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About this catalogue
Welcome to our new catalogue where you’ll find: melodramas, unreliable narrators, a moonlighting playwright and actor, comic novels, southern gothic, folktales, collections of stories, westerns, dystopias, pseudonymous novels, pulps, erotica, vampires, a novel of ideas, science fiction, graphic novels, detective fiction, family sagas, a monologue, romps, historical, jazz, and Hollywood novels … as well as some unclassifiable gems: a novel in a box, objects take over as protagonists, and a narration from beyond the grave – in fact, all Literature, our first since 2015.
London: Flamingo. First English edition, 1995.
Novelists at ten paces; literary envy and raging mid-life crisis in the publishing world starts with a bag of dirty tricks and soon fills a bucket of bile; signed by the author.
Extremities a little darkened, else fine in dustwrapper
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London: John Long. Reprint, 1926.
Eighteen year old 'reckless modern', Puff Withers, makes an expedient marriage and pushes hedonism to the limit. Life does not teach her, she teaches it. But is charm enough to get through life? Will society loathe or love her? Will her husband tolerate it? Most importantly, will readers embrace or reject her?
Pages tanned. Very good in good dustwrapper missing small pieces from edges and a larger piece from the top of the rear panel.
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London: Hutchinson. First English edition, 1987.
Doug Byshhe, English, ageing, former movie idol, now living in the south of France, with some complications; not too far from Dirk Bogarde; inscribed by the author to Lisa [novelist Elizabeth Berridge] in 1997.
Fine in dustwrapper.
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London: Viking. First English edition, 1990.
A comic novel of an English missionary on the Niger coast during the 19th century, beginning 'The very ground seemed to exhale moisture'; signed by the author, an Oxford-educated anthropologist, whose observations on people are underpinned by professional fieldwork, language training and research.
Fine in dustwrapper.
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London: Jonathan Cape. First English edition, 2011.
Tony Webster's shot at 'making sense of the ways we try to make sense of our lives' takes place against an unravelling secret, and suggests nothing in life is as it first seems.
Fine in dustwrapper.
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London: Macmillan. First English edition, 1996.
Ghosts in London; spooky horror and laugh-out-loud satire cloak a study of loneliness, envy and class consciousness; inscribed by the author with a modest pop-up twist, and a couple of signed seasonal cards laid in.
Fine in dustwrapper.
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London: Sinclair-Stevenson. First English edition, 1995.
Eleven stories, the author's second collection, from a contemporary Hollywood film shoot to World War I in Vienna – tales of expatriate life, spiritual exile, and the many sides of love in exotic locations; signed by the author in the year of publication.
Very good in dustwrapper
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New York: Simon and Schuster. First American edition, 1937.
Confinement and flight, a young woman's journey from breakdown to recovery against the backdrop of the Depression in New York; reissued by the 'New York Review of Books' publishing arm in 2010; the author's first book, inscribed by him.
Extremities and prelims evenly darkened, else fine in good dustwrapper chipped along the bottom edge.
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Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Reprint, 1928.
Richard Hannay #2, first published in 1916; read by the Russian imperial family as they awaited the outcome of the revolution in 1917.
Word of a proposed Muslim uprising reaches the Foreign Office; the 'Edwardian James Bond' and his sidekick are summoned, briefed and sent behind enemy lines. Keep an atlas on hand as they romp around the world.
Ownership signature, about very good in dustwrapper nicked at the crown of the spine.
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Cleveland, Ohio: World Publishing Company. Reprint, 1947.
Texas in the 1880s: Acres of steers, barren plains, the coming of the railroad, sons against sons, showdowns, Cherokee lands – could just be a formula western – yet it's not; 1946 movie tie-in edition: Gregory Peck and Jennifer Jones featuring on the dust wrapper and endpapers.
Edgewear. Very good in dustwrapper chipped at edges and missing a small piece from the middle of the spine.
