[pseud. MANNING, Adelaide and COLES, Cyril] COLES, Manning as GAITE, Francis
8vo, pp. 190. Original green boards, lettered in gilt to spine. Illustrated dust jacket. Gilt faded at spine, but a very good copy in a very good dust jacket with some tape reinforcement to reverse, some old water staining to front fold, and a little light chipping to head of spine. First UK edition. Published the previous year in the US under the name Manning Coles. HUBIN, p. 161
[pseud. PRICE, Florence Alice] WARDEN, Florence
8vo, pp. 251, 4pp. advertisements bound in at rear. Illustrated boards, lettered in black to front panel and spine. Boards a little darkened and with some rubbing to spine ends, but a very well preserved copy. First edition. After early employment as a governess and actress, Florence Warden [1957-1929] settled down to an extremely prolific career as a popular novelist, turning her hand to mystery, murder, romance and ghost stories with equal facility. (Miss Ferriby's Clients, set in an apparently haunted house and featuring seances, robbery and murder, is typical of Warden's output.) Her work was in huge demand through subscription libraries, and at her peak she was publishing as many as eight novels a year. By the time of her death in 1929 she had published more than one hundred and fifty novels. A very well preserved copy, and now scarce. HUBIN, p. 425
[pseud. DANNAY, Frederic and LEE, Manfred Bennington] QUEEN, Ellery
8vo, pp. 325. Original grey boards, lettered in red to front panel and spine. Leading and lower edges uncut. Illustrated dust jacket. Offsetting to endpapers, spine faded, boards a little marked and rubbed, a very good copy in a very good dust jacket, tape reinforcements to reverse, a little chipping to lower edge and with some wear to corners and spine ends. First edition. Not in Hubin.
HIMES, Chester
8vo, pp. 256. Original black quarter boards, lettered in gilt to pink spine. Author's initials blind stamped to front panel. Illustrated dust jacket, author's photographic portrait to rear panel. Loss of gilt to spine, but a very good copy in a very good dust jacket with a little fading to spine. First US, and first hardback edition. First published by the Olympia Press in Paris in 1961. Sex, politics and sexual politics across the racial divide, and for that reason published in France first and the US only later. 'Pinktoes is a term of indulgent affection applied to white women by Negro men, and sometimes conversely by Negro women to white men, but never adversely by either.' (Chester Himes)
WHEATLEY, Dennis
8vo, pp. 408, 8pp. catalogue of Wheatley titles and 24pp. publisher's catalogue bound in at rear. Original black boards, lettered in gilt to spine, publisher's name in gilt to front board. Map endpapers. Spine ends a little bumped, otherwise a near fine copy in a very good dust jacket, some light general edgewear, and an unobtrusive 1cm closed tear to top edge of rear panel. Dust jacket and endpapers design by Diana Younger. First edition, INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR: 'For W. Royden, with the best of good wishes from his friend Dennis Wheatley'. Walter Royden (born Walter Smith) worked in publishing, and was the father of the actor Auriol Smith. An early Wheatley title, a lost world novel, and the basis for Hammer's The Lost Continent (1968), directed by Michael Carreras and starring Eric Porter and Hildergard Knef. Inscribed, in the dust jacket, and rare.