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A Treatise on Cyder-Making -
Hugh Stafford, Anonymous
1753 - Printed for E. Cave, London - First Edition
Legendary and rare first edition of this anonymous work, all of which is generally but erroneously attributed to Hugh Stafford who contributed the sixteen page ‘Dissertation on Cyder and Cyder-Fruit’ at the beginning.
Covering the entire process from identifying and growing the best cider apples, collection, pressing, fermentation, racking, preserving and remedial action for a variety of issues ‘which are incident to Cyder’. With fold-out engraving of cider press (opp. p.32), in-text wood-cut diagrams to pages 43 and 68 (‘One side of the framed Press...’.) and wood-cut decorations to pages v, 47, and 61.
‘As Cyder therefore is generally allowed to be an wholesome drink, and as it is the natural product of our own country, he will surely be thought to contribute something towards the good of the public, who gives infallible directions for making it universally agreeable by varrying it so as to suit every palate, and by improving the flavour and the quality, both of the rough and the smooth, divesting it of its tendency to produce cholics, and giving it the sparkle of Champaign, without an eager and windy fermentation, and rendering it more spirituous than a small wine tho' less inflaming’. [Preface]
An influential work, Benjamin Franklin, who was partial to a drop himself, ordered three copies to be reprinted as pamphlets and distributed amongst the New England farmers after failing with their vineyards. It was plagiarised into various publications including encyclopaedias, cookbooks and later reference works related to cider.
More details
Price HK$ 42,000
1753 - Printed for E. Cave, London - First Edition
Legendary and rare first edition of this anonymous work, all of which is generally but erroneously attributed to Hugh Stafford who contributed the sixteen page ‘Dissertation on Cyder and Cyder-Fruit’ at the beginning.Covering the entire process from identifying and growing the best cider apples, collection, pressing, fermentation, racking, preserving and remedial action for a variety of issues ‘which are incident to Cyder’. With fold-out engraving of cider press (opp. p.32), in-text wood-cut diagrams to pages 43 and 68 (‘One side of the framed Press...’.) and wood-cut decorations to pages v, 47, and 61.
‘As Cyder therefore is generally allowed to be an wholesome drink, and as it is the natural product of our own country, he will surely be thought to contribute something towards the good of the public, who gives infallible directions for making it universally agreeable by varrying it so as to suit every palate, and by improving the flavour and the quality, both of the rough and the smooth, divesting it of its tendency to produce cholics, and giving it the sparkle of Champaign, without an eager and windy fermentation, and rendering it more spirituous than a small wine tho' less inflaming’. [Preface]
An influential work, Benjamin Franklin, who was partial to a drop himself, ordered three copies to be reprinted as pamphlets and distributed amongst the New England farmers after failing with their vineyards. It was plagiarised into various publications including encyclopaedias, cookbooks and later reference works related to cider.
More details
Price HK$ 42,000
Scar-Strangled Banger -
Ralph Steadman
1988 - Salem House Publishers, Massachusetts - First American Edition
Scar Strangled Banger is one of two large books (the other one being America) giving Steadman's view of America in retrospect-sharply satirizing all aspects of 1970’s and 1980’s life in American society, peppered with his sharp, powerful and incredible full-page and double-spread, colour and black & white drawings.
‘In Scar-Strangled Banger, Ralph Steadman turns his satirical attentions to America, the Land of the Free, where even God can be acquired with a credit card. In this land of seemingly limitless opportunities, of All-Nite Liquor stores, aerobic work-outs, silicone lifts and Saturday Night Specials, a country where lettuce is served with everything, he finds that the quality of life is dependent mainly on personal wealth and air conditioning.
This extraordinary collection of paintings and drawings, in colour and black and white, gleefully satirizes all aspects of life in modern America. Whether it be people, places or politics, nothing is safe from Ralph Steadman’s razor sharp pen and even sharper wit. Nixon is “a satirists dream”, Texas is where “ the oil wells are so deep they have lease land rights from the Australian government before they drill” and political conventions are “campaigns in the ass”. His portraits of the Nixon years, Vietnam and Watergate, the Reagan years, Pearlygate and the 1988 Presidential Election are powerful, disturbing and above all savagely funny. It will leave you asking has anything really changed.’
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Price HK$ 1,500
1988 - Salem House Publishers, Massachusetts - First American Edition
Scar Strangled Banger is one of two large books (the other one being America) giving Steadman's view of America in retrospect-sharply satirizing all aspects of 1970’s and 1980’s life in American society, peppered with his sharp, powerful and incredible full-page and double-spread, colour and black & white drawings.‘In Scar-Strangled Banger, Ralph Steadman turns his satirical attentions to America, the Land of the Free, where even God can be acquired with a credit card. In this land of seemingly limitless opportunities, of All-Nite Liquor stores, aerobic work-outs, silicone lifts and Saturday Night Specials, a country where lettuce is served with everything, he finds that the quality of life is dependent mainly on personal wealth and air conditioning.
