The Great Gatsby -
F. Scott Fitzgerald, Michael Graves (illustrator)
1984 - The Arion Press, San Francisco - One of 400 copies, signed by Graves
‘So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.’
Exquisitely produced deluxe limited edition of Fitzgerald’s masterpiece, now considered a landmark of 20th century fiction, and the epitome of the Jazz Age in American literature.
A collaboration between Andrew Hoyem of the Arion Press and the great American post-modernist architect and designer Michael Graves (1934-2015), a member of The New York Five and the Memphis Group, and a professor of architecture at Princeton University for nearly forty years.
One of 400 copies, signed by Graves who provides ninety-seven drawings from his interpretation of the novel, including its architectural backdrop, the landscape, gardens, buildings, furnishing, vehicles and any other objects that struck his fancy, such as the liquor bottles and cocktail glasses that are fixtures in the story. The slipcase displays a low relief of a site plan for Graves’ envisioning of Gatsby’s Estate.
Laid-in to the slipcase is a copy of Michael Graves draws Gatsby which provides the background, a brief biography of Graves, and description of the production itself, and the regular prospectus letter.
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Price HK$ 16,000
1984 - The Arion Press, San Francisco - One of 400 copies, signed by Graves
‘So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.’Exquisitely produced deluxe limited edition of Fitzgerald’s masterpiece, now considered a landmark of 20th century fiction, and the epitome of the Jazz Age in American literature.
A collaboration between Andrew Hoyem of the Arion Press and the great American post-modernist architect and designer Michael Graves (1934-2015), a member of The New York Five and the Memphis Group, and a professor of architecture at Princeton University for nearly forty years.
One of 400 copies, signed by Graves who provides ninety-seven drawings from his interpretation of the novel, including its architectural backdrop, the landscape, gardens, buildings, furnishing, vehicles and any other objects that struck his fancy, such as the liquor bottles and cocktail glasses that are fixtures in the story. The slipcase displays a low relief of a site plan for Graves’ envisioning of Gatsby’s Estate.
Laid-in to the slipcase is a copy of Michael Graves draws Gatsby which provides the background, a brief biography of Graves, and description of the production itself, and the regular prospectus letter.
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Price HK$ 16,000
Snickerty Nick & the Giant - Inscribed -
Julia Ellsworth Ford, Arthur Rackham (illustrator), Witter Bynner
1933 - Suttonhouse, Los Angeles - Second Edition
A wonderful association copy of this children’s play inspired by Oscar Wilde’s ‘The Selfish Giant’, inscribed from the author to the legendary stage actress, producer, director, translator and author ‘Eva Le Gallienne, A brave woman who dared to carry out her ideals. In admiration from Julia Emsworth Ford. March 8th 1934, Hollywood Calif.’
Additionally with Eva Le Galliene’s fabulous engraved bookplate designed by the influential set and costume designer Waslav Richard Rychtarik (1894-1982), with a quote from her favourite Ibsen character, Hedda Gabler.
Illustrated by Arthur Rackham with three monochrome plates, and eight full page line drawings.
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Price HK$ 5,000
1933 - Suttonhouse, Los Angeles - Second Edition
A wonderful association copy of this children’s play inspired by Oscar Wilde’s ‘The Selfish Giant’, inscribed from the author to the legendary stage actress, producer, director, translator and author ‘Eva Le Gallienne, A brave woman who dared to carry out her ideals. In admiration from Julia Emsworth Ford. March 8th 1934, Hollywood Calif.’Additionally with Eva Le Galliene’s fabulous engraved bookplate designed by the influential set and costume designer Waslav Richard Rychtarik (1894-1982), with a quote from her favourite Ibsen character, Hedda Gabler.
Illustrated by Arthur Rackham with three monochrome plates, and eight full page line drawings.
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Price HK$ 5,000
A" Is for Alibi. A Kinsey Millhone Mystery - Inscribed -
Sue Grafton
1982 - Holt, New York - First Edition
A fine copy, inscribed –
For Becky with warmest regards
from Kinsey & me
Sue Grafton
Sue 10-27-85
Introducing the sassy California private eye Kinsey Millhone, Sue Grafton’s alter ego, one of the earliest females of the hard-boiled detective variety – ‘There’s no place in a p.i.’s life for impatience, faintheartedness, or sloppiness. I understand the same qualifications apply for housewives’.
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Price HK$ 12,000
1982 - Holt, New York - First Edition
A fine copy, inscribed –For Becky with warmest regards
from Kinsey & me
Sue Grafton
Sue 10-27-85
Introducing the sassy California private eye Kinsey Millhone, Sue Grafton’s alter ego, one of the earliest females of the hard-boiled detective variety – ‘There’s no place in a p.i.’s life for impatience, faintheartedness, or sloppiness. I understand the same qualifications apply for housewives’.
