[ed. WAYNFLETE, John] BENTLEY, Nicolas; LAMBERT, Constant; SADLEIR, Michael, and others

Cambridge: Rampant Lions Press, 1938

Oblong 12mo, unpaginated. Original black stiff paper wrappers, lettered in pale blue to front panel. Paper stock of different colours.

First edition. CHARLES HANDLEY-READ'S COPY WITH HIS OWNERSHIP SIGNATURE TO FRONT FREE ENDPAPER.

A collection of twenty-six clerihews, with blank pages bound in at the rear for the reader's own additions. On the page headed 'THE AUTHORS' the last line of text is missing, thereby omitting the name of the author of The Emperor Pertinax.

Charles Handley-Read [1916-1971] was a writer on architecture and a collector in the field of Victorian decorative arts. He read architecture at St. Catherine's College, Cambridge, and would have been an undergraduate when he bought this volume (which was published in Cambridge) on 28 October 1938.

A second edition was published in 1946 and surfaces occasionally, but the first, offered here, is extremely scarce -- especially with such a provenance.

HEANEY, Seamus

London: Faber, 1972

8vo, pp. 56. Original stiff paper wrappers.

First paperback edition of Heaney's second commercially published collection, first published in... [please click on the image or book title for more details]

LARKIN, Philip

London: Faber, 1964

8vo, pp. 46. Original deep red cloth boards, lettered in gilt to spine. Dustwrapper.

First edition. Published in February 1964 in an edition of ... [please click on the image or book title for more details]

[trans. RIGNAUT, Homer] SAINE, Uc

Paris: Edward Titus, 1929

8vo, pp. 16. Original plain stiff paper wrappers, housed in a dustwrapper printed in red and black to front panel. Top edge cut, others uncut. Small ... [please click on the image or book title for more details]

New York: Viking Press, 1961

8vo, pp. 132. Original beige boards, lettered in red on spine.

First edition of Miller's novelisation of his own screenplay. The film... [please click on the image or book title for more details]

[ARAGON, Louis] ANONYMOUS

Paris: Chez L'Auteur [Jean-Jacques Pauvert], 1952

8vo, pp. 108. Variant binding: blue stiff paper wrappers, white title label on front panel. Fifth (blank) leaf missing, as in all copies. French text.

Second... [more]

SARRAUTE, Nathalie

London: John Calder, 1963

8vo, pp. 136. Original grey boards, lettered in gilt on spine.

First UK edition, inscribed by Sarraute on the half-title: 'A David Gothard, en souvenir très amical. Nathalie Sarraute.'... [more]

REID, Forrest

London: Edward Arnold, 1912

8vo, pp. 320. Original brown boards, lettered in black to front panel and spine. Lower edge uncut.

First edition.

A coming-of-age novel from an Ulster novelist at the beginning of the twentieth century is always going to invite comparisons with Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and comparisons are always made, but Reid is more than able to stand on his own two feet, not only because of the calibre of his writing, but because of the homosexual sensibility which permeates his work, never explicit but always there. This book is no exception. Reid was the bridge between the ornate crypticism of the Uranians and the beginning of the genre we now know as Gay Lit. He's both important and scarce -- which is why this less than beautiful copy is offered.

O'BRIAN, Patrick

London: Collins, 1977

8vo, pp. 268. Original green boards, lettered in gilt to spine.

First edition.

An early entry -- instalment four -- in O'Brian's... [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]

AUDEN, W.H. and MacNEICE, Louis

London: Faber, 1937

8vo, pp. 268. Original green boards, lettered in red and black to spine. Illustrated dustwrapper.

First edition.

BETJEMAN, John

London: John Murray, 1969

8vo, pp. 244. Original pink and white illustrated stiff paper wrappers.

Later edition, AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED BY BETJEMAN ON... [please click on the image or book title for more details]

WILLINGHAM, Calder

New York: Vanguard Press, 1947

8vo, pp. 350. Original black boards, lettered in silver on spine.

First edition of the author's first book, based on the time he spent as a cadet at the Citadel, a military college in... [more]

COCTEAU, Jean

Paris: Editions des Quatres Chemins 1928

Small 8vo, pp. 81. Original stiff paper wrappers and glassine jacket.

First edition. Copy no. 650 of a not especially limited edition of 3000 copies, but a superior example.

Meredith, George

London: Chapman and Hall, 1891

3 vols. 8vos., pp. 302, 320 and 307. Original blue coarse cloth boards, tooling in black to front panels, lettered in gilt on spines, blindstamped publisher's device to rear panels. Edges uncut.... [more]

[trans. FITZGERALD, Edward]

London: George Harrap, N.d. [c.1925]

8vo, unpaginated. Original burgundy leather boards, title in gilt to spine. Ivy leaf design to both panels, illustrated in green and gilt ... [please click on the image or book title for more details]