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Poetry
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
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 Poetical Works of Robert Burns. Edited with A Memoir by George A. Aitken -
Robert Burns, George A. Aitken
1893 - George Bell and Sons, London - First Aitken Edition
An elegantly bound three volume set of Burns’ works, with engraved portrait frontispiece to first volume.
Featuring Robert Burns’ best-known poetry and songs, including the epic tale of Tam O’Shanter. Volume I also contains a memoir of Burns by George Atherton Aitken, and to the rear of the final volume is a Glossary, and Index of First Lines.
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Price HK$ 4,500
1893 - George Bell and Sons, London - First Aitken Edition
An elegantly bound three volume set of Burns’ works, with engraved portrait frontispiece to first volume.Featuring Robert Burns’ best-known poetry and songs, including the epic tale of Tam O’Shanter. Volume I also contains a memoir of Burns by George Atherton Aitken, and to the rear of the final volume is a Glossary, and Index of First Lines.
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Price HK$ 4,500
Advice from a Lady of Quality to her Children -
Louis-Antoine Caraccioli, Samuel Glasse (translator)
1778 - Printed by R. Raikes and Sold by J. F. and C. Rivington, Glocester - First Edition in English
An extremely rare first edition of this 18th century ‘Tuesdays With Morrie’, first published in 1769 as ’Les adieux de la Maréchale de *** à ses enfants’. Two pretty little volumes In 18th century full calf bindings.
A popular courtesy book written in a series of twenty one ‘conferences’ held between mother, her daughter and sons. Topics covered during these conferences include Virtue, Pride, Generosity, Female Conduct, Friendship, Love of Truth, Brotherly Love, Study, Pleasure, Ambition, Vanity, Relative Duty, Patriotism, Social Duties.
Unlike most courtesy books, Caraccioli's has the semblance of a plot and reads somewhat like a novel, which ends with the death of the main character. Advice from a Lady went through numerous later editions in England and America.
The Translator, Samuel Glasse, dedicates this work to Queen Charlotte (1744-1818), consort of King George III of Great Britain.
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Price HK$ 11,000
1778 - Printed by R. Raikes and Sold by J. F. and C. Rivington, Glocester - First Edition in English
An extremely rare first edition of this 18th century ‘Tuesdays With Morrie’, first published in 1769 as ’Les adieux de la Maréchale de *** à ses enfants’. Two pretty little volumes In 18th century full calf bindings.A popular courtesy book written in a series of twenty one ‘conferences’ held between mother, her daughter and sons. Topics covered during these conferences include Virtue, Pride, Generosity, Female Conduct, Friendship, Love of Truth, Brotherly Love, Study, Pleasure, Ambition, Vanity, Relative Duty, Patriotism, Social Duties.
Unlike most courtesy books, Caraccioli's has the semblance of a plot and reads somewhat like a novel, which ends with the death of the main character. Advice from a Lady went through numerous later editions in England and America.
The Translator, Samuel Glasse, dedicates this work to Queen Charlotte (1744-1818), consort of King George III of Great Britain.
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Price HK$ 11,000
The Poetical Works -
William Cowper, H.S. Milford (editor)
1934 - Oxford University Press, London - Fourth Edition
‘Oh for a lodge in some vast wilderness,
Some boundless contiguity of shade,
Where rumour of oppression and deceit,
Of unsuccessful or successful war,
Might never reach me more.’
A excellent copy – finely bound by Sangorski and Sutcliffe – of the poetical works of William Cowper, including his poems ‘Epitaph on a Hare’ and ‘The Task’, together with his Olney Hymns and his translations from classical Latin and Greek verses. Edited and with a preface by H.S. Milford.
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Price HK$ 1,600
1934 - Oxford University Press, London - Fourth Edition
‘Oh for a lodge in some vast wilderness,Some boundless contiguity of shade,
Where rumour of oppression and deceit,
Of unsuccessful or successful war,
Might never reach me more.’
A excellent copy – finely bound by Sangorski and Sutcliffe – of the poetical works of William Cowper, including his poems ‘Epitaph on a Hare’ and ‘The Task’, together with his Olney Hymns and his translations from classical Latin and Greek verses. Edited and with a preface by H.S. Milford.
