Antiquarian and Collectors’ Books

ARCADIA PRESS. – [Barnard Law] MONTGOMERY, Viscount of Alamein. A History of Warfare. London: Arcadia Press, 1969. Limited edition, this being number 5 of 265 copies signed by Montgomery, 4to (242 x 174mm.) Numerous illustrations. Original full black crushed morocco by Zaehnsdorf with morocco and gilt design of a cannon onlayed to the upper cover, g.e., original buckram drop-back box (sunned to the spine).

ARCADIA PRESS. – Christine DESROCHES-NOBLECOURT. Tutankhamen. London: Arcadia Press, 1969. Limited edition, this being number 5 of 265 copies signed by the author, 4to (248 x 176mm.) Numerous illustrations. (Mild toning.) Original tan morocco by Zaehnsdorf with scarab cartouche in morocco onlays to upper cover, g.e., original buckram drop-back box (sunned to the spine).

MANUSCRIPT. – Sara Jane MATHERS. [A hand-written diary by a nurse of the Territorial Force Nursing Service working for the 34 Ambulance Train in France towards the end of the First World War. N.p.:] France: June 1918-September 1919, manuscript, 8vo (218 x 167mm.) 45pp. in a mostly legible single hand relating to the almost daily movements of the 34 Ambulance train in France with brief mention of activities, medical and recreational, personnel etc. until demobilisation on 4th April 1919 and returning home to Ipswich where the entries are more social and local, numerous blank leaves to rear. (Toning.) Original card wrappers (browned, corner creases, small tears). Note: Sara Mathers was clearly an experienced and well qualified nurse and her entries for ‘loading’ and ‘unloading’ the soldiers are brief and succinct. She mentions the very worst of the injuries (‘got entangled with the propeller driver..’) and occasional gossip (‘Sister Ferguson reported Major Brown for not calling us’) and some social life, too (‘Played gramophone evening, very good night’) but interestingly there is no mention of the armistice on 11th November, or any mention of the war ending. – And with eight of Sara Jane Mather’s medical training certificates.

[JAMES, Edward.] ‘Edward Selsey’. So Far So Glad. London: Robert Stockwell for Duckworth & Co., [1933.] Limited edition, this being one of 750 copies only, 4to (272 x 191mm.) Illustrations by Edward Carrick. (Mild toning.) Original black cloth-backed marbled paper-covered boards, gilt lettering (slight toning).

JAMES, Edward. Reading Into the Picture. London: Duckworth, 1934. Limited edition, this being number 47 of 90 copies signed by Edward James, 4to (277 x 209mm.) Illustrations by Jörg v. Reppert-Bismark. (Mild toning.) Original multi-coloured buckram (spotting to lower cover).

PRIVATE PRESS. – Eleanor FARJEON. A Sussex Alphabet. Sussex, Flansham: The Pear Tree Press, 1939. Limited edition, this being number 7 of 220 copies, inscribed by Eleanor Farjeon, 4to (285 x 212mm.) 11 lino-cut illustrations in colour by Sheila M. Thompson. (Toning, browning to blanks.) Original pictorial boards (lightly rubbed extremities), original cellophane wrapper (large loss). Note: the inscription reads: ‘To My dear Violetta, a bit of Sussex after a lovely day in Surrey, from her loving Nellie’. Provenance: Violetta Farjeon, actor and singer (inscribed to from Eleanor Farjeon on the front blank).

