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A bounty of Alexander McCall Smith: The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency (#1-16), 44 Scotland Street (#1-4), Limited edition pamphlets (7 vols.), Sunday Philosophy Club (#1-3), all first editions and all signed by the author; complete for Christmas: Sherlock Holmes, Philip Marlowe, Tom Ripley and Gerald Semper; Robert Byron and Wilkie Collins’ two best books; Lewis Carroll’s letters and photographs; Cambodian and Lao erotica reaches Europe; the outliers and followers of Frederick Rolfe; Primo Levi and Elmore Leonard’s westerns, both complete; from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople and later in Greece with Patrick Leigh Fermor; Matthew Hervey's career in the British 6th Light Dragoons (#1-12, all first editions and all signed by Allan Mallinson); trilogies by Miklos Banffy, Robert Musil, Patrick Modiano and Marina Warner; and 26 Christmas Crackers.
The Station and The Road to Oxiana
London: John Lehmann. Second English editions, 1949-1950.
Two vols. The author's two enduring travel books: The Station - [Mount] Athos: Treasures and Men, first published in 1928, introduction by Christopher Sykes; and The Road to Oxiana, first published in 1937, introduction by D. Talbot Rice; both illustrated.
Both vols. with spots of foxing to extremities, The Station has a small memorial label tipped to the front pastedown. Road to Oxiana missing a piece from the crown of the spine and tape repairs on reverse, else both very good in dustwrappers, designed by Keith Vaughan. The two vols.
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The Letters of Lewis Carroll
New York: Oxford University Press. First American editions, 1979.
Two volumes: 1837-1898, the complete correspondence of the polymath; 'Eight or Nine Wise Words About Letter-Writing' by Lewis Carroll, illustrations, chronology, the author's family, annotated and indexed, 1,200+pp., edited by Morton N. Cohen and Roger Lancelyn Green assisting.
Original blue cloth. Fine as issued without dustwrappers and in slipcase
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Lewis Carroll Photographer
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. First American edition, 2002.
Seventy-one plates, followed by reproductions of c.400 images, or the complete contents of the albums, four to a page, each annotated; followed by a register of all known photographs by Lewis Carroll, chronology, and running through: two long essays by the editors; all reproduced from Princeton's holdings of Carroll's surviving albums.
Original red cloth and green boards with vignette. Fine as issued without dustwrapper.
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Early English Children's Books
London, mostly: The Bodley Head. Facsimile editions, 1981.
Thirty-five volumes, the complete set, of facsimile editions of English Children's Literature reproduced from the originals, all held as part of the Osborne Collection at Toronto Public Library. The set works as a guided tour from Orbis Sensualium Pictus (1777) to The Adventures of Two Dutch Dolls (1895), modest productions are replaced by publisher’s cloth, colour illustrations, foldouts, all the trappings of marketing for a target audience of adults, children and a middle class family’s recreational time.
Other titles include: Little Red Riding Hood (1845), Jack and the Bean Stalk (1845),The Death and Burial of Cock Robin (1806, colour illustrations), Old Dame Trot and Her Comical Cat (1807), the elaborate Mansion of Bliss (1860), Edward Lear’s A Book of Nonsense (1875, 130 colour illustrations), The Babes in the Wood (1879), The Baby’s Own Aesop (1887), The Nursery Alice (1889, John Tenniel in colour), Under the Window (1878, Kate Greenaway), Sing-Song (1872, Christina Rossetti); and a small no. of the illustrators: Thomas Bewick, George Cruikshank, Randolph Caldecott, Walter Crane, Arthur Hughes and Florence Upton.
Combination of pictorial cloth, printed and pictorial wrappers, various sizes. All fine as issued in 27 matching printed slipcases and boxes. The thirty-five volumes
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The Woman in White and The Moonstone
London: The Folio Society. First editions thus., 1951, 1956.
Two volumes. The author's two justifiably famous novels, originally published in 1860 and 1868 respectively. The Moonstone illustrated by Edwin La Dell and The Woman in White by Lynton Lamb.
The Woman in White has a bookplate on the front free endpaper, both volumes have spots of foxing on the prelims, else both very good in dustwrappers. The two volumes
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Looking Back - an Autobiographical Excursion
London: Chatto and Windus. First English edition, 1933.
