Secker, 1964.
First English edition. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket, priced 18s.
First English edition of the basis for 'The Planet of the Apes' franchise.
Sci-Fi & Fantasy
Ballooning Adventures
London, John Ouseley, 1908.
First edition. 8vo. Original green pictorial cloth. Dust-jacket, a little chipped at head of spine.
An early dust-jacket, and an uncommon little book of ballooning adventures.
Modern Literature
London, Faber, 1935.
First UK edition. 8vo. Original blue cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7s6d.
A very good first UK edition of this early novel by one of the 'Lost Generation' writers, a semi-autobiographical künstlerroman set around an artists' commune on the outskirts Paris. Boyle was a prolific writer and poet, and a successful journalist until falling prey to the McCarthy witch hunts.
Sci-Fi & Fantasy
London, Rupert Hart-Davis, 1959.
First UK edition. 8vo. Original blue boards. Dust-jacket, priced 16s.
A collection of science fiction and fantasy tales by Martian chronicler Bradbury, in attractive jacket by his long-time collaborator Mugnaini.
Sci-Fi & Fantasy
London, Rupert Hart-Davis, 1953.
First UK edition. 8vo. Original blue boards. Dust-jacket, priced 10s6d.
A collectable copy of this classic collection of short stories by Martian chronicler Bradbury, in attractive jacket by his long-time collaborator Mugnaini.
Sci-Fi & Fantasy
London, Rupert Hart-Davis, 1951.
First UK edition. 8vo. Original light grey boards. Dust-jacket, priced 12s6d.
More famously known as The Martian Chronicles, but with some varying content from the first US edition.
Sci-Fi & Fantasy
London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1924.
First edition. 8vo. Original red cloth. Dust-jacket, correctly priced 7/6.
A great first edition of this collection of tales by Max Carrados and Kai Lung creator Bramah; includes his sci-fi story 'The War Hawks', a brief sequel to his only sci-fi novel, What Might Have Been: The Story of a Social War (1907). Rare thus.
Sci-Fi & Fantasy
London, Cobden-Sanderson, 1937.
First edition. 8vo. Original blue cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
Contributing to the lost city of Atlantis mythos, this work also includes an extensive Atlantean bibliography.
Detective Fiction
London, G. Bell, 1935.
First UK edition. 8vo. Original red cloth. Dust-jacket, correctly priced 7s6d.
Compelling Bip Pares artwork graces this detective fiction title by American author Dorothea Brady, recounting the experiences of three artists commissioned to portray a wealthy Frenchman's beautiful wife.
Detective Fiction
(A Detective-Inspector McCarthy Yarn). First Edition. Wright & Brown, n.d. [c.1941].
Detective Fiction
Book of the Play by John G. Brandon & Geo. Pickett.
London, Readers Library, August 1928..
First edition, third printing. Small 8vo. Original gilt-tooled cloth. Dust-jacket.
An attractive early printing of the first edition of this neat Readers Library title, published to trade on the success of the play by Brandon & Pickett. The play was subsequently made into a film, in 1929, which saw the Library reissue the work. The striking dust-jacket is by a relatively unknown illustrator, Kenneth Romney Towndrow, who undertook several remarkable jacket commissions around this time. The story is very much in the "Yellow Peril" vein; the film itself sadly not a great success.
Detective Fiction
Book the Play & Film. Illustrated Edition
London, Readers Library, 1930.
Fifth printing. Small 8vo. Original gilt cloth. Dust-jacket.
An attractive early printing of the first edition of this neat Readers Library title, published to coincide with the coeval film version.
Children's Books
London & Edinburgh, Chambers, [1925].
First edition. 8vo. Original pictorial brown cloth.
The first book in Brent-Dyer's famous 'Chalet School' series, which would go on to span 45 years. Originally set in the Austrian Tyrol, the school relocated four times, first to the Channel Islands in 1939, then Herefordshire, Wales and Switzerland. A rare first edition.
Modern Literature
London, Rich & Cowan, 1935.
First UK edition. 8vo. Original orange cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
The first UK edition of journalist & writer Breuer's first novel, the basis for the Cary Grant and Carole Lombard film In Name Only (1939). Uncommon in the jacket.
Detective Fiction
Brock (Lynn) [McAllister (Alister)] The Deductions of Colonel Gore.
First edition, in early (1928) jacket.
London. Collins, 1924
Author’s debut novel and the first to feature Colonel Gore. This and other books in the series are noted for their intricate plots.
