History & Biography
Blasting and Bombardiering. The Autobiography (1914-1926) of Wyndham Lewis.
London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1937. [Literary memoirs] FIRST EDITION. Octavo (23 x 16cm), pp.[10]; 312. Publisher's orange cloth with black titles to spine, dust-jacket with printed price 15s on front flap. Minor toning to textblock edges, otherwise internally clean, spine slightly rolled. Some wear to dust-jacket top edge, a slight..... More
Magna Britannia: Being a Concise Topographical Account of the Several Counties of Great Britain. Vol. II part I, containing Cambridgeshire.
London: Printed for T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1808. [Topography] EX LIBRIS WILLIAM WADE PORTEOUS. Quarto (31 x 24cm), pp.[2]; 296; xxii; [2]. With twenty six copper engraved plates, including a hand-coloured county map and one further hand-coloured plate. Blue ink ownership inscriptions of Mr. Wade Porteous, a notable book..... More
Scottish Eccentrics.
London: George Routledge & Sons, 1936. [Scottish Biography] INSCRIBED FIRST EDITION, an association copy. Octavo (26 x 16cm), pp.[2] x; 320. INSCRIBED by the author in black ink to flyleaf: 'To | Mr. & Mrs. F.G. Scott, | with love | from | Mr. & Mrs. "Hugh MacDiarmid," | Whalsay..... More
Last Man Standing: Tales from Tinseltown.
London: Michael O'Mara Books, 2014. [Film Autobiography] SIGNED LIMITED EDITION. Octavo (25 x 17cm), pp.272. Number 2709 of 3000 copies, signed by the author to a tipped-in limitation page. Publisher's black cloth, silver titles to spine, sky blue endpapers, photo-illustrated dust-jacket, and a Hatchards' 'signed copy' wrap-around band and bookmark..... More
Rouge et Noir. The Academicians of 1823, or the Greeks of the Palais Royal and the Clubs of St. James's.
London: 1823. FIRST EDITION. pp.310; 439-456, with hand-coloured frontispiece entitled 'La Roulette'. Not including pages 311 to 438, which were redacted in some cases. Bound in original linen-backed grey boards with paper label to spine, edges untrimmed. Heraldic bookplate to pastedown, bound without flyleaves, minor wear to binding, label toned..... More
Red Eagle. The Story of the Russian Revolution and of Klementy Efremovitch Voroshilov, Marshal and Commissar for Defence of the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics.
London: Hutchinson, 1937. [Military History] INSCRIBED FIRST EDITION. Octavo (22 x 15cm), pp.390 [26]. With a coloured halftone frontispiece, 16 plates (30 illustrations), and 8 maps. With author's gift note in blue ink to the title page: 'For / Percy Muir / With the best of / good wishes /..... More
MacDiarmid: An Illustrated Biography of Christopher Murray Grieve (Hugh MacDiarmid).
Edinburgh: Gordon Wright Publishing, 1977. [Literary Biography] SIGNED LIMITED EDITION, an association copy. Quarto (32 x 22cm), pp.176. Number 22 of just 50 copies SIGNED in blue ink by both MacDiarmid (to title page) and the author (to final leaf of preface). Also with five official photographic prints, and a...... More
Westmorland, Cumberland, Durham and Northumberland, Illustrated. From Original Drawings by Thomas Allom, George Pickering etc., with Descriptions by T. Rose.
London: H. Fisher, R. Fisher, and P. Jackson, 1832-1834. [Northern Topography] FIRST EDITIONS. Three volumes bound as two. Folio (29 x 23cm), pp.[2] 116; pp.[6] 117-220. With 111 engraved plates, including a vignette title page to volume I and a frontispiece to volume II. Contemporary maroon half calf with raised..... More
Complete Life of The Right Honourable Winston L. Spencer Churchill. Life-Stories of Success No.2 Soldier and Statesman.