Two volumes. Beginning, 'Those sultry eyes, that heightened complexion, betrayed the Cuban blood in her veins. She was married at the charming age of sixteen to a rich English general, exactly four times as old, who expired not long afterwards in the arms of ...', and on through the late 19th and early 20th century. #50/500 numbered copies signed by the author (total edition 535)
Top edge gilt, fore and bottom edges uncut. Edgewear to vol. 1, else both fine in dustwrappers. Woolf A36. The two volumes
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Diaries
London: Granta and Faber and Faber, 2004-2010.
Five vols - The Smoking Diaries (second impression), The Year of the Jouncer, The Last Cigarette and Coda (all first English editions), The Early Diaries (first collected edition) - of droll, acerbic, obsessive entries, "Everybody knows somebody who knows somebody who was given six months to live, and here they are, only just dead, eight years later."
Spots of foxing to extremities in the set, else four volumes fine in dustwrappers and one volume pictorial wrappers, also fine. The five volumes
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Gerald Semper Novels
London: Faber and Faber. Two First English editions and one first English paperback edition, 2004-2008.
Three volumes: Cooking With Fernet Branca, Amazing Disgrace (this copy signed by the author), and Rancid Pansies - the complete set to date. Gerald Semper - English expatriate, new owner in Italy's Apuan Alps, ghost writer of celebrities' autobiographies, cook of some repute; or, as Michael Dibdin noted re Cooking With Fernet Branca, '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.'
Pictorial wrappers. All very good or better. The three volumes
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Tales of the Hasidim
New York: Schiocken Books. First American edition, 1947-1948.
Two vols: The Early Masters and The Later Masters: parables of Jewish mysticism based on the teachings of Israel ben Eliezer, the eighteenth century Ukrainian rabbi; 687pp., indexed.
Fine in very good dustwrappers darkened on the spine and with a couple of chips. The two vols.
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Autobiographies
London: Peter Owen. First English editions, 1972-1992.
Three volumes - Second Son (1972, introduction by Paul Bowles, photographs by Cecil Beaton), Engaging Eccentrics - Recollections (1990) and Relations and Revelations - Advice to Jemima (1992, foreword by Paul Bowles) - the complete autobiography of David Herbert, English aristocrat (1908-1995), resident for 50 years in Djamma el Mokra, a mountainous village a little west of Tangier, where he was host to seemingly all the expatriates who passed through, or lived in, Tangier from the end of World War Two; all three volumes illustrated.
All fine in dustwrappers. The three volumes
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Tom Ripley
New York: Coward McCann, Alfred A. Knopf, Doubleday, Lippincott and Crowell. All first American editions, 1955-1992.
Tom Ripley – a likeable sociopath, heroic and demonic, energetic and amoral, overcivilised and undersensitised, – was a not untypical protagonist for the second half of the twentieth century and a likely candidate for elected office two generations into the twenty-first. Patricia Highsmith constructed him so exactly that “Reading the book[s] becomes exquisitely uncomfortable. [They are] perfectly engineered to make us give our sympathies to the wrong man. To rejoice, even, when luck is on his side ... we get so deep inside his head”. Tom Ripley is a kindred spirit to Rick Pym, Magnus' father, in John Le Carre's A Perfect Spy, albeit without that character’s reluctance to kill. Twenty-seven years after the last Ripley and twenty-three years after his creator’s death, his appeal shows no signs of fading. He has been played in movies, television and radio, to date, by Alain Delon, Jonathan Kent, Matt Damon, Dennis Hopper, John Malkovich, Barry Pepper, Ian Hart and, I suspect, more to follow. Ripley’s Game is inscribed by the author in 1976; laid in are three aerogrammes from Patricia Highsmith to the same recipient, all typed, letters signed, 1976-1977, literary news, her work, plans to meet, “Yes, I no sooner struck ------ with a little buckshot, than I was whammed in the Observer 20 Nov. With an awful photo and a not very sympathetic article. So much for 8 hours of my time.”
The Talented Mr. Ripley has some edgewear, label of the Jaffe Literary Agency, otherwise fine in first issue dustwrapper evenly sunned on the spine. The Boy Who Followed Ripley is a review copy with promotional material, including a photograph of the author, laid in. Ripley's Game is near fine in a fine dustwrapper. Ripley Under Water is fine in dustwrapper. The five vols. and three aerogrammes
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The Complete Sherlock Holmes - Long Stories and Short Stories
London: John Murray. Reprints, 1971, 1973.
