Literary criticism & biography
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BEERBOHM, Max. A Survey.London : 1921
First edition, trade issue of Beerbohm's caricatures of public figures ranging from Joseph Conrad to David Lloyd George. There was also a deluxe limited edition of 275 numbered copies signed by the author. Learn More£175.00Stock Code: 109359
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WHITE, T. H. The Godstone and the Blackymor.London : 1959
First edition, first impression, inscribed by the illustrator, "Signed for Bridget by Edward Ardizzone, Feb 1968", on the front free endpaper, 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. A lovely... Learn More£375.00Stock Code: 108471
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MUCHA, Jiří. The Problems of Lieutenant Knap.London : 1945
First edition, first impression, preceding its publication in the original Czech (as Problémy nadporučíka Knapa) by a year. Ewald Osers was a noted translator of Czech, Slovak and German; of Jewish origin, he left his native Prague for England in 1938 and spent more than 40 years working for the BBC Monitoring Service. Learn More£150.00Stock Code: 107712
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NAVARI, Leonora. Greece and The Levant. The Catalogue of The Henry Myron Blackmer Collection of Books.London : 1989
First edition, one of 300 copies of this important bibliographical reference detailing the Henry M. Blackmer Collection, the finest collection on Modern Greece and Levantine studies at the time of its sale in October 1989. Blackmer was an American banker who settled in Athens and formed this remarkable collection as a tribute to his adopted country,... Learn More£2,250.00Stock Code: 107507
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CARTLAND, Barbara. I Search for Rainbows.London : 1967
First edition, first impression, of Cartland's autobiography. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author "To darling Denise - the most glamorous writer in the world - with love from her ever admiring Barbara, 1967" on the front free endpaper. The recipient was Cartland's friend and rival romantic novelist Denise Robins. The two authors shared a close... Learn More£250.00Stock Code: 106956
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CUMBERLAND, Richard. The Observer: Being a Collection of Moral, Literary and Familiar Essays.London : 1786-1788
First edition of the first four volumes of Cumberland's Observer, comprising 125 essays. A fifth volume with a further 27 essays followed in 1790. "Although Cumberland will largely be remembered as a playwright, he was more than merely a man of letters. His novel Arundel (1789), written in epistolary form, begs comparison with Samuel Richardson's Sir... Learn More£325.00Stock Code: 106964
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GRAVES, Robert. The English Ballad.London : 1927
First edition, first impression. Learn More£250.00Stock Code: 106674
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BURGESS, Anthony. Joysprick.London : 1973
First edition, first impression. Learn More£125.00Stock Code: 106702
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CONNOLLY, Cyril. Enemies of Promise.London : 1938
First edition, first impression, uncommon in the dust jacket. "Connolly made a surer reputation than with his debut novel The Rock Pool (1936) with Enemies of Promise (1938). This work is part literary criticism, part general observations on the life of the writer, part childhood autobiography, part astute assessment of the precocity forced on English... Learn More£500.00Stock Code: 106756
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LEWIS, Wyndham. The Caliph's Design.London : 1919
First edition, first impression, 1,000 copies were printed. With the rare publisher's flyer for Lewis's debut novel Tarr, "some were laid into copies of The Caliph's Design" (Morrow & Lafourcade). "In The Caliph's Design: Architects! Where is Your Vortex?, Lewis offers the most sustained and considered of his early critiques of the art scene of the... Learn More£425.00Stock Code: 106471
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ETCHISON, Dennis (ed.) Lord John Ten: A Celebration.Northridge, California : 1988
First edition, signed limited edition, deluxe issue. Number 3 of 75 specially bound copies, signed by the contributors: Robert Bloch, Dennis Etchison, James Purdy, Patrick W. Magee, Robert B. Parker, Bruce Francis, James Crumley, Whitley Strieber, Robert Lannes, Joyce Carol Oates, John Updike, William F. Nolan, Lorri Ziegler, Barry N. Malzberg, Jack... Learn More£475.00Stock Code: 105651
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SITWELL, Osbert. Left Hand, Right Hand! An Autobiography.London : 1945-48-49-50
First UK editions, first impressions of Volumes I-IV (first published in the US in 1944, 1946, 1947, and 1948 respectively), and the first edition, first impression, of Volume V, which precedes the US edition by three days. The famous dust jackets were designed by Henry Cowdell, Art Director at Macmillan.