This extraordinary collection of paintings and drawings, in colour and black and white, gleefully satirizes all aspects of life in modern America. Whether it be people, places or politics, nothing is safe from Ralph Steadman’s razor sharp pen and even sharper wit. Nixon is “a satirists dream”, Texas is where “ the oil wells are so deep they have lease land rights from the Australian government before they drill” and political conventions are “campaigns in the ass”. His portraits of the Nixon years, Vietnam and Watergate, the Reagan years, Pearlygate and the 1988 Presidential Election are powerful, disturbing and above all savagely funny. It will leave you asking has anything really changed.’
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Price HK$ 1,500
Evidence - Signed -
Larry Sultan, Mike Mandel
1977 - Clatworthy Colorvues, Greenbrae - First Edition
Fine first edition of this ‘pioneering work in photography's engagement with meaning and context’ [Blind Magazine, The 50 Most Influential Photobooks of All Time]
Signed by both Larry Sultan and Mike Mandel.
With 60 halftones from photographs, and an afterword by Robert F. Forth.
Described by Martin Parr in ‘The Photobook: A History’, as ‘one of the most beautiful, dense and puzzling photobooks in existence, an endless visual box of tricks’.
Sultan and Mandel sifted through thousands of photographs in the files of the Bechtel Corporation, the Los Angeles Police Department, the Jet Propulsion Laboratories, the US Department of the Interior, Stanford Research Institute and many other corporations, institutions, and government agencies looking for photographs that were made and used as documents and objective instruments, as evidence.
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Price HK$ 15,000
1977 - Clatworthy Colorvues, Greenbrae - First Edition
Fine first edition of this ‘pioneering work in photography's engagement with meaning and context’ [Blind Magazine, The 50 Most Influential Photobooks of All Time]Signed by both Larry Sultan and Mike Mandel.
With 60 halftones from photographs, and an afterword by Robert F. Forth.
Described by Martin Parr in ‘The Photobook: A History’, as ‘one of the most beautiful, dense and puzzling photobooks in existence, an endless visual box of tricks’.
Sultan and Mandel sifted through thousands of photographs in the files of the Bechtel Corporation, the Los Angeles Police Department, the Jet Propulsion Laboratories, the US Department of the Interior, Stanford Research Institute and many other corporations, institutions, and government agencies looking for photographs that were made and used as documents and objective instruments, as evidence.
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Price HK$ 15,000
The Magnificent Ambersons -
Booth Tarkington, Arthur William Brown (illustrator)
1918 - Doubleday, Garden City
An elegantly bound first edition of the author's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, which chronicles the changing fortunes of three generations of an American dynasty. The protagonist is George Amberson Minafer, the spoiled and arrogant grandson of the founder of the family’s magnificence. Eclipsed by a new breed of developers, financiers, and manufacturers, this pampered scion begins his gradual descent from the midwestern aristocracy to the working class.
Basis for the 1942 film by Orson Welles.
Illustrated with eight plates by Arthur William Brown.
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Price HK$ 5,000
1918 - Doubleday, Garden City
An elegantly bound first edition of the author's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, which chronicles the changing fortunes of three generations of an American dynasty. The protagonist is George Amberson Minafer, the spoiled and arrogant grandson of the founder of the family’s magnificence. Eclipsed by a new breed of developers, financiers, and manufacturers, this pampered scion begins his gradual descent from the midwestern aristocracy to the working class.Basis for the 1942 film by Orson Welles.
Illustrated with eight plates by Arthur William Brown.
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Price HK$ 5,000
How to Mix Drinks, or the Bon-Vivant's Companion -
Jerry Thomas, Christian Shultz
1862 - Dick & Fitzgerald, New York - First Edition
An extremely rare first edition of the legendary first and seminal book on mixology and bartenders' guide to include cocktail recipes, by the great Professor Jerry Thomas, referred to as ‘The Best Bartender of the Past’ by Harry Craddock in the ‘Savoy Cocktail Book’ of 1930.
Illustrated and containing 236 recipes by Jerry Thomas and 463 recipes by Christian Schultz. In addition to listings of recipes for Punches, Sours, Slings, Cobblers, Shrubs, Toddies, Flips, and a variety of other types of mixed drinks were ten recipes for drinks referred to as ‘Cocktails’. A key ingredient which differentiated ‘cocktails’ from other drinks in this compendium was the use of bitters as an ingredient, although it is not used in many modern cocktail recipes.
