You don't currently have any items in your cart.
About this catalogue
The Poison of Polygamy | Nothing to Be Frightened Of | A Cage for the Nightingale | House of the Sleeping Beauties | In Cold Blood | Real Life Stories | Strong Opinions | The Green House | The Children | Restless Nights | Hallucinations | Every Man Dies Alone | Underworld | Private Parts and Public Places | Brief Lives | The Hours After Noon | Immeasurable Distances | Froth on the Daydream | Clear the Range | The Twyborn Affair | Silent Terror | Things Gone and Things Still Here. What could they all be?
Titles. Nothing else possible. Novels, essays, or stories, all under the umbrella of Literature.
They are all here, with another seventy-eight of their colleagues, in the following catalogue.
London: Allen Lane. First English edition, 1980.
An Englishman, both collector and dealer, that's trouble, on a business trip to Copenhagen, meets ...; first issue text featuring Kathe; inscribed by the author.
Faint foxing to top edge, else fine in dustwrapper a little darkened along the top edge of the front panel.
Enquire about this book
$100.00 Add to cart
London: Atlas Press. First English paperback edition, 1986.
The adventures of its eponymous hero who, at different times, becomes a relation of Tarzan or Fantomas or Arsene Lupin; first published in 1919; translated by Barbara Wright in consultation with Arlette Albert-Birot; preface by Barbara Wright, postface by Arlette Albert-Birot.
Pictorial wrappers. Very good.
Enquire about this book
$35.00 Add to cart
Toronto: The Terminal Press. First Canadian editions, 2014-2015.
The first two volumes of the series which has reached to 2022. Festschrifts of sorts: chronology, bibliography, two interviews with family members ('Miracle Father', 'Memories of Life'), one by the subject, and thirty-seven other pieces, copies of the five famous ‘Atrocity Exhibition’ advertisements Ballard made for ‘Ambit’ magazine, a new Ballard essay, a 1980 prose-poem called ‘Crystal of the Sea’, discovered in 2013 as the foreword to a Japanese photo book, an in-depth analysis of the first two manuscript pages of ‘Crash’ by British Library archivist Chris Beckett – the pages are reproduced here for the first time – plus Bernard Sigaud’s recent finding of the original J.G. Ballard English-language preface to the Danish edition of ‘The Atrocity Exhibition’, long considered lost and reprinted here with Sigaud’s history of the elusive ‘Forod’; many illustrations, contributors include: Iain Sinclair, David Pringle, Ana Barrado, Dan Mitchell, Pippa Tandy, and Paul Green. Volume 1, 200pp, volume 2, 300pp.
Pictorial boards (2014). Fine as issued without dustwrapper. Pictorial wrappers (2015). Very good. The two vols.
Enquire about this book
$150.00 Add to cart
New York: Alfred A. Knopf. First American edition, 2008.
Death is the 'Nothing' of the title, family as well; though it wouldn't be a Julian Barnes book without memory also having some work done on it, 'Memory in childhood – at least, as I remember it – is rarely a problem. Not just because of the briefer time span between the event and its evocation, but because of the nature of memories then: they appear to the young brain as exact simulacra, rather than processed and coloured-in versions, of what has happened. Adulthood brings approximation, fluidity and doubt; and we keep the doubt at bay by retelling that familiar story, with pauses and periods of a calculated effect, pretending that the solidity of narrative is a proof of truth.' Inscribed to Barry Humphries by the author.
Small remainder dot bottom edge, Barry Humphries' bookplate, else fine in dustwrapper.
Enquire about this book
$250.00 Add to cart
London: William Heinemann. First English edition, 1924.
A tale of family honour set in the back country of Brazil, written by Senhor Gustavo Barroso, who wrote under the pseudonym of Joao do Norte.
‘In this hard land of sun and drought, the home of a rough feudalism received from Portugal long centuries ago when first the land was conquered, is laid the scene of Mapirunga, a tale so wild, and so unlike in all its aspects to modern life in Europe, that I should have hesitated to translate it, had I not seen and lived with men exactly like the types it contains… they will all pass irrevocably… in the tale of Mapirunga, Senhor Barroso has performed a service to his country, by setting down that which so soon will become history. I have translated it, on account of those 'saudades' ('recollections tinged with sadness') that I think I have explained.’ Translated and with a preface (10pp.) by R.B. Cunninghame Graham; 1/350 numbered copies (375 total edition) signed by the translator.
Top edge dusty, very good in dustwrapper darkened on the spine.
Enquire about this book
$85.00 Add to cart
London: Andre Deutsch. First English edition, 1974.