"On the death of his father in 1943,... Learn More£325.00Stock Code: 105764
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(BROCK, H. M.) JERROLD, Douglas. The Essays.London : 1903
First edition of this collection of essays edited by Jerrold's grandson, featuring Brock's delicate illustrations. The brothers C. E. and H. M. Brock collaborated closely with the publisher for J. M. Dent, perhaps most notably illustrating the novels of Jane Austen. They "worked closely together in the same studio and gained stimulation from each other... Learn More£250.00Stock Code: 105771
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ROLFE, Frederick, Baron Corvo. Letters to Harry Bainbridge.London : 1976
First edition, first impression. Learn More£70.00Stock Code: 105623
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DOUGLAS, Norman. Looking Back.London : 1933
First and limited edition, first impression, number 36 of 535 numbered copies signed by the author. "Douglas published Looking Back in 1933, a discursive, leisurely autobiography drawing upon material accumulated over several decades, and brought out as a two-volume limited edition of 535 copies under the guidance of Charles Prentice, his friend and... Learn More£225.00Stock Code: 105292
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FOWLER, Gene. Schnozzola: The Story of Jimmy Durante.New York : 1951
First edition, first printing. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, "To Mumsie, with love, Gene." Learn More£325.00Stock Code: 105033
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KAHANE, Jack. Memoirs of a Booklegger.London : 1939
First edition, first impression of this memoir by the founder of the Obelisk Press. Scarce, due to most of the edition having been destroyed when a Nazi bomb hit the publisher's warehouse. Learn More£250.00Stock Code: 105121
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BLUNDEN, Edmund. Thomas Hardy.London : 1941
First edition, first impression. Learn More£150.00Stock Code: 104948
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BEERBOHM, Max. A Survey.London : 1921
First edition, trade issue of Beerbohm's caricatures of public figures ranging from Joseph Conrad to David Lloyd George, scarce in this condition. There was also a deluxe limited edition of 275 numbered copies signed by the author. Learn More£425.00Stock Code: 104692
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FORSTER, E. M. Marianne Thornton 1797-1887. A Domestic Biography.London : 1956
First edition, first impression. Learn More£85.00Stock Code: 104287
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(STEADMAN, Ralph.) BERNE, Martina, & Miles, and others. Book I'm! 70 years in the game. A tribute to Bernard Stone.London : 1994
First edition, first impression. Learn More£50.00Stock Code: 103956
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DE CHAIR, Somerset [Struben]. Buried Pleasure.Braunton, Devon : 1985
Limited edition of 100 signed and numbered copies, this number 32. This copy additionally signed and inscribed by de Chair on the title page "For Phyllis Roper on her 70th birthday in appreciation of her consistent help". Biography of the English author, politician, poet and connoisseur. In WWII he served as an intelligence officer with the 4th Cavalry... Learn More£75.00Stock Code: 103982
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O'CONNOR, Frank. The Big Fellow: A Life of Michael Collins.London : 1937
First edition, first impression of this biography of the Irish revolutionary leader. Learn More£350.00Stock Code: 103567
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SHAW, George Bernard. Selected Passages.London : 1912
First edition, first impression. Presentation copy to the author's friend, Sydney Cockerell, signed by Shaw and inscribed by Charlotte Shaw on the half-title: "To Sydney Carlyle Cockerell from Charlotte F. Shaw". another inscription, with indistinct signature and dated "5th Nov. 1913" reads: "I witness these signatures - on this most pleasant evening".... Learn More£675.00Stock Code: 103503
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BRIDSON, Douglas Geoffrey. The Filibuster: a study of the political ideas of Wyndham Lewis.London : 1972
First edition, first impression. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper to his second wife, Joyce Thirlaway Bridson (née Rowe), "For Joyce, who suffered as much as I did researching & writing it for our old friend W.L. with love, Geoffrey. 21.9.72," and with Joyce's bookplate to the front pastedown. The author was a close... Learn More£475.00Stock Code: 103407
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WILLIAMSON, Alice. The Lightning Conductor Comes Back.London : 1933
First edition, first impression of this epistolary travel novel. Scarce in the jacket. Learn More£375.00Stock Code: 103432
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CAMPBELL, Roy. Broken Record: Reminiscences.London : 1934
First edition, second issue, with pp. 105-8 removed and replaced with a cancel by the publisher, due to a libel case with Hugh MacDiarmid. Scarce in the jacket. Learn More£275.00Stock Code: 103284
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TAYLOR, Rachel Annand. Dunbar.London : 1931
