Disney: First Editions and Original Cels

Disney: First Editions and Original Cels

The Art of Frozen. The Making of an Animated Film.

(DISNEY, Walt.) SOLOMON, Charles.
The Art of Frozen. The Making of an Animated Film.

Oblong quarto. Original pictorial boards. With the dust jacket. An excellent copy, still wrapped in plastic from the publisher.
First edition, first printing. Picture book on the making of the animated film.

£125 – Book Sold

A Mickey Mouse Alphabet Book

DISNEY, Walt.
A Mickey Mouse Alphabet Book.
Racine, Wisconsin: Whitman Publishing, 1936
Octavo. Original illustrated boards. Disney Studio illustrations. Signature to front endpaper, wear to spine, rubbing to corners and ends of spine, minor bubbling to rear board. A very good copy.
First edition, first printing. A fun and quirky Disney item.

£250 – Book Sold

 

(DISNEY, Walt) BARRIE, J. M.
Peter Pan Magic Paint Book.
London: Dean, 1952
Octavo. Original pictorial paper wraps. Pictures from the Walt Disney Film An excellent copy with all pages unused.
A scarce film tie-in paint book.

£275 – Book Sold

DISNEY, Walt.
Bambi. Adapted from Felix Salten’s novel.
New York: Simon Schuster, 1941
Quarto. Original printed pictorial boards, green endpapers. With the dust jacket. Colour illustrations throughout by the Walt Disney Studio. Complete with the four separate pull out pages intact, lightly rubbed at corners and ends of spine, in the dust jacket with wear along extremities, closed tears to lower edge of rear panel. A very good copy.
First edition. A wonderfully illustrated picture book of this beloved children’s story.

£350 – Book Sold

 

DISNEY, Walt.
The Pop-Up Minnie Mouse.
New York: Blue Ribbon Books, 1933
Octavo. Original illustrated boards. Disney Studio illustrations and 3 double page colour pop-ups. Corners and ends of spine lightly bumped and rubbed, boards with mild soiling, spine with wear, pages with occasional spotting, pop-ups are bright and and in full working order. A very good copy.
First edition, first printing.

£375 – Book Sold

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

DISNEY, Walt.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
London; Collins,
Quarto. Pictorial paper boards,red cloth spine, pictorial endpapers. With the dust jacket. Walt Disney Studio illustrations from the film throughout in colour and black and white. Occasional light spotting to pages, ownership signature to front free endpaper, ends of spine with light bumping, in the dust jacket with mild spotting to panels,chip to top end of spine, shallow chipping to rear panel edges, closed tear extending from spine edge into rear panel, spine faded, paper backing strip to verso of top spine and front edge. A very good copy.
First edition, first UK printing. A picture based on the animated film. A scarce printing of this title.

£500 – Book Sold

(DISNEY, Walt.)
Alice in Wonderland.A Punchout Book.
Racine, Wisconsin: Whitman Publishing Co., 1951
Folio. Original illustrated printed wraps. Mild wear to extremities, an excellent copy.
First edition, first printing. An obscure Disney title which features 8 pages of colour punch outs featuring scenes from the Disney animated film.

£575 – Book Sold

 

DISNEY, Walt
Boat Builders.
New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1938
Oblong octavo. Original pictorial illustrated boards, pictorial endpapers. With the dust jacket. Walt disney studio illustrations throughout done in red and blue. Corners with light rubbing in the dust jacket with light spotting to panels, shallow chipping to lower front edge, a very bright copy.
First edition, first printing. Picture book featuring Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Goofy.

£600 – Book Sold

 

(DISNEY, Walt.)
Pluto and the Puppy.
New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1937
Square quarto. Original illustrated printed boards, pictorial endpapers. With the dust jacket. colour and black and white illustrations throughout by the Disney Studios. Contemporary gift inscription to front pastedown. Corners and spine ends lightly rubbed. An excellent copy in a jacket with lightly rubbed, nicked and creased extremities, a chip to top of rear panel, and a closed tear to front panel.
First edition, first printing. An obscure Disney title.

£600 – Book Sold

 

The Reluctant Dragon
(DISNEY, Walt) GRAHAME, Kenneth.
The Reluctant Dragon.
New York: Garden City Publishing, 1941
Quarto. Original illustrated printed boards, green cloth spine, pictorial endpapers. With the dust jacket. illustrated with scenes from the animated film. Light wear to corners, small stain to front pastedown. A very good copy in a jacket with light chipping to spine ends and corners, spine slightly toned, and mild soiling to rear panel.
First Disney illustrated edition, this story first appeared in Grahame’s Dream Days.

£650 – Book Sold

(DISNEY, Walt.)
Bambi. A Cut-Out Book.
Sydney: Colourtone Pty Limited for Ayers and James, c.1941
Folio. Original colour illustrated printed wraps. An excellent copy.
First edition, first printing. An obscure Disney title which features 4 pages of colour cut outs to make a play set, featuring scenes from the Disney animated film.

£650 – Book Sold

 

(DISNEY, Walt) BARRIE, J. M.
Peter Pan Punchout Book.
Racine, WI: Whitman Publishing Co., 1952
Octavo. Original pictorial paper wraps. Pictures from the Walt Disney Film Mild wear along edges. All figures remain intact on the pages.
A scarce film tie-in punch out book, which allows the reader to create a scene from the film, including Captain Hook’s pirate ship. A scarce Disney ephemera piece.

£650 – Book Sold

 

(DISNEY, Walt.)
The Night Before Christmas.
London: Collins, 1934
Octavo. Original pictorial boards, illustrated endpapers. With the dust jacket. 8 colour plates and numerous black and white illustrations throughout. Mild bumping to corners and ends of spine, occasional light spotting to pages, inscription to front free endpaper, in the dust jacket with mild toning to spine, light spotting to rear panel. A very good copy.
First edition, first UK printing. A scarce publication released along side the animated Disney Silly Symphony of same title.

£675 – Book Sold

Cinderella.Illustrations by the Walt Disney Studio

(DISNEY, Walt.)
Cinderella.Illustrations by the Walt Disney Studio adapted by Retta Scott Worcester. Story adapted by Jane Werner from the Walt Disney Motion Picture.
New York: Golden Press, 1950
Slim folio. Finely bound in by the Chelsea Bindery in sparkly ice blue cloth, glass slipper design to front board, titles to spine in silver, top edge silver, marbled endpapers. Walt Disney Studio colour illustrations throughout adapted by Retta Scott Worcester. A fine copy.
First edition, first printing. “The Golden Book of Cinderella was illustrated by Retta Scott Worcester, one of the few women who reached positions of importance in the male-dominated world of animation. She animated the hunting dogs that attack Faline in Bambi, and brought a strong personal style to the illustrations. Up producer Jonas Rivera comments, ‘I’ve always loved the Retta Scott Cinderella because it doesn’t look like the movie, but somehow it feels like the movie’”(Charles Solomon, The Art of the Disney Golden Books). An absolutely enchanting book.

£750 – Book Sold

 

(DISNEY, Walt.)
Mickey Mouse and Pluto and the Pup.
Racine: Whitman Publishing Co., 1936
Small quarto. Original illustrated printed boards, pictorial endpapers. With the dust jacket. illustrations throughout by the Walt Disney Studio. Mild toning to pages, faint stain to lower outer front corner page edges, corners and ends of spine mildly bumped in the dust jacket with a hint of wear to corners and ends of spine. An excellent copy.
First edition, first printing.

£775 – Book Sold

 

DISNEY, Walt.
Pinocchio. Box of Six Pinocchio Books For Reading, Colouring, and Playing.
Racine: Whitman Publishing Co., 1940
6 volumes, quarto. Original printed wraps, side stapled bound. Housed in the original pictorial box. illustrations throughout by the Walt Disney Studio. Mild toning to white areas of covers, slight wear along edges, box with light rubbing to corners and notation in ink to bottom of box. An excellent set.
First edition, first printings. A scarce collection of colouring and paint books, featuring the main characters from the animated film.

£1,000 – Book Sold

DISNEY, Walt.
The Story of Snow White With the individual stories of each of the dwarfs.
Racine, Wis: Whitman Publishing Co., 1938
8 volumes, quarto. Pictorial paper wraps, side staple bound. Walt Disney Studio illustrations throughout. Mild toning to pages, light wear to extremities, an excellent set.
First editions, first printings. A wonderful group of picture books each featuring one of the title characters.

£1,000 – Book Sold

Donald Duck 1936

DISNEY, Walt.
Donald Duck.
New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1936
Quarto. Original printed pictorial boards, pictorial endpapers. With the dust jacket.
Colour illustrations throughout by the Walt Disney Studio. “File Copy” stamp to title page, in the dust jacket with just a hint of soiling to panels, illustrations are exceptionally bright. An excellent copy.
First edition, first printing.

£1,000 – Book Sold

(DISNEY, Walt.)
Original book illustration art for Walt Disney Songbook. Page 41 featuring Cinderella.
New York: Golden Press, 1971
Original hand painted illustration on artist board. An excellent original painting.
Cinderella, in her magical ball gown, with the Pumpkin Coach, Fairy Godmother, and Castle in the background. Published in The Walt Disney Songbook in 1971, this gouache on thin illustration board painting measures 10″ x 6.5″ in the mat opening and is matted to 18″ x 14″.

£1,250 – Book Sold

(DISNEY, Walt) TAYLOR, Deems.
Fantasia.With a foreword by Leopold Stokowski.
New York: Simon and Schuster, 1940
Folio. Original grey cloth, titles to spine and upper board in blue, pictorial endpapers. With the dust jacket. Colour illustrations throughout. Bookplate and donation inscription to front free endpaper, ownership tickets to half-title and rear blank. Spine rolled, two light marks to upper board, small bump to top edge of the contents, which are toned. A very good copy in the price-clipped, rubbed, creased and chipped jacket with a bookseller’s ticket to the rear flap.
First edition, first printing.

£1,500 – Book Sold

 

(DISNEY, Walt) TAYLOR, Deems.
Walt Disney’s Fantasiaby Deems Taylor with a foreword by Leopold Stokowski.
New York: Simon and Schuster, 1940
Folio. Finely bound by the Chelsea Bindery in dark blue morocco, titles to spine and front board blocked in multi-coloured foil, twin rule to turn-ins in multi-coloured foil, marbled endpapers, edges in silver. Profusely illustrated in colour and black and white with 16 tipped-in colour plates. A fine copy.
First edition, first printing.

£1,500 – Book Sold

 

Limited Edition cel from Lady and the Tramp

DISNEY, Walt.
Limited Edition cel from Lady and the Tramp. Featuring Aunt Sarah and Si and Am.
Burbank, CA: Walt Disney Studios, c.1980
Original hand painted cel from the Disney Ink and Paint department. Matted to an overall size of 2o inches by 17, with a mat opening of 14 inches x 11. Gouache on celluloid. Presented in a wooden frame with conservation glass.
Limited Edition Cel #167/275. When Walt Disney Art Editions began making hand-painted limited edition cels, they were releasing them in suites of 2 to 4 cels in a portfolio. One of the earliest portfolios was from Lady and the Tramp. This is one of those rare cels, created from the archived original 1955 animation drawings. The cels were hand-painted at the Disney Ink and Paint Department, on the studio grounds. A marvellous image of Aunt Sarah with the classic Disney cat-villains, Si and Am. Only 275 copies of this cel were painted. The edition has been sold since it’s release.

£1,500 – Book Sold

 

DISNEY, Walt.
The Adventures of Mickey Mouse. Story and Illustrations by Staff of Walt Disney Studio. Book I.
London: George G. Harrap, 1931
Octavo. Original colour pictorial printed boards, pictorial endpapers. With the colour printed dust jacket. 32 colour illustrations, one to each page including title recto and verso. Mild rubbing to ends of spine and corners, inscription to verso of front endpaper, occasional light spotting to pages, in the dust jacket with a hint of fading to spine, shallow chipping to ends of spine. An excellent copy.
First edition, first UK printing, of the first Mickey Mouse book, rare in this condition.

£2,000 – Book Sold

 

DISNEY, Walt.
Mickey Mouse Library. The Adventures of Mickey Mouse; Little Red Riding Hood and The Big Bad Wolf; Who’s Afraid Of The Big Bad Wolf.
Philadelphia: David McKay Co., 1931-34
3 volumes, octavo. Original pictorial printed wraps, cloth spines. Housed in the original pictorial box. illustrations throughout by the Walt Disney Studio. Third volume with mild crease to rear top corner, box with wear to corners and edges, an excellent set.
First editions, first printings. Issued concurrently with the 1934 movie The Big Bad Wolf as a promotional item. This copy has a label bearing the words “3 Books” pasted onto the upper lid. This may account for the presence of the earlier, 1931 “Adventures of Mickey Mouse” in the set, certainly a welcome addition. The only set we have handled in the original publisher’s box.

£2,000 – Book Sold

(DISNEY, Walt).
“What’s Up, Possums.”Original artwork for the Collector’s Plate in the Bambi series.
Edwin M. Knowles China Co., 1992
Original hand painted cels on hand painted background. Gouache on celluloid on original background (460 x 460 mm). Mounted, glazed, and presented in a gold frame with conservation glass 480 x 480 mm.
The original artwork for the collector’s plate produced by Edwin Knowles China company. The plate was part of their Bambi series which featured 6 different limited release plates. According to paperwork included with the plate, The Walt Disney Board of Review certified the plate’s artwork “effectively represented in concept, character development and execution, that essence of the animator’s art achieved in the classic work of the Walt Disney Studio.” The paperwork goes on to state that this plate series is the only one certified by the Walt Disney Company. It credited Doug Ball as illustrator, Carol Stephenson as cell painter, and Dave Pachaieo as pencil artist.

£2,250 – Book Sold

DISNEY, Walt.
Production cel for Fantasia.Featuring an elephant from the Dance of Hours sequence.
Burbank, CA: Walt Disney Studios, 1940
An original hand painted cel on a hand painted Courvoisier background. Gouache on celluloid on Courvoisier airbrushed painted background. Sheet size: 7.5 x 5.5 in. Mounted, and presented in a manufactured gold leaf frame and UV protection glass. Framed size 14 x 12 in. A touch of spotting to where the elephant’s truck is on the background. An excellent example.
An original production cel for Disney’s Fantasia. Featuring an elephant from the “Dance of Hours” sequence. The cel has been trimmed and laid on top of a handpainted background as prepared by the Disney Studio. Disney production stamp to lower front corner. Cels were trimmed and applied to backgrounds by the studio to be sold through various Disney galleries. Fantasia cels presented in this way are rare. With a certificate from the Lainzberg Gallery, stating this to be an original Disney production cel originally issued through the Courvoisier Galleries of San Francisco.

