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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
Billionaire - Inscribed -
Peter James
1983 - W. H. Allen, London - First Edition
A fine first edition of Peter James best seller, signed and with nice and personal inscription from the author in large black pen on title page ‘Jan 28th, 1983, To a fine fellow Old-Carthusian (Without Prejudice) To my second Dad! With very best wishes, Peter’.
An ‘Old-Carthusian’ is a former pupil of Charterhouse, the British public school.
“City stockbroker Alex Rocq leads a comfortable life – with a luxury flat in London, a country cottage, a very expensive car, and a lucrative job that still leaves time for leisure. But all this isn’t enough. After receiving a tip-off, Alex decides to play the commodities market for himself. He soon learns the hard way that fortune doesn’t always favour the brave, and his luck comes to an abrupt end.
When he is offered the chance to write off his debts – in exchange for special services and silence – Rocq can’t believe his luck. But how far will a desperate man go to harness the power players around him?”
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Price HK$ 3,000
1983 - W. H. Allen, London - First Edition
A fine first edition of Peter James best seller, signed and with nice and personal inscription from the author in large black pen on title page ‘Jan 28th, 1983, To a fine fellow Old-Carthusian (Without Prejudice) To my second Dad! With very best wishes, Peter’.An ‘Old-Carthusian’ is a former pupil of Charterhouse, the British public school.
“City stockbroker Alex Rocq leads a comfortable life – with a luxury flat in London, a country cottage, a very expensive car, and a lucrative job that still leaves time for leisure. But all this isn’t enough. After receiving a tip-off, Alex decides to play the commodities market for himself. He soon learns the hard way that fortune doesn’t always favour the brave, and his luck comes to an abrupt end.
When he is offered the chance to write off his debts – in exchange for special services and silence – Rocq can’t believe his luck. But how far will a desperate man go to harness the power players around him?”
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Price HK$ 3,000
Three Men in a Boat -
Jerome K. Jerome, A. Fredericks (illustrator)
1889 - J. W. Arrowsmith, Bristol - First Edition, first Issue with 'Quay Street' on title page, second state.
First edition, in a fancy binding, of one of the funniest English books ever written, and if you like to play on the water, should be required reading. 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.’
Brilliantly illustrated throughout with small sketches and full page plates by A. Frederics.
The ultimate late-Victorian satire of the Great British Holiday, involving an ill-conceived jaunt along the Thames and a host of fabulously English characters including the relentlessly Pan-like canine companion Montmorency. Adapted in many forms, and notably voiced as an audiobook by Hugh Laurie, it develops an idyllically inept vision of England still familiar today.
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Price HK$ 5,000
1889 - J. W. Arrowsmith, Bristol - First Edition, first Issue with 'Quay Street' on title page, second state.
First edition, in a fancy binding, of one of the funniest English books ever written, and if you like to play on the water, should be required reading. 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.’Brilliantly illustrated throughout with small sketches and full page plates by A. Frederics.
The ultimate late-Victorian satire of the Great British Holiday, involving an ill-conceived jaunt along the Thames and a host of fabulously English characters including the relentlessly Pan-like canine companion Montmorency. Adapted in many forms, and notably voiced as an audiobook by Hugh Laurie, it develops an idyllically inept vision of England still familiar today.
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Price HK$ 5,000
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
Transition - A Complete Run - Numbers 1-27. -
Eugene Jolas (editor)
1927 to 1938 - Transition Press, Paris - First Editions
A rare complete set of the most influential and important literary magazine between the wars. Edited by Eugene Jolas, contributors are a whose who of writers, poets and artists of this magnificent period, including but not limited to James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Georges Braque, Kay Boyle, Elliot Paul, Man Ray, Robert McAlmon, Rainer Maria Rilke, Pablo Picasso, André Breton, William Carlos Williams, Robert Graves, Hart Crane, André Gide, Joan Miro, Max Ernst, Malcolm Cowley, Djuna Barnes, Franz Kafka, Harry Crosby, Archibald MacLeish, Samuel Beckett, Piet Mondrian, Constantin Brancusi, Henri Matisse, Cartier-Bresson, Dylan Thomas, Louis Aragon, Le Corbusier and Aaron Copland.
Numbers 1-20 published between April 1927 and June 1930 by Transition with Shakespeare and Co., in Paris. Numbers 21-24 published between March 1932 and June 1936 by The Servire Press in The Hague. Volumes 25-27 published between fall 1936 and May 1938 by Transition in New York.
Included with the set is the Gertrude Stein’s ‘An Elucidation, printed in Transition, April 1927’ in original wrappers, and ‘Transition Pamphlet No 1’ (supplement to Transition no 23, 1934-35) containing the ‘Testimony against Gertrude Stein’.