London: The Self-Help Press, no date [circa 1910]. [Self-Help / Political Biography] RARE ORIGINAL PAMPHLET. Octavo (19 x 13cm), pp.96. Publisher's paper covers illustrated with a photograph by Elliott and Fry, stapled twice and priced at 2d. Crumbling to dust as you read this; as brown as they come and..... More
Those Three. Forty-Four Cartoons.
London: George G. Harrap and Co. Ltd., no date [1942]. [Second World War] FIRST EDITION. Oblong octavo (14 x 21cm), pp.[48] unpaginated. Publisher's wraps printed in red and black with printed price of 1' net. Stapled twice to spine. Three page introduction followed by forty-four full page cartoons with captions..... More
History of the Wars of the French Revolution, from the Breaking Out of the War in 1792, to the Restoration of a General Peace in 1815; comprehending the Civil History of Great Britain and France, during that Period.
London: printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1817. [European History] FIRST EDITION. Two volumes bound as one. Quarto (27 x 22 x 9cm), pp.[4]; 539; [1]; pp.[4]; 595; [1]. With a number of maps, some folding, and copper engraved portraits, including a frontispiece to each volume. Contemporary full..... More
History of the Seventh Regiment of New York 1806-1889.
New York, NY: Published by the Seventh Regiment, 1890. [American Military History] FIRST EDITION, INSCRIBED ASSOCIATION COPY. Complete in two volumes. Large octavo (25 x 17cm), pp.[2] xviii; 498 [2]; pp.[2] xii; 543 [3]. With numerous in-text vignettes and woodcuts, as well as 11 engraved portraits, including a frontispiece to..... More
P.G. Wodehouse: A Biography.
London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1982. [Literary Biography] UNCORRECTED PROOF. Octavo (26 x 18cm), pp.xviii; 399 [7]. With two suites of four double-sided black and white photographic plates. With a 'Proof Copy' statement pasted to half-title stating probable price and publication date. Publisher's completely blank white soft covers, titled by hand..... More
The History and Antiquities of Dartford. With Topographical Notices of the Neighbourhood.
London: John Russell Smith, 1844. [Kent] FIRST EDITION, SUBSCRIBER'S COPY WITH MLS. Octavo (24 x 16cm), pp.xxvi; [1]; 478; [2]. Modern russet cloth, gilt titles to a red calf label to spine, the binding done by Canterbury Bookbinders. Portrait frontispiece and hand-coloured engraved title page plus fourteen further plates (some..... More
Huntsmen Past and Present. Illustrated from contemporary prints and from original watercolour drawings by the Author.
London, Eyre and Spottiswoode, New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1929. Quarto, with 21 plates in colour and black and white, pp. [14], 91. Publisher's vellum spine with buckram boards, t.e.g. Fine. SIGNED LIMITED EDITION. Limited Edition of only 150 copies of which this is no.45. More
A Compendious History of Sussex, Topographical, Archaeological & Anecdotical. Containing an Index to the first Twenty Volumes of the " Sussex Archaeological Collections."
Lewes: George P. Bacon, 1870. [Sussex History and Topography] FINELY BOUND FIRST EDITION. Complete in two volumes. Octavo (22 x 15cm), pp.[8] xxx; 270 [2]; pp.[6] 278; xiv [2]. With the folding map to volume I, and EXTRA ILLUSTRATED with 78 additional topographical engravings, carefully trimmed and mounted to fit..... More
The Autobiography of Arthur Machen.
London: The Richards Press, 1951. [Autobiography] FIRST EDITION WITH ASSOCIATED LETTERS. Octavo (21 x 14cm), pp.308. Publisher's red cloth titled in gilt to spine, top-edge red, photographic frontispiece of author, two further photographic plates. Loosely tipped in are three associated items; A letter from Morchand Bishop to News Chronicle journalist..... More
Indian States and the New Regime.
Sitamau: [Privately printed], 1937. [Indian history and politics] INSCRIBED ADVANCE COPY. First edition. Octavo (23 x 15cm), pp.xxvi; 469 [3]. INSCRIBED by the author in blue ink to flyleaf: 'Presented to the | most Honourable the Marquess of | Zetland, P.C., G.C.S.I., | G.C.I.E., etc. | the Secretary of State..... More
The Romish Horseleech: or, an Impartial Account of the Intolerable Charge of Popery to this Nation, In an Historical Remembrance of some of those Prodigious summs of money heretofore extorted from all degrees during the exercise of the Papal power here. To which is Annexed an Essay of the Supremacy of the King of England.
