Antiquarian and Collectors’ Books

[FOXE, John.] [Actes and monuments of matters most special and memorable, happening in the Church… London: Printed by Peter Short, 1596-1597.] Folio (383 x 261mm.) In 2 parts with continuous pagination, title for ‘Second Volume’, black letter, double-column, numerous woodcut initials and illustrations in the text, ‘Table’ to rear. (Lacking title to ‘Volume 1’ and general title, first leaves detached up to p.35, ‘Volume 2’ title with large loss, several leaves with large tears and loss, chipping, dust-soiling, large gash to text-block at Sssiii, several leaves to rear loose, scattered browning.) Near contemporary calf, engraved metal corner-pieces (upper cover detached, worn). Note: often found defective and with missing leaves.

JONES, Owen (designer). The Holy Bible Containing the Old and New Testaments, According to the Authorised Version. London: Ward, Lock and Co., [circa 1860.] Folio (364 x 276mm.) 18 chromolithographed plates by William Dickes, 12 uncoloured plates, 6 colour maps, 4pp. ‘Family Register’ with ‘Darbyshire’ family names in ink. (Toning, occasional light spotting to plate margins.) Original relievo binding designed by Owen Jones showing Christ being taken down from the cross, g.e. (light rubbing to lower cover, front endpaper repaired with marginal loss). Note: The octavo version of 1862 is more commonly seen but this folio edition is scarce, as is the design of the Passion. Provenance: Mary Darbyshire (ink name to initial blank).

MILITARY. SAS War Diary 1941-1945. [Great Britain:] Extraordinary Editions, 2011. Limited edition, this being number 116 of 500 copies, folio (441 x 290mm.) Facsimile documents, numerous colour and black and white illustrations. (Mild toning.) Original blind-stamped calf with ‘Who Dares Wins’ insignia to upper cover, original packaging (minor creasing). Note: published to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the SAS Regiment.

WHISTLER, James Abbott McNeill. Whistler v. Ruskin. Art & Art Critics. London: Chatto & Windus, 24th December 1878. First edition, 12mo (189 x 141mm.) (Mild toning, variable leaf size.) Original brown wrappers (spine seam splitting, minor corner creasing). Note: Having sued Ruskin for a bad review that ‘damaged my reputation’, Whistler won the case but was awarded only a nominal farthing. The trial had not, as he hoped, improved his finances or his reputation. He sold his lavish London home and moved to Venice to work on a commission for a series of etchings. But in the development of the modernist aesthetic, the trial was a significant moment.

ECONOMICS. – John Stuart MILL. Utilitarianism. London: Longman, Green et al., 1864. Second edition, 8vo (220 x 135mm.) (Toning, light spotting to title, one pencil annotation to margin.) Original cloth (some loss and repair to spine panel). Provenance: George Brackenbury (ink inscribed to from his sister May Brackenbury on the title-page).

SIGNED BOOKS. – Ian MCEWAN. Black Dogs. London: Jonathan Cape, 1992. First edition, signed by the author, 8vo (205 x 133mm.) (Mild toning.) Original black cloth, dust-jacket (faint toning to extremities). – And a further forty-five contemporary novels, all signed (including Ian McEwan’s ‘Enduring Love’, 1997, 8vo, and Will Self’s ‘Shark’, 2014, 8vo, and Martin Amis’ ‘The Information’, 1995, 8vo) (46).

SIGNED BOOKS. – Rachel CUSK. Outline. London: Faber and Faber, 2014. First edition, third impression, signed by the author, 8vo (215 x 130mm.) (Mild toning.) Original yellow cloth, dust-jacket. Note: the first volume of Cusk’s ‘Outline’ trilogy. – And a further thirty-five signed volumes of contemporary fiction (including a first edition, first impression of J.G. Ballard’s ‘The Kindness of Women’, 1991, 8vo, and a first edition, first impression of Hilary Mantel’s ‘Bringing Up The Bodies’, 2012, 8vo) (36).