Two volumes. Long Stories: A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of Four, The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Valley of Fear; Short Stories: 56 stories from A Scandal in Bohemia to The Retired Colourman; all complete, 1,900+pp.
Some foxing to prelims and extremities in both volumes, else very good in dustwrappers. The two volumes
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Chris Hunt's Series of Historical Novels
London: GMP. First English editions, 1986-1999.
Eight volumes. A complete set of the stubbornly pseudonymous author's series of historical novels featuring gay themes and characters. Titles are Sweet Lavender (1986), Mignon (1987), Thornapple (1989), N for Narcissus (1990), Gaveston (1992), The Bisley Boy (1995), Duval's Gold (1997) and The Honey and the Sting (1999), all published by the now defunct Gay Men's Press.
All pictorial wrappers. One or two with spots of foxing to the bottom edge, else all fine. The eight vols.
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A Time of Gifts, Between the Woods and Water and The Broken Road
London: John Murray. First English editions, 1977-2013.
Three vols. The complete journey: from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople, on foot, in 1933, on £1.00 per week. The Broken Road - from the Iron Gates to Mount Athos was published posthumously in 2013, edited by Colin Thubron and Artemis Cooper; this copy is signed by them.
Top edge dusty on A Time of Gifts, else the three volumes fine in dustwrappers, the first two vols. both designed by John Craxton. The three vols.
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Dutch Treat and Double Dutch Treat
New York: Arbor House. First American editions, 1985-1986.
Two vols. Six novels, complete: The Hunted, Swag, Mr. Majestyk, The Moonshine War, Gold Coast and City Primeval; 1,150pp+ without an adverb in sight.
Both vols. fine in dustwrappers. The dustwrapper of Double Dutch Treat is a little sunned on the spine. The two volumes
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The Complete Western Stories
London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. First English edition, 2006.
Thirty stories distilled from the Western pulps and slightly more august journals; the author's first assault on an established genre, though not quite as radical as his work on the crime novel; 528pp.
Spots of foxing to foredge, else fine in dustwrapper.
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The Complete Works of Primo Levi
New York: Liveright. First American edition thus, 2015.
Three volumes. Edited by Ann Goldstein, introduction by Toni Morrison. Everything. Many newly translated, other material not previously available in English; 2910pp.
All fine in dustwrappers in slipcase as issued. The three volumes
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Limited Edition Pamphlets
Edinburgh: MacLean Dubois Limited, 1982-2007.
Seven volumes, one story per volume: The Monastrey of Sant'Annetta Dei Giardini (#121/200 copies, illustrated by James Hutcheson), The Principles of Tennis (#221/300, Iain McIntosh), Little Piggish (#169/350, Iain McIntosh), Life Amongst the Lion Tamers (#187/400, Iain McIntosh), The Finer Points of Sausages (#203/400, Iain McIntosh), The Great Hat Thief (600 copies, Iain McIntosh), and La's Orchestra Saves the World (1,000 copies, Iain McIntosh); all either signed or inscribed by Alexander McCall Smith.
Plain wrappers, stapled. All with a printed label, some illustrated, and all fine. The seven volumes
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The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency
New York: Anchor Books and Pantheon. First American editions, 2002-2015.
Sixteen volumes. The first sixteen cases of Precious Ramotswe (currently at 19), the author's first and most popular series. Each book carries on from the end of the previous volume, a murder is solved, characters and themes are accumulated, all sitting within a vivid picture of contemporary Botswana and Gaborone, its capitol. All sixteen volumes are signed by the author.
The first three volumes are all pictorial wrappers, all fine in slipcase as issued. The slipcase also contains 'Milkbird', an African folktale retold by McCall Smith, printed wrappers, fine and signed by him. Volumes four to sixteen are all fine in dustwrappers. The sixteen volumes
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$2,500.00 Add to cart
The Sunday Philosophy Club
London: Little, Brown. First English editions, 2004-2006.
