Search Results: Authors starting with I from Ash Rare Books

London : Victor Gollancz, 1956. First edition. "As a detective story something of a sell - there is no murder in it; in fact so far as I could make out no crime at all. As a story it is a success, in its bizarre and wholly personal Innes way ... [but] not enough corpse and too much library" (Elizabeth Bowen in The Tatler, 18th April 1956). Crown 8vo (20cm). (224)pp. Original red boards, lettered in gilt; mild spotting of edges and endpapers, but a good and sound copy in the dust-jacket - the jacket price-clipped and a little rubbed and tanned, with some chipping and wear at head.

London : Victor Gollancz, 1961. First edition. "Happy the week in which a new Innes is published and we meet again that most civilised and subtly devious of policemen, Sir John Appleby. He is now 53 and nominally a desk-bound Yard administrator, but his detective wit is undimmed, and he manages to leave his desk long enough to solve the murders attendant on the discovery of an unknown Rembrandt" (Daily Herald, 23rd September 1961). Crown 8vo (20cm). 192pp. Original red boards, lettered in gilt; mild tanning to half-title; a few leaves with a very faint crease, but otherwise a very good copy in the dust-jacket - the jacket a touch used and very slightly tanned, but with just a single short nick, and otherwise very good. Small bookseller's label of Bowes & Bowes of Cambridge.

London : Victor Gollancz, 1953. First edition. "A sort of treasure hunt, diversified, sublimated, and embellished by Mr Innes's invention and elegant style. The atmosphere of Candleshoe is heavy with Gothic gloom" (The Scotsman, 17th September 1953). Crown 8vo (20cm). (224)pp. Original red boards, lettered in gilt; a very good, bright, clean, and sound copy in the distinctive Gollancz yellow and magenta dust-jacket - the jacket slightly sunned at spine, with a couple of slight marks, but also very good.

London : Victor Gollancz, 1956. First edition. "Brings Sir John up against spies on Dartmoor. Mr. Innes' method for thrillers is John Buchan crossed with Henry James; it is brisk and amusing and never close to reality" (The Sketch, 13th March 1957). Later published in the USA as "Death on a Quiet Day". Crown 8vo (20cm). (222),[ii]pp. Original red boards, lettered in gilt; just a hint of bruising, but a very good, clean and sound copy in the Gollancz yellow dust-jacket - the jacket a little tanned at spine, but with only minimal wear and also very good.

London : Victor Gollancz, 1959. First edition. "The disappearance of a biologist who was working on a bacteriological warfare project - has most of the usual good qualities: good talk, inconsequential and even crazy characters, John Appleby, the general feeling of intelligence" (Birmingham Daily Post, 3rd November 1959). Crown 8vo (20cm). 192pp. Original red boards, lettered in gilt; a little dulled; edges faintly spotted, but a good and sound copy in the dust-jacket - the jacket price-clipped, a little marked, chipped and repaired, and extensively reinforced with masking tape.

London : Victor Gollancz, 1970. First edition. "Another manifestation of Mr Innes' capacity for harnessing the genius of the English upper class to the crimes and pursuits of the lower orders ... another tale of mystery and (candour demands) imagination, when Sir John Appleby and his sprig Bobby once again unravel skullduggery and caddery" (Illustrated London News, 10th January 1970). Post 8vo (21cm). (176)pp. Original red boards, lettered in gilt; light spotting of top edge, but otherwise a very good copy in the dust-jacket - the jacket with a few faint marks, but only minimal wear, and also very good.

London : Victor Gollancz, 1972. First edition : with the ISBN correction sticker over the original number on the verso of the title-page. Appleby stumbles upon a Palladian mansion - dotty professor, saturnine butler, woman in white, art thieves, South American conspirators, corpse, murderers, gun battle, etc. "There is not a dull moment or page ... one of Michael Innes' best Appleby mysteries" (Nottingham Guardian, 8th March 1972). Post 8vo (21cm). (192)pp. Original red boards, lettered in gilt; just a hint of bruising; a sprinkling of spots to top edge, but otherwise a very good copy in the dust-jacket - the jacket with a similar hint of bruising, but also very good.

