Oct 30, 2017 | Videos
Octavo. Original dark blue cloth, titles to spine and within simple frame to front board gilt. Housed in a custom green full morocco solander box. First edition in book form, first printing, of Churchill’s only novel, his third published book, but the first he undertook to write, and the second he completed.
Churchill’s melodramatic tale of a liberal revolution in an autocratic Mediterranean state was originally serialised in Macmillan’s Magazine between May and December 1899. This edition, published in 4,000 copies on 1 February 1900, preceded the UK issue by twelve days, possibly as US law required a foreign-authored book to be manufactured in America to ensure copyright protection.
Oct 30, 2017 | Videos
Octavo. Original green cloth, spine lettered in gilt, title and facsimile signature gilt to front board within blind frame, black coated endpapers. First UK edition in book form (printed from the American plates), first impression, first state, of Churchill’s only novel, his third published book, but the first he undertook to write, and the second he completed.
Churchill’s melodramatic tale of a liberal revolution in an autocratic Mediterranean state was originally serialised in Macmillan’s Magazine between May and December 1899. It was first published in book form in New York on 1 February 1900, possibly as US law required a foreign-authored book to be manufactured in America to ensure copyright protection. The UK edition appeared on 13 February, with 1,500 copies were printed, including 650 sets of sheets transferred from the Colonial Library issue, which were consequently given a cancel title with the verso blank; copies in first state retain the copyright notice “Copyright, 1899, by Longmans, Green, and Co.” on the title verso.
Oct 30, 2017 | Videos
Octavo. Original green cloth, spine lettered in gilt within blind panel, front cover lettered in gilt on recessed panel, black endpapers. First edition, home issue, sole printing, first state. A superlative copy of Churchill’s first book, without the errata slip, the publisher’s catalogue dated 12/97. Churchill was correspondent for the Daily Telegraph on Sir Bindon Blood’s punitive 1897 expedition against the Afghan tribesmen of the North-West Frontier, during which he “took part in several skirmishes in which he came under fire and witnessed acts of barbarism by both sides” (ODNB).
He consolidated his reports into book-form on his return to Bangalore, and his account was published in March 1898. “A total of 2,000 sets of sheets were printed for the home issue, of which 1,600 were bound by the … publication date … 200 of these volumes were exported to New York” (Cohen), a number likely to have included this copy, with its contemporary American book-label. The errata slip, indicating second state, was available by April, and by the beginning of June 448 copies remained unsold. Of these, 46 were transferred to the Colonial Library in October the same year.
Oct 30, 2017 | Videos
2 works, folio. Original lithographic boards by Matisse (Images à la sauvette) and Miró (Les Européens), titles to spines and front covers black. Housed in custom-made black cloth slipcases, front covers lettered in silver. Images à la sauvette: 126 half-tone plates; Les Européens: 114 half-tone plates; all printed by Pierre Gassman. Images à la sauvette: spine and board edges slightly toned, spine a little bumped at ends, small traces of tape to free endpapers; Les Européens: foot of spine and adjoining corner of front board bumped (with small split), a touch of rubbing to extremities, shallow indentations to centre of front board.
An excellent set. First editions, first printings. A superb pair of presentation copies – rare in being both made out to the same recipient – inscribed by the photographer on the half-title of each work: “pour Henri Bourrillon, ami de mes amis photographes, Henri Cartier-Bresson” (Images à la sauvette) and “pour Henri Bourrillon ces quelques Européens, en hommage Très ‘respectueuse’. Henri Cartier-Bresson” (Les Européens). The recipient was the prolific French writer and journalist Henri Bourrillon (1876–1962), better known under his pseudonym of Pierre Hamp, and described by his contemporaries as both “l’écrivain prolétarien” and “écrivain humaniste”.
The self-taught Bourrillon “left school at fourteen to become a pastry chef working in England and Spain before finding employment with French railways in the north of the country. He gradually rose through the ranks, becoming deputy stationmaster and inspector of works. He was also the head of a textile factory… He pursued studies with Charles Péguy, André Gide, and Charles-Louis Philippe. Hamp’s vast experience inspired him to write more than 40 novels, a large number of which are grouped under the title of La Peine des hommes (The Lot of Men) and are close, often quasi-technical, and frequently critical studies of working-class conditions and activities. For example, Marée frâiche (1908: Fresh Tide), describes the fish industry, Le Rail (1912) the problems and factions within the world of the railways, Viv de Champagne (1913) all aspects of wine production, and Le Lin (1924) the treatment of flax and the cloth trade. His books were not always well received by those they described.
