Results 1 - 8 of 59 results


Real Sailor-Songs - John Ashton (Editor)

1891 - The Leadenhall Press, London - First Edition
A magnificent and large folio, containing 129 historical naval songs in full page and broadsheet format, charmingly illustrated with over 200 engravings.

One third of the songs celebrate the great British naval victories up to the end of the 18th century, the balance gathered under the headings of - ‘Press Gang’, ‘Disaster’, ‘Ashore’, ‘Love’, and ‘Miscellaneous’.
 
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Price HK$ 6,000



The Yellow Book - Aubrey Beardsley

April 1894-April 1897 - Elkin Mathews &, London
A complete, clean and better than normally encountered thirteen volume set of this groundbreaking art nouveau publication, in the publisher’s bright yellow illustrated covers with designs by Aubrey Beardsley. Together with ‘A Selection’ published in 1950 and bound in yellow cloth to match the earlier set. Fourteen volumes in total.

From its initial visually arresting issue, for which Aubrey Beardsley was art editor and for which Max Beerbohm wrote an essay, ‘
A Defence of Cosmetics’, ‘The Yellow Book’ attained immediate notoriety.

Published by John Lane and edited by Henry Harland, ‘
The Yellow Book’ attracted many outstanding writers and artists of the era, such as Arnold Bennett, Charlotte Mew, Henry James, Edmund Gosse, Richard Le Gallienne, and Walter Sickert.

Although dominated by the illustrations of Aubrey Beardsley, and his decadent fin de siècle aura, many other distinguished artists contributed to the quarterly, notably Frederic Leighton, Will Rothenstein, Walter Sickert and Philip Wilson Steer; contributors to the text included Max Beerbohm, John Buchan, Baron Corvo, Edmund Gosse, Kenneth Grahame, Henry James, E. Nesbit and W. B. Yeats.
 
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Price HK$ 10,000



The Curiosities of Ale & Beer: An Entertaining History - John Bickerdyke, John Greville Fennell, J. M. Dixon

1889 - Field &, London - First Edition
A history of ale and beer brewing from 2000 BC to the 1880's. Ballads and songs on beer, porter and stouts, served at large feasts at inns and taverns. Early anecdotes and poems, with sections on the medicinal uses of ale and hops. Illustrated with over 50 ‘quaint woodcuts’ and woodcut initials taken mostly from rare old titles.

Since the dawn of our history Barley-wine has been the “naturall drinke” for an “Englysshe man,” and has had no unimportant influence on English life and manners. It is, therefore, somewhat curious that up to the present, among the thousands of books published annually, no comprehensive work on the antiquities of ale and beer has found place.’

A finely bound first edition of BIckerdyke’s ‘evocative 19th century masterpiece’ [
Craft Beer & Brewing], a project begun by his friend, fellow angling author and lover of ale, John Greville Fennell, who due to failing health asked Cook to continue and finish the work. 
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Price HK$ 9,000



Bowlker's Art of Angling - Charles Bowlker

1826 - Procter &, Ludlow / London - Ninth Edition
An enlarged edition of one of the best early instructional works on fly-fishing and making artificial flies, first published Circa 1747 by the author's father Richard. Illustrated with a hand-coloured copper-engraved frontispiece showing 30 flies and with wood block vignettes throughout the text.

‘The
Art of Angling was the standard textbook of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and ran to at least a dozen editions. A slim volume written in the didactic style that is typical of early fishing manuals.

Continuing the grand tradition of early fishing texts,
The Art ranges widely for such a compact volume and deals with almost every type of fishing - where fly fishing is concerned, there is a great deal on choice of tackle, but relatively little on tactics.

Much of Bowlker's advice has its roots in the seventeenth century and some of his patterns are derived from the
Treatyse on Fishing with an Angle, an important milestone in the literature.’ - Dr. Andrew Herd - A FlyFishing History. 
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Price HK$ 2,500



Boat Racing: or The Arts of Rowing and Training - Edwin Dampier Brickwood (Amateur Ex-Champion of The Thames)

1876 - Horace Cox, 346 Strand - New Edition
Fine example of the rare second edition of ‘the earliest comprehensive work on the technique of rowing’ which adds the wonderful albumen photograph of an elegantly calm Henley and has been expanded with alterations bringing it up to date with the addition of historical matter. The most important being the invention and acceptance of the sliding seat between the first edition of 1866 and this second edition of 1876.

Brickwood is insistent on a good balance of work, diet, sleep and cleanliness. Breakfast of mutton chops or rump steaks, to which can be added some cold chicken or hot grilled fowl, an egg or two, lettuce or watercress, brown bread, and two cups of tea, lunch includes a slice or two of bread and butter and a half a pint of good sound ale, perhaps with a chop, dinner, being the main meal of the day is too large to list here, but should include a pint and a half of sound beer in the summer months, with a couple of glasses of claret, sherry, or port wine to finish it all off with. A glass of warm port wine or cup of tea without milk or sugar but with a teaspoonful of brandy is recommended between heats on race day....
 
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Price HK$ 10,000



The Commentaries of Caesar, Translated into English. To which is prefixed a Discourse Concerning the Roman Art of War - Caius Julius Caesar, William Duncan

1753 - J. &, London - First Edition
The magnificent folio edition of Cæsar's Commentaries, translated and with preliminary matter by William Duncan, with a superb array of 86 copper-engraved plates including six maps, most double-page.

These include the scarce fold-out "Bull" plate (
The Ursus or Buffalo) and The Battle with Elephants. Together with numerous finely engraved battle plans, depictions of the various peoples conquered by Cæsar (Picts, Druids, Gauls, Germans, etc.), maps of the regions occupied, etc.

This is thought by many as the finest edition of Caesar's commentaries in English.
 
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Price HK$ 98,000



The Decisive Moment - Henri Cartier-Bresson

1952 - Simon and Schuster in collaboration with É, New York - First Edition in English
One of the most important photography books of the 20th century, containing 126 full or double page heliogravures, considered ‘unique in providing an international portrait or impression of humanity covering the two decades prior to its publication’. Divided into two chronological and geographical sections: the first spans the years 1932 to 1947 and is made up of photographs taken in the west; the second spans 1947 to 1952 and was shot mostly in the east.

Prefaced by Cartier-Bresson’s 4,500-word philosophical essay, whose keynote ‘
There is nothing in this world that does not have a decisive moment.’ was taken from the 17th century Cardinal de Reitz.

‘The idea of the '
decisive moment' is one of the most enduring in photographic literature, and no one has articulated it better than its coiner, in his preface to this book: 'To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as of a precise organization of forms which give that event its proper expression.’’ - David Levi Strauss.

An elusively fine copy, the book without the commonly found chips to spine, in a superior example of the delicate dust jacket, both showing the striking illustration provided by Cartier-Bresson’s friend Henri Matisse. The original 12 leaf ‘
Captions’ pamphlet laid in, as published. 
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Price HK$ 24,000



The First Saint Omnibus. An Anthology of Saintly Adventures - Leslie Charteris

1939 - Hodder &, London - First Edition of this Collection
A finely bound selection of thirteen short stories featuring 'The Robin Hood of Modern Crime'.

Simon Templar, ‘The Saint’, ‘is a rambunctious adventurer who believes in old-fashioned romantic ideals, alter-ego perhaps of his Singaporean born creator Leslie Charles Bowyer Yin Charteris. Templar is prepared to lay down his life for these ideals, using considerable wit and intelligence, the Saint has a preference for avenging innocent victims.
 
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Price HK$ 4,000



 
Results 1 - 8 of 59 results