Watership Down -
Richard Adams
1972 - Rex Collings, London - First Edition
A beautiful copy of this classic heroic fantasy and political novel about a small group of rabbits who are anthropomorphised, possessing their own culture, language (Lapine), proverbs, poetry, and mythology. Evoking epic themes, the novel recounts the rabbits' odyssey as they escape the destruction of their warren to seek a place in which to establish a new home, encountering perils and temptations along the way.
The novel takes its name from the rabbits' destination, Watership Down, a hill in the north of Hampshire, England, near the area where Adams grew up, and is based on a collection of tales that Adams told to his young children to pass the time on trips to the countryside.
Though it was initially rejected by thirteen publishers before eventually being accepted by Rex Collings, Watership Down has never been out of print, and was the recipient of several prestigious awards. Adapted into an acclaimed film and a television series, it is Penguin Books' best-selling novel of all time.
‘As much about freedom, ethics and human nature as it is about a bunch of bunnies looking for a warm hidey-hole and some mates.’ – Paul Hughes.
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Price HK$ 15,000
1972 - Rex Collings, London - First Edition
A beautiful copy of this classic heroic fantasy and political novel about a small group of rabbits who are anthropomorphised, possessing their own culture, language (Lapine), proverbs, poetry, and mythology. Evoking epic themes, the novel recounts the rabbits' odyssey as they escape the destruction of their warren to seek a place in which to establish a new home, encountering perils and temptations along the way.The novel takes its name from the rabbits' destination, Watership Down, a hill in the north of Hampshire, England, near the area where Adams grew up, and is based on a collection of tales that Adams told to his young children to pass the time on trips to the countryside.
Though it was initially rejected by thirteen publishers before eventually being accepted by Rex Collings, Watership Down has never been out of print, and was the recipient of several prestigious awards. Adapted into an acclaimed film and a television series, it is Penguin Books' best-selling novel of all time.
‘As much about freedom, ethics and human nature as it is about a bunch of bunnies looking for a warm hidey-hole and some mates.’ – Paul Hughes.
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Price HK$ 15,000
Works -
Thomas Jefferson
1853-55 - John C. Riker, New York
‘I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man’
A superb set of the first collected edition of the works of Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, who voiced the aspirations of a new America as no other individual of his era. As public official, historian, philosopher, and plantation owner, he served his country for over five decades.
Complete in nine volumes, with folding facsimiles and tables. Published by the Order of the Joint Committee of Congress on the Library, from the Original Manuscripts deposited in the department of state. With explanatory notes, tables of contents, and a copious index to the whole, by the editor H. A. Washington.
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Price HK$ 29,000
1853-55 - John C. Riker, New York
‘I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man’A superb set of the first collected edition of the works of Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, who voiced the aspirations of a new America as no other individual of his era. As public official, historian, philosopher, and plantation owner, he served his country for over five decades.
Complete in nine volumes, with folding facsimiles and tables. Published by the Order of the Joint Committee of Congress on the Library, from the Original Manuscripts deposited in the department of state. With explanatory notes, tables of contents, and a copious index to the whole, by the editor H. A. Washington.
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Price HK$ 29,000
War Memoirs -
David Lloyd George
1933 to 1936 - Ivor Nicholson & Watson, London - First Editions
A bright near fine six volume set of Lloyd George’s War Memoirs, from 1908 and the ‘Brewing of the Storm’ to the Armistice and 1919 Paris Peace Conference, with illustrations and a comprehensive appendix and index.
War Memoirs ‘immediately made a major impact which has proved enduring. They have been heavily quarried and extensively cited and quoted by political and military historians and biographers ever since as first-hand evidence in relation to the seminal events and key personalities of the First World War. They aroused notably strong reactions when first published in the 1930s both from press critics in their reviews and from the wider reading public at large. The outspoken, vehement attacks on the generals of the Great War aroused particular condemnation, but there were also favourable comments from critics and reviewers on the thoroughness of the underlying research, the detailed documentation and the captivating literary style.’ – J. Graham Jones, The Lloyd George War Memoirs (2011).