CHINA. – C. Noel DAVIS. A History of the Shanghai Paper Hunt Club 1863-1930. Shanghai: Kelly and Walsh Limited, 1930. First edition, 4to (278 x 224mm.) Large folding frontispiece from a photograph of the Christmas 1929 hunt, numerous photographic plates and illustrations after drawings by Edmund Toeg, 2 coloured and 1 folding, 6 folding maps to the rear of the riding country outside Shanghai. (Toning, scattered spotting to some leaves, corner creasing to maps.) Original cloth (sunned to spine, extremities lightly rubbed).           Note: lacking Chinese foxes to hunt, in 1863 the English expatriate community in Shanghai established the ‘Shanghai Paper Hunt Club’. They rode Mongolian ponies known as ‘China Ponies’ and chased pieces of coloured paper around the countryside outside of Shanghai. The Chinese themselves were excluded from joining the club until 1920. This book is a photographic record of the clubs activities as well as a record of all the hunts, hunt handicaps, Steeplechases and Points-to-Points they achieved.

ROGERS, W.S. A Book of the Poster, Illustrated with Examples of the Work of the Principal Artists of the World. London: Greening & Co., Ltd., 1901. First edition, 4to (252 x 187mm.) Half-title, 13 colour plates, numerous black and white illustrations. (Toning, occasional marginal spotting, endpapers browned.) Original green pictorial cloth, t.e.g. (lettering to spine faded, extremities rubbed).

BALLET. – [Nigel GOSLING and Maude LLOYD.] ‘Alexander Bland’. The Royal Ballet, The First Fifty Years. London: Threshold Books Ltd., 1981. First edition, multi-signed by members of The Royal Ballet, 4to (288 x 216mm.) Numerous photographic illustrations. (Mild toning.) Original blue cloth, dust-jacket (price-clipped). Note: ‘Alexander Bland’ was the pseudonym for the husband-and-wife writing team of Nigel Gosling and Maude Lloyd. The book is signed on the front-free endpaper by ‘Alexander Bland’, and the dancers Merle Park, David Wall, Monica Mason, Brenda Last, Alfreda Thorogood, Julien Hosking, Derek Deane, Lesley Collier and Vergie Derman. – And a further twelve volumes relating to ballet, including three albums of photographs, postcards and mounted illustrations relating to ballet with 13 signed photographs of Robert Helpmann, 6 signed photographs of Margot Fonteyn, 1 of Harold Turner and 1 of Mary Honer (13).

KING, Stephen. Carrie. New York: Doubleday & Company Inc., 1974. Book Club edition, signed and dated by Stephen King on the front-free endpaper, 8vo (206 x 134mm.) (Mild toning, light corner creasing to preliminaries and pp.139-151.) Original salmon-pink boards, yellow lettering to spine (spine ends bumped), dust-jacket (tape repairs verso and also at top of spine). Note: signed by King and dated ‘3/29/80’. King’s first published work.

KING, Stephen and Glenn CHADBOURNE (illustrator). The Secretary of Dreams. Baltimore: Cemetery Dance Publications, 2006-2010. 2 vols., first edition, 4to (303 x 224mm.) Numerous illustrations by Glenn Chadbourne. Original leatherette, gilt and coloured lettering, dust-jackets, slipcases. Note: a graphically illustrated collection of Stephen King’s horror stories. Due to these volumes being published four years apart it’s unusual to find the two volumes together (2).

SIGNED BOOKS. – Maureen O’HARA with John NICOLETTI. ‘Tis Herself, a Memoir. London: Simon & Schuster U.K. Ltd., 2004. First edition, first impression, signed by Maureen O’Hara, 8vo (233 x 147mm.) Photographic illustrations. (Mild toning.) Original green cloth, dust-jacket. – And a further seventeen volumes of, mostly, autobiography, all signed (including two copies of Richard Attenborough’s ‘Entirely Up to You, Darling’, 2008, 8vo, and, signed by Spike Milligan ‘The Goons, The Story’, 1997, 4to, and Arthur C. Clarke’s ‘Tales From the White Hart’, number 404 of 500 copies signed by the author, 2007, 8vo, and a signed first printing of Alec Guinness’ ‘A Positively Final Appearance’, 1999, 8vo) (18).

LEE, Christopher. Tall, Dark and Gruesome. London: Victor Gollancz, 1997. Revised edition, signed by Christopher Lee, 8vo (232 x 153mm.) Photographic illustrations. Original black cloth, dust-jacket. Note: signed on the title-page and dated ’31.10.97’.

