Search Results: Titles starting with V from Ash Rare Books

Chicago : Stone & Kimball, 1895. First American edition : possibly preceding the one-volume London edition published by Methuen in November 1895. Letters from the South Seas, with an introduction by Sidney Colvin. Two volumes. Foolscap 8vo (18cm). (282),[ii],[2]; (276),[ii],[2]pp. Frontispieces (one an etched portrait of Stevenson by William Strang). Original green buckram, ruled and lettered in gilt; top edges gilt; just a hint of rubbing; just a touch dulled, but a very good set, housed in a jaunty protective patterned-paper slip-case. Prideaux 42.

London : Bradbury & Evans, 1848. First edition, bound from the original monthly parts published between January 1847 and July 1848. The parts in first state, with the "rustic" heading to the first chapter, the inadvertent "Mr. Pitt" rather than "Sir Pitt" on p.453, and the notorious "Marquis of Steyne" wood-engraving (p.336) - an illustration said to have been suppressed, under threat of court action, for its allegedly libellous resemblance to the Third Marquis of Hertford. This has been disputed, but the portrait certainly only appears in the earliest copies of the book - and disappeared very early in the book's life cycle. Demy 8vo (214 x 131mm). xvi,624pp. Etched plates and highly entertaining text illustrations by Thackeray himself. Bound, without half-title, in a recent half green calf, banded and richly gilt, with burgundy label, in a pleasing imitation of contemporary style; marbled sides; plates spotted in varying degrees, but the text clean; a… Read More

London : History & Social Actions Publications, (2008). First edition. An absorbing study of the rise and fall of the greatest of all the urban pleasure gardens - "it was popular; it was brilliantly organised; it was musical; it was entertaining; it had fireworks; it was a meeting place for lovers - it had it all". Demy 8vo (22cm). 52pp. Maps. Illustrations. Original pictorial stapled wrappers; very good.

London : New Fiction Press, [1953]. First edition : in the earlier variant wrappers, listing six titles as "in preparation" and just three "specials". Hank Janson of the Chicago Chronicle and the case of a good man turned sour by a false conviction. The book became the subject of nineteen destruction orders from local magistrates and was one of the books featured in the January 1954 Old Bailey obscenity trial - as a result of which both the publisher and distributor were sentenced to prison. This gave rise to a question in the House of Commons as to how many copies had been bought for distribution to the armed services - and the slightly evasive response that a small quantity had been purchased by the NAAFI. Crown 8vo (19cm). 142,[ii]pp. Original pictorial stapled wrappers - a sultry blonde in clinging lilac by the incomparable Reginald Heade; lightly worn; small chip and slight split to spine; lower wrapper a little soiled; text lightly tanned, but overall a very good copy. Just a single copy… Read More

Hungerford : Rivelin Grapheme Press, 1987. First edition. Inscribed and signed by Henry Graham. Thirty-four poems, with illustrations by Don McKinlay. Includes "Yellow Morning", "Terminal Ward", "Bedtime with Kafka", etc. Foolscap 4to (22cm). (52)pp. Original white wrappers, lettered in black and illustrated in red; very good.

London : Herbert Jenkins, 1930. First British edition : with the witty preface not included in the American edition which appeared two weeks earlier. "Jeeves and the Impending Doom", "Jeeves and the Song of Songs" and nine further famous tales - the third Jeeves & Wooster short story collection. "Mr. P. G. Wodehouse is again up to his quite inimitable best. As amusing a book as you will find" (The Tatler, 20th August 1930). Crown 8vo (19cm). 312,[viii]pp. Original orange cloth, ruled, blocked and lettered in black; just a hint of rubbing; endpapers a little tanned; some spotting of edges and prelims, but a very good, bright and sound copy.

London : Faber & Faber, (1971). First edition : the hardback issue. A play written for television - a rich and powerful industrialist starts to pull apart his crumbling private life. The play was eventually turned into a film for television in 1980, with Alan Bates and Gemma Jones - "Osborne has this time tackled a subject worthy of his talents" (Liverpool Echo, 13th February 1980). Post 8vo (21cm). 54,[ii]pp. Original grey cloth, lettered in gilt; an indifferent copy - the spine a little mottled with some very faint spotting of edges, but sound and in the dust-jacket - the jacket rubbed, a little soiled, slightly worn in places, and with a couple of short tears.