£2,625 – Book Sold

Little Pig’s Picnic and Other Stories

(DISNEY, Walt) BROWN, Margaret Wise.
Little Pig’s Picnic and Other Stories.
Boston: D. C. Heath and Co., 1939
Octavo. Original pictorial cloth, illustrated endpapers. Walt Disney Studio illustrations throughout. Spine slightly toned and bumped, mild white marks to front board, occasional light spotting to pages, page 89 with chip to lower edge. A very good copy.
First edition, first printing. Signed by Walt Disney on the half title page. A collection of short stories based on Disney’s Silly Symphonies.

£2,750 – Book Sold

DISNEY, Walt.
Production cel for Alice in Wonderland. Featuring the Walrus and Oysters.
Burbank, CA: Walt Disney Studios, 1951
4 cel set up for Alice in Wonderland featuring four original hand inked and painted production cels of the Walrus and Oysters and menu, set on a hand prepared watercolour non production background. Gouache on celluloid on. Sheet size: 43 x 35.5 cm In excellent condition. Mounted, and presented in a manufactured gold leaf frame and UV protection glass. Framed size: 51 x 46 cm.
Original production cel for Disney’s Alice in Wonderland, depicting a scene from the 1951 film in which the Walrus speaks with the oysters he and the Carpenter lured from the sea.

£2,850 – Book Sold

(DISNEY, Walt.)
Walt Disney’s version of Pinocchio Based on the famous story by Collodi.
New York: Random House, 1939
Large quarto. Original spiral bound cloth boards, label printed in red to front cover. Facsimile typescript and storyboard, printed on one side of the leaf. Despite being a ludicrously flimsy piece of book construction (presumably in whimsical imitation of inhouse Disney ring-bound project books), this copy has survived in outstanding condition.
One of 100 copies only of the original American edition, this copy a presentation to William (“Tex”) Henson on the occasion of his 20th birthday in 1944, shortly after he joined Disney as an assistant animator. The front pastedown has the gift inscription “Best wishes to Bill Henson from June 1944 ”, the words in square brackets being added in another hand, presumably the recipient’s, the first over an erasure. The front free endpaper is inscribed “Bill Henson, Walt Disney Productions 1944” in the presenter’s hand; the limitation notice is further inscribed by fellow animators Fred Kopletz and George Owen. Henson worked on Disney’s first post-war feature, Song of the South, and made a name for himself campaigning for the animated chipmunk duo, Chip ‘n’ Dale, to become regulars in the Disney repertory. He later moved to Mexico, supervising the studio of the animator Jay Ward, their best-known creation being the bulbous-nosed, dim-witted Bullwinkle the Moose.

£3,000 – Book Sold

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Mickey Mouse Waddle Book.
New York: Blue Ribbon, 1934
Quarto. Original printed illustrated boards, illustrated endpapers. With the dust jacket. Walt Disney Studio illustrations throughout. Mild wear to ends of spine, waddles punched out, in the dust jacket with light chipping to ends of spine and corners, mild spotting to panels, dust jacket band with mild edge wear, the four waddles are bright and with all original parts. A very good copy of this toy book.
First editions, first printings. This title was the first of the “waddle” books in which die-cut figures were punched out and assembled to move. This copy has all four original waddles of Mickey, Minnie, Pluto and horse Tanglefoot with their original brass fasteners, though, they have been punched out from the book. This copy with the original dust jacket band which would have held the envelope containing the runaway for the waddles which is lacking as well as the envelope which held the fasteners. However, any copies with original waddles are scarce. Included with this copy is the 1992 facsimile edition. An obscure piece of Disneyana.

£3,500 – Book Sold

Production cel for Robin Hood. Featuring Maid Marian and Lady Kluck.

DISNEY, Walt.
Production cel for Robin Hood. Featuring Maid Marian and Lady Kluck.
Burbank, CA: Walt Disney Studios, 1973
Original hand painted production cel, on the original master hand-painted production background with original line overlay cel. Disney cel to lower corner as well as the original sequence number to the corner, Disney cel certificate mounted on rear of the mount. Gouache on celluloid on master painted background. Sheet size: 14 x 10 in. double mounted to 20 × 16 in. Presented in a gold leaf frame with conservation glass.
An original production cel for Disney’s Robin Hood. Featuring Maid Marian and Lady Kluck, on the original Master background. With the Disney production certificate to back of frame, stating this was a cel used in the production of the film.

£3,500 – Sold

 

DISNEY, Walt.
Original concept art for Fantasia.
Burbank, CA: Walt Disney Productions, 24 August 1939
Watercolour over pencil on paper. Sheet size: 30.3 x 25.3 cm. Production label to verso. Mounted, and presented in a manufactured gold leaf frame with conservation glass. In excellent condition.
Original concept art for The Pastoral Symphony segment of Walt Disney’s Fantasia (1940). It depicts a young faun picking grapes and is signed M. Schwartzman on the verso. Melvin Schwartzman (1914–2012), later known as Mel Shaw, joined Walt Disney Studios in 1937 and worked as a concept artist and designer on several productions, including Bambi (1942). However, he left the studio in 1941 to serve as a filmmaker with the U.S. Army Signal Corp. The post-war years saw Shaw starting a design business with Bob Allen, before returning to Disney in 1974, where he contributed to several of the major features of the modern era, including The Rescuers (1977), The Fox and the Hound (1981), The Great Mouse Detective (1986), Beauty and the Beast (1991), and The Lion King (1994). “Mel Shaw’s influence as an animation design artist extended over many decades and many studios. He worked with Hugh Harman and Rudy Ising in the early days of both the Warner Bros. and MGM cartoon studios. At the beginning of World War II, he contributed designs to Orson Welles’s never-realized film of Saint-Exupery´s The Little Prince. His best known artwork is the series of dramatic pastels in the title sequence of The Rescuers (1977), showing the bottle containing Penny’s call for help riding stormy seas. Shaw said the drawings were originally just preliminary studies for an animated sequence, but when director Woolie Reitherman saw them, he said they didn’t need to be animated – they could carry the sequence as they were” (Charles Solomon, Variety, 27 November 2012).

£3,750 – Sold

DISNEY, Walt.
Production cel for Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.
Burbank, CA: Walt Disney Studios, 1937
Gouache on celluloid on Courvoisier airbrush background. Sheet size: 16.0 x 13.7 cm. Mounted, and presented in a manufactured gold leaf frame with conservation glass. In excellent condition.
An original production cel for Disney’s first animated feature film, showing Sneezy, Happy, and Bashful playing instruments, as seen in the background of the Silly Song scene in the film. The cel has been trimmed and laid on top of an airbrushed background as prepared by the Disney Studio to be sold at the Courvoisier Galleries.

£4,000 – Sold

DISNEY, Walt.
Signed Studio Dye Transfer Print for The Lady and the Tramp.
Burbank: Walt Disney Studios, 1955
Rare Walt Disney signed studio dye transfer print cel from the 1955 classic ”Lady and the Tramp.” Beautiful full ”Walt Disney” signature with a flourish, inscribed “To Victoria / with Best Wishes” on the original studio mat below the illustration from ”Lady,” showing the title characters. One of Disney’s most popular and successful movies, ”Lady and the Tramp” surpassed all other Disney movies at the box office when it was released in 1955 ‘This reproduction cel is part of a limited edition, these were often done by the studio to give as special gifts, most were done in an issue of 100 copies. This print measures 10” x 8.” Framed to 19 x 18 inches. In very good condition.

£4,125 – Sold

 

“Cast Adrift” Production cel for Pinocchio

DISNEY, Walt.
“Cast Adrift” Production cel for Pinocchio.
Burbank, CA: Walt Disney Studios, 1940
An original hand painted 3 cel setup on lithograph of the original background. Field size is 12.5 by 11 inches. Gouache on celluloid An excellent set up. Presented in blue lacquer frame with conservation glass and mount.
An original production cel for Disney’s Pinocchio. This original cel setup has three hand painted layers on top of a lithograph of the studio background. The cel is not trimmed. Featuring Pinocchio, Geppetto, Figaro and Cleo. A truly fantastic cel and one of the harder films to obtain cels from.

£4,350 – Sold

(DISNEY, Walt.) PALMER, H. Marion.
Walt Disney’s Surprise Package. Adapted versions of Peter Pan, The Wind in the Willows, Alice in Wonderland, Peter and the Wolf and Eight Other Stories.
New York: Simon and Schuster, 1944
Large quarto. Pictorial boards, patterened endpapers, with the dust jacket. Housed in a pink quarter morocco solander box by the Chelsea Bindery. Walt Disney Studio colour illustrations throughout. Mild crease and small professionally restored tear to front free endpaper. An excellent copy with just a hint of rubbing at extremities in a bright dust jacket.
First edition, first printing. Inscribed on the verso of the front free endpaper in crayon to “Mimi Bonesteel, Happy Easter, Walt Disney.”

£5,000 – Sold

 

DISNEY, Walt.
Pinocchio production cel of a Dutch milk maid from the”Give a Little Whistle sequence”.
Burbank: Walt Disney Studios, 1940
carved characters featured on a clock in Geppetto’s workshop with which Jiminy Cricket interacts during the song ‘Give A Little Whistle’.
An original Pinocchio production cel, with an early inscription. Blue pencil signature and inscription, “To Peggy Fox, from Walt Disney,” on a brown 4.25 x 2 inch card affixed to the mat of an original production cel featuring a little Dutch milk maid, featured as one of the carved characteras featured on the clock in Geppetto’s workshop during the “Give a Little Whistle” sequence from the 1940 Walt Disney Studios film Pinocchio, trimmed and applied to a detailed airbrush background done by the Courvoisier Gallery. After being used for the film, this cel was prepared by the Disney Studio’s Courvoiser Unit for presentation, either as VIP gift or for sale through the Courvoisier Gallery distribution system. For about ten years during the late 1930s and 1940s the Courvoisier Gallery was the exclusive distributor of Disney Studio drawings and cels. At first all Courvoisier cels were prepared for sale at the Disney Studio. This involved laboriously trimming the cels to the edges of the characters, hand-creating backgrounds to complement each cel, matting the artwork and labelling it. Roy Disney later decided this was too costly and the work was moved to Courvoisier’s workshop. With the original Walt Disney Courvoisier Gallery label to the back of the frame.

£5,000 – Sold

The Ugly Duckling

(DISNEY, Walt.) BROWN, Margaret Wise.
The Ugly Duckling.
Boston: D. C. Heath and Co., 1939
Folio 350 x 320 mm. 11 pages on artist board featuring page layout and the original celluloid illustrations for The Ugly Duckling Story which was in the D. C Heath title Little Pig’s Picnic and Other Stories by Margaret Wise Brown. Housed in a blue cloth solander box. Walt Disney Studio illustrations throughout. Page 5 without the celluloid illustrations, An excellent set.
First edition, first printing. A fantastic group of original Disney Studio celluloids. Due to accurate representations being distorted with some license holders, Disney decided that in-house illustrators were their best option in accurate representations of their characters, which resulted in stories such as this one having its illustrations as celluloid pieces. This item was featured in 1997 October issue of Walt Disney’s Comics, the article states that very few of these original story board celluloids survived given their fragile nature, making this group a rare collection. Included with this is a copy of Brown’s Little Pig’s Picnic and Other Stories which featured this story.

£5,550 – Sold

 

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Mickey Mouse Movie Stories.
Philadelphia David McKay Company, 1931-34
2 volumes, octavo. Original green cloth, titles to spines gilt, image pasted down to front boards. With the dust jackets. Housed in a black cloth slipcase by the Chelsea Bindery with a pictorial block of Mickey Mouse to the side in gilt. Walt Disney Studio black and white cartoon illustrations throughout. Spine ends slightly bumped. Exceptionally bright copies in jackets; Volume 1 jacket with small chips to head of spine, Volume 2 with light chipping to spine ends, extremities creased and with several closed tears, rear flap lacking, and tape repair to verso of rear panel.
First editions, first printings. Each volume contains several short story adaptations of Mickey Mouse cartoons of the time. Volume 1 has a small black and white drawing of Mickey (recto) or Minnie (verso) which appears to dance as the pages are flipped. An uncommon set in dust jackets.

£5,750 – Sold

DISNEY, Walt.
The Adventures of Mickey Mouse. Story and Illustrations by Staff of Walt Disney Studio. Book I.
Philadelphia: David McKay Company, 1931
Octavo, pp. on thick paper. Original colour pictorial printed boards, pictorial endpapers. With the colour printed dust jacket. 32 colour illustrations, one to each page including title recto and verso. Spine ends lightly bumped in the dust jacket with shallow chipping to ends of spines and corners. An excellent copy.
First edition, first printing, of the first Mickey Mouse picture book, rare in the dust jacket.

£5,750 – Sold

 

Version of Pinocchio.Based on the Famous Story by Collodi

DISNEY, Walt.
Version of Pinocchio.Based on the Famous Story by Collodi.
New York: Random House, 1939
Quarto. Ringbound cloth boards with titles and illustration to label to upper board. Glue residue to front and back free endpapers, also to a lesser extent on the pastedowns, upper cover a little soiled, nonetheless an attractive, internally bright and clean copy of this scarce book
First Edition, First Impression. No. 71 of 100 copies. Signed by Walt Disney on the title page and by the animators; Fred Moore, Ward Kimball, Paul J. Smith, Al Parke, John Hurley, Ed Penner, Norm Ferguson and Ted Sears.
Al Park has also inscribed on the front free endpaper ‘This book was produced to establish interstate traffic and use of the Disney characters in Pinocchio, then in production. Thus forestall and protect against infringement when picture did go on the market.’ This book records the development of characters and basic story of Disney’s second feature-length animated movie.

£7,500 – Sold

(DISNEY, Walt.) THOMAS, Bob.
The Art of Animation. The story of the Disney Studio contribution to a new art.
New York: Simon and Schuster, 1958
Quarto. Original illustrated printed boards, grey cloth spine, illustrated endpapers. With the dust jacket. Housed in a black flat back cloth solander box with Mickey Mouse blocked to front. Illustrations and photographs in colour and black and white throughout. Mild bumping to corners, minor nick to tail of spine. An excellent copy in bright jacket with chipped and creased extremities, lightly stained rear panel, and a touch of foxing to flaps.
First edition, first printing. Inscribed by Walt Disney on the verso of the front free endpaper, “To Vita Best Wises Walt Disney.” Additionally it is inscribed by Roy Disney and contains the signatures of over 100 other people in the Walt Disney Studio, including 7 of “The Nine Old Men” who were the key animators of the studio, this copy with the signatures of Eric Larson, Frank Thomas, Milt Kahl, Ollie Johnston, Marc Davis, and Woolie Reitherman. The signatures range from the studio nurse to directors of animation. This book seems to have been given as a retirment/going away gift from the studio to Vita Victoria, whom worked in the ink and paint department, which was at the time where the majority of females worked in animation, some artists refereed to it as the “Finishing School” of hand drawn animation. The paint and ink department was responsible for transferring drawings onto celluloids and giving them colourr before being sent off to be photographed. A wonderful title which illustrates the “family” atmosphere the studio was noted for. Truly an exceptional Disneyana piece.