Three volumes: The Sunday Philosophy Club (#1), Friends, Lovers, Chocolate (#2) and The Right Attitude to Rain (#3) in the series that has now reached fifteen volumes. Isabel Dalhousie, her informal talking group and the city of Edinburgh are the series' subjects; the three volumes signed by the author.
The three volumes fine in dustwrappers. The three volumes
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44 Scotland Street.
Edinburgh: Polygon. First English editions, 2005-2007.
The first four volumes (of twelve to date) in the author's sequence about the residents of 44 Scotland Street and its environs. Alexander McCall Smith has noted a meeting with Armistead Maupin in California and his own fondness for serialised novels in newspapers as the inspirations for the series. All four volumes signed by the author.
All four volumes fine in dustwrappers. The four volumes
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Matthew Hervey.
London: Bantam Press. First English editions, 1999-2015.
Volumes 1-12 in the series: Matthew Hervey of the British 6th Light Dragoons and his career from before the Battle of Waterloo, through adventures in India, Canada, Burma, Portugal, Southern Africa, Belgium Russia, between 1815 and 1831; all signed by the author; with Allan Mallinson's business card, inscribed by him, from his position as military attache at the British Embassy in Rome.
The twelve volumes all fine in dustwrappers. The twelve volumes
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The Wrong People
New York and London: Paperback Library Inc., First American edition and William Heinemann. First English revised edition, 1967, 1970.
Two volumes: the first American edition of the author's Tangier novel, published pseudonymously on the advice of his uncle, and the first English, revised, edition, introduced by Cyril Connolly who details the setting, background and controversial areas of the two editions.
The American edition is pictorial wrappers, fine. The English, spots of foxing to top edge, else fine in dustwrapper. The two vols.
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The Occupation Trilogy
London: Bloomsbury. First one volume edition, 2015.
All of La Place d'Etoile (first published 1968), The Night Watch (1969) and Ring Roads (1972), the author's first three books, all concerned with France under German occupation during World War Two; preface by William Boyd.
Fine in dustwrapper.
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British Film Institute - Film Classics
London: Fitzroy Dearborn. First omnibus edition, 2003.
Two volumes. The first 50 titles from the British Film Institute's Film Classics series of monographs on individual movies. A difficult list to summarise: Brief Encounter, The Big Heat, The Birds, Boudu Saved from Drowning, Bride of Frankenstein and Blackmail represent 'B'; 1,248pp., list of titles available.
Pictorial boards. A couple of corners bumped and tear to prelims in vol.1, else both very good, as issued without dustwrappers. The two vols.
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The Man Without Qualities
London: Secker and Warburg. Reprint, 1979.
Three volumes. The translation by Eithne Wilkins and Ernst Kaiser; first published in 1953.
All fine in dustwrappers. The three volumes
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Letters
San Diego and London: Harcourt, Weidenfeld, Penguin. All first editions., 1979-2014.
Three volumes: The Nabokov-Wilson Letters 1940-1971 (Weidenfeld, 1979), Selected Letters 1940-1977 (Harcourt, 1989), edited by Dmitri Nabokov and Matthew J. Bruccoli, and Letters to Vera (Penguin, 2014); 264 between Nabokov and Wilson before Eugene Onegin got in the way; 400+ in the Selected most re his work; and hundreds to Vera, dedicatee of many of his books, counsel, confidante and wife.
The three volumes all fine in dustwrappers. The three volumes
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The Daily Telegraph Book of Obituaries 1 and 2 and Well-Remebered Friends
London: Pan, Macmillan, John Murray. First English paperback and first English editions, 1996, 2004.
'Where we all must gather'. Three vols. of obituaries: 100 eccentric lives, then 100 heroes and adventures, both from the English Daily Telegraph, followed by 110 from John Murray selected for both their subject and author: too many to summarise, the former includes (from all three volumes) Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Freya Stark, Diana Cooper, Molly Keane and Dorothy Tutin.
Pictorial wrappers. Fine (Daily Telegraph 1) and the other two vols. both fine in dustwrappers. The three vols.
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Collected Works
New York: Library of America. Reprint, 1988.
All of Wise Blood and The Violent Bear It Away; the collections A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Everything That Rises Must Converge; other stories and occasional prose; selection of letters; from the writer who was 'interested in making a good case for distortion'; notes by Sally Fitzgerald, 1,280+pp.