London : Victor Gollancz, 1974. First edition. The owner of a great house is murdered - suspects include his mistress and her lover (his scapegrace nephew); his young and unfaithful wife; her lover, who is a house-guest; his son just returned unannounced from Argentina; his over-efficient secretary; a shady art-dealer, and the puzzling Miss Kentwell. Post 8vo (21cm). 192pp. Original red boards, lettered in gilt; just the hint of a bruise at foot; a faint suggestion of tanning to endpapers, but overall a very good copy in the yellow dust-jacket, printed in magenta and black - the jacket also very good.

London : Victor Gollancz, 1973. First edition. "Concerns Miss Priscilla Pringle, a lady detective-novelist of some small fame, who encounters in a first class railway carriage a man that she suspects of being at least a criminal and probably a murderer. She is prompted to engineer a small deception, hoping that a greater fame may result, but Appleby has to show her that life is not like detective stories, at least not like hers" (Cambridge Daily News, 17th February 1973). Post 8vo (21cm). (192)pp. Original red boards, lettered in gilt; a very good copy in a very good dust-jacket.

London : Victor Gollancz, 1975. First edition. A collection of fifteen Appleby short stories, set variously in Italy, Scotland, Cornwall, Lausanne, Venice and elsewhere, and including a faked poltergeist, an exploding antique, the over-painting of a portrait, a London taxi-cab on the Simplon Pass, etc. Post 8vo (21cm). (208)pp. Original red boards, lettered in gilt; a few trifling signs of age and use, but a very good copy indeed in the original dust-jacket - the jacket also very good indeed.

London : Victor Gollancz, 1966. First edition. "Although his earlier books are now classics, some of his recent books are, in their own way, as attractive ... a young out-of-work actor who is persuaded to impersonate the heir to a rich, feudally-minded old lady ... an intelligent, relaxed comedy with criminal overtones" (Birmingham Daily Post, 15th October 1966). Crown 8vo (20cm). (192)pp. Original red boards, lettered in gilt; some spotting of edges, but otherwise a very good copy in the yellow dust-jacket printed in magenta and black - the jacket a little marked, with some minor wear, few nicks and one short tear. With the bookplate of the distinguished collector Peter Apap Bologna (1941-2019) on front pastedown.

London : Victor Gollancz, 1958. First edition. His twentieth crime novel - "he takes his scholastic victim out of the cloisters, shoots him in the library of an English country house - and calls in Appleby to discuss crime and Shakespeare with the erudite suspects" (Elizabeth Hickson in the Weekly Dispatch, 23rd March 1958). Crown 8vo (20cm). (206),[ii]pp. Original red boards, lettered in gilt; top edge a little spotted, but otherwise a very good copy in the dust-jacket - the jacket with just a hint of wear and with a small mark on the rear panel, but also very good.

London : Victor Gollancz, 1971. First edition. "Another brilliant Innes novel in which Sir John Appleby's son, Bobby, playing an early-morning round of golf, hits his ball into a bunker and finds a body which has been shot in the head. A girl is near. When he returns after phoning the police the body has vanished and so has the girl" (Manchester Evening News, 7th January 1971). Post 8vo (21cm). 192pp. Original red boards, lettered in gilt; faint bruising at foot; top edge a touch dusty, but otherwise a very good, bright, and sound copy in the dust-jacket - the jacket just very slightly bruised and lightly creased.

London : Victor Gollancz, 1951. First edition. Regarded as one of his three best books - "Most of the excitement centres round a mysterious house, surrounded by a high wall, in the vicinity of Oxford, and also - of all places - in the Bodleian Library ... There is a hunt for a missing document, hunts for missing people, and as much shooting as in an American gangster story" (Western Evening Herald, 2nd October 1951). Crown 8vo (20cm). 304pp. Original red-pink cloth, lettered in black; just a touch bruised; top edge lightly spotted; very slight spotting to final few leaves and rear free endpaper, but otherwise a very good copy in the dust-jacket - the jacket with minor wear and a few slight marks, but also very good.

