Antiquarian and Collectors’ Books

PRATCHETT, Terry. The Colour of Magic. London: Doubleday, Transworld, 2004. Limited edition, this number 670 of 1000 signed copies, 8vo (197 x 116mm.) Signed in ink by Pratchett, with a limitation stamp to the title page. Black cloth, gilt lettering to spine, slip-case. Note: scarce.

FLEMING, Ian. On Her Majesty's Secret Service. London: Jonathan Cape, 1963. First edition, 8vo (188 x 119mm.) (Toning, slight spotting to fore-edge.) Original black cloth, silver gilt to upper cover and spine (slight spine lean, lightly bumped spine ends), dust-jacket (small tear, minor creasing at top of spine). Provenance: Valentine de Beurgh (name inscribed on the front-free endpaper). - And six further first edition volumes by Ian Fleming (including 'You Only Live Twice', 1964, 8vo) (7).

SPARK, Muriel. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. London: Macmillan and Co., 1961. First edition, 8vo (197 x 123mm.) (Toning to margins.) Original green cloth (bumped to spine ends), dust-jacket (repairs to verso, chipping to spine ends, minor soiling to rear panel). Provenance: R. Seaman (name inscribed to the front-free endpaper). - And a further four first edition novels by Muriel Spark (including 'Robinson', 1958, 8vo) (5).

WHITE, T.H. The Once and Future King. London: Collins, 1958. First complete edition, 8vo (197 x 128mm.) (Mild toning, some spotting to fore-edge.) Original blue cloth (bumped to spine ends), dust-jacket (browning, a tear at top of spine, minor chipping). - And a further eighteen volumes of fiction, all but one first edition (including Wilbur Smith's 'The Dark Side of the Sun', 1965, 8vo and Stevie Smith's 'Over the Frontier', 1938, 8vo) (19).

ORWELL, George. Nineteen Eighty-Four. London: Secker & Warburg, 1949. First edition, 8vo (184 x 118mm.) (Mild toning, marginal spotting to pp.63-64.) Original cloth (sunning to spine, crease to upper cover, rubbing to spine ends). - And two further volumes by George Orwell (including 'Burmese Days', 1949, 8vo) (3).

THOMAS, Dylan. Under Milk Wood. London: J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd., 1954. First edition, first impression, 8vo (183 x 116mm.) (Mild toning.) Original brown cloth (lightly bumped spine ends), dust-jacket (tear to front panel). Provenance: Barry Fearn (ink name inscribed to front-free endpaper). - And a further volume (Evelyn Waugh's 'Love Among the Ruins', 1953, 8vo) (2).

WAUGH, Evelyn. Brideshead Revisited. London: Chapman and Hall, 1945. 8vo (179 x 113mm.) (Minor spotting to half-title.) Grey cloth, black lettering to spine (fading to spine, soiling to upper cover). - And a further three volumes (including Kenneth Grahame's 'Wind in the Willows', 1923, 8vo) (4).

CORNWELL, Bernard. [The Sharpe Novels.] London: Collins and Harper-Collins, 1981-2006. 21 vols., first editions, seventeen of them signed by Bernard Cornwell, 8vo (206 x 128mm and 234 x 148mm.) (Mild toning, some spotting to fore-edge of 'Sharpe's Eagle', name inscribed to front pastedown of 'Sharpe's Gold' and to front-free endpaper of 'Sharpe's Company'). Original cloths, dust-jackets ('Sharpe's Regiment' price-clipped). Note: the four volumes that are not signed are 'Sharpe's Company', 1982, 'Sharpe's Sword', 1983, 'Sharpe's Regiment', 1986, and 'Sharpe's Rifles', 1988. 'Sharpe's Company' and 'Sharpe's Sword' are both the first American editions, published by Viking. - And three further volumes signed by Bernard Cornwell ('Sharpe's Skirmish', 2002, 8vo; 'Sharpe's Christmas', 2003, 8vo; 'Sharpe's Story', 2007, 8vo) (24).

CORNWELL, Bernard. Rebel. London: HarperCollins, 1993. First edition, signed by the author, 8vo (233 x 147mm.) (Mild toning.) Original blue cloth (lightly bumped to spine ends), dust-jacket. - And a further forty-eight volumes by or about Bernard Cornwell, of which nineteen are signed (49).

CORNWELL, Bernard. Sharpe's Eagle. London: Collins, 1981. First edition, signed by Bernard Cornwell and the actor Sean Bean, 8vo (207 x 123mm.) (Mild toning.) Original green cloth (bumped to spine ends), dust-jacket (some spotting to inner flaps). Note: signed by Sean Bean on the front-free endpaper 'To Mike, best wishes, Sean Bean'. Bean played Sharpe in the television serial. This novel is the first of Cornwell's twenty-one Sharpe novels. - And a further four volumes signed by Bernard Cornwell (including the limited editions of 'Sharpe's Escape', 2004, 8vo and 'Sharpe's Fury', 2006, 8vo) (5).