Fine in dustwrapper.
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Remembrance of Things Past and A Guide to Proust
London: Chatto and Windus. First English edition, 1981-1983.
Three volumes - Terence Kilmartin's revision of C.K. Scott Moncrieff's translation with added material translated from the definitive French edition. And Kilmartin's A Guide to Proust (Chatto / Hogarth, 1983) - the way in to the epic through indexes of characters, persons, places and themes, all cross referenced to this edition.
Remembrance, 3 vols., fine in dustwrappers in slipcase as issued. Guide fine in dustwrapper. The four volumes
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A Reader's Guide to Remembrance of Things Past
New York: Random House. First American edition, 1983.
Characters, persons, places, themes, all listed and cross indexed for the author's revised version of Scott-Moncrief's translation.
Fine in dustwrapper.
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Raven and The Corvo Cult
London: Strange Attractor Press. First English editions, 2013-2014.
Two vols. Raven collects the author's essays of original research into the individuals and events in the supporting roles of Frederick Rolfe's life. The Corvo Cult reconstructs the formation, maintenance, and characteristics of the practitioners, of the 20th century cult surrounding the English writer. Both volumes signed by the author.
Both very fine in dustwrappers. 500 copies printed of each title. The two volumes
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Empire of the Moghul
London: Headline. Five first English paperback editions and one reprint, 2010-2015.
Six vols. - the complete set of historical novels set in India, beginning at the end of the 15th century and continuing through the Moghul Empire - Raiders from the North, Brothers at War, Ruler of the World, The Tainted Throne, The Serpent's Tooth and Traitors in the Shadows; the titles give a clue to the archetypal relationships and situations covered.
Pictorial wrappers. All fine. The six volumes
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Audience
New York: Audience Magazine, 1971-1972.
Seven issues: Vol.1, Nos.1-2 and Vol.2, Nos.1-5. Art directors for these issues: Milton Glaser and Seymour Chwast, and it looks it; editorial advisors -someone from most disciplines - Saul Bellow, Gordon Parks, John Cassavetes, Anne Sexton; contributors include Dennis Stock (California - a Photographic Portfolio), Nelson Algren, "Poets' Country - Across Russia with Yevtushenko" by Geoffrey Dutton, "The Comedians" re Lenny Bruce, Milton Berle, Jack E. Leonard, Kenny Youngman, Mort Sahl, "Signs of Route 66" - photographs by Mike Salisbury, Thomas Berger on the movie version of Little Big Man, Arthur Miller on the same for The Crucible ...
Pictorial boards. A couple of corners bumped, all very good or better. The seven issues.
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Hardcore and More Hardcore
New York: Donald D I Fine. First American editions thus, 1986-1987.
Two vols., six novels, complete: The Kill-Off, The Nothing Man, Bad Boy, The Ripoff, The Golden Gizmo and Roughneck.
Both vols. fine in dustwrapper. The two vols.
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The Transylvanian Trilogy
New York: Everyman. Second English edition, 2013.
Three vols. in two. They Were Counted, They Were Found Wanting and They Were Divided complete; first published in Hungary between 1934-1940 and set in pre World War One Hungary.
Both fine in dustwrappers. The two vols
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From the Beast to The Blonde, No Go the Bogeyman, Phantasmagoria
London: Chatto and Windus. Reprint and first English edition. Oxford University Press. First English edition, 1994-2006.
Three vols, subtitled respectively: 'On Fairy Tales and their Tellers', 'Scaring, Lulling and Making Muck' and 'Spirit Visions, Metaphors and Media into the Twenty-first Century', or the other worlds inside this one and our structures that no technologies can replicate or replace; illustrated, indexed, 1,350+pp.
All fine in dustwrappers. The three volumes
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The William Companion
London: Macmillan. First English edition, 1990.
Roll call for the William books; entries from Roslyn Abbot to Zevrier, followed by appendixes of William arcana; illustrated.
Fine in dustwrapper a little sunned on the spine.
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Virginia Woolf
London: The Hogarth Press. First English edition (vol.1) and second impression (vol.2), 1972.
Two vols: Virginia Stephen 1882-1912, Mrs. Woolf 1912-1941; the standard biography.
Both volumes fine in dustwrappers in original slipcase as issued. The two volumes
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