Le Rail was banned from bookstands in railway stations, and Mes métiers (1930: Kitchen Prelude, 1932), on his experience as a pastry chef, prompted an outrage and a threatened lawsuit… He also produced a number of surveys – on the working conditions of miners, railway men, and children employed in industry… A member of the Socialist Party, an active trade unionist all his life, and a supporter of the Salvation Army” (John Flower, Historical Dictionary of French Literature, 2013, pp. 245-46) All of this enables us to draw together the threads that unite both writer and photographer in their humanitarian approach to life, a shared sincerity in their work and a genuine empathy with the working class and the poor; and while Cartier-Bresson’s inscription in Les Européens is playful (“Tres ‘respectueuse’”), that in Images à la sauvette (“ami de mes amis photographes”) seems to be closer to the spirit of “friend of the friends that I have …read more CARTIER-BRESSON, Henri. Images à la sauvette
Oct 30, 2017 | Videos
Octavo. Publisher’s presentation binding in blue morocco, titles and decorations to spine and boards gilt, inner dentelles gilt, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. Housed in custom quarter blue morocco and cloth solander box. With 37 illustrations by the author. With the Duchess of Albany’s bookplate on the front pastedown. Extremities a little rubbed, some very minor wear to tips, small split to head of front hinge; an excellent copy. First edition.
Presentation copy, inscribed by the author in his customary purple ink on the half-title, “Presented to H.R.H. The Duchess of Albany, by the author, in grateful recollection of three happy days, and of two sweet children, Aug. 6, 1889.” The duchess replied on 17 August, acknowledging the gift: “It gives me much pleasure as I am a great friend of Alice and her adventures. I must now also thank you for your letter to me and the two charming books with which you made my children very happy. I think they will well remember the kind gentleman who spent so much time with them in amusing them and telling them stories.”
Dodgson knew her late husband, Prince Leopold, Queen Victoria’s fourth son, who matriculated at Oxford on 27 November 1872; he had his portrait taken at Dodgson’s Tom Quad studio at Christ Church in 1875 and signed his name in Dodgson’s album. For a brief period during his studies the prince was romantically linked with Alice Liddell, and, though nothing came of the romance, the two remained cordial. In 1883 Alice (by then Mrs Hargreaves) wrote to congratulate the prince on the birth of his first child, Alice, at the same time inviting him to be godfather to her second son, Leopold Reginald, also born that year.
The following year the prince died of a brain haemorrhage, but it was not until June 1889 that Dodgson became acquainted with his widow, while staying Hatfield House as a guest of Lord Salisbury. The Duchess was accompanied by her two children, Alice, and Charles, Duke of Albany aged 6 and 5 respectively. Dodgson – perhaps influenced by the coincidence of the little girl’s name – made gifts of several of his works, including the present example. Dodgson struck up a friendship with the children, and regularly sent them gifts of puzzles or presentation copies of his books. Princess Alice recalled their early friendship in her autobiography: “Doctor Dodgson or ‘Lewis Carroll’ was especially kind to Charlie and me, though when I was five I offended him once, when, at a children’s party at Hatfield, he was telling story. He was a stammerer and being unable to follow what he was saying I suddenly asked in a loud voice, ‘Why does he waggle his mouth like that?’ I was hastily removed by the lady-in-waiting. Afterwards he wrote that he ‘liked Charlie but thought Alice would turn out badly.’ He soon forgot all this and gave us books for Christmas with anagrams of our names on the fly-leaf.”
This is one of a very few known copies in this unrecorded presentation binding. By a letter to Macmillan of 17 December 1886, Dodgson is known to have requested three special copies, one in white vellum (the ultimate copy, for Alice Liddell) and two in morocco (one for Alice’s mother, the other untraceable), which were ready in time to be inscribed on Christmas Day.
Recent Comments