Antiquarian and Collectors’ Books

DICKENS, Charles. A Christmas Carol; or, the Miser’s Warning… adapted from Charles Dickens’ Celebrated Work by C.Z. Barnett. London: John Dicks, [circa 1844.] 16mo (182 x 122mm.) Original sewn wrappers with wood-engraved illustration to upper cover, advertisements to lower (uncut leaves, stain to upper cover). – And a further thirty-one volumes related to Charles Dickens (including thirteen ‘Acting Editions’, numerous abridged editions, and Kate Field’s ‘Pen Photographs of Charles Dickens’ Readings, Taken From Life’, 1868, 8vo) (32).

BELLOC, Hilaire. Ladies and Gentlemen: For Adults Only and Mature at That. London: Duckworth, 1932. First edition, 4to (246 x 184mm.) Illustrations by Nicholas Bentley. (Toning, contemporary gift inscription on the front-free endpaper.) Original white cloth-backed pictorial boards, dust-jacket (toned, small repair to lower panel). – And a further seven illustrated volumes (including Eden Phillpotts’ ‘A Dish of Apples’, illustrated by Arthur Rackham, [1921], 4to, and J.M. Barries’ ‘Peter Pan in Kensington Garden’, illustrated by Arthur Rackham, [1909], 4to) (8).

POETRY. – Keith DOUGLAS. Alamein to Zem Zem. London: Editions Poetry, 1946. First edition, 8vo (224 x 168mm.) 3 colour plates, black and white drawings by the author in the text. (Browned.) Original red cloth-backed boards (staining to spine), dust-jacket (spotting, some losses to spine panel, browned). – And a further seven volumes related to poetry (including ‘An Anthology of ‘Nineties’ Verse’ edited by A.J.A. Symons, 1928, 8vo, and Edmund Blunden’s ‘Poems of Many Years’, 1957, 8vo) (8).

SIGNED BOOKS. – Nevil SHUTE. Beyond the Black Stump. London: William Heinemann Ltd. and the Book Society, 1956. Signed by Nevil Shute, 8vo (183 x 121mm.) (Mild toning.) Original red cloth, dust-jacket (chipping to extremities). Note: signed ‘Nevile Shute Norway’ in the distinctive blue ink. – And a further twenty-seven volumes by or about Nevile Shute, including a further 12 novels signed by Nevil Shute (‘No Highway’, 1948, ‘Most Secret’, 1947, ‘Marazan’, 1951, ‘A Town Like Alice’, 1950, ‘The Far Country’, 1952, ‘Pied Piper’, 1949, ‘The Chequer Board’, 1947, ‘Pastoral’, 1944, ‘So Disdained’, 1952, ‘In the Wet’, 1953, ‘Ruined City’, 1952, ‘Requiem for a Wren’, 1955). Provenance: from the descendants of the estate of Alec Menhinick and his wife Dorothy Elspeth Jackson. Alec and Dorothy (known as ‘Spiffy’), met each other in 1944 when Alec was working under Shute at the DMWD [Department of Miscellaneous Weapons Development]. The couple became long term friends when Shute – known as ‘Uncle Nevil’ - sponsored the family in their emigration to Australia. When in Australia, Alec was known to race Shute’s Jaguar XK140. When it came to filming the racing scenes of ‘On the Beach’, Alec was the driver, standing in for the Fred Astair character. It is thought that Shute used Dorothy and Alec as the inspiration for the characters of Jean Porter and Donald Wolfe in ‘The Seafarers’. Three of these novels are directly inscribed to the couple: ‘No Highway’, ‘Pastoral’, and ‘In the Wet’ (28).

[BARNES, Julian.] ‘Dan Kavanagh’. Duffy. London: Jonathan Cape, 1980. First edition, 8vo (196 x 122mm.) (Mild toning.) Original black cloth, dust-jacket. – And a further sixteen volumes by Julian Barnes, all first editions (including ‘Before She Met Me’, 1982, and ‘History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters’, signed by the author, 1989, and ‘The Porcupine’, signed by the author, 1992, and ‘England, England’, signed by the author, 1998, 8vo, and ‘Pulse’, signed by the author’, 2011) (17).