£8,750 – Sold

 

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Mickey Mouse Movie Stories.
Philadelphia David McKay Company, 1931-34
2 volumes, octavo. Original green cloth, titles to spines gilt, image pasted down to front boards. With the dust jackets. Housed in a black cloth slipcase by the Chelsea Bindery with a pictorial block of Mickey Mouse to the side in gilt. Walt Disney Studio black and white cartoon illustrations throughout. Spine ends slightly bumped. Exceptionally bright copies in jackets; Volume 1 jacket with small chips to head of spine, Volume 2 with light chipping to spine ends, extremities creased and with several closed tears, rear flap lacking, and tape repair to verso of rear panel.
First editions, first printings. Each volume contains several short story adaptations of Mickey Mouse cartoons of the time. Volume 1 has a small black and white drawing of Mickey (recto) or Minnie (verso) which appears to dance as the pages are flipped. An uncommon set in dust jackets.

£5,750 – Sold

 

Mickey Mouse Waddle Book

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Mickey Mouse Waddle Book.
New York: Blue Ribbon, 1934
Quarto. Original printed illustrated boards, illustrated endpapers. With the dust jacket. Walt Disney Studio illustrations throughout. Mild wear to ends of spine, waddles punched out, in the dust jacket with light chipping to ends of spine and corners, mild spotting to panels, dust jacket band with mild edge wear, the four waddles are bright and with all original parts. A very good copy of this toy book.
First editions, first printings. This title was the first of the “waddle” books in which die-cut figures were punched out and assembled to move. This copy has all four original waddles of Mickey, Minnie, Pluto and horse Tanglefoot with their original brass fasteners, though, they have been punched out from the book. This copy with the original dust jacket band which would have held the envelope containing the runaway for the waddles which is lacking as well as the envelope which held the fasteners. However, any copies with original waddles are scarce. Included with this copy is the 1992 facsimile edition. An obscure piece of Disneyana.

£3,500 – Sold

DISNEY, Walt.
The Adventures of Mickey Mouse. Story and Illustrations by Staff of Walt Disney Studio. Book I.
London: George G. Harrap, 1931
Octavo. Original colour pictorial printed boards, pictorial endpapers. With the colour printed dust jacket. 32 colour illustrations, one to each page including title recto and verso. Mild rubbing to ends of spine and corners, inscription to verso of front endpaper, occasional light spotting to pages, in the dust jacket with a hint of fading to spine, shallow chipping to ends of spine. An excellent copy.
First edition, first UK printing, of the first Mickey Mouse book, rare in this condition.

£2,000 – Sold

 

DISNEY, Walt.
Mickey Mouse Library. The Adventures of Mickey Mouse; Little Red Riding Hood and The Big Bad Wolf; Who’s Afraid Of The Big Bad Wolf.
Philadelphia: David McKay Co., 1931-34
3 volumes, octavo. Original pictorial printed wraps, cloth spines. Housed in the original pictorial box. illustrations throughout by the Walt Disney Studio. Third volume with mild crease to rear top corner, box with wear to corners and edges, an excellent set.
First editions, first printings. Issued concurrently with the 1934 movie The Big Bad Wolf as a promotional item. This copy has a label bearing the words “3 Books” pasted onto the upper lid. This may account for the presence of the earlier, 1931 “Adventures of Mickey Mouse” in the set, certainly a welcome addition. The only set we have handled in the original publisher’s box.

£2,000 – Sold

 

DISNEY, Walt.
The Adventures of Mickey Mouse. Story and Illustrations by Staff of Walt Disney Studio. Book I.
Philadelphia: David McKay Company, 1931
Octavo, pp. on thick paper. Original colour pictorial printed boards, pictorial endpapers. With the colour printed dust jacket. 32 colour illustrations, one to each page including title recto and verso. Spine ends lightly bumped in the dust jacket with shallow chipping to ends of spines and corners. An excellent copy.
First edition, first printing, of the first Mickey Mouse picture book, rare in the dust jacket.

£5,750 – Sold

Original concept art for Fantasia

DISNEY, Walt.
Original concept art for Fantasia.
Burbank, CA: Walt Disney Productions, 24 August 1939
Watercolour over pencil on paper. Sheet size: 30.3 x 25.3 cm. Production label to verso. Mounted, and presented in a manufactured gold leaf frame with conservation glass. In excellent condition.
Original concept art for The Pastoral Symphony segment of Walt Disney’s Fantasia (1940). It depicts a young faun picking grapes and is signed M. Schwartzman on the verso. Melvin Schwartzman (1914–2012), later known as Mel Shaw, joined Walt Disney Studios in 1937 and worked as a concept artist and designer on several productions, including Bambi (1942). However, he left the studio in 1941 to serve as a filmmaker with the U.S. Army Signal Corp. The post-war years saw Shaw starting a design business with Bob Allen, before returning to Disney in 1974, where he contributed to several of the major features of the modern era, including The Rescuers (1977), The Fox and the Hound (1981), The Great Mouse Detective (1986), Beauty and the Beast (1991), and The Lion King (1994). “Mel Shaw’s influence as an animation design artist extended over many decades and many studios. He worked with Hugh Harman and Rudy Ising in the early days of both the Warner Bros. and MGM cartoon studios. At the beginning of World War II, he contributed designs to Orson Welles’s never-realized film of Saint-Exupery´s The Little Prince. His best known artwork is the series of dramatic pastels in the title sequence of The Rescuers (1977), showing the bottle containing Penny’s call for help riding stormy seas. Shaw said the drawings were originally just preliminary studies for an animated sequence, but when director Woolie Reitherman saw them, he said they didn’t need to be animated – they could carry the sequence as they were” (Charles Solomon, Variety, 27 November 2012).

£3,750

DISNEY, Walt.
Production cel for Peter Pan.
Burbank, CA: Walt Disney Studios, 1953
Gouache on celluloid on original background (311 x 252 mm). Mounted, glazed, and presented in a wooden frame. Gouache flaking in a couple of spots. In excellent condition. Cels trimmed and applied to hand painted background.
An original animation cel for Disney’s Peter Pan (1953), inscribed by Disney on the mount board: “To Tabs Taberer, Best wishes Walt Disney”. Depicts John and Michael Darling, Slightly, Cubby, and one of the Lost Boy twin tied to the mast of the Jolly Roger, as seen in the scene when Wendy walks the plank.

£6,750 – Sold

 

DISNEY, Walt.
Production cel for Robin Hood. Featuring Maid Marian and Lady Kluck.
Burbank, CA: Walt Disney Studios, 1973
Original hand painted production cel, on the original master hand-painted production background with original line overlay cel. Disney cel to lower corner as well as the original sequence number to the corner, Disney cel certificate mounted on rear of the mount. Gouache on celluloid on master painted background. Sheet size: 14 x 10 in. double mounted to 20 × 16 in. Presented in a gold leaf frame with conservation glass.
An original production cel for Disney’s Robin Hood. Featuring Maid Marian and Lady Kluck, on the original Master background. With the Disney production certificate to back of frame, stating this was a cel used in the production of the film.

£3,500 – Sold

 

Original artwork for the Collector’s Plate in the Bambi series

(DISNEY, Walt).
“What’s Up, Possums.”Original artwork for the Collector’s Plate in the Bambi series.
Edwin M. Knowles China Co., 1992
Original hand painted cels on hand painted background. Gouache on celluloid on original background (460 x 460 mm). Mounted, glazed, and presented in a gold frame with conservation glass 480 x 480 mm.
The original artwork for the collector’s plate produced by Edwin Knowles China company. The plate was part of their Bambi series which featured 6 different limited release plates. According to paperwork included with the plate, The Walt Disney Board of Review certified the plate’s artwork “effectively represented in concept, character development and execution, that essence of the animator’s art achieved in the classic work of the Walt Disney Studio.” The paperwork goes on to state that this plate series is the only one certified by the Walt Disney Company. It credited Doug Ball as illustrator, Carol Stephenson as cell painter, and Dave Pachaieo as pencil artist.

£2,250 – Sold

 

DISNEY, Walt.
Limited Edition cel from Lady and the Tramp. Featuring Aunt Sarah and Si and Am.
Burbank, CA: Walt Disney Studios, c.1980
Original hand painted cel from the Disney Ink and Paint department. Matted to an overall size of 2o inches by 17, with a mat opening of 14 inches x 11. Gouache on celluloid. Presented in a wooden frame with conservation glass.
Limited Edition Cel #167/275. When Walt Disney Art Editions began making hand-painted limited edition cels, they were releasing them in suites of 2 to 4 cels in a portfolio. One of the earliest portfolios was from Lady and the Tramp. This is one of those rare cels, created from the archived original 1955 animation drawings. The cels were hand-painted at the Disney Ink and Paint Department, on the studio grounds. A marvellous image of Aunt Sarah with the classic Disney cat-villains, Si and Am. Only 275 copies of this cel were painted. The edition has been sold since it’s release.

£1,500 – Sold

Dr. Seuss & Mr. Dahl: Children’s Classics in our windows.

Dr. Seuss & Mr. Dahl: Children’s Classics in our windows.

Those who pass by our Fulham Road shop on a regular enough basis will already be aware that our window display  changes frequently. Just in case you won’t have the chance to see it for yourself, we thought we’d keep you up-to-date on the books, prints and curiosities making an appearance each time. Here, we have a selection of Children’s literature

Dr. Seuss at Fulham Road

Dr. Seuss at Fulham Road

Dr. Seuss at Fulham Road

The Cat in the Hat.
New York: Random House, Inc., 1957
Octavo. Original pictorial blue boards, pictorial endpapers. With the dust jacket. A little rubbed to extremities, occasional light offsetting from illustrations. An excellent copy in the lightly rubbed jacket with wear to the ends of the spine panel.
First edition, first issue, with the price listed on the dust jacket as 200/200 and the boards not laminated as in later issues.

£3,500 – SOLD

The Cat’s Quizzer. Book Sold
New York: Beginner Books, Random House, 1976
Tall quarto. Original pictorial laminate boards, patterned endpapers. Mild rubbing to ends of spine and corners, an excellent copy.
First edition, first printing.
£325

99405

The Five Star Theatre Presents: Foiled by Essolube.A Jig-Saw Melodrama. A 150 piece Moto Monster Puzzle featuring Zero-Doccus, Karbo-Nockus, Moto-Munchus, Oilio-Gobelus, Moto-Raspus. Sponsored by the Makers of Essolube. – SOLD

150-piece puzzle printed in colour on a cardboard backing (435 × 285 mm). With the original brown paper wrapper printed in black. Puzzle and wrapper window-mounted, glazed, and presented in a black and red wooden frame. Overall size: 101 x 63 cm. A couple of small spots to the lightly toned wrapper. In excellent condition.
During the 1930s, and prior to his career as an author, Theodore Geisel worked as an illustrator for the Standard Oil Company, where he designed the successful “Quick Henry, the FLIT!” bug-spray ads in which characters are menaced by gigantic Seussian pests. The artist’s contract with the company lasted for 15 years and covered numerous products. This puzzle is part of Standard Oil’s “Moto Monsters” campaign, featuring five car-damaging beasts who can be defeated by Essolube. It depicts a family happily driving away in their convertible as the monsters look on in annoyance, and advertises Essolube in the top right corner. An attractive puzzle in superb condition, this is one of the rare items that Seuss produced for children long before he was known as a children’s book author.
£1,650

 

Happy Birthday To You! – BOOK SOLD
New York: Random House, 1959
Quarto. Original pictorial paper covered boards, pictorial endpapers. With the dust jacket. Illustrated throughout by the author. Inscription to front free endpaper, in the dust jacket with moderate creasing to spine, chipping to ends of spine, light wear to front panel. A very good copy.
First edition, first printing. With the first printing point of the 5 white dots on page 32.
£250

Horton Hatches the Egg. – BOOK SOLD
New York: Random House, 1940
Quarto. Original brown buckram, titles to front cover in red. With the dust jacket. Housed in a cream cloth slipcase. Illustrated throughout by the author. Small bookseller’s ticket to rear pastedown. Extremities a touch sunned, board edges slightly bumped, spine cocked. An excellent copy in a lightly soiled and toned jacket with nicked and creased extremities, and a couple of small chips, partially affecting “Mulberry” on the front panel.
First edition, first printing. Considered one of the hardest Seuss titles to find in the first printing and with the un-restored dust jacket.
£12,750

Horton Hears A Who! – BOOK SOLD
New York: Random House, 1954
Quarto. Original pictorial paper covered boards. With the dust jacket. Illustrated throughout by the author. Mild rubbing to corners and edges, two small book plates to front blank including H. Bradley Martin’s, in the price clipped dust jacket with closed tear along front flap fold, light wear to extremities. A very attractive copy.
First edition, first issue.
£1,000

The Lorax.
New York: Random House, 1971
Quarto. Original pictorial covered boards. No dust jacket issued. Illustrated throughout by the author. Corners and ends of spine lightly rubbed, spine and rear cover toned and with spotting, inscription to front endpaper. A very good copy.
First edition, first issue with the three lines of copyright and highlighted yellow panel to back cover. Seuss’s environmental masterpiece.
£500

Lost World Revisited – BOOK SOLD
New York: Award Books, 1967
Octavo. Original illustrated printed wraps, page edges blue. Mild creasing along spine edge,toning to covers, faint stain to fore edge which extend slghtly onto pages, pages toned. A very good copy.
First edition, first printing. Inscribed by the author on the verso of the front free endpaper, “For Sam Hessel. with best wishes -Dr Seuss.” An uncommon title to be found inscribed. Collection of cartoons Seuss original did for Liberty Magazine in the 1930’s.
£725

Oh Say Can You Say? – BOOK SOLD
New York: Beginner Books, Random House, Inc., 1979
Octavo. Original laminate pictorial boards, patterned endpapers. An excellent copy.
First edition, first printing.
£500

Original drawing of a Seussian animal.