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New York: Appleton and Company. First American edition, 1932.
Six hundred typos and malapropisms collected from Afro-American newspapers, 'When I met him he wore a grey suit and his hair was slicked in a talking mood'; 'There was a congregation of straying lambs'; 'The officers of the church know how to put things over with oiled good honesty'; and an advertisement, 'The Hollis Hotel: Rooms and Transients'. Foreword by the author's husband Octavus Roy Cohen; decorations by Margaret Freeman.
Very good in poor dustwrapper, by Margaret Freeman, missing pieces from the top of the front and rear panel and base of the spine
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Cambridge: Golden Head Press. First English edition, 1970.
'Not much is known about the origins of this short story, except that it featured a country, mythology and locations close to Olive and Edwin’s hearts – Ireland. It also encompasses their lifelong devotion to cats, which feature often in Edwin’s drawings and illustrations. There is a village called Ardnagashel on the shores of Bantry Bay in County Cork'; decorations by Edwin Smith, the author's husband; #161/300 numbered copies signed by the author and artist.
Original patterned boards, printed paper label. Slight wear at crown and base of spine, else fine.
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Paris: The Olympia Press. First English editions., 1962.
Five vols., a complete set. The five titles in this short-lived branch of the Olympia Press tree: 'Whipsdom' by Greta X, 'Without Violence' by Robert Desmond, 'The Corpse Wore Grey' by Peter O'Neill, 'Lash' by Ruth Lesse, 'The Beaten and the Hungry' by Bernhardt Von Soda; post-Lolita erotica from the, 'I think that you'll find this rather frank, sir', school of bookselling.
Matching pictorial wrappers. All near fine or better. Olympia Press #111-#115. The five volumes
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New York: HarperCollins. First American edition, 1995.
A coming-of-age tale disguised as a funny children's story: Prince Roger on his quest for the throne must overcome a mountain of obstacles, changing from laughing stock to worthy heir; inscribed by the author and with a signed note from him laid in.
Fine in dustwrapper
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London: Collins. First English edition, 1966.
Two Englishmen in Moscow at the height of the Cold War – one a translator for the other – enter a clandestine paranoid hall of mirrors; the author's second novel, inspired by Frayn's own experiences in Communist Russia as one of the first foreign students to enter the country.
Offsetting to prelims, else very good in dustwrapper.
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Toronto: McClelland and Stewart. First Canadian edition., 1993.
Eleven stories, four following the fortunes of the Carette family in Montreal; no quick hits, instead each story an encyclopedia of the characters' psyches and lives; signed by the author, who advises, 'Stories are not chapters of novels. They should not be read one after another, as if they were meant to follow along. Read one. Shut the book. Read something else. Come back later. Stories can wait.'
Fine in dustwrapper.
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Melbourne: E C Harris. First Australian edition, 1946.
American cowboys, Sterl and Red join drovers on the greatest trek in Australian history – eight thousand cattle over three thousand miles across the Never-never to the Kimberleys. 'Why man, the drive is impossible...You Australians don't lack nerve.'
Owner signature. Extremities darkened. Good in dustwrapper.
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Sydney: The Quandong Press. First Australian edition, 1929.
The author's variation on the story of Pygmalion and Galatea; 383/250 numbered copies, initialled EGD, one tipped-in illustration.
Printed wrappers, stapled. Foxing. Good.
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London: Virago. First English edition, 1992.
A secret shared in childhood becomes ...; half a lifetime later the last magician unravels...; what happened shapes the lives of...; all taking place in parallel worlds and a subterranean inferno; inscribed by the author in 1994.
Fine in dustwrapper.
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Sydney: Condor Books. Second Australian edition, 1946.
Adventures at a local newspaper - 'The Northern Suburbs Monitor' – and, according to the dust wrapper, a 'renowned organ of public opinion'.
Faint foxing to extremities, else very good in dustwrapper chipped at edges.
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London: Jonathan Cape. First English edition, 1985.
