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
Love Night, A Laotian Gallantry -
Powys Mathers, John Buckland Wright (engraver)
1936 - The Golden Cockerel Press, London - First Edition - Number 112 of 195 copies.
Number 112 of 120 copies on English vellum-paper, out of a total printing of 200. Exquisitely illustrated with fifteen wood engravings, consisting of ten full page engravings, four half page engravings, and the illustrated title page. In the publisher’s fine binding by Sangorski & Sutcliffe.
Powys Mathers’ play about a festival night in a Laotian village. John Buckland Wright’s first work for the Golden Cockerel Press.
Although less explicit than the Paris based John Buckland Wright would have liked, ‘when ‘Love Night’ appeared in Autumn of 1936, it was warm, but not too warm. The production was superbly successful. Printed on a smooth-surfaced Japon vellum, the presswork was immaculate, and the book’s effect was what both publisher’ and artist had hoped for.’ [Cave & Manson].
Powys Mathers’ ‘Love Nights’ was considered for publication in 1934, but postponed because the partners wished to find the right illustrator, two years later it became John Buckland Wright’s first commission for the press.
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Price HK$ 8,000
1936 - The Golden Cockerel Press, London - First Edition - Number 112 of 195 copies.
Number 112 of 120 copies on English vellum-paper, out of a total printing of 200. Exquisitely illustrated with fifteen wood engravings, consisting of ten full page engravings, four half page engravings, and the illustrated title page. In the publisher’s fine binding by Sangorski & Sutcliffe.Powys Mathers’ play about a festival night in a Laotian village. John Buckland Wright’s first work for the Golden Cockerel Press.
Although less explicit than the Paris based John Buckland Wright would have liked, ‘when ‘Love Night’ appeared in Autumn of 1936, it was warm, but not too warm. The production was superbly successful. Printed on a smooth-surfaced Japon vellum, the presswork was immaculate, and the book’s effect was what both publisher’ and artist had hoped for.’ [Cave & Manson].
Powys Mathers’ ‘Love Nights’ was considered for publication in 1934, but postponed because the partners wished to find the right illustrator, two years later it became John Buckland Wright’s first commission for the press.
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Price HK$ 8,000
On a Chinese Screen -
William Somerset Maugham
1922 - William Heinemann, London - First English Edition
A near fine copy in a bright clean and unrestored example of the scarce dust jacket.
Maugham spent the winter months of 1919 travelling fifteen hundred miles up the Yangtze river. Always more interested in people than places, he noted down acute and finely crafted sketches of those he met on countless scraps of paper. In the resulting collection we encounter Western missionaries, army officers and company managers who are culturally out of their depth in the immensity of the Chinese civilisation. Maugham keenly observes, and gently ridicules, their dogged and oblivious persistence with the life they know (from the introduction to the Penguin Vintage Edition). In total 58 sketches.
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Price HK$ 11,000
1922 - William Heinemann, London - First English Edition
A near fine copy in a bright clean and unrestored example of the scarce dust jacket.Maugham spent the winter months of 1919 travelling fifteen hundred miles up the Yangtze river. Always more interested in people than places, he noted down acute and finely crafted sketches of those he met on countless scraps of paper. In the resulting collection we encounter Western missionaries, army officers and company managers who are culturally out of their depth in the immensity of the Chinese civilisation. Maugham keenly observes, and gently ridicules, their dogged and oblivious persistence with the life they know (from the introduction to the Penguin Vintage Edition). In total 58 sketches.
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Price HK$ 11,000
Cakes and Ale - or - The Skeleton in the Cupboard -
William Somerset Maugham
1930 - William Heinemann Ltd, London - First Edition, First Issue
“Enjoy yourself while you have the chance, I say; we shall all be dead in a hundred years and what will anything matter then?”
First edition, in outstanding example of the dust jacket, of Somerset Maugham's classic satirical novel; a story of literary poseurs, fame, hypocrisy and freedom, narrated by novelist William Ashenden, Maugham's alter-ego who had already appeared in 'Ashenden', the fictional account of his Secret Service work in World War I.
The book I like best is Cakes and Ale. It was an amusing book to write.
