[ed. GREENE, Graham]

London: Cape, 1934

8vo, pp. 256. Original black boards, lettered in pale blue to front panel and spine. Bottom edge uncut.

First edition.

A collection... [please click on the image or book title for more details]

[illus. pseud. CRAIGIE, Dorothy [GLOVER, Dorothy]] GREENE, Graham

London: Max Parrish, 1952

Small 4to, pp. 35. Original red boards, lettered in gilt to spine, and gilt device to front panel.

First edition.

Greene and... [please click on the image or book title for more details]

SCHULBERG, Budd

New York: Random House, 1947

8vo, pp. 343. Original black boards, lettered in red and lilac on spine. Top edge red.

First edition of the author's second novel.

Schulberg's exposé of the corrupt world of American prizefighting was filmed in 1956 with Rod Steiger and Humphrey Bogart (in his last film).

An extremely nice copy.

[illus. PRESTON, Chloë] BYRON, May

London: Humphrey Milford/Oxford University Press, N.d. [1917]

Square 8vo, unpaginated. Original pictorial boards, lettered in white to front panel and in black to spine.... [please click on the image or book title for more details]

Paris: Obelisk Press, 1935

Small 8vo, pp. 118. Original red stiff paper wrappers, lettered in black on front panel and spine.

First edition. A tirade against the... [please click on the image or book title for more details]

McEWAN, Ian

London: Cape, 1975

8vo, pp. 165. Original black boards, lettered in gilt to spine.

First edition of the author's first book, SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR AT THE TIME OF... [please click on the image or book title for more details]

CARTIER-BRESSON, Henri

London: Thames & Hudson, 1956

4to, pp. 144. Original yellow boards, lettered and patterned in red to front panel and spine. Illustrated dustwrapper.

First UK... [please click on the image or book title for more details]

KINGDON-WARD, F.

London: Cape, 1949

8vo, pp. 287. Original blue boards, lettered in silver to spine. Two foldout maps.

First edition.

As well as a mastery of his... [please click on the image or book title for more details]

FITZGERALD, F. Scott

London: Grey Walls Press, 1951

8vo, pp. 366. Original red boards, lettered in black to spine.

First edition.

A collection of short stories by... [please click on the image or book title for more details]

STEINBERG, Saul

New York: Duell, Sloan & Pearce, 1945

4to, unpaginated. Original tan cloth boards, lettered and illustrated in brown to front panel.

First edition, INSCRIBED AND... [please click on the image or book title for more details]

ISHIGURO, Kazuo

London: Faber, 1982

8vo, pp. 183. Original grey boards, lettered in gilt to spine.

First edition, SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR.

Ishiguro's first novel, now... [please click on the image or book title for more details]

BURGESS, Anthony

Verona: Plain Wrapper Press, 1977

8vo, pp. 12, unpaginated. Original olive stiff paper wrappers with foldover flaps, title in brown to front panel. Sewn binding. Uncut and unopened.

First edition, one of 180 copies. 2pp. TLS FROM THE PRINTER RICHARD-GABRIEL RUMMONDS TO NOVELIST AND ART CRITIC FREDERIC TUTEN LAID IN, DISCUSSING THE RECENT MOVE OF THE PLAIN WRAPPER OPERATION TO VERONA, AND PLANS FOR THE PRINTING AND PUBLICATION OF BOOK.

One of the pre-eminent handpress printers of the twentieth century, the American Richard-Gabriel Rummonds founded his Plain Wrapper Press in the mid-1960s. A meeting with Verona-based Giovanni Mardersteig, master printer at the Officina Bodoni, convinced Rummonds to move his operation to Verona in 1971.

The letter accompanying the book is packed with information about the press in general, and this title in particular: 'Burgess wrote this poem one afternoon while visiting here in Verona. We have been very busy setting up a bindery in the small studio near the river.... We'll have one room for the presses and the other for a combination composing room and office. The studio is located on the ground floor, naturally, and all the windows face a small, but lovely garden. ... The Burgess/Tilson book [Will And Testament] is now being bound and we expect to start delivering the first copies next week. I really am very pleased with it...'.

In his memoir Fantasies And Hard Knocks: My Life As A Printer [Ex Ophidia Press, 2015], Rummonds writes that this title '...was printed in quarto on Fabriano Esportazione "GF" paper, on one side of the sheet only, in two colors. The black form was locked into one half of the bed and the red in the other. The two forms were inked separately and then printed together. Half the copies went to the Burgesses, and the other half to the P[lain] W[rapper] P[ress]. A Christmas Recipe was the last item to be printed at the via Duomo studio.'