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Price HK$ 6,800
1933 to 1936 - Ivor Nicholson & Watson, London - First Editions
A bright near fine six volume set of Lloyd George’s War Memoirs, from 1908 and the ‘Brewing of the Storm’ to the Armistice and 1919 Paris Peace Conference, with illustrations and a comprehensive appendix and index.War Memoirs ‘immediately made a major impact which has proved enduring. They have been heavily quarried and extensively cited and quoted by political and military historians and biographers ever since as first-hand evidence in relation to the seminal events and key personalities of the First World War. They aroused notably strong reactions when first published in the 1930s both from press critics in their reviews and from the wider reading public at large. The outspoken, vehement attacks on the generals of the Great War aroused particular condemnation, but there were also favourable comments from critics and reviewers on the thoroughness of the underlying research, the detailed documentation and the captivating literary style.’ – J. Graham Jones, The Lloyd George War Memoirs (2011).
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Price HK$ 6,800
An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding -
John Locke
1700 - Printed for Awnsham and John Churchil at The Black-Swan in Pater-Noster-Row, London - Fourth Edition, with large Additions
‘He that would seriously set upon the search of Truth, ought in the first Place to prepare his Mind with a Love of it. For he that Loves it not, will not take much Pains to get it; nor be much concerned when he misses it.’
Fuelled by the arguments of philosopher Francis Bacon, this large and beautifully bound edition of ‘Concerning Humane Understanding’ contains Locke’s essays on the range and limitations of human knowledge in respect to God and the universe. Often regarded as the birthplace of experimental psychology, this is an important and influential work.
The fourth edition was the last to be printed in his lifetime, and includes his editorial changes, as well as two previously unpublished chapters titled, ‘On the Association of Ideas’ and ‘Enthusiasm’.
With an engraved frontispiece portrait of John Locke by P. Vanderbanck after Sylvester Brounower.
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Price HK$ 19,000
1700 - Printed for Awnsham and John Churchil at The Black-Swan in Pater-Noster-Row, London - Fourth Edition, with large Additions
‘He that would seriously set upon the search of Truth, ought in the first Place to prepare his Mind with a Love of it. For he that Loves it not, will not take much Pains to get it; nor be much concerned when he misses it.’Fuelled by the arguments of philosopher Francis Bacon, this large and beautifully bound edition of ‘Concerning Humane Understanding’ contains Locke’s essays on the range and limitations of human knowledge in respect to God and the universe. Often regarded as the birthplace of experimental psychology, this is an important and influential work.
The fourth edition was the last to be printed in his lifetime, and includes his editorial changes, as well as two previously unpublished chapters titled, ‘On the Association of Ideas’ and ‘Enthusiasm’.
With an engraved frontispiece portrait of John Locke by P. Vanderbanck after Sylvester Brounower.
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Price HK$ 19,000
Secrets of the Great Whiskey Ring - and - Eighteen Months in the Penitentiary -
Gen. John McDonald
1880 - W. S. Bryan, St. Louis - New , revised and enlarged edition (published the same year
Inscribed and dated by McDonald, the central figure in Great Whiskey Ring, one of America’s greatest fraud scandals.
Two works in one, expanded from the first edition of the same year, to include the second story ‘Eighteen Months in the Penitentiary’, and illustrated with numerous portraits and engravings.
The Whiskey Ring was a scandal, exposed in 1875, involving diversion of tax revenues in a conspiracy among government agents, politicians, whiskey distillers, and distributors. The fraud took place in cities across the country, but was centered in St. Louis. The St. Louis ring was headed by John McDonald, the Treasury Department’s supervisor of internal revenue for the St. Louis area and an old army buddy of President Grant. Some of the fraudulent money went into Republican campaign coffers, but most was pocketed by the ring members for personal use. In an obvious attempt to fend off administration inquiries, McDonald gave expensive gifts to Orville Babcock, Grant’s personal secretary and close friend. McDonald also later testified to giving the president lavish gifts, but the claim was not proven in court.