Pen and ink on wove paper. Sheet size: 17.7 x 20.3 cm. Light creasing to paper. Presented in a black wooden frame with non reflective glass.
A Seussian animal holding up a sign on a pole reading “For Judy, John, Willie and Charles”. Additionaly inscribed lower middle “With Very Best Wishes – Dr Seuss”
£1,500

88183_1

Original drawing of Sam I Am carrying Green Eggs and Ham. – SOLD
.
Black felt tip on wove paper. Sheet size: 41 x 31 cm. Excellent condition. Presented mounted in a gilt wooden frame.
Inscribed Green Eggs and Ham by Dr Seuss in large Times bubble type face and signed Dr Seuss lower middle. A similar image appears on the title page of the book Green Eggs and Ham.
£12,500

The Seven Lady Godivas. – BOOK SOLD
New York: Random House, 1987
Tall quarto. Original tan cloth, titles to spine in bronze, pictorial endpapers. In the publisher’s matching cloth slipcase. Illustrated throughout by the author. A fine copy.
Commemorative limited edition, one of 300 numbered and specially bound copies signed by the author on the limitation leaf. Originally published in 1939.
£750

The Shape of Me and Other Stuff – BOOK SOLD.
New York: Random House, 1973
Octavo. Original laminated pictorial boards, titles to spine and front board in white and yellow, illustrated endpapers. With the pictorial dust jacket. Illustrated throughout by Dr. Seuss. Extremities a little rubbed, short closed tear to top edge of front free endpaper. A bright copy in a slightly rubbed jacket with one tiny closed tear to rear panel. Very good.
First edition, first printing, with $2.50 price to front flap of dust jacket and correct list of titles to rear panel.
£500

Sleep Book.
New York: Random House, 1962
Tall quarto. Original glossy pictorial boards, pictorial endpapers. With the dust jacket. Corners and ends of spine lightly rubbed, inscription to front endpaper and on verso, in the dust jacket with light rubbing to corners and ends of spine, light spotting along extremities. A very attractive copy.
First edition, first printing.
£400

The Sneetches and Other Stories.
New York: Random House, 1961
Quarto. Original pictorial boards, titles to front in black and white, pictorial endpapers. With the dust jacket. Illustrated throughout by the author. Gift inscription to front free endpaper. Spine ends and tips a little worn, board edges rubbed, contents slightly foxed. A very good copy in the jacket with spine ends and tips rubbed, creased and with shallow chips.
First edition, first printing, with the correct list of advertisements to rear flap and 295/295 price.
£400

Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories. – BOOK SOLD
New York: Random House, 1958
Quarto. Original pictorial paper covered boards, titles to front cover and spine in white and black. With the dust jacket. Illustrated throughout by the author. Small contemporary gift inscription to front free endpaper. Extremities slightly worn, joints a little tender, endpapers partially tanned and lightly foxed, contents toned and with occasional faint spot. An excellent copy in a rubbed and lightly chipped and scuffed jacket with one small brown speck to front panel.
First edition, first printing. Inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper verso, “For JUANITO, with best wishes – from Dr. Seuss.”
£1,250

You’re Only Old Once! – BOOK SOLD
New York: Random House, 1986
Quarto. Original green boards with brown cloth spine, titles to spine in silver. With the unclipped dust jacket. Illustrated throughout out in colour. An excellent copy.
First edition, first printing. Seuss’ take on growing old.

£250

Roald Dahl at Dover Street:

110037

DAHL, Roald.
The BFG.Illustrations by Quentin Blake. – BOOK SOLD
London: Jonathan Cape, 1982
Octavo. Original light grey boards, titles to spine gilt. With the illustrated dust jacket. With black and white illustrations. Pages toned, a touch of sunning to spine of the dust jacket. A very good copy.
First edition, first impression.

£400

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Illustrated by Joseph Schindelman – BOOK SOLD
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1964
Octavo. Original dark red cloth, titles to spine gilt, to front board in blind, dark brown top edge, yellow endpapers. With the dust jacket. Frontispiece and illustrations throughout. A fine copy in a price-clipped jacket with a few minor nicks and creases to extremities and a short closed tear to rear panel.
First edition, first printing, with the six-line colophon on the final page which was cut to five in subsequent printings. The book was not published in Britain until 1967.
£1,750

The Commemorative Limited Edition of the Works of Roald Dahl

The Commemorative Limited Edition of the Works of Roald Dahl. – BOOK SOLD
London: Harper Collins and Jonathan Cape, 1991
15 volumes, octavo. Original blue quarter morocco, spine lettered in gilt, weave pattern paper boards, top edges gilt, buff endpapers. Each copy housed in a matching weave pattern paper-covered slipcase and the whole contained in a large open fronted blue paper covered box. Illustrated throughout. A fine set.
Commemorative Edition limited to 500 numbered sets of which this is number 334. This edition was published to celebrated Dahl’s 75th birthday on 13th September 1991.
£2,100

Danny the Champion of the World – BOOK SOLD
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1975
Octavo. Original brown cloth-backed orange boards, spine lettered in gilt, pheasant vignette blocked to the front board in blind, blue-green endpapers, top edge purple. With the dust jacket. Illustrations by Jill Bennett throughout the text. Spine gently rolled, internally fine. An excellent copy in the bright jacket that has a slightly faded spine.
First edition, first printing. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper: “Willa, love Roald Dahl.”
£3,500

Dirty Beasts. Pictures by Rosemary Fawcett. – BOOK SOLD
London: Jonathan Cape, 1984
Quarto. Original illustrated boards, spine and front cover lettered in yellow, white, and red. No dust jacket, as issued.
Proof copy of the first edition, first impression, with publisher’s stamp “proof copy only” in black on the front free endpaper.
£425

1

The Enormous Crocodile. – BOOK SOLD
London: Jonathan Cape, 1983
Quarto. Original pictorial boards, spine lettered in black, front board lettered in red and black, green endpapers. Issued without a dust jacket. Illustrated throughout the text in colour by Quentin Blake. Boards a touch scuffed, minor wear to spine ends and corners. An excellent copy.
Inscribed by Dahl on the verso of the front free endpaper: “To Edward, love Roald Dahl”. A later printing of the book originally published in 1978.
£575

The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me.Illustrated by Quentin Blake.
London: Jonathan Cape, 1985
Quarto. Original illustrated boards, titles to front cover and spine in black, dark blue endpapers. No dust jacket issued. Small nick to foot of spine, extremities lightly rubbed, a couple of faint scuffs to boards, internally clean and bright. An excellent copy.
First edition, first impression. Signed by Roald Dahl on the title page. Rare signed.
£2,500

Going Solo. Signed – BOOK SOLD
London: Jonathan Cape, 1986
Octavo. Original blue boards, spine lettered gilt, pictorial endpapers. With the dust jacket. Portrait frontispiece, several photographs throughout text, 2 maps. A bright copy in a jacket with a small dampstain to bottom corner of front panel. Excellent.
First edition, first impression. Presentation copy inscribed by the author on the half-title, “Stephen & Rhona, Happy Christmas, Roald Dahl, 1986”.
£750

The Gremlins. From the Walt Disney Production.

The Gremlins. From the Walt Disney Production.
New York: Random House, 1943
Quarto. Finely bound by The Chelsea Bindery in full red morocco, titles to spine gilt, single rule to boards gilt, block to front board gilt with multi-coloured morocco onlay of seven cavorting gremlins, twin rule to turn-ins, dark green endpapers, gilt edges. Illustrated throughout in colour and black and white. A fine copy.
First Edition, First Printing. Roald Dahl’s first book and his only collaboration with Walt Disney, The Gremlins was written as a promotional device for a feature-length Disney animation that was never produced, partly because the studio could not establish firm copyright in the “gremlin” characters (Dahl claimed to have invented them, though they had been common currency in the RAF and had appeared in print at least once before) and partly because the British Air Ministry wanted final approval of the script and production. It was eventually agreed that royalties would be split between the RAF Benevolent Fund and Dahl. The book is still described on the title and the front cover as being “From the Walt Disney Production”, although the Disney studio had written to Dahl in August 1943 cancelling any further preproduction work.
£2,500

James and the Giant Peach, A Children’s Story. Illustrated by Nancy Ekholm Burkert.
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1961
Quarto. Original red cloth, titles to spine gilt, front cover with design copied from the frontispiece blocked in blind, apple green endpapers. With the printed colour dust jacket. Housed in a quarter leather clamshell box. Colour frontispiece, 5 full-page plates, 4 in full colour, the other coloured in one tint;19 illustrations in the text, of which 10 are coloured with one tint. A near fine copy in a bright dust jacket with some light rubbing to spine and corners.
First edition, first printing with the 5 line colophon on the last page.
£2,750

The Magic Finger.
London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd, 1968
Octavo. Original pictorial boards, titles to spine and front cover in black, pictorial endpapers. No dust jacket issued. Illustrated by William Pène du Bois. Light bumping to top edges, covers lightly soiled. A very good copy.
First UK edition, first impression. Inscribed by Dahl on the title page, “ To Tigs with love from Roald Dahl.”
£2,500

5

Rhyme Stew.
London: Jonathan Cape 1989
Octavo. Original blue boards, titles to spine gilt. With the dust jacket. Illustrated by Quentin Blake. Inscribee’s ownwership signature to rear pastedown in pencil. Tiny nick to rear board, light offsetting from author’s inscription to front pastedown and front flap of jacket. An excellent copy in a bright jacket with light fading and tiny closed tear to spine panel.
First edition, first impression. Inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, “Sonia, love, Roald Dahl”. A quirky collection of poetry.
£1,500

4

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More.
London: Jonathan Cape, 1977
Octavo. Original blue boards, titles to spine gilt, yellow endpapers. With the dust jacket. Two pages of photographic illustrations. A bright copy in excellent condition in a jacket with faint crumpling to head of spine panel.
First edition, first impression. Inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, “For Betty Jane, Love, Roald Dahl, June 28 1978”.
£2,000

Roddy Doyle to W. B. Yeats: All things Irish this St Patrick’s Day at Fulham Road.

Roddy Doyle to W. B. Yeats: All things Irish this St Patrick’s Day at Fulham Road.

Those who pass by our Fulham Road shop on a regular enough basis will already be aware that our window display  changes frequently. This week, we’re celebrating the long and rich literary history of Ireland, in honour of St Patrick’s Day, Thursday 17 March 2016.  Just in case you won’t have the chance to see it for yourself, we thought we’d keep you up-to-date on the books, prints and curiosities making an appearance each time a reshuffle takes place.

Lond Lankin John Banville

Lond Lankin John Banville

BANVILLE, John.
Long Lankin. – SOLD
London: Secker and Warburg, 1970
Octavo. Original black boards, titles to spine gilt. With the dust jacket. Dust jacket with inked in price to front flap, light wear and rubbing to extremities. An excellent copy.
First edition, first impression. Author’s first book.
£875

 

Murphy by Samuel Beckett

Murphy by Samuel Beckett

BECKETT, Samuel.
Murphy – SOLD
London: A Jupiter Book, Calder & Boyars, 1969
Octavo. Original brown boards, titles to spine gilt. With the dust jacket. Housed in a cloth solander box. Spine tips a little faded and rubbed, contents toned. An excellent copy in a rubbed jacket with a few minor nicks and chips.
Presentation copy inscribed by the author to Patrick Magee and his wife Belle on the half-title, “To Pat & Belle, with love, from Sam”. This is a reprint of the Calder edition, which was first published in 1963. Murphy was originally published in 1938.
£1,500

 

(BLOOD, Colonel.) KAYE, Whittenbury .
The Romance & Adventures of the notorious Colonel Blood, who attempted to steal The Crown Jewels from The Tower of London in the Reign of Charles II.
Manchester: Subscriber’s Edition printed by S. Clarke,
Octavo, original pale grey-blue cloth, title in red and black to the upper board, in black to spine. Illustration to the text, title printed in red and black, running head in red. Bibliotheca Lindesiana bookplate top the front pastedown, Balcarres ownership inscription dated 1909 to the front free endpaper, later inscription of W. A. Wagstaff to the front pastedown, and book ticket of Jonathan Goodman, crime historian to free endpaper. A little rubbed and spotted, spine slightly tanned, some foxing and browning, but overall very good.
First edition, the subscribers’ edition. Uncommon account of the dramatic tale of Colonel Blood’s clumsy plot to steal the Crown Jewels, COPAC has just BL for this and also a copy of the John Heywood-published standard edition, OCLC adds a copy of the former at New York University and the latter at the University of Minnesota. Rev. Whittenbury Kaye was a Manchester clergyman and antiquarian. Finding a record of Blood’s wedding to Maria Holcroft in the parish register of his own church, he set to gathering all the materials he could relating to the career of the flamboyant Irishman.
£250

 


Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry – SOLD
Philadelphia, E. L. Carey & A. Hart; Baltimore, Carey, Hart, & Co. 1834
2 volumes, octavo. Original pink cloth-backed beige paper boards, without lettering or labels as usual, edges uncut. Contemporary pencilled inscriptions of Walter Chiles on titles, dated December 1835 in vol. 1 and January 1836 in vol. 2. Spines sunned, extremities a little worn, some foxing, but a good sound copy in original state.
First American Edition of this classic account of Irish mores, first published in book form in 1830, many of the stories having first appeared in the Christian Examiner from April 1828 onwards. William Carleton (1794–1869), “the first authentic Irish peasant novelist in English” (ODNB), was son of a Co. Tyrone Catholic tenant farmer who was bilingual in Irish and English and gifted with such an extraordinary memory that in later life his son never heard an Irish story that was completely new to him.
£200

 

76522-247x352

COLUM, Padraic.
Irish Elegies – SOLD
Dublin: The Dolmen Press, 1963
Small quarto. Original white boards, titles to spine gilt, light blue paper to sides. Spotting to top edge of leaves and boards, and a small white mark to upper board. An excellent copy in the dust jacket.
Third edition, enlarged and revised. First published as six poems as the ninth part of the Dolmen Chapbook in 1958. A collection of elegies eulogising men who “had augmented the Irish spirit in formative years”, each poem “produced immediately on the announcement of death”.
£40

 

COLUM, Padraic.
Wild Earth. A book of verse
Dublin, Maunsel & Co. Ltd., 1909
Octavo. Original linen backed brown boards, titles to upper board in green. Upper joint partially split, spine a little tanned. Very good.
Second edition, with additions. With the author’s signed presentation inscription to the half title page, “To Mrs. Jack Yeats from Padraic Colum May 1912”.
£300

 

DONLEAVY, J. P.
The Ginger Man
Paris: The Traveller’s Companion Series, published by The Olympia Press, June 1955
Octavo. Original green and white wrappers printed in black. Very mild toning to spine, very light rubbing to ends and corners, faint mark to rear wrapper, a really excellent copy.
First edition, first printing (with the words “Special Volume, Francs: 1.500” to rear wrapper), of Donleavy’s first novel, inscribed by the author on the half-title with the novel’s final words, “God’s mercy on the wild, J. P. Donleavy”.
£1,250