Third division English football. Could this be the setting for a mystery? Duffy #3 by a moonlighting English novelist.
Fine in dustwrapper with the author's bio on the inside rear flap.
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London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. First English edition, 2006.
Thirty stories collected from the Western pulps and slightly more august journals; the author's first assault on an established genre, though not quite as radical as his subsequent work on the crime novel; 500+pp.
Spots of foxing to foredge, else fine in dustwrapper.
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New York: Simon and Schuster. First American edition, 1965.
A former baron's castle behind German lines waiting for the Allied advance and inhabited by a disparate group from across the human spectrum; inscribed by the author to Irwin Shaw in the year of publication.
Fine in very good dustwrapper with a nick at the base of the spine.
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London: Penguin. First English paperback edition, 2000.
A three hander under a flight path: from play to novella; a satire of writers, media and writing that explores success, celebrity and privacy; signed by the author.
Pictorial wrappers. Fine.
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New York: Random House. First American edition, 2020.
Manchester, 1867: struggles between Manchester police and Irish nationalists in this follow-up to 'The North Water', based on a real-life event – the hanging of three Irishmen for the suspected murder of a British policeman.
Fine in dustwrapper.
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London: The Bodley Head. First English edition, 1959.
An ex-soldier's relationship with his stepson; the author's first book, inscribed by him with the Latin motto -'sicut serpentes sicut columbae' - of Radley College, Oxfordshire.
Fine in dustwrapper.
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London: Compact Books. First English edition, 1966.
The first in a series of eight 'Best of New Worlds' anthologies edited by Michael Moorcock between 1967-1974; controversial, provocative writing that stood sci-fi on its head and drew partisans and opponents from the science fiction community.
Includes 'In Passage of the Sun' by George Collyn, with a familiar cover 45 years on, the conclusion of 'The Godkillers' by John Baxter, signed by him; and J.G. Ballard on Chris Marker's 'La Jetee' together with his review of two books on the history of Surrealism.
Pictorial wrappers. Very good.
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New York: Alfred A. Knopf. First American edition, 2008.
'What can be sadder than a discouraged artist dying not from his own commonplace maladies, but from the cancer of oblivion?' asked Nabokov, before requesting his final unfinished novel be burned after his death. Introduced by Dmitri Nabokov, who did not burn it but released it from a Swiss bank vault. Is Nabokov turning in his grave?
Parallel text of sorts: reproductions of Nabokov's index cards at the top of the page, printed text of each card below.
Fine in dustwrapper
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New York: Henry Holt and Company. First American edition, 2001.
Listeners' true and short stories, collected from National Public Radio's National Story Project. One hundred and eighty stories, organised into broad thematic groupings – animals, objects, families, slapstick, love, death – indexed; reality radio.
Fine in dustwrapper
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London: Bloomsbury. First English edition, 2012.
The story of a young orphan's rise from scullery boy in a manor house to the greatest cook of his generation in the cornucopian kitchens of seventeenth century England; signed by the author.
Fine in dustwrapper.
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New York: Doubleday, Doran and Company. First American edition, 1930.
Mid-career from the novelist and playwright; a brilliant John M. Stahl movie the following year; and, I'm guessing, the only use of this sub-title in all literature.
Fine in very fine dustwrapper designed by Rockwell Kent.
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New York: Farrar Straus and Cudahy. First American edition, 1956.
Five stories by Jean Stafford, four by John Cheever, three each by Daniel Fuchs and William Maxwell; all chosen by their authors.
Fine in near fine dustwrapper with a couple of chips.
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New York: Pantheon. First American edition, 2008.
Cricket and other unlikely things in post 9/11 New York. Not just about spin bowling, but also an exploration of contemporary America, a hymn to a city traumatised by the fallen towers, and a study of immigrant life.
Fine in dustwrapper.
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London: Hodder and Stoughton. First English edition, 1967.
