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Our American Adventure [&] Our Second American Adventure - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

1923 - Doran / Little, New York / Boston - First American Edition
Two volumes. The accounts of Doyle's two American tours investigating and speaking on matters of Spiritualism. Illustrated with black and white photographs.

We live in the time of dawn, and year by year the overwhelming importance of this psychic question is forcing itself upon the public attention 
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Price HK$ 2,600



Geek Love - Signed - Katherine Dunn

1989 - Alfred A. Knopf, New York - First Edition
Signed and fine first edition of this classic cult novel. The story of an enterprising American family who, according to sound free market principles, decide to raise their own freakshow by breeding their own mutants – thereby cutting costs. In a splendid nod to the book's contents, designer Chip Kidd has given Knopf's logo of the "coursing Borzoi" 3 forelegs on the jacket spine above publisher's imprint.

When Katherine Dunn’s novel “Geek Love” became Sonny Mehta’s first purchase as editor-in-chief at Knopf, she became famous in the literary world, at the age of forty-three, after years of obscurity. The book is about what happens after the circus impresario Aloysius Binewski feeds “cocaine, amphetamines, and arsenic” to his repeatedly pregnant wife, a retired geek named Crystal Lil, to genetically engineer a family of circus freaks.

“Geek Love” is historically beloved by dark and eccentric artists, many of whom are famous. Kurt Cobain, Courtney Love, Flea, and the Monty Pythonite Terry Gilliam were all outspoken fans. According to Gilliam, Johnny Depp wanted to play the book’s most interesting character, Arturo the Aqua Boy, so badly that he tried to get Gilliam to make “Geek Love” into a movie—Tim Burton ended up buying the rights. The book was so resonant for Gilliam that as recently as 2010 he was still trying to adapt the novel, this time as a West End stage play.’ - Eric Rosenblum, New Yorker, 1st December 2022.
 
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Price HK$ 6,000



Jorkens Remembers Africa - Lord Dunsany [pseud. Edward Plunkett]

1934 - Longmans Green and Co., New York - Toronto - First Edition
A fine edition of Lord Dunsany’s second collection of ‘extraordinary’ short stories recounted by the enterprising and adventurous Jorkens at the Billiard Club. In the delicate dust jacket, without repairs or restoration. ‘Extraordinary’ as indicated by the fabulous Allen Lewis illustration of Jorkens fending off a unicorn with his hunting rifle which adorns the dust jacket and also the illustrated title page. 
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Price HK$ 4,600



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



The Courtesy of Death - Inscribed - Geoffrey Household

1967 - Michael Joseph, London - First Edition
First edition, inscribed from Geoffrey Household:

For all the Thompsons with love Geoffrey 19.v.67.

‘When retired mining engineer Yarrow is disturbed after midnight by Barnabas Fosworth, he assumes that he is just a curious eccentric. But by helping Fosworth in his search for the mysterious girl he seeks, Yarrow soon finds his life inexplicably threatened by a mystical sect who believe that taking life is forgivable, since death is only a transition.

Entombed in a cavern in the Mendips, Yarrow discovers the ancient secrets that have their origins in paleolithic paintings; and it is only through this new knowledge that he can hope to escape a very unpleasant death’ – Orion
 
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Price HK$ 800



The Beetle. A Mystery - Richard Marsh

1897 - Skeffington &, London - First Edition
An outstanding and rare first edition of Richard Marsh’s best-selling gothic horror masterpiece. With four full page monochrome plates from illustrations by John Williamson.

'I saw him take a different shape before my eyes. His loose draperies fell about him…and there issued out of them a monstrous creature of the beetle tribe…'

The Beetle, published in 1897, is the tale of a shape-changing Egyptian creature that comes to London seeking revenge on a leading MP, which greatly outsold its close rival Dracula (published the same year).’

'Mr. Richard Marsh has, so to speak, out-Heroded Herod' –
The Glasgow Herald, comparing Marsh to Bram Stoker (1898).
'We cannot recommend The Beetle to persons whose nerves are weak...' –
The Speaker (1898).
‘Sordid and vulgar’ –
The Daily Mail (1898). 
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Price HK$ 22,000



Beast in View - Margaret Millar

1955 - Random House, New York - First Edition
The psychological thriller, ‘strongly plotted accounts of eruptions from the depths of the unconscious’, by a mistress of suspense at the top of her form, winner of numerous awards and top rankings including the 1956 Edgar Allan Poe Award, and one of the Mystery Writers of America's Top 100 Mystery Novels of All Time. Difficult to find in such a bright dust jacket.

Beast in View was adapted for The Alfred Hitchcock Hour in the 60s and Alfred Hitchcock Presents in the 80s. Writing about the book in 1984 for the New York Times, Anthony Boucher said, it was “written with such complete realization of every character that the most bitter antagonist of mystery fiction may be forced to acknowledge it as a work of art.” - Jake Hinson, Hall of Famers, Criminal Element. 
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Price HK$ 4,000



Portrait of Jennie - Robert Nathan

1940 - Alfred A. Knopf, New York - First Edition
The basis for the 1948 William Dieterle film starring Joseph Cotten and Jennifer Jones, which won academy award for special effects, and was nominated for Best Cinematography.

The supernatural love story of a depression era artist in New York and a young girl slipping through time’, a modern Dorian Gray...

‘So brilliant is Nathan's execution that one is entirely lost in the tender love story of two immortally designed for each other, one a spirit out of the past seeking to catch up with the present, the other a man rooted in the present and caught in an urgency to accept the gift of the past . . .
Portrait of Jennie will perhaps most vividly recall Balderston's Berkeley Square, for, like that, it is a love story that transcends the boundaries of time. It is told with tenderness and with beauty. Its mood lingers in the heart, and its planes challenge the mind.’ – New York Times. 
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Price HK$ 3,000



 
Results 9 - 16 of 25 results