Rare books from Quair Books

London: Faber and Faber, 1962. Very Good. FIRST EDITION. 8vo. Orange cloth, yellow lettering to spine. Slight lean to spine, gentle pushing and rubbing to spine ends. Edges toned, literary agent's label pasted diagonally to ffep: "Offered by/ Elaine Greene Ltd./ 2 Caxton Street, London, S.W.1.," else, clean and tight. In Phillippe Jullian's fabulously fitting dust jacket: toned, extremities nicked, spine sunned and a little rubbed. Still, Jullian's cover art remains vibrant. A pleasing copy of an attractive edition and an apt queer pairing of author and illustrator. VG/VG The first novel in Stacton's triptych on the theme of 'The Sexes'. A year after its publication, the San Francisco-born author (1923-1968) was named one of Time's 10 best US novelists of the past decade. His British editions tended to precede the American first editions, as here. He also wrote pulp fiction under the pseudonyms Bud Clifton and Carse Boyd. The French illustrator, biographer, aesthete and dandy, Philippe Jullian… Read More

1974. Framed (510 x 390mm) b/w silver gelatin print (320 x 234mm) of Marchese Marconi and Principessa Elettra Marconi Giovanelli. The double half-length portrait captures them smiling, seated close together and facing the camera. Mount signed in (faded) pen by both women at foot of portrait: "Elettra Marconi/ Maria Cristina Marconi". Label lettered in black to reverse: "Marchese Marconi and Principessa Elettra (Giovanelli) Marconi/ Centenary of birth of Marconi/ 1974". Very Good. Maria Cristina Marconi (1900-1994) was the radio pioneer and Nobel prize winner's second wife, and Maria Elettra, their only daughter (1930-).

London: Ernest Benn, Limited, 1929. FIRST UK EDITION. 8vo, pp. xxi, [iii], 203, [1]. Original brown cloth, orange lettering to spine. Chip and wear to head of spine, bruising and wear to bottom extremities, blotching to lower board. Top edge dusty, fore-edge a little spotted. Feps lightly toned, pushing to bottom corner of a couple of early signatures, short closed tears to top edges of pp. 89-104, reaching 2cm at pp. 103-4, text unaffected. Else, pleasingly clean and tidy. Very good. Unusual in the trade, though fairly well represented in British and Irish research libraries. 'With an Introduction on the American Negro in Art' by Du Bose Heyward. Publication of the British edition of the Heywards' play (plus other international editions) coincided with an eleven-week European tour of Porgy in spring 1929. It opened without previews on 10 April at His Majesty's Theatre, London and closed on 1 June 1929. While British theatre-goers welcomed the Porgy cast, with the opening night apparently receiving 12… Read More

London: Virago Press Limited, 1988. FIRST UK EDITION. 8vo. Blue cloth, silver lettering to spine. Pushing to spine ends, else, clean and tidy. In the original dust jacket by Bonnie Ogden: edgewear, a little toned. Near fine/ near fine. A lovely copy of Ellmann's first novel, which won her the 1988 Guardian Fiction Prize.

London: Methuen & Co, 1972. FIRST EDITION, WITH AUTHORIAL DEDICATION. 8vo, pp. xlii, 230 + b/w frontis. Green cloth, gilt lettering to spine. Pushing to spine ends. Top edge spotted. Fox spots to top margins of prelims, else, clean and tidy. Authorial dedication in blue ink to ffep: 'To Storm Jameson/ from/ Agnes Headlam-Morley/ Sept. 1972.' In the original dust jacket: wear to spine ends, a few short closed tears. Very good/ very good. Agnes Headlam-Morley (1902-1986) was a historian of Anglo-German relations and briefly the prospective Conservative candidate for Barnard Castle. She was the first woman to be appointed to a full Professorship at Oxford: from 1948 to 1971 she was Montague Burton Professor of International Relations. She was a celebrated salon hostess and College woman. Her intellectual legacy – alongside those of other women in the discipline – is currently being revisioned through the Women and the History of International Thought project (2018-2022) (see Professor Patricia Owens,… Read More

London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1958. FIRST EDITION. 8vo. Black cloth, silver lettering to spine. Slight lean to spine. Dusty top edge, else, clean and tight. In the original dust jacket: price-clipped, light edgewear, rear panel a little shelf-soiled. Near fine/ near fine. A pleasing copy of the double Oscar and Booker Prize-winning author's third novel.