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Price HK$ 8,500
1930 - William Heinemann Ltd, London - First Edition, First Issue
“Enjoy yourself while you have the chance, I say; we shall all be dead in a hundred years and what will anything matter then?” First edition, in outstanding example of the dust jacket, of Somerset Maugham's classic satirical novel; a story of literary poseurs, fame, hypocrisy and freedom, narrated by novelist William Ashenden, Maugham's alter-ego who had already appeared in 'Ashenden', the fictional account of his Secret Service work in World War I.
The book I like best is Cakes and Ale. It was an amusing book to write.
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Price HK$ 8,500
The Mixture as Before -
William Somerset Maugham
1940 - William Heinemann Ltd, London & Toronto - First Edition
A superb example of the first edition of this short story collection, the tone prone dust jacket bright and with the scarce wrap around band not noted in either bibliography.
“Maugham, somewhat ironically, took the title of this book from a review in ‘The Times’ of his last volume of short stories which was headed ‘The Mixture as Before’.” [Stott]
‘A top ranking story teller presents another grand collection, not a poor one in the lot. Maugham's expert craftsmanship is at is best in this medium, I think. These stories stem from other backgrounds than his familiar Far East setting, with England, the Continent and French Guiana as the basis. There are human interest bits, brief drama, humour; some have an O'Henry twist to the end; all show thorough understanding and sympathy with his fellow man.’ [Kirkus Reviews].
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Price HK$ 4,500
1940 - William Heinemann Ltd, London & Toronto - First Edition
A superb example of the first edition of this short story collection, the tone prone dust jacket bright and with the scarce wrap around band not noted in either bibliography.“Maugham, somewhat ironically, took the title of this book from a review in ‘The Times’ of his last volume of short stories which was headed ‘The Mixture as Before’.” [Stott]
‘A top ranking story teller presents another grand collection, not a poor one in the lot. Maugham's expert craftsmanship is at is best in this medium, I think. These stories stem from other backgrounds than his familiar Far East setting, with England, the Continent and French Guiana as the basis. There are human interest bits, brief drama, humour; some have an O'Henry twist to the end; all show thorough understanding and sympathy with his fellow man.’ [Kirkus Reviews].
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Price HK$ 4,500
Theatre: A Novel -
William Somerset Maugham
1937 - William Heinemann Ltd, London Toronto - First English Edition, second state.
A bright sharp and near fine copy of Maugham's tribute to the vocation of an actress.
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Price HK$ 2,000
1937 - William Heinemann Ltd, London Toronto - First English Edition, second state.
A bright sharp and near fine copy of Maugham's tribute to the vocation of an actress.
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Price HK$ 2,000
Beast in View -
Margaret Millar
1955 - Random House, New York - First Edition
The psychological thriller, ‘strongly plotted accounts of eruptions from the depths of the unconscious’, by a mistress of suspense at the top of her form, winner of numerous awards and top rankings including the 1956 Edgar Allan Poe Award, and one of the Mystery Writers of America's Top 100 Mystery Novels of All Time. Difficult to find in such a bright dust jacket.
Beast in View was adapted for The Alfred Hitchcock Hour in the 60s and Alfred Hitchcock Presents in the 80s. Writing about the book in 1984 for the New York Times, Anthony Boucher said, it was “written with such complete realization of every character that the most bitter antagonist of mystery fiction may be forced to acknowledge it as a work of art.” - Jake Hinson, Hall of Famers, Criminal Element.
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Price HK$ 4,000
1955 - Random House, New York - First Edition
The psychological thriller, ‘strongly plotted accounts of eruptions from the depths of the unconscious’, by a mistress of suspense at the top of her form, winner of numerous awards and top rankings including the 1956 Edgar Allan Poe Award, and one of the Mystery Writers of America's Top 100 Mystery Novels of All Time. Difficult to find in such a bright dust jacket.Beast in View was adapted for The Alfred Hitchcock Hour in the 60s and Alfred Hitchcock Presents in the 80s. Writing about the book in 1984 for the New York Times, Anthony Boucher said, it was “written with such complete realization of every character that the most bitter antagonist of mystery fiction may be forced to acknowledge it as a work of art.” - Jake Hinson, Hall of Famers, Criminal Element.
