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Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive, Clea; Being the Alexandria Quartet. -
Lawrence Durrell
1957 - Faber and Faber, London - First Editions
A fine set in first issue dust jackets in superior condition.
'One of the most important works of our time.' - New York Times Book Review.
The Alexandria Quartet is Durrell’s most succesfull and admired work, at heart a sensuous and brilliant evocation of wartime Egypt.
In this world of corrupt glamour, L. G. Darley attempts to reconcile himself to the end of his affair with the dark, passionate Justine Hosnani - setting alight a beguiling exploration of sexual and political intrigue that Durrell himself described as 'an investigation of modern love'.
'A formidable, glittering achievement.' - Times Literary Supplement.
More details
Price HK$ 30,000
1957 - Faber and Faber, London - First Editions
A fine set in first issue dust jackets in superior condition.'One of the most important works of our time.' - New York Times Book Review.
The Alexandria Quartet is Durrell’s most succesfull and admired work, at heart a sensuous and brilliant evocation of wartime Egypt.
In this world of corrupt glamour, L. G. Darley attempts to reconcile himself to the end of his affair with the dark, passionate Justine Hosnani - setting alight a beguiling exploration of sexual and political intrigue that Durrell himself described as 'an investigation of modern love'.
'A formidable, glittering achievement.' - Times Literary Supplement.
More details
Price HK$ 30,000
Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me -
Richard Fariña
1966 - Random House, New York - First Edition
First edition of ‘the classic novel of the 1960s an unerring, corrosively comic depiction of a campus in revolt
Fariña evokes the Sixties as precisely, wittily, and poignantly as F. Scott Fitzgerald captured the Jazz Age. The hero, Gnossus Pappadopoulis, weaves his way through the psychedelic landscape, encountering, among other things, mescaline, women, art, gluttony, falsehood, science, prayer, and, occasionally, truth. A portrait of an explosive decade, sparkling with inventive writing and conveying the essence of a generation.’
‘Coming on like the Hallelujah Chorus done by 200 kazoo players with perfect pitch... hilarious, chilling, sexy, profound, maniacal, beautiful, and outrageous all at the same time.’ – Thomas Pynchon.
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Price HK$ 4,000
1966 - Random House, New York - First Edition
First edition of ‘the classic novel of the 1960s an unerring, corrosively comic depiction of a campus in revoltFariña evokes the Sixties as precisely, wittily, and poignantly as F. Scott Fitzgerald captured the Jazz Age. The hero, Gnossus Pappadopoulis, weaves his way through the psychedelic landscape, encountering, among other things, mescaline, women, art, gluttony, falsehood, science, prayer, and, occasionally, truth. A portrait of an explosive decade, sparkling with inventive writing and conveying the essence of a generation.’
‘Coming on like the Hallelujah Chorus done by 200 kazoo players with perfect pitch... hilarious, chilling, sexy, profound, maniacal, beautiful, and outrageous all at the same time.’ – Thomas Pynchon.
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Price HK$ 4,000
Taps at Reveille -
F. Scott Fitzgerald
1935 - Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York - First Edition, first state, in first state dust jacket
A bright, brilliant jacketed first edition of Fitzgerald’s collection of eighteen short stories, the last to be published during his lifetime.
This important collection, which Fitzgerald considered his best, includes the much anthologized story ‘Babylon Revisited’ – ‘one of the finest short stories in the English language... at once timeless and startlingly modern’ according to The Telegraph. Set in Paris during the late 1920s, ‘Babylon Revisited’ clearly chimes with Fitzgerald’s own life: the extravagant dissipation of life during the boom years, a wife lost to illness, and a fortune frittered away – painting an exquisite and intensely personal portrait of a man who has squandered his life.
‘A farewell to the Jazz Age... its setting is Paris, and its tone one of anguish for past follies’ – The New York Times
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Price HK$ 40,000
1935 - Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York - First Edition, first state, in first state dust jacket
A bright, brilliant jacketed first edition of Fitzgerald’s collection of eighteen short stories, the last to be published during his lifetime. This important collection, which Fitzgerald considered his best, includes the much anthologized story ‘Babylon Revisited’ – ‘one of the finest short stories in the English language... at once timeless and startlingly modern’ according to The Telegraph. Set in Paris during the late 1920s, ‘Babylon Revisited’ clearly chimes with Fitzgerald’s own life: the extravagant dissipation of life during the boom years, a wife lost to illness, and a fortune frittered away – painting an exquisite and intensely personal portrait of a man who has squandered his life.
‘A farewell to the Jazz Age... its setting is Paris, and its tone one of anguish for past follies’ – The New York Times
More details
Price HK$ 40,000
Flying Colours. Including A Ship Of The Line -
C. S. Forester
1938 - Michael Joseph Ltd. in conjunction with The Book Society Ltd., London - First Edition
One finely bound volume containing two classic Hornblower novels, in which Captain Horatio Hornblower commands his first ship of the line, HMS Sutherland. A Ship Of The Line and Flying Colours, are the second and third books in the Horatio Hornblower series. This is the first publication of Flying Colours which was released shortly afterwards as a stand alone title, making this the true first edition.