London: Printed for Richard Phillips, by T. Gillet, 1805. Very Good. FIRST EDITION. 4 (of 5) volumes: I, III, IV & V. 12mos, pp. xx, [272] + portrait frontis (stipple engraved by Caroline Watson) and fold-out facsimile letter; iv, 300 + facsimile letter; [iv], 344 + fold-out facsimile letter; iv, 286, [lacks 2 pages of adverts]. Later half calf over marbled boards, 5 raised bands, gilt-ruled, red and black morocco labels lettered in gilt, compartments diced. Edges speckled red. All vols.: rubbed, spines darkened, wear and bruising to corners, heavy bumping to top edges, some strips of calf missing from corners. Endpapers browned, glue-residue from former bookplates to front pastedowns, POI to ffeps, '25 June 1938' stamp and price in pencil (for four vols. only) to rear pastedowns. Occasional foxing, pencil scoring and marginalia, pencil notes to rear pastedowns. Vol. I: front hinge starting, prelims, frontis and rear foxed, offsetting to title page, 'B. H. Blackwell Ltd, Booksellers, Oxford' label… Read More

London: Chapman and Hall, Ltd, 1910. FIFTH EDITION (first published 1909). 8vo, pp. vi, 284, [8 adverts]. Green cloth, gilt lettering to spine, black lettering and ruling to upper board. Bottom edge untrimmed. Slight lean to spine, bruising and wear to extremities, bump to front bottom corner. Edges and endpapers tanned, Rosamund Billington's feminist-cum-Libran ex libris to front pastedown, foxing to front. Else, clean and tidy. A brightly-bound copy of a later edition of Hamilton's critique of marriage, with a pleasing feminist provenance. Very good. Jisc LHD lists no holdings of this final full-price edition (preceding the 1912 'New and Cheaper' edition. Playwright, journalist and suffragist, Cicely Hamilton (born Cicely Hamill, 1872-1952) is perhaps best known for her A Pageant of Great Women (1910), co-conceived and directed by Edy Craig, while her short story, How the Vote was Won, was successfully dramatised by Craig's partner, Christopher St. John a year earlier. Like Corbett and Holme,… Read More

London: James Barrie, 1950. Good. FIRST EDITION, SIGNED BY AUTHOR. 8vo, with b/w plates (cockled). Faded blue cloth, spine lettered in gilt. Lean to spine, edgewear, bruising to extremities, a few nicks to headcap. Edges browned. Asquith's signature (dated 1950, year of publication) in blue pen to ffep, above pasted-in dust jacket blurb, original dust jacket panels glued to pastedowns, some spotting, staining to leading margins of pp. 72-8. Else, clean. Good. Despite asking, "Why after a long career of oyster-hood should I prise my own shells open?", here the "first lady of horror", serial anthologist and celebrated diarist Lady Cynthia Asquith (1887-1960) cracks open her memories for James Barrie (nephew of the playwright, in whose company Asquith invested with some of the inheritance bequeathed by his uncle), including a chapter on her 'Breadwinning' (ODNB).

FIRST EDITION. 8vo, pp. [126]. Original red cloth, spine lettered in green. Spine and boards sunned (latter, unevenly), gentle bruising and wear to spine ends and top corners, rear board a little soiled. Shallow denting to fore-edges of text block, POI in blue ink to POI: "Doreen & Walter Newlyn/ Ibadan. 23.12.53," offsetting to endpapers. Else, clean and tight. A continent-hopping copy of Tutuola's first novel with an interesting academic provenance. Good+ Amos Tutuola's first novel � a ludic, irreverent tall tale of weird encounters inspired by Yoruba folklore � immediately brought him to (divergent) critical attention, and rapidly achieved cult status, "creating its own genre, setting its own rules, and enthralling its expanding coterie" (Soyinka, 2014). Occupying a contentious position in the canon of African literature(s), The Palm-Wine Drinkard has been subject to various interpretations, from "an extended folktale in search of syntax" to a forerunner of magical realism, a linguistic… Read More

London: The Pottery Press, 2017. Fine. FIRST EDITION, SIGNED BY AUTHOR. Slim trade paperback. Blue illustrated wrappers. Lightest edgewear. Flat-signed by Bingham in black pen to title page. Else, clean, tight and bright. A fine copy of Bingham's play about THE American Sapphist in Paris. The Blue Hour of Natalie Barney premiered in Autumn 2017 at London's Arcola Theatre, directed by Kenneth Hoyt and with Amanda Boxer as Natalie Barney.

