Rare books from Neil Pearson Rare Books

London: Cape, 1929. 8vo, pp. 448. Original salmon boards, lettered in gilt to spine. Bookplate to front pastedown. Boards a little marked, endpapers a trifle browned, but a very good copy in a very good, unclipped dustwrapper, browned at spine, chipping with slight loss to head of spine, and one or two very small closed tears. Photographic frontispiece of author by Albert Cracknell, seven illustrations through text. Illustrated dustwrapper by Len Lye. First edition, first issue, with the Sassoon poem on pp. 341-3 present. Viscount Esher's copy, with his bookplate. Sassoon's poem is missing from later copies; complaints and the threat of legal action from the poet resulted in its removal.

London: Park Lane Films, 1957. Shooting script, 33 mimeographed pp., stapled in to oversized red card wrappers. Typed title label to front cover, typed ownership label ('Park Lane Films Ltd., Quadrex House, Park Lane, W.1.') to inside front cover. Contents very clean, covers a little creased at edges, and with one small (1cm) closed tear to leading edge. MORDECAI RICHLER'S FIRST SCREENPLAY, FOR ONE OF PETER SELLERS' MOST RARELY-SEEN FILMS. In 1955 Peter Sellers was a huge radio star, thanks mostly to The Goon Show, but the film career which would later define him was yet to begin. 1955 was the year he appeared in The Ladykillers, his first major feature, with his idol Alec Guinness. Both the film and Sellers' performance garnered excellent reviews, but somehow it failed to launch him, and for the next two years he continued to work on The Goon Show, appearing on screen only in spin-offs from his radio work -- most notably The Case Of The Mukkinese Battle-Horn (1956), the… Read More

N.p. [London]: N.p. 1967-8. A small quantity of original typescripts, printed typescripts and photocopied typescripts, many secured with staple to top left corner, and many with handwritten amendments, additions and deletions. Housed in a blue card folder bearing a typed white paper label label reading TERRY JONES & MIKE PALIN. Some wear and toning consistent with their age, staples mostly rusted, otherwise in near fine condition. A SMALL QUANTITY OF ORIGINAL, PRINTED AND PHOTOCOPIED TYPESCRIPTS OF SKETCHES WRITTEN BY TERRY JONES AND MICHAEL PALIN FOR FROST ON SUNDAY AND THE FROST REPORT, WITH EXTENSIVE CORRECTIONS, AMENDMENTS AND REWRITES BY BOTH. Terry Jones and Michael Palin first met as undergraduates at Oxford and, after graduating, began writing together for TV comedy shows. All the future Pythons save Terry Gilliam worked together for the first time on The Frost Report (1966-7), which also featured, both as writers and performers, Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett. The show ran for… Read More

Paris: Olympia Press, 1955. 8vo, pp. 353. Original green stiff card wrappers, lettered in black to panels and spine. Very light indentations to rear panel (see below), otherwise an absolutely fine, unread copy. First edition, first issue of the author's first novel, without the green border to title page, and with the earlier price ('Francs: 1.500') to rear panel. The Ginger Man had been rejected by upwards of thirty publishers on the grounds of obscenity before finding a home in Paris with Maurice Girodias' Olympia Press, for whom its obscenity was its chief appeal. Donleavy was delighted to have found a publisher, and delighted to have found one who had recently published work by Beckett, Bataille and Genet. He was less delighted when The Ginger Man appeared in 1955, on a list including books called White Thighs, The Whip Angels, and The Sexual Life Of Robinson Crusoe -- all of which were advertised in the back of his book. Massive litigation and counter-litigation followed, conducted in a… Read More

London: Faber, 1972. 8vo, pp. 80. Original printed card wrappers. Some offsetting to preliminaries caused by newspaper clippings once held in the book, slight darkening to spine (which is uncreased), small ownership signature to ffep.. A better than very good copy. First edition, SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR. This issue precedes the hardbound edition. This, Heaney's third full collection, is strangely scarce -- especially signed.

London: Secker & Warburg, 1992. 8vo, pp. . Original black boards, lettered in silver on spine. A fine copy in dustwrapper. First edition.

