Hell's Angel - SIGNED BY BARGER AND 20 OF HIS OAKLAND HELL S ANGELS -
Ralph Sonny Barger
2000 - William Morrow Inc., New York - First Edition
Signed and inscribed by Sonny Barger ‘To Dave’, his lawyer, and signed by an additional 20 Hell’s Angels, including many of the main protagonists from Hell’s Angels Oakland (HAMCO) - ‘Cisco’ Valderrama [page 83 and others]; Timothy ‘Fuzzy’ Timms [93]; Bobby ‘the Durt’ England [99]; Michael Malve [93]; ‘Flash’ Gordon Grow [93]; ‘Big Al’ Perryman [74]; Edward James ‘Deakon’ Proudfoot [93]; ‘Guinea’ Colucci [93]; Mike Musick [215]; Gary ‘Lurch’ Burkett [244]; and other giants of the club not mentioned in the book including Raymond ‘Boomer’ Baker (1940-2011); Lee ‘Hamco’ Staskunas; Wild Willy; Bert (Stefanson?); Darrell (Shay?); Sam ’Loyalties not Royalties’; and several signatures which are indecipherable.
Barger’s tale reads like that of a businessman building his empire. Starting with his foundation of the the Oakland, California, U.S. chapter of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club in 1958, he is responsible for pulling the disparate clubs together in the 1960's and unleashing them throughout North America as a formidable and disciplined organization with management structure, rules, voting rights (rites), and rather a lot of unsavoury offsite activities.
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Price HK$ 6,000
2000 - William Morrow Inc., New York - First Edition
Signed and inscribed by Sonny Barger ‘To Dave’, his lawyer, and signed by an additional 20 Hell’s Angels, including many of the main protagonists from Hell’s Angels Oakland (HAMCO) - ‘Cisco’ Valderrama [page 83 and others]; Timothy ‘Fuzzy’ Timms [93]; Bobby ‘the Durt’ England [99]; Michael Malve [93]; ‘Flash’ Gordon Grow [93]; ‘Big Al’ Perryman [74]; Edward James ‘Deakon’ Proudfoot [93]; ‘Guinea’ Colucci [93]; Mike Musick [215]; Gary ‘Lurch’ Burkett [244]; and other giants of the club not mentioned in the book including Raymond ‘Boomer’ Baker (1940-2011); Lee ‘Hamco’ Staskunas; Wild Willy; Bert (Stefanson?); Darrell (Shay?); Sam ’Loyalties not Royalties’; and several signatures which are indecipherable.Barger’s tale reads like that of a businessman building his empire. Starting with his foundation of the the Oakland, California, U.S. chapter of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club in 1958, he is responsible for pulling the disparate clubs together in the 1960's and unleashing them throughout North America as a formidable and disciplined organization with management structure, rules, voting rights (rites), and rather a lot of unsavoury offsite activities.
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Price HK$ 6,000
Commentaries on the Laws of England. -
William Blackstone, Esq. Solicitor General to Her Majesty
1770 - The Clarendon Press, Oxford - Fourth Edition
It Is Better That Ten Persons Escape, Than That One Innocent Suffer.
‘Blackstone's great work on the laws of England is the extreme example of justification of an existing state of affairs by virtue of its history. Until the ‘Commentaries’, the ordinary Englishman had viewed the law as a vast, unintelligible and unfriendly machine; nothing but trouble, even danger, was to be expected from contact with it. Blackstone's great achievement was to popularise the law and the traditions which had influenced its formation.’
– Printing and the Mind of Man.
An attractive four volume quarto set [28 x 23 cm] in contemporary full calf binding. With two engraved tables, being the Table of Consanguinity [Vol. II p.203] and the folding Table of Descents [Vol. II p.240].
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Price HK$ 40,000
1770 - The Clarendon Press, Oxford - Fourth Edition
It Is Better That Ten Persons Escape, Than That One Innocent Suffer.‘Blackstone's great work on the laws of England is the extreme example of justification of an existing state of affairs by virtue of its history. Until the ‘Commentaries’, the ordinary Englishman had viewed the law as a vast, unintelligible and unfriendly machine; nothing but trouble, even danger, was to be expected from contact with it. Blackstone's great achievement was to popularise the law and the traditions which had influenced its formation.’
– Printing and the Mind of Man.
