Tales of the Jazz Age -
F. Scott Fitzgerald
1922 - Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York - First Edition, First State [See Bibliographical Note for details]
A tight and bright first edition of Fitzgerald’s second collection of short stories.
Eleven tales of the roaring twenties which brings to life the dazzling excesses, stunning contrasts, and simmering unrest of a glittering era. This celebrated anthology features several of Fitzgerald’s acclaimed works, including the novella ‘May Day’, ‘The Diamond as Big as the Ritz’, a fable of fortune and greed, and his more fanciful creation of a man who ages in reverse, ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’, later adapted for the 2008 film directed by David Fincher and starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett.
'He was better than he knew, for in fact and in the literary sense he invented a generation' – NY Times.
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Price HK$ 8,000
1922 - Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York - First Edition, First State [See Bibliographical Note for details]
A tight and bright first edition of Fitzgerald’s second collection of short stories.Eleven tales of the roaring twenties which brings to life the dazzling excesses, stunning contrasts, and simmering unrest of a glittering era. This celebrated anthology features several of Fitzgerald’s acclaimed works, including the novella ‘May Day’, ‘The Diamond as Big as the Ritz’, a fable of fortune and greed, and his more fanciful creation of a man who ages in reverse, ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’, later adapted for the 2008 film directed by David Fincher and starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett.
'He was better than he knew, for in fact and in the literary sense he invented a generation' – NY Times.
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Price HK$ 8,000
Our Man in Havana - An Entertainment -
Graham Greene
1958 - Heinemann, London Melbourne Toronto - First Edition
A fine first edition of this ‘espionage thriller, a penetrating character study, and a political satire that still resonates today. Conceived as one of Graham Greene’s entertainments, it tells of MI6’s man in Havana, Wormold, a former vacuum-cleaner salesman turned reluctant secret agent out of economic necessity.
To keep his job, he files bogus reports based on Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare and dreams up military installations from vacuum-cleaner designs. Then his stories start coming disturbingly true.’ - Penguin Classics Review.
- "I don't want any job. Why do you pick on me?
- "Patriotic Englishmen. Been here for years. Respected member of the European Trader's Association. We must have our man in Havana, you know. Submarines need fuel. Dictators drift together. Big ones draw in the little ones.
- "Atomic Submarines don't need fuel."
- "Quite right, old man, quite right..."
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Price HK$ 2,900
1958 - Heinemann, London Melbourne Toronto - First Edition
A fine first edition of this ‘espionage thriller, a penetrating character study, and a political satire that still resonates today. Conceived as one of Graham Greene’s entertainments, it tells of MI6’s man in Havana, Wormold, a former vacuum-cleaner salesman turned reluctant secret agent out of economic necessity.To keep his job, he files bogus reports based on Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare and dreams up military installations from vacuum-cleaner designs. Then his stories start coming disturbingly true.’ - Penguin Classics Review.
- "I don't want any job. Why do you pick on me?
- "Patriotic Englishmen. Been here for years. Respected member of the European Trader's Association. We must have our man in Havana, you know. Submarines need fuel. Dictators drift together. Big ones draw in the little ones.
- "Atomic Submarines don't need fuel."
- "Quite right, old man, quite right..."
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Price HK$ 2,900
A Burnt-Out Case -
Graham Greene
1961 - Heinemann, London Melbourne Toronto - First Edition in English
A fine copy of Greene’s novel set in the Belgian Congo.
Querry, a world famous architect, is the victim of a terrible attack of indifference: he no longer finds meaning in art or pleasure in life. Arriving anonymously at a Congo leper village, he is diagnosed as the mental equivalent of a 'burnt-out case', a leper mutilated by disease and amputation. Querry slowly moves towards a cure, his mind getting clearer as he works for the colony. However, in the heat of the tropics, no relationship with a married woman, will ever be taken as innocent...
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Price HK$ 2,000
1961 - Heinemann, London Melbourne Toronto - First Edition in English
A fine copy of Greene’s novel set in the Belgian Congo.Querry, a world famous architect, is the victim of a terrible attack of indifference: he no longer finds meaning in art or pleasure in life. Arriving anonymously at a Congo leper village, he is diagnosed as the mental equivalent of a 'burnt-out case', a leper mutilated by disease and amputation. Querry slowly moves towards a cure, his mind getting clearer as he works for the colony. However, in the heat of the tropics, no relationship with a married woman, will ever be taken as innocent...