Verona: Plain Wrapper Press, 1977. 8vo, pp. 12, unpaginated. Original olive stiff paper wrappers with foldover flaps, title in brown to front panel. Sewn binding. Uncut and unopened. A fine, unread, unopened copy. Woodcut illustration by Fulvio Testa to [p.6] opposite the single page of text. First edition, one of 180 copies. 2pp. TLS FROM THE PRINTER RICHARD-GABRIEL RUMMONDS TO NOVELIST AND ART CRITIC FREDERIC TUTEN LAID IN, DISCUSSING THE RECENT MOVE OF THE PLAIN WRAPPER OPERATION TO VERONA, AND PLANS FOR THE PRINTING AND PUBLICATION OF BOOK. One of the pre-eminent handpress printers of the twentieth century, the American Richard-Gabriel Rummonds founded his Plain Wrapper Press in the mid-1960s. A meeting with Verona-based Giovanni Mardersteig, master printer at the Officina Bodoni, convinced Rummonds to move his operation to Verona in 1971. The letter accompanying the book is packed with information about the press in general, and this title in particular: 'Burgess wrote this poem one… Read More

London: Secker and Warburg, 1971. 8vo, pp. 249. Original printed orange wrappers. Spine a little rolled, a little light edgewear and bumping. About near fine. Uncorrected advance proof copy. EDITOR JOHN BLACKWELL'S COPY WITH HIS INITIALS TO FRONT WRAPPER, AND HIS CORRECTIONS THROUGHOUT. John Blackwell joined Secker and Warburg in the late 1960s when the imprint was still an independent company run by Fredric Warburg himself, and was a constant presence through the company's innumerable corporate takeovers, mergers and changes of managing director. As well as editing Sharpe, John Blackwell played literary midwife to J. M. Coetzee, Michael Moorcock, Tom McGuane, Malcolm Bradbury and Louis de Bernieres, among many others. His emendations in this, his own copy, are made in red ink, and are mostly typographical and grammatical corrections; here and there, deletions have been made in blue.

London: Drummond, 1933-1939. 34 issues in 32. Small 8vo. Stiff paper wrappers. Red wraparound band to Auden double issue (26-27), perforated subscription forms to many numbers. Staples rusted, closed tear at spine of Issue 1, age-toning consistent with vintage. A near fine set. First edition. A COMPLETE RUN OF THIS HIGHLY INFLUENTIAL PERIODICAL. Geoffrey Grigson was just twenty-seven when he founded the bi-monthly New Verse, which for most of the 1930s remained the only British literary publication devoted solely to poetry. Grigson insisted on high literary standards from his contributors, but once these were met anyone was allowed in; New Verse was important because it was the house journal of no one faction. One of the most important contributors was W.H. Auden: the early issues helped launch him, later ones defended him. (The Auden double issue in this set retains its rare wraparound band). The combative Grigson was happy to criticise those he published, seeing such interventions as a… Read More

New York: Crime Club/Doubleday, 1974. 8vo, pp. 184. Original pale green boards, lettered in dark green to spine. Illustrated dustwrapper. Offsetting to endpapers, very light bumping to spine ends, a near fine copy in a very good dustwrapper with some scuffing to front panel at top edge and fold, and with some chipping to spine ends. First US edition, INSCRIBED BY RENDELL TO HER NEIGHBOURS: 'April 1974 For Pat & Douglas with love from the author, Ruth'. Preceded by the UK edition published the same year. Douglas Brown [1917-2003] was the BBC's first religious affairs correspondent, and held that position until his retirement in 1977. He and his wife Pat were Ruth Rendell's neighbours in the village of Polstead, Suffolk. Much of her work is set in the county, and when made a life peer she chose the title Baroness Rendell of Babebergh, of Aldeburgh, in the County of Suffolk. An excellent association copy of an early Rendell title.