An attractive four volume quarto set [28 x 23 cm] in contemporary full calf binding. With two engraved tables, being the Table of Consanguinity [Vol. II p.203] and the folding Table of Descents [Vol. II p.240].
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Price HK$ 40,000
A Treatise on Cobbett's Corn -
William Cobbett
1828 - By William Cobbett, London - First Edition
In 1820 on returning from the United States, were he had fled fearing arrest for his arguably seditious writings, Cobbett established a plant nursery at Kensington, where he trialed a dwarf strain of maize he found growing in a French cottage garden which grew well in England’s shorter summer. To help sell this variety, Cobbett published Treatise on Cobbett’s Corn. Charmingly written, including anecdotes of his travels through America, and the farming techniques and people he encounters there. The title and contents pages are printed on paper made from the husks and stalks of ‘Indian Corn’ (Maize).
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Price HK$ 2,500
1828 - By William Cobbett, London - First Edition
In 1820 on returning from the United States, were he had fled fearing arrest for his arguably seditious writings, Cobbett established a plant nursery at Kensington, where he trialed a dwarf strain of maize he found growing in a French cottage garden which grew well in England’s shorter summer. To help sell this variety, Cobbett published Treatise on Cobbett’s Corn. Charmingly written, including anecdotes of his travels through America, and the farming techniques and people he encounters there. The title and contents pages are printed on paper made from the husks and stalks of ‘Indian Corn’ (Maize).
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Price HK$ 2,500
The Morals of Confucius -
Confucius
Circa 1760-80 - Printed for Randal Taylor, London - First Thus
A rare later 18th century reprint of this work and the first to include the folding frontispiece engraving of Confucius (often missing). First published in 1691 and scarce in any early edition, more so this edition with the engraving. In contemporary binding, and with decorations to title page, six headpieces, and three tailpieces.
Beginning with a ‘Preface’ introducing this translation and its sources, followed by ‘Part First’ titled ‘Of the Antiquity and Philosophy of the Chinese’, then ‘Part II’ which offers selected translations from the three books, and ends with 80 ‘Maxims’.
‘The great Chinese teacher Confucius (551 BC–479 BC) articulated a philosophy based on the concepts of ren (‘benevolence’ or ‘compassion’) and li (‘ritual’ or ‘propriety’). He hoped to create the ideal, superior man (junzi) and thereby facilitate a just society.
Confucius’s teachings were highly influential across China and large areas of east Asia for almost two millennia before this 1691 work offered English readers their first introduction to his philosophical approach. It provides an account of Confucius’s life and times, as well as 80 of his maxims.
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Price HK$ 21,000
Circa 1760-80 - Printed for Randal Taylor, London - First Thus
A rare later 18th century reprint of this work and the first to include the folding frontispiece engraving of Confucius (often missing). First published in 1691 and scarce in any early edition, more so this edition with the engraving. In contemporary binding, and with decorations to title page, six headpieces, and three tailpieces.Beginning with a ‘Preface’ introducing this translation and its sources, followed by ‘Part First’ titled ‘Of the Antiquity and Philosophy of the Chinese’, then ‘Part II’ which offers selected translations from the three books, and ends with 80 ‘Maxims’.
‘The great Chinese teacher Confucius (551 BC–479 BC) articulated a philosophy based on the concepts of ren (‘benevolence’ or ‘compassion’) and li (‘ritual’ or ‘propriety’). He hoped to create the ideal, superior man (junzi) and thereby facilitate a just society.
Confucius’s teachings were highly influential across China and large areas of east Asia for almost two millennia before this 1691 work offered English readers their first introduction to his philosophical approach. It provides an account of Confucius’s life and times, as well as 80 of his maxims.
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Price HK$ 21,000
Mating Marriage and the Status of Women -
James Corin
1910 - The Walter Scott Publishing Co. Ltd., London and Felling-on-Tyne - First Edition
‘The Object of the present treatise is to consider the development of the relations of the male and the female of the species.’ And onward Corin bravely goes. This rare treatise is still referenced today, and must of been of importance at the time, this copy was owned by the ‘Liberator League’ of Bradford.
Corin summarises his theories in the final chapter as follows:- ‘In the first period the human female rules. She dictates to the male in sexual affairs — this is free mating...
In the second period the male captures foreign females for his use, because his own are too chaste; these foreign females become his slave wives. He courts and mates with females of his own tribe at yearly festivals like Australian corroborees.