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Price HK$ 1,800
1880 - W. S. Bryan, St. Louis - New , revised and enlarged edition (published the same year
Inscribed and dated by McDonald, the central figure in Great Whiskey Ring, one of America’s greatest fraud scandals.Two works in one, expanded from the first edition of the same year, to include the second story ‘Eighteen Months in the Penitentiary’, and illustrated with numerous portraits and engravings.
The Whiskey Ring was a scandal, exposed in 1875, involving diversion of tax revenues in a conspiracy among government agents, politicians, whiskey distillers, and distributors. The fraud took place in cities across the country, but was centered in St. Louis. The St. Louis ring was headed by John McDonald, the Treasury Department’s supervisor of internal revenue for the St. Louis area and an old army buddy of President Grant. Some of the fraudulent money went into Republican campaign coffers, but most was pocketed by the ring members for personal use. In an obvious attempt to fend off administration inquiries, McDonald gave expensive gifts to Orville Babcock, Grant’s personal secretary and close friend. McDonald also later testified to giving the president lavish gifts, but the claim was not proven in court.
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Price HK$ 1,800
On Liberty -
John Stuart Mill
1864 - Longman, London - Third edition
‘Genius can only breathe freely in an atmosphere of freedom’.
A smartly bound early printing of this powerful essay by British philosopher and economist John Stuart Mill (1806-73), first published in 1859.
On Liberty remains a major influence upon liberal political thought today, Mill defines liberty as an absolute individual right, and defends freedom of speech as a necessary condition of social and intellectual progress.
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Price HK$ 6,000
1864 - Longman, London - Third edition
‘Genius can only breathe freely in an atmosphere of freedom’.A smartly bound early printing of this powerful essay by British philosopher and economist John Stuart Mill (1806-73), first published in 1859.
On Liberty remains a major influence upon liberal political thought today, Mill defines liberty as an absolute individual right, and defends freedom of speech as a necessary condition of social and intellectual progress.
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Price HK$ 6,000
Social and Diplomatic Memories 1884-1893 -
Sir James Rennell Rodd G.C.B.
1922 - Edward Arnold & Co., London - Second Impression
The autobiography of 1st Bron Rennell (1858-1941), British diplomat, poet (Oscar Wilde assisted in publishing Rodd’s first book of poems), politician, and scholar of ancient Greece and Rome.
Covering the early years from his childhood, the ‘Balliol set’, and young Bohemian adulthood, to his first posting in Berlin from 1884 to 1888, where he became an intimate friend of the Empress Frederick, and recounts his memories of Bismark and other major figures during that tumultuous time, after this he moves on to Greece, Italy, France, and finally Zanzibar and East Africa at the end of the 19th century.
Finely bound and with a four page hand-written letter from his wife to an ‘unknown friend’, composed at the British Legation, Athens in February 1928.
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Price HK$ 2,000
1922 - Edward Arnold & Co., London - Second Impression
The autobiography of 1st Bron Rennell (1858-1941), British diplomat, poet (Oscar Wilde assisted in publishing Rodd’s first book of poems), politician, and scholar of ancient Greece and Rome.Covering the early years from his childhood, the ‘Balliol set’, and young Bohemian adulthood, to his first posting in Berlin from 1884 to 1888, where he became an intimate friend of the Empress Frederick, and recounts his memories of Bismark and other major figures during that tumultuous time, after this he moves on to Greece, Italy, France, and finally Zanzibar and East Africa at the end of the 19th century.
Finely bound and with a four page hand-written letter from his wife to an ‘unknown friend’, composed at the British Legation, Athens in February 1928.
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Price HK$ 2,000