‘‘Professor’ Jerry Thomas, principal bartender at the Metropolitan Hotel, New York and the Planter’s House, St. Louis, a pioneer cocktail exponent, who helped to spread the fashion for the mixed drink during the Victorian era. Thomas, at the height of his fame in the ‘Roaring Fifties’, toured Europe in 1859 with a set of sterling silver cups, standard mixing practice at the time, trailing a stream of liquid flame as he compounded his legendary Blue Blazer cocktail’ - a powerful concoction of whiskey and water ignited and passed between two glasses so that, "if well done this will have the appearance of a continued stream of liquid fire." ‘(for the novice, practice with cold water was recommended).’ – Simon Khachadourian, The Cocktail Shaker [2000].
Jerry Thomas’ New York Times obituary noted that he was "at one time better known to club men and men about town than any other bartender in this city, and he was popular among all classes." The introduction to the present volume characterizes Thomas, "his very name is synonymous, in the lexicon of mixed drinks, with all that is rare and original." That reputation endures today, more than a century after this guide first appeared in print.
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Price HK$ 140,000
1862 - Dick & Fitzgerald, New York - First Edition
An extremely rare first edition of the legendary first and seminal book on mixology and bartenders' guide to include cocktail recipes, by the great Professor Jerry Thomas, referred to as ‘The Best Bartender of the Past’ by Harry Craddock in the ‘Savoy Cocktail Book’ of 1930.Illustrated and containing 236 recipes by Jerry Thomas and 463 recipes by Christian Schultz. In addition to listings of recipes for Punches, Sours, Slings, Cobblers, Shrubs, Toddies, Flips, and a variety of other types of mixed drinks were ten recipes for drinks referred to as ‘Cocktails’. A key ingredient which differentiated ‘cocktails’ from other drinks in this compendium was the use of bitters as an ingredient, although it is not used in many modern cocktail recipes.
‘‘Professor’ Jerry Thomas, principal bartender at the Metropolitan Hotel, New York and the Planter’s House, St. Louis, a pioneer cocktail exponent, who helped to spread the fashion for the mixed drink during the Victorian era. Thomas, at the height of his fame in the ‘Roaring Fifties’, toured Europe in 1859 with a set of sterling silver cups, standard mixing practice at the time, trailing a stream of liquid flame as he compounded his legendary Blue Blazer cocktail’ - a powerful concoction of whiskey and water ignited and passed between two glasses so that, "if well done this will have the appearance of a continued stream of liquid fire." ‘(for the novice, practice with cold water was recommended).’ – Simon Khachadourian, The Cocktail Shaker [2000].
Jerry Thomas’ New York Times obituary noted that he was "at one time better known to club men and men about town than any other bartender in this city, and he was popular among all classes." The introduction to the present volume characterizes Thomas, "his very name is synonymous, in the lexicon of mixed drinks, with all that is rare and original." That reputation endures today, more than a century after this guide first appeared in print.
More details
Price HK$ 140,000
Johnny Got His Gun -
Dalton Trumbo
1939 - J. B. Lippincott Company, New York Philadelphia Toronto - First Edition
A fine copy in near fine, and thus exceptionally scarce dust jacket.
‘It was the war to end all wars, the global struggle that would finally make the world safe for democracy - at any cost. But one American soldier has paid a price beyond measure. And within the disfigured flesh that was once a vision of youth lives a spirit that cannot accept what the world has become.
An immediate best-seller upon its first publication in 1939, Trumbo's stark, profoundly troubling masterpiece about the horrors of the First World War brilliantly crystallised the uncompromising brutality of war and became the most influential protest novel of the Vietnam era.’ [PC]
‘A terrifying book, of an extraordinary emotional intensity.’ – The Washington Post.
‘A terrible story, remorseless, uncompromising... this book was a shocking and violent experience.’ – Herald Tribune.
More details
Price HK$ 40,000
1939 - J. B. Lippincott Company, New York Philadelphia Toronto - First Edition
A fine copy in near fine, and thus exceptionally scarce dust jacket.‘It was the war to end all wars, the global struggle that would finally make the world safe for democracy - at any cost. But one American soldier has paid a price beyond measure. And within the disfigured flesh that was once a vision of youth lives a spirit that cannot accept what the world has become.
An immediate best-seller upon its first publication in 1939, Trumbo's stark, profoundly troubling masterpiece about the horrors of the First World War brilliantly crystallised the uncompromising brutality of war and became the most influential protest novel of the Vietnam era.’ [PC]
‘A terrifying book, of an extraordinary emotional intensity.’ – The Washington Post.
‘A terrible story, remorseless, uncompromising... this book was a shocking and violent experience.’ – Herald Tribune.
