Antiquarian and Collectors’ Books

BEARDSLEY, Aubrey (illustrator). – A.T.G. PRICE. Simplicity. London: John Lane, The Bodley Head, 1896. First edition, 8vo (166 x 116mm.) Title, 16pp. publisher’s advertisements to rear, illustrated endpapers. (Toning, occasional mild spotting.) Original cloth illustrated by Beardsley (stain to upper cover, corner crease to rear endpaper). Note: this is volume 3 of the four volume Pierrot’s Library series issued by John Lane.

BEARDSLEY, Aubrey (illustrator). – Vincent BROWN. My Brother. London: John Lane, The Bodley Head, 1896. First edition, 8vo (168 x 117mm.) Title, 16pp. publisher’s advertisements to rear, illustrated endpapers by Beardsley. (Toning, light spotting to endpapers.) Original cloth illustrated by Beardsley (small stains to covers and spine, spine ends chipped). Note: this is volume 4 of the four volume Pierrot’s Library series issued by John Lane.

SIGNED BOOK. – Anthony POWELL. The Valley of Bones. London: William Heinemann, 1964. First edition, signed and inscribed by Anthony Powell, 8vo (180 x 122mm.) (Mild toning.) Original red cloth (extremities bumped, slight spine lean), dust-jacket (extremities rubbed, damp-staining verso, marginal damp-stain to rear inner flap). Note: inscribed by Powell: ‘For Peter and Joan Martin, in recollection of some delightful days in Kyoto, from Anthony Powell, May 1964’. Provenance: Peter and Joan Martin (inscribed to by the author in ink on the front-free endpaper).

PRESENTATION COPY. – Helena Petrovna BLAVATSKY. The Key to Theosophy. London: The Theosophical Publishing Company, Limited, [1889.] Inscribed in ink on the title-page ‘With the author’s compliments’, 8vo (208 x 161mm.) Title, ‘Preface’, 14pp. publisher’s advertisements to rear. (Browned to margins, lacking half-title.) Original blue cloth with the Theosophical seal, the gilt ouroboros, Seal of Solomon, the Ankh and the Om, and gilt lettering to upper cover (wear to spine ends and upper joint, inner hinge slightly weakened). Note: written towards the end of her life, Blavatsky used a question and answer format to expound upon the foundational principles of Theosophy. It not being, for example, a conventional religion but an attempt to unite humanity under common principles of brotherhood and ancient truths that have shaped human thought. Provenance: The Aquarian Book Service (ink stamp to title).

CATHOLIC. - GRATIAN. [Decretum Gratiani.] Decreti huius plenissimum argumentum. Paris: John Petit and Thielmann Kerver, 1516. Signed in 8s (214 x 151mm.) Gothic letter, title in red and black with printer’s device, double-column text surrounded by commentary, large woodcut verso title of Gratian in his study with numerous popes and cardinals, woodcut of the ‘Tree of Kindred and Affinity’, decorative woodcut initials, 2pp. of contemporary bound-in leaves to front and rear with manuscript notes. (Marginal loss to title affecting woodcut verso, a 3-inch tear to ‘Tree of Kindred’, occasional marginal damp-staining and corner creasing.) Contemporary calf over wooden boards (rebacked, endpapers replaced), housed within a 20th century brown cloth-covered solander box, gilt lettering to spine (minor marks). Note: dated to the title and to colophon at p.582. Better known as the ‘Decretum Gratiani’ or ‘Concordia discordantim canonum’, it is a compilation of Catholic canon law compiled in the 11th century and in use until the ‘Decretals’ of Pope Gregory IX in 1234. Provenance: Robert Rickman (near contemporary name (Latinized) to title-page.

SHELLEY, Mary. Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus. London: Richard Bentley, 1849. Bentley’s Standard Novel Series, vol. 9. 8vo (168 x 115mm.) Engraved frontispiece, tissue-guard, 2pp. publisher’s advertisements, advertisement endpapers. (Spotting to frontispiece, light spotting to title.) Original brown blind-stamped cloth, gilt to spine (some loss at top of spine). Note: loosely inserted is the top part of spine panel cloth. An early reprint of Mary Shelley’s gothic novel, a foundational myth of modernity, conceived ‘around a blazing wood fire’ in the Villa Diodati near Lake Geneva in 1816 with Dr. John Polidori, Lord Byron and Percy Shelley in attendance. Provenance: T. Birkett (bookplate to front pastedown).

POE, Edgar Allan. [The Purloined Letter.] The Gift: A Christmas, New Year, and Birthday Present. Philadelphia: Carey and Hart, 1845. First edition, 8vo (221 x 136mm.) Engraved frontispiece and vignette to title, 6 engraved plates, tissue-guards. (Toning, spotting to tissues.) Original publisher’s polished calf, ornate gilt to covers and spine, g.e. (some fading to gilt, toned, light rubbing). Note: contains the first appearance in print of Poe’s story ‘The Purloined Letter’. Probably the most celebrated and contested detective story of all time, Poe’s story was an early forerunner of the detective genre while also initiating the trope of the amateur detective who triumphs over a blundering police force. Later, in the 1960’s and 1970’s it was the central text of a critical theory debate between Jacques Lacan’s structuralist approach and Jacque Derrida’s deconstructive reading.

CHRISTIE, Agatha. The Secret of Chimneys. London: John Lane at the Bodley Head, 1925. First edition, 8vo (183 x 119mm.) Half-title, 2pp. publisher’s advertisements to rear. (Mild toning, light browning to advertisements.) Original pale blue cloth, lettered in black (slight discolouring to spine, light finger-marks and small stain to lower cover). Note: the first of Christie’s Superintendent Battle novels.