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Price HK$ 12,000
Is She a Lady? A Problem in Autobiography -
Nina Hamnett
1955 - Allan Windgate, London - First Edition
A rare dust jacketed first edition of Nina Hamnett’s second autobiographical work, the first being ‘A Laughing Torso’ [1933], and published only a year before her death.
Although more famous as the ‘Queen of Bohemia’ in Paris and written about first and foremost as a subject for the art of others (from Henri Gaudier-Brzeska to Roger Fry to Walter Sickert, ), she was a well trained and versatile artist in her own right and one of few emerging female artists of the first half of the 20th century.
‘Reading her story as a tale of the emergence of a young woman into the modern art world, her writing – breathless as it can be – creates a pithy, vivid and often amusing picture of what it felt like to throw off the constraints of the Edwardian lady and reinvent yourself as an artist’ - Alicia Foster, Art UK.
Illustrated with seven photographs and six reproductions of her drawings, including one of Anthony Powell from 1927.
Beginning in 1926, Nina Hamnett ‘proceeds to unleash a reckless Niagara of hilarious anecdotes and preposterous incidents of the vintage Bohemian life of London and Paris in the late twenties and early thirties. This was a world of pubs and clubs and parties, of painters, patrons, poets, boxers and tarts, of champagne drunk with the rich, quiet visits to the pawnshop and studio free-for-alls...’
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Price HK$ 5,000
1955 - Allan Windgate, London - First Edition
A rare dust jacketed first edition of Nina Hamnett’s second autobiographical work, the first being ‘A Laughing Torso’ [1933], and published only a year before her death.Although more famous as the ‘Queen of Bohemia’ in Paris and written about first and foremost as a subject for the art of others (from Henri Gaudier-Brzeska to Roger Fry to Walter Sickert, ), she was a well trained and versatile artist in her own right and one of few emerging female artists of the first half of the 20th century.
‘Reading her story as a tale of the emergence of a young woman into the modern art world, her writing – breathless as it can be – creates a pithy, vivid and often amusing picture of what it felt like to throw off the constraints of the Edwardian lady and reinvent yourself as an artist’ - Alicia Foster, Art UK.
Illustrated with seven photographs and six reproductions of her drawings, including one of Anthony Powell from 1927.
Beginning in 1926, Nina Hamnett ‘proceeds to unleash a reckless Niagara of hilarious anecdotes and preposterous incidents of the vintage Bohemian life of London and Paris in the late twenties and early thirties. This was a world of pubs and clubs and parties, of painters, patrons, poets, boxers and tarts, of champagne drunk with the rich, quiet visits to the pawnshop and studio free-for-alls...’
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Price HK$ 5,000
Culinary Jottings: A Treatise in Thirty Chapters on Reformed Cookery for Anglo-Indian Exiles -
Colonel Kenney-Herbert Wyvern
1885 - Higginbotham &, Madras - Fifth Edition
A scarce example of this popular cook book by ‘Wyvern’, expanded and revised from the first edition (’Culinary Jottings for Madras) published seven years earlier. All early editions are scarce because being a working cook book it is prone to all the usual issues that modern cookbooks are also in danger of, combined with the original cheap paper and glues used for its production in Madras.
With numerous chapters including two on ‘Our Curries’ and ‘Curries and Mulligatunny’, as well as ‘Camp Cookery’, ending with a fascinating essay about the British kitchens of India.
Recipes include helpful hints and advice, for example ‘Potted Prawns ought to be oftener seen at Madras than they are’ and suggestions on where to purchase the best potted meats, anecdotes (see ‘Mulligatunny’), a complete chapter titled ‘Notes on Curing of Meat’.
Published by legendary Indian book sellers Higginbotham’s, this work and other titles by ‘Wyvern’ ‘swept Higginbotham’s from being just a book establishment into becoming a part of India’s print and publishing history’ [Bangalore Mirror]
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Price HK$ 3,000
1885 - Higginbotham &, Madras - Fifth Edition
A scarce example of this popular cook book by ‘Wyvern’, expanded and revised from the first edition (’Culinary Jottings for Madras) published seven years earlier. All early editions are scarce because being a working cook book it is prone to all the usual issues that modern cookbooks are also in danger of, combined with the original cheap paper and glues used for its production in Madras.With numerous chapters including two on ‘Our Curries’ and ‘Curries and Mulligatunny’, as well as ‘Camp Cookery’, ending with a fascinating essay about the British kitchens of India.
Recipes include helpful hints and advice, for example ‘Potted Prawns ought to be oftener seen at Madras than they are’ and suggestions on where to purchase the best potted meats, anecdotes (see ‘Mulligatunny’), a complete chapter titled ‘Notes on Curing of Meat’.