Modern Literature
Translated... by Felix W. Crosse.
London, Alfred A. Knopf, 1928.
First edition in English. 8vo. Original green cloth with white title label to spine. Dust-jacket.
The first English language edition of Brod's first major novel. The translation of the title has been criticised by many, as the eponymous protagonist does not achieve redemption on his path to God. Uncommon.
Detective Fiction
First edition.
London. Cape, 1930
Contains two short novels both with murder at their core. Rare in dust-jacket.
Sports & Pastimes
London, Ward, Lock & Co., [1929]..
'New and Revised Edition'. 8vo. Original green cloth blocked in black. Dust-jacket.
Transportative jacket artwork on this vintage guide to car maintenance.
Weird & Supernatural
London, Macdonald, 1947.
First edition. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, correctly priced 8/6.
An intriguing tale by this author of crime fiction, the title taken from a line by Pope, "What beckoning ghost along the moonlight shade Invites my steps and points to yonder glade?".
Detective Fiction
London, Peter Davies, 1960.
First edition. 8vo. Original green boards. Dust-jacket, priced 13s6d.
Ace private detective Carolus Deene is on the case in the village of Gladhurst.
Sci-Fi & Fantasy
London, Harrap, 1937,
First edition. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket.
Brunngraber was a German industrial designer and author. In Radium he speculates about near-contemporary cornering of the radium market causing problems in a hospital using it as a medicine cure cancer.
Rare in jacket. An important sci-fi title.
Modern Literature
London, Cassell, 1932.
First UK edition. 8vo. Original black cloth lettered in red. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
An attractively jacketed edition of this work by US writer Katharine Brush, one of the most popular authors of her time, as well as one of most well-paid. 'Red headed woman! She went to New York; men looked at her, and say "Boy!"' (jacket). The book was adapted for the silver screen the same year, starring Jean Harlow as a woman who uses sex to advance her social position.
Modern Literature
London, Heinemann, 1958.
First edition. 8vo. Original dark blue boards. Dust-jacket, priced 15s.
The second novel in Burgess's Malayan trilogy, set in Dahaga (Malayan for 'thirsty) and following the rise & fall of British expat Victor Crabbe, a microcosm of the waning influence of the British Empire.
Modern Literature
London, Heinemann, 1956.
First edition. Autograph note from the author cut-down and mounted onto front free endpaper. 8vo. Original blue cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 13s6d.
The author's first novel, and the first volume in his Malayan Trilogy: 'The trilogy's design, according to Burgess, was symphonic, and its movements were meant to echo structurally the demarcated "stages" of his protagonist's [Victor Crabbe] "love affair with Malaya, as well as the stages of the [historical] process which brought Malaya from British protection to independence" (Novel 34).' (From a Far Country: History, Myth, and Fiction in Anthony Burgess's The Malayan Trilogy, Anne Ricketson Zahlan).
The note from the author reads, 'To Florence - with gratitude for all she has done for my sister. Anthony Burgess.' The Florence in question could possibly be Burgess's mother-in-law, though it is unclear what she could have done for his sister, who died during the 1918 flu pandemic.
Detective Fiction
London, Constable, 1931.
First edition. 8vo. Original red cloth. Dust-jacket, price-clipped.
Tales of Chinatown and Limehouse: "horrible, ironical, whimsically aloof"
Modern Literature
Burke (Thomas); Nevinson (C.R.W., jacket artist) Limehouse Nights
London, Grant Richards, 1917.
Fourth printing. 8vo. Original brown cloth. Later issue dust-jacket (c.1921), price-clipped.
An early printing of Burke's famous tales of London's then Chinatown at the early part of the 20th century, in a slightly later but scarce dust-jacket. The work garnered both opprobrium and praise upon its publication in 1916, with some feeling it painted a morally damaging picture of Chinese immigrants cohabiting with white women, in part worsened by the developing trend for so-called "Yellow Peril" fiction by mostly US authors. Jacket artwork by the artist C.R.W. Nevinson, who became famous as a war artist.
London, Ward Lock, 1935.
First edition. 8vo. Original orange cloth. Dust-jacket, with code '617' to spine.
A surprisingly uncommon crime fiction title, one of only four titles by this author recorded in the British Library.
Sci-Fi & Fantasy
London, Methuen, 1939. First UK edition. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, cheaper issue jacket correctly priced 4s.6d. A scarce edition of this the third title in Burroughs' 'Pellucidar' series, set in a hollow earth environment. Wonderful jacket artwork.