London: Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1978. Near Fine. Second impression, INSCRIBED BY AUTHOR. 8vo. Brown cloth, lettered in gilt. Pushing to spine ends, bump to fore-edge of lower board. A few spots to endpapers, Pizzey's eerie yet affectionate dedication, in pink pen, to ffep: "For Midge & Tex [?],/ Malignant relationships/ form malignant cells. You are/ in my prayers./ Lots of love and God bless/ you/ Erinx". Else, clean and tight. In the original dust jacket: edgewear, spine sunned, closed tear to rear panel. Near fine/ near fine. Unusual with inscription. A contentious figure for British feminism, Erin Pizzey (1939-) founded Chiswick Women's Aid in 1971, which grew to become the national charity against domestic violence, Refuge. After she left Women's Aid, Pizzey continued to write and lecture about domestic abuse, winning the Nancy Astor Award for Journalism in 1983, as well as penning a clutch of bodice-rippers. The author now refers to herself as a men's rights advocate and is editor at large of the… Read More

London: Constable, 1930. Hardback. Very Good. Uniform English Edition". 8vo, pp. [vi], [390], [2]. Fawn cloth, spine lettered in gilt. Extremities bumped, bands of sunning to top and bottom edges. Bookseller's ticket to front pastedown, review clipping laid in. Else, clean and tight. In the original muted brown paper dust jacket: price-clipped, spine gently sunned and creased, head of spine frayed, wear to extremities. Still, a pleasing copy. Very good/ very good. Unusual in the trade. Originally published in 1916 by John Lane in New York and London, Constable's new edition featured an additional four plays, 'Phantasmagoria,' 'The Court of Progress,' 'The Dream' and 'The Hand of the Potter'. The laid in review draws attention to the cinematic facets of the playwright's work: "Mr. Theodore Dreiser's collection of plays is a reminder of the films' continuous and increasing influence upon the theatre. This influence is neither wholly good nor wholly bad; its effect depends upon the innate quality of… Read More

London: Jonathan Cape, 1966. Very Good. FIRST EDITION, INSCRIBED BY AUTHOR. 8vo. Purple cloth, spine lettered in gilt. Boards bowed, extremities gently bruised, fine bands of sunning to edges. Inscribed by Brophy in black ink to title page: "Inscribed for/ Dr Fisher by/ Brigid Brophy". Else, clean and tidy. In Brian Pike's brown-grey typographic dust jacket: rubbed at joints and edges, spine ends frayed, a few nicks and chips. A robust copy of Brophy's early essay collection, with a focus on animal rights, reviews of books by female and queer authors. Unusual. The Anglo-Irish author, activist and "the British intelligentsia's newest high priestess" borrowed her title from a Mozart letter, with the collection comprising short essays and reviews published between Spring 1962 and Autumn 1965 (front flap). Her characteristic wit and forthrightness are much in evidence. Dr Fisher remains unidentified, but given Brophy's interest in Freud, perhaps he was a psychoanalyst?

1875. Single plate (22.9 x14.8cm) extracted from an early issue of Irving's The Theatre magazine, comprising tipped-in Woodburytype photograph (14.6 x 9.6cm) of Terry seated in her costume for the Merchant of Venice, with "The Theatre, No. 1, Third Series. Woodburytype" printed directly underneath. Terry sits aslant to her right, looking to her left, with her left hand raised and index finger pointing up, two books piled in the background tightly framing the back of her hand. With (mis)quotation from Act 4, Scene 1 in facsimile of Terry's flamboyant hand underneath: ""Come Merchant have you anything to say"?/ Portia/ Ellen Terry:". Triangle of white to bottom right corner of photograph, presumably from glitch in its reproduction, minute patch of wear to Terry's right cheek, page mount a little soiled, toned and wrinkled. Still, a pleasingly sharp and rich photograph for its age, indeed, as one would expect from the expensive Woodburytype process. Very good The University of Washington Libraries… Read More