First and limited edition, one of 125 numbered copies (but this copy unnumbered) signed by the author. A handsomely produced book, printed on handmade paper at the Chiswick Press, the binding designed by Rex Whistler, and published as number 4 in Faber's "The Poets on the Poets" series. This is an important study of the fifteenth-century Scottish poet... Learn More£275.00Stock Code: 103089
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WOLFE, Humbert. Tennyson.London : 1930
First edition, first impression, number 3 in Faber's "The Poets on the Poets" series; a study of Tennyson's Maud. Learn More£75.00Stock Code: 103092
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(HEANEY, Seamus.) CRONIN, Vincent (eds.) Essays by Divers Hands.Norwich : 1979
First edition, first impression of this volume of essays, with contributions from Seamus Heaney, Ronald Blythe, Robert Gittings, Thomas Hinde, Paul Jennings, Willian Sansom, Charles Tomlinson, John Stewart Collin, and N.C. Chaudhuri. Learn More£50.00Stock Code: 103180
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ROLFE, Frederick, Baron Corvo. The Desire and Pursuit of the Whole.London : 1934
First edition, first impression, one of 2,020 copies. Presentation copy, inscribed by the editor on the front free endpaper to the author Ralph Straus: "For Ralph Straus, whose gifts are almost an numerous as Corvo's, & who loves books as much as I do. Very cordially, from his friend A.J. Dec., 1934." A. J. A. Symons (1900-1941), book collector and... Learn More£475.00Stock Code: 102584
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ROLFE, Frederick, Baron Corvo. Without Prejudice.[London] : 1963
First edition, limited issue, one of 600 copies. The first publication of this collection of letters from Rolfe to his publisher, John Lane, and which was published privately as a gift for friends and family by Allen Lane, John's nephew and the founder of Penguin Books. Learn More£75.00Stock Code: 102595
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ROLFE, Frederick, Baron Corvo. Aberdeen Interval.Edinburgh : 1975
First edition, limited issue. Number 10 of 120 copies printed on Strathmore paper; an additional 20 copies lettered A to T were printed on handmade paper by Barcham Green. Learn More£85.00Stock Code: 102597
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SIMONDE DE SISMONDI, Jean Charles L. De la littérature du midi de l'Europe.Paris : 1813
First edition of Sismondi's survey of Italian, Provençal, Spanish, and Portuguese literature, which established him among the initiators of French Romanticism. Learn More£750.00Stock Code: 102671
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(ROLFE, Frederick, Baron Corvo.) WEEKS, Baron. Frederick William Rolfe & Artists' Models.Edinburgh : 1981
First edition, signed limited issue. Number 16 of 115 copies only. Learn More£45.00Stock Code: 102674
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(ROLFE, Frederick, Baron Corvo.) WEEKS, Donald. Frederick William Rolfe, Christchurch, and The Artist.Edinburgh : 1980
First edition, signed limited issue. Number 64 of 120 copies. Learn More£35.00Stock Code: 102679
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(ROLFE, Frederick, Baron Corvo.) WEEKS, Donald. Frederick William Rolfe, Christchurch, and The Artist.Edinburgh : 1980
First edition, signed limited issue. Number 10 of 120 copies. Learn More£45.00Stock Code: 102681
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(ROLFE, Frederick, Baron Corvo.) WEEKS, Donald. Frederick William Rolfe and Editors.Edinburgh : 1984
First edition, limited issue. Number 40 of 110 copies only. Learn More£60.00Stock Code: 102684
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ROLFE, Frederick, Baron Corvo. Letters to Harry Bainbridge.London : 1976
First edition, first impression. Learn More£65.00Stock Code: 102575
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ALDISS, Brian W. The Shape of Further Things: Speculations on Change.London : 1970
First edition, first impression of the author's autobiography. Learn More£50.00Stock Code: 102150
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(MAUGHAM, William Somerset.) BASON, Frederick T. (Compiled by). A Bibliography of the Writings of William Somerset Maugham.London : 1931
Signed limited edition, number 41 of 50 copies signed by Maugham and printed on mould-made paper, from a complete edition of 1,000. Learn More£425.00Stock Code: 101909
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O'BRIEN, Tim. If I Die In A Combat Zone.London : 1973
First UK edition, first impression of the author's first book. It was first published earlier the same year in the US. Uncommon in such nice condition. Learn More£225.00Stock Code: 102020
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FORSTER, E. M. The New Disorder.New York : 1949
First separate edition, signed limited issue, number V of 20 copies signed by both author and illustrator, from a total edition of 1,200. Forster's essay was first published in Horizon, December 1941, and largely incorporated in "Art for Art's Sake" in Harper's Magazine, August 1949. Learn More£2,250.00Stock Code: 100433
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OSBORNE, John. A Better Class of Person. An Autobiography 1929-1956; Almost a Gentleman. An Autobiography. Volume II, 1955-1966.London : 1981 & 1991