 

76691

DOYLE, Roddy.
The Commitments – SOLD
Dublin: King Farouk, 1987
Octavo. Bound in original paper wrappers. Some slight creasing to backstrip, with covers a little marked. A very good copy.
First edition. The author’s first book published by himself in this paperback edition in Dublin. Famously filmed in 1991. Scarce.
£440

 

 

GREGORY, Lady.
Coolen – SOLD
Dublin: The Cuala Press, 1931
Octavo. Original Holland boards. Title label slightly tanned with a few trivial marks to covers, but a fresh bright copy in excellent condition.
First edition, first impression; one of 250 copies, of Lady Gregory’s lyrical essay on her home at Coole, with quotations taken from Yeats’s paeans to the place which was so vital to his imagination.
£400

 

(HEANEY, Seamus.)
Everyman: an Annual Religio-Cultural Review. Aquarius.
Benburb, County Tyrone: Servite Priory, 1969–74
7 issues (all published), square octavo. Original printed wrappers. Plates from photographs throughout. In excellent condition.
First editions, first impressions. A complete run of this uncommon annual publication, most notable for the inclusion of work by Seamus Heaney: an interview with Michéal MacLiammóir and the poem “Birdwatcher” in issue I, the poem “Yan”’ in issue II, the verse-play Munro in issue III, and two poems , “A Constable Calls” and “Act of Union” in issue VII. There are also contributions from Brian Friel and Michael Longley.
£600

 

JOYCE, James.
Dubliners.
London: Grant Richards Ltd, 1914
Octavo. Original red cloth, gilt lettered spine and front cover. Housed in a burgundy quarter morocco solander box made by the Chelsea Bindery. Spine toned, some staining to covers, boards very slightly bowed, fore-edge a little foxed, scattered foxing internally.
First edition, first impression, first issue, one of 746 sets of sheets bound by Grant Richards and issued in London on 15 June 1914. The remaining 504 sets of the 1,250 printed were shipped to Huebsch in New York, where they were not issued until much later, sometime between 15 December 1916 and 1 January 1917.
£8,500

 

84516_1

JOYCE, James, & F. J. C. Skeffington.
Two Essays. A Forgotten Aspect of the University Question and The Day of the Rabblement. – SOLD
Dublin: Privately printed by Gerrard Bros., October 15,
8 page pamphlet. Original pink wrappers printed in black. Housed in a marbled slipcase and chemise. Spine tanned, some spotting to wrappers. An excellent copy.
First edition, sole impression of James Joyce’s first obtainable published work. Joyce was a student at University College, Dublin in 1901 when he penned this essay critical of the theatre of Yeats, Moore, and Martyn. “The Irish Literary Theatre gave out that it was the champion of progress, and proclaimed war against commercialism and vulgarity. It had partly made good its word and was expelling the old devil when after the first encounter it surrendered to the popular will. Now your popular devil is more dangerous than your vulgar devil. Bulk and lungs count for something, and he can gild his speech aptly. He has prevailed once more, and the Irish Literary Theatre must now be considered the property of the rabblement of the most belated race in Europe”. This essay and one advocating female equality within the university by Joyce’s schoolmate F. J. C. Skeffington were both rejected by the University College newspaper, Joyce’s because he mentioned D’Annunzio’s Il Fuoce, which was on the Index librorum prohibitorum. Instead, the two young men paid to have the essays published as a pamphlet in a small run of perhaps 100 to 200 copies which they hand-delivered. Joyce’s only previously published work was Et Tu, Healy!, a pamphlet printed by his father when he was aged nine of which no known copies survive. Two Essays is scarce, with only six copies appearing at auction since 1990. The present copy is unusually nice, without the creasing usually seen.
£9,750

 

LELAND, Thomas.
The History of Ireland,from the Invasion of Henry II. With a preliminary discourse on the Antient State of that Kingdom. – SOLD
London: J. Nourse, T. Longman, G. Robinson and J. Johnson, 1773
3 volumes, quarto (260 x 200 mm). Contemporary speckled half calf, marbled paper boards, spines with two-line gilt bands and red morocco lettering-pieces, speckled edges. Scattered foxing; a handsome set in a period binding.
First edition. Thomas Leland (1722-1785) was a Church of Ireland clergyman, historian and translator. He was encouraged to write his history by a group of Irish intellectuals, chief among them the great statesman and philosopher Edmund Burke. Burke believed that histories of Ireland up until that time had been “terribly defective” and had himself thought about writing a specific history of Ireland covering the turbulent 1640s. Instead he decided to “urge a very learned and ingenious friend”, Thomas Leland, to undertake the task.
£950

 


Wild Sports of the West. With Legendary Tales, and Local Sketches.
London: Richard Bentley, 1832
2 volumes, octavo (212 x 132 mm). Later 19th century dark red half calf by Larkins, richly gilt spines, black morocco twin labels, marbled sides and endpapers. Aquatint frontispieces, 3 plates, 12 wood-engravings in the text. Bound without the half-title in volume I (as called-for by Sadleir), bindings a little rubbed, a few gatherings a little proud, scattered foxing or signs of handling. An attractive set.
First edition. “In 1829 Maxwell achieved recognition as a writer when Henry Colburn published his Stories of Waterloo, for which he paid him £300. Three years later one of his most popular books appeared: Wild Sports of the West (1832). This contained lively tales and legends together with colourful descriptions of Irish people, sporting activities (such as salmon fishing and deer hunting), and the Connaught countryside… Maxwell had thus become a progenitor of two kinds of fiction which became popular in the 1830s and 1840s: the military novel and the rollicking story of Irish life” (ODNB). The presence of aquatint illustrations is unusual, and the wood engravings in the text, mostly signed “T. Bagg”, are delightful.
£600

 

O’BRIEN, EDNA.
Mother Ireland. With photographs by Fergus Bourke – SOLD
London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1976
Octavo. Original brown cloth, titles to spine gilt. With the pictorial dust jacket. Illustrated with black and white photographs by Fergus Bourke. Small bump to top edge of front board. An excellent copy in a lightly toned jacket with a couple of short closed tears.
First edition, first impression. Presentation copy inscribed by the author to actor and writer John Wells on the title page: “Dearest John, a reminder and love from Edna, June 1976”. Laid in is a lenghty autograph letter signed by O’Brien presenting the copy and putting an old disagreement to rest: “I was a bit sad when you mentioned ‘burying the hatchet’ because I assure you there isn’t or wasn’t one to bury.”
£150

 

 

O’BRIEN, Flann.
The Third Policeman – SOLD
London: MacGibbon & Kee, 1967
Octavo. Original brown boards, titles to spine in gold. With the pictorial dust jacket. Spine gently rolled, an excellent copy in the faintly toned jacket.
First edition, first impression of the scarcest of the author’s post-war novels.
£750

 

103567

O’CONNOR, Frank.
The Big Fellow: A Life of Michael Collins.
London: Thomas Nelson and Sons Limited, 1937
Octavo. Original green cloth, titles to spine gilt, top edge green. With the dust jacket. Portrait frontispiece. Bookseller’s ticket to rear pastedown. Spine slightly rolled, faint foxing to endleaves. An excellent copy in the bright, price-clipped jacket, with torn and chipped extremities.
First edition, first impression of this biography of the Irish revolutionary leader.
£350

 

O’FLAHERTY, Liam.
A Tourist’s Guide to Ireland.
London: The Mandrake Press,
Small octavo. Original black cloth, gold patterned sides, printed paper label to spine. With the dust jacket. Contents slightly toned. An excellent copy in the dust jacket with browned spine panel and a chip from the top of the spine.
First edition, first impression. This copy includes a coloured sketch (of what is presumably an Irishman in a green suit with pipe) pasted to the half-title and inscribed “With all my best to Hilda, Howard Baer”.
£280

 

SOMERVILLE, E. OE., & Martin Ross.
All on the Irish Shore.Irish Sketches. With Illustrations by E. OE. Somerville – SOLD
London: Longman, Green, and Co., 1903
Octavo. Original grey cloth, titles to spine gilt, titles and pictorial design to spine and upper board gilt and black, black endpapers. Frontispiece and 8 plates, one illustration within the text by E. OE. Somerville. 6 pages publisher’s ads. Contemporary gift inscription to title. Spine faded, cloth rubbed and spotted, spotting to edges of text-block, title pages, and occasionally to contents. A very good copy.
First edition.
£100

 

77496

SOMERVILLE, E. OE., & Martin Ross.
Through Connemara in a Governess Cart.Illustrated by W. W. Russell, from Sketches by Edith OE. Summerville.
London: W. H. Allen & Co., Limited, 1893
Octavo. Original green cloth, titles and pictorial design to spine and upper board in gilt, black, yellow, purple, and white, black coated endpapers. 16 plates, illustrations throughout the text. No publisher’s ads. Two bookplates, ownership signature partially erased from title page, bookseller’s ticket to rear pastedown. Very slightly rubbed at extremities, a little spotting to half-title. An excellent copy.
First edition. Hudson lists several bindings, and in this case the cloth is green and the pages trimmed.
£425

 

STEPHENS, James.
Collected Poems – SOLD
London: Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1926
Square octavo. Original blue boards, gilt lettered vellum spine, untrimmed. Vellum a little mottled, endpapers a little foxed.
First and limited edition, one of 500 large paper copies, signed by the author. A handsomely produced edition of the Irish poet’s verse. Joyce referred to Stephens as “my rival, the latest Irish genius” and, when, at one point, he seemed unable to finish Finnegans Wake, thought of approaching Stephens to finish it for him; James Ellmann calls this “one of the strangest ideas in literary history”.
£125

 

SYNGE, J. M.
The Playboy of the Western World – SOLD
Dublin: Maunsel & Co, 1907
Octavo. Original tan cloth-backed red cloth, titles to spine in red. With a black and white portrait frontispiece of Synge by Yeats entitled “Synge at rehearsal W. B. Yeats Jan 25 1907”. Bottom corners of boards lightly bumped. A bright copy in excellent condition.
First edition, first impression, of the author’s three-act play, which was first performed at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin on 26 January 1907.
£675

 

TYNAN, Katharine (ed.)
The Wild Harp. A Selection from Irish Poetry. With decorations by C. M. Watts – SOLD
London: Sidgwick & Jackson Ltd., 1913
Large octavo. Original green cloth, gilt lettered and decorated spine and front cover, top edges gilt, others untrimmed, green endpapers. Decorative Celtic-knot border to titlepage (printed in purple, red and green), each page of letterpress within a pale grey-green Celtic-knot border. A very nice copy.
First edition, first impression, uncommon. A most attractive book, containing contributions from W. B. Yeats (”The Song of Red Hanrahan”, “An Old Song Resung”, “The Host of the Air”, “The Folly of Being Comforted”, “The Happy Townland”) and James Joyce (”Strings in the Earth and Air”, “At That Hour”, “I Hear an Army”); these had appeared originally in Yeats’s The Wanderings of Oisin (1889), The Wind Among the Reeds (1899), In the Seven Woods (1903) and Joyce’s Chamber Music (1907).
£225

 

108471comp

WHITE, T. H.
The Godstone and the Blackymor.Illustrated by Edward Ardizzone.
London: Jonathan Cape, 1959
Octavo. Original patterned paper boards, titles gilt to spine on a black ground, Ardizzone drawing printed to front board in black, top edge orange. With the dust jacket. Illustrations by Ardizzone in the text. Adhesive-staining to free endpapers, a few very small spots to edges, an excellent copy in the bright, price-clipped and minimally rubbed dust jacket.
First edition, first impression of White’s account of life on the west coast of Ireland, with the illustrator’s inscription, “Signed for Bridget by Edward Ardizzone, Feb 1968”, to the front free endpaper, together with a typed letter from the Book Trade Group referring to Ardizzone’s visit to Melbourne, a related newspaper clipping and a prospectus from Jonathan Cape for their journal Now and Then, all laid in.
£375

 

101727

YEATS, W. B.
The Tower – ITEM SOLD
London: Macmillan and Co., Limited 1928
Octavo. Original green cloth, titles and pictorial decoration to spine and upper board gilt. With the dust jacket. Mild rubbing to corners, ends of spine very lightly bumped, a touch of toning to gilt at lower edge of front board, ownership signature to front free endpaper, in the dust jacket with shallow chips to corners and top end of spine, light chipping to lower end of spine,touch of sunning to spine. A lovely copy.
First edition, first impression, of what is generally accepted to be Yeats’s single most important collection.
£2,000

 

92211

YEATS, W. B. (ed.)
Samhain. An Occasional Review. – SOLD
Dublin & London: Sealy Bryers & Walker, and T. Fisher Unwin, 1901–8
Octavo. First four issues bound without wrappers in contemporary green cloth with titles to spine and front board gilt, top edge gilt, others untrimmed. Last three issues in buff card wrappers printed in black as issued. Black and white portrait frontispiece to each issue and three other plates. Portraits by J. B. Yeats include William and Frank Fay, J. M. Synge. Small contemporary signature to front free endpaper of bound copies; tiny ballpoint pen inscription to initial leaf of one of the wrappered copies. Spine and board edges of binging rubbed, spine browned, wrappers rubbed and with a few small chips and closed tears, light sporadic foxing to contents. An excellent set.
First editions, first impressions, of the complete run of Yeats’s theatrical periodical. Yeats’s contributions include: “Windlestraws”, “Cathleen ni Hoolihan”, “The Reform of the Theatre”, “The Dramatic Movement” and “Literature and the Living Voice”.
£750

Vitulinum, Vélin, Vellum: The Window at Fulham Road.

Vitulinum, Vélin, Vellum: The Window at Fulham Road.

VITULINUM, VÉLIN, VELLUM: THE WINDOW AT FULHAM ROAD

Vellum is derived from the Latin word “vitulinum” meaning “made from calf”, leading to Old French “vélin” (“calfskin”). It is a prepared from the skin of calves, lambs, or kids, not tanned like leather but stretched, scraped and dried under tension, creating a stiff, white or yellowish parchment. Vellum is often encountered in the rare book world; it has long been used as a writing medium, as well as for the binding of books – and the expensive and exquisite process of printing on vellum saw a revival during the private press era.

Below you will find a selection of items printed on or bound in vellum, all on display at Fulham Road. Simply click any of the titles to view it in more detail.

