...With a Chapter by Major B. Baden-Powell
London, "The Car Illustrated", 1907.
First edition. 8vo. Original sage pictorial cloth, priced 1/6.
Charting the evolution of aviation from the Montgolfier brothers' inaugural 1783 balloon flight through the era of airships and early powered aircraft, spotlighting pioneers like the Wright brothers and examining aviation's societal impact.
Detective Fiction
London, Ward, Lock, [c.1901].
Early edition. 8vo. Original cloth-backed pictorial boards.
An attractive illustrated edition of this account of the ongoing adventures of investigator Martin Hewitt, first introduced to readers in 1894. Morrison is best known today for his novel A Child of the Jago (1896).
Sci-Fi & Fantasy
or, the Pommeray Case.
London, Hodder & Stoughton, [1927].
First edition. 8vo. Original blue cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
Striking jacket artwork of on this uncommon "death ray" title.
A Guide for the Amateur
London, OUP, 1936.
First edition. 8vo. Original brown pictorial cloth. Dust-jacket.
An attractive work on the evolving technology of television.
War, Invasion & Spy
London, Hutchinson, 1933.
First edition. 8vo. Publisher's advertisements dated 'Autumn 1933' at end. Original black cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
Following the misfortunes of an aristocratic German family after the first World War. Uncommon.
Modern Literature
The Story of Eamon Revelle
Dublin, Martin Lester, [c.1925].
First edition. 8vo. Original green boards. Dust-jacket, priced 7/-.
First edition of an uncommon work by Irish author James Murphy, set during a key historical moments in Irish history.
Sexuality & Erotica
Jerusalem, Steimatzky's Agency for Olympia Press, 1955. Israeli edition. 8vo. Original wrappers. The first one-volume edition of Nabokov's controversial title, issued coevally to the Israeli hardback edition.
Weird & Supernatural
Ashcroft, British Columbia, Ash-Tree Press, 2000.
One of 500 copies. 8vo. Original dark red cloth. Dust-jacket.
A collection of 21 stories with introduction by E.F. Nesbit, with a bibliography of story sources by Hugh Lamb. This edition expands on the 1988 paperback edition.
Detective Fiction
Neville (C.J., pseud. Cynthia Franklin) Salifu the Detective
London, Macmillan, 1950.
First edition. 8vo. Original yellow cloth lettered in red. Dust-jacket, price-clipped.
The exciting story of an adventurous young African boy whose main ambition is to join the Gold Coast Police Force, encountering smugglers and other wrongdoers in the process.
Detective Fiction
London, Heath Cranton, 1937.
First edition. 8vo. Original blue cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
A novel about an ex-army man who becomes a gentleman thief in the Raffles mode.
Horror & Gothic
London, Ivor Nicholson & Watson, 1935.
First edition. 8vo. Original dark blue cloth with white illustration to upper cover.
An anthology of one of the best ghost story writers of the 20th century.
![E. Phillips Oppenheim, The Million Pound Deposit, first edition, [1930]](https://lycanthiabooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/85978-300x268.jpg)
Detective Fiction
London, Hodder & Stoughton, [1930].
First edition. 8vo. Original blue cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
The formula for a revolutionary new synthetic silk is stolen from the company producing it and a ransom demand of a million pounds is sent. Great jacket artwork by Bip Pares.
African literature
London, Grayson, 1932.
First edition. 8vo. Original blue cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
A collection of particularly good short stories of Africa, the mysterious, elusive, charming, fascinating and cynical. Previously published in Blackwood's magazine.
African literature
London, Jonathan Cape, 1948.
First edition. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 9s6d.
Paton's searing indictment of South African society, published on the eve of the South African government formally institutionalising apartheid, one of the best-known and most acclaimed works in South African literature.
Weird & Supernatural
London, Ernest Benn, 1933.
First edition. 8vo. Original blue cloth.
"An excellent witchcraft novel, arguably Bowen's best work in the genre." (Shadows in the Attic)
Children's Books
London, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1945.
Second edition. 4to. Original cloth lettered in green. Dust-jacket, priced 7s6d.
An attractive example of the second edition of Peake's first published book, the first edition mostly being destroyed in a warehouse bombing during the blitz. Peake's reworking of the images for this edition included colour for the first time. Rare in such condition.
Sci-Fi & Fantasy
London, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1959.
First edition. 8vo. Original red cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 21s.
The third and final volume in Peake's fantasy masterpiece, The Gormenghast Trilogy.
Modern Literature
London, Jarrolds, [1929].
First edition. 8vo. Original light blue cloth decorated and lettered in black. Dust-jacket.
Issued for Jarrolds' 'Jay Library', uncommon in the original Youngman Carter dust-jacket.
Weird & Supernatural
London, Hutchinson, n.d. [c.1926].
First edition, '69th thousand'. 8vo. Original yellow cloth ruled and lettered in black. Dust-jacket, stating '71st Thousand' and priced 7s6d.
