A Treatise of Gauging: Or, the Modern Practical Gauger. Illustrated with necessary Examples -
Thomas Moss
1779 - Printed for G. Robinson, London - The Third Edition, Greatly Enlarged and Improved by the Author
Illustrated with large folding plate to the rear, and numerous in-text diagrams and tables. All editions of this work are scarce.
A "gauger" was an officer whose business it was to ascertain the contents of casks, mainly to assist in the prevention of illicit shipments of alcohol. In so doing it was necessary to apply and in some cases adapt mathematical formulae which were considered extremely advanced at the time. Thomas Moss, an exciseman and gauger, was also a well known mathematician, publishing the ‘Mathematical Magazine’ together with George Witchell (1738-85), and being referenced for his clear and concise early descriptions of a number of geometrical properties.
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Price HK$ 4,000
1779 - Printed for G. Robinson, London - The Third Edition, Greatly Enlarged and Improved by the Author
Illustrated with large folding plate to the rear, and numerous in-text diagrams and tables. All editions of this work are scarce.A "gauger" was an officer whose business it was to ascertain the contents of casks, mainly to assist in the prevention of illicit shipments of alcohol. In so doing it was necessary to apply and in some cases adapt mathematical formulae which were considered extremely advanced at the time. Thomas Moss, an exciseman and gauger, was also a well known mathematician, publishing the ‘Mathematical Magazine’ together with George Witchell (1738-85), and being referenced for his clear and concise early descriptions of a number of geometrical properties.
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Price HK$ 4,000
The Land of the Dragon -
William Spencer Percival
1889 - Hurst and Blackett, London - First Edition
A scarce and bright first edition of Spencer Percival’s part travel diary, part anthropological study. Percival, a British civil servant stationed in Shanghai, not only describes boat trips through the Yangtze Gorge, but also his thoughts on a variety of topics, with a chapter on Opium, it is also one of the few books to cover wildfowl shooting in China.
With a wood-engraved frontispiece of ‘The Bund, Shanghai’, illustrated title page, and a folding colour map of the Upper Yangtze to rear.
Czech in ‘Asian Big Game Hunting Books’ notes - ‘Primarily valuable for its descriptions of the countryside bordering the Yangtze River, this work also includes the author’s bird shooting trips in the region. Of big game interest is his encounter with wild boar in the Wu-chow-Shan Hills.’
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Price HK$ 6,000
1889 - Hurst and Blackett, London - First Edition
A scarce and bright first edition of Spencer Percival’s part travel diary, part anthropological study. Percival, a British civil servant stationed in Shanghai, not only describes boat trips through the Yangtze Gorge, but also his thoughts on a variety of topics, with a chapter on Opium, it is also one of the few books to cover wildfowl shooting in China.With a wood-engraved frontispiece of ‘The Bund, Shanghai’, illustrated title page, and a folding colour map of the Upper Yangtze to rear.
Czech in ‘Asian Big Game Hunting Books’ notes - ‘Primarily valuable for its descriptions of the countryside bordering the Yangtze River, this work also includes the author’s bird shooting trips in the region. Of big game interest is his encounter with wild boar in the Wu-chow-Shan Hills.’
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Price HK$ 6,000
Vanity Dies Hard - Signed -
Ruth Rendell
1966 - John Long, London - First Edition
A fine copy in bright dust jacket, signed by the author to title page.
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Price HK$ 9,000
1966 - John Long, London - First Edition
A fine copy in bright dust jacket, signed by the author to title page.
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Price HK$ 9,000
Death at Breakfast -
John Rhode
1936 - Published for The Crime Club by Collins, London - First Edition
The rather scarce first edition, with only a modicum of sunning to spine preventing it from being a fine copy.
‘Victor Harleston awoke with uncharacteristic optimism. Today he would be rich at last. Half an hour later, he gulped down his breakfast coffee and pitched to the floor, gasping and twitching. When the doctor arrived, he recognised instantly that it was a fatal case of poisoning and called in Scotland Yard.
