Nov 7, 2014 | Videos
Owner Pom Harrington presents a splendid group of first edition books and documents charting Churchill’s growing regard for Dr. David Roberts. A relationship borne of necessity and expediency, shading to friendship and becoming a real intimacy; the reality of which is utterly confirmed by the warmth and sincerity of Clementine’s heartfelt notes of thanks. The Churchill’s clearly thought very highly of Dr. Roberts, but it is a relationship which left few traces, because as Gilbert pointedly remarks, “Unlike Lord Moran, kept no diary.”
This set inscribed identically in vols. I and II: “To Dr. Roberts from Winston S. Churchill, Christmas 1956″; vol. III with a printed facsimile holograph compliments slip, “With all good wishes Winston S. Churchill”; vol. IV inscribed “To David Myrddin Roberts from Winston S. Churchill, March 1958.” Accompanied by three Christmas cards, from Winston and Clementine, with paintings by Churchill, one of them signed by Clemmie; a short typed letter, dated 5 December 1957, on 28 Hyde Park Gate stationery signed by Churchill; a two-page hand-written note signed by Clementine, dated 2 April 1958, addressed to Mrs. Riley, Roberts’s mother-in-law, together with the original envelope; and two telegrams, one from Clementine in 1962, and one from Winston in 1964.
While this set has now sold, all of our catalogued editions and sets of Churchill can be found here.
Nov 7, 2014 | Videos
The title page boasts Lawrence’s early presentation inscription to the title page, “To Else from the Author”.
Else was Lawrence’s sister-in-law Else von Richtofen, sister of his new wife Frieda. Else and Lawrence first met in the early summer of 1912 just as The Trespasser was reaching publication. She had begun a career in teaching but, after taking a degree in economics at Heidelberg in 1901, she obtained a position as labour inspector in Karlsruhe. Later she would marry Max Weber and subsequently Edgar Jaffe with each of whom she would have two children. Lawrence kept up a regular correspondence with Else throughout the rest of his life.
Presentation copies of Lawrence’s early books are rare.
More information on this copy can be found by clicking here.
Nov 7, 2014 | Videos
Micrographia: or some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies made by Magnifying Glasses. With Observations and Inquiries thereupon.
First edition, first issue, of this “early landmark in microscopy, containing the first illustration of cells ” (Horblit).
The Micrographia, published under the aegis of the Royal Society, Hooke’s observations were the first to be carried out with an improved compound microscope, and the first to describe the microscopic structure of tissue with the term “cell”. The book reproduces the almost frantic series of observations made by Hooke in 1663 and 1664 as the young scientist (he was still in his twenties) peered through the lenses of his new microscope at anything he could find.
The justly famous series of plates engraved mostly from Hooke’s drawings with some probably by Sir Christopher Wren, which ultimately distinguishes the book, made it a contemporary bestseller, and kept Pepys up all night staring at it in amazement.
This discovery of a new world-within-a-world had a profound influence on contemporary perceptions of the everyday world. The disorientating effect of the new perspective is memorably captured in Swift’s descriptions of Lilliput and Brobdingnag in Gulliver’s Travels.
Hooke’s work “probably the most influential book in the entire history of microscopy”
Though this item is now sold, all our catalogued works on natural history can be viewed here.
Nov 7, 2014 | Videos
A superb first edition copy of Steinbeck’s rarest book. Only 1,537 copies of the first printing were issued and this one, with fresh cloth and the top-stain and jacket spine largely unfaded, is the best we have ever seen.
This edition is now sold. Our complete collection of the works of John Steinbeck can be found here.
Nov 7, 2014 | Videos
Pom Harrington inspects a first edition of Watership Down in the original dust jacket.
Though this item is now sold, all our catalogued works by Richard Adams can be viewed here.
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