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Price HK$ 45,000
1927 to 1938 - Transition Press, Paris - First Editions
A rare complete set of the most influential and important literary magazine between the wars. Edited by Eugene Jolas, contributors are a whose who of writers, poets and artists of this magnificent period, including but not limited to James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Georges Braque, Kay Boyle, Elliot Paul, Man Ray, Robert McAlmon, Rainer Maria Rilke, Pablo Picasso, André Breton, William Carlos Williams, Robert Graves, Hart Crane, André Gide, Joan Miro, Max Ernst, Malcolm Cowley, Djuna Barnes, Franz Kafka, Harry Crosby, Archibald MacLeish, Samuel Beckett, Piet Mondrian, Constantin Brancusi, Henri Matisse, Cartier-Bresson, Dylan Thomas, Louis Aragon, Le Corbusier and Aaron Copland.Numbers 1-20 published between April 1927 and June 1930 by Transition with Shakespeare and Co., in Paris. Numbers 21-24 published between March 1932 and June 1936 by The Servire Press in The Hague. Volumes 25-27 published between fall 1936 and May 1938 by Transition in New York.
Included with the set is the Gertrude Stein’s ‘An Elucidation, printed in Transition, April 1927’ in original wrappers, and ‘Transition Pamphlet No 1’ (supplement to Transition no 23, 1934-35) containing the ‘Testimony against Gertrude Stein’.
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Price HK$ 45,000
transition stories Twenty-three Stories from transition -
Eugene Jolas, Robert Sage (editors)
1929 - Walter V. McKee, New York - First Edition
‘It is necessary to break up the word, to construct an organic world of the imagination, and to give life a changed and spontaneous reality.’ – Eugene Jolas, from his preface.
The first collection of stories from avant-garde, inter-war literary journal, transition, featuring works by Kay Boyle, Franz Kafka, Gertrude Stein, Eliiot Paul, and Philippe Soupault and others, together with segments of James Joyce’s then-unfinished novel, Finnegan’s Wake, published here as ‘A Muster from Work in Progress.’
Founded in 1927 in Paris by poet Eugene Jolas (himself aided by expatriate bookseller Sylvia Beach and ‘lost generation’ bon vivant Harry Crosby), transition ran until the spring of 1938. In that 11 years and 27 issues – its experimental bent always unapologetically overt – the journal amassed an astounding pool of works by a trans-national cadre of writers, Surrealists, political activists, Dadaists, critics, and artists including Samuel Beckett, Ernest Hemingway, Picasso, William Carlos Williams, Juan Gris, Man Ray, Dylan Thomas, Joan Miró, and Paul Bowles, among many others, and as such, publishing for the first time some of the most linguistically and visually innovative art of the modern era.
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Price HK$ 3,500
1929 - Walter V. McKee, New York - First Edition
‘It is necessary to break up the word, to construct an organic world of the imagination, and to give life a changed and spontaneous reality.’ – Eugene Jolas, from his preface.The first collection of stories from avant-garde, inter-war literary journal, transition, featuring works by Kay Boyle, Franz Kafka, Gertrude Stein, Eliiot Paul, and Philippe Soupault and others, together with segments of James Joyce’s then-unfinished novel, Finnegan’s Wake, published here as ‘A Muster from Work in Progress.’
Founded in 1927 in Paris by poet Eugene Jolas (himself aided by expatriate bookseller Sylvia Beach and ‘lost generation’ bon vivant Harry Crosby), transition ran until the spring of 1938. In that 11 years and 27 issues – its experimental bent always unapologetically overt – the journal amassed an astounding pool of works by a trans-national cadre of writers, Surrealists, political activists, Dadaists, critics, and artists including Samuel Beckett, Ernest Hemingway, Picasso, William Carlos Williams, Juan Gris, Man Ray, Dylan Thomas, Joan Miró, and Paul Bowles, among many others, and as such, publishing for the first time some of the most linguistically and visually innovative art of the modern era.
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Price HK$ 3,500
Metamorphosis -
Franz Kafka, Leslie Sherman (illustrator), A. L. Lloyd (translator)
1946 - The Vanguard Press, New York - First American Edition, and First to be illustrated by Leslie Sherman
First American edition in fine and thus scarce first issue dust jacket (all brown and with price of $3.95 to front flap, and not to be confused with the second issue which had white flaps, white rear panel, and a price of ‘$2.75’).
Kafka's masterpiece of unease and black humour, Metamorphosis, the story of an ordinary man transformed into an insect. ‘Encompassing themes of spiritual isolation, rejection of social systems, disillusionment and despair in the face of an ungovernable future’.
Originally published under the title of Die Verwandlung in Leipzig in 1915, Metamorphosis was first translated into English by A. L. Lloyd in 1937, and to this, the first American edition, were added illustrations by noted Beat Generation artist Leslie Sherman, and a preface by Paul Goodman (1911-72).
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Price HK$ 9,400
1946 - The Vanguard Press, New York - First American Edition, and First to be illustrated by Leslie Sherman
First American edition in fine and thus scarce first issue dust jacket (all brown and with price of $3.95 to front flap, and not to be confused with the second issue which had white flaps, white rear panel, and a price of ‘$2.75’).Kafka's masterpiece of unease and black humour, Metamorphosis, the story of an ordinary man transformed into an insect. ‘Encompassing themes of spiritual isolation, rejection of social systems, disillusionment and despair in the face of an ungovernable future’.
Originally published under the title of Die Verwandlung in Leipzig in 1915, Metamorphosis was first translated into English by A. L. Lloyd in 1937, and to this, the first American edition, were added illustrations by noted Beat Generation artist Leslie Sherman, and a preface by Paul Goodman (1911-72).
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Price HK$ 9,400