In the third period the institution of marriage has become the dominant form . . . so much so that mating unions become regularised as marriages or are condemned as illicit. Of females, wives are more honoured than free mates — in fact the latter become infamous except in a few cases of royal princesses...
In the fourth period the female recognises and revolts against her inferior position; restrictions on dissolution of marriage are relaxed, and by easy divorce, conditions nearly approaching those of free-mating are again evolved...
In the fifth period, social disruption occurs, conquest by a lower type takes place. The male seizes the opportunity to reinstate the fetters of matrimony and to rivet the links more tightly on the female. so that something of the third period is entered into again.’
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Price HK$ 1,900
1910 - The Walter Scott Publishing Co. Ltd., London and Felling-on-Tyne - First Edition
‘The Object of the present treatise is to consider the development of the relations of the male and the female of the species.’ And onward Corin bravely goes. This rare treatise is still referenced today, and must of been of importance at the time, this copy was owned by the ‘Liberator League’ of Bradford.Corin summarises his theories in the final chapter as follows:- ‘In the first period the human female rules. She dictates to the male in sexual affairs — this is free mating...
In the second period the male captures foreign females for his use, because his own are too chaste; these foreign females become his slave wives. He courts and mates with females of his own tribe at yearly festivals like Australian corroborees.
In the third period the institution of marriage has become the dominant form . . . so much so that mating unions become regularised as marriages or are condemned as illicit. Of females, wives are more honoured than free mates — in fact the latter become infamous except in a few cases of royal princesses...
In the fourth period the female recognises and revolts against her inferior position; restrictions on dissolution of marriage are relaxed, and by easy divorce, conditions nearly approaching those of free-mating are again evolved...
In the fifth period, social disruption occurs, conquest by a lower type takes place. The male seizes the opportunity to reinstate the fetters of matrimony and to rivet the links more tightly on the female. so that something of the third period is entered into again.’
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Price HK$ 1,900
The Trilogy of Desire: The Financier; The Titan; The Stoic. -
Theodore Dreiser
1912 - Harper &, New York - First Editions
A complete first edition set of Dreiser’s ‘Trilogy of Desire’, also known as ‘The Cowperwood Trilogy’, telling the life story of Charles T. Yerkes, renamed Algernon Cowperwood by Dreiser, a Philadelphia securities manipulator and streetcar magnate. ‘The Financier’, the first of the trilogy, in scarce and unrestored dust jacket.
‘It is Mr. Dreiser's constant probing of the intertwined needs for money, art, glory, sex and so much else that makes "The Financier" the greatest of all American business novels.’ - The Wall Street Journal, 2012.
‘Dreiser laboriously researched the business practices and personal exploits of real-life robber baron Charles Yerkes to narrate Frank Algernon Cowperwood's early career in ‘The Financier’, which explores the unscrupulous world of finance from the Civil War through the panic incited by the 1871 Chicago fire.’ (University of Illinois). Despite claiming complete ignorance about finance and an inability to make money, Dreiser presents a technical masterpiece.
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Price HK$ 62,000
1912 - Harper &, New York - First Editions
A complete first edition set of Dreiser’s ‘Trilogy of Desire’, also known as ‘The Cowperwood Trilogy’, telling the life story of Charles T. Yerkes, renamed Algernon Cowperwood by Dreiser, a Philadelphia securities manipulator and streetcar magnate. ‘The Financier’, the first of the trilogy, in scarce and unrestored dust jacket.‘It is Mr. Dreiser's constant probing of the intertwined needs for money, art, glory, sex and so much else that makes "The Financier" the greatest of all American business novels.’ - The Wall Street Journal, 2012.
‘Dreiser laboriously researched the business practices and personal exploits of real-life robber baron Charles Yerkes to narrate Frank Algernon Cowperwood's early career in ‘The Financier’, which explores the unscrupulous world of finance from the Civil War through the panic incited by the 1871 Chicago fire.’ (University of Illinois). Despite claiming complete ignorance about finance and an inability to make money, Dreiser presents a technical masterpiece.
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Price HK$ 62,000
Cryptomenysis Patefacta: Or the Art of Secret Information Disclosed without a Key -
John Falconer
1685 - Daniel Brown, London - First Edition
A complete first edition of this scarce work on cryptography, the second to be published on the subject but the first of practical value, according to Kahn (The Code Breakers) ‘Up until Falconer the literature was all theory and no practice’.