Despite an almost complete absence of clues, the circumstances were so suspicious that Inspector Hanslet soon referred the evidence to his friend and mentor, Dr Lancelot Priestley, whose deductions revealed a diabolically ingenious murder that would require equally fiendish ingenuity to solve’. [Harper Collins].
‘Death at Breakfast is full of John Rhode’s specialities: a new and excellently ingenious method of murder, a good story, and a strong chain of deduction.’ - Daily Telegraph.
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Price HK$ 2,000
1936 - Published for The Crime Club by Collins, London - First Edition
The rather scarce first edition, with only a modicum of sunning to spine preventing it from being a fine copy.‘Victor Harleston awoke with uncharacteristic optimism. Today he would be rich at last. Half an hour later, he gulped down his breakfast coffee and pitched to the floor, gasping and twitching. When the doctor arrived, he recognised instantly that it was a fatal case of poisoning and called in Scotland Yard.
Despite an almost complete absence of clues, the circumstances were so suspicious that Inspector Hanslet soon referred the evidence to his friend and mentor, Dr Lancelot Priestley, whose deductions revealed a diabolically ingenious murder that would require equally fiendish ingenuity to solve’. [Harper Collins].
‘Death at Breakfast is full of John Rhode’s specialities: a new and excellently ingenious method of murder, a good story, and a strong chain of deduction.’ - Daily Telegraph.
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Price HK$ 2,000
Some ‘Frightful’ War Pictures -
W. Heath Robinson
1915 - Duckworth & Co., London - First Edition
A bright and large folio first edition of W. Heath Robinson’s World War I era anti-German cartoons, with 24 full pages half-tone illustrations, illustrated title page and endpapers, with his fabulous drawings of unlikely situations, machines, ever-more-unlikely secret weapons, and various comic contraptions, each with amusing titles such as ‘The Trench Presser or Bosch Bayoneter’, ‘Using Syphons of Laughing Gas to overcome the British before an Attack in Force ’, ‘A Swiss Shepherd watching a Battle on the Frontier’, ‘Stiffnecking Tommies by directing Draughts on the British Trenches’, and ‘A Morning Tub on the Imperial Campaigning Car’.
This collection of Robinson’s war illustrations had previously appeared in ‘The Sketch’ and in ‘The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News’. His cartoons of bizarre and improbable machinery were so popular that Britain later adopted the term ‘Heath Robinson’ to refer to absurd inventions.
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Price HK$ 3,000
1915 - Duckworth & Co., London - First Edition
A bright and large folio first edition of W. Heath Robinson’s World War I era anti-German cartoons, with 24 full pages half-tone illustrations, illustrated title page and endpapers, with his fabulous drawings of unlikely situations, machines, ever-more-unlikely secret weapons, and various comic contraptions, each with amusing titles such as ‘The Trench Presser or Bosch Bayoneter’, ‘Using Syphons of Laughing Gas to overcome the British before an Attack in Force ’, ‘A Swiss Shepherd watching a Battle on the Frontier’, ‘Stiffnecking Tommies by directing Draughts on the British Trenches’, and ‘A Morning Tub on the Imperial Campaigning Car’.This collection of Robinson’s war illustrations had previously appeared in ‘The Sketch’ and in ‘The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News’. His cartoons of bizarre and improbable machinery were so popular that Britain later adopted the term ‘Heath Robinson’ to refer to absurd inventions.
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Price HK$ 3,000
Strong Poison, Murder Must Advertise, and The Nine Tailors -
Dorothy L. Sayers
1936 - Victor Gollancz Limited, London - Early Printing. 9th, 8th, & 16th impressions Impression.
Three early printings of these Sayers highlights. Obtaining a first edition set of these three titles in dust jackets would require all the literary detective skills combined in this catalogue, far greater independent wealth than Lord Peter Wimsey, and possessing them may well end up being motive for, well, Bloody Murder!
Alternatively, here we have a scarce bright set of the early ‘Cheap Edition’ in their wonderful and delicate Gollancz dust jackets.
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Price HK$ 3,500
1936 - Victor Gollancz Limited, London - Early Printing. 9th, 8th, & 16th impressions Impression.
