The Scarlet Letter -
Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Varnum Poor (illustrator)
1941 - The Limited Editions Club, New York - First Edition illustrated by Powers, Number 1, 107 of 1, 500.
‘She had not known the weight until she felt the freedom.’
A handsomely bound limited edition of Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic investigation of the American mind, set in 17th century Boston and written in Salem in 1849-50
Signed by Henry Varnum Poor, whose stone lithograph illustrations enhance Hawthorne’s best known work. With an introduction by Dorothy Canfield.
‘The finest piece of imaginative writing yet put forth in this country. There was a consciousness of this in the welcome that was given it - a satisfaction in the idea of America having produced a novel that belonged to literature and to the forefront of it.’ - Henry James (1879).
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Price HK$ 4,000
1941 - The Limited Editions Club, New York - First Edition illustrated by Powers, Number 1, 107 of 1, 500.
‘She had not known the weight until she felt the freedom.’A handsomely bound limited edition of Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic investigation of the American mind, set in 17th century Boston and written in Salem in 1849-50
Signed by Henry Varnum Poor, whose stone lithograph illustrations enhance Hawthorne’s best known work. With an introduction by Dorothy Canfield.
‘The finest piece of imaginative writing yet put forth in this country. There was a consciousness of this in the welcome that was given it - a satisfaction in the idea of America having produced a novel that belonged to literature and to the forefront of it.’ - Henry James (1879).
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Price HK$ 4,000
Princess Badoura. A Tale from the Arabian Nights -
Laurence Housman, Edmund Dulac (illustrator)
1913 - Hodder and Stoughton, London - First Trade Edition
Intricately and enchantingly bound by Bayntun-Riviere in full crimson morocco, combined with decorative red and gold hand silk-screened Chiyogami endpapers.
Illustrated with ten full-page tipped-in colour plates by Edmund Dulac, each one a delicately worked, beautiful, otherworldly arabesque of old Persia.
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Price HK$ 19,000
1913 - Hodder and Stoughton, London - First Trade Edition
Intricately and enchantingly bound by Bayntun-Riviere in full crimson morocco, combined with decorative red and gold hand silk-screened Chiyogami endpapers.Illustrated with ten full-page tipped-in colour plates by Edmund Dulac, each one a delicately worked, beautiful, otherworldly arabesque of old Persia.
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Price HK$ 19,000
Green Willow and other Japanese Fairy Tales -
Grace James, Warwick Goble (illustrator)
1912 - Macmillan and Co., London - First Octavo Edition
A finely bound copy of this lovely collection of 38 tales and legends, many of them sourced from the Ko-ji-ki, or Record of Ancient Matters, which contains the mythology of Japan, and beautifully illustrated with 16 colour plates by Warwick Goble.
Stories in the collection include ‘Flower of the Peony’, ‘Green Willow’, ‘Tamamo’, ‘The Fox Maiden’, ‘The Flute’, ‘The Moon Maiden’, and ‘The Wind in the Pine Tree’.
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Price HK$ 6,000
1912 - Macmillan and Co., London - First Octavo Edition
A finely bound copy of this lovely collection of 38 tales and legends, many of them sourced from the Ko-ji-ki, or Record of Ancient Matters, which contains the mythology of Japan, and beautifully illustrated with 16 colour plates by Warwick Goble.Stories in the collection include ‘Flower of the Peony’, ‘Green Willow’, ‘Tamamo’, ‘The Fox Maiden’, ‘The Flute’, ‘The Moon Maiden’, and ‘The Wind in the Pine Tree’.
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Price HK$ 6,000
Works -
Thomas Jefferson
1853-55 - John C. Riker, New York
‘I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man’
A superb set of the first collected edition of the works of Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, who voiced the aspirations of a new America as no other individual of his era. As public official, historian, philosopher, and plantation owner, he served his country for over five decades.
Complete in nine volumes, with folding facsimiles and tables. Published by the Order of the Joint Committee of Congress on the Library, from the Original Manuscripts deposited in the department of state. With explanatory notes, tables of contents, and a copious index to the whole, by the editor H. A. Washington.
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Price HK$ 29,000
1853-55 - John C. Riker, New York
‘I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man’A superb set of the first collected edition of the works of Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, who voiced the aspirations of a new America as no other individual of his era. As public official, historian, philosopher, and plantation owner, he served his country for over five decades.
Complete in nine volumes, with folding facsimiles and tables. Published by the Order of the Joint Committee of Congress on the Library, from the Original Manuscripts deposited in the department of state. With explanatory notes, tables of contents, and a copious index to the whole, by the editor H. A. Washington.
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Price HK$ 29,000
Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám -
Omar Khayyám, Richard Le Gallienne
1925 - Dodd, New York - A New Edition with Fifty added Quatrains
Awake ! my soul, and haste betimes to drink,
This sun that rises all too soon shall sink,–
Come,come, O vintner, ope thy drowsy door !
