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The Virgin Suicides -
Jeffrey Eugenides
1993 - Farrar Straus Giroux, New York - First edition
‘A piercing first novel . . . lyrical and portentous.’ – The New York Times
The Virgin Suicides announced the arrival of a major new American novelist. In a quiet suburb of Detroit, the five Lisbon sisters, beautiful, eccentric, and obsessively watched by the neighbourhood boys, commit suicide one by one over the course of a single year. As the boys observe them from afar, transfixed, they piece together the mystery of the family's fatal melancholy, in this hypnotic and unforgettable novel of adolescent love, disquiet, and death.
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Price HK$ 1,600
1993 - Farrar Straus Giroux, New York - First edition
‘A piercing first novel . . . lyrical and portentous.’ – The New York TimesThe Virgin Suicides announced the arrival of a major new American novelist. In a quiet suburb of Detroit, the five Lisbon sisters, beautiful, eccentric, and obsessively watched by the neighbourhood boys, commit suicide one by one over the course of a single year. As the boys observe them from afar, transfixed, they piece together the mystery of the family's fatal melancholy, in this hypnotic and unforgettable novel of adolescent love, disquiet, and death.
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Price HK$ 1,600
The Wild Palms -
William Faulkner
1939 - Chatto & Windus, London - First English Edition [same year as the First American Edition]
A combination of two interwoven stories, The Wild Palms and Old Man. Later published as If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem.
‘In New Orleans in 1937, a man and a woman embark on a headlong flight into the wilderness of illicit passion, fleeing her husband and the temptations of respectability. In Mississippi ten years earlier, a convict sets forth across a flooded river, risking his own chance at freedom to rescue a pregnant woman. From these separate stories Faulkner composes a symphony of deliverance and damnation, survival and self-sacrifice, a novel in which elemental danger is juxtaposed wiht fatal injuries of the spirit.’ [from a later edition]
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Price HK$ 8,000
1939 - Chatto & Windus, London - First English Edition [same year as the First American Edition]
A combination of two interwoven stories, The Wild Palms and Old Man. Later published as If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem.‘In New Orleans in 1937, a man and a woman embark on a headlong flight into the wilderness of illicit passion, fleeing her husband and the temptations of respectability. In Mississippi ten years earlier, a convict sets forth across a flooded river, risking his own chance at freedom to rescue a pregnant woman. From these separate stories Faulkner composes a symphony of deliverance and damnation, survival and self-sacrifice, a novel in which elemental danger is juxtaposed wiht fatal injuries of the spirit.’ [from a later edition]
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Price HK$ 8,000
Light in August -
William Faulkner
1932 - Harrison Smith and Robert Haas, New York - First Edition, First Printing, First Issue
A superb first edition of Faulkner's seventh novel, an exploration of the lasting effects of racism and misogyny, one of four of his novels consistently ranked among the best of the twentieth century.
‘One of William Faulkner’s most admired and accessible novels, Light in August reveals the great American author at the height of his powers. Lena Grove’s resolute search for the father of her unborn child begets a rich, poignant, and ultimately hopeful story of perseverance in the face of mortality. It also acquaints us with several of Faulkner’s most unforgettable characters, including the Reverend Gail Hightower, plagued by visions of Confederate horsemen, and Joe Christmas, a ragged, itinerant soul obsessed with his mixed-race ancestry.’ - Penguin Classics.
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Price HK$ 69,000
1932 - Harrison Smith and Robert Haas, New York - First Edition, First Printing, First Issue
A superb first edition of Faulkner's seventh novel, an exploration of the lasting effects of racism and misogyny, one of four of his novels consistently ranked among the best of the twentieth century.‘One of William Faulkner’s most admired and accessible novels, Light in August reveals the great American author at the height of his powers. Lena Grove’s resolute search for the father of her unborn child begets a rich, poignant, and ultimately hopeful story of perseverance in the face of mortality. It also acquaints us with several of Faulkner’s most unforgettable characters, including the Reverend Gail Hightower, plagued by visions of Confederate horsemen, and Joe Christmas, a ragged, itinerant soul obsessed with his mixed-race ancestry.’ - Penguin Classics.
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Price HK$ 69,000
Intruder in the Dust -
William Faulkner
1948 - Random House, New York - First Edition
William Faulkner’s savage tale of racial injustice in a sleepy southern town, this engrossing murder mystery follows the story of Lucas Beauchamp, a black man wrongly accused of the murder of a white man. Confronted with the threat of lynching, Lucas – aided by a white lawyer and his young nephew – sets out to prove his innocence.
First edition in the beautiful jacket designed by E. McKnight Kauffer.
A Haycraft-Queen cornerstone of crime and detective fiction, as named by Howard Haycraft and Ellery Queen on their definitive list of mystery novels.
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Price HK$ 2,500
1948 - Random House, New York - First Edition
William Faulkner’s savage tale of racial injustice in a sleepy southern town, this engrossing murder mystery follows the story of Lucas Beauchamp, a black man wrongly accused of the murder of a white man. Confronted with the threat of lynching, Lucas – aided by a white lawyer and his young nephew – sets out to prove his innocence.First edition in the beautiful jacket designed by E. McKnight Kauffer.