Three early printings of these Sayers highlights. Obtaining a first edition set of these three titles in dust jackets would require all the literary detective skills combined in this catalogue, far greater independent wealth than Lord Peter Wimsey, and possessing them may well end up being motive for, well, Bloody Murder!Alternatively, here we have a scarce bright set of the early ‘Cheap Edition’ in their wonderful and delicate Gollancz dust jackets.
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Price HK$ 3,500
The Yu-Chi Stone -
Edmund Snell
1926 - The Macaulay Company, New York - First Edition
First edition in a bright example of this wonderful dust jacket.
‘Picture a hidden world ruled by a Chinese bandit prince, where the God of Evil holds an army of captives in grovelling slavery. Torture and terror are the weapons used to bar the white man’s entrance into this cruel kingdom. Glen Haverstrock, for the love of Louis Stroud, penetrates the concealed empire and out-wits the gruesome black magic of a Chinese fiend.’
‘Mr. Snell has written a story to tempt the most jaded appetites of those seeking for thrills and startling adventures in the quick changing sinister realm of the East’
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Price HK$ 2,200
1926 - The Macaulay Company, New York - First Edition
First edition in a bright example of this wonderful dust jacket.‘Picture a hidden world ruled by a Chinese bandit prince, where the God of Evil holds an army of captives in grovelling slavery. Torture and terror are the weapons used to bar the white man’s entrance into this cruel kingdom. Glen Haverstrock, for the love of Louis Stroud, penetrates the concealed empire and out-wits the gruesome black magic of a Chinese fiend.’
‘Mr. Snell has written a story to tempt the most jaded appetites of those seeking for thrills and startling adventures in the quick changing sinister realm of the East’
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Price HK$ 2,200
Through the Dark Continent -
Henry M. Stanley
1879 - Harper & Brothers, New York - Second American Printing
A superb set in particularly bright and sharp pictorial boards, and without restoration, somewhat scarce in this condition. Illustrated throughout, with 150 full-page and in-text wood engravings. Two large folding maps in pockets at rear of each volume Eastern Half of Equatorial Africa and Western Half of Equatorial Africa; together with folding maps of Stanley and Livingstone falls, a double page map of Lakuga Creek, and five full page maps, all highlighted in colour.
‘In August 1874, Stanley left London for Zanzibar. There he engaged over 300 porters, who were each to carry 60 pounds of goods, arms, and supplies, making it the largest African expedition ever seen.... ‘
By July 1875 he had lost 181 men but gained further support and his ‘armada’ was now 685 men and women strong. In Zanzibar on November 1877 at the end of Stanley’s legendary exploration of the great lakes of Equatorial Africa there were 114 survivors. Stanley returned to England and published ‘Through the Dark Continent’, ‘finally dispelling Livingstone's notion that the Lualaba was the source of the Nile and vindicated Speke's claim that the lake seen on his expedition with Burton was indeed one of the sources’. – R. J. Howgego, Continental Exploration.
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Price HK$ 6,000
1879 - Harper & Brothers, New York - Second American Printing
A superb set in particularly bright and sharp pictorial boards, and without restoration, somewhat scarce in this condition. Illustrated throughout, with 150 full-page and in-text wood engravings. Two large folding maps in pockets at rear of each volume Eastern Half of Equatorial Africa and Western Half of Equatorial Africa; together with folding maps of Stanley and Livingstone falls, a double page map of Lakuga Creek, and five full page maps, all highlighted in colour.‘In August 1874, Stanley left London for Zanzibar. There he engaged over 300 porters, who were each to carry 60 pounds of goods, arms, and supplies, making it the largest African expedition ever seen.... ‘
By July 1875 he had lost 181 men but gained further support and his ‘armada’ was now 685 men and women strong. In Zanzibar on November 1877 at the end of Stanley’s legendary exploration of the great lakes of Equatorial Africa there were 114 survivors. Stanley returned to England and published ‘Through the Dark Continent’, ‘finally dispelling Livingstone's notion that the Lualaba was the source of the Nile and vindicated Speke's claim that the lake seen on his expedition with Burton was indeed one of the sources’. – R. J. Howgego, Continental Exploration.
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Price HK$ 6,000