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Price HK$ 40,000
Le Bon-Bock - 321 Letterpress Invitations in two Folio Albums -
Various
1886-1936 - Printed for Le Bon-Bock, Paris
An incredibly rare collection of 321 original illustrated letterpress dinner invitations from Le Bon-Bock society (each approximately 33x23cm), whose soirees on the second Tuesday of each month near Montmartre were frequented by Paris’ most flamboyant and original writers and artists of La Belle Époque and Les Années Folles.
The artists competed to have their work used for the next invitation, and together with their work each invitation provides an account of the previous dinners activities, beginning with opening speeches, notices and announcements, and then other activities, which usually include poems, prose, texts, songs, instrumental pieces.
The invitations are dated from April 1886 to April 1936, with the first thirty or so addressed to Monsieur Régnier, one of the founders of the association. Individually rare, a collection of this size and association provides one of the most important associations of these periods in Paris.
Inspired by Edouard Manet’s painting Le Bon Bock (The Good Pint), and the democratic, nationalistic ideals that it symbolised, Emile Bellot (the printmaker and model for Manet’s beer drinker) established the Bon-Bock Society in 1875. Consisting mainly of artists, writers and performers, the society sought to re-define France’s national spirit by delving into the country’s cultural past. The inseparable ideals of freedom and humour within their community created opportunities for artistic experimentation; the Bon Bockers and their carefree attitude would go on to inspire generations of Montmartre natives for years to come.
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Price HK$ 90,000
1886-1936 - Printed for Le Bon-Bock, Paris
An incredibly rare collection of 321 original illustrated letterpress dinner invitations from Le Bon-Bock society (each approximately 33x23cm), whose soirees on the second Tuesday of each month near Montmartre were frequented by Paris’ most flamboyant and original writers and artists of La Belle Époque and Les Années Folles. The artists competed to have their work used for the next invitation, and together with their work each invitation provides an account of the previous dinners activities, beginning with opening speeches, notices and announcements, and then other activities, which usually include poems, prose, texts, songs, instrumental pieces.
The invitations are dated from April 1886 to April 1936, with the first thirty or so addressed to Monsieur Régnier, one of the founders of the association. Individually rare, a collection of this size and association provides one of the most important associations of these periods in Paris.
Inspired by Edouard Manet’s painting Le Bon Bock (The Good Pint), and the democratic, nationalistic ideals that it symbolised, Emile Bellot (the printmaker and model for Manet’s beer drinker) established the Bon-Bock Society in 1875. Consisting mainly of artists, writers and performers, the society sought to re-define France’s national spirit by delving into the country’s cultural past. The inseparable ideals of freedom and humour within their community created opportunities for artistic experimentation; the Bon Bockers and their carefree attitude would go on to inspire generations of Montmartre natives for years to come.
More details
Price HK$ 90,000
Facts About Champagne collected during numerous visits to the Champagne District - Inscribed -
Henry Vizetelly
1890 - Vizetelly & Co., London - Second and Revised Edition
Scarce edition of this wonderful work on Champagne inscribed by the great Henry Vizetelly to George Augustus Sala, a celebrated Victorian author, gastronome and a colleague at the Illustrated London News, dated ‘Covent Garden, 14 Augt. 1901’, two years after Vizetelly was released from prison for translating and publishing the works of Émile Zola in unexpurgated form.
Profusely illustrated with 32 full page engraved plates and 68 in text engravings drawn by Jules Pelcoq, W. Prater, Bertali, etc. from original sketches, as well as 38 small engravings of the Champagne brand marks to the rear.
Chapters cover:- The Origin of Champagne; The Vintage in the Champagne; The Vineyards of the River; The Vineyards of the Mountain; The Vines of the Champagne and the System of Cultivation; Preparation of Champagne; Champagne Establishments of Reims, Epernay, Ay, Mareuil, and Avize; and Concluding Facts and Hints.
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Price HK$ 9,000
1890 - Vizetelly & Co., London - Second and Revised Edition
Scarce edition of this wonderful work on Champagne inscribed by the great Henry Vizetelly to George Augustus Sala, a celebrated Victorian author, gastronome and a colleague at the Illustrated London News, dated ‘Covent Garden, 14 Augt. 1901’, two years after Vizetelly was released from prison for translating and publishing the works of Émile Zola in unexpurgated form.Profusely illustrated with 32 full page engraved plates and 68 in text engravings drawn by Jules Pelcoq, W. Prater, Bertali, etc. from original sketches, as well as 38 small engravings of the Champagne brand marks to the rear.
Chapters cover:- The Origin of Champagne; The Vintage in the Champagne; The Vineyards of the River; The Vineyards of the Mountain; The Vines of the Champagne and the System of Cultivation; Preparation of Champagne; Champagne Establishments of Reims, Epernay, Ay, Mareuil, and Avize; and Concluding Facts and Hints.
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Price HK$ 9,000