TOLKIEN, J.R.R. The Lord of the Rings. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1984. Deluxe ‘India Paper’ edition, 9th impression, 8vo (222 x 137mm.) (Faint crease to first leaves.) Original black cloth, gilt design by Tolkien to upper cover, original box with mounted paper label (slight rub).

DAHL, Roald. The BFG. London: Jonathan Cape, 1982. First edition, first impression, 8vo (232 x 149mm.) Illustrations by Quentin Blake. (Spotting to first and last leaves, toning.) Original grey cloth, dust-jacket (small tear and creasing to spine ends). – And a further seven volumes by Roald Dahl, all first editions (including ‘The Twits’, 1980, 8vo, and ‘My Uncle Oswald’, 1979, 8vo, and ‘Switch Bitch’, 1974, 8vo) (8).

WINGFIELD, R.D. A Touch of Frost. London: Constable, 1990. First edition, 8vo (215 x 129mm.) (Toning.) Original black cloth (small marks to lower cover), dust-jacket (spine ends bumped, small tear at top of spine). Note: the second book in the ‘Jack Frost’ series and certainly the most scarce with a print run of only 500-600 copies.

BRATBY, John. Breakdown. London: Hutchinson, 1960. First edition, 8vo (212 x 132mm.) Illustrations by the author. (Toning.) Original black and grey cloth, dust-jacket designed by John Bratby (slight chipping to spine ends).

SWIFT, Graham. Shuttlecock. London: Allen Lane, 1981. First edition, 8vo (213 x 129mm.) (Mild toning.) Original green cloth, dust-jacket. – And a further seven works of fiction by Graham Swift, all first editions (including ‘Learning to Swim’, 1982, ‘Waterland’, 1983, and ‘Out of This World’, 1988, and ‘Ever After’, 1992, and ‘Last Orders’, 1996, and ‘The Light of Day’, 2003, and ‘Tomorrow’, signed by Graham Swift, 2007) (8).

DURRELL, Lawrence. Justine. London: Faber and Faber, 1957. First edition, first impression, 8vo (203 x 126mm.) (Mild toning.) Original red cloth, dust-jacket (price-clipped, browned to spine, slight chipping at top of spine). – And a further twelve volumes by Lawrence Durrell, first editions (including ‘Reflections on a Marine Venus’, 1953, and ‘Clea’, 1960, and ‘Bitter Lemons’, 1957, and a reprint of ‘The Black Book’, signed by the author, 1973, and a reprint of ‘The Dark Labyrinth’, 1961) (13).

CHRISTIE, Agatha. Murder Is Easy. London: The Crime Club, 1939. First edition, 8vo (174 x 114mm.) (Toning, occasional scattered spotting, lacking 2pp. advertisements.) Variant brown cloth, black lettering to spine (some fading and spotting to spine). Provenance: Audrey Hobby (ink name inscribed to front pastedown). – And a further first edition in a variant binding (Daphne du Maurier’s ‘Jamaica Inn’, 1936, 8vo) (2).

DUMAS, Alexander. Les Trois Mousquetaires. Paris: M.M. J. -B. Fellens et L.- P. Dufour, 1846. First illustrated edition, 8vo (237 x 151mm.) Half-title, wood-engraved portrait frontispiece, 32 wood-engraved plates by A. Gusman, G. Lecestre and others after Beauce and others, tissue-guards, illustrated initials and tail-pieces. (Spotting to preliminaries, light to moderate spotting throughout including marginal damp-staining.) Contemporary black morocco, gilt lettering to spine (rebacked, lightly rubbed extremities). – And a further illustrated volume by Dumas (‘Vingt ans Après’, 1846, 8vo) (2).

SPENSER, Edmund. Faerie Queene… with a Glossary, and Notes explanatory and critical by John Upton. London: for J. and R. Tonson, 1758. 2 vols., new edition, 4to (252 x 197mm.) (Toning, occasional light spotting.) Near contemporary half calf over marbled paper-covered boards (joints splitting, extremities heavily rubbed with some loss). Note: the first annotated edition. Provenance: Marcus Somerville (bookplates to front pastedowns) (2).

