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The Man With the Golden Arm -
Nelson Algren
1949 - Doubleday & Company, New York - First Edition
‘There’s people in hell who want ice water…’
Algren’s shockingly brilliant novel of the disinherited, The Man With the Golden Arm tells the sordid tale of Frankie Machine, the ‘golden arm’ dealer of a back street Chicago gambling den, whose heroin addiction and failing marriage drive him to the depths of despair.
The character of Frankie Machine was memorably brought to life on the silver screen by Frank Sinatra, in Otto Preminger’s 1955 film adaptation of the novel, which co-starred Kim Novak and Eleanor Parker.
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Price HK$ 2,600
1949 - Doubleday & Company, New York - First Edition
‘There’s people in hell who want ice water…’Algren’s shockingly brilliant novel of the disinherited, The Man With the Golden Arm tells the sordid tale of Frankie Machine, the ‘golden arm’ dealer of a back street Chicago gambling den, whose heroin addiction and failing marriage drive him to the depths of despair.
The character of Frankie Machine was memorably brought to life on the silver screen by Frank Sinatra, in Otto Preminger’s 1955 film adaptation of the novel, which co-starred Kim Novak and Eleanor Parker.
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Price HK$ 2,600
The Splendid Idle Forties. Stories of Old California -
Gertrude Atherton, Harrison Fisher (illustrator)
1902 - The Macmillan Company, New York - First Edition
‘Perhaps the best known collection of stories of that romantic period of California history when the incoming Americans were first intermingling with the Californians of rancho and presidio...’ – The Zamorano 80: A Selection of Distinguished California Books Made by Members of the Zamorano Club.
A fine bright example, of this collection of short stories, illustrated with eight plates by Harrison Fisher.
‘The finest stories ever written about early California’ – Phil Townsend Hanna.
The stories are: The Pearls of Loreto; The Ears of Twenty Americans; The Washtub Mail; The Conquest of Dona Jacoba; A Ramble with Eulogia; The Isle of Skulls; The Head of a Priest; La Perdida; Lukari's Story; Natalie Ivanhoff: A Memory of Fort Ross; The Vengeance of Padre Arroyo; The Bells of San Gabriel; and When the Devil was Well.
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Price HK$ 3,500
1902 - The Macmillan Company, New York - First Edition
‘Perhaps the best known collection of stories of that romantic period of California history when the incoming Americans were first intermingling with the Californians of rancho and presidio...’ – The Zamorano 80: A Selection of Distinguished California Books Made by Members of the Zamorano Club.A fine bright example, of this collection of short stories, illustrated with eight plates by Harrison Fisher.
‘The finest stories ever written about early California’ – Phil Townsend Hanna.
The stories are: The Pearls of Loreto; The Ears of Twenty Americans; The Washtub Mail; The Conquest of Dona Jacoba; A Ramble with Eulogia; The Isle of Skulls; The Head of a Priest; La Perdida; Lukari's Story; Natalie Ivanhoff: A Memory of Fort Ross; The Vengeance of Padre Arroyo; The Bells of San Gabriel; and When the Devil was Well.
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Price HK$ 3,500
RESERVED - The Handmaid’s Tale - Signed -
Margaret Atwood
1985 - McClelland and Stewart, Toronto - First Edition
A fine and signed first edition of Atwood’s best known work.
‘It has been banned in schools, made into a film and an opera, and the title has become shorthand for repressive regimes against women.’ – The Guardian
Never out of print since it was first published in 1985, Atwood’s dystopian feminist novel is set in a futuristic America, where pollution and disease have rendered most of the population infertile, and the few women who can still reproduce are trained as ‘handmaids’ – sent to serve the wealthy and powerful by bearing them children.
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Price HK$ 9,500
1985 - McClelland and Stewart, Toronto - First Edition
A fine and signed first edition of Atwood’s best known work.‘It has been banned in schools, made into a film and an opera, and the title has become shorthand for repressive regimes against women.’ – The Guardian
Never out of print since it was first published in 1985, Atwood’s dystopian feminist novel is set in a futuristic America, where pollution and disease have rendered most of the population infertile, and the few women who can still reproduce are trained as ‘handmaids’ – sent to serve the wealthy and powerful by bearing them children.
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Price HK$ 9,500
The Adventures of Augie March -
Saul Bellow
1953 - The Viking Press, New York - First Edition, First Issue
‘I am an American, Chicago born – Chicago, that sombre city – and go at things as I have taught myself, free-style, and will make the record in my own way: first to knock, first admitted.’
Saul Bellow’s masterful novel, tells the story of the eponymous Augie March, a poor Chicago boy growing up during the Great Depression, whose numberless occupations and diverting encounters offer startling extremes of vivid realism and bravura philosophising.
‘The Adventures of Augie March is the Great American Novel. Search no further.’ – Martin Amis.
Winner of the National Book Award, 1954. Named by Time magazine as one of the best 100 novels in the English language published since 1923.
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Price HK$ 7,000
1953 - The Viking Press, New York - First Edition, First Issue
‘I am an American, Chicago born – Chicago, that sombre city – and go at things as I have taught myself, free-style, and will make the record in my own way: first to knock, first admitted.’Saul Bellow’s masterful novel, tells the story of the eponymous Augie March, a poor Chicago boy growing up during the Great Depression, whose numberless occupations and diverting encounters offer startling extremes of vivid realism and bravura philosophising.
‘The Adventures of Augie March is the Great American Novel. Search no further.’ – Martin Amis.
Winner of the National Book Award, 1954. Named by Time magazine as one of the best 100 novels in the English language published since 1923.