London: Printed by R.W. for Ralph Smith, 1674. [Anti-Catholic Propaganda] FIRST EDITION. Octavo (17 x 11cm), pp.[32]; 286; [4]. Later (likely late eighteenth-century) brown straight grained calf, with gilt titles to a black label, and gilt decorations to spine. Trimmed, with all edges and endpapers marbled. Some black ink scribbling..... More
The Innocents Abroad. The Innocents abroad: a book of travel in pursuit of pleasure.
London: John Camden Hotten, 1870. [Travel literature] FIRST UK EDITION. Octavo (19 x 13cm), pp.[iv]; 256; [xxviii]. Publisher's green cloth, neatly rebacked with the original spine laid on, with some loss, blind stamped design to boards, brown coated endpapers. Advertisements at front pp.i-ii and rear pp.i-xxviii; 'Very Important New Books..... More
Kings of England: Characters of the Kings and Queens of England; Selected from the Best Historians. To which is added, a Table of the Succession of each, from Alfred to the present Time. With Heads, by T. Bewick, Newcastle.
London: Printed for E. Newbury, 1795. [English Royalty] FIRST EDITION. Duodecimo (14 x 9cm), pp.viii; 204 [4]. With an engraved frontispiece, vignette title page, and a vignette bust portrait for each Monarch, all by Thomas Bewick. Recently re-backed in brown calf, with gilt titles to spine and the original brown..... More
Punchard's Agency [and] Jeeves and the Unbidden Guest [and] The British Campaign in France [and] Uneasy Money [and] The Man-Trap [in] The Strand Magazine. Volume 53, numbers 315, 316 and 317
London: George Newnes, March to May 1917. [Literary Magazine] FIRST APPEARANCES. Three magazines. Octavo (27 x 19cm), pp.50; 209-312; 51-58; pp.50; 313-416; 51-58; pp.40; 417-512; 41-48. Liberally illustrated in black and white throughout. Publisher's blue paper covers, titled in red and navy, and priced at 7d. Presented in a navy..... More
London Illustrated 1604-1851. A Survey and Index of Topographical Books and Their Plates.
London: The Library Association, 1983. [Topographical Bibliography] FINELY BOUND FIRST EDITION. Quarto (27 x 22cm), pp.[4] xxxiv; 586 [6]. With 12 double-sided black and white illustrated plates, as well as a frontispiece. Number 5 of 1000 copies, SIGNED by the author in black ink to limitation leaf. In contemporary dark..... More
The Temple Church.
London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1843. [Mediaeval Architecture] FIRST EDITION. Octavo (21 x 15cm), pp.viii; 127 [5]. With five fine lithographic plates by Brandard, including a frontispiece and decorated title page. Engravings also to chapter headings. Publisher's cloth stamped in blind and in gilt to spine and upper, yellow-coated..... More
Sinks of London Laid Open: A Pocket Companion for the Uninitiated, to which is added a Modern Flash Dictionary containing all the Cant Words, Slang Terms, and Flash Phrases now in Vogue, with a list of the sixty orders of Prime Coves, the whole Forming a True Picture of London Life, Cadging Made Easy, the He-She Man, Doings of the Modern Greeks, Snooking Kens Depicted, the Common Lodging-house Gallants, Lessons to Lovers of Dice, the Gaming Table, etc.
London: J. Duncombe, 1848 [circa 1885]. [London] VINTAGE COPY, a later reprint. Octavo (19 x 13cm), pp.131 [1]. With an advertisement for 'Annals of Fashionable Gallantry' (1885) at rear. With a folding colour frontispiece, as well as numerous in-text woodcuts, by Cruikshank. Publisher's crocodile skin-effect tan cloth with gilt titles..... More