Dunyazade, Scheherazade's younger sister, has been listening to her sister for those 1001 nights and now ...
Spots of foxing to extremities, very good in dustwrapper.
Enquire about this book
$85.00 Add to cart
London: Calder and Boyars. First English edition, 1974.
'The journey of Mercier and Camier is one I can tell, if I will, for I was with them all the time.' Samuel Beckett's fourth novel, written in 1946, first published in France in 1970, and translated from French by the author.
Top edge dusty, very good in dustwrapper darkened on the spine.
Enquire about this book
$125.00 Add to cart
London: John Calder. First English edition, 1976.
'Still'; Fizzles: 'He is barehead', 'Horn came always', 'Afar a Bird', 'I gave up before birth', 'Closed place', 'Old earth'; and the title piece. 'Still' written in English, the other pieces all translated from the French by the author.
Fine in dustwrapper.
Enquire about this book
$150.00 Add to cart
London: John Calder. First English edition, 1977.
Collects 'First Love', 'The Expelled', 'The Calmative' and 'The End'; all written shortly after World War Two in French and translated here by the author.
Fine in dustwrapper with light wear at edges
Enquire about this book
$125.00 Add to cart
New York: Grove Press. First American edition, 1980.
'A voice comes to one in the dark. Imagine.'; one of the author's 'closed space' pieces.
Fine in very good dustwrapper with a slight nick on the rear panel.
Enquire about this book
$150.00 Add to cart
New York: Grove Press. First American editions thus, 2011.
Four volumes: Novels, plays and other dramatic works, poems, short fiction, criticism; 2,000+pp; Paul Auster series editor, see adjacent image for detailed contents.
Pictorial wrappers. Fine in original pictorial slipcase with one bump. The four vols.
Enquire about this book
$150.00 Add to cart
New York: Adventures in Poetry / Coach House South. First American edition, 1977.
New York School cowboy novel, the first? the only?; inscribed 'written 1966-1967 – NYC' and signed by the author; 750 copies.
Pictorial wrappers. Fine.
Enquire about this book
$200.00 Add to cart
London: John Lehmann. First English edition, 1950.
Twelve stories, including 'A Distant Episode'; dustwrapper illustration by Keith Vaughan.
Two owners' signatures, extremities darkened, else good in fair dustwrapper chipped and torn along edges and missing small pieces from the corners.
Enquire about this book
$85.00 Add to cart
London: William Heinemann. First English edition, 1959.
Ten stories, no equivalent American edition, though a few found their way into 'The Time of Friendship' eight years later.
Owner's signature and stamp. Foxing to prelims and extremities, else good in very good dustwrapper illustrated by William Belcher.
Enquire about this book
$85.00 Add to cart
Santa Barbara, CA: Black Sparrow Press. First American edition, 1977.
Nine later stories, including the fabulous 'You Have Left Your Lotus Pods on the Bus'; 1/250 numbered copies signed by the author.
Purple cloth and printed boards. Top edge of boards lightly sunned, else fine in dustwrapper.
Enquire about this book
$150.00 Add to cart
London: Jonathan Cape. First English edition, 1990.
Fay and Julia's friendship through time – "she was not a very nice woman, but then neither am I"; signed by the author.
Offsetting to prelims, very good in dustwrapper nicked on the folds and base of the spine.
Enquire about this book
$85.00 Add to cart
London: John Calder and The Olympia Press. First English edition, 1963.
Sections from 'Naked Lunch', 'The Soft Machine' and 'The Ticket That Exploded' combined to form a new, stand-alone narrative; now 'experimental remix or mash-up'; a restored version appeared in 2020.
Owner signature, very good in dustwrapper.
Enquire about this book
$150.00 Add to cart
London: Jonathan Cape. First English edition, 1970.
A book-length interview with Daniel Odier, 'Unless we can abolish the whole concept of the nation and the family we aren't going to get anywhere at all'; 192pp.
Review copy with local publisher's slip laid in. Owner signature, else very good in dustwrapper.
Enquire about this book
$150.00 Add to cart
New York: Grove Press. First American edition, 1971.
The author's dystopian novel: a gay youth movement with lofty goals as protagonist.
Very good in dustwrapper a little rubbed and with a small abrasion on the front panel.
Enquire about this book
$100.00 Add to cart
Manchester: Carcanet. First English edition, 1983.
Twenty-three micro-stories, including 'The Bewitched Jacket', of the reality is not best represented by realism school; selection, translation and introduction (7pp.) by Lawrence Venuti.
Extremities evenly tanned, very good in dustwrapper.
Enquire about this book
$200.00 Add to cart
New York: Random House. First American edition, [1965].