Thirty-three pieces, most from 'The New Yorker'; inscribed by the author contemporaneously to Morris Lurie, 'with no apologies for our opinions on Bonnie and Clyde'.
Fine in very good dustwrapper darkened on the spine.
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[North Pomfret, VT]: Elysium Press. First American edition, 2002.
'Autumn Vows' and 'A Little Owl of Florence', two pieces by the Edward Prime-Stevenson (1858-1942), the gay American writer, who lived most of his life in Europe, and who wrote and published the first explicitly gay novel by an American; edited and introduction by Tom Sargant; #7/50 numbered copies.
Plain wrappers. Fine in dustwrapper with printed label.
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New York: Ballantine Books. Reprint, 1989.
The Factory Novel #1, inscribed to John Baxter by the author as Robin Cook, and with a printout of the former's obituary of Cook published in 'The Australian' here in 1994.
The crime genre on its way to another level, 'He Died' is an act of courage – 'like sticking one's head into a nest of snakes, being bitten, and telling the truth about it'.
Pictorial wrappers. Fine.
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Downsview, Ontario: ECW Press. First Canadian edition, 1982.
Eight stories where humanity is the butt of some joke; inscribed to Morris Lurie by the author and signed as well by him on the title page.
Pictorial wrappers. Very good.
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London: Headline. Five first English paperback editions and one reprint, 2010-2015.
Six volumes: The complete set of historical novels set in India, beginning at the end of the 15th century and continuing through the Moghul Empire – 'Raiders from the North', 'Brothers at War', 'Ruler of the World', 'The Tainted Throne', 'The Serpent's Tooth' and 'Traitors in the Shadows'; the titles give a clue to the archetypal relationships and situations covered.
Pictorial wrappers. All fine. The six volumes
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New York: Sarah Crichton Books. First American edition, 2019.
The lives of twin sisters Laurel and Daphne Wolf, their relationship with Noah Webster's Dictionary and the significance of 'twin' – '... as a noun it means a couple or pair, but as a verb it can mean, unnervingly, to part, sever, sunder'.
Fine in dustwrapper
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Boston: Little Brown. First American edition, 2002.
The view from above – blending the supernatural with an unthinkable crime, and narrated from heaven by the victim of a serial killer – Susie who is gone and will never come of age, but who stays deeply connected to her family, helping them to join the dots and recognise the killer.
Very good in later issue dustwrapper.
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New York: Viking. First American edition, 1981.
New England, the end of the 19th century, two abandoned brothers; the author's first book; illustrations by David Hockney.
Bookseller's stamp on front free endpaper, else very good in lightly rubbed dustwrapper.
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London: Phoenix House. First English edition, 1994.
The libretto of the opera published to coincide with the first performance at the English National Opera; a Greek myth made relevant for a modern audience, climaxing with an environmental message; signed by the author.
Pictorial wrappers. Fine.
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London: Little Brown. First English edition, 2005.
The author's singular family memoir of Henny and Shanti, his great aunt, a Jewish survivor who lost her family in the Holocaust, and his uncle, a determined one-armed dentist seeking sanctuary from Hitler's Third Reich; signed by the author, and described as 'a double biography, an intertwined meditation, where the author is an anomalous third braid'.
Very fine in dustwrapper.
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London: Michael Joseph. First English edition, 1983.
The first volume of her diary; 'If the Old Could' appeared the next year; the author, at this stage, 'is the pseudonym for a well-known woman journalist', and who would later be revealed as a major literary figure. And why did she do it? 'To be reviewed on merit, not name, to get free of that cage of associations and labels that every established writer has to learn to live inside.'
Extremities evenly tanned, else fine in dustwrapper.
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New York: Harcourt Brace and Company. First American edition, 1953.
After three novels, the author's first collection of ten stories, written between 1946 and 1953, six first appeared in 'The New Yorker', and including 'The Interior Castle', set inside a hospital ward, an operating theatre and Pansy Vanneman's head.