AUBRIET, Claude. "Ghandirobe vel Nhandirobe"; two studies of fevillea

AUBRIET, Claude.
“Ghandirobe vel Nhandirobe”; two studies of fevillea. – SOLD
Paris, c.1740
Bodycolour, watercolour, heightened with white on prepared vellum (448 × 306 mm) bordered on all sides in gold.Captioned; Ghandirobe vel Nhandiroboe/Brasiliensibus Maregr. Hist. Planta. 47. semen in ambitu detatum. and. Nahandrioboe scandentis, foliis Hederaceis, angulosis fructus ex Plumerio. Very good, framed and glazed.
From the same album as a drawing of the same size of the “Mirabilis Dichotoma” plant in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge (see Scrase, Cambridge 1997, cat. no. 15) as well as similar sheets in the Lindley Library, The Horticultural Society, London (Blunt/Stream, Suffolk 1994, pp.116/117, chapt. 9, ill. in colour pl. 29/30) “In the seventeenth century one of the main centres of flower drawing was Paris, where Nicolas Robert’s works inspired Louis XIV to commission a series of botanical paintings on vellum, known as Les Velins du Roi. Robert painted twenty of these a year for the King, a tradition maintained by his successors including Claude Aubriet… “.(Scrase, p.2) “… (Aubriet) moved to Paris where he worked with Jean Joubert (active c. 1688 – 1706) in the production of the Velins du Roi …. In 1701/2 Aubriet accompanied Tournefort as a draughtsman on a journey to the Aegean and the Black Sea, resulting in the introduction of a number of new plants to Western Europe. … In 1706 he succeeded Jean Joubert as the official painter at the Jardin du Roi, a post he held until his death. …” (Scrase, p. 36).”These illustrations, made no doubt under Tournefort’s direct supervision, are remarkable for the accuracy of their dissections” (Blunt/Stearn, p. 116).
£6,000

BARBUSSE, Henri.
L’Enfer. – SOLD
Paris: Albin Michel,
Octavo (184 x 125 mm). Contemporary full vellum, calligraphic titles to spine in black and gilt, border to boards in black and gilt, top edge gilt, others untrimmed, marbled endpapers. Small ownership signature to first binder’s blank, a couple of faint creases to prelims. An excellent copy.
First complete edition, limited to 100 copies printed on Dutch paper, of which this is number 57 (another 50 copies were printed on japon paper). From the library of E. L. Spears, with his armorial bookplate to the front pastedown. With the original wrappers bound-in.
£275

(BASKIN, Leonard) HUGHES, Ted.
Moortown Elegies. – SOLD
London, Rainbow Press, 1978
Octavo. Original vellum boards, illustration to upper board and titles to spine gilt. With the cloth slipcase. Illustrated by Leonard Baskin. Fine in fine slipcase.
First Edition, First Impression. Limited to 175 copies signed by Ted Hughes.
£600

(BAUMER, Lewis) THACKERAY, William Makepeace.
Vanity Fair. BOOK SOLD
London: Hodder and Stoughton,
Quarto. Finely bound by The Chelsea Bindery in vellum, title block to spine gilt, original miniature portrait with gilt decorative frame to front board, title block to front board, cream endpapers, gilt edges. With 20 tipped in colour plates, captioned tissues. A couple of leaves lightly foxed, little bit of rubbing to the miniature portrait on front board, an excellent copy.
Signed limited edition of 350 copies. A fine example of the Chelsea Bindery’s work.
£1,500

The Vicar of Wakefield

(BROCK, C. E.) GOLDSMITH, Oliver.
The Vicar of Wakefield.With twenty-five coloured illustrations by C. E. Brock.
London: : J. M. Dent & Co; New York, E. P. Dutton & Co., 1904
Octavo. Original vellum, titles and elaborate decoration to spine and front board, top edge gilt, others untrimmed. Colour frontispiece, vignette title, and 23 plates by C. E. Brock. Gift inscription to verso of binder’s front blank, endpapers browned and some minor spotting to a few leaves, an excellent copy.
First Brock edition in the deluxe binding.
£200

BUNYAN, John.
The Pilgrim’s Progress. BOOK SOLD
London: Essex House Press, 1899
Octavo. Original stiff vellum, titles to spine in black, yapp edges. Engraved frontispiece. Text printed in red and black. Vellum a little rubbed and dulled. An excellent copy.
First edition thus, one of a limited edition of 750 numbered copies. One of the earliest productions of the Essex House Press, which was established by C. R. Ashbee, a follower of William Morris, in 1888 as an integral part of Ashbee’s Guild of Handicraft.
£675

BUTLER, Samuel.
Hudibras,In Three Parts, Written in the time of the Late Wars… with large annotations and a preface by Zachary Grey, LL.D. In two volumes. BOOK SOLD
London, by T. Bensley, for Verner and Hood & 8 others in London, 1799
2 volumes, large octavo (230 × 143 mm). Contemporary full vellum, covers panelled in blue, double blue lettering-pieces attractively gilt, marbled endpapers, blue sprinkled edges. Engraved portrait frontispiece, 17 engraved plates by Ridley after Hogarth, woodcut headpieces by Charles Nesbitt, woodcut title vignettes. Lightly rubbed, a little offsetting from plates, an excellent set.
First edition with Nesbitt’s woodcuts of Hudibras, the celebrated mock-epic satirizing the English republicans, with Zachary Grey’s notes, which kept Butler’s world of outmoded learning accessible to later generations, printed on royal paper. Charles Nesbitt (1775-1838) was a pupil of Thomas Bewick’s (indeed, “The best wood engraver that has proceeded from the work shop of Thomas Bewick”, according to W. Chatto, A Treatise on Wood Engraving) and the woodcuts here are in Bewick’s style, so much so that they are sometimes attributed to him, despite their being clearly signed “C. Nesbitt”. Bewick did, however, own a copy of the book – see A Provisional Checklist of The Library of Thomas Bewick, drawn up for The Bewick Society by David Gardner-Medwin.
£650

(CHELSEA.)
The Chelsea Historical Pageant,Old Ranelagh Gardens, Royal Hospital, June 25th – July 1st, 1908. Book of Words. With Illustrations and Selections from the Music. – SOLD
London: Printed for the Pageant Committee, 1908
Large square octavo (249 x 190 mm). Specially bound for presentation in contemporary quarter vellum, spine gilt tooled with art nouveau rose motifs and red morocco onlays, red morocco label, pink cloth sides, gilt arms of the Metropolitan Borough of Chelsea on front cover, top edges gilt, untrimmed, marbled endpapers. With the original pictorial wrappers bound-in. Monochrome frontispiece, 23 plates (12 in colour), double-page map. Spine a little dulled, vellum and sides lightly mottled, a little sunned at periphery of covers. An attractive copy.
First and only edition. A remarkable association copy: from the library of one of the “Makers of the Pageant”, G. Ambrose Lee (also a member of the book’s editorial sub-committee); with his red ownership Japanese “chop” at head of title, his official pass pasted to the front free endpaper, and with a presentation label signed by the president, vice-presidents, honorary secretary, and honorary treasurer. Additional material relating to the Pageant include: three original photographs pasted-in (one signed by Kate Pragnell, the others most certainly also by her), the official programme, and a plan showing “Approaches to the Pageant”. George Ambrose de Lisle Lee (1862-1927) was York Herald of Arms in Ordinary from 1905 until 1922 and a connoisseur of Japanese art. A fever for pageants of all kinds swept Britain in the early years of the 20th century and the Chelsea Pageant of 1908 celebrated the history of the borough in ten episodes of dramatic performances, music and dancing.
£250

The Essayes or Counsels Civil and Morall

(CRESSET PRESS.) BACON, Francis.
The Essayes or Counsels Civil and Morall. – Sold
London: The Cresset Press, 1928
Folio. Original full vellum, titles to spine and upper board gilt, top edge gilt, others untrimmed. Printed in red and black. Housed in a red cloth slipcase and chemise. A few tiny spots to boards. An excellent copy.
First edition thus, one of 250 copies on Batchelor paper out of a limited edition of 258 numbered copies.
£750

(DE HOOGHE, Romeyn, illus.) PETTER, Nicolaes.
Klare Onderrichtinge der voortreffelijcke Worstel-konst,Verhandelende hoeman in alle voorvallen van Twist in Handtgemeenschap, sich kan hoeden: en alle Aengrepen, Borst-stooten, Vuyst-slagen &c. verstetten.
Amsterdam: Johannes Jansonius van Waesberge, 1674
Quarto (235 × 189 mm). Contemporary full vellum, remnant of ink lettering to the spine. 71 etched plates by Romeyn de Hooghe, plate 6 was originally duplicated and the duplication corrected at the time by the imposition of the correct plate numbered 7, over it, so neatly is this done that it is barely visible from the recto. A little rubbed, the front free endpaper somewhat creased and with some loss at the lower corner, light browning, a few faint damp-stains in margins, occasional finger-soiling, some minor chipping at the edges, but overall very good.
First edition of this renowned manual of self-defence. The work is particularly notable for the telling combination of de Hooghe’s clear, but nonetheless dramatic, illustrations, and the simplicity and lucidity of Petter’s written instructions. Prof. Sydney Anglo describes it as “historically speaking, the most important treatise on unarmed combat ever printed … the finest of all wrestling books and deservedly the most famous” (The Martial Arts of Renaissance Europe, p.190). While Eli Steenput, in the introduction to his English translation (Journal of Western Martial Art, October 2000), remarks that “It is probably unique in presenting an effective and complete unarmed combat system in a format from which it would be actually possible to learn”. In themselves de Hooghe’s plates are remarkable, fully justifying Otto Benesch’s description of him as “not only the greatest Dutch etcher of the period, but the only great artist Holland produced at the end of her classical era … one of the greatest illustrators of all time, comprehending within himself all the various faculties of the universal mind of the Baroque”.
Wrestling-master Petter’s school of practical self-defence for the bourgeoisie on the dangerous streets of Amsterdam, clearly differentiates the book from the earlier tradition of wrestling books, such as the Ringbüchlein, or Fabian von Auerswald’s Ringer-Kunst, where smiling contestants are shown engaged in a sporting contest. Iinstead the plates portray well-dressed gentlemen tangling with grimacing, sometimes armed, street toughs. Petter died shortly before publication, and the book was seen through the press by his widow, and his pupil Robert Cors, who explains the principles that lay behind his master’s method; “The forces which were lent to the human understanding by nature, are not present alike in each art, and if they were, then they would nevertheless not be developed in the same way. Of two arts one is usually superior, this is in general the one based on knowledge. Most people do not seriously consider how they could secure themselves against all manner ofd abuse or assault, as might be levelled against them by evil-hearted villains, eager for violence. Our wrestler has studied this problem, first developing his mind, then looking for effective strikes and holds, by which one can defend against violent attacks with shoves, punches, or a knife. These he has practised diligently, and, to benefit the community, he has decided finally to compile this instructional book … Cruel Death has untimely taken him from us, before he could bring this project to conclusion. The images had already been prepared during his life, ordered and provided with explanatory captions to instruct the studious wrestler”. By way of advertisement, Cors mentions that he is “prepared to instruct interested parties in these techniques for reasonable remuneration and be reached at the Witwe house of Nicolaes Petter on the Prinsengracht in the Gustavusburgh not far from the combat academy”.
Far from common institutionally, just 20 or so copies world-wide, with most of them in the Netherlands, and very rarely encountered commercially, particularly so in such wonderful, unrestored contemporary condition. This copy with an early anonymous bookplate and the later plate of Amsterdam doctor and bibliophile, Bob Luza, whose collection was sold in 1981.
£8,500

DRINKWATER, John.
Preludes 1921–1922.
London: The Morland Press, 1922
Square octavo. Original pale blue limp vellum, top edges gilt, fore-edges untrimmed. Title-page printed in blue and black, initial letters printed in blue. Patchy light fading of vellum, which has also sprung a little. An excellent copy.
First and signed limited edition, preceding the trade edition of the same year. Number 1 of 125 numbered copies, neatly initialled by the author with his monogram. An attractively produced book.
£275

(DULAC, Edmund.) STEVENSON, Robert Louis.
Treasure Island. – SOLD
London: Ernest Benn Limited, 1927
Quarto. Original full vellum, black morocco label, top edge gilt. Housed in a recent tan cloth chemise and quarter morocco slipcase. Colour frontispiece, 11 other plates and black and white illustrations in the text by Edmund Dulac. Library bookplate, perforated library stamps to some pages (including title page), endpapers a little dust-soiled and with a couple of small creases. An excellent copy.
Signed limited edition. Number 9 of 50 copies on handmade paper signed by the illustrator. In her bibliography of the artist Ann Conolly Hughey described the illustrations of Treasure Island as his “most careful and superb”. Dulac himself considered Treasure Island as his best work.
£3,750

FOSTER, J. J.
British Miniature Painters and Their Works.
London: Sampson Low, Marston & Company, Limited, 1898
Quarto (290 × 208 mm). Contemporary vellum, black morocco label, decoration to spine, single rule to boards, cream endpapers, gilt edges. With 60 monochrome illustrations. Inscription to front free endpaper, some occasional light foxing, spine and boards marked, a very good copy.
Limited to 425 numbered copies. A handsomely bound copy.
£225

GUNN, Thom.
Mandrakes. Illustrated by Leonard Baskin.
The Rainbow Press, 1973
Quarto. Original vellum-backed dark brown-red boards. Housed in a red cloth slipcase. Frontispiece and 4 full-page illustrations by Leonard Baskin. A fine copy.
Signed limited edition, one of 150 copies signed by Gunn.
£475

HENRY VIII Signed

HENRY VIII.
Warrant signed (“Henry R” at head), to Sir Andrew Windsor, Keeper of the Great Wardrobe, requiring him to deliver to John Hasilby four yards of broad cloth for a gown at 5s. the yard, plus a fox fur for the same gown at 43s. 4d., three-and-a-half yards of satin for a doublet at 8s. the yard, and eight yards of chamlet (a type of fine cloth) for a jacket at 2s. 6d. the yard. – SOLD
Windsor Castle: 28 November,
Warrant on vellum (108 x 178 mm), later docket numbers “100” (top left) and “2” (top right), round mark and small hole in vellum where seal was formerly affixed, borders trimmed.
A royal warrant ordering a significant amount of cloth to be given to a servant of Queen Katherine, John Hasilby. The matter of clothing was of high public importance in the Tudor court. “Henry VIII passed four sumptuary laws or acts of apparel in 1510, 1514, 1515, and 1533. The laws were hierarchical in their structure, with social status being directly linked to the quality of cloth that an individual was allowed to wear. Expensive, imported silks, furs, and metal thread acted as material signifiers of status and the individuals permitted to wear them were clearly identified as the elite” (Maria Hayward, Rich Apparel: Clothing and the Law in Henry VIII’s England, 2009, p. 17). The keeper of the great wardrobe was one of the key dispensers of patronage sanctioned by the king.
These early years of their marriage saw Katherine’s hold on her husband and her political influence at their height. Until 21 October 1513 she had been governor of the realm and captain-general during Henry’s absence campaigning in France. She faced a crisis when James IV of Scotland invaded England on 22 August.
As in the later Field of Cloth of Gold of 1520, the political symbolism of her role was expressed through the medium of fabric. Katherine described herself during the invasion scare as “horribly busy with making standards, banners and badges” (her mother Isabella of Castile also took it upon herself to supervise the making of banners on campaign), and when the defeat of the Scots at Flodden on 9 September left James IV and a large number of Scottish nobles dead on the field, Katherine wrote triumphantly to Henry, in her own hand and in English: “In this your grace shall see how I can keep my promys, sending you for your banners a King’s coat.”
The king’s gift to the queen’s servant of these sumptuous fabrics was an ostentatious acknowledgement of his gratitude for her successful campaign and her continuing authority at court.
£30,000