‘Four shotgun blasts that, all told, ended six human lives.’ A grisly multiple murder in Kansas in 1959 inspired one of the major books of American twentieth century literature, and one of the first novels in the true crime genre; making its author famous, selling millions of copies, translated into thirty languages, and spawning several Hollywood films. However, buried under the hype lies controversy about the author's bias, changing facts to suit his purpose and misquoting local residents, romanticising the killers and giving them much more attention than the victims.
Very good in dustwrapper.
Enquire about this book
$200.00 Add to cart
St. Lucia, Queensland: University of Queensland Press. First Australian edition, 2000.
'I lost my own father at 12 yr. of age and know what it is to be raised on lies and silences my dear daughter you are presently too young to understand a word I write but this history is for you and will contain no single lie may I burn in Hell if I speak false.'
The author's second Booker Prize winner, other awards and shortlists, including the French Best Foreign Book for 2003; inscribed to Brendon Kelson (1935-2022), former Director of the Australian War Memorial and co-author of 'Kelly Country', by the author on 15 October 2000.
Leather spine and printed boards. Fine in transparent dustwrapper (removed for the adjacent image) cracking along bottom of the front fold.
Enquire about this book
$300.00 Add to cart
London: Herbert Jenkins. First English edition, 1934.
Recollects spiritualist and occult experiences, many of them involving (then very fashionable) Egyptology. ‘ “Judge not that ye be not judged,” has been the rule I have followed in writing these recollections of some of the unusual personalities who have come across my path. I very humbly trust that my readers will follow the same golden rule.’
Cheiro, born William John Warner and taking the name Count Louis Hamon, was an occultist and astrologer. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century he was renowned as a palm reader and fortune teller of prominent people of this era. He spent his final years in Hollywood, seeing as many as twenty clients a day and doing a spot of screenwriting. He predicted his time of death, and on the night, according to his nurse, the clock outside his room struck the hour of one three times.
Foredge darkened, else very good in dustwrapper lighlty chipped at the crown and with the shadow of a sticker at the base of the spine.
Enquire about this book
$300.00 Add to cart
London: Secker and Warburg. First English edition, 1963.
The author's part-autobiographical, first novel.
Spots of foxing to extremities, about very good in dustwrapper with remnants of a stain top right corner of front panel and a little rubbed on the rear.
Enquire about this book
$250.00 Add to cart
London: Hutchinson. First English edition, 1967.
A country house novel of sorts: idiosyncratic family – Lady Quench, her husband, 'reduced to idiocy by a stroke' ... two impossible daughters, pathetic mannish Beatrice and Lydia - and their weekend visitors: 'Viper, a nephew of Lady Quench ... and Lord Michael Mendip, his partner in a West End pornographic business ...'; the fifth novel by the author, now better known as Derek Raymond.
Fine in dustwrapper with a short closed tear at the top of the front panel.
Enquire about this book
$200.00 Add to cart
London: Picador. First English edition, 1998.
An encyclopedic narrative of the United States through the second half of the twentieth century; the English first edition with the reworking of the dustwrapper design of the American edition.
Fine in dustwrapper.
Enquire about this book
$35.00 Add to cart
London: Andre Deutsch. First English edition, 1969.
Twenty essays, her first collection: 'Where the Kissing Never Stops', 'On Keeping a Notebook', 'The Seacoast of Despair', 'John Wayne' and the title piece.
Spots of foxing to foredge, very good in dustwrapper
Enquire about this book
$400.00 Add to cart
London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. First English edition, 1971.
The author's Hollywood novel, dedicated, appropriately, to John Gregory Dunne, her co-screenwriter and husband.
Bookseller's stamp on front free endpaper. Spots of foxing to extremities, else very good in dustwrapper worn along edges and with a short closed tear at the top of the rear panel.
Enquire about this book
$150.00 Add to cart
London: Allison and Busby. First English edition, 1984.
The first hardcover edition of the author's second novel; a standalone Los Angeles Police Department crime thriller, featuring characters who would appear in the LA Quartet and before he moved to his epic series of novels; inscribed twice by the author, the first is the familiar 'Dear Reader, the early 1950s – Be-Bop, Fast Women, Bad Taste, Death', the second, personal inscription, 'This book will ignite your most hideous fantasies', to Bob Carr.
Fine in dustwrapper a little sunned on the spine.
Enquire about this book
$350.00 Add to cart
London: Penguin. First English edition of this translation, 2012.
Provincial life and intrigue in 1929 during the Weimar Republic; first published in 1931 as 'Farmers, Functionaries and Fireworks'; translated here by Michael Hofmann, foreword by Jenny Williams. Barry Humphries' copy with his bookplate.