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Price HK$ 1,600
The Ballad of Beau Brocade and other Poems of the XVIIIth Century -
Austin Dobson, Hugh Thomson (illustrator)
1892 - Kegan Paul, London - Large Paper Edition. Number 30 of 450 copies
‘And of all the knights of the gentle trade
Nobody bolder than Beau Brocade.’
An excellent copy of this 18th century-style ballad, one of Dobson’s most spirited works of verse, handsomely bound by Ramage, and charmingly illustrated with fifty black and white drawings by Hugh Thomson, printed on Japanese vellum.
This collection also includes the poems ‘A Gentleman of the Old School’, ‘A Dead Letter’, ‘The Old Sedan Chair’, ‘The Ladies of St. James’, ‘Molly Trefusis’, and ‘A Chapter on Froissart’.
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Price HK$ 3,000
1892 - Kegan Paul, London - Large Paper Edition. Number 30 of 450 copies
‘And of all the knights of the gentle tradeNobody bolder than Beau Brocade.’
An excellent copy of this 18th century-style ballad, one of Dobson’s most spirited works of verse, handsomely bound by Ramage, and charmingly illustrated with fifty black and white drawings by Hugh Thomson, printed on Japanese vellum.
This collection also includes the poems ‘A Gentleman of the Old School’, ‘A Dead Letter’, ‘The Old Sedan Chair’, ‘The Ladies of St. James’, ‘Molly Trefusis’, and ‘A Chapter on Froissart’.
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Price HK$ 3,000
The Life of an Actor. Dedicated to Edmund Kean, Esq. The Poetical Descriptions by T. Greenwood. Embellished with Twenty-seven Characteristic Scenes, etched by Theodore Lane; Enriched also with Several Original Designs on Wood, executed by Mr. Thompson -
Pierce Egan, T. Greenwood, Theodore Lane (illustrator)
1825 - Printed for C.S. Arnold, London - First Edition
A finely bound example of Pierce Egan’s wonderful and amusing novel centred around Peregrine Proteus, and his various highs and lows attempting to pursue a career on the stage. Dedicated to Edmund Kean (1789-1833) the greatest of English tragic actors, a turbulent genius noted as much for his megalomania and ungovernable behaviour as for his portrayals of villains in Shakespearean plays.
Illustrated with twenty-seven hand-coloured aquatint plates by Theodore Lane and nine woodcut engravings by John Thompson (1785-1866).
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Price HK$ 15,000
1825 - Printed for C.S. Arnold, London - First Edition
A finely bound example of Pierce Egan’s wonderful and amusing novel centred around Peregrine Proteus, and his various highs and lows attempting to pursue a career on the stage. Dedicated to Edmund Kean (1789-1833) the greatest of English tragic actors, a turbulent genius noted as much for his megalomania and ungovernable behaviour as for his portrayals of villains in Shakespearean plays.Illustrated with twenty-seven hand-coloured aquatint plates by Theodore Lane and nine woodcut engravings by John Thompson (1785-1866).
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Price HK$ 15,000
Tess of The D'Urbervilles -
Thomas Hardy
1895 - Osgood, London - First Single Volume Edition
Finely bound early edition, and the first to contain a new additional preface by Thomas Hardy, as well as a frontispiece portrait of the author by H Macbeth-Raeburn
‘In Tess, Hardy presents a world in which the human spirit is battered down by the forces, not of fate, but of social hierarchy. Tess’s eventual death, one of the most famous in literature, is a direct result of human cruelty and as such represents one of the most moving indictments of the lives of nineteenth-century English women in all of literature’ – Alvin Birdy.
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Price HK$ 5,500
1895 - Osgood, London - First Single Volume Edition
Finely bound early edition, and the first to contain a new additional preface by Thomas Hardy, as well as a frontispiece portrait of the author by H Macbeth-Raeburn‘In Tess, Hardy presents a world in which the human spirit is battered down by the forces, not of fate, but of social hierarchy. Tess’s eventual death, one of the most famous in literature, is a direct result of human cruelty and as such represents one of the most moving indictments of the lives of nineteenth-century English women in all of literature’ – Alvin Birdy.
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Price HK$ 5,500
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).
More details
Price HK$ 4,000