Majorca: N.p., 1959. 4pp. ALS, secured with staple to top left corner. Faint horizontal creases consistent with having been folded in to an envelope (not present). Very well preserved. 4pp. ALS FROM JACK WARNER TO FELLOW DIXON OF DOCK GREEN ACTOR ANTHONY PARKER, WISHING HIM WELL ON HIS DEPARTURE FROM THE SHOW. The BBC TV show Dixon of Dock Green ran from 1955 to 1976, for a total of 432 episodes. Jack Warner, who played Dixon, appeared in every single one. The character first appeared in the 1950 film The Blue Lamp, where Warner's kindly bobby was famously shot dead by a hoodlum played by the young Dirk Bogarde. The character was resurrected for a stage show the following year which was co-written by Ted Willis. It was Willis who supervised the transfer to television, and between 1955 and 1963 he wrote 201 episodes of the show. Anthony Parker joined the show in 1957 to play the naive young recruit PC Bob Penney, and stayed for two years before leaving in an attempt to avoid typecasting. (His… Read More

Insight Editions, 2003. Folio, pp.136., with the Stefanko-signed silver gelatin print, all housed in the original cloth clamshell box. A fine copy in the clamshell box, which has a little light bumping to corners. Limited edition, SIGNED BY STEFANKO, AND WITH A 10 x 8 SILVER GELATIN PRINT OF SPRINGSTEEN LAID IN, ALSO SIGNED BY STEFANKO. No. 421 of 450 copies. Foreword by Chris Murray. A compendium of black and white portraits of Springsteen, taken by Stefanko between 1978 and 1982.

London: N.p., 1970. i) 2pp. ALS on Windsor's scalloped personal stationery; ii) Post Office telegram. Faint horizontal folds to the letter consistent with a journey by envelope (not present), otherwise very well preserved. Top corners of telegram missing, not affecting text. 2pp. ALS AND A POST OFFICE TELEGRAM FROM BARBARA WINDSOR, APOLOGISING TO BOTH EDDIE JOFFE AND BOB MONKHOUSE FOR HER NON-APPEARANCE ON AN EPISODE OF THE GOLDEN SHOT DUE TO ILL HEALTH. The Golden Shot was a British game show made by ATV for ITV, which ran between 1967 and 1975 and was hosted by Bob Monkhouse for the first five years. In 1970 Eddie Joffe was in the director's chair and Barbara Windsor was booked for the 22 February 1970 episode of the show, to appear alongside the pop group Herman's Hermits. But ill health intervened. In her letter to Joffe, (written on her Hendon Hall Court stationery) she apologises for her absence: 'I've already written & told Bob [Monkhouse] how sad I've been over letting you down last… Read More

London: Alston Rivers, 1909. Small 8vo, pp. 122, 4 pp. advertisements bound in at rear. Original illustrated stiff paper wrappers. Housed in a red folding box, title in gilt to spine. Corners a trifle bumped, rear endpaper a little dusty, two small pieces of clear tape to ffep. strengthening join with spine. Ffep. also bears an early ownership inscription. Otherwise a much better than very good copy. Line drawings throughout by C. Harrison. First edition. 'There was once a millionaire who, having devoted a long life to an unceasing struggle to amass his millions, looked up from his death-bed and said plaintively, 'And now, perhaps, someone will kindly tell me what it's all been about.' I get that feeling sometimes, looking back. Couldn't I, I ask myself, have skipped one or two of these works of mine and gone off and played golf without doing English literature any irreparable harm? Take, for instance, that book The Swoop, which was one of the paper-covered shilling books so prevalent around 1909.… Read More

London: A&C Black, 1902. 8vo, pp. 272. Original blue boards, lettered in silver to spine, loving cup in silver to front panel. One small and slight scuff mark to centre of spine, light wear to spine ends, corners a trifle bumped. Offsetting to endpapers, and very light and very occasional spotting to text edges. Lettering bright, and with no sunning to spine. Frontispiece and nine plates by R. Noel Pocock. First edition of the author's first book. First issue, with no advertisements, and with silver loving cup to front board. First published in serial (and slightly condensed) form in Public School Magazine, January--March 1902. '[I]n 1900, [boys' magazine] The Captain appeared, and in the first number was a serial by Fred Swainson called Acton's Feud. It began, I remember, 'Shannon, the old international, had brought a hot side down to play the school...' and if there has ever been a better opening line than that, I have never come across it. It was something entirely new in school stories -- the real… Read More