We die of thirst upon the fountains brink.
A fine John Grabau binding of the Persian poem of life, by the renowned 11th century philosopher, poet, mathematician and astronomer Omar Khayyám, paraphrased by Richard Le Gallienne.
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Price HK$ 7,000
1925 - Dodd, New York - A New Edition with Fifty added Quatrains
Awake ! my soul, and haste betimes to drink,This sun that rises all too soon shall sink,–
Come,come, O vintner, ope thy drowsy door !
We die of thirst upon the fountains brink.
A fine John Grabau binding of the Persian poem of life, by the renowned 11th century philosopher, poet, mathematician and astronomer Omar Khayyám, paraphrased by Richard Le Gallienne.
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Price HK$ 7,000
Memoirs of Mrs. Fitzherbert -
Charles Langdale
1856 - Richard Bentley, London - First Edition
Extra-illustrated with an additional 37 plates, combined with the original 38 plates of which 10 are colour.
Maria Fitzherbert (1756–1837) was already twice widowed when the young Prince of Wales began his pursuit of her in 1784. Initially refusing his offer of marriage, she eventually accepted it and the couple were wed in secret the following year. Though legitimate in her eyes, the union was invalid under the Royal Marriages Act of 1772, and controversial because of her Catholicism.
A posthumous attack on her faith and morals, penned by Lord Holland in his Memoirs of the Whig Party, provoked her close friend Charles Langdale (1787–1868) into publishing this defence in 1856. A champion of Catholic emancipation, Langdale was one of the first Catholics elected to Parliament. These memoirs are based on Maria Fitzherbert's own recollections, recounted to Langdale's brother, Lord Stourton. They reveal the values and beliefs of an exceptional woman who occupied a unique and precarious position within British high society.
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Price HK$ 16,000
1856 - Richard Bentley, London - First Edition
Extra-illustrated with an additional 37 plates, combined with the original 38 plates of which 10 are colour.Maria Fitzherbert (1756–1837) was already twice widowed when the young Prince of Wales began his pursuit of her in 1784. Initially refusing his offer of marriage, she eventually accepted it and the couple were wed in secret the following year. Though legitimate in her eyes, the union was invalid under the Royal Marriages Act of 1772, and controversial because of her Catholicism.
A posthumous attack on her faith and morals, penned by Lord Holland in his Memoirs of the Whig Party, provoked her close friend Charles Langdale (1787–1868) into publishing this defence in 1856. A champion of Catholic emancipation, Langdale was one of the first Catholics elected to Parliament. These memoirs are based on Maria Fitzherbert's own recollections, recounted to Langdale's brother, Lord Stourton. They reveal the values and beliefs of an exceptional woman who occupied a unique and precarious position within British high society.
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Price HK$ 16,000
Verses Written in India -
Sir Alfred Lyall
1889 - Kegan Paul, London - First Edition
‘Here, in this mystical India, the deities hover and swarm,
Like the wild bees heard in the tree-tops, or the gusts of a gathering storm...’
A collection of twenty-four sentimental verses by Sir Alfred Lyall, and signed from him on the front free endpaper, elegantly bound by Rivière & Son.
Sir Alfred Lyall (1796-1865) was a British civil servant, philosopher, editor, clergyman and traveller. He first arrived in Calcutta in 1856, and served a long career in the Indian Civil Service.
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Price HK$ 3,000
1889 - Kegan Paul, London - First Edition
‘Here, in this mystical India, the deities hover and swarm,Like the wild bees heard in the tree-tops, or the gusts of a gathering storm...’
A collection of twenty-four sentimental verses by Sir Alfred Lyall, and signed from him on the front free endpaper, elegantly bound by Rivière & Son.
Sir Alfred Lyall (1796-1865) was a British civil servant, philosopher, editor, clergyman and traveller. He first arrived in Calcutta in 1856, and served a long career in the Indian Civil Service.
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Price HK$ 3,000
The Idylls and Epigrams of Theocritus Bion and Moschus -
Henry Aiken Metcalf (editor), Theocritus, Bion, Moschus
1905 - The Bibliophile Society, Boston - One of a limited 477 sets printed for members only
Three elegantly bound volumes of works by the three Greek pastoral poets, Theocritus, Bion and Moschus. Finely printed by the De Vinne Press, with the text in Greek with the English translation on the opposing page. Illustrated title pages, and an introduction by William Cranston Lawton.
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Price HK$ 7,500
1905 - The Bibliophile Society, Boston - One of a limited 477 sets printed for members only
Three elegantly bound volumes of works by the three Greek pastoral poets, Theocritus, Bion and Moschus. Finely printed by the De Vinne Press, with the text in Greek with the English translation on the opposing page. Illustrated title pages, and an introduction by William Cranston Lawton.
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Price HK$ 7,500