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The Prisoner of Zenda -
Sir Anthony Hope Hawkins
1894 - J.W. Arrowsmith, Bristol - First Edition, First State
The rare first edition, first state of the classic swashbuckling romance, appropriately housed in folding cloth chemise and burgundy morocco slipcase, with spine lettered in gilt.
This adventure story was enjoyed by Ian Fleming as a child, and Hope's chivalrous hero is a 'literary ancestor' of the debonair British agent 007 [The Rough Guide to James Bond].
The basis for David O. Selznick's Oscar-nominated movie (1937), starring Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and David Niven. Hawkins most well-known work.
‘For my part, if a man must needs be a knave, I would have him a debonair knave... It makes your sin no worse, as I conceive, to do it à la mode and stylishly.’
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Price HK$ 18,000
1894 - J.W. Arrowsmith, Bristol - First Edition, First State
The rare first edition, first state of the classic swashbuckling romance, appropriately housed in folding cloth chemise and burgundy morocco slipcase, with spine lettered in gilt.This adventure story was enjoyed by Ian Fleming as a child, and Hope's chivalrous hero is a 'literary ancestor' of the debonair British agent 007 [The Rough Guide to James Bond].
The basis for David O. Selznick's Oscar-nominated movie (1937), starring Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and David Niven. Hawkins most well-known work.
‘For my part, if a man must needs be a knave, I would have him a debonair knave... It makes your sin no worse, as I conceive, to do it à la mode and stylishly.’
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Price HK$ 18,000
Chipstead of the Lone Hand -
Sydney Horler
1929 - Henry Holt and Company, New York - First American Edition
The second Bunny Chipstead novel.
‘Amateur gentleman hero, Bunny Chipstead once again comes to the aid of Sir Robert Heddingly, chief of the British Secret Service. Chipstead owns a flat in Paris, an apartment in New York, and a pied-à-terre in St. James, London; he is accustomed to travelling first class, promotes tea drinking to one of the finer arts, smokes a pipe (an infallible marker of virile masculinity and decency), and serves unofficially for both the British and U.S. Intelligence Services (”for the sheer thrill of the game” as the story puts it). In this adventure, Bunny is once again up against the master criminal “The Disguiser,” who has kidnapped Heddingly from a sanatorium.’ – Alan Burton, British Spy Fiction.
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Price HK$ 2,500
1929 - Henry Holt and Company, New York - First American Edition
The second Bunny Chipstead novel.‘Amateur gentleman hero, Bunny Chipstead once again comes to the aid of Sir Robert Heddingly, chief of the British Secret Service. Chipstead owns a flat in Paris, an apartment in New York, and a pied-à-terre in St. James, London; he is accustomed to travelling first class, promotes tea drinking to one of the finer arts, smokes a pipe (an infallible marker of virile masculinity and decency), and serves unofficially for both the British and U.S. Intelligence Services (”for the sheer thrill of the game” as the story puts it). In this adventure, Bunny is once again up against the master criminal “The Disguiser,” who has kidnapped Heddingly from a sanatorium.’ – Alan Burton, British Spy Fiction.
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Price HK$ 2,500
And Death Came Too -
Richard Hull
1942 - Julian Messner, New York - First American Edition
A somewhat scarce example, fine in the war-time dust jacket.
‘Arthur Yeldham, a retired housemaster from Finchlngfield School invites four young people to come on to his house after a local dance; and when they get there, Yeldham is found stabbed...’
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Price HK$ 2,700
1942 - Julian Messner, New York - First American Edition
A somewhat scarce example, fine in the war-time dust jacket.‘Arthur Yeldham, a retired housemaster from Finchlngfield School invites four young people to come on to his house after a local dance; and when they get there, Yeldham is found stabbed...’
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Price HK$ 2,700
The Case of the Journeying Boy -
Michael Innes (Pseud. John Innes Mackintosh Stewart)
1949 - Dodd, New York - First Edition
‘It is not easy to run full tilt through pitch darkness, it outrages an instinct against which the will can scarcely urge the muscles on. Much less is it easy in the knowledge that ice-cold waters, through which a corpse is drifting, await one at the length of an extended arm.’
When Humphrey Paxton accompanies his father to the movies, his hopes of a quiet afternoon are dashed by a murder, conspiracy, and an explosion, all before the final credits roll. The resulting investigation will take Humphrey and half of Scotland Yard on a series of escapades through London, Wales, and Ireland in order to catch the perpetrators. Written with Innes’s characteristic wit and humour, the novel has since been listed as one of the Crime Writer Association’s top 100 crime novels of all time.
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Price HK$ 1,500
1949 - Dodd, New York - First Edition
‘It is not easy to run full tilt through pitch darkness, it outrages an instinct against which the will can scarcely urge the muscles on. Much less is it easy in the knowledge that ice-cold waters, through which a corpse is drifting, await one at the length of an extended arm.’When Humphrey Paxton accompanies his father to the movies, his hopes of a quiet afternoon are dashed by a murder, conspiracy, and an explosion, all before the final credits roll. The resulting investigation will take Humphrey and half of Scotland Yard on a series of escapades through London, Wales, and Ireland in order to catch the perpetrators. Written with Innes’s characteristic wit and humour, the novel has since been listed as one of the Crime Writer Association’s top 100 crime novels of all time.
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Price HK$ 1,500
The ‘Phone Booth Mystery -
John Ironside (psued. Euphemia Tait)
1924 - Henry Holt and Company, New York - First American Edition
Rare in dust jacket. The best known of John Ironside’s nine detective novels, published in England as ‘The Call-Box Mystery’ and in France as ‘La Cabine 19’.
‘The wife of a famous diplomat is found murdered in a telephone booth after the theft of confidential documents her husband kept in secret in his home office. An obviously innocent suspect is imprisoned and can only count on his wife and friends to exonerate him before he is hanged.’