Fine in dustwrapper with endorsements from Robert Musil and Hermann Hesse.
Enquire about this book
$85.00 Add to cart
New York: Alfred A. Knopf. First American edition, 1970.
Twenty-four essays, including 'Philosophy and the Form of Fiction', 'The Concept of Character in Fiction', 'Imaginary Borges and His Books', 'The High Brutality of Good Intentions', and 'The Stylization of Desire'.
Top edge dusty, else fine in very good dustwrapper a little sunned on the spine
Enquire about this book
$100.00 Add to cart
New York: Alfred A. Knopf. First American edition, 1971.
Conflating a text about a woman and her sexuality with the artefact of a book; experiments with typography, semantics and literary genres; designed by Lawrence Levy, photographs by Burton L. Rudman; first book publication, originally published in 'Triquarterly' in 1968.
Extremities darkened, else fine in dustwrapper.
Enquire about this book
$85.00 Add to cart
Cambridge, MA: Wakefield Press. First American edition, 2016.
Thirteen late stories by the Flemish dramatist, aka Adhemar Adolphe Martens (1898-1962), translation and notes by George MacLennan.
Pictorial wrappers. Fine.
Enquire about this book
$35.00 Add to cart
Edinburgh: Canongate. First English edition, 2012.
'Seventy-three short tales from Gray's earlier books are here joined with sixteen new tales 'Droll & Plausible', all the original illustrations with some new and endnotes to inform every interested reader'; 900+pp; the whole nine yards to 2012.
Two small marks to prelims, else fine in dustwrapper.
Enquire about this book
$150.00 Add to cart
Orpington, Kent: George Allen. First English edition thus, 1885.
First published in 1823; additional verses by John Ruskin, four of the twenty-two monochrome illustrations by Kate Greenaway; short preface by John Ruskin explaining his and Kate Greenaway's contributions to this edition.
Pictorial brown cloth and boards. Bookplates of Hardwicke Knight and Barry Humphries. Offsetting to title page, else fine.
Enquire about this book
$150.00 Add to cart
London: The Bodley Head. First English edition, 1982.
An extract from 'The Other Man: Conversations with Graham Greene', published the following year by Bodley Head, issued here for private distribution in an edition of 225 copies, printed at the Stellar Press; inscribed by Max Reinhardt, the publisher.
Plain wrappers. Fine in printed dustwrapper with a small mark at the bottom of the rear panel.
Enquire about this book
$300.00 Add to cart
New York: Alfred A. Knopf. First American edition, 1968.
Twenty-two stories, including 'The Third Bank of the River' ... 'the land every soul craves for'; by the author of 'Grande Sertão' ('The Devil to Pay in the Backlands') considered to be the Brazilian equivalent of 'Ulysses'; writing inspired by the Brazilian outback; translated and introduced by Barbara Shelby.
Faint foxing to foredge, very good in dustwrapper.
Enquire about this book
$150.00 Add to cart
London: Faber and Faber. Three first English paperback editions, 2004-2008.
An Englishman abroad. Three volumes, the Gerald Samper novels complete, to date: 'Cooking With Fernet Branca' (this copy with a note from the publisher sending the book to Barry Humphries), 'Amazing Disgrace' and 'Rancid Pansies'.
'Anyone who does not add this hilarious divertimento to their summer reading list should be put on a forced diet of Gerald's inimitable Alien Pie, consuming which, he tells us, is 'one of those experiences poised exquisitely between sorrow and oblivion. I cannot reveal all the ingredients without spoiling the end of the book - not to mention your appetite - but smoked cat and paraffin are among them.' Michael Dibdin on the appearance of 'Cooking with Fernet Branca'.
Pictorial wrappers. 'Cooking with Fernet Branca' is Barry Humphries' copy with his bookplate. All very good or better. The three volumes
Enquire about this book
$100.00 Add to cart
London: William Heinemann. First English edition, 2017.
Seventeen stories; the author's first book; written on and featuring his collection of vintage typewriters; signed by Tom Hanks.
Fine in very good dustwrapper.
Enquire about this book
$125.00 Add to cart
London: Macmillan. First English edition, 1966.
'Despite her knowledge that Felix taunts her just for “being female,” Laura feels sure that her husband “had been hurt into this shape and not created in it.” He needs her, she thinks: “He was her task.”' - James Wood; the complications of dependency; the author's fourth and best novel.
Extremities darkened, very good in dustwrapper nicked at the bottom of the rear panel.
Enquire about this book
$250.00 Add to cart
New York: New Directions. First American edition, 1984.
