Les Livres de L'Enfance du XVe au XIXe Siècle. Préface de Paul Gavault -
Gumuchian
1930 - Gumuchian & Compagnie, Paris - The first deluxe edition, limited to 100 copies on Papier de Hollande, this being number 10
Possibly the most important catalogue of children's books ever Issued. Two large quarto volumes, text in French and English, illustrated with 336 colour and black and white plates.
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Price HK$ 22,000
1930 - Gumuchian & Compagnie, Paris - The first deluxe edition, limited to 100 copies on Papier de Hollande, this being number 10
Possibly the most important catalogue of children's books ever Issued. Two large quarto volumes, text in French and English, illustrated with 336 colour and black and white plates.
More details
Price HK$ 22,000
Robertson of Irvine - Poet-Preacher -
Arthur Guthrie
1890 - Ardrossan, London - Second Edition
A finely bound copy, illustrated with engraved frontispiece portrait and calotype plate of Trinity Church, Irvine from a photograph.
William Bruce Robertson (1820 – 1886), Scottish divine, was born at Greenhill, St. Ninians, Stirling, 24 May, 1820, and was educated at the University of Glasgow and at the Secession Theological Hall, Edinburgh, where he made the acquaintance of Thomas de Quincey, and on his recommendation went to the University of Halle and studied under Friedrich Tholuck.
After travelling in Italy and Switzerland he was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Stirling and Falkirk in 1843, and was soon after ordained at the United Secession Church (after 1847, the United Presbyterian Church) in Irvine, Ayrshire. In this charge he remained for 35 years, exercising from his pulpit a truly magnetic influence.’
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Price HK$ 1,500
1890 - Ardrossan, London - Second Edition
A finely bound copy, illustrated with engraved frontispiece portrait and calotype plate of Trinity Church, Irvine from a photograph.William Bruce Robertson (1820 – 1886), Scottish divine, was born at Greenhill, St. Ninians, Stirling, 24 May, 1820, and was educated at the University of Glasgow and at the Secession Theological Hall, Edinburgh, where he made the acquaintance of Thomas de Quincey, and on his recommendation went to the University of Halle and studied under Friedrich Tholuck.
After travelling in Italy and Switzerland he was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Stirling and Falkirk in 1843, and was soon after ordained at the United Secession Church (after 1847, the United Presbyterian Church) in Irvine, Ayrshire. In this charge he remained for 35 years, exercising from his pulpit a truly magnetic influence.’
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Price HK$ 1,500
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
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
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
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
A Literary History of Scotland -
John Hepburn Millar
1903 - T. Fisher Unwin, London - Number 6 of 25 copies.
A finely bound limited edition of this detailed work. Over 700 pages with chapters covering Scottish poetry, prose, reviews, histories and novels.
‘Miller’s scholarly A Literary History of Scotland was for many years the standard work on Scottish Literature and remains a useful work of reference. In it he maintained his attack on the then fashionable Kailyard writers (late 19th-century movement in Scottish fiction characterised by a sentimental idealisation of humble village life), whom he had first criticised in the April 1895 issue of The New Review.’ - Famous Scots
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Price HK$ 3,000
1903 - T. Fisher Unwin, London - Number 6 of 25 copies.
A finely bound limited edition of this detailed work. Over 700 pages with chapters covering Scottish poetry, prose, reviews, histories and novels.‘Miller’s scholarly A Literary History of Scotland was for many years the standard work on Scottish Literature and remains a useful work of reference. In it he maintained his attack on the then fashionable Kailyard writers (late 19th-century movement in Scottish fiction characterised by a sentimental idealisation of humble village life), whom he had first criticised in the April 1895 issue of The New Review.’ - Famous Scots
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Price HK$ 3,000
Social and Diplomatic Memories 1884-1893 -
Sir James Rennell Rodd G.C.B.
1922 - Edward Arnold & Co., London - Second Impression
The autobiography of 1st Baron Rennell (1858-1941), British diplomat, poet (Oscar Wilde assisted in publishing Rodd’s first book of poems), politician, and scholar of ancient Greece and Rome.
Covering the early years from his childhood, the ‘Balliol set’, and young Bohemian adulthood, to his first posting in Berlin from 1884 to 1888, where he became an intimate friend of the Empress Frederick, and recounts his memories of Bismark and other major figures during that tumultuous time, after this he moves on to Greece, Italy, France, and finally Zanzibar and East Africa at the end of the 19th century.
Finely bound and with a four page hand-written letter from his wife to an ‘unknown friend’, composed at the British Legation, Athens in February 1928.
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Price HK$ 2,000
1922 - Edward Arnold & Co., London - Second Impression
The autobiography of 1st Baron Rennell (1858-1941), British diplomat, poet (Oscar Wilde assisted in publishing Rodd’s first book of poems), politician, and scholar of ancient Greece and Rome.Covering the early years from his childhood, the ‘Balliol set’, and young Bohemian adulthood, to his first posting in Berlin from 1884 to 1888, where he became an intimate friend of the Empress Frederick, and recounts his memories of Bismark and other major figures during that tumultuous time, after this he moves on to Greece, Italy, France, and finally Zanzibar and East Africa at the end of the 19th century.
Finely bound and with a four page hand-written letter from his wife to an ‘unknown friend’, composed at the British Legation, Athens in February 1928.
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Price HK$ 2,000