Search Results: Authors starting with K from Ash Rare Books

London : T. V. Boardman & Co., (1949). First British edition : precedes the Boardman hardback of 1950. "One of the best pulp mystery writers ever to walk this misbegotten world" (Robert K. Lewis). Originally published in the USA in 1947 - the author's first book, introducing Peter Chambers, sybarite, who drinks like a camel but holds his liquor like a revenue agent. Later republished as "Martinis and Murder". Crown 8vo (19cm). 160pp. Original pictorial wrappers - the artwork by the unmistakeable Denis McLoughlin; a little rubbed and worn; short splits; a serviceable copy. Just three copies of this edition (Bibliothèque Nationale, British Library, and Trinity College Dublin) located in major libraries worldwide. TVB Books 63.

Llandudno : Kaner Publishing Co., [1946]. First edition. "I am quite certain," the beautiful lady said, "that my husband did not commit suicide, no matter what the police say" - a case for the saturnine Meredith Jordan. Crown 8vo (19cm). 64pp. Original pictorial stapled wrappers - a design probably by H. W. Perl; parts of spine and rear wrapper smoke-blackened; staples a little rusted, but otherwise a good copy. Just three copies (Bodleian, British Library, and National Library of Wales) located in major libraries worldwide.

London : Map Collectors' Circle, 1968. First edition. A cartobibliography listing and describing 153 maps, with thirty-three illustrations. Map Collectors' Series No. 42. Crown 4to (25cm). (66)pp. Original stapled wrappers; very good.

Glasgow : Muir-Watson, [1952?]. First edition. The second in the Dana Dallas series – "This episode in his career took place before he became a private eye. Which goes to show that the first fight any guy has in this life is the one with himself". This Nat Karta is known to have been written by Norman Lazenby (with thanks to Tom Lesser for information on that point). Crown 8vo (19cm). 128pp. Original pictorial stapled wrappers – an all-action scene – man, hat, gloves, gun; smiling redhead in lilac on the floor clutching a note; suspicious looking type in a red shirt in denial; a little marked; some wear and creasing; staples a little rusted; some spotting, mainly of edges, but a good copy of a book of this type. Book Centre stamp on upper cover; stamps and inked price of the Popular Book Centre, Shepherds Bush Road, on half -title. Contemporary (1953) ownership inscription of R. Love. Just two copies (Lilly and National Library of Scotland) located in major libraries worldwide.

London : Chatto & Windus, 1968. First edition. His first novel, winner of the Guardian Fiction Prize - set in London and the South of France - "cold indifference ... tugs at them like a dirty wind". Post 8vo (21cm). 222,[ii]pp. Original black boards, lettered in gilt; very good in the dust-jacket, also very good.

London : Hurst & Blackett, (1968). First edition. A broken engagement, a mysterious death in Austria, a row with a reporter, and terror in an Alpine village. Signed by the author, as Barbara Kaye, on the title-page and further inscribed on the front free endpaper with love to Elizabeth - this being the crime writer "Elizabeth Ferrars" (pseudonym of Morna MacTaggart) and signed Marie, i.e. "Marie Muir", the pseudonym under which Kaye wrote "Torridons in Trouble" (1963) and other children's books - one author playfully addressing the other under their assumed names. Crown 8vo (20cm). (184)pp. Original red boards, blocked and lettered in gilt; a very good, bright, sound and clean copy in the dust-jacket - the jacket a little rubbed and slightly worn at folds, but complete and attractive still.

London : Werner Shaw, in collaboration with Elkin Mathews, 1986. First edition. Both a personal memoir of the years 1938-1945 and the story of the Elkin Mathews business at that time. With much on her husband, the bookseller Percy Muir (the book forming a sequel to his own "Minding My Own Business"), but with sidelights on an eccentric cast of characters including the actress Phyllis Calvert, Rupert Cross, Ian Fleming, Peter Murray Hill, the translator Koteliansky, E. H. W. Meyerstein, A. J. A. Symons, Hugh Walpole, Greville Worthington, etc. Medium 8vo (24cm). (x),224,[vi]pp. Illustrations. Portraits. Original brown boards, lettered in gilt; slight bruise to fore-edge, but a very good copy in the dust-jacket - a photographic design in sepia monochrome, lettered in orange and white - just faintly sunned and lightly marked, but also very good.