Selections from novels, complete stories: a John Hawkes Reader, selected by him; introduction by William Gass, autobiographical notes by the author.
Fine in dustwrapper. 750 copies.
Enquire about this book
$35.00 Add to cart
London: Alfred A.Knopf. First English edition, 1928.
A vanished America, even in 1925.
Barry Humphries' copy with his bookplate. Fine in dustwrapper.
Enquire about this book
$150.00 Add to cart
Oxford: Oxford University Press. First English edition, 2008.
Thirty-four essays, subjects include: 'Keeping to the Middle Way', 'The Eloquence of Sober Truth', 'Alienated Majesty: Gerard M. Hopkins', 'Tacit Pledges', 'Language, Suffering, and Silence'; edited by Kenneth Haynes; 800+pp., indexed, including a separate index of Biblical Passages.
Fine in very good dustwrapper a little creased on the rear panel.
Enquire about this book
$200.00 Add to cart
London: Picador. First English edition, 2011.
'The most originally and brilliantly structured novel I've read in a long time', Julian Barnes; dedicated to Mick Imlah; and signed by the author.
Fine in dustwrapper.
Enquire about this book
$85.00 Add to cart
Manchester: Carcanet. First English edition, 1985.
A young schoolmaster, then Elizavyeta de Pass, Russian refugee and Socialist, arrive in a small Scottish town immediately before World War One and ...
Fine in dustwrapper.
Enquire about this book
$35.00 Add to cart
London: Victor Gollancz. First English edition, 1961.
Stories (nine), folktales (ten), essays (four), articles (nine), and poetry (fourteen) by 'Black Africans', sub-Saharan Africa; introduction by Langston Hughes (6pp.); published a year after seventeen African nations regained their independence.
Top edge dusty, about very good in dustwrapper chipped along edges.
Enquire about this book
$85.00 Add to cart
London: Atlas Press. First English edition, 1992.
'En Rade', first published in 1887; written between 'A rebours' ('Against Nature') and 'Là Bas' ('Down There'); part of the Decadent literary movement; translation and introduction by Terry Hale.
Pictorial wrappers. Very good.
Enquire about this book
$35.00 Add to cart
London: Faber and Faber. First English paperback 'export' edition, 2021.
Our modern technologically driven world through the eyes of a solar-powered android searching for a ‘forever home’; an abundance of ethical issues – genetic manipulation, class and servitude, the age-old sci-fi question of what it means to be human, whether machines can feel and humans too for that matter. Australian edition, printed and bound here; signed by the author.
Printed wrappers. Fine.
Enquire about this book
$85.00 Add to cart
Boston: Little, Brown. First American edition, 1963.
Poker, St.Louis, coming of age for the Kid, aka Eric Stoner; mid-career from the novelist; a Norman Jewison movie after Sam Peckinpah was fired.
Fine in very good dustwrapper.
Enquire about this book
$150.00 Add to cart
London: S/2. First English edition, 2019.
Exhibition catalogue. The text of Kawabata's novella followed by works along similar lines by twenty-eight artists including: Keith Vaughan, Kurt Seligmann, Francis Picabia, Joseph Cornell, Marcel Duchamp, and Rose English. Colour and black and white reproductions, 272pp; 1000 copies.
Pictorial wrappers. Fine.
Enquire about this book
$200.00 Add to cart
[Penrith, UK]: [Withnail Books]. First English editions, [2024].
Two volumes: Cormac McCarthy's first published fiction, both stories published in 'The Phoenix', the literary magazine of the University of Tennessee, 'Wake for Susan' in October 1959, 'A Drowning Incident' in March 1960; tipped-in frontispiece archive photographs from the Library of Congress; 150 numbered copies and another issue of ten numbered publisher's sets. This pair is #9/10 of the publisher's sets.
Pictorial wrappers, stapled. Both fine. The two vols.
Enquire about this book
$250.00 Add to cart
London: Alfred A. Knopf. First English edition, 1926.
A Persian style romance set in the eleventh century; the last of four novels by the noted art historian and critic.
White cloth and patterned boards. Barry Humphries' copy with his bookplate. Corners scuffed, edgewear, else very good. No dustwrapper.
Enquire about this book
$35.00 Add to cart
New York: George Braziller. First American edition, 1978.
The author’s second novel and first book to be published in the United States; with Ovid, in exile on the edge of the Black Sea; source of the often quoted, 'What else should our lives be but a continual series of beginnings, of painful settings out into the unknown, pushing off from the edges of consciousness into the mystery of what we have not yet become …'
Fine in dustwrapper.