DAHL, Roald. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1964. First edition, second issue, 8vo (234 x 152mm.) Illustrations by Joseph Schindelman. (Mild toning, small abrasion to front-free endpaper.) Original red cloth (gilt fading to spine, spine ends bumped), dust-jacket (toned, small tape repair verso, slight chipping, small crease tear to rear inner flap). Note: second issue with the 5-line colophon to rear, in a first issue dust-jacket without ISBN.

HORSE-RACING. – Ras Prince MONOLULU. I Gotta Horse… as told to Sidney H. White. London: Hurst & Blackett Ltd., [1950.] First edition, 8vo (212 x 133mm.) Photographic illustrations. (Toning.) Original red cloth (some staining to covers), dust-jacket (partially adhering to lower cover, chipping to extremities, old tape repairs at top of spine). Note: scarce. The autobiography of a black racing tipster who made his name in the 1920’s, wearing colourful headdresses and shouting ‘I gotta horse’.

[BANNERMAN, Helen.] The Story of Little Degchie-head. An Awful Warning to Bad Bears. London: James Nesbit, 1903. First edition, 12mo (126 x 83mm.) 36 colour illustrations by the author. (Toning, inner hinge broken.) Original olive cloth (small stains to upper cover, lettering faded). – And a further volume by Helen Bannerman (‘The Story of Little Black Mingo’, [1902], 12mo) (2).

EINSTEIN, Albert and Sigmund FREUD. Why War? A Correspondence Between Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud. Translated by Stuart Gilbert. [London:] Peace Pledge Union, April 1939. 8vo (214 x 139mm.) Original printed wrappers (some loss at top of spine). Note: first published in 1933 by ‘The International Institute of Intellectual Co-operation of the League of Nations’ as No. 2 in their series of ‘Open Letters’. With the threat of war looming, Einstein asks what psychological insight Freud’s discipline can bring to the threat of a war that would be incalculably more destructive than at any other time in history. Einstein’s own suggestion is to establish ‘a legislative and judicial body to settle every conflict arising between nations’ because the ruling classes of each nation have the means ‘to sway the emotions of the masses’. Freud suggests the best hope is to encourage the ‘eros’ impulse through cultural processes of ‘identification’. Failing that, we might instead learn to accept that war is ‘biologically sound and practically unavoidable’. And yet also, it might be asked, ‘if the community, in its turn, cannot claim a right over the individual lives of its members’. – And a further volume (‘Annual Report of a Residential War Nursery’ by Dorothy Burlingham and Anna Freud, 1942, 8vo, and several newsletters of the ‘Pacifist Service Unit’, 1943, 8vo) (2).

HORSES. – William BURDON. The Gentleman’s Pocket-Farrier. Shewing How to use your Horse on a Journey. And what Remedies are proper for common Misfortunes that may befall him on the Road. London: 1732. 12mo (165 x 98mm.) Title, 2pp. ‘Index’. (Light browning, lacking blank to rear.) Contemporary calf (rubbing and scuffing, joint splitting). Note: scarce. Provenance: J.B. Bingham (ink inscribed to front pastedown, dated 1820).

BLACK PANTHERS. – Huey NEWTON. Huey Newton Talks to the Movement. Boston, Massachusetts: New England Free Press, [circa 1968.] 16pp., staple-bound. Note: an interview discussing the ‘Black Panther Party, cultural nationalism, SNCC, Liberals and white revolutionaries’.

SIGNED BOOK. – Seamus HEANEY. Electric Light. London: Faber and Faber, 2001. First edition, first impression, signed by Seamus Heaney, 8vo (215 x 134mm.) (Mild toning, faint spotting to half-title.) Original black cloth (some spotting to lower cover), dust-jacket (light rubbing).

POETRY. – W.H. AUDEN. A Certain World. London: Faber and Faber, 1971. Second impression, 8vo (215 x 132mm.) (Mild toning.) Original red cloth, dust-jacket. – And a further seven volumes related to poetry (including ‘The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens’, 1971, 8vo, and Gary Snyder’s ‘A Range of Poems’, second edition, signed by the author, 1967, 8vo, and Gary Snyder’s ‘Six Sections From Mountains and Rivers Without End’, signed by the author, 1967, 8vo) (8).

DUFF, Charles. A Handbook on Hanging. London: Cayme Press, 1928. First edition, 8vo (165 x 100mm.) (Browned, spotting to first leaves and fore-edge.) Original boards (spine repaired, browned). – And a further four volumes (including Montague Summers’ ‘The Vampire, his Kith and Kin’, first edition, 1928, 8vo, and Steve Fielding’s ‘The Hangman’s Record’, 3 vols., 1995-2005, 8vo) (5).

BINDINGS. – Edward BULWER-LYTTON. [The Works:] London: George Routledge and Sons, [circa 1850.] 23 vols., New Edition, 8vo (163 x 100mm.) (Spotting to preliminaries.) Contemporary half calf over marbled paper-covered boards, red and green morocco lettering pieces to the spines (some rubbing to spines, some loss to lettering piece of ‘Last Days of Pompeii’, remains of bookplates to front pastedowns) (23).

WINE. – George Adolphus WIGNEY. A Philosophical Treatise on Malting and Brewing. London: R.N. Rose, 1823. First edition, small 4to (222 x 136mm.) Half-title, glossary. (Spotting to half-title, light browning, stamps to title and text, lacking blanks.) Later green cloth (endpapers replaced). Note: scarce. George Wigney lived and worked as brewer in Ship Street, Brighton. Provenance: Worthing Public Library (bookplates to pastedowns).