JOYCE, James.
Ulysses. BOOK SOLD
London: John Lane, The Bodley Head, 1936
Quarto. Original white vellum, titles to spine and the Gill-designed Homeric bow device to boards, top edge gilt, others uncut. With the publisher’s slipcase. Spine very slightly faded but a particularly nice copy in the somewhat rubbed and marked slip case.
First UK edition, first impression. From a total printing of 1,000 numbered copies, this is one of 100 on handmade paper, bound in vellum and signed by the author. This deluxe issue of the Bodley Head Ulysses is one of the triumphs of 20th century book production. It established the text for the succeeding 25 years and printed as appendices the International Letter of Protest against Samuel Roth’s piracy and the famous legal judgement by John M. Woolsey lifting the ban in America on the publishing of the book.
£30,000

(KELMSCOTT PRESS.) SHAKESPEARE, William.
The Poems of William Shakespeare,Printed After the Original Copies of Venus and Adonis, 1593. The Rape of Lucrece, 1594. Sonnets, 1609. The Lover’s Complaint.
Hammersmith: The Kelmscott Press, 1893
Octavo. Original limp vellum by Leighton of London, titles to spine gilt, blue silk ties. Printed in black and red. Spine a little dust-soiled, ties torn away at ends, a very good copy.
First Kelmscott edition, one of only 500 copies printed.
£3,250

(LAWRENCE, D. H.) CARTER, Frederick.
D. H. Lawrence and the Body Mystical. BOOK SOLD
London: Denis Archer, 1932
Large octavo. Original orange vellum, titles and decoration to spine and upper board in black and gold. With the original celluloid dust jacket. Portrait frontispiece. Contents lightly toned. An excellent copy in the mylar jacket.
First edition, first impression. One of a limited edition of 75 numbered copies each containing a signed artist’s proof of the engraved portrait.
£250

De Fabrica triremium liber

MEIBOM, Marcus.
De Fabrica triremium liber.
Amsterdam: 1671
Quarto (201 × 142 mm). Contemporary vellum, title inked to the spine, marbled edges. Superb folding etched frontispiece by Romeyn de Hooghe showing 5 separate sections of oared vessels, printer’s device to title page, diagrams to the text, extensive use of Hebrew and Greek types. Eighteenth-century ownership inscription of the classical scholar Johann Christoph Wernsdorf to the first blank. Covers just a little rubbed and mildly sprung, first blank separating, but not loose, light toning, a highly attractive copy.
First and only edition of this uncommon treatise on ancient shipbuilding, drawn from classical and Biblical sources, illustrated with a beautiful, etched frontispiece by de Hooghe. Born in Tönningen, Schleswig-Holstein, around 1630, Meibom was a Danish philologist and polymath scholar probably best known for his work on music in antiquity. His Antiquae musicae auctores septem of 1652 printed seven Greek works together with his Latin translations of them, and it is known that he attempted concerts of reconstructed Greek music. Meibom was summoned to the court of Queen Christina; became a professor at the Soroë Academy at the time when Christian IV was attempting to turn it from a “knight academy” into a full university; was later chief of the customs office as Helsingöer; and was made professor of history at the Athenaeum in Amsterdam in 1668. In the present work he essays an accurate reconstruction of the construction and organization of the ancient trireme from a collation and analysis of contemporary sources. Dedicating the book to the kings, princes and Christian republics of the shores of the Mediterranean, he explains that triremes were the principal warships of the ancient world and assures his readers that he has “tried, by means of this book to re-launch them into the sea, not from ship-sheds where they, having been pulled on the shore, have stood until the present time, but brought forth from the much-venerated ancient monuments of letters.” An important early-modern work of marine archaeology.

£8,500

MOSCHOPULOS, Manuel.
De ratione examinandae orationis libellus. Ex bibliotheca regia.
Paris: Robert Estienne, 31 Dec. 1545
Quarto (245 × 164 mm). Nineteenth-century blind-stamped vellum over pasteboards, spine neatly lettered in manuscript, old shelf-mark at foot. Greek type; Estienne’s basilisk device as king’s printer in Greek on title-page; foliated and grotesque Greek initials and matching headpieces. Ownership inscription of Sir John Taylor Coleridge (1790-1876; nephew of the poet), dated 1853, noting the previous owner as Dr Butler, Dean of Peterborough, on the front free endpaper. Spine a little dusty, faint stain to upper outer corner through to p.24, not affecting text, else an excellent copy, fresh and clean.
Editio princeps. The Byzantine scholar Manuel Moschopulus (fl. Constantinople 1282-1328) had been a student of Maximus Planudes; this grammar formed the basis of the later works by Chrysoloras, Theodore Gaza, and Constantine Lascaris. The book, the only quarto among Estienne’s superb sequence of editiones principes, is only the second text (after Estienne’s edition of Eusebius the previous year) to be printed entirely in the French royal Greek types (grecs du roi) cut by Claude Garamond, widely regarded as the finest Greek types ever cut.
£3,500

(NIELSEN, Kay) QUILLER-COUCH, Arthur.
In Powder and Crinoline.Old Fairy Tales Retold. BOOK SOLD
London, Hodder and Stoughton,
Quarto. Original full green vellum, front cover and spine lettered and pictorially stamped in gilt, pictorial endpapers, top edge gilt, others uncut. With 26 tipped-in colour plates on grey paper. Covers very slightly bowed, minimal wear to extremities. An excellent copy of this title, with the endpapers very slightly foxed as usual.
Edition de Luxe, limited to 500 numbered copies signed by the artist.
£3,750

PLATH, Sylvia.
Crystal Gazer and Other Poems – BOOK SOLD
London: Rainbow Press, 1971
Tall quarto. Original limp vellum, titles to upper cover gilt, burgundy silk ties, top edge gilt, others untrimmed. Housed in the publisher’s red cloth solander case. A fine copy.
First edition, first impression. One of 20 copies bound in full vellum from a limited edition of 400 numbered copies. Twenty-three poems collected here for the first time, many of which were previously unpublished.
£1,750

(RACKHAM, Arthur.) ROSSETTI, Christina.
Goblin Market.
London: George G. Harrap & Co. Ltd, 1933
Octavo. Original limp vellum, title to front cover in gilt, top edge gilt, others untrimmed, pictorial endpapers. Housed in publisher’s original slipcase. Colour frontispiece, 3 similar plates, and black and white illustrations throughout. Light cockling to leaves. Otherwise a fine copy in a slightly soiled slipcase with minor wear to extremities.
Signed limited edition, number 183 of 410 copies signed by the illustrator.
£1,000

Evelyn Waugh. Labels. A Mediterranean Journal

WAUGH, Evelyn.
Labels. A Mediterranean Journal. – SOLD
London: Duckworth, 1930
Octavo (214 × 219 mm). Contemporary full vellum, titles to spine gilt. Housed in a white cloth slipcase. Spine a little faded, minor spotting to edges of text block and to contents. An excellent copy.
First edition, first impression. Handsomely rebound in full vellum.
£250

VITULINUM, VÉLIN, VELLUM: THE WINDOW AT FULHAM ROAD

Knowing I’m on the street where you shop: Gifts for Lovers in Fulham Road

Knowing I’m on the street where you shop: Gifts for Lovers in Fulham Road

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ARMSTRONG, Martin.
Lover’s Leap.
London: Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1932
Octavo. Original black cloth. With the dust jacket. In the toned dust jacket. A very good copy.
First edition, first impression. From the publisher’s archive, with their ink number to rear panel of the dust jacket and pencil notation to the front panel.

£125 – SOLD

 

AUSTEN, Jane.
Pride and Prejudice.A Novel. In Two Volumes. By the Author of “Sense and Sensibility,” &c. Third Edition.
London: printed for T. Egerton, 1817
2 volumes, duodecimo (176 x 103 mm). Rebound to style in brown half calf, morocco labels, spines gilt in compartments, marbled sides. Bound without half-titles; professional repair to title page of Vol. II; contemporary ownership signature to both front flyleaves. Faint intermittent foxing to contents. An excellent set.
Third edition, the only one of the author’s novels to be published a third time in her lifetime. Pride and Prejudice was Austen’s second published novel, the first and second editions both appearing in 1813. According to Gilson no details of the publishing history of this third edition are known. Jane Austen “was clearly not consulted (having sold the copyright) and no allusion to this edition has been traced in her surviving letters; it is not apparent whether was in fact issued before or after the author’s death.”
£5,500 – SOLD

 

(BRONTË, Charlotte.) FREEDMAN, Barnett.
Lithograph proofs for Jane Eyre.
1942
Octavo. Original brown and green cloth, title to front cover in manuscript. 16 colour lithographs. Spine a little bumped, contents lightly cockled, with some minor spotting. In excellent condition.
Presentation copy from Freedman to Jack Beddington, inscribed by the artist on the front cover, “To Jack Beddington, from Barnett, Freedman, March 1941.” Jack Beddington, best known for his publicity work for Shell-Mex and BP during the 1930s, collaborated with Freedman to launch the Lyons’ Lithograph series after the Second World War. Barnett Freedman was commissioned by George Macy to create these illustrations as part of a series for Heritage Press in New York; this edition of Jane Eyre was published in 1942.
£950 – SOLD

 

BUCH, Morten Vase

BUCH, Morten.
Vase II.
Copenhagen: Edition Copenhagen, 2015
Original lithograph on 250 gsm Velin d’Arches paper. Sheet size: 100 x 70 cm Excellent condition. Presented in a black wooden frame with conservation glass.
Edition of 38. Signed in pencil lower right by Buch, numbered lower left.
£800 – SOLD

 

CAPOTE, Truman.
Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
New York: Random House, 1958
Octavo (205 x 137 mm). Finely bound by the Chelsea Bindery in pink morocco, black morocco title label, title to spine silver, black leather onlay silhouette of Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly with real diamond jewellery, black plain endpapers, twin rule to turn-ins silver, all edges silver. Housed in a custom black velvet drawstring bag. A fine copy.
First edition, first printing of Capote’s classic novella, the basis for the much-loved film. Gorgeously hand-bound by the Chelsea Bindery in deep rose-pink and black morocco leather, the front cover features a silhouetted Audrey Hepburn in that iconic Givenchy little black dress and foot long cigarette holder. Diamond embellishments on the jewellery make this luxurious and unusual binding sparkle.
£2,750

 

COLLINS, Norman.
Love in our Time.
London: Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1939
Octavo. Original blue cloth. With the dust jacket. Spine rolled, spotting to page edges, in the dust jacket with fading to spine and along edges, wear to extremities. A very good copy.
First edition, second impression. From the publisher’s archive, with their ink stamp to the title page, front free endpaper, and front panel of the dust jacket.

£45 – SOLD

 

DINE, Jim.
Two Red Hearts.
Tokyo: Takashimaya Corporation, 1993
Woodcut and photo engraving on 2 sheets of Stonehenge paper. Sheet size: 56 x 90.5 cm. Excellent condition. Presented float-mounted in an ash frame with Perspex.
Edition of 120. Signed, dated and numbered in pencil lower middle.
£12,000 – SOLD

 

(DULAC, Edmund.) QUILLER-COUCH, Arthur.
The Sleeping Beauty and Other Fairy Tales.From the Old French.
London: Hodder & Stoughton,
Quarto. Original brown morocco, titles to spine and decorative panelling to spine and boards gilt, top edge gilt, others untrimmed. 30 colour plates by Dulac tipped in on card printed with captions and decorative borders, all with tissue guards. Extremities lightly rubbed, spine ends skilfully restored, endpapers lightly browned. A very good copy.
Signed limited edition, number 172 of 1,000 copies signed by Dulac. One of the artist’s triumphs in illustrated books.
£1,500

 

DURRELL, Lawrence.
The Black Book – BOOK SOLD
Paris: The Traveller’s Companion Series, published by the Olympia Press, 1959
Small octavo. Original green and white wrappers printed in black. With the pictorial dust jacket. An excellent copy in a very lightly edge-rubbed jacket.
First Olympia Press edition. With a previously unpublished introduction by the author. Originally published in Paris in 1938.
£125

EDWARDS, Tinsel. Neon Revolution

EDWARDS, Tinsel.
Neon Revolution.
London: Jealous Gallery, 2014
2 colour silkscreen on Southbank Smooth 300 gsm paper. Sheet size: 38 x 37 cm. Excellent condition. Presented in white wooden frame with conservation glass.
Edition of 60. Signed lower right in pencil by Edwards, numbered lower left. Jealous Gallery blindstamp lower right. This image was shown in the Activist Tent at Banksy’s Dismaland.
£150 – SOLD

 

(EGAN, Beresford.) BAUDELAIRE, Charles.
Flowers of Evil.In pattern and prose by Beresford Egan and C. Bower Alcock.
New York: William Godwin, 1933
Octavo. Original purple cloth, titles to spine and vignette to front board silver. With the dust jacket. Frontispiece and 15 illustrations by Beresford Egan. Ownership stamp to front free endpaper. Contents lightly toned, short closed tear to margin of p. 7; an excellent copy in the bright, unclipped jacket with torn and chipped extremities, and tape residue to verso.
First US edition thus, first printing. First published in the UK in 1929, this edition of Baudelaire’s masterpiece (originally published in 1857), is part of Godwin’s “Famous Classics of Love” series.
£275 – SOLD

 

FABRICIUS, Johann.
Vain Love. Translated from the Dutch.
London: Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1931
Octavo. Original black cloth. With the dust jacket. In the dust jacket with sunning to spine and along edges, a touch of soiling to panels, wear to extremities. A very good copy.
First UK edition, first impression. From the publisher’s archive, with their ink stamp to front free endpaper and front panel of the dust jacket.
£125

 

FLEMING, Ian.
The Spy Who Loved Me – BOOK SOLD
London: Jonathan Cape, 1962
Octavo. Original dark grey boards, spine lettered in silver, dagger design to front board in silver and blind, red endpapers. With the pictorial dust jacket. Spine slightly toned, edges lightly foxed, minor abrasion to front free endpaper. A very good copy in the unclipped jacket, with toned spine, and nicked spine ends.
First edition, first impression. In many ways this is one of the most ambitious of Fleming’s Bond books. It purports to be the first hand testimony of a 23 year old Canadian woman with whom Bond has an ill-fated affair. In time-honoured literary tradition Fleming claims to have been sent Michel’s manuscript account of which he is merely the editor. Michel therefore gets a spurious credit as co-author on the title page. This novel is the only Bond book to be written in the first person.
£600

(GILL, Eric) SHAKESPEARE, William.
The Sonnets.Edited by Margaret Flower.
London: Cassell & Company Ltd, 1933
Octavo. Original green cloth, titles to spine, initials to upper board, and top edge gilt. With the dust jacket. Engraved frontispiece by Eric Gill. A lovely copy in the lightly rubbed jacket with toned spine panel.
First edition thus, first impression. One of a limited edition of 500 copies. This copy from the library of Eric Gill’s brother Evan, with his bookplate to the front pastedown. A lovely copy of this beautifully-produced edition of the sonnets. Scarce in the jacket.
£750 – SOLD

 

poems about love

GRAVES, Robert.
Poems about Love.
London: Cassell, 1969
Octavo. Original dark red cloth, titles to spine gilt. With the dust jacket. Publisher’s review slip laid in. Very light foxing to edges. An excellent copy in the dust jacket.
First edition, first impression.
£85 – SOLD

 

GREENE, Graham.
The End of the Affair.
London: William Heinemann Ltd, 1951
Octavo. Original grey cloth, titles to spine gilt, publisher’s device to rear board in blind, buff endpapers. With the dust jacket. Contents faintly toned with a few faint marks, a little spotting to edges of text block. An excellent copy in the toned jacket, with a little rubbing to extremities.
First edition, first impression.