Enquire about this book
$125.00 Add to cart
London: Chatto and Windus. First English edition, 1996.
Australia, 1827: a long night, a not too then conventional human triangle; inscribed to Charles in 1996 and, below that, to Barry Humphries in 2013, both by the author.
Barry Humphries' copy with his bookplate. Fine in dustwrapper.
Enquire about this book
$150.00 Add to cart
Venice, CA: The Lapis Press. First American edition, 1991.
Fourteen essays, including: Lewis Carroll, Raymond Roussel (co-written with Georges Perec), Laura (Riding) Jackson, Italo Calvino, Kenneth Koch, the OuLiPo – 1960s French literary movement, and Georges Perec. Designed by Jeffrey Mueller, the jigsaw puzzle of sorts intact and laid in at rear; 1/100 numbered copies signed by the author.
Original pictorial boards. A little edgewear, else very good without dustwrapper as issued.
Enquire about this book
$150.00 Add to cart
London: Richards. First English edition, 1938.
Mid-career from the poet and novelist; beginning, from this distance, autobiographically, 'It was my father's habit, when my brother or I, after the age of ten, had done anything worthy of corporal punishment, to let at least one day elapse before inflicting it. During the interval, and generally on the afternoon of what we boys called 'pay-night', he would take us both, never singly, to the Guildhall Museum to stand five minutes before the old whipping-post from Newgate'; and dealing thematically with the presence of the dead among the living; dedicated to Hugh l'Anson Fausset, the English writer and critic.
Barry Humphries' copy with his ownership stamp on the front pastedown. Extremities darkened, very good in good dustwrapper chipped along edges and missing a piece from the middle of the rear panel.
Enquire about this book
$300.00 Add to cart
London: Cassell. First English edition, 1955.
Beginning in Alexandria in 1919, concluding in London in 1937, with Lucy and Daisy, mirror heroines, and their adventures in between; playwright Hugh Whitemore's copy with his signature; and with the author's note to the publisher printed on the inside front flap of the dustwrapper, see adjacent image.
Very good in good dustwrapper worn along edges and rubbed on the rear panel.
Enquire about this book
$125.00 Add to cart
New York: Albert and Charles Boni. First American edition, 1925.
Eight stories, including 'The Lost Room', 'The Diamond Lens' and 'What Was It?'; introduction by Edward J. O'Brien (7pp.); bookplate and signature of Francis Massey O'Brien and, later Barry Humphries' bookplate.
Red cloth. A little darkened on the spine. Very good. No dustwrapper.
Enquire about this book
$200.00 Add to cart
London: The Folio Society. First English edition thus, 2019.
A spectacular Folio Society production: new translation by Nicolas Pasternak Slater, illustrations by Leonid Pasternak, editing and picture editing by Maya Slater, introduction by Ann Pasternak Slater; 1/750 numbered copies signed by the translator (total edition 775).
Quarter bound in blocked leather and marbled boards, all edges gilt. Fine as issued without dustwrapper in original pictorial slipcase.
Enquire about this book
$800.00 Add to cart
London: William Heinemann. First English edition, 1957.
The death of a young girl caused, apparently, by an older girl, and its aftermath; Phyllis Paul #7; uncorrected proof copy.
Printed wrappers. Australian and New Zealand publication dates written on cover; canted; rear panel torn halfway along spine. Barry Humphries' bookplate on the half-title. Good.
Enquire about this book
$600.00 Add to cart
London: Jonathan Cape. First English edition, 1993.
London, making movies, false trails, missed chances, and well inside the mechanism of the metropolis; the author's first novel; 1/26 numbered copies, marked alphabetically, signed by the author, and with some notes for 'Robinson Too'.
Pictorial wrappers. Fine.
Enquire about this book
$150.00 Add to cart
London: The Folio Society. First English illustrated edition thus, 2003.
Written around the end of the first century AD; translation by Frederic Raphael, illustrations by Neil Packer; introduction by the translator, 'Petronius' loutishly luxurious world is, somewhat like ours, a place of trashy imposture where the best lack all conviction'.
Brown cloth and patterned boards. Fine without dustwrapper as issued and in original slipcase.
Enquire about this book
$35.00 Add to cart
London: Thames and Hudson. Second revised edition, 1997.
'There is another book but it is inside this one': 'A Human Document' by W.H. Mallock (first published 1892) becomes 'a treated Victorian novel' (first published in 1970, treatment completed 2016).
Pictorial wrappers. Very good in dustwrapper.
Enquire about this book
$35.00 Add to cart
Berkeley: Rebis Press. First American edition, 1981.