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Price HK$ 5,000
1924 - Henry Holt and Company, New York - First American Edition
Rare in dust jacket. The best known of John Ironside’s nine detective novels, published in England as ‘The Call-Box Mystery’ and in France as ‘La Cabine 19’.‘The wife of a famous diplomat is found murdered in a telephone booth after the theft of confidential documents her husband kept in secret in his home office. An obviously innocent suspect is imprisoned and can only count on his wife and friends to exonerate him before he is hanged.’
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Price HK$ 5,000
Lions and Shadows - An Education in the Twenties -
Christopher Isherwood
1938 - Leonard & Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press, London - First Edition, First Impression
First edition of the first of Isherwood’s fictional biographies. A captivating account of a young novelist’s development in the literary culture of 1920s Cambridge and London and of his experiences as he forged lifelong friendships with his peers W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender, and Edward Upward.
‘That young man holds the future of the English novel in his hands.’ - W. Somerset Maugham, after reading Lions and Shadows.
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Price HK$ 4,500
1938 - Leonard & Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press, London - First Edition, First Impression
First edition of the first of Isherwood’s fictional biographies. A captivating account of a young novelist’s development in the literary culture of 1920s Cambridge and London and of his experiences as he forged lifelong friendships with his peers W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender, and Edward Upward.‘That young man holds the future of the English novel in his hands.’ - W. Somerset Maugham, after reading Lions and Shadows.
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Price HK$ 4,500
The Major Novels and Short Stories -
Jerome K Jerome
1886-1908 - Various, Bristol and London - All first edition first issue except for Three Men in a Boat (Second Issue) and Tommy and Co. (cheap edition).
A beautiful Zaehnsdorf bound set in ten volumes, consisting of: On the Stage and Off. London; The Idle Thoughts of An Idle Fellow; Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog); Told After Supper; Diary of a Pilgrimage; Novel Notes; The Second Thoughts of an Idle Fellow; Three Men on the Bummel; Tea-Table Talk; and Tommy and Co.
obviously the set includes one of the funniest English books ever written, ‘Three Men in a Boat’, of which in the words of Jerome K. Jerome ‘other books may excel this in depth of thought and knowledge of human nature: other books may rival it in originality and size; but, for hopeless and incurable veracity, nothing yet discovered can surpass it’, which could sum up a number of the other works here.
Jerome Klapka Jerome (1859-1927) was born in Walsall, but moved to London with his family as a young boy. After leaving school at fourteen, he worked as a railway clerk, but spent much of his spare time acting with various theatre companies and reading in the library of the British Museum; his first novel, On the Stage – and Off was loosely based on his thespian experiences. His 1899 novel, Three Men in a Boat – a fictional though exaggerated account of an actual boat trip on the River Thames that Jerome took with two friends – became a best-seller on both sides of the Atlantic, despite lacklustre critic reviews, selling a million copies in America alone, and bringing it’s author world wide fame.
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Price HK$ 15,000
1886-1908 - Various, Bristol and London - All first edition first issue except for Three Men in a Boat (Second Issue) and Tommy and Co. (cheap edition).
A beautiful Zaehnsdorf bound set in ten volumes, consisting of: On the Stage and Off. London; The Idle Thoughts of An Idle Fellow; Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog); Told After Supper; Diary of a Pilgrimage; Novel Notes; The Second Thoughts of an Idle Fellow; Three Men on the Bummel; Tea-Table Talk; and Tommy and Co.obviously the set includes one of the funniest English books ever written, ‘Three Men in a Boat’, of which in the words of Jerome K. Jerome ‘other books may excel this in depth of thought and knowledge of human nature: other books may rival it in originality and size; but, for hopeless and incurable veracity, nothing yet discovered can surpass it’, which could sum up a number of the other works here.
Jerome Klapka Jerome (1859-1927) was born in Walsall, but moved to London with his family as a young boy. After leaving school at fourteen, he worked as a railway clerk, but spent much of his spare time acting with various theatre companies and reading in the library of the British Museum; his first novel, On the Stage – and Off was loosely based on his thespian experiences. His 1899 novel, Three Men in a Boat – a fictional though exaggerated account of an actual boat trip on the River Thames that Jerome took with two friends – became a best-seller on both sides of the Atlantic, despite lacklustre critic reviews, selling a million copies in America alone, and bringing it’s author world wide fame.
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Price HK$ 15,000
The Van Beck Will. A Novel -
Henry Wynans Jessup
1928 - Walter Neale, New York - First Edition
A rare first edition in dust jacket.
‘Shall a son be robbed of his rightful inheritance and a murderer go unwhipped of justice to satisfy a strict rule of legal ethics?
Shall a lawyer be compelled by the law to hold inviolable under all circumstances the information imparted to him buy his client?
Shall a priest be prevented by law, as well s by his church, from revealing the secrets of the confessional, even if he learns that a crime will be committed or a criminal escape justice if he rem,ains silent?
Shall a physician be forced by law to remain mute while he sees his patient rob a friend of a vast estate?...’
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Price HK$ 4,000
1928 - Walter Neale, New York - First Edition
A rare first edition in dust jacket.‘Shall a son be robbed of his rightful inheritance and a murderer go unwhipped of justice to satisfy a strict rule of legal ethics?
Shall a lawyer be compelled by the law to hold inviolable under all circumstances the information imparted to him buy his client?
Shall a priest be prevented by law, as well s by his church, from revealing the secrets of the confessional, even if he learns that a crime will be committed or a criminal escape justice if he rem,ains silent?
Shall a physician be forced by law to remain mute while he sees his patient rob a friend of a vast estate?...’
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Price HK$ 4,000