A Ship of the Line - May 1810, seventeen years deep into the Napoleonic Wars. Captain Horatio Hornblower is newly in command of his first ship of the line, the seventy-four-gun HMS Sutherland, which he deems ‘the ugliest and least desirable two-decker in the Navy List’. Moreover, she is 250 men short of a full crew, so Hornblower must enlist and train ‘poachers, bigamists, sheepstealers’, and other landlubbers. By the time the Sutherland reaches the blockaded Catalonian coast of Spain, the crew is capable of staging five astonishing solo raids against the French. But the grisly prospect of defeat and capture looms for both captain and crew as the Sutherland single-handedly takes on four French ships.
Flying Colours - Forced to surrender the Sutherland after a long and bloody battle, Captain Horatio Hornblower now bides his time as a prisoner in a French fortress. Within days he and his first lieutenant, Bush, who was crippled in the last fight, are to be taken to Paris to be tried on trumped-up charges of violating the laws of war, and most probably executed as part of Napoleon's attempt to rally the war-weary empire behind him. Even if Hornblower escapes this fate and somehow finds his way back to England, he will face court-martial for his surrender of a British ship. As fears for his life and his reputation compete in his mind with worries about his pregnant wife and his possibly widowed lover, the indomitable captain impatiently awaits the chance to make his next move.
More details
Price HK$ 5,000
1938 - Michael Joseph Ltd. in conjunction with The Book Society Ltd., London - First Edition
One finely bound volume containing two classic Hornblower novels, in which Captain Horatio Hornblower commands his first ship of the line, HMS Sutherland. A Ship Of The Line and Flying Colours, are the second and third books in the Horatio Hornblower series. This is the first publication of Flying Colours which was released shortly afterwards as a stand alone title, making this the true first edition.A Ship of the Line - May 1810, seventeen years deep into the Napoleonic Wars. Captain Horatio Hornblower is newly in command of his first ship of the line, the seventy-four-gun HMS Sutherland, which he deems ‘the ugliest and least desirable two-decker in the Navy List’. Moreover, she is 250 men short of a full crew, so Hornblower must enlist and train ‘poachers, bigamists, sheepstealers’, and other landlubbers. By the time the Sutherland reaches the blockaded Catalonian coast of Spain, the crew is capable of staging five astonishing solo raids against the French. But the grisly prospect of defeat and capture looms for both captain and crew as the Sutherland single-handedly takes on four French ships.
Flying Colours - Forced to surrender the Sutherland after a long and bloody battle, Captain Horatio Hornblower now bides his time as a prisoner in a French fortress. Within days he and his first lieutenant, Bush, who was crippled in the last fight, are to be taken to Paris to be tried on trumped-up charges of violating the laws of war, and most probably executed as part of Napoleon's attempt to rally the war-weary empire behind him. Even if Hornblower escapes this fate and somehow finds his way back to England, he will face court-martial for his surrender of a British ship. As fears for his life and his reputation compete in his mind with worries about his pregnant wife and his possibly widowed lover, the indomitable captain impatiently awaits the chance to make his next move.
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Price HK$ 5,000
Journey Without Maps -
Graham Greene
1936 - William Heinemann Ltd., London - First Edition
A near fine first edition of this most elusive title, Graham Greene’s first travel book, illustrated with 34 black and white photographs taken by him. Listed in National Geographic's 100 Greatest Adventure books.
Shortly after Greene's first child was born in December 1933 he had an impulse to explore Liberia, and over a glass of champagne asked his twenty-three year old cousin to accompany him. The result, according to Norman Sherry, was "one of the best travel books of our time..." (The Life of Graham Greene).
‘A doctor in Freetown, Sierra Leone, P.D. Oakley, sued the publisher, Heinemann, after the book's publication, saying Greene's depiction of a character in the book, called Pa Oakley, also a doctor, was libellous. Heinemann withdrew the book from circulation and pulped the remaining copies’. It took 10 years for a second edition to be printed.’
More details
Price HK$ 15,000
1936 - William Heinemann Ltd., London - First Edition
A near fine first edition of this most elusive title, Graham Greene’s first travel book, illustrated with 34 black and white photographs taken by him. Listed in National Geographic's 100 Greatest Adventure books.Shortly after Greene's first child was born in December 1933 he had an impulse to explore Liberia, and over a glass of champagne asked his twenty-three year old cousin to accompany him. The result, according to Norman Sherry, was "one of the best travel books of our time..." (The Life of Graham Greene).