Six pieces about life towards the end of the millennium; illustrated by the author; 1/115 numbered copies signed by the author and Betsy Davids who, with the author, designed, printed and bound the edition.
Illustrated wrappers. Printed in four colours, transparent vinyl show curtain covers and pink polka dot shower cap, 'the half-shower cap' binding according to the wonderful colophon. All fine.
Enquire about this book
$300.00 Add to cart
Warwick, Warwickshire: Greville Press. Second English edition, 2011.
First published in an edition of 100 copies in 1934, printed by Desmond Ryan as a wedding present for the author; introduction by Grey Gowrie.
Printed wrappers, stapled. Ownership sticker of David Levine. Fine.
Enquire about this book
$200.00 Add to cart
Boston, MA: Little, Brown. First American edition, 1990.
Back to America, the author's return after 'Gravity's Rainbow'. Northern California, 1984 – 'long redwood mountain slopes where shadows came early and brought easy suspicion of another order of things'; at the height of Reaganomics... 'the Repression went on, growing wider, deeper, and less visible, regardless of the names in power'; a Paul Thomas Anderson movie at the end of 2025.
Fine in dustwrapperr a little sunned on the spine.
Enquire about this book
$85.00 Add to cart
New York: The Penguin Press. First American edition, 2009.
A recent addition to 'There was nothing wrong with Southern California that a rise in the ocean level wouldn't cure' genre; Los Angeles, c.1970.
Fine in dustwrapper.
Enquire about this book
$85.00 Add to cart
London: The Fraser Press. First English edition thus, 1970.
The five books, adventures and origins of two giants during the sixteenth century; translated by Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromarty (translations of books one and two published 1653, book three 1693), and Peter Antony Mannix; 1/1500 numbered copies (total edition 1650) printed on mould made rag paper by W and J Mackay, Chatham.
Grey flecked linen, printed label. A couple of spots on foredge, else fine as issued without dustwrapper and with spare label tipped-in at rear.
Enquire about this book
$85.00 Add to cart
Portsmouth: Callum James. First English illustrated edition, 2006.
'I have but touched the fringe of a subject' or the rose's appearances in poetry; first published in 'The Rose Annual for 1929'; illustrations by Sue Martin; 1/50 numbered copies signed by the publisher.
Pictorial wrappers, sewn. Fine in transparent dustwrapper.
Enquire about this book
$100.00 Add to cart
New York: Alfred A. Knopf. First American edition, 2012.
Re-thinking and de-stigmatising common misconceptions, examples of hallucinations include: a deep conversation wth a spider on philosophy and a disappearing leg replaced by an alien object; signed by the author.
Barry Humphries' copy with his bookplate. Fine in dustwrapper.
Enquire about this book
$100.00 Add to cart
Sydney: ABC Books. First Australian edition, 1998.
The Sandman embarks on a time honoured Australian odyssey; illustrations by Michael Bell; inscribed by the author; Sandman #3.
Pictorial wrappers. Fine.
Enquire about this book
$35.00 Add to cart
New York: Harcourt Brace and Company. First American edition, 1942.
Two novels, complete: 'Death of a Harbour-Master' ('Le port des Brumes', a Maigret, first published in France in 1932) and 'The Man from Everywhere' ('Le relais d'Alsace' first published in France 1931, the same year that eleven Maigrets appeared in French), featuring the only (?) appearance of Superintendent Labbe as protagonist.
Review copy with publisher's stamp and date of publication (August 6, 1942), on the front free endpaper. Fine in very good dustwrapper with some creasing at the crown and base of the spine.
Enquire about this book
$600.00 Add to cart
London: Viking. First English edition, 2021.
Thomas Mann's trajectory from patriotism to disillusion, his slow political awakening to the rising threat of Nazism in Germany, and embrace of his task 'to spread a higher kind of propaganda'; signed by the author on a tipped-in sheet, September 2021.
Fine in dustwrapper.
Enquire about this book
$85.00 Add to cart
Dusseldorf: Zagava. First German edition, 2024.
Twenty-one pieces, beginning with the autobiographical 'In a Remote County'; selected by the writer and essayist on book-collecting, ‘an exceptionally genial excavator of half-forgotten and eccentric books’ – Washington Post; English text; 1/199 numbered copies; includes an insert with one of the short pieces printed on the reverse; English text.
Printed wrappers. Fine.
Enquire about this book
$85.00 Add to cart
London: Jonathan Cape. First English edition, 1969.
