Rare books from The Second Shelf

First edition, published by Leonard and Virginia Woolf at The Hogarth Press. The Years is the eighth novel by Virginia Woolf, the last published in her lifetime. Cream coloured dust jacket designed by Vanessa Bell.
Hardcover, 479 pp. Pale sage green cloth binding, guilt lettering on spine. Very light wear on edges of spine and corners. Very good condition. Front cover detached from rest of the jacket, with small chips at top and bottom of spine and corners. Despite this, dust jacket is in otherwise very good condition, complete and preserved in archival sleeve.

First edition, first printing. Barbara Comyn's second novel, set in 1930's London, is an intense and dark account of a marriage's failure, childbirth, and financial difficulty. Our Spoons goes into significant details about an arduous pregnancy and delivery, and as Emily Gould notes in The Paris Review, this was provocative and unusual for 1950. She explains, "Comyns elevates what might have been a commonplace melodrama about a girl led astray into much more unusual sort of novel."
A cult classic by an underrated writer. Incredibly rare and highly desirable.
Hardcover, 223 pp. Green cloth binding, very slight toning on edges and almost imperceptible wear on the top and bottom edges of the spine. Original jacket, shows age related darkening, toning of the spine and signs of wear around the edges, and a minor scratch on the centre of the front cover. Significant foxing in the edges of the book, no markings or annotations. Binding is intact. Overall in very good condition.

A superb manuscript book recording events at Burlington House Girls High School, Spring Grove, Isleworth, Hounslow from 1887-1890, with most of the materials produced by students. The school was established by Medina Griffiths (1840-1927) in September 1886. In an essay, printed and placed in the back of the book, she details her views on education and states: "I would have girls placed on an equality with boys so far as educational advantages are concerned… I would have girls stand in the foremost ranks of learning". She was witty and musical, and though at times caustic and frightening, she was adored by a vast number of her pupils. Griffith's personality clearly permeated the school, resulting in the lively students' work bound in Ort and Naughts, including cartoons, original poetry and comic writing alongside accomplished art and trompe l'oeil work. A number of the event programmes bound in are hand printed and painted. Records of her pupil's names and examinations included, and a carefully… Read More

A wonderful combination of the classic Austen novel and Vera Willoughby's illustrations with their Art Deco and uniquely stylised elements. Her drawings, paintings and posters are held by the V&A, the British Museum and the London Transport Museum. In 1929 Willoughby was painting posters for London Underground, notably Spring and General Joy. Willoughby, a graduate of the Slade School of Art, also designed for the ballet with Cyril Beaumont under the pseudonym Vera Petrovna. Willoughby had an earlier romantic relationship with publishing house founder Peter Davies. As he was 27 years her junior this upset some of his friends, including J M Barrie. Althea Willoughby, Vera's daughter with her husband Louis, followed in her mother's footsteps and became an artist, book illustrator and poster designer for London Transport. Hardcover. 351 pages. Modern red morocco binding with gilt decoration to covers, 5 raised bands and title to spine. Minor spotting. First thus with 12 grey tone illustrations.

Seventeen-year-old Florence Nightingale Soden began this diary to mark her society debut and to document the expanded social and travel engagements available to her. The first entry on Sept 3, 1883 marks her seventeenth birthday and details Soden's extensive journey around Italy and France, far away from her home in Clapham, England.
Soden clearly reflects upon some of her entries after they are written and edits herself. She cut out three pages, another four have been completely removed from the diary, and one page is painted over black. Botanical specimens are tipped in as momentos. Her student days are remembered with a Class I exam paper on the history of Rome laid in at the back. (It may be that a Class I mark was the parental prerequisite for the reward of her travel abroad.)
Born in 1866 and named after the illustrious nurse, Florence visited her namesake city several times in her journeys. Soden documents everyday vexations and unusual events including singing lessons from Dr Emil Behnke and… Read More

Didion's third novel, A Book of Common Prayer is the story of two American women in Boca Grande and Central America, respectively, focused on the themes of absolute power, violence rooted in poverty, and the dichotomy between purity and corruption. It is a stunning novel that deserves more readers, and a favourite of ours at The Second Shelf.First edition. Hardback, 269 pp. 22 x 14.5 cm. Black quarter cloth with black boards, with red decoration and gilt lettering to spine, slight fading on bottom edge front cover. Very good book in very good dust jacket. Advance copy publisher's slip laid in with typed title.

Winner of the Somerset Maugham Prize in 1968, Several Perceptions is Angela Carter's third novel. Set in the Vietnam era, the insular urban vignettes focus on 22-year-old unemployed Joseph. Several Perceptions is notable for its Alice in Wonderland references, and the surreal book cover image reflects the collage-like nature of the novel.
New York: Simon and Schuster, 1968. First US edition. Hardback, in dust jacket. 21 x 14 x 2. 153 pages. Octavo. Publisher's brown cloth lettered gilt at front and spine. Dust jacket slightly water-stained at rear, slightly grubby. Very good book in very good dust jacket.

University of Minnesota Press, 1989. First edition. Paperback, 80 pp. White graphic wraps with moderate shelf wear. Spine is slightly rubbed and creased. Very good condition. Clarice Lispector's seventh novel, originally titled Água Viva, is considered to be her masterpiece. It is a perfect example of her particular poetic style, her profound understanding of language and her ability to play beyond its boundaries. It was first translated into English by Elizabeth Lowe and Earl Fitz for this edition, as part of the Emergent Literatures series. Published many years before Lispector became renowned in the English speaking world. It includes an introduction by Hélène Cixous, who was a translator of the novel herself into French.