London : Richard Bentley, 1837. First edition. A novel with the reputation of being her best - a stinging satire on evangelicalism, with an unscrupulous vicar who manipulates the more susceptible women of the parish - "We do not know that we have ever read a work of fiction, similar in general character, superior to 'The Vicar of Wrexhill'. Never, certainly, have we met with a more able, a more ingeniously conducted exposure of canting hypocrisy" (The Scotsman). Three volumes. Demy 12mo (195 x 114mm). [iv],324; [iv],328; [iv],(344)pp. Frontispieces and six striking further plates drawn and etched by Auguste Hervieu (1795-1880). Bound, with both half-titles called for, in a nineteenth-century half roan with marbled sides and the binder's labels of Fr. Ljunggrens of Goteborg - now fully rebacked in a recent chestnut morocco, banded and gilt, with black labels; some occasional spotting and browning; a few minor marks, nicks, creases and small flaws, but overall a very good set of… Read More

London : Victor Gollancz, 1987. First edition. A weighty biography of one of the most influential publishers and public campaigners of the twentieth century, Victor Gollancz (1893-1967) - "I hate everything that is pro and anti (different peoples). I am only one thing: I am pro-humanity". With much passing reference to Clement Attlee, Violet Bonham Carter, Winston Churchill, Communism, Daphne du Maurier, Adolf Hitler, the Labour Party, Harold Laski, the Left Book Club, Stanley Morison, George Orwell, Frank Pakenham, etc. Medium 8vo (24cm). [ii],782pp. Plates, portraits, etc. Original boards; top edge faintly spotted, but a very good copy in the dust-jacket, just slightly nicked and lightly spotted.

New York : Praeger Publishers, (1971). First edition : the American issue. A well illustrated and wide-ranging survey, by one of the best of antiquarian booksellers, of (mainly British) illustrated books of the nineteenth century - with chapters on chapbooks; Thomas Bewick and George Cruikshank; line engraving; the periodicals; the Dalziels; the advent of colour; fin-de-siècle; foreign influence; America, etc. Crown 4to (26cm). (xvi),(288)pp. Five colour plates. Numerous monochrome illustrations. Original orange cloth, blocked and lettered in gilt; top edge black; a very good and bright copy in the dust-jacket.

London : George Allen & Unwin, (1976). First edition. A lavishly illustrated survey, with chapters on the Comic Paper, the Comic Hero, the Comic Kid, the Comic Animal, the Comic Age, the Comic World, the Comic War, and the Comic Artist. Demy 4to (29cm). 144pp. Illustrated throughout. Original pictorial boards; just a touch of rubbing and sunning; mild spotting of edges, but a very good copy.

London : Oxford University Press, 1956. First edition. A highly-regarded survey of nineteenth-century theatre and drama - in fact covering the period 1792-1914 - with much incidental reference to Harley Granville Barker, Dionysius Lardner Boucicault, Sir William Schwenck Gilbert, Sir John Hare, Sir Henry Irving, Charles Kean, William Charles Macready, Sir Arthur Wing Pinero, James Robinson Planché, Thomas William Robertson, etc. - and much also on the London theatres themselves. Demy 8vo (23cm). (xiv),(204),[ii]pp. Plates. Original cloth; a very good, clean and sound copy in a lightly used dust-jacket.

Boston : David R. Godine, (1994). First American edition. With chapters on the literature; the explosion in popular publishing; publishers, editors, engravers and entrepreneurs; the readership; the artists; foreign influences, etc., with a checklist of the 592 items in the Robin de Beaumont collection (now in the British Museum). With a preface by Antony Griffiths and a preliminary essay by Robin de Beaumont. Crown 4to (26cm). 144pp. Colour plates. Ninety-two illustrations. Original cloth; very good in dust-jacket.

[London] : Cambridge University Press for the National Book League, 1947. First edition : one of the copies issued in cloth, with the plates not included in the wrappers issue. A major exhibition catalogue, with a foreword by Sadleir and an introduction by Carter. Demy 8vo (22cm). (xiv),(50)pp. Sixteen plates. Original cloth; a hint of rubbing; endpapers slightly spotted, with a short repaired tear to rear free endpaper; but a very good and bright copy in the original dust-jacket - lightly worn and slightly tanned.