This house in the Amazon is ‘noisy, frivolous, and nocturnal … men and women argue over objects and articles of clothing, and there are confrontations, disputes, violent conversations’ – for la casa verde is a brothel; the author's second novel that brings together innocent victims and corrupt exploiters and abusers; inscribed to Bob Carr 'from his Peruvian friend, wishing him the best', by the author.
A couple of marks to top edge, else fine in dustwrapper with two small scratches on the front panel.
Enquire about this book
$350.00 Add to cart
London: Rapp and Carroll. First English edition, 1967.
The author's masterpiece, featuring a highly individual writing style with numerous made-up words, subtle wordplay and surrealistic plots, including the love stories of two couples, talking mice, a man who ages years in a week, and a character called Jean-Pulse Heartier, a spoonerism of the French existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre's name; adapted into three feature films, two music albums, and an opera; translated by Stanley Chapman (the first of three: 'Mood Indigo' translated by John Sturrock in 1968, 'Foam on the Daze' by Brian Harper in 2012); first published in France in 1947 and, according to Raymond Queneau, 'the greatest love novel of our time'.
Fine in dustwrapper.
Enquire about this book
$450.00 Add to cart
London: Rapp and Whiting. First English edition, 1968.
The author's last novel, published in France in 1953, featuring the implement of the title which has found its way from 'Froth on the Daydream'; foreword by Raymond Queneau, translated by the Pataphysician Stanley Chapman; and dustwrapper illustration by Lawrence Edwards
Fine in dustwrapper.
Enquire about this book
$150.00 Add to cart
London: Methuen. First English edition, 1970.
'A paramilitary vaudeville in one long act'; set in the morning of 6 June 1944, in the home of 'an exceedingly amiable knacker', a man who buys old horses to slaughter for dog food'; introduction by Jean Cocteau, preface by the author, first performed in Paris in 1950; translated by Simon Watson Taylor.
Printed wrappers. Extremities, and around perimeter of covers, darkened. Very good.
Enquire about this book
$85.00 Add to cart
New York: NYRB. First American edition, 2016.
Eighty-one texts – stories, essays, reviews – of the author's short, enigmatic vein; translated by Tom Whalen with Nicole Kongeter and Annette Wiesner; afterword by Tom Whalen.
Pictorial wrappers. Fine.
Enquire about this book
$35.00 Add to cart
New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. First American edition, 2014.
Go West, not quite so young man: Baltimore to San Francisco, an unlikely addition to the well worn route; signed by the author.
Fine in dustwrapper.
Enquire about this book
$85.00 Add to cart
London: Jonathan Cape. First English edition, 1979.
A villa in France, a sheep station in Australia, a brothel in London: three gender-fluid incarnations; Barry Humphries' copy with his bookplate, a resonant association.
Very good in dustwrapper with light wear along edges. The edition that circulated in Australia without a printed price on the dustwrapper.
Enquire about this book
$200.00 Add to cart
London: The author at the Sign of Nine. Second English slightly revised edition, 2015.
'From Bataille to Baudelaire and Back Again'; 'This essay is in part autobiographical, charting a personal obsession – hence the occasional first person intrusions'; 1/150 numbered copies, the second book of the press; inscribed by the author to Barry Humphries.
Printed wrappers. Barry Humphries' copy with his ownership stamp on the inside front cover. Fine.
Enquire about this book
$150.00 Add to cart
Sydney: Sydney University Press. First Australian book edition, 2019.
'We made your unions, we built your democracy ... we are in your limestone, in your clay'. An opium-addicted emigre from Guangdong's experiences in the Victorian gold rush era; first published in serial form in the 'Chinese Times', Melbourne, June 1909-December 1910; parallel Chinese English text for the novel; biography of the author by Michael Williams, historical introduction by Me-fen Kuo and Michael Williams; translated and introduction by Ely Finch, who inscribed this copy to Barry Humphries in the year of publication.
Pictorial wrappers. Fine.
Enquire about this book
$85.00 Add to cart
Crows Nest, NSW: Allen and Unwin. First Australian edition, 2007.
The author's third book, her 'country town novel'; inscribed to John Baxter, 'who escaped Junee', by the author and with an autograph note, signed tipped-in sending him this copy.
Pictorial wrappers. Spots of foxing top edge, else fine.
Enquire about this book
$100.00 Add to cart
London: Picador. First English edition, 2022.
Set in New York City during 1893, 1993, and 2093 respectively, three linked novels bound in a single volume – 'Washington Square', 'Lipo-Wao-Nahele', and 'Zone 8', the last featuring a dystopian future where the world is so hot that special suits must be worn to walk the streets, and where pandemics arise one after another; signed by the author.
Fine in dustwrapper.
Enquire about this book
$85.00 Add to cart
