A Portrait of Wilkie Collins: Vanity Fair. Feb. 3, 1872. Men of the Day, no. 39. “The Novelist who invented Sensation.”
Chromolithograth. 20thC mount, frame & glaze. Approx. 33 x 21cm. With the accompanying Vanity Fair description of Collins pasted to the back board. 'Mr Wilkie Collins. recognised the rudeness of the contrivances hitherto in vogue, and by a far more artistic and conscientious treatment than had yet been attempted, he essayed to revive once more the interest in horrors. He is entitled to be called the novelist who invented Sensation'. PLEASE NOTE: For customers within the UK this item is subject to VAT.
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The Picturegoers. A novel.
FIRST EDITION. Half title. Orig. red cloth. Red & black pictorial d.w., unclipped; a little rubbed & chipped. Ownership inscription of Kevin J. Whitty on leading pastedown & Malcolm S. Chase on leading f.e.p. Dustjacket by Stein. Lodge's first novel uses a South London cinema to explore the nature of religious belief. D.J. Taylor wrote forgivingly of its 'tyro gaucheries' and 'the quality of its writing' and its 'absorption in a bygone way of life'. Tom Harris.
THEMERSON, Stefan. Half title. White printed d.w., unclipped; a little marked, rubbed & chipped, rear panel v. sl. scuffed. Presentation inscription 'For Michael from Stefan May 1967' on initial blank. Although described on the jacket as perhaps Themerson's 'first "conventional" novel', this is a deeply strange work, in which the narrator obsessively trails the sinister, elusive, and protean Tom Harris. In its themes of paranoia and pursuit, the novel's debt to French writers, such as Celine, Robbe-Grillet, and Queneau (whom Themerson published) is clear.- $141
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Riddley Walker.
HOBAN, Russell. FIRST EDITION. Half title. Orig. black cloth. Red, white & black printed d.w., clipped. A lovely bright copy. Hoban's novel of a post-apocalyptic Kent, set 2,000 years after a nuclear war, sees iron-age level societies fighting for scraps of knowledge, technology, and language. What survives of culture is a bizarre (but utterly believable) melange of Punch and Judy shows, the life of St Eustace, and nuclear myth. Written in a weird Chaucerian English drawn from his experiences as a teacher in Kent and his childhood in suburban Pennsylvania, Hoban alleged that it destroyed his ability to spell - words are mangled, degraded, and re-formed. An astonishing feat of imagination. Anthony Burgess said that while it 'could not expect to be popular. it seems to me a permanent contribution to literature'.- $141
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A Case Examined.
BARKER, Audrey Lilian. FIRST EDITION. Orig. green cloth; spine sl. toned. Grey & white pictorial d.w., unclipped; a little marked, edges sl. toned, a few closed tears. Ownership stamp of Elizabeth Jane Howard on leading f.e.p. A nice copy. Barker's novel of the petty jealousies stirred up by a small bequest is told with ironic precision. It is easy to see why it might have appealed to Elizabeth Jane Howard, the deft chronicler of family life.- $121
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The Manikin.
RICKETTS, Ralph. FIRST EDITION. Half title. Orig. bright yellow cloth. Green pictorial d.w., unclipped; edges sl. rubbed, the odd crease. Inscribed on leading f.e.p. 'Nancy and George, from the author Ralph Ricketts'. Dustjacket by Charles Mozely. The themes of The Manikin are broadly those of the Angry Young Men (the importance of individuality and the desolate nature of the previous generation) but the tone is more genteel. L.P. Hartley (who knew of such matters) praised Ricketts's 'feeling for social strata' and the 'beautifully and firmly drawn' characters. The two later became close friends.- $93
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A Rogue’s Life: written by himself.
Half title, 4pp ads for the Unit Library, listing the first 24 titles in the series and further suggested titles. Orig. red cloth; sl. stained, affecting the following ads. A small format reprint; The Grant Educational Company's earliest publications were in 1900. The Unit Library is described as a miscellany of original and selected publications in the various departments of literature, science and the arts. The price of the books is fixed by the number of pages each volume contains. For every unit of 25 pages a halfpenny is charged, and 1d, 5d, or 1s 6d is added according as the binding is paper, cloth or leather. There are examples of other 'unit libraries' published in London & New York in the early years of the twentieth century, but the Glasgow series appears to have been short-lived. My Miscellanies. New edn. With a portrait of the author.
Front. port. and 8 illus, by Alfred Concanen. Contemp. half green morocco, hinges rubbed, brown labels. Bookplate of Ernest G.Mocatta. A decent copy. First Piccadilly Novels edition. Collins's note (July 1875) indicates alteration 'for the better' of the original arrangement of essays, narratives & sketches. (The Law & Lady.) La Piste du Crime. Traduit de L’Anglais avec L’Autorisation de L’Auteur par Camille de Cendrey. 2 vols.
Half titles. Contemp. half black calf. A good-plus copy. See Parrish & Miller for The First English edition in 3 vols, 1875, following serialisation in The Graphic. This is the first French edition. Scottish-based detective story with a female 'sleuth' and courtroom elements influenced by the recent Madeleine Smith trial. Heart and Science. A story of the present time. New edn.
Bound without half title. Contemp. blue binders' cloth; Ellel Grange blocked on front board. See Parrish & Miller for the first edition in three volumes, 1883. Collins's didactic antivivisection novel. The first one volume edition was 1884; the edition here is in the smaller format. Basil.
Orig. red cloth, blocked and lettered in sliver. v.g. Not recorded on Copac. The text only, without the preliminary 'Letter of Dedication'. The publisher is a mystery, as no 'Morning Herald' was published in London at this date. Three other titles are recorded, all 1899: Harry Lorrequer, Poe's Tales and The Antiquary. Other sources record Frankenstein and Contarini Fleming also by this publisher. Engraved Caricature Portrait, by Adriano Cecioni, for Vanity Fair.
36 X 23cm. 'Men of the Day, No. 39, The Novelist who invented Sensation', Feb 3, 1872. WITH: following page of text written by the editor of Vanity Fair, Thomas Gibson Bowles. 'His best work is perhaps Armadale, and his special merit is that he treats a labyrinthine story in an apparently simple manner, and that the language in which he writes is plain English.' Portrait. Larger format Carte de Visite Photograph of WWC.
17 x 10.5cm. Oval head and shoulders portrait, Collins looking half right and away from the camera, in check shirt and fur coat. Napoleon Sarony, 1821-1896, established his own independent business at 37, Union Square in 1867. WWC dedicated Heart and Science to Sarony in 1883.
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