Literary criticism & biography
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DOUGLAS, Norman. Looking Back.London : 1933
Signed limited edition. Additionally inscribed by the author to his friend, the lawyer Arthur Johnson, "For Arthur, with love from Norman, Capri, January, 1950" (front free endpaper of first volume). Number 533 of 535 copies signed by the author. In 1953 Johnson wrote to Nancy Cunard: "I first met Douglas on Capri on the terrace of a café overhanging... Learn More£275.00Stock Code: 104200
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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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SMILES, Samuel. The Story of the Life of George Stephenson;London : 1871
An attractively bound copy of Smiles's popular biography, first published in 1857. Learn More£75.00Stock Code: 101775
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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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BROOKE, Stopford A. Tennyson: His Art and Relation to Modern Life.London : 1907
First published in 1894. A most attractive copy of "the most extensive critical commentary on Tennyson's poetry written in the late nineteenth century" (Laurence W. Mazzeno, Alfred Tennyson: the Critical Legacy, p. 39). Learn More£125.00Stock Code: 98515
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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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FORESTER, C. S. The Hornblower Companion.London : 1964
First edition, first impression. A review copy with the publisher's slip laid-in. Learn More£125.00Stock Code: 97852
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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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WALTON, Isaak. Walton's Lives of Dr. John Donne, Sir Henry Wotton, Mr. Richard Hooker, Mr. George Herbert, and Dr. Robert Sanderson.London : 1858
Second issue of this New Edition, first published the previous year, the text largely based on John Major's 1825 edition, with the addition of Dowling's memoir of Walton. William Mansell was successor to the famed James Hayday. Large armorial bookplate of Charles Preston Crewe to the front pastedown. Born in London, Crewe travelled to South Africa in... Learn More£375.00Stock Code: 95258
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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
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CABELL, James Branch. Special Delivery.New York : 1933
First US trade edition, first printing of this collection of ten "witheringly luminous emotional responses of Mr. Cabell to his typical fan mail" (front flap blurb). This copy inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper: "For Leo T. Sides, Jr., this volume which I remember liking very much when I dedicated it to George Keating, but upon which... Learn More£225.00Stock Code: 94352
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(MEMOIR.) DRAWBELL, James Wedgwood. Experiment in Adoption.London : 1935
First edition, first impression. An account of the author's experience of adopting a child. The publisher's retained copy with their stamp to the front panel of the dust jacket and the front pastedown. Learn More£100.00Stock Code: 94292
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FLECKER, J. E. Letters to Frank Savery.London : [1926]
Signed limited edition. Number 58 of 80 copies signed by James Elroy Flecker's wife Hellé, who edited this title and wrote its foreword, as well as the two illustrators, Claudia Guercio and Randolphe Schwabe, and the publisher, Cyril William Beaumont. Contained in this volume are the letters the British poet sent to his oldest friend, Frank Savery,... Learn More£250.00Stock Code: 94293
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AARONSON, Leonard. Christ in the Synagogue.London : 1930
First edition, first impression. An account of Aaronson's conversion from Judaism. From the publisher's archive with their stamp to the half-title. Learn More£75.00Stock Code: 94173
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DAVIES, Jonathan Ceredig. Life, Travels and Reminiscences of Jonathan Ceredig Davies.Llanddewi Brefi : 1927
One of 70 copies only printed by the author at his own printing-press for private circulation. This copy is inscribed "yours sincerely, J. Ceredig Davies" on the frontispiece, and was sent to Davies's cousin the Hon. Dan W. Williams, who is mentioned (though misnamed, as Williams comments in the margin) on page 5 as part of the global diaspora of Davies's... Learn More£2,250.00Stock Code: 93335
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SAYERS, Frances Clarke. Anne Carroll Moore. A Biography.New York : 1972
First edition, first printing, of this biography of Anne Carroll Moore (1871-1961), American author, educator and advocate for children's libraries. Presentation copy inscribed to Julia Carter, the first full time children's librarian at the New York Public Library. Sayers's inscription, to the front free endpaper, is fulsome: "This book is for Julia... Learn More£600.00Stock Code: 92281
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DOUGLAS, Norman. Together.London : 1923
Signed limited edition, number 154 of 275 large paper copies signed by the author. Together is a nostalgic evocation of lost youth and the north as the author revisits his native Austria. Learn More£250.00Stock Code: 92115
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HENNELL, Thomas. The Witnesses.London : [1938]
First edition, first impression. A remarkable account of the struggle with, and recovery from, mental illness. Though Hennell may be little-known to the general public today, in his time he was seen as an inheritor of the tradition of Constable, Cox and Palmer. He was selected for Sir Kenneth Clark's 'Recording Britain' scheme in 1940, and later became... Learn More£475.00Stock Code: 91831
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STRACHEY, Lytton. Books & Characters.London : 1922
First edition, first impression of Strachey's fourth book. Contains papers on various literary figures, including Thomas Browne, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Jean-Mariet Arouet de Voltaire, of which all but 'A Dialogue' had previously appeared in different periodicals. Learn More£225.00Stock Code: 91844
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SHANKAR, Ravi. My Music, My Life.London : 1969
First UK edition, first impression. A scarce presentation copy inscribe by the author on front free endpaper: 'To Jack, affectionately Ravi Shankar, 11.11.69'. A biography of Shankar (1920-2012), the famous sitarist and composer who greatly increased the popularity of the sitar, as well as Indian classical music, in Europe and America during the 1950s... Learn More£350.00Stock Code: 91895
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LEWIS, Wyndham. The Demon of Progress in the Arts.London : 1954
First edition, first impression of this book, in which Lewis analyses and attacks what he considers "the false innovations" in art. Learn More£45.00Stock Code: 91498
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MANNING, Frederic. Scenes and Portraits.London : 1930
Second edition, first impression. Number 177 of 250 copies signed by the author on the verso of the title page. First published in 1909, this is a series of imaginary debates on themes appropriate to the characters, with figures such as Socrates, Euripides, St. Francis of Assisi, Thomas Cromwell and Machiavelli taking part. Learn More£175.00Stock Code: 91514
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BARZUN, Jacques. On Writing, Editing, and Publishing.Chicago : 1971
First edition, first printing. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the half-title: "For Wendell, fellow-author, editor & publisher. As ever, J. Nov 30/71". The recipient is the French-born American historian Barzun's life-long friend, with whom the author Wendell Hertig Taylor later wrote the critique of crime fiction, A Catalogue of Crime... Learn More£75.00Stock Code: 91240
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HODGSON, Herbert. Printer.Wakefield : 1989
First edition, first impression, one of 340 copies. Hodgson's account of his printing career. With loosely inserted gift letter dated 26 April 1998. Learn More£175.00Stock Code: 91375
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(GURNEY, Ivor.) BODEN, Anthony (ed.) Stars in a Dark Night.Gloucester : 1986
First edition, first impression. Learn More£30.00Stock Code: 90868