First editions, first impressions, of the playwright's two-part autobiography, described by Melvyn Bragg as a classic: "It is, quite simply, one of the best, most moving, richest and most bitterly truthful autobiographies I have ever read" (writing about A Better Class of Person). Learn More£125.00Stock Code: 99809
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HUXLEY, Elspeth. The Merry Hippo.London : 1963
First edition, first impression. Learn More£45.00Stock Code: 99495
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BURGESS, Anthony. Nothing Like the Sun.London : 1964
First edition, first impression, of this novelisation of Shakespeare's life. Burgess has been described by Harold Bloom as "at his best in some of his novels, particularly in his Joycean fiction about Shakespeare, 'Nothing Like the Sun'" (Bloom, "Road Trip", New York Times, November 11, 2009). Learn More£75.00Stock Code: 99565
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BREYTENBACH, Breyten. End Papers.London : 1986
First edition in English, first impression. It was published later the same year in the US, in Germany as Schlussakte Südafrika, and in Amsterdam as De andere kant van de vrijheid. Learn More£45.00Stock Code: 99217
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HELLMAN, Lillian. Pentimento.London : 1974
First UK edition, first impression, of the author's controversial memoir, which was originally published in the US the preceding year. Learn More£50.00Stock Code: 99077
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NAIPAUL, V. S. The Overcrowded BarracoonLondon : 1972
First edition, first impression. Learn More£75.00Stock Code: 98804
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ACKROYD, Peter. Chatterton.London : 1987
First edition, first impression. Learn More£35.00Stock Code: 98807
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DOUGLAS, Norman. Experiments.London : 1925
First UK trade edition, first impression, originally printed privately at Florence in April 1925. "The text differs from both the privately printed and American editions. It contains the revised version of "D. H. Lawrence and Maurice Magnus: A Plea for Better Manners", not included in the privately printed edition, and the book-reviews and dedication... Learn More£75.00Stock Code: 97955
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GREENE, Graham. Ways of Escape.London : 1980
First edition, first impression. Sequel to the autobiographical A Sort of Life (1971). Learn More£50.00Stock Code: 97308
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UPDIKE, John. Higher Gossip.New York : 2011
First edition, first printing of this posthumously published volume (Updike died in 2009). With the ownership inscription of novelist John Barth to the half-title. Learn More£75.00Stock Code: 97316
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SMITH, Adam. Essays on Philosophical Subjects.Dublin : 1795
First Dublin edition, same year as the first London edition; Kress lists the Dublin printing first and calls the London "another issue" while Tribe calls the Dublin edition a piracy. The Essays were published five years after Smith's death and edited by the Scottish philosopher Dugald Stewart (1753-1828); his "Account of the Life and Writings of Adam... Learn More£2,250.00Stock Code: 97132
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MOORE, George. Confessions of a Young Man.London : 1888
First edition in English. Originally published in French in 1886. A memoir written in the form of a novel about the author's bohemian life in Paris and London during the 1870s and 80s, and notable as one of the first English writings about the emerging French Impressionist art scene. With the advert for Parnell and His Island tipped-in to the front... Learn More£875.00Stock Code: 95927
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TAYLOR, Marshall W. The Fastest Bicycle Rider in the World.Worcester : 1928
First edition, first impression, in the scarce jacket, of the autobiography of the pioneering athlete Marshall Walter "Major" Taylor, who became the world champion in 1899 in the one mile sprint. He was also the second African-American world champion in any sport, after boxer George Dixon. Though celebrated in Europe and Australia, his career was held... Learn More£1,500.00Stock Code: 95968
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YEATS, W. B. The Cutting of an Agate.New York : 1912
First edition, first printing, preceding the UK edition by seven years. Scarce in the jacket. Learn More£675.00Stock Code: 95449
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(THEATRICAL MEMOIR.) AGATE, James. More First Nights.London : 1937
First edition, first impression of Agate's theatrical impressions. The publisher's retained copy with their stamp to the front panel of the dust jacket, the front pastedown and the title page. Learn More£65.00Stock Code: 94971
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(THEATRICAL MEMOIR.) AGATE, James. More First Nights.London : 1937
First edition, first impression of Agate's theatrical impressions. From the publisher's archive with their stamp to the half-title. Learn More£65.00Stock Code: 94973
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ALLEN, Hervey. Israfel: The Life and Times of Edgar Allan Poe.London : 1935
First UK edition, first impression. First published in the US in 1926. From the publisher's archive. A fascinating biography. Learn More£150.00Stock Code: 95030