London : Collins for The Crime Club, (1968). First edition. Ghote comes to a cold and drizzling London for an international conference on drug-rackets, but becomes involved in investigating the disappearance of a radiant niece. "A treat for aficionados of Bombay's lovable, blundering, yet indefatigable sleuth ... the hunt plunges Ghote into London sub-world of pop musicians, drug-pushers and protection gangs" (The Scotsman, 24th February 1968).Post 8vo (21cm). 224pp. Original red boards, blocked and lettered in gilt; faintest hint of spotting to top edge, but very good indeed in the original Brian Roll dust-jacket – the jacket just lightly used, but also very good.

London : Windward, (1982). First edition. Essays on Crime Fiction and its Categories by Michael Gilbert, Reginald Hill, Keating himself, Jessica Mann, Hillary Waugh and others - on How I Write My Books by Eric Ambler, Len Deighton, Stanley Ellin, Patricia Highsmith, P. D. James, Keating again, and others, with a consumers' guide, etc. Medium 8vo (24cm). 320pp. Numerous illustrations. Original ivory boards, lettered in red; very good in the original Roger Pring dust-jacket - a little sunned at spine.

London : Collins for The Crime Club, (1969). First edition. "A donkey's substituted for the Indian Derby favourite, a distinguished scientist's made to appear a charlatan, a fakir's exposed as a faker – and a mysterious marksman's shooting all the flamingos in the zoo ... Dedicated, diffident, Insp. Ghote – surely the most likeable fictional sleuth – harassed by martinet superior and frustrated by invincibly inefficient sergeant, solves bizarre puzzle" (The Scotsman, 1st February 1969).Post 8vo (21cm). 224pp. Original red boards, blocked and lettered in gilt; slight spotting of top edge, but a very good, sound and unworn copy in the Brian Roll dust-jacket – the jacket just lightly sunned and very lightly used, but also very good.

London : Library Association, 1977. Second and best edition, amplifying, correcting and extending the coverage of the original 1973 edition, which ended at 1965. A definitive and well-illustrated chronological account of the great age of the British public library. Royal 8vo (26cm). (xiv),582pp. Plates. Portraits. Illustrations. Original cloth; a few faint edge spots, but a very good copy in the dust-jacket - the jacket also very good.

Sydney : Cleveland Publishing Co., [1959]. First edition. "'I always thought he was the toughest man I'd ever seen', the fat man said. He beamed at me. 'The title now goes to you, Mr. Kent'". No 570 in the "I Hate Crime" series. Crown 8vo (20cm). [ii],5-(98)pp. Original pictorial stapled wrappers; a little rubbed and creased; text slightly tanned and brittle, with a few corner chips; a good copy of an attractive and uncommon title. Bar a Finnish translation, no copy of this individual title located in any major library worldwide.

Oxford : Oxford Bibliographical Society, 2004. Second edition. Reprints the rare original 1954 publication with the addition of extensive corrigenda and addenda, now forming a companion to David Pearson's "Oxford Bookbinding 1500-1640" (2000). Edited by David Rundle and Scott Mandelbrote. Oxford Bibliographical Society Third Series, Volume IV, published in 2004 as the year 2000 publication. Crown 4to (26cm). xx,278,[ii],[2],(30)pp. Plates of rolls, centrepieces and ornaments. Original linen-backed boards; very good.

London : National Temperance Publication Depôt, [1882]. First edition. "To teach that Christ made, and the Bible approved, the social use of fermented intoxicating wine is, therefore, to teach that He made, and the Bible sanctioned the social use of, a narcotic poison, poisonous alike to body and to brain ...". Gallant attempt to prove that all the wine in the Christian canon was non-alcoholic. Crown 8vo (19cm). (174),[ii]pp. Original cloth gilt; lightly rubbed; a few spots, but a very good copy.