£575

 

GRIFFITH, E. F.
Sex and Citizenship.With an Introduction by Canon Cockin.
London: Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1944
Octavo. Original blue cloth, titles to spine gilt. With the dust jacket. First few pages lightly creased; an excellent copy in the sunned jacket.
First edition, sixth impression (first published in 1941). A study of sexual ethics and family planning. The publisher’s file copy, with their ink stamp to the jacket and first three pages.

£65

 

HALL, Radclyffe.
The Well of Loneliness – BOOK SOLD
London: Jonathan Cape, 1928
Octavo. Finely bound by The Chelsea Bindery in full black morocco, titles and decoration to spine gilt, raised bands, single rule to boards gilt, inner dentelles gilt, plain coated endpapers burgundy, all edges gilt. A fine copy.
First edition, first impression. This famous and highly controversial lesbian novel became the target of a campaign by the editor of the Sunday Express newspaper, who believed it to be morally toxic. The novel went through two small printings in Britain before being suppressed. In the same year there was a continental printing in English, from the more liberal Parisian publishers, Pegasus Press. For decades The Well of Loneliness was the best-known lesbian novel in English.
£1,250

 

JAMES, E. L.
Fifty Shades of Grey.
Westfield, NSW: The Writer’s Coffee Shop, 2011
Octavo. Original pictorial wrappers, spine and front wrapper lettered in white and grey. Ownership signature to verso of front wrapper. Wrappers slightly creased at tips, title page separating slightly; an excellent, bright copy.
First edition, second state with the Roman numeral “I” to the spine. The first volume in the sexually explicit trilogy was released simultaneously as an e-book and paperback. The series went on to sell over 100 million copies worldwide, and is the basis for the 2015 film of the same title.
£250

 

LAWRENCE, D. H.
Amores: Poems.
London: Duckworth and Company,
Octavo. Original blue cloth, titles to spine gilt, fore edge uncut and partly unopened. With the dust jacket. Spine very slightly faded, small dent to top edge of front board, minor foxing to contents; an exceptional copy in the lightly toned and slightly soiled jacket with some nicks and shallow chips to extremities.
First edition, first impression, of the author’s second book of poetry, one of only 900 copies printed. Scarce in the jacket.
£1,250 – SOLD

 

madd

MADONNA.
Sex. SOLD
New York: Warner Books, 1992
Quarto. Original metal boards, title stamped to front board, decoration die-stamped to back board, containing the CD unopened. With the original foil wrapper.
Illustrated with photographs. A fine copy in the original unopened packaging.
First edition, first printing.
£375

 

 

MANN, Thomas.
Death in Venice. Translated by H. T. Lowe-Porter.
London: Martin Secker, 1928
Octavo. Original green cloth, titles to spine and upper board gilt. With the dust jacket. Pencilled ownership signature to front free endpaper. Minor bumps to corners, cloth very slightly rubbed and faded at the ends of the spine. An excellent copy in the rubbed and somewhat spotted jacket.
First UK edition, first impression. Scarce in the dust jacket. Originally published in Germany in 1912.
£4,750

 

MARLOW, Louis.
Love By Accident.
London: Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1929
Octavo. Original black cloth. With the dust jacket. Spotting to pages, in the toned dust jacket with shallow chipping to top end of spine, light soiling to panels. A very good copy.
First edition, first impression. From the publisher’s archive, with their ink stamp to the title page.

£175

 

MEYER, Stephanie.
Twilight; New Moon; Eclipse; Breaking Dawn. BOOK SOLD
New York: Little Brown and Company, 2005-08
4 volumes, octavo. Original black boards, titles to spine in silver. With the dust jackets. Spines bumped, dust jacket lightly creased to foot of spine of Twilight otherwise all in excellent condition.
All first editions, first printings. Eclipse and Breaking Dawn are signed by Meyer to the title page. Together with a loose photograph of Meyer signing Eclipse and an advance screening invite for New Moon on Broadway.
£3,000

 

MITCHELL, Margaret.
Gone With The Wind.
New York: The Macmillan Company 1936
Octavo. Finely bound by the Chelsea Bindery in yellow morocco with wraparound onlaid silhouette of Tara in black morocco set against a hand painted sunset, titles to spine gilt, yellow endpapers, gilt edges. Housed in black cloth box, titles to spine gilt. A fine copy.
First edition, first printing with the copyright date May 1939. A fine example of the Chelsea Bindery’s work.
£3,750 – SOLD

 

PASTERNAK, Boris.
Doctor Zhivago.
Milan: Feltrinelli,
Octavo. Original pale green boards, titles to spine and front board in black. With the dust jacket. Gift inscription to front free endpaper. Minor fading to spine ends, endpapers and top edge lightly spotted; a very good copy in the toned jacket with minor loss to spine ends, small chip to head and foot of rear panel and short closed tear to head of rear flap.
Third edition, first printing, in Russian of one of the most controversial literary works of the Soviet period. It was published in late April or early May 1959, and is preceded by the Dutch and US editions of September 1958 and January 1959 respectively. Doctor Zhivago was first published in Italian by Feltrinelli in 1957 after Pasternak signed a contract with him on 30 June 1956, granting the Italian publisher the copyright for translation. The history of the book’s publication in Russian is somewhat tangled: the first edition in Russian was printed by the Dutch publisher Mouton without Feltrinelli’s permission, as part of a covert CIA publishing and propaganda program, and the US edition was to be likewise published without acknowledgement of Feltrinelli’s copyright. However, after the legal furore surrounding the publication of the Dutch edition, that decision was reversed, and the US edition was subsequently published with Feltrinelli’s full consent and collaboration. Feltrinelli intended to publish this edition concurrently with the US publication, but due to printing delays his book was not published in Italy until four months after it appeared in the US.
£1,250 – SOLD

 

PHYPPS, Hyacinthe.
The Recently Deflowered Girl. The Right Thing to Say on Every Dubious Occasion.
New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1965
Oblong octavo. Original pictorial boards. Illustrations throughout by Edward Gorey. Rubbing to corners and ends of spine, front spine edge with light cracking. A very good copy.
First edition, first printing. A collection of pseudo-romantic advice that claims to have “helped a generation of girls over the threshold to womanhood.” A very uncommon Gorey title.
£275 – SOLD

 

restoration

(PIPER, John, & Rex Whistler.) HADFIELD, John (ed.)
Elizabethan Love Songs; Restoration Love Songs; Georgian Love Songs.With decorations by Rex Whistler.
Preston, Herts: The Cupid Press, 1949–55
3 works, octavo. Original blue, green and brown cloth-backed marbled boards, morocco title labels, top edges gilt, others untrimmed. With the cellophane dust jackets. Elizabethan Love Songs illustrated with 8 colour lithographs by John Piper, other two volumes with 13 plates after Rex Whistler. Contemporary Australian bookseller’s ticket to each front free endpaper. Light spotting to cloth of Restoration Songs and occasionally to all volumes. An excellent set in chipped and faintly soiled jackets with a couple of closed tears.
Limited editions. Signed by John Piper on the limitation page of Elizabethan Love Songs. Each copy one of 660 numbered copies in hand-marbled boards by Douglas Cockerell & Son, Elizabethan Love Songs being no. 643, Restoration no. 129 and Georgian no. 503. A lovely complete set of the Cupid Press’s anthologies of love songs.
£375 – SOLD

 

POWYS, John Cowper.
In Defence of Sensuality.
London: Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1930
Octavo. Original black cloth. With the dust jacket. Occasional spotting to pages, in the dust jacket with a touch of soiling to panels. A very good copy.
First UK edition, first impression. From the publisher’s archive, with their ink stamp to front free endpaper.
£125

 

SACKVILLE-WEST, Vita.
Grey Wethers: A Romantic Novel.
London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1923
Octavo. Original grey cloth lettered and decoratively blocked in black to front side and spine, bottom edge uncut, with dust jacket. Bookplate pf Constance Kyrle Fletcher to front pastedown. Endpapers lightly browned, some rubbing at extremities, dust jacket a little soiled and rather chipped with a few repairs, otherwise a very good copy.
First edition, in the scarce jacket.
£1,250 – SOLD

 

SHAKESPEARE, William.
The Royal Shakespeare Theatre Edition of The Sonnets.
London: Shepheard–Walwyn, 1974
Folio. Original red full morocco, titles to spine and upper board, inner dentelles and edges gilt, marbled endpapers. In the original red slipcase. Spine slightly faded. An excellent copy.
First edition thus. Number 14 of a limited edition of 260 numbered copies signed on the introduction leaf by the actress Peggy Ashcroft. Includes a leaflet advertising the edition with a photo of Ashcroft presenting copies to diplomatic representatives of Commonwealth nations.
£850 – SOLD

 

SOLZHENITSYN, Alexander.
The Love-Girl And The Innocent.
London: The Bodley Head, 1969
Octavo. Original grey boards, spine lettered in gilt. With the dust jacket and the Nobel Prize wraparound band. An excellent copy, in the slightly toned jacket, with a foxed spine and a small closed tear to head of front panel.
First English edition, first impression. A play in four acts, set over the course of about one week in a Joseph Stalin-era Soviet prison camp.
£125 – SOLD

 

ST. PIERRE, Bernardin de.
Paul and Virginia.With an original memoir of the author, and three hundred and thirty illustrations.
London: W. S. and Orr & Co., 1839
Octavo (234 × 158 mm). Contemporary blue half crushed morocco, titles and decoration to spine, raised bands, blue cloth boards, marbled endpapers, top edge gilt. Portrait frontispiece and vignette, 330 illustrations within the text and 28 engraved plates on India proof paper with printed tissue guards. The occasional minor blemish, an excellent copy.
An attractively bound English edition of this great French romantic novel which was first published in 1787.
£150 – SOLD

 

lovelies

(STEADMAN, Ralph.) ASHFORD, Daisy.
Where Love Lies Deepest.
London: Rupert Hart-Davis Ltd, 1966
Octavo. Original blue boards, titles to silver. With the dust jacket. Illustrations to text by Ralph Steadman. Gift inscription to front free endpaaper. An excellent copy in the jacket with sunned spine, lightly rubbed extremities and some minor chips and nicks.
First Steadman edition, first impression. The story was first published in Daisy Ashford: Her Book, in 1920.
£65 – SOLD

 

(STEADMAN, Ralph.) ASHFORD, Daisy & Angela.
Love and Marriage: Three Stories.
London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1965
Small octavo. Original brown boards, titles to spine gilt. With the dust jacket. Illustrations to text by Ralph Steadman. Faint foxing to top edge; an excellent copy in the bright jacket with faintly sunned spine and rubbed extremities.
First Steadman edition, first impression. The story was first published in Daisy Ashford: Her Book, in 1920.
£65 – SOLD

 

THOMAS, Dylan.
The Map of Love.Verse and Prose.
London: J. M. Dent and Sons Ltd, 1939
Octavo. Original purple cloth, titles to spine and front board gilt, publisher’s name to foot of spine in blind, top edge purple. With the dust jacket. Portrait frontispiece by Augustus John. Spine faded, light foxing to half-title, title-page and rear free endpaper and pastedown. An excellent copy in the dust jacket with a slightly darkened spine.
First edition, first impression, in the first issue binding. Scarce in the dust jacket.
£425

 

TREVOR, William.
The Love Department.
London: The Bodley Head, 1966
Octavo. Original blue-green boards, spine lettered in gilt. With the dust jacket. An excellent, bright, copy in the price-clipped jacket that has a darkened spine and a short closed tear at head of front panel.
First edition, first impression. Edward Blakeston-Smith is sent out to gather intelligence for a London periodical’s agony department, on an irresistible philanderer – one Septimus Tuam – who is apparently the only antidote to married boredom among the matrons of Wimbledon.
£150 – SOLD

 

WALLER, Thomas ‘Fats’.
Ain’t Misbehavin’ (I’m savin’ my love for you)
New York: Mills Music, 1929
Quarto. Original colour-printed self-wraps, additional leaf of notation loosely inserted as issued. Just a little rubbed, and with a few minor nicks to the edges, light bronwing, otherwise very good.
First edition. Written by Fats Waller and Harry Brooks, with lyrics by Andy Razaf in 1929, Waller recorded the original version that year for Victor Records and also later performed the song in the 1943 film Stormy Weather. It was introduced at Connie’s Inn in Harlem during the opening of the all-black musical revue, Hot Chocolates. The show proved such a success that it moved onto Broadway, opening at the Hudson Theatre on June 20, 1929, and running for 219 performances.
£175 – SOLD

 

WASHINGTON, Peter.
Love Poems.
London: Everyman’s Library, 1993
Octavo. Hand bound in red morocco, titles to spine, raised bands, top edge gilt. Fine.
A handsome leather bound volume of love poems which includes poems by Donne, Shakespeare, Pablo Neruda, Emily Dickinson and Baudelaire.
£225 – SOLD

 

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