[SASSOON, Siegfried] 'Saul KAIN'. The Daffodil Murderer. [London:] John Richmond, 1913. First printing, 8vo (218 x 134mm.) (Mild toning, lacking initial blank?) Original mustard card wrappers, red lettering to upper cover (wrappers detached from text), custom-made solander box with cloth lettering label to spine. Note: a parody of John Masefield's 'The Everlasting Mercy', Sassoon won the Chantrey prize for this poem, albeit as 'Saul Kain'. Masefield himself was very impressed with the young Sassoon, calling him 'one of England's most bright rising stars'. Provenance: Katharine de B. Parsons (bookplate verso the upper cover).

WAUGH, Evelyn. Work Suspended, Two Chapters of an Unfinished Novel. London: Chapman & Hall, 1942. First edition, limited to 500 copies only, 8vo (186 x 120mm.) (Mild toning.) Original red cloth, gilt lettering to spine (lightly bumped spine ends), dust-jacket (browning, faint stain to spine, minor chipping to top of spine). Note: in his preface to 'Mr Woollcott', the American critic, Waugh wrote that he felt this work contained his best writing but that it was not suited to the world since the outbreak of war, since that world has 'ceased to exist'. Provenance: Aymer Maxwell of Monreith (bookplate to the front pastedown).

LE CARRÉ, John. The Spy Who Came in From the Cold. London: Victor Gollancz Ltd., 1963. First edition, first impression, 8vo (184 x 118mm.) Original blue cloth, dust-jacket (slight fading to spine, browning to rear panel, tiny closed tears to upper panel), original yellow paper 'Book Society' wrap-around.

LEE, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. London: Heinemann, 1960. First UK edition, 8vo (197 x 128mm.) (Mild toning.) Original red cloth (lightly bumped spine ends), dust-jacket (some rubbing to extremities). Provenance: 'Wills' (name inscribed to front-free endpaper).

WELL, H.G. The Invisible Man. London: C. Arthur Pearson Limited, 1897. First edition, 8vo (184 x 118mm.) Publisher's advertisement leaf to rear. (Browning to margins, moderate spotting, corner crease to p.101 and p.213.) Original pictorial red cloth, gilt lettering to upper cover and spine (lightly bumped spine ends). Note: first issue with p.1 mis-numbered as p.'2'. Used as the basis for many film adaptions, 'The Invisible Man' is one of the most well-known of Well's 'scientific romances'. Provenance: W. George Askell (name-plate to the front pastedown and also verso the half-title).

MITCHISON, Naomi. We Have Been Warned. London: Constable & Co. Ltd., 1935. First edition, first impression, 8vo (197 x 124mm.) (Mild toning, small gift inscription in ink to rear free-endpaper.) Original red cloth (small splits to top of spine panel, minor staining to covers).

NEW NATURALIST. The New Naturalist Library. London: Collins and Harper Collins, 1945-2013. 120 vols., including 96 first editions, 8vo (221 x 151mm.) Numerous illustrations. Original cloth, dust-jackets (some early volumes price-clipped, chipping, some names inscribed). Note: a near-complete run of the series up until 2013, lacking volumes 39, 69 and 70. First edition volumes are: 1-2, 5-17, 19, 24-29, 31, 33, 35-36, 40-41, 43, 45-46, 48, 56-57, 59, 61-68, 73-123. - And a further twenty-nine volumes from the New Naturalist series, including duplicates, reprints and seven New Naturalist Monographs. Provenance: D.B. Ritchie (name inscribed to volume 16) (149).

FRASER, George MacDonald. [The Flashman Series.] London: Barrie & Jenkins and Collins-Harvill and Harper-Collins, 1969-2005. 12 vols., first editions, 8vo (209 x 131 and 233 x 146mm.) (Toning to margins, minor spotting to preliminaries of 'Flash for Freedom' and to fore-edge.) Original red cloths, black cloth for 'Flashman and the Tiger' (lightly bumped spine ends), dust-jackets ('Royal Flash', 'Flashman in the Great Game' and 'Flashman at the Charge' are price-clipped, faint rubbing to spine ends). Note: the final volume 'Flashman on the March' is signed by George MacDonald Fraser with a photograph of the signing inserted. This complete run of the Flashman series comprises: 'Flashman', 1969; 'Royal Flash', 1970; 'Flash For Freedom', 1971; 'Flashman at the Charge', 1973; 'Flashman in the Great Game', 1975; 'Flashman's Lady', 1977; 'Flashman and the Red Skins', 1982; 'Flashman and the Dragon', 1985; 'Flashman and the Mountain of Light', 1990; 'Flashman and the Angel of the Lord', 1994; 'Flashman and the Tiger', 1999. 'Flashman on the March', 2005. - And a further eleven volumes by George MacDonald Fraser (including a signed copy of the limited edition of 'The Reavers', 2007, 8vo) (23).

RUSHDIE, Salman. Shame. London: Jonathan Cape, 1983. First edition, signed by the author, 8vo (215 x 133mm.) Original black cloth, dust-jacket. Provenance: Jane Baker (inscribed to by the author on the title-page). - And a further twenty volumes, mainly fiction, all signed (including the limited edition of Robert Harris's 'Lustrum', 2009, 8vo) (21).