Newton Abbot : David & Charles, (1972). First edition. A fully illustrated survey of this pervasive and ever-popular art form, with material on John Brandard, Alfred Concanen, R. J. Hamerton, Louis Jullien, George Leybourne, G. H. Macdermott, Alfred Vance, etc. Crown 4to (26cm). 112pp. Illustrated throughout. Original boards; a very good copy in a just slightly used dust-jacket.

London : John G. Murdoch, [1854 (but later)]. A most attractive antique print - a peaceful pastoral scene - from an original drawing by the Glasgow artist William Leighton Leitch. Originally produced for John Parker Lawson's "Scotland Delineated in a Series of Views" (London : 1847-1854), but here with the later imprint of J.G.Murdoch and produced for his undated publication "Scotland, Picturesque, Historical, Descriptive". Tint lithograph on paper. Later hand colour. Printed surface 172 x 220mm (approx. 6-3/4" x 8-5/8"). One small and faint mark, but overall in very good and clean state. A guaranteed genuine antique print.

Chester & Bangor : T. Catherall, [ca.1855]. First edition. Cover title "Views in the North Wales District : Second Series". A set of highly attractive engravings of North Wales engraved by William Banks & Son of Edinburgh for the local publisher Thomas Catherall (1809-1889) - vignette views of Bangor, Penrhyn, Beaumaris, Carnarvon, Snowdon, Llanberis, Beddgelert, Bettws-y-Coed, Conway, Llandudno, Rhyl, Llangollen, Ruthin, etc. - one of which is dated 1855. Long demy 8vo (15 x 23cm). Engraved pictorial title and twenty-nine plates. Original decorative cloth gilt over bevelled boards; all edges gilt; slight wear to head of spine; a touch shaken and slack, but the plates clean, crisp and in very good order.

London : Field & Tuer, The Leadenhall Press, [1886]. First edition. "I am only a little girl, but I have my thoughts, and I have plenty of time for thinking them, as I am a great deal alone ... when I am not by myself I am with grown-up people, and it is their ways which puzzle me". A celebrated Victorian spoof, complete with chapters on Afternoon Tea, Juvenile Parties, Serious Thoughts and How to Get a Book Printed, and with its own "home-made" binding. "Little girls' eyes and ears are proverbially sharp; but, luckily for domestic peace, they are rarely so keen as this particular little girl's. What she has to say of the shams and pretences of society, as she sees it, is often amusing from its spice of truth. The style too, in its affected innocence, is decidedly smart" (St. James's Gazette, 25th November 1886). Crown 4to (23cm). 102,[ii]pp. Line illustrations in text. Original boards; covered in a floral patterned cloth, with sewn ties, ostensibly by the author herself and lots of little factory… Read More

London : Jones & Co., 1827. An attractive antique print of Hertford (later St. Dunstan's) Villa, built by Decimus Burton for Francis Charles Seymour-Conway, Third Marquess of Hertford (1777-1842) - said to be the model for Thackeray's Marquess of Steyne. The house was rebuilt as Winfield House in the 1930s and is now the residence of the American Ambassador. Engraved by James Tingle (1801-1858) from an original study by Thomas Hosmer Shepherd, the master recorder of nineteenth century London. From Shepherd's series "Metropolitan Improvements; or London in the Nineteenth Century" (London 1827-1830). Steel line engraving on paper. Later hand colour. Engraved surface 100 x 150mm (approx. 4" x 5-7/8"). In very good and clean state. A guaranteed genuine antique print. Adams 154/044.

New York : Quarter Books, (1950). First edition under this title. Wanton Hollywood movie star accused of murder. Originally published as "Pity the Lover" in 1938, but here revised and retitled. Foolscap 4to (20cm). (3)-120,[ii]pp. Two photo illustrations, "specially posed by professional models". Original pictorial stapled wrappers - temptress at the bar; lightly rubbed; slight production flaw to upper cover, a few spots to lower cover, but a very good copy of an uncommon title. No copy of this edition located in any major library worldwide.