London : Victor Gollancz, 1960. First edition. "It is the measure of Michael Innes' ingenuity with words that he can reduce murder to the level of farce and yet maintain the thrills equally with the laughs ... a delightful piece of nonsense in which a somewhat naive Colonel Petticate (retired) pushes his novelist wife over the side of their yacht and then has to face the task of keeping her - and her books - alive" (Liverpool Daily Post, 6th July 1960). "An unashamed personal favourite of mine" (H. R. F. Keating, including the book in his "100 Best"). Crown 8vo (20cm). 192pp. Original red boards, lettered in black; a few faint spots, a hint of tanning to endpapers, but a very good copy in the dust-jacket - the jacket a touch tanned, with a couple of tiny nicks, but also very good. With the bookplate of the distinguished collector Peter Apap Bologna (1941-2019) on front pastedown.

London : Victor Gollancz, 1984. First edition. Sir John Appleby has retired to the country, but a near neighbour is planning to disappear on the back of an extravagant fraud. Post 8vo (21cm). (184)pp. Original red boards, lettered in gilt; a handful of very faint edge-spots, but otherwise a very good copy indeed in the Gollancz yellow dust-jacket, printed in magenta and black - the jacket also very good indeed.

London : Victor Gollancz, 1986. First edition. "The murder of Lord Osprey, stabbed with an oriental dagger, and in the library too. The conventions are properly observed. There's an omniscient butler, Bagot. The moat gleams darkly, guarding its secrets. Inspector Ringwood sets up his 'incident room' in the ballroom, which dazzles with mirrors, chandeliers and trompe l'oeil. The house guests include another title, a QC, and two or three experts on numismatics" - "As enjoyable as any encounter with an old and valued friend" (Rachel Laurence in the Liverpool Daily Post, 8th January 1987). Post 8vo (21cm). 188pp. Original red boards, lettered in gilt; a couple of tiny marks to fore-edge, but otherwise a very good, clean, and sound copy in the dust-jacket - the jacket with just a slight suggestion of creasing, but also very good.

London : Victor Gollancz, 1977. First edition. "Glimpses of the art world appear often in Mr Innes's thrillers and now he has an artist as a detective, Charles Honeybath, RA. The Haven is a private manor-house retiral home for the wealthy and the daft, which figures in Charles's plans until his old friend is murdered there. Elegantly dotty, intricate as old lace, wrought with loving care" (The Scotsman, 28th January 1978). Post 8vo (21cm). (192)pp. Original red boards, lettered in gilt; just a hint of bruising; small pen tick on front free endpaper; text edges with a few small and faint marks, and a touch of bruising, but otherwise a very good copy in the original yellow dust-jacket - also very good.

London : Victor Gollancz, 1980. First edition. "Michael Innes isn't so savage about his contemporary world, but is, as he has always been, a pleasure to read ... Paternal, but unsentimental, for the rebellious young. One of his young characters has become, without understanding why, entangled in a burglary, and his life is threatened by a criminal gang. An agreeable uncle, scholarly, cosmopolitan, sedentary, a good specimen of an Innes character, gets jerked out of his self-indulgent existence" (C. P. Snow in the Liverpool Daily Post, 24th January 1980). Post 8vo (21cm). 190,[ii]pp. Original red boards, lettered in gilt; a very good copy, clean and bright, in the yellow dust-jacket, printed in magenta and black - the jacket with just minimal signs of age and use, and also very good.

London : Victor Gollancz, 1968. First edition. "Elegant, urbane narrative festooned with ripe rural characters, sees Sir John Appleby solving the mystery of a corpse in the son et lumiere control box at a stately home" (Birmingham Mail, 23rd August 1968). "Strong talents at their best. The amount of ironic social criticism and deft characterisation of scenes and people would serve another author for six books" (Barzun & Taylor). Later published in the USA as "Death by Water". Post 8vo (21cm). (190),[ii]pp. Original red boards, lettered in gilt; a couple of tiny nicks to three leaves at rear, but otherwise a very good copy in the dust-jacket - the jacket just lightly used, with just a touch of wear to the extremities.