African literature
A backvelder's scrap-book
London, Witherby, 1937.
First edition. 8vo. Original orange cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
A collection of tales relating to the Transvaal Bushveld, as recounted through the prism of fictional narrator Tante Rebella. Scarce in dust-jacket.
Modern Literature
London, Methuen, 1936.
First edition. 8vo. Original green cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
A very good copy of this first edition by the author more well-known for public school stories for boys.
Detective Fiction
London, Gerald Swan, [1943].
First UK edition, published for the 'Ace American Thrillers' series. 8vo. Original blue cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 5/-.
An uncommon first UK edition, originally published in the US in 1940. The second of three well-regarded murder mysteries by Dean, set amongst the world of antique dealing.
Detective Fiction
London, Collins Crime Club, 1942.
First UK edition. 8vo. Original red cloth. Dust-jacket, neatly price-clipped.
A compelling murder mystery set amongst the old sugar plantations of Louisiana. Uncommon.
Detective Fiction
Philadelphia & New York, Lippincott, [1942].
First edition. 8vo. Original blue cloth. Dust-jacket, priced $2.00.
An enigmatic woman, a hat like a pumpkin, and a murdered wife - things aren't looking good for Scott Henderson in this gripping mystery thriller by Woolrich writing as William Irish.
Detective Fiction
London, Eldon, [1951].
First UK edition. 8vo. Original blue cloth. Dust-jacket, neatly price-clipped.
Excellent jacket artwork graces this Anthony Adams crime thriller by American writer Pratt, originally published in the States under the author's pseudonym Timothy Brace.
Detective Fiction
A Mystery Story
London, Geoffrey Bles, 1930.
First edition. 8vo. Original orange cloth. Dust-jacket, price neatly excised from spine.
The jacket's menacing photographic artwork enhances this early Dr Priestley title. An uncommon book in the original jacket.
Detective Fiction
A Novel
London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1931.
First edition. 8vo. Original blue cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
Considered one of Oppenheim's best works, opening with a fantastic description of the boring life of Mr Peter Cradd,and the transformation he undergoes when he inherits a fortune. A useful insight into middle class life in England in the thirties, and the dreams of downtrodden... A nice Bip Pares jacket to boot.
Detective Fiction
London, Eldon, [1951].
First UK edition. 8vo. Original red cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 5/-.
Excellent jacket artwork graces this Anthony Adams crime thriller by American writer Pratt, a.k.a. Timothy Brace.
Detective Fiction
Sydney, Australia, Angus & Robertson, 1937.
First edition. 8vo. Original orange cloth.
A scarce first edition by the Australian writer Upfield, set in a farming community in western Australia, featuring Detective Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte (Bony) of the Queensland Police Force.
Detective Fiction
London, Fisher Unwin, 1927.
First edition. 8vo. Original green cloth blocked in black. Dust-jacket, priced 7s6d.
An important work by Thrilling Stories of the Railway author Canon Whitechurch, more famous perhaps for its insight into the author's working method as outlined in his preface. An uncommonly good example.
Weird & Supernatural
A Weird Legend
London, W.J. Sinkins, 1893.
First edition. Inscribed by C.H. Ross. 8vo. Floral endpapers. Original green cloth stamped in red.
A very good example of this rare first edition, a weird, Hugoesque tale about a wild child called Terra who is unleashed from the bowels of the earth to wreak havoc on the fortunes of Lord Netherdale and his family with her wicked & wanton ways. Inspired by the story of Mademoiselle Leblanc, the mysterious savage of Soigny, near Chalons, who died in Paris in 1780, it is probable that this work is also leveraging the pervading fin-de-siècle anxiety about the emerging 'new woman'.
This copy is inscribed by one of the authors, C.H. Ross, on the half-title, 'Miss Emily Burgess, with Charles Ross's kind regards, Feb 19th 1905.'
Detective Fiction
Irish (William, pseud. Cornell Woolrich) Somebody on the Phone
Philadelphia & New York, Lippincott, 1950.
First edition. 8vo. Original teal cloth. Dust-jacket, priced $2.50.
A collection of six stories by Woolrich under his well-known pseudonym 'William Irish'. The title story was the basis for the 1952 film Don't Ever Open That Door.
Detective Fiction
London, Collins, 1923.
First edition. 8vo. Original dark blue cloth blocked in orange. Dust-jacket, priced 3/6 (later issue).