London : C. Arthur Pearson, [ca.1936]. [Second edition]. "Curled up among the cushions, was a girl in an orange silk kimono, embroidered in black and gold, a girl with a crimson mouth, and large slumbrous eyes the colour of sloes, and hair that was as black as polished jet". Originally published in 1935 in Pearson's "Big Threepennies" series, and here in their "4d Novels" series. Crown 8vo (19cm). 112pp. Original pictorial wrappers - blonde avoids the man at the window; minor wear; lower wrapper lightly marked and slightly chipped; some pencilled marks partially erased from upper wrapper; text lightly tanned, but overall a very good copy. No copy of this edition located in any major library worldwide.

Cambridge : Macmillan & Co., 1855. First edition. Kingsley's ever-popular saga of the days of Drake, the Armada, etc. - "the most perfect romance that we have yet had from Mr. Kingsley's pen ... he is in love with the manliness, hardihood, and imagination of our forefathers" (Daily News, 4th April 1855). The first novel ever published by Macmillan and probably unique in Victorian fiction in having a holiday resort named after it (much to Kingsley's annoyance). Three volumes. Crown 8vo (185 x 120mm). [2],viii,(304); vi,356; vi,(374)pp. Bound, with half-titles and preliminary advertisement, but without the inserted catalogue sometimes found, in a near contemporary quarter roan, ruled and lettered in gilt; marbled sides; sprinkled edges; some light wear; faint cracking to vol. iii; internally, some soiling, marking and fraying - especially to vol. i; one leaf with a more extensive repaired tear; occasional pencil marks; a reasonable and modestly priced set of a difficult Victorian classic. Small library… Read More

London & Cambridge : Macmillan & Co., 1866. First edition. The last novel published by Kingsley, Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge and friend of Darwin. The final resistance against the Norman conquerors - the "splendid barbarian" and folk-hero Hereward of the Fens, son of Leofric, Earl of Mercia and Lady Godiva - and his witch-wife Torfrida, "whose true witchery lay in her intellect, her courage, and her unswerving love" (The Globe, 30th April 1866). "To lovers of the old class of reading wherein the heroic deeds of our forefathers are graphically described, no better volumes could be read" (Cheltenham Chronicle, 10th July 1866). Two volumes. Crown 8vo (184 x 123mm). viii,(366); viii,402,[ii]pp. Bound, without the advertisement leaf in vol.i sometimes found, in an elegant later (early twentieth-century) half black morocco; top edges gilt; marbled endleaves; some very minor rubbing and bruising; a few occasional internal marks and spots, but an attractive set. From the notable modern… Read More

London : Macmillan & Co., 1899. First edition. "In summer all right-minded boys built huts in the furze-hill behind the college - little lairs whittled out of the heart of the prickly bushes, full of stumps, odd root-ends, and spikes, but, since they were strictly forbidden, palaces of delight". Post 8vo (195 x 122mm). (xii),272,[ii]pp. Bound in a smart recent half red morocco; top edge gilt; original cloth gilt sides retained; a very attractive copy. Stewart 195.

London : Robert Sayer; John Bowles, and Carington Bowles, 1767. First edition. A handsome eighteenth-century road-atlas, showing the major roads and highways in scroll form, with mileages, local detail and directions to cross-roads, tables, etc. Based on earlier models, but the maps corrected, updated and with the addition of fresh material - not least two Hertfordshire roads (St. Alban's to Ware, and London to Hitchin) - "The two Roads laid down in this Plate were never before given in any Book of Roads whatever, but were purposely Measured and Engrav'd for this Work" - significant in that Kitchin was to move his base of operations to St. Alban's the following year. Long crown 4to (178 x 229mm). [8]pp + general map and 103 engraved strip-maps, printed back-to-back. Contemporary half calf, now neatly rebacked; marbled sides; corners a little rubbed; ink-splash to upper board; clean tear to one leaf neatly repaired; occasional mild tanning, but a very good copy of an attractive and interesting production.

Woodside : Heyeck Press, 1990. First edition : one of just 200 copies (of 950) in hand-marbled wrappers. A poem. Number 6 in the Flowering Quince Poetry Series. Royal 8vo (25cm). [24]pp. Original black-grey marbled wrappers; just a hint of bruising, but otherwise very good.