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Price HK$ 4,000
SOLD - The Chronicles of Clovis -
H.H. Munro (”Saki”)
1912 - John Lane, London - First Edition
‘The world ‘Saki’ populates is a world full of sunny humour and zephyrs of merriment, where wit and wisdom are one and the same thing. Let us live there and laugh unrestrainedly’ – Morning Post
A fine and thus scarce first edition of one of ‘Saki’s’ most popular collections of 28 short stories, many of them featuring the disenchanted hero Clovis Sangrail, and including one of his best tales, ‘Tobermory’, the story of a temperamental and occasionally malicious talking cat named Tobermory who, with magnificent disdain for the rules of social interaction, repeats back to both hostess and guests every rude piece of gossip uttered by each one about the others.
‘Perhaps the most graceful spokesman for England’s ‘Golden Afternoon’ – the slow and peaceful years before the First World War – ’Saki’s’ macabre, satirical, and occasionally supernatural tales skewered the banality and hypocrisy of polite Edwardian society, and established him as an undisputed master of the short story and one of the great writers of a bygone era.
‘Like Wilde and Wodehouse, ‘Saki’ knew his way round the clubs and country houses of the upper classes, whose absurdities and hypocrisies he exposed with razor-sharp wit.... One is delighted to discover a writer with a vision of humanity shot through with a pessimism as bleak as that of Swift, Celine, Bernhard, Kingsley Amis’ – Patrick McGrath, British novelist
Hector Hugh Munro (pseudonym ‘Saki’, 1870-1916) was the son of a military police offer in British-controlled Burma. After the death of his mother in 1872, he and his siblings were sent to live with extended family in Devon, England. Considered sickly as a child, and subsequently tutored at home, Munro was later sent to boarding school. In 1893, he joined the Indian Imperial police in Burma (where he reportedly kept a tiger cub as a pet) before devoting himself to writing in 1894. While working as a foreign correspondent in the Balkans, Russia, and Paris, he began to publish numerous stories and sketches in newspapers, as well as plays and historical studies. He also received public recognition for a series of political satires based upon Alice in Wonderland. Although officially over age, he enlisted for service in WWI, and was killed in action near in Beaumont-Hamel, France.
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Price HK$ 0
1912 - John Lane, London - First Edition
‘The world ‘Saki’ populates is a world full of sunny humour and zephyrs of merriment, where wit and wisdom are one and the same thing. Let us live there and laugh unrestrainedly’ – Morning PostA fine and thus scarce first edition of one of ‘Saki’s’ most popular collections of 28 short stories, many of them featuring the disenchanted hero Clovis Sangrail, and including one of his best tales, ‘Tobermory’, the story of a temperamental and occasionally malicious talking cat named Tobermory who, with magnificent disdain for the rules of social interaction, repeats back to both hostess and guests every rude piece of gossip uttered by each one about the others.
‘Perhaps the most graceful spokesman for England’s ‘Golden Afternoon’ – the slow and peaceful years before the First World War – ’Saki’s’ macabre, satirical, and occasionally supernatural tales skewered the banality and hypocrisy of polite Edwardian society, and established him as an undisputed master of the short story and one of the great writers of a bygone era.
‘Like Wilde and Wodehouse, ‘Saki’ knew his way round the clubs and country houses of the upper classes, whose absurdities and hypocrisies he exposed with razor-sharp wit.... One is delighted to discover a writer with a vision of humanity shot through with a pessimism as bleak as that of Swift, Celine, Bernhard, Kingsley Amis’ – Patrick McGrath, British novelist
Hector Hugh Munro (pseudonym ‘Saki’, 1870-1916) was the son of a military police offer in British-controlled Burma. After the death of his mother in 1872, he and his siblings were sent to live with extended family in Devon, England. Considered sickly as a child, and subsequently tutored at home, Munro was later sent to boarding school. In 1893, he joined the Indian Imperial police in Burma (where he reportedly kept a tiger cub as a pet) before devoting himself to writing in 1894. While working as a foreign correspondent in the Balkans, Russia, and Paris, he began to publish numerous stories and sketches in newspapers, as well as plays and historical studies. He also received public recognition for a series of political satires based upon Alice in Wonderland. Although officially over age, he enlisted for service in WWI, and was killed in action near in Beaumont-Hamel, France.
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Price HK$ 0