Fine in dustwrapper.
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London: Secker and Warburg. First English edition, 1992.
The village as protagonist across three hundred years and its inhabitants as supporting cast, from a shepherd in the time of Cromwell to a property developer in the time of Margaret Thatcher. Each segment adds something to our understanding of the lost social and economic history of this part of the English countryside.
Fine in very good dustwrapper a little sunned on the spine.
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London: The Bodley Head. First English edition, 1966.
Love's problems solved by Lady Dolores Bourhardie, agony aunt at a famous magazine, who, as the novel begins takes on a new male assistant, 'a gaunt young man with a face like the edge of a chisel and a mind that in some ways matched it.'
Fine in dustwrapper
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New York: Pantheon. First American edition, 1985.
Seventy folktales, arranged thematically, including: 'Fairies', 'Origins and Causes', 'Fabulous Beasts', 'Giants and Strong Men', and 'Enchantment'; wood engravings by Hannah Firmin; bibliography.
Review copy with publisher's embargo slip laid in. Fine in dustwrapper.
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New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. First American edition, 1933.
Cyrus Vance #7, on the way to 12 novels; Sunford Montague dives into a swimming pool and fails to rise to the surface. The only title in the series featuring a pictorial dustwrapper.
Very good in dustwrapper with a minor, professional repair.
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London: Victor Gollancz. First English edition, 1964.
Tenement rent collector (agent for his slumlord older brother) as protagonist and oral historian of 1950s Manhattan, a rudderless man who 'travelled in an eggshell through which came only subdued light and muffled sound', breaks out of his egg, 'grows a face' and starts to see and to hear.
Owner signature, extremities darkened, very good in dustwrapper.
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London: Jonathan Cape. First English edition, 2001.
Several generations of missing fathers; a blend of history, memory and make-believe; first published as a serial in the USA between 1995 and 2000; and an auspicious moment in the history of the graphic novel.
Rated as one of The Guardian's 100 best books of the twenty first century.
The author's absorbing afterword outlines his move beyond alt comics to semi-autobiographical fiction.
Fine in dustwrapper / poster with one nick
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London: The Grey Walls Press. First English edition, 1951.
A heartless artificial Los Angeles – the dump behind the dream factory – where off-the-wall wannabes come to self destruct, their dreams of fame ending in disappointment and violence. West wrote his merciless cult classic from personal experience while working as a screenwriter in Hollywood. The commodification of beauty and romance, commercial forces, personal degradation – these things are recognisable in the Hollywood we know today.
Offsetting to prelims, else very good in dustwrapper darkened on the spine and around the perimeter.
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London: MacDonald. Reprint, 1966.
'A Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight' – the life and times of Phillip Maddison, #6: 1916, Battle of the Somme, and dedicated to Richard Aldington.
Michael Boddy's copy, with his signature, else fine in very good dustwrapper, illustrated by Broom Lynne, nicked at the crown and base of spine.
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New York: E. P. Dutton. First American edition, 1947.
Behind the scenes with Lou Carey and his long journey from Kansas City; a jazz novel.
Fine in dustwrapper.
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New York: Atlantic Monthly Press. First American edition, 1993.
"The book I think is most underrated is Jack Womack’s 'Random Acts of Senseless Violence'. A near future that chillingly predicted the foulest possible outcome of our past four years in the US" – William Gibson, January 2021.
Thirteen-year-old Lola Hart's diary about her family, city and country, all dissolving or spinning out of control.
Foxing to extremities, very good in fine dustwrapper.
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New York: Farrar Straus and Giroux. First American edition, 2003.
Struggles with various fathers and coming out from their shadow. 'James Wood has written a very clever book about a very stupid man. I'm not sure if he's been too clever, or not quite clever enough' – Lewis Jones, 'Sunday Telegraph'. The author's first novel, signed by him.
Fine in dustwrapper.
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