Tom Harris.
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.
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Immediate Possession, and other stories.
FIRST EDITION. Half title; edges a little spotted. Orig. red cloth. Red & green pictorial d.w., unclipped; sl. rubbed & marked. Inscribed 'With kind wishes Ronald Blythe' on titlepage. Blythe's second book, of (somewhat) comic short stories, displays his aptitude for conjuring English rural life. The Bonadventure. A random journal of an Atlantic holiday.
FIRST EDITION. Half title; early & final pages & edges sl. foxed. Orig. blue cloth, paper spine label. Orig. white pictorial d.w., unclipped; a little chipped, creased & dusted. Ownership inscription of Sumie Okada, 6th January, Cambridge on leading f.e.p., earlier ownership inscription struck through. Scarce in the jacket. A characteristically detailed and well-written account of Blunden's round trip on a coal ship from Wales to Buenos Aires. The journey was an attempt to recover from the trauma of the First World War, and to reconcile differences between him and his wife, Georgina. It was ultimately unsuccessful on both fronts: Georgina refused to move to Japan (a country for which he had a deep and abiding love), and the couple divorced. Sumie Okada is an academic and the author of the definitive 1988 publication Edmund Blunden in Japan. Loosely inserted is a bookseller's invoice to her for eight books by (and one book about) Blunden. The Wizard of Whirlaw.
FIRST EDITION. Half title. Orig. grey cloth, spine lettered in gilt. Orange & black d.w., unclipped; rubbed & a little chipped. Author inscription 'from my saddlebag at the Royal Oak, Alderley Edge, William Holt, 10 Mar 1962' on leading f.e.p. Published by the author, dustjacket by Ivan Cuba. William Holt, 1897-1977, was an adventurer, autodidact, activist, and eccentric. The son of a coal merchant, he pioneered the idea of mobile libraries and became West Yorkshire's only Communist Town Councillor. Peripatetic in his later years, he declared his self-published books 'backpack editions'. In his lifetime he was praised by J.B. Priestley, H.G. Wells, and Ted Hughes; the latter wrote 'For Billy Holt' in his honour. The Wizard of Whirlaw is a romance of the Calder Valley, with a mystical atmosphere in which 'the mills echo to the hammers that are smashing the cotton looms. this time it is the masters, not the men, who are breaking up the machines'. The novel gives its name to a large stone head sculpture in Todmorden, Holt's home town. The Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum. With an introduction by Gelett Burgess. Author’s Autograph Edn.
Signed & inscribed limitation leaf. Orig. vellum spine over buff printed paper-covered boards; spine darkened, boards a little spotted, sl. wear to extremities. Bookplate of William Reydel on leading pastedown; v. sl. marked. (32)pp. The inscription on the limitation leaf reads 'A Poem Butcher is not always a Handwriting Expert'. The language is dated ('Hoodlums') but Irwin's satirical sonnets retain some modern bite. Bruce Rogers, 1870-1957, was an American type designer and is widely (and rightly) regarded as one of the greatest book designers of the twentieth century, working for Riverside Press, in house at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. His crowning achievement remains the Oxford Lectern Bible. The bookplate herein (designed for the advertising executive William Reydel) is highly unusual for its Modernism, a style Rogers famously rejected. It uses a sans serif typeface and depicts skyscrapers and an airship, the result being compact and rather beautiful. Superstar. FIRST U.K. EDITION.
Half title, front. Orig. black cloth. White pictorial d.w, unclipped. A nice copy. Born Janet Mary Susan Hoffman, 1938. A 60s roman-a-clef (no prizes for guessing the identity of Dylan Zimmerman), that runs out of steam towards the end (the conversational transcripts have a particular air of 'will this do?') Superstar is nonetheless interesting, especially on the position of women in Warhol's Factory (again, no surprises: not great), and the aftermath of Warhol's shooting by Valerie Solanos (which occurred when he was on the phone to Hoffman). Cry Havoc!
FIRST EDITION. Half title, tipped in ad. leaf. Orig. black cloth, lettered in red. Red & white pictorial d.w., unclipped; a little rubbed & marked, two tiny closed tears to front panel. Inscribed 'To three sane people in a mad world with love from Beverley, Glatton Aug 5 1933'. It would be a mistake to see Nichols's prolificness, range, and position-switching as evidence of fickleness or indiscipline. Rather, they are a result of his being a 'man of the time' during one of the most confusing and protean periods of history. His great, epistolary, argument for pacifism is thought provoking. The inscription is apt, but Nichols was about to discover how mad the world could be, and Nichols reconsidered his opinions on the matter as a result of the rise of Hitler. Revue.
FIRST EDITION. Half title, front. E.ps v. sl. spotted. Orig. yellow cloth; a little toned. Black & red pictorial d.w., unclipped; edges v. sl. rubbed, rear panel v. sl. dusted. Inscribed 'With all good wishes Beverley Nichols 1939' on leading f.e.p. A theatre novel, apparently with a good deal of veracity. Nichols's work is frequently light, but never lacking in substance. Poems 1950-1965. FIRST U.K. EDITION.
Half title. Orig. maroon cloth. Black & white photographic d.w., unclipped; v. sl. creased & a little dusted, small closed tear to front panel. Author signature to titlepage. A nice example of a d.w. vulnerable to dusting. Unusual signed. Robert Creeley, 1926-2005, was initially associated with the Black Mountain poets, but has exerted considerable sway over American poetry more generally, both on account of his famously supportive personality and of the influence of his highly personal minimalist style. The Withered Root.
FIRST EDITION. Half title. Orig. brown cloth, black label. Buff pictorial d.w., v. sl. marked. A beautiful copy. Dustjacket by William Roberts. Set in a mining village during the Welsh revival. Davies disapproves of religious fervour, but writes in prose so shot through with fire and brimstone as to verge on the psychedelic. An odd but very effective combination. And His Charming Lady.
FIRST EDITION. Half title, front., plates. Orig. black cloth. Grey pictorial d.w., clipped; a little rubbed, v. sl. toned & sunned in places, small mark to front panel. Inscribed on leading f.e.p. 'Signed for Enid, who is such a splendid true blue, with all good wishes Lucille Iremonger'. Lucille d'Oyen Iremonger, née Parls, 1915-1989, was a Jamaican author, broadcaster and politician, who lived and worked largely in London, and served as a Tory councillor for Norwood. Her husband Tom served as Conservative M.P. for Ilford North. Iremonger uses her life as an M.P's wife as a clever jumping off point for a more general study of famous politicians' wives. Chapters include 'The Wife Who Wanted a Scandal', 'The Wife Who Was Lonely', and 'The Wife With a Mission of Her Own'. 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'. Riddley Walker.
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'. A Case Examined.
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. The Manikin.
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. Engraved Portrait taken from a Carte de Visite Photograph of WWC.
7.5 x 13cm. Enlarged & engraved version by 'Emery Walker Ph. Sc.' of the full-length portrait with chair, legs crossed, looking at camera; kempt hair, wearing typical oval glasses, jacket & waistcoat, with facsimile signature, laid on album leaf. Herbert Watkins, photographer, established his business at this address in 1856. Gasson records WWC being photographed in 1864 by Watkins, but this is later. An early engraving by Emery Walker, 1851-1933, photographer, printer and typographer - and founder with Cobden-Sanderson of the Doves Press. 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.
