Go Tell It on the Mountain by BALDWIN, James - 1954

London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1959. First Impression. Hardcover. Fine/Fine-. First Impression of this forerunner of the Jack Aubrey series. 8vo: 256pp. Fine publisher's red cloth, spine lettered in black; about Fine (lightly rubbed with no loss) first-state dust jacket, priced 15s, without a trace of fading to spine panel and very uncommon thus. Cunningham A7a. One of two historical novels O'Brian wrote for juveniles. N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition, with dust jackets carefully preserved in archival, removable mylar sleeves. All orders are packaged with care and posted promptly. Satisfaction guaranteed. (Fine Editions Ltd is a member of the Independent Online Booksellers Association, and we subscribe to its codes of ethics.).

New York: Viking Press, 1959. First Printing. Hardcover. Fine/Fine-. First Edition, First State, of the author's fourth (and perhaps most loved) book and one of Modern Library's 100 Best Novels. 8vo; [8], 341pp. Publisher's beige quarter-bound linen, spine lettered in orange, silver, and black, orange cloth-covered boards titled in black, top edge stained yellow; pictorial dust jacket illustrated by Bill Preston and priced $4.50, with three blurbs about "Saul Bellow as a novelist" on back panel. Fine (probably unread), about Fine jacket, minutely rubbed to head of the spine panel. Cronin & Hall 4. "Henderson begins where Jay Gastby would have ended if he could have had all that the green light across the water symbiolized." (Guttman, in The Jewish Writer in America, 1971) N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition, with dust jackets carefully preserved in archival, removable mylar sleeves. All orders are packaged with care and posted promptly.… Read More

London: Longmans, 1960. First Impression. Hardcover. Fine-/Fine-. First British Edition (no further printings noted) of the author's third book and second novel, and her "best attempt at longer fiction." Small 8vo: [10],243,[1]pp. Publisher's tangerine cloth, spine lettered in gold; illustrated dust jacket, priced 16/-. About Fine (dust-soiled top edge) and apparently unread; about Fine jacket (spine panel ends lightly rubbed, pinhead nick to front panel), vivid and bright. A scarce collectible example, one of 3500 copies printed. Yet another example of the value to be found in the graphically superior designs of British editions of American authors's works. . Published eight years after Wise Blood and sharing that book's "interest in reluctant Southern prophets, violence and the grotesque. The title is taken from the Douay translation of Matthew 11:12, which provides the book's epigraph: 'From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it… Read More

London: Hogarth Press, 1935. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. First Impression ("First published 1935" on copyright page), one of only 1500 copies, of this odd and unexpected life of Charlotte Stuart, Duchess of Albany (1753-1789), illegitimate daughter of the Jacobite pretender Prince Charles Edward Stuart ("Bonnie Prince Charlie"), his only child to survive infancy. Small, slim 8vo; [10],11-96pp, with portrait frontispiece and two full-page illustrations. Publisher's black cloth, spine gilt; blue dust jacket, designed by Vanessa Bell, printed in red and priced 4s/6d. An excellent copy, square, tight and bright (apparently unread); Fine jacket, spine just barely toned. Scarce in such superb condition. Woolmer 360. Charlotte Stuart's mother was Clementina Walkinshaw, mistress to the Prince from 1752 until 1760. After years of abuse, Clementina left Charles, taking Charlotte with her. Father and daughter were finally reconciled in 1784, when he legitimized her and created her Duchess of Albany.… Read More

London: Jonathan Cape, 1980. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. First Impression ("First published 1980") of Barnes's first novel. Crown 8vo (197 x 125mm): 176pp. Publisher's steel-grey cloth, spine stamped in silver, grey end papers; black typographic dust jacket (priced-clipped) printed in metallic silver and white. Signed book plate of Otis Skinner Blodget (1930-2007), only child of actress and author Cornelia Otis Skinner, laid in. Virtually pristine and apparently unread, a very fine copy. Rees A1a. In 1980, after a prolonged apprenticeship (on staff at the Oxford English Dictionary, reviewing books for the Times Literary Supplement, and as literary editor of the New Statesman), Barnes published this short novel, a charming Bildungsroman centered on a young man growing up in London's northern suburbs (in 1956, Barnes's family moved from Leicester to Northwood, a suburb served by London Underground's Metropolitan line and thus the "Metroland" of his title), obsessed with France (where Barnes… Read More

