SOMERVILLE, E. OE, and ROSS, Martin [pseud. MARTIN, Violet]

London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1919

8vo, pp. 309. Original green boards, lettered in black to front panel and gilt to spine. Illustrated dustwrapper.

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

GROOM, Jon

Munich: Edition X, 1994

Folio. Original brown boards, lettered in grey on spine. Double-thick pages, unopened but with blank inners.

First edition, SIGNED BY THE... [please click on the image or book title for more details]

[ed. HUGHES, Ted] PLATH, Sylvia

London: Faber, 1981

8vo, pp. 351. Original blue stiff paper wrappers, photographic portrait of Plath to front panel.

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

KITCHIN, C.H.B.

London: Secker & Warburg, 1956

8vo, pp. 359. Original black boards, lettered in silver to spine. Printed dustwrapper.

First edition, INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR IN THE ... [please click on the image or book title for more details]

SUTHERLAND, Joan

Montreux: N.p., 1993

2pp. ALS on headed notepaper ('Joan Sutherland' over a floral design, light red on cream). Original envelope present, address handwritten, postmarked 23.11.93. Colour photograph of Sutherland and McKern on location for On Our Selection in Braidwood, Australia, taken the following year.

2pp. ALS FROM JOAN SUTHERLAND TO LEO MCKERN, FONDLY REMEMBERING THEIR RECENT MEETING AND LOOKING FORWARD TO WORKING TOGETHER ON DAD AND DAVE: ON OUR SELECTION.

In 1994, four years after her retirement from the operatic stage, Dame Joan Sutherland returned to her native Australia to make what would turn out to be her only dramatic film: Dad and Dave:On Our Selection, written and directed by George Whaley. Based on the writings of Steele Rudd, the film, set in Queensland at the end of the nineteenth century, starred Geoffrey Rush, Ray Barrett, Noah Taylor -- and Leo McKern as Dad Rudd. Joan Sutherland played Mother Rudd, with not entirely satisfactory results, and the film, made to mark the centenary of the Australian film industry, was a failure with both critics and paying audiences.

This letter dates from the early days of Sutherland and McKern's association, is written on Sutherland's personalised notepaper and sent from her home in the Swiss village of Les Avants, and looks forward, albeit nervously, to the forthcoming shoot:

'[I]f nothing else convinced me to become involved in the film your honest, down-to-earthness did. I hope, if it all gets sorted out that I shan't be too much out of my depth!'

Accompanying the letter is a photograph, taken on location the following year, of a laughing Sutherland and McKern in costume.

[ed. CARTER, Graydon]

New York: Rodale, 2009

Large 8vo, pp. 215. Original blue boards, lettered in blind on spine.

First edition, INSCRIBED BY OLIVIA DE HAVILLAND TO THE FILM DIRECTOR... [please click on the image or book title for more details]

SOMERVILLE, Boyle Townshend

London: Heinemann, 1934

8vo, pp. 317. Original boards. Portions of illustrated dustwrapper pasted in to preliminaries. Maps at endpapers. Plain brown homemade dustwrapper,... [please click on the image or book title for more details]

New York: William Faro, 1932

8vo, pp. 224. Original hessian boards, spine label lettered in red. Paper on rear pastedown a little split at spine.

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

PROULX, E. Annie

New York: Scribner's, 1993

8vo, pp. 364. Original blue stiff paper wrappers, lettered in black to front panel and spine.

Uncorrected advance proof copy, SIGNED BY... [please click on the image or book title for more details]

JOHNSON, B.S.

London: Trigram Press, 1972

Small 8vo, pp. 61. Original grey boards, lettered in silver to spine. Green endpapers, illustrated dustwrapper.

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

GREENE, Graham

18th August 1988.

1 pp. TLS, 200 x 150 mm, on Greene's headed notepaper bearing his Antibes address. Original envelope not present.

Greene notes in his letter Gothard's recent move from the Riverside Studios to... [more]

LITTLEWOOD, Joan

8 October 1983

1 pp. ALS, 200 x 150 mm, on stiff card, to the verso of which Hals' painting of Hamlet, cut from a magazine, has been affixed. Envelope dated 8 October 1983.

In both form and content, a wonderfully... [more]

SOMERVILLE, Edith and SOMERVILLE, Boyle

Cork: Guy & Co., 1940

Large 8vo, pp. 134. Original blue three-quarter boards, lettered in back to front panel and black to white to spine.

First edition. One of... [please click on the image or book title for more details]

NEVILLE, Richard

London: Bloomsbury, 1995

8vo, pp. 376. Original purple boards, lettered in gilt to spine. Illustrated endpapers and dustwrapper.

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

[McKERN, Leo] [HERRMANN, Edward] selected by WAVELL, A. P.

London: Cape, 1992

8vo, pp. 448. Original burgundy boards, lettered in gilt to spine. Dustwrappers lettered in red and black to front panel and spine.

Reprinted... [please click on the image or book title for more details]"If" -- the complete version will be sent! E.'.

This last refers to a referenced parody of Kipling's poem which begins: 'If you can keep your girl, when all around you, / Are losing theirs and blaming it on you...'. In the film Hermann and McKern's characters discover that they have been in love with the same woman all their lives.

BENCHLEY, Robert

New York: Henry Holt, 1927

8vo, pp. 263. Original green boards, lettered in yellow to front panel and spine.

First edition, INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR: 'To Dicky, for ... [please click on the image or book title for more details]

PROULX, E. Annie

New York: Scribner's, 1988

8vo, pp. 151. Original mauve and tan three-quarter boards, lettered in gilt to spine. Illustrated dustwrapper. Leading edge uncut.

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

GARDNER, John

London: Cape and Hodder & Stoughton, 1981

8vo, pp. 270. Original black boards, lettered in gilt to spine. Illustrated dustwrapper, author's photographic portrait to rear... [please click on the image or book title for more details]