The first edition of the author's first novel, in an early issue jacket (1930s), introducing Superintendent Henry Wilson. Haycraft-Queen Cornerstone.
Detective Fiction
London, Gollancz, 1939.
First edition. 8vo. Original black cloth lettered in red. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
Joshua Clunk makes his full-length novel debut in this work, having appeared previously in short stories only. The work also features a cameo by Bailey's other recurring character, Reggie Fortune.
Weird & Supernatural
London, Richards Press, 1927.
First edition. 8vo. Original red cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
An attractive first edition of this later novel by the 'original' King of Redonda, here in the decidedly uncommon, and rather appealing dust-jacket. "Matthew P. Shiel (I believe he was Irish) wrote a few novels I thought highly worth reading. At the moment I can call to mind only two titles which I've read: Children of the Wind and How the Old Woman Got Home." (Paul Bowles, author of The Sheltering Sky).
Detective Fiction
New York, Farrar & Rinehart, 1940.
First edition. 8vo. Original red cloth. Dust-jacket, price-clipped.
An excellent first edition of this the second work by Daly, an often under-appreciated author these days; her serial character Henry Gamadge is a bibliophile and expert on rare books & manuscripts, no less!
Detective Fiction
London, Harrap, 1929.
First edition. 8vo. Original red boards. Dust-jacket.
The first crime fiction work by this prolific author, published as part of Harrap's 'Sealed Mysteries' series. Each member of a small party at a cabaret on the night a murder is committed is suspected and then eliminated through evidence.
Modern Literature
London, Cassell, 1935.
First edition. 8vo. Original black cloth lettered in gilt. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
A very pleasing first edition of this classic Vachell title.
![Alternative view of Ripley [(LeRoy Robert)] The Omnibus Believe it or Not!](https://lycanthiabooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/84912_2-300x400.jpg)
Weird & Supernatural
London, Stanley Paul, 1934.
First UK edition. 8vo. Original orange cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 2/6.
A compilation of amazing facts, objects and places as recorded by the then phenomenally prolific Ripley.
London, Geoffrey Bles, 1932.
First edition. 8vo. Original red cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
"...the case of a country clergyman who happens to be a homicidal maniac..." (jacket blurb). The first crime thriller by Vulliamy, writing as Anthony Rolls.
London, Hogarth Press, 1934.
First edition. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, 7s6d.
The first edition of Van der Post's first novel, published under the aegis of Leonard & Virginia Woolf's Hogarth Press. The work was considered significant at the time due to its perspective on race relations in South Africa. An attractively jacketed first edition.
London, Gollancz, 1940.
First edition. 8vo. Original blue cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
The first edition of the fifth novel to feature John Appleby, a young Detective Inspector in the Metropolitan Police, straddling detective and spy fiction admirably.
![Alternative view of Fairlie (Gerard) and 'Sapper' [pseud. H.C. McNeile]. Bulldog Drummond on Dartmoor](https://lycanthiabooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/84903_2-300x400.jpg)
War, Invasion & Spy
Fairlie (Gerard) and ‘Sapper’ [pseud. H.C. McNeile]. Bulldog Drummond on Dartmoor
London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1938.
First edition. 8vo. Original blue cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
An important work in the Bulldog Drummond canon, marking the transition from 'Sapper' to Fairlie. The two had worked on the story together, but McNeile died before it was finished, leaving Fairlie to take on the mantle.
Detective Fiction
London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1941.
First edition. 8vo. Original blue cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 8/3.
Inspector French investigates a poisoning in this uncommon first edition. The handwritten note to the jacket spine refers to the American edition.
Detective Fiction
New York, Wilfred Funk, 1940.
First edition. 8vo. Original green cloth. Dust-jacket, priced $2.00.
The last of seven crime thrillers by psychologist C. Daly King; this time the protagonist Walter Lord is all at sea, in several senses, as he tries to resolve a double murder, kidnap and matters of the heart simultaneously, bewildering even his stalwart companion Dr L. Rees Pons.
Detective Fiction
New York, Harrison Smith & Robert Haas, 1935.
First edition. 8vo. Original green cloth. Dust-jacket, priced $2.00.
Aeronautical crime-thriller featuring King's series character Michael Lord, investigating murder aboard a transcontinental flight. An intricate plot combined with "locked room" element, the mystery was praised by The New York Times as "a very thrilling story." Very much in the S.S. Dine vein, and one of only seven genre titles recorded by this author.