GAY, John. The Beggar’s Opera. London: for John Watts, at the Printing-Office in Wild-Court, near Lincoln’s-Inn-Fields, 24th May 1728. Second edition, 8vo (195 x 115mm.) Title, engraved music within text. (Browning, last leaf H2 with small paper repair to corner, contemporary ink annotation to lower margins, blanks replaced.) Near contemporary half calf (rebacked with original spine laid-down, extremities rubbed, endpapers replaced). Note: in the first edition the music was at the rear, not within the text. Provenance: C.E. Lawrence (gift inscribed to on front-free endpaper); Barbara Pool (gift inscribed to on the front-free endpaper); Charles Hughes (bookplate to front pastedown).

BEATTIE, William. The Waldenses or Protestant Valleys of Piedmont, Dauphiny, and The Ban de la Roche. London: George Virtue, 1838. First edition, 4to (270 x 203mm.) Engraved portrait frontispiece, additional engraved title, 70 engraved plates, folding map. (Toning, some marginal spotting.) Contemporary green diced morocco, maroon morocco lettering piece to the spine, g.e. (some fading and scuffing to extremities). – And a further volume (N. Bailey’s ‘An Universal Etymological English Dictionary’, 1783, 8vo) (2).

ATLAS. Leigh’s New Pocket Road-Book of England and Wales: Containing an Account of all the Direct and Cross-Roads. London: Leigh and Son, 1835. Fifth edition, 12mo (139 x 85mm.) Frontispiece of ‘Table of the Price of Posting’, additional decorative title, 55 engraved county maps, engraved folding map of England & Wales to rear with outline hand-colouring. (Toning, occasional marginal spotting, some tape repairs to folding map.) Original green morocco, gilt lettering to upper cover (rebacked with original spine laid-down, extremities rubbed).

MANUSCRIPT. [A Persian manuscript in two parts, the second part based on Abu Yahya Zakariyya al-Qazwini's 'Aja'ib al-Makhlukat' (The Wonders of Creation). N.p.: Kashmir, circa 1820.] 164pp., manuscript, 8vo (241 x 114mm.) 2 parts, being 16pp. and 148pp. in calligraphic Nastaliq in black ink on vellum paper, 17 lines to a page with 2 large decorated headpieces in blue, red and gilt to the first section, and 17 lines to a page and also 205 water-colour and ink illustrations with gum arabic to the second part. (Browned to margins.) Original blind-stamped limp calf (extremities rubbed, some loss to base of spine). Note: al-Qazwini compiled 'The Wonders of Creation' in Arabic in the 13th century. It was an entire cosmography containing information about the heavens, the earth, minerals, plants, birds and animals as well as imaginary and hybrid creatures as illustrated here. Provenance: Alfred Hutton, soldier, writer, fencer and antiquarian (ink name to front and rear blanks). Hutton was serving with the British cavalry in India in the early 1860's.

MANUSCRIPT. – Jonathan PEEL. Youthful Reminiscences, a Memoir. [A hand-written account of the early years of the life of Jonathan Peel. N.p.:]1879. 228pp., 8vo (228 x 186mm.) A mostly legible account in manuscript divided into nineteen chapters with numerous literary epigraphs, several blank leaves to rear. (Mild toning.) Original black cloth (extremities rubbed). Note: Jonathan Peel came from the ‘4th Branch’ of the Peel family. Thankfully, Jonathan outlines early on the geography of the many Peels in Lancashire and around Accrington. It’s a thoughtful and ruminative journal of a privileged, if repressed Victorian upbringing. He is tortured by the death of his younger brother, imagines him burning in hell because he died before being baptised. His mother (‘a truly devout woman’) inspires some morbidity, too (‘every day, every hour, nay every minute she used to tell me somebody was dying somewhere’). Nevertheless, there are stories of bull-baiting, cock-fighting, schoolboy japes and accidents (‘being dangled by an arm and a leg’ over a bridge on the Leeds-Liverpool canal). Somewhat sickly, he was given ‘incessant doses of James’ Powder, rhubarb, sulphur and treacle’ to strengthen him. However, it was a particular phial in the bathroom to which he was drawn (‘even to this day I delight in the scent and taste of opium… I could easily have become an opium-eater’). Eventually, he makes it to Cambridge. He married his cousin Anne and they had five children. – And a further twenty-four volumes relating to the Peel family, mainly diaries, [1857-1917], but also another journal of 44pp. in Jonathan Peel’s hand which has a pencil note at the front (‘Far far into the past I look’), two passports, and a ‘Family Record, 1835’, with genealogies in manuscript, and several letters loosely-inserted (25).