SIGNED BOOKS. – Kazuo ISHIGURO. Klara and the Sun. London: Faber and Faber, 2021. First edition, first impression, signed by the author, 8vo (233 x 149mm.) (Mild toning.) Original pink boards, dust-jacket. – And a further fifteen volumes of contemporary literature, all signed (including a reprint of Graham Swift’s ‘Waterland’, 1983, 8vo) (16).

TROLLOPE, Anthony. Ralph the Heir. London: Strahan & Co., 1871. First edition in one volume, 8vo (217 x 132mm.) Black and white lithographed plates by F.A. Fraser. (Occasional scattered spotting and browning, lacking half-title.) Contemporary half calf, red morocco lettering piece to the spine (extremities rubbed). – And a further twenty-five volumes, mostly literary (including ‘The Diary of John Evelyn’, 4 vols., 1906, 8vo) (26).

BOTANY. – William RHIND. A History of the Vegetable Kingdom; Embracing the Physiology of Plants, with Their Uses to Man and the Lower Animals. London: Blackie and Son, 1855. First edition, 8vo (244 x 146mm.) Engraved portrait frontispiece of Linnaeus, engraved additional title, 41 plates, including 21 hand-coloured. (Colour plates browned, marginal spotting to rest, contemporary address erased verso front endpaper.) Contemporary black half morocco, red morocco lettering piece to spine (lightly rubbed extremities). – And a further fifteen volumes relating to botany (including Joseph Harrison’s ‘The Floricultural Cabinet and Florist’s Magazine’, 5 vols., [March-December 1833- January-December 1837], 8vo, and Thomas Mawe and John Abercrombie’s ‘Every Man His Own Gardener. Being a New and much more Complete Gardener’s Kalendar’, 1792, 8vo, and J.S. Henslow’s ‘Le Bouquet des Souvenirs’, 1840, 8vo, and ‘The Florist, Frutist, and Garden Miscellany 1851-1856’, 2 vols. (only), 1852 and 1856, 8vo) (16).

ELIOT, T.S. The Sacred Wood. London: Faber and Faber, 1920. First edition, 8vo (169 x 100mm.) (Toning.) Original blue cloth (lightly rubbed extremities). – And a further thirty-four volumes, mainly 20th century poetry (including Cecil Day Lewis’s ‘Collected Poems’, 1954, 8vo, and Ted Hughes’s ‘Season Songs’, 1976, 8vo, and James Joyce’s ‘Anna Livia Plurabelle’, Criterion Miscellany No. 15, 1930, 8vo) (35).

POETRY. – Ted HUGHES. Collected Animal Poems. London: Faber and Faber, 1995. 4 vols., first impression, signed by Ted Hughes, 8vo (199 x 123mm.) Illustrations by Chris Riddell. Original black cloth, dust-jackets, slipcase. Note: signed by the author on the half-title of volume 1, ‘The Iron Wolf’ (4).

BINDINGS. – [Miss HUDSON.] ‘Israfel’. Ivory Apes & Peacocks. London: at the Sign of the Unicorn, 1899. 4to (196 x 137mm.) (Mild toning.) Original decorative cloth in art nouveau style, t.e.g. Provenance: ‘Miss Beck’ (name-plate to the front pastedown). – And a further forty-four volumes (including Alice P. Moss’s ‘The Elf and the Orchard’, 1918, 8vo, and Lewis Carroll’s ‘A Tangled Tale’, 1886, 8vo, and Emilie Carlen’s ‘Ivar: or, The Skjuts-Boy’, 1852, 8vo) (45).