A nice example of an early printing of this scarce book which is very elusive in jacket. Romantic story set in East Africa with a vampire love interest.
Weird & Supernatural
London, Sampson Low, Son, & Martson, 1869.
First UK edition. 8vo. Publisher's advertisements at end. Original brown cloth lettered and ruled in gilt.
The first UK edition of this collection of ghostly tales, published the year after the author's most well known work, The Gates Ajar, one of the best-selling works on spiritualism of all time.
London, Robert Hale, 1946.
First trade edition. 8vo. Original red cloth with gilt image stamped to upper cover. Dust-jacket, priced 16s.
A collection of essays written in the 1930s concerning the author's sojourn in Arabia. First published in 1943 by the Golden Cockerel Press.
Detective Fiction
London, Hutchinson, [1930].
First edition. 8vo. Advertisements dated 1931 at end. Original orange cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
The story of an amateur detective; uncommon in the jacket.
Modern Literature
London, Routledge, 1934.
First edition. 8vo. Original red cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 4s6d.
Pound's guide to reading and understanding literature, emphasising the importance of clear, concise language and the study of classic texts for learning about poetic techniques and literary greatness.
Modern Literature
Edited by T.S. Eliot
London, Faber & Gwyer, 1928.
First trade edition. 8vo. Original green cloth.
Including all but 16 of the poems contained in Personae, Pound's own collection of his poems published in New York in 1926, and adding five early poems grouped as 'Early Poems Rejected by the Author and Omitted from His Collected Edition.'
War, Invasion & Spy
London, Victor Gollancz, 1970.
First edition. Publisher's review slip loosely inserted. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket, priced £1.40/28s.
The first published book by espionage author Price. Uncommon.
Children's Books
London, Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, [1888].
First UK edition. 8vo. Original pictorial teal cloth decorated in black, silver and gold.
Set in Germany, Otto of the Silver Hand was one of the first historical novels written for children by an American, influencing many later historical novels for children.
Sci-Fi & Fantasy
Ragged (Hyder, pseud. Henry Chartres Biron) King Solomon’s Wives;
or, The Phantom Mines
London, Vizetelly, 1887.
First edition. 8vo. Original printed stiff card wrappers, priced one shilling.
A scarce little parody of H. Rider Haggard's fantastical works, particularly uncommon thus in the original wrappers.
Weird & Supernatural
Ray (Jean, pseud. Raymundus Joannes de Kremer) Ghouls in my Grave
New York, Berkley Publishing Corporation, 1965.
'Berkley Medallion Edition', first edition in English. 8vo. Rebound in contemporary cloth with original wrapper bound in.
One of the more collectable titles published by Berkley, who cut their teeth on paperback editions of Sci-Fi and Weird modern classics. This represents the first appearance in English of these tales by 'Jean Ray'.
Biography
more uncensored celebrities
London, T. Fisher Unwin, 1919.
First edition. 8vo. Original brown cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 10/6.
A stunning, sharp example of this 1919 publication, by the editor of John Bull magazine and wrote a number of biographies of British political figures and celebrities.
Detective Fiction
London, The Bodley Head, 1931.
First edition. 8vo. Original sage cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
A distinctive first edition by Australian author Rees.
Detective Fiction
London, Geoffrey Bles, 1946.
First edition. 8vo. Original orange cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 8s6d.
A pleasing first edition of the 42nd in Rhode's long-running series of novels featuring Lancelot Priestley, a Golden Age armchair detective.
Modern Literature
London, Hutchinson, [1930].
First edition. 8vo. Original red cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
Attractively jacketed novel by the author of Wax Image and other weird tales.
Weird & Supernatural
and other stories
London, Hutchinson, [1928].
Early Hutchinson edition. 8vo. Original red cloth decorated and lettered in gilt. Dust-jacket, priced 2/- and stating '72nd thousand'.
A scarce collection of weird tales, particularly uncommon in the jacket. Originally published by Holden & Hardingham in 1912.
Detective Fiction
London, Jarrold, 1936.
First edition. 8vo. Original black cloth lettered in green to spine. Supplied dust-jacket, correctly priced 3/6.
Superb jacket married to a somewhat pre-loved example of the first edition of this Hubin-listed crime thriller.
Weird & Supernatural
Twelve Stories of the Supernatural
London, Constable, 1948.
First edition. 8vo. Original blue cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 8/6.
Known for his books on railways and inland waterways, this collection of supernatural stories by Rolt follows strongly in the tradition of M.R. James; "An exceptionally original collection of ghost stories... Rolt had the special talent of combining folkloric spontaneity with artful sophistication" (The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural).
Modern Literature
London, Faber & Faber, 2018.
First edition, first printing. 8vo. Original blue boards. Dust-jacket.
The Irish author's celebrated second novel, adapted for the television by the BBC.