BURMA. – Larry COLLINS and Dominique LAPIERRE. Freedom at Midnight. London: Collins, 1975. First edition, inscribed by Mountbatten of Burma for Dame Vera Lynn, 8vo (214 x 131mm.) Photographic illustrations. (Mild toning.) Original grey cloth (some loss to top of spine), dust-jacket (price-clipped, crease to inner flap, wear to top of spine panel). Note: the inscription reads: ‘Dame Vera Lynn, in affectionate exchange for her vocal refrain which I ‘sung’ at the R.B.L. Lunch Party:- ‘There is no-one like our Dame/ No-one in our world/ There is no-one you can name/ Who is anything like our Dame’, Mountbatten of Burma’. Provenance: Dame Vera Lynn (gift inscribed to on the half-title).

WALKER, Gerald. Cruising. London: W.H. Allen, 1971. First U.K. edition, 8vo (216 x 132mm.) (Toning, ink name and initials on front pastedown, dated 1971.) Original blue cloth, dust-jacket (browning to lower panel, lightly rubbed spine ends). Note: written by New York Times reporter Gerald Walker, the novel is considered one of the earliest examples of gay crime fiction.

MANTELL, Gideon Algernon. The Fossils of the South Downs; or, Illustrations of the Geology of Sussex. London: Lupton Relfe, 1822. First edition, signed by Gideon Mantell and being one of only 25 fully coloured copies, 4to (309 x 236mm.) Half-title, title, dedication, 40 engraved hand-coloured plates, including 2 folding, bound-in to rear a 3pp. map in manuscript with hand-colouring relating to Leicestershire and a sectional chart relating to Charnwood Forest, 7pp. ‘Index’ and 1p. publisher’s advertisement. (Lacking geological map and plates 3 and 4, circular stamps to margin of nine plates, blanks replaced.) Later green morocco-backed green cloth, gilt lettering and reference to spine (endpapers replaced). Note: 500 copies of the first edition were printed and only 25 were fully hand-coloured. They were sold for three and six guineas respectively. Inscribed in a calligraphic hand in 1826 to Hannah Matilda, the Mantell’s daughter, who was aged four at the time. It reads ‘Hannah Matilda Mantell, Castle Place, Lewes, November 1826’ and a has a five-line quote in manuscript from Byron’s ‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’. Hannah died from tuberculosis in 1840, aged 17. After her death, Mantell inscribed this copy to J. Foster. Provenance: Hannah Matilda Mantell (ink inscription, dated November 1826); Gideon Mantell (gift inscribed from the half-title to J. Foster); Worthing Public Library (labels to pastedowns). [Dean, 52.]

POGANY, Willy (illustrator). – S.T. COLERIDGE. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. London: George Harrap & Co., 1910. 4to (315 x 232mm.) Illustrated title and half-title, 20 mounted colour plates, illustrations and decorations by Pogany. (Toning, occasional light spotting and finger-mark.) Original burgundy suede, decorative gilt and lettering to upper cover, t.e.g. (minor marks).

GRIGGS, F.L. Campden. XXIV Engravings After Pen Drawings. Oxford: at the Shakespeare Head Press, 1940. Folio (346 x 249mm.) 24 wood-engraved plates after drawings by Griggs. Original cloth portfolio, black ties (rubbed, scuffed and wear to upper cover).

BLAKE, William. – Laurence BINYON. Illustrations of the Book of Job. London: Methuen & Co., 1906. Vol. 1 [all published.] 4to (313 x 249mm.) 22 plates, tissue-guards, introduction by Laurence Binyon. (Toning, tissues with corner loss.) Original green cloth, gilt lettering (spine browned, pastedowns spotted, fading to cover edges).    Provenance: F.A. Lyon (name inscribed to front-free endpaper).