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Price HK$ 2,000
The Quiet American -
Graham Greene
1955 - William Heinemann Ltd, London - First Edition
Greene’s famous work of fiction on Vietnam, a rich portrait of Saigon during the 1950's. Controversial, and considered anti-American at the time. The basis of two films.
A fine first edition in near fine dust jacket and in scarce matching red ‘Daily Mail Book of the Month’ selection wrap-around band.
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Price HK$ 2,800
1955 - William Heinemann Ltd, London - First Edition
Greene’s famous work of fiction on Vietnam, a rich portrait of Saigon during the 1950's. Controversial, and considered anti-American at the time. The basis of two films.A fine first edition in near fine dust jacket and in scarce matching red ‘Daily Mail Book of the Month’ selection wrap-around band.
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Price HK$ 2,800
Detection Unlimited -
Georgette Heyer
1953 - William Heinemann Ltd, London - First Edition
Featuring Chief Inspector Hemingway and Inspector Harbottle.
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Price HK$ 1,200
1953 - William Heinemann Ltd, London - First Edition
Featuring Chief Inspector Hemingway and Inspector Harbottle.
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Price HK$ 1,200
Lions and Shadows - An Education in the Twenties -
Christopher Isherwood
1938 - Leonard & Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press, London - First Edition
The first of Isherwood’s fictional biographies. A captivating account of a young novelist’s development in the literary culture of 1920s Cambridge and London and of his experiences as he forged lifelong friendships with his peers W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender, and Edward Upward.
‘That young man holds the future of the English novel in his hands.’ - W. Somerset Maugham, after reading Lions and Shadows.
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Price HK$ 2,800
1938 - Leonard & Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press, London - First Edition
The first of Isherwood’s fictional biographies. A captivating account of a young novelist’s development in the literary culture of 1920s Cambridge and London and of his experiences as he forged lifelong friendships with his peers W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender, and Edward Upward.‘That young man holds the future of the English novel in his hands.’ - W. Somerset Maugham, after reading Lions and Shadows.
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Price HK$ 2,800
Sons and Lovers -
D. H. Lawrence
1913 - Duckworth & Co., London - First Edition, Roberts variant 1 with cancel title (see full description for more detail)
Lawrence’s unforgettable and closely autobiographical novel, the compelling story of Gertrude and Walter Morel set amidst the working-class background of the author’s native Nottinghamshire.
Embittered by her uneducated, and often abusive husband Walter, the delicate Gertrude turns her marriage into a battle ground, and devotes her life to her children, William and Paul, determined that they should not follow their father into a life working in the coal mines, but with inevitable consequences.
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Price HK$ 6,000
1913 - Duckworth & Co., London - First Edition, Roberts variant 1 with cancel title (see full description for more detail)
Lawrence’s unforgettable and closely autobiographical novel, the compelling story of Gertrude and Walter Morel set amidst the working-class background of the author’s native Nottinghamshire. Embittered by her uneducated, and often abusive husband Walter, the delicate Gertrude turns her marriage into a battle ground, and devotes her life to her children, William and Paul, determined that they should not follow their father into a life working in the coal mines, but with inevitable consequences.
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Price HK$ 6,000
RESERVED - The English Governess at the Siamese Court: Being Recollections of Six Years in the Royal Palace at Bangkok -
Anna Harriette Leonowens
1870 - Fields, Boston - First Edition
A lovely bright first edition of Leonowens’ remarkable memoirs, rare in the original gilt decorated cloth.
The basis for Rodgers and Hammerstein's 1951 hit musical ‘The King and I’, starring Gertrude Lawrence as Leonowens and Yul Brynner as the King.
Illustrated with sixteen black and white engraved illustrations from photographs presented to the author by the new King of Siam, who owed his education to ‘that tiresome, naughty and meddlesome, Mem Leonowens . . . a good and true lady’.
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Price HK$ 8,000
1870 - Fields, Boston - First Edition
A lovely bright first edition of Leonowens’ remarkable memoirs, rare in the original gilt decorated cloth.The basis for Rodgers and Hammerstein's 1951 hit musical ‘The King and I’, starring Gertrude Lawrence as Leonowens and Yul Brynner as the King.
Illustrated with sixteen black and white engraved illustrations from photographs presented to the author by the new King of Siam, who owed his education to ‘that tiresome, naughty and meddlesome, Mem Leonowens . . . a good and true lady’.
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Price HK$ 8,000