‘A doctor in Freetown, Sierra Leone, P.D. Oakley, sued the publisher, Heinemann, after the book's publication, saying Greene's depiction of a character in the book, called Pa Oakley, also a doctor, was libellous. Heinemann withdrew the book from circulation and pulped the remaining copies’. It took 10 years for a second edition to be printed.’
More details
Price HK$ 15,000
May We Borrow your Husband? -
Graham Greene
1967 - The Bodley Head, London Sydney Toronto - First Edition
‘Wit, humour and irony... deployed with a light touch, and... a wicked sense of fun.’ – Sunday Times.
Author William Harris is spending the fag-end of the season at Antibes finishing his first attempt at historical biography, but he becomes more and more interested and involved in the antics of two homosexual interior decorators intent on stealing Poopy Travis's honeymoon husband. Which leaves him free to fall in love with Poopy himself.
A widow and a divorcee tipsily discuss the inadequacy of men, deciding that women have much more to offer each other by way of variety in sexual love. A wife holidays alone in Jamaica's cheap season idly hoping for excitement but finding the only man she can have an affair with is far too old and frightened of the dark. Affairs, obsessions, grand passions and tiny ardours this collection contains some of Greene's saddest observations on the hilarity of sex.
More details
Price HK$ 1,600
1967 - The Bodley Head, London Sydney Toronto - First Edition
‘Wit, humour and irony... deployed with a light touch, and... a wicked sense of fun.’ – Sunday Times.Author William Harris is spending the fag-end of the season at Antibes finishing his first attempt at historical biography, but he becomes more and more interested and involved in the antics of two homosexual interior decorators intent on stealing Poopy Travis's honeymoon husband. Which leaves him free to fall in love with Poopy himself.
A widow and a divorcee tipsily discuss the inadequacy of men, deciding that women have much more to offer each other by way of variety in sexual love. A wife holidays alone in Jamaica's cheap season idly hoping for excitement but finding the only man she can have an affair with is far too old and frightened of the dark. Affairs, obsessions, grand passions and tiny ardours this collection contains some of Greene's saddest observations on the hilarity of sex.
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Price HK$ 1,600
Travels With My Aunt -
Graham Greene
1969 - The Bodley Head, London Sydney Toronto - First Edition
‘Described by Graham Greene as "the only book I have written just for the fun of it."
‘Travels with My Aunt’ is the story of Henry Pulling, a retired and complacent bank manager, who meets his septuagenarian Aunt Augusta for the first time at what he supposes to be his mother's funeral. She soon persuades Henry to abandon his dull suburban existence to travel her way to Brighton, Paris, Istanbul, Paraguay. Through Aunt Augusta, one of Greene's greatest comic creations, Henry joins a shiftless, twilight society; mixes with hippies, war criminals, and CIA men; smokes pot; and breaks all currency regulations.’
More details
Price HK$ 1,900
1969 - The Bodley Head, London Sydney Toronto - First Edition
‘Described by Graham Greene as "the only book I have written just for the fun of it." ‘Travels with My Aunt’ is the story of Henry Pulling, a retired and complacent bank manager, who meets his septuagenarian Aunt Augusta for the first time at what he supposes to be his mother's funeral. She soon persuades Henry to abandon his dull suburban existence to travel her way to Brighton, Paris, Istanbul, Paraguay. Through Aunt Augusta, one of Greene's greatest comic creations, Henry joins a shiftless, twilight society; mixes with hippies, war criminals, and CIA men; smokes pot; and breaks all currency regulations.’
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Price HK$ 1,900
The Hoods -
Harry Grey (Pseud. Herschel Goldberg)
1952 - Crown Publishers, New York - First Edition
A rare first edition in unfaded dust jacket. The first novel by Harry Grey (Herschel Goldberg) later to become Sergio Leone’s epic ‘Once Upon a Time in America’ (1984) starring Robert DeNiro loosely playing Harry's life as David ‘Noodles’ Aaronson.
A partly autobiographical account of Goldberg, a Ukrainian born Jewish gangster in New York's Lower East Side between 1910 and 1933, legend has it that this was written whilst incarcerated in the notorious Sing-Sing prison, using the pseudonym Harry Grey to protect his family.
Housed in a bespoke black clamshell case with red morocco spine label lettered in gilt.
More details
Price HK$ 17,000
1952 - Crown Publishers, New York - First Edition
A rare first edition in unfaded dust jacket. The first novel by Harry Grey (Herschel Goldberg) later to become Sergio Leone’s epic ‘Once Upon a Time in America’ (1984) starring Robert DeNiro loosely playing Harry's life as David ‘Noodles’ Aaronson.A partly autobiographical account of Goldberg, a Ukrainian born Jewish gangster in New York's Lower East Side between 1910 and 1933, legend has it that this was written whilst incarcerated in the notorious Sing-Sing prison, using the pseudonym Harry Grey to protect his family.
Housed in a bespoke black clamshell case with red morocco spine label lettered in gilt.
More details
Price HK$ 17,000