FOX, Shirley. An Art Student’s Reminiscences of Paris in the Eighties. London: Mills & Boon, 1909. First edition, 8vo (222 x 131mm.) 8 black and white plates by John Cameron, numerous illustrations in the text, 12pp. publisher’s advertisements to rear. (Toning, occasional light spotting.) Original brown and green blind-stamped cloth, gilt lettering to spine (lightly rubbed extremities). – And a further nine volumes by female authors (including, in a dust-jacket, Eliza Southgate Browne’s ‘A Girl’s Life Eighty Years Ago’, 1888, 8vo, and ‘By Daylight; or, Pictures From Real Life’ edited by Anne Pratt, 1865, 8vo) (10).

BINDINGS. – John KEATS. The Poetical Works… edited by Harry Buxton Forman. London: Reeves & Turner, 1884. 8vo (189 x 125mm.) Portrait frontispiece. (Toning, light scattered spotting.) Near contemporary full tree calf, green morocco lettering piece to the spine, t.e.g. (surface abrasion to front-free endpaper). Provenance: Jeanie Easton (gift inscribed to on the initial blank). – And a further thirty-six volumes (including H.G. Adams’s ‘Humming Birds, Described and Illustrated’, [1856], 8vo, and James Bell’s ‘A New and Comprehensive Gazetteer of England and Wales’, 4 vols., 1836-1837, 8vo, and Edward Gibbon’s ‘The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’, 3 vols., 1870, 8vo) (37).

SIGNED BOOKS. – Jonathan COE. The Rotters’ Club. London: Viking, 2001. First edition, first impression, signed by the author, 8vo (233 x 147mm.) (Mild toning.) Original blue cloth, dust-jacket. – And a quantity of approximately eighty further volumes of contemporary fiction, all signed (including Paul Beatty’s ‘The Sellout’, 2016, 8vo, and Maggie O’Farrell’s ‘Instructions for a Heatwave’, 2013, 8vo) (a quantity).

CHURCHILL, Winston S. The World Crisis. London: Thornton Butterworth Limited, 1923-1929. 5 vols. (only) of 6, first editions, 8vo (232 x 146mm.) Half-titles, numerous plates and maps, some folding, errata slips to vols. 1 and 4. (Toning, occasional light spotting to preliminaries, endpapers browned.) Original blue cloth, gilt lettering to spines (spine ends bumped, minor mark to upper cover of vol. 5, gilt lettering to spine of vol. 2 not aligned.) Provenance: James Herbert Sanders (bookplate to front pastedown of vol. 2); from the estate of Trevor Hives, thence by descent (5).

CHURCHILL, Winston S. Post-War Speeches. London: Cassell, 1948-1961. 5 vols., first editions, 8vo (215 x 136mm.) (Toning, pencil marks to list of titles in ‘The Unwritten Alliance’.) Original cloth (spine panels fading), dust-jackets (‘Stemming the Tide’ is price-clipped, pen mark to price of ‘The Unwritten Alliance’, minor chipping to spine ends, small tear to top of ‘An Unwritten Alliance’). Note: includes ‘The Sinews of Peace’, 1948, ‘Europe Unite’, 1950, ‘In the Balance’, 1951, ‘Stemming the Tide’, 1953, and ‘The Unwritten Alliance’, 1961. Provenance: from the estate of Trevor Hives, thence by descent (5).

CHURCHILL, Randolph S. and Martin GILBERT. The Official Biography: Winston S. Churchill. London: Heinemann, 1966-1988. 21 vols., first editions, 8vo (227 x 149mm.) Numerous plates, folding maps, photographic illustrations. (Mild toning.) Original cloth, dust-jackets (vol.1 torn with loss, ‘Companion’ volume 4, all parts with spine panels sunned, minor chipping). Note: the official biography. After the death of Winston’s son, Randolph S. Churchill, Martin Gilbert – who had formerly been Randolph’s assistant- took over the project of completing the biography. It comprises 8 volumes of biography with the Companion Volumes I-V in 13 volumes. – And a further twenty-four volumes relating to Winston Churchill. Provenance: from the estate of Trevor Hives, thence by descent (45).