A Haycraft-Queen cornerstone of crime and detective fiction, as named by Howard Haycraft and Ellery Queen on their definitive list of mystery novels.
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Price HK$ 2,500
The Town -
William Faulkner
1957 - Random House, New York - First Edition, First State
The second novel in Faulkner’s ‘Snopes Trilogy’. The other two being ‘The Hamlet’ and ‘The Mansion’.
First printing with ‘First Printing’ stated on the copyright page, first state, with line 10 repeating line 8 on page 327, in first printing dust jacket with 5/57 to lower corner of the front flap, and not price clipped.
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Price HK$ 2,500
1957 - Random House, New York - First Edition, First State
The second novel in Faulkner’s ‘Snopes Trilogy’. The other two being ‘The Hamlet’ and ‘The Mansion’.First printing with ‘First Printing’ stated on the copyright page, first state, with line 10 repeating line 8 on page 327, in first printing dust jacket with 5/57 to lower corner of the front flap, and not price clipped.
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Price HK$ 2,500
The Scarlet Letter -
Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Varnum Poor (illustrator)
1941 - The Limited Editions Club, New York - First Edition illustrated by Powers, Number 1, 107 of 1, 500.
‘She had not known the weight until she felt the freedom.’
A handsomely bound limited edition of Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic investigation of the American mind, set in 17th century Boston and written in Salem in 1849-50
Signed by Henry Varnum Poor, whose stone lithograph illustrations enhance Hawthorne’s best known work. With an introduction by Dorothy Canfield.
‘The finest piece of imaginative writing yet put forth in this country. There was a consciousness of this in the welcome that was given it - a satisfaction in the idea of America having produced a novel that belonged to literature and to the forefront of it.’ - Henry James (1879).
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Price HK$ 4,000
1941 - The Limited Editions Club, New York - First Edition illustrated by Powers, Number 1, 107 of 1, 500.
‘She had not known the weight until she felt the freedom.’A handsomely bound limited edition of Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic investigation of the American mind, set in 17th century Boston and written in Salem in 1849-50
Signed by Henry Varnum Poor, whose stone lithograph illustrations enhance Hawthorne’s best known work. With an introduction by Dorothy Canfield.
‘The finest piece of imaginative writing yet put forth in this country. There was a consciousness of this in the welcome that was given it - a satisfaction in the idea of America having produced a novel that belonged to literature and to the forefront of it.’ - Henry James (1879).
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Price HK$ 4,000
The Call of the Wild -
Jack London
1903 - The Macmillan Company, New York - First Edition, First Issue
‘Deep in the forest a call was sounding, and . . . he felt compelled to turn his back upon the fire, and to plunge into the forest’
A fresh first edition of Jack London's best and most enduring work, with little of the usual rubbing to the boards. Illustrated with eleven full page colour plates, including frontispiece with tissue-guard, five in-text colour illustrations, and numerous full page and in-text single tint decorations and illustrations, by Philip R. Goodwin and Charles Livingston Bull, decorations by Charles E. Hooper.
‘What projects The Call of the Wild towards immortality is London's urgent and vivid style, and his astonishing identification with the world he's describing’ - The Guardian Newspaper (2014), 100 best novels.
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Price HK$ 19,600
1903 - The Macmillan Company, New York - First Edition, First Issue
‘Deep in the forest a call was sounding, and . . . he felt compelled to turn his back upon the fire, and to plunge into the forest’A fresh first edition of Jack London's best and most enduring work, with little of the usual rubbing to the boards. Illustrated with eleven full page colour plates, including frontispiece with tissue-guard, five in-text colour illustrations, and numerous full page and in-text single tint decorations and illustrations, by Philip R. Goodwin and Charles Livingston Bull, decorations by Charles E. Hooper.
‘What projects The Call of the Wild towards immortality is London's urgent and vivid style, and his astonishing identification with the world he's describing’ - The Guardian Newspaper (2014), 100 best novels.
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Price HK$ 19,600
A River Runs Through It and Other Stories -
Norman Maclean
1976 - The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London - First Edition
‘In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing’
A freshly landed first edition of Maclean’s beautiful first book and the first work of fiction to be published by the University of Chicago Press, where he had been a professor for many years. Maclean had told versions of these stories, over the years, to a number of people who encouraged him, finally, to write them down at the age of eighty.
‘We lived at the junction of great trout rivers in western Montana, and our father was a Presbyterian minister and a fly fisherman who tied his own flies and taught others. He told us about Christ's disciples being fishermen, and we were left to assume, as my brother and I did, that all first-class fishermen on the Sea of Galilee were fly fishermen.’
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Price HK$ 9,500
1976 - The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London - First Edition
‘In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing’A freshly landed first edition of Maclean’s beautiful first book and the first work of fiction to be published by the University of Chicago Press, where he had been a professor for many years. Maclean had told versions of these stories, over the years, to a number of people who encouraged him, finally, to write them down at the age of eighty.
‘We lived at the junction of great trout rivers in western Montana, and our father was a Presbyterian minister and a fly fisherman who tied his own flies and taught others. He told us about Christ's disciples being fishermen, and we were left to assume, as my brother and I did, that all first-class fishermen on the Sea of Galilee were fly fishermen.’
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Price HK$ 9,500