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1930. First edition. 8vo. 284pp. + xxxivpp. Index. Publisher's blue grey cloth titled and decorated in red and brown, minor wear, and very good copy indeed in a similarly attractive example of the dustjacket, lightly discoloured to spine and with some very light chipping to the extremities. Strong and bright. Internally clean. Found within this copy is a letter about Gertrude Bell's involvement with the anti-suffrage movement, from Lady Jersey to Lady Bell written in April 1927. The letter is in reply to a request for Lady Jersey's memories on this topic by Lady Bell, who was editing and publishing Gertrude Bell's writings. Lady Jersey was President of the Women's National Anti-Suffrage League. The letter begins "As regards the Anti-Suff in which Gertrude took such inspiring care, I fear nothing beyond memory remains." After detailing some recollections, Lady Jersey writes: "The last thing I clearly remember about Gertrude in this connection is that she and I as… Read More

Paris: Saussine, 1865. Magnetic fortune telling board game, 21cm x 26cm. Constructed of painted wood and cardboard, significant wear, most notably to corners and extremities, the lid consists of the decorated top panel but has lost three of the four strengthening "lips" that would have firmly attached it to the base, although as a whole it is appreciably solid. A self-contained game in the form of a box with a painted glass and wood top with applied chromolithograph decoration, the magnetic blue bird moves beneath the window when a card and bone spinner with a metallic element is spun above it. The spinner has various fortune subjects written on it in French to "ask" the blue bird about. Once the bird stops spinning, its beak will be pointed at one of eight small circular lidded boxes affixed to the game surface (some of these are a trifle worn to the decorative paper covers, but still bright and attractive). Once opened, the boxes contain tiny circular handwritten paper "fortunes" which can be… Read More

Harlequin Ladybird Reading Scheme/Dung Beetle Ltd, 2015. 3 vols. 8vo. Publisher's decorated boards in highly accurate pastiche of the British "Ladybird Books" series, a ubiquitous part of the reading experience of every British child born between the 1940's and the 1980's with their occasionally not so gentle introduction to some fairly adult themes, and some strange historical choices. The Ladybird Book of The Aztecs was a particular favourite, nothing like an introduction to casual human sacrifice and colonial massacres to brighten up primary school reading hour. Miriam Elia has taken this instantly recognisable format and subverted it relentlessly to artistic and comic effect. The first volume caused no little controversy upon appearance, and Ladybird Books took a very dim view of the themes and obvious parody, legal action was taken and the self published imprint needed a swift name change to "Dung Beetle Ltd." The first printing under the Harlequin Ladybird name therefore became extremely… Read More

New York, 2000. Oblong quarto. 42pp. Bolt bound with three stainless steel bolt closures to spine. Some creasing and tearing to the guard protecting the card wraps from the bolts, cosmetic only. A very good, clean, strong copy. Signed and numbered (#27) by Ingrid Calame to the lower corner of the recto of the rear cover, dated 2002. Also present is a note from Calame (written on a piece of the same card used for the binding:"Dear Lynn, Hullo, How are you? I've enclosed 'Report on Secular Response I' which documents the large work of the last 2 years. Secular Response 2 based on the Trading Floor of the NYSE is in the works. Hope you enjoy #1! Best Wishes Ingrid C." Dated 14th January 2002. A fascinated and inventively presented catalogue of Calame's attempts to explore the artistic question "How do we understand a whole from its parts?" the end result of which was exhibited at Ardsley United Methodist Church, in Ardsley NY. The whole is rather an exercise in negative space where images are… Read More

Small Octavo. Bound in maroon limp calf, rubbed, scuffed, and well used but still strong. Internally a little grubby and smudged by handling, much as might be expected of a working kitchen book. 22pp. of handwritten recipes, rather enthusiastically jammed onto each page as if the author was afraid of running out of space, there's a rather youthful exuberance to the putting together of this little pocket recipe book. The recipes are dominated by cakes, puddings and breads, including Raspberry Fool, and various sponge cakes, with some complex preserved meat dishes like Calves' Feet Jelly, and a recipe for Mock Turtle Soup involving a Calf's Head with the skin on. The spelling is a little erratic, the composition pretty makeshift, but that doesn't detract from it being a handy little household reference.

New York: Random House, 1937. To Nathalie [sic], who does not have to go out to come in, and is in - Gertrude"The recipient of this extremely Stein-y inscription is Natalie Clifford Barney, the energetic lesbian expat poet, patron dame of the Lost Generation and founder of the Women's Academy (in response to the Paris based Men's Academy). She was famous for her salons, held at her home in Paris on Rue Jacob, and frequented by the glittering nobility of the Modernist movement including, at various points, Andre Gide, Pierre Louys, Sinclair Lewis, Rilke, Louis Aragon, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and the doomed but talented Harry and Caresse Crosby, not to mention the regular visits from Peggy Guggenheim, and Sylvia Beach, founder of the English bookshop in Paris, Shakespeare and Company. Barney was instrumental in the translation of passages from Stein's The Making of Americans, and Stein seems to have attended the salons on at least a couple of occasions; her partner Alice B. Toklas became a regular… Read More

New York: Perigee Books, 1983. First edition. Quarto. 111pp. Publisher's card covers, very light edgewear, clean and bright, a near fine copy. Internally clean.
The typescript, on Lenono letter head, of Yoko Ono's introduction to the book. Made up of three paragraphs, followed by the poem "Sky People". Signed in black ink by Yoko Ono at the end of the poem. this is the actual manuscript used in the production of the book, with this introduction and poem being reproduced on pages 6 and 7. Ono's signature here was the one photographed and printed in the book underneath the introduction. A unique object.