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Price HK$ 7,000
Factotum -
Charles Bukowski
1975 - Black Sparrow Press, Santa Barbara - First Trade Edition
Scarce hardcover edition of Bukowski's second novel. One of 750 copies, designed by Barbara Martin.
Anyone who can go through so many jobs and so much shit in such a short period of time and still write like this is, well... Bukowski.
‘When you drank the world was still out there, but for the moment it didn’t have you by the throat.’
‘Chronologically a prequel to Post Office, it tells the story of a younger Henry Chinaski, as he drifts between towns, jobs, bars, lowlife lodging houses, and loose women, having being rejected from the World War II army draft. His only love is his writing, but even that is continually rejected. The classic Bukowski mix of tough prose and wry humor is worked to virtual perfection in this novel.’ – Bukowski Drank Me Dry - 6 best novels.
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Price HK$ 6,800
1975 - Black Sparrow Press, Santa Barbara - First Trade Edition
Scarce hardcover edition of Bukowski's second novel. One of 750 copies, designed by Barbara Martin.Anyone who can go through so many jobs and so much shit in such a short period of time and still write like this is, well... Bukowski.
‘When you drank the world was still out there, but for the moment it didn’t have you by the throat.’
‘Chronologically a prequel to Post Office, it tells the story of a younger Henry Chinaski, as he drifts between towns, jobs, bars, lowlife lodging houses, and loose women, having being rejected from the World War II army draft. His only love is his writing, but even that is continually rejected. The classic Bukowski mix of tough prose and wry humor is worked to virtual perfection in this novel.’ – Bukowski Drank Me Dry - 6 best novels.
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Price HK$ 6,800
Nova Express -
William S. Burroughs
1964 - Grove Press, New York - First Edition
‘A masterpiece of fantasy and reality, a carnival of horrors, a doomsday confrontation of man and his world.’
Burroughs’ ferociously political and prophetic novel – a parody of bureaucracy and human frailty, and the third in his linguistically ‘cut-up’ trilogy, following The Soft Machine and The Ticket That Exploded –fires the reader into the diabolical world of the Nova Mob, poised to wreak havoc and destruction upon the planet. Can Inspector J. Lee of the Nova Police stop them before it’s too late…?
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Price HK$ 1,600
1964 - Grove Press, New York - First Edition
‘A masterpiece of fantasy and reality, a carnival of horrors, a doomsday confrontation of man and his world.’Burroughs’ ferociously political and prophetic novel – a parody of bureaucracy and human frailty, and the third in his linguistically ‘cut-up’ trilogy, following The Soft Machine and The Ticket That Exploded –fires the reader into the diabolical world of the Nova Mob, poised to wreak havoc and destruction upon the planet. Can Inspector J. Lee of the Nova Police stop them before it’s too late…?
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Price HK$ 1,600
The Big Sleep -
Raymond Chandler
1939 - Alfred A. Knopf, New York - First Edition
A lovely bright copy, and absolutely no sign of restoration, rare and honest as you can expect this ‘dust jacket’ to be in a world where its going out of style (apologies). Housed in a custom clamshell cloth case.
‘What did it matter where you lay once you were dead? In a dirty sump or in a marble tower on the top of a high hill? You were dead, you were sleeping the big sleep, you were not bothered by things like that. Oil and water were the same as wind and air to you. You just slept the big sleep, not caring about the nastiness of how you died or where you fell.’
Chandler's first book and the introduction to the world of the famed private eye, Philip Marlowe, and established Chandler as the master of the 'hard-boiled' detective novel. The basis for the 1946 film starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, and an endless source of private eye quotes.
‘It seemed like a nice neighborhood to have bad habits in’.
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Price HK$ 70,000
1939 - Alfred A. Knopf, New York - First Edition
A lovely bright copy, and absolutely no sign of restoration, rare and honest as you can expect this ‘dust jacket’ to be in a world where its going out of style (apologies). Housed in a custom clamshell cloth case.‘What did it matter where you lay once you were dead? In a dirty sump or in a marble tower on the top of a high hill? You were dead, you were sleeping the big sleep, you were not bothered by things like that. Oil and water were the same as wind and air to you. You just slept the big sleep, not caring about the nastiness of how you died or where you fell.’
Chandler's first book and the introduction to the world of the famed private eye, Philip Marlowe, and established Chandler as the master of the 'hard-boiled' detective novel. The basis for the 1946 film starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, and an endless source of private eye quotes.
‘It seemed like a nice neighborhood to have bad habits in’.
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Price HK$ 70,000
The Mutiny of the Flying Spray -
Arthur Hunt Chute, Harry H. A. Burne (illustrator)
1927 - J. H. Sears & Company, New York - First Edition
A fine example of Chute’s Conrad’esque novel of a rebellious young man who goes to sea, in the rare dust jacket. A historic maritime novel set during the gold rush days of 1849. Assumed first edition.
Canadian author Chute knew his stuff having also been a rebellious schoolboy as well as sailing around the Horn, he died at the age of forty in a plane crash over Lake Manitoba.
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Price HK$ 1,600
1927 - J. H. Sears & Company, New York - First Edition
A fine example of Chute’s Conrad’esque novel of a rebellious young man who goes to sea, in the rare dust jacket. A historic maritime novel set during the gold rush days of 1849. Assumed first edition.Canadian author Chute knew his stuff having also been a rebellious schoolboy as well as sailing around the Horn, he died at the age of forty in a plane crash over Lake Manitoba.
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Price HK$ 1,600