New York: Harper & Brothers, 1958. First Printing. Hardcover. Fine-/Fine-. First Edition (so stated) of the author's first book, a collection of light verse. 8vo: viii,[4],82pp. Publisher's quarter-bound black cloth, spine lettered in gilt; off-white paper-covered boards stamped in gold; first issue price-clipped dust jacket, with "two small children" (later corrected to "four") on rear flap. About Fine (faint offsetting to end papers); about Fine jacket (touch of soiling to back panel; spine ends and corners very lightly rubbed). Roberts A1a. In the mid-Fifties, after work as a "Talk of the Town" reporter at the New Yorker, Updike composed these remarkable poems—intellectual, witty pieces on the absurdities of modern life. The collection's seventh poem, "Why the Telephone Wires Dip and the Poles Are Cracked and Crooked," is carved in full on the reverse of the writer's gravestone. "The old men say / young men in gray / hung this thread across our plains / acres and acres ago. / But we, the… Read More

London: Duckworth, 1946. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine-/Very Good+. First Impression of this omnibus edition, collecting Waugh's best travel dispatches. Demy 8vo (216 x 135mm): 318pp, with color portrait frontispiece of Waugh aged 26 by Henry Lamb and folding map of British Guiana tipped in facing p. 196. Publisher's canary yellow cloth lettered in dark blue, illustrated dust priced 15/-. Near Fine or better (spine ends crimped, dust-soiled edges); Very Good or better jacket (tape remnants along reverse edges). Davis XX. During the 1930s, Waugh traveled widely in Europe, Africa, and South America. In 1930, he attended the coronation of the Haile Selassie in Abyssinia, returning there five years later as a correspondent for the Daily Mail to cover the Italian invasion from a pro-Mussolini standpoint. Between these visits, his sojourns in South America included an arduous trek from British Guiana into Brazil. Throughout this time he had no permanent base in England, staying in hotels and at friends'… Read More

New York: Robert M. McBride, 1932. First Printing. Hardcover. Fine-/Near Fine+. First American Edition (First published, February, 1932, on copyright page) of Lewis's satire of the postwar bohemian elite. 8vo: [4],625,[3]pp. Publisher's grey cloth, the spine and upper cover titled and trimmed in red, with a red top stain and untrimmed fore- and bottom edges; in the original dust jacket lettered in red and decorated in green by Lewis with vorticist figures, priced at $3.00. About Fine, square, tight and bright; Near Fine or better jacket that has benefitted from very skillful restoration to spine panel (not involving lettering or design). A superb survival. By the mid-Twenties, having established himself as an avant-garde painter and writer, Lewis launched (with Ezra Pound) the abstract-art movement Vorticism. In the Apes of God, he argued that art had been betrayed into the hands of moneyed amateurs who debased its high calling by writing for coteries, thus destroying cultural standards. Particular… Read More

London: Andre Deutsch, 1954. First UK Edition. Hardcover. Fine-/Near Fine+. First Impression of the Canadian author's first book. 8vo; 204pp. Publisher's green cloth, the spine stamped gilt; in a pictorial dust jacket priced 10s/6d. Just about Fine, square, tight and, bright, the top edge dust-speckled, the end papers with offsetting from the jacket flaps; Near Fine or better jacket, bright and unfaded, very lightly rubbed to spine panel ends, front and back panels lightly dust-soiled with two short closed tears to front and light pink streak to back. Overall, a sharp copy of an elusive title (only 2000 copies were printed). "I am looking," [Richler] declared in one interview, "for the values with which in this time a man can live with honour." The Acrobats, which was [first] published in England, conveys such ideals: the protagonist, André Bennett, is a young Canadian painter who visits Spain in search of values by which he can live. The novel explores moral disillusionment, personal… Read More

London: Hogarth Press, 1935. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. First Impression ("First published 1935" on copyright page), one of only 1500 copies, of this odd and unexpected life of Charlotte Stuart, Duchess of Albany (1753-1789), illegitimate daughter of the Jacobite pretender Prince Charles Edward Stuart ("Bonnie Prince Charlie"), his only child to survive infancy. Small, slim 8vo; [10],11-96pp, with portrait frontispiece and two full-page illustrations. Publisher's black cloth, spine gilt; blue dust jacket, designed by Vanessa Bell, printed in red and priced 4s/6d. An excellent copy, square, tight and bright (apparently unread); Fine jacket, spine just barely toned. Scarce in such superb condition. Woolmer 360. Charlotte Stuart's mother was Clementina Walkinshaw, mistress to the Prince from 1752 until 1760. After years of abuse, Clementina left Charles, taking Charlotte with her. Father and daughter were finally reconciled in 1784, when he legitimized her and created her Duchess of Albany.… Read More