![Alternative view of "Trill" [pseud. Harry C. Liebart]. The Sickle Murders](https://lycanthiabooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/88115_2-300x300.jpg)
Detective Fiction
London, Lincoln Williams, 1935.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 3/6.
According to the Bear Alley blog the book is listed in the English Catalogue of Books as having appeared in February 1935 and it was listed under the pen-name "Trill". The publisher Lincoln Williams went into administration in July 1935 so the book probably wasn't reprinted. Trill was a pen name for Harry C. Liebart. Hubin listed.
War, Invasion & Spy
A Tale of the Civil War
London, Heath Cranton, 1933.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket.
An uncommon title by a relatively obscure publisher.
Non-Fiction
London, Andre Deutsch, 1954.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.
Sir Harold Scott (1887–1969) served as Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police 1945–53, overseeing Scotland Yard through the difficult immediate postwar period. Accompanied by a 3½ page autograph letter from the author.
Horror & Gothic
London, B.T. Batsford, 1956.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, price-clipped.
A non-fiction survey of British haunted houses with illustrations by Felix Kelly, whose atmospheric paintings of country houses and gothic interiors were widely admired.
Modern Literature
London, Duckworth, 1931.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Contemporary half calf on marbled boards.
A novel of dissipated young London life in the early 1930s - parties, meaningless relationships, and a backdrop of social futility, seen through the eyes of Atwater, a minor museum official.
Sci-Fi & Fantasy
A Novel
London, Secker & Warburg, 1949.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Green dust-jacket, priced 10s.
A wonderful example of the first edition of Orwell's dystopian classic, benefiting from some skilful, minor restoration to remove a sticker mark from the jacket spine and improving the corners. Although many worthy experts suggest that the red jacket has historically proved to be the scarcer, it is our experience that the green one has proved equally difficult to acquire in recent years - worth noting that of ten jacketed first editions that appeared at auction in 2025, eight were in the red jacket.
Thriller Fiction
London, Sampson Low, Marston & Company, 1897.
First UK edition. 8vo. Original pictorial cloth.
A comic adventure novel in which two young men seek a wealthy man to adopt them so they can marry his ward and niece respectively. First published in French in 1896.
Weird & Supernatural
London, Selwyn & Blount, 1926.
First edition, third impression. 8vo. Original red boards. Dust-jacket, correctly priced 2/- and stating 'third edition'.
The first volume in Thomson's landmark 'Not at Night' anthology series, which ran to eleven volumes (1925–1937) and introduced British readers to American pulp weird fiction from Weird Tales and similar magazines. The series was highly influential in shaping British taste for supernatural horror and is a cornerstone collection in the history of the genre. This copy is the first edition, third impression with contemporary dust-jacket, which is notably scarce.
Thriller Fiction
London, Sampson Low, Marston & Company, 1900.
First UK edition. 8vo. Original pictorial cloth.
An adventure novel based on the board game 'The Game of the Goose'. "In 1897, the first Baedecker guidebook for the U.S. was published, and Verne used this as the source for his descriptions of the modes of transport, timetables, and geographic descriptions of the numerous places the twelve participants were required to visit in order to claim the prize." (Wikipedia)
Thriller Fiction
London, Sampson Low, Marston & Company, n.d. [1890s].
'New and Cheaper Edition'. 8vo. Original pictorial cloth.
A relatively unknown adventure novel drawing on Verne's interest in exploration and geography.
War, Invasion & Spy
London, Blackie & Son, n.d. [?1930s].
Reissue. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, price-clipped.
Frederick Sadleir Brereton (1872–1957) was a prolific author of adventure stories for boys, published almost entirely by Blackie.
Modern Literature
London, Sampson Low, Marston, [1945].
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.
A gentle, character-driven novel of English provincial life in wartime, in the tradition of E.M. Delafield and E.H. Young.
Detective Fiction
A Murder Mystery
London, Hutchinson, [1930].
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, price-clipped.
Inspector Rae Norse investigates the murder of a controversial judge in a Southern American setting where voodoo practices create an atmosphere of menace.
Modern Literature
and other stories
London, Arthur Bonde, [1947].
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket.
A short story collection by Nigel Morland (born Carl Van Biene) was a British author of many detective and other novels. He also worked as a personal assistant to Edgar Wallace and was a co-founder of the Crime Writers' Association.
American Literature
London, Wm. Collins Sons... by The London Book Co., [1931].
First edition thus. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket.
A novelisation of the screenplay by Luther Trent for the film of the same name by RKO Radio Pictures, this book was released in the same year.
Modern Literature
London, Gollancz, 1987.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.
The author's first novel, based on his experiences as an English teacher in Tokyo.
Weird & Supernatural
London, Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent, 1901.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original pictorial cloth.
A seemingly extremely rare collection of 'barrack room' short stories, some with supernatural content. Only four copies recorded in institutional holdings (all in the UK), and no records found at auction. An introductory note from the author reads:
"The following stories are chiefly based upon incidents and experiences connected with a rather lengthened professional career. It is hoped that the book may serve to enliven a dull hour, and may perhaps also enhance the widespread interest recently revived in all phases of military life. Some of the stories have already appeared in The United Service Magazine and The Church Monthly."
Sci-Fi & Fantasy
London, Orbit, 1998.
First edition, first impression. Signed by the author on title-page. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.
An "attempt to write a Culture novel that wasn't", from the author of Consider Phlebas and (as Iain Banks) The Wasp Factory.
Modern Literature
London, Jonathan Cape, 1969.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket, price-clipped.
Gysin was a painter and composer who collaborated with Beat Generation author William S. Burroughs on many occasions. The Process was his first full-length novel.
Modern Literature
London, Phoenix House, 1950.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket.