Published by legendary Indian book sellers Higginbotham’s, this work and other titles by ‘Wyvern’ ‘swept Higginbotham’s from being just a book establishment into becoming a part of India’s print and publishing history’ [Bangalore Mirror]
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Price HK$ 3,000
A Collection of above Three Hundred Receipts -
Mary Kettilby, By Several Hands
1734 - First Part - Printed for Executrix of Mary Kettilby, London - Fifth Edition of Part I, Fourth Edition of Part II
Originally published in 1714, Kettilby's book was a collective effort, with recipes taken from various sources, as indicated in the Preface: ‘a Number of very Curious and Delicate House-wives Clubb'd to furnish out this Collection’.
It contains a wide-range of recipes and home remedies; the second part, with a separate title-page 'A collection of receipts in cookery, physick and surgery’, as well as 'a great Number of Excellent Receipts, for Preserving and Conserving of Sweet-Meats, &c.'
This work is usually credited with having the first recipe for marmalade. Many of the recipes seem irresistible, like ‘The best orange pudding that ever was tasted’. Of course there are other important and wonderful ‘receipts’ included, covering many areas from mad dog bites, in-growing toenails, thicker hair, and apoplectick pain in the head, to scurvy in the teeth.
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Price HK$ 6,200
1734 - First Part - Printed for Executrix of Mary Kettilby, London - Fifth Edition of Part I, Fourth Edition of Part II
Originally published in 1714, Kettilby's book was a collective effort, with recipes taken from various sources, as indicated in the Preface: ‘a Number of very Curious and Delicate House-wives Clubb'd to furnish out this Collection’. It contains a wide-range of recipes and home remedies; the second part, with a separate title-page 'A collection of receipts in cookery, physick and surgery’, as well as 'a great Number of Excellent Receipts, for Preserving and Conserving of Sweet-Meats, &c.'
This work is usually credited with having the first recipe for marmalade. Many of the recipes seem irresistible, like ‘The best orange pudding that ever was tasted’. Of course there are other important and wonderful ‘receipts’ included, covering many areas from mad dog bites, in-growing toenails, thicker hair, and apoplectick pain in the head, to scurvy in the teeth.
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Price HK$ 6,200
Golf -
Cecil Leitch
1922 - J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia & - First American Edition issued same year as the First English Edition.
‘The golfing life and experiences of this very great English lady golfer’ - Joseph Murdoch, The Library of Golf.
Charlotte Cecilia Pitcairn Leitch (nicknamed Cecil) was the first superstar of women’s golf. In 1914 she won the first of her four British Ladies Amateurs, taking the title from Muriel Dodd. Her opportunity to possibly win several more was interrupted for five years during the First World War. She retired having won 12 national titles, five French Ladies Amateurs and one Canadian Women's Amateur.
With fifty illustrations, including photographic plate laid onto front covers, and full page black and white photographs.
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Price HK$ 1,800
1922 - J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia & - First American Edition issued same year as the First English Edition.
‘The golfing life and experiences of this very great English lady golfer’ - Joseph Murdoch, The Library of Golf.Charlotte Cecilia Pitcairn Leitch (nicknamed Cecil) was the first superstar of women’s golf. In 1914 she won the first of her four British Ladies Amateurs, taking the title from Muriel Dodd. Her opportunity to possibly win several more was interrupted for five years during the First World War. She retired having won 12 national titles, five French Ladies Amateurs and one Canadian Women's Amateur.
With fifty illustrations, including photographic plate laid onto front covers, and full page black and white photographs.
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Price HK$ 1,800
The Lady's Assistant for Regulating and Supplying her Table, Being a Complete System of Cookery -
Charlotte Mason
1777 - J. Walter, London - Third Edition
A particularly clean copy of this important but much neglected eighteenth century cookery book. Unusually, the table settings show layouts for more ordinary households as well as affluent ones, and the recipes follow this pattern. Scarce in any early editions.
‘Mrs Mason's lucidly composed English makes her delightful recipes as easy to follow today as they were in the eighteenth century, enabling the adventurous modern cook to re-create the extraordinary food of the Age of George III without a great deal of difficulty. Her fascinating bills of fare are invaluable to historians of food and dining for the insight they afford into the mores of Georgian table service.'
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Price HK$ 8,000
1777 - J. Walter, London - Third Edition
A particularly clean copy of this important but much neglected eighteenth century cookery book. Unusually, the table settings show layouts for more ordinary households as well as affluent ones, and the recipes follow this pattern. Scarce in any early editions.‘Mrs Mason's lucidly composed English makes her delightful recipes as easy to follow today as they were in the eighteenth century, enabling the adventurous modern cook to re-create the extraordinary food of the Age of George III without a great deal of difficulty. Her fascinating bills of fare are invaluable to historians of food and dining for the insight they afford into the mores of Georgian table service.'
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Price HK$ 8,000