Weird & Supernatural
London, The Houghton Publishing Co., 1933.
First edition. Initialled presentation copy from the author. 8vo. Original blue cloth stamped in gilt. Dust-jacket, priced 5/-.
A known scarcity, especially in the extremely rare jacket and, as in this case, initialled & inscribed by the author. A great little collection of weird & supernatural tales by paranormal investigator Maby: "A rare work of uneven quality, dedicated to the unlikely combination of M.R. James and Edgar Allan Poe." (Shadows in the Attic, p.334)
Modern Literature
London, Drane's, [1924].
First edition. 8vo. Original green cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 6/-.
Compelling jacket artwork graces this compilation of short stories, mostly of an Oriental bent. An uncommon imprint.
War, Invasion & Spy
Coles (Manning, pseud. Adelaide Frances Oke Manning & Cyril Henry Coles) Not Negotiable
London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1949.
First edition. 8vo. Original pale yellow cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 8/6.
'The scene...Brussels. The time...after the war. And the characters? Why, Tommy Hambledon, of course!' (jacket blurb). Espionage thriller.
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.
![Walt Disney, Sketch Book [of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs], first edition, 1938](https://lycanthiabooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/84886-300x300.jpg)
[London], Collins, [1938].
First edition. 4to. Original tan cloth. Dust-jacket, price-clipped.
One of the more sought-after Disney books from its Golden Era, with no coeval American edition.
London, Putnam, 1908.
Sixth edition. 8vo. Original printed wrappers, priced sixpence.
An early edition of this classic of feminist theory, reflecting on women's economic reliance on men, first published in 1898. A landmark treatise in the struggle for gender equality.
Detective Fiction
London, Ward, Lock & Co., 1943.
First UK edition. 8vo. Original pale blue cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 5/-.
A very good first UK edition of this non-series title by the often under-appreciated Harry Stephen Keeler, deviser of the "webwork" plot concept.
![Alternative view of Wyndham (John) and Lucas Parkes [both pseuds. for John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris]. The Outward Urge](https://lycanthiabooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/84882_2-300x400.jpg)
Sci-Fi & Fantasy
London, Michael Joseph, 1959.
First edition. 8vo. Original black cloth lettered in white. Dust-jacket, correctly priced 13s6d.
Conventional science fiction from the pen of Wyndham, comprising four chapters - a fifth chapter was added to subsequent editions.
Modern Literature
London, Heinemann, 1929.
First UK edition. 8vo. Original green cloth lettered in gilt. Dust-jacket, correctly priced 7/6.
Written as a sequel to the original Freckles (1904), written by the author's mother Gene Stratton-Porter. The book was the basis for the 1942 film of the same name.
Children's Books
London, Cassell, 1941.
First UK edition. 8vo. Original brown cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 8/6.
The original Lassie novel, which led to numerous films and TV series, first published in Chicago in 1940. Uncommon in such nice condition.
Detective Fiction
London, Constable, 1955.
First edition. 8vo. Original red cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 10s6.
Equestrian murder mystery.
Detective Fiction
London, Constable, 1935.
First edition. 8vo. Original orange cloth. Dust-jacket, price-clipped.
Suitably ominous jacket artwork on this uncommon first edition; one of at least three works by Scottish author Curle, better known today for his friendship with and works about Joseph Conrad.
London, Bles, 1937.
First UK edition. 8vo. Original red cloth, dust-jacket, priced 8s6d.
Attractive first UK edition of this important work by the author of The Grand Hotel, set during the 1906 Dutch intervention in Bali.
being a record of travel in Southern Arabia. With an appendix on the rock inscriptions by A.F.L. Beeston.
London, Methuen, 1939.
First edition. 8vo. Original green cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 25s.
A very good first edition of Philby's account of his journey from Central Asia to the Indian Ocean, in his role as Ibn Saud's official advisor. An important work, notable for Philby being the first European to enter Abha, capital of Najran, the frontier district between the Wahhabis and the Yemenites, and the second to visit Shabwa, where he was the first to thoroughly examine the city's ruins.
War, Invasion & Spy
London, Harrap, 1930.
First edition. 8vo. Original orange cloth blocked in black. Dust-jacket, correctly priced 7/6.
Striking jacket artwork on this tale of international intrigue, centring around the fictional Balkan country of Carpathia.