A novel about a man who has returned to the coal seams of Durham after a period spent away seeking education. The novel provided the inspiration for Alan Plater and Alex Glasgow's musical Close the Coalhouse Door.
Modern Literature
London, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1961.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.
The first edition of Chaplin's most famous work, considered a classic of 'working class existentialism', set in Newcastle upon Tyne at the very beginning of the 1960s.
Detective Fiction
London, Ward, Lock, 1899.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original pictorial cloth.
A collection of short detective and mystery stories by one of the most prolific crime writers of the late Victorian period.
Weird & Supernatural
London, Hamish Hamilton, 1940.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7s6d.
A prolific playwright, drama critic and author active in English literary circles from around 1910. This ghost story is one of the author's few dalliances with the supernatural.
Detective Fiction
London, Collins Crime Club, 1945.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, unpriced suggesting intended for export.
An attractive edition of this later title by "the American Agatha Christie."
Horror & Gothic
A Gothic Story London, for Charles Dilly, 1780.Second edition. 8vo. Contemporary calf, rebacked in modern calf.One of the foundational texts of the Gothic novel. First published in 1777 as The Champion of Virtue, retitled for this 'second edition'. Reeve noted in the 1778 preface that "This Story is the literary offspring of The Castle of Otranto, written upon the same plan, with a design to unite the most attractive and interesting circumstances of the ancient Romance and modern Novel, at the same time it assumes a character and manner of its own, that differs from both; it is distinguished by the appellation of a Gothic Story, being a picture of Gothic times and manners." Rare.
Weird & Supernatural
London, Dent, 1919.
First edition, first impression. Signed presentation copy from the author. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
Rare. A collection of psychic tales, mostly dealing with astral projection, out-of-body experiences and, in some cases, travel to 'other worlds'. Allen Clarke (1863–1935), also known under the pseudonym Teddy Ashton, was primarily a working-class journalist and novelist of Lancashire industrial life.
Modern Literature
London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1952.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket, priced 10s6d.
A pivotal work in Simenon's development as a serious novelist, distinct from the Maigret series. Somewhat scarce in the Routledge UK first.
Modern Literature
London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1949.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket, price-clipped.
One of Simenon's romans durs (hard novels) rather than the Maigret detective series. The non-Maigret psychological fiction, often first published in English by Routledge & Kegan Paul, was widely regarded by critics as his most serious literary work.
Victorian Literature
London, Cassell, 1852.
First Cruikshank edition. 8vo. Later half green morocco on marbled boards.
A handsome example of this important early English edition, preceded by the Clark & Co. edition of 1852.
Modern Literature
A Romance
London, Cranley & Day, 1933.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7s6d.
A tale of social realism set against the backdrop of a university town, published by a relatively obscure imprint. Uncommon.
The Final Mysteries of Exploration
London [&c.], Thomas Nelson, 1923.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original pictorial cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 5/-.
A work of popular geography and exploration writing by the author of The 39 Steps, covering the remaining relatively unknown regions of the world as of the early 1920s, the poles, the depths of the ocean, the interiors of New Guinea and Arabia, and Everest (which had just been first attempted).
Thriller Fiction
London, The Modern Publishing Company, n.d. [1920].
Third edition. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 6/-.
One of only two (alongside Dinevah the Beautiful) non-supernatural novels O'Donnell published, making it something of an anomaly in his canon. Rare thus in a jacket.
Weird & Supernatural
A Two-Fold Romance
London; New York; Toronto, John Lane The Bodley Head; John Lane Company; Bell & Cockburn, 1914.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth.
A late, mostly epistolary novel set partly in the 20th century and partly in the 17th, involving communications between the bewitching Lady Venetia and a young archaeologist, with hints of the supernatural. Paget's last novel.
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.
Modern Literature
Eastgate, Mackays, 1931.
First edition, first impression. Inscribed presentation copy from the author. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket.
A sequel to Dickens' unfinished work The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Inscribed by the author to the publicity manager for The Rochester Pageant.
American Literature
London, Michael Joseph, [1947].
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original pictorial cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 10/6.
Rare. The author's first novel, and a literary precedent, being the first book by a black woman to sell more than a million copies. The story follows Lutie Johnson, a young Black woman, and her spirited struggle to raise her son amid the violence, poverty, and racial dissonance of Harlem in the late 1940s.
London, J.M. Dent, 1946.
First edition, first impression. 16mo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 3s6d.
The collection that established Thomas's reputation as the most important Welsh poet of the 20th century. It contains 'Fern Hill,' 'A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London,' and 'Poem in October', ranked by many among the most celebrated poems in the English language.
Biography
London, Leonard & Virginia Woolf at The Hogarth Press, 1928.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original patterned cloth with paper spine label.
An early and influential English-language critical essay on Proust by one of the central figures of the Bloomsbury Group. Bell was among the first British critics to engage seriously with Proust's work.
Modern Literature
London, Hutchinson, 1916.
First edition. 8vo. Original mauve cloth.
Rare. A novel completed by Frankau on her deathbed, about a female author on her deathbed who is inspired to write about the death of a female author.
Detective Fiction
London, Pilot Press, 1945.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7s6d.
A mystery novel featuring Audemars's early series detective Hercule Renard, set in France. The second in the short-lived Renard series.
Sci-Fi & Fantasy
An enquiry into the limits of the possible
London, Gollancz, 1962.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket, priced 21/-.
Non-fiction essays where Clarke speculates on scientific and technological advances, from space flight and telecommunications to bioengineering, and coins the celebrated 'Clarke's Third Law' ("Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic").
Sci-Fi & Fantasy
London, Gollancz, 1961.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.
A tightly plotted, optimistic near-future thriller.