Falconer's first strike against polyalphabetic ciphers later morphed into more sophisticated computation in the hands of Charles Babbage and Friedrich Kasiski.
‘Falconer also gave what seems to be the earliest illustration of keyed columnar transposition, a cipher that is today the primary and most widely used transposition cipher, having served (with modifications) for French military ciphers, Japanese diplomatic superencipherments, and Soviet spy ciphers.’ – Leeuw, The History of Information Security.
‘“The second English book on the subject excelled”, according to David Kahn (The Code Breakers), and its high quality is all the more surprising when one considers that John Falconer had written Cryptomenysis Patefacta in France some thirty years before its first publication in 1685 while serving the Duke of York, the future King James II, during his period of exile there (1652-1660). Falconer about whose life little is known except that he apparently was entrusted with the Duke’s private cipher until he died in France, was a master of the trade. He structured his book in five sections, dealing with the ways of “Secrecy in Writing”, such as cryptography, steganography, and simple “Rules for Decyphering them without a key”; of the “Methods of Secret Information, by Signs and Gestures”; by the “Secrecy consisting in Speech”; “Of Secret Means of Conveying Written Messages”; and lastly, with “the several astonishing Proposals for Secret Information... concerning [Trithemius’] eight Books of Steganography”. Falconer’s sources are limited; they include Trithemius, Machiavelli, Kaspar Schott, Francis Bacon and Bishop Wilkins, but they suffice to provide a solid overview, which includes “the earliest illustration of keyed columnar transposition, a cipher that is today the primary and most widely used transposition cipher” [Kahn].’ – Leeuw & Bergstra, The History of Information Security [303].
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Price HK$ 35,000
1685 - Daniel Brown, London - First Edition
A complete first edition of this scarce work on cryptography, the second to be published on the subject but the first of practical value, according to Kahn (The Code Breakers) ‘Up until Falconer the literature was all theory and no practice’.Falconer's first strike against polyalphabetic ciphers later morphed into more sophisticated computation in the hands of Charles Babbage and Friedrich Kasiski.
‘Falconer also gave what seems to be the earliest illustration of keyed columnar transposition, a cipher that is today the primary and most widely used transposition cipher, having served (with modifications) for French military ciphers, Japanese diplomatic superencipherments, and Soviet spy ciphers.’ – Leeuw, The History of Information Security.
‘“The second English book on the subject excelled”, according to David Kahn (The Code Breakers), and its high quality is all the more surprising when one considers that John Falconer had written Cryptomenysis Patefacta in France some thirty years before its first publication in 1685 while serving the Duke of York, the future King James II, during his period of exile there (1652-1660). Falconer about whose life little is known except that he apparently was entrusted with the Duke’s private cipher until he died in France, was a master of the trade. He structured his book in five sections, dealing with the ways of “Secrecy in Writing”, such as cryptography, steganography, and simple “Rules for Decyphering them without a key”; of the “Methods of Secret Information, by Signs and Gestures”; by the “Secrecy consisting in Speech”; “Of Secret Means of Conveying Written Messages”; and lastly, with “the several astonishing Proposals for Secret Information... concerning [Trithemius’] eight Books of Steganography”. Falconer’s sources are limited; they include Trithemius, Machiavelli, Kaspar Schott, Francis Bacon and Bishop Wilkins, but they suffice to provide a solid overview, which includes “the earliest illustration of keyed columnar transposition, a cipher that is today the primary and most widely used transposition cipher” [Kahn].’ – Leeuw & Bergstra, The History of Information Security [303].
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Price HK$ 35,000
Booms and Depressions. Some First Principles -
Irving Fisher, LL. D.
1932 - Adelphi Company, New York - First Edition
First edition of this now acknowledged classic presenting the theory of Great Depressions by the leading American economist of his generation, who many consider ‘the father of monetary economics’ (Pressman, 91), along with Milton Friedman.
Rare in such a bright and intact delicate dust jacket.
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Price HK$ 40,000
1932 - Adelphi Company, New York - First Edition
First edition of this now acknowledged classic presenting the theory of Great Depressions by the leading American economist of his generation, who many consider ‘the father of monetary economics’ (Pressman, 91), along with Milton Friedman.Rare in such a bright and intact delicate dust jacket.
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Price HK$ 40,000