THE TRAGEDY OF THE KOROSKO
by Doyle, A. Conan
1898. With Forty Full-Page Illustrations. London: Smith, Elder, & Co., 1898. 6 pp undated ads. Original red cloth with front cover vignette in gilt. First English Edition, published about a week after the Philadelphia edition (titled A DESERT DRAMA). This is Doyle's suspenseful (and imperialistic) tale of a Nile riverboat, the "Korosko," and its encounter with the Dervishes; tourists are abducted, with the demand that they renounce Christianity. Doyle had in fact made such a trip with his... Read More
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THE CROXLEY MASTER. A Great Tale of the Prize Ring
by Doyle, A. Conan
1907. New York: McClure, Phillips & Co., 1907. Original tan cloth pictorially decorated in black, white and green. First Separate Edition (being one of the "other stories" that had been published with THE GREEN FLAG in 1900); before that (in October-December 1899), it had appeared in The Strand Magazine with 16 Sidney Paget illustrations. Doyle brought his much-loved sport of boxing into a number of his works, such as his novel RODNEY STONE and this tale. A young... Read More
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THE WAR IN SOUTH AFRICA. Its Cause and Conduct
by Doyle, A. Conan
1902. London: Smith, Elder, & Co., 1902. Original white wrappers. First Edition of Doyle's third piece of nonfiction, published two months before THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES. He wrote this piece, drawing considerably from his THE GREAT BOER WAR (of 1900), in an effort "to stem the extraordinary outbreak of defamation" against Britain; it was issued in substantial numbers and was immediately translated into many languages, as a publicity campaign for Britain's purpose in the war. It is... Read More
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RODNEY STONE
by Doyle, A. Conan
1896. Paget, Sidney. With Illustrations. London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1896. 10 pp undated ads. Original black (very dark purple?) cloth decorated in gilt. First Edition of this novel that curiously combines the sport of boxing and the Regency period. The eponymous narrator is a country boy who wishes to go to sea, but winds up with his fashionable uncle in London -- where soon his best friend is "Boy Jim," who hopes to become a bare-knuckle boxer... Read More
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THE VITAL MESSAGE
by Doyle, Arthur Conan
1919. New York: George H. Doran Company, n.d.[1919]. Original grey-green cloth, with dust jacket. First American Edition of this sequel of sorts to THE NEW REVELATION, on the subject of spiritualism -- Doyle's new focal point after losing his son Kingsley in 1918 and his brother Innes earlier in 1919; "one sees more clearly and broadly what our new relations with the Unseen may be," says Doyle in his preface. Included are plates with examples of "spirit photography."... Read More
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LYRICS OF THE HEARTHSIDE
by Dunbar, Paul Laurence
1899. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1899. Original olive-green cloth decorated and embossed in gilt. First Edition of this early title by this African-American poet whose parents, before they met, had both been Kentucky slaves; his father escaped to Canada, and wound up fighting in the Civil War for the Massachusetts 55th Regiment; his mother escaped to Ohio. Dunbar was born and raised in Dayton, where at Central High School (Class of 1890) he would be the... Read More
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FOLKS FROM DIXIE
by Dunbar, Paul Laurence
1898. With Illustrations by E.W. Kemble. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1898. Original terra-cotta cloth decorated and embossed in gilt and black, with cover illustration affixed. First Edition of Dunbar's first volume of fiction, preceded by three volumes of verse -- OAK AND IVY (1893), MAJORS AND MINORS (1895) and LYRICS OF LOWLY LIFE (1896). This is a collection of twelve short stories about "Negro Life" in the South; Dunbar's third-person narration is in proper English, but... Read More
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THE GODS OF PEGANA
by Dunsany, Lord (Plunkett, Edward J.M.D., 18th Baron Dunsany)
1905. With Illustrations in Photogravure by S.H. Sime. London: Elkin Mathews, 1905. Original light brown paper-covered boards pictorially decorated in dark brown, with tan burlap spine lettered in black. First Edition of this Anglo-Irish fantasy writer's first book. These tales take place in the mythological world of Pegana, which Dunsany himself created -- right from the beginning illustrated with the amazing mystical images of Sidney Sime. Dunsany had to pay for the publication of this book, then earning... Read More
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TIME AND THE GODS
by Dunsany, Lord (Plunkett, Edward J.M.D., 18th Baron Dunsany)
1922. Sime, S. H.. [1 of 250 copies signed] With Ten Illustrations in Photogravure by S.H. Sime. London & New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1922. Original orange-ochre cloth with vellum spine and orange suede spine label. Limited Signed Edition, this being copy #90 of 250 -- signed by Dunsany at the end of his Preface, and with each mystical plate signed by the illustrator Sidney H. Sime. This was Dunsany's second book, which had first been published in... Read More
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SILAS MARNER: The Weaver of Raveloe
by Eliot, George [Marian Evans]
1861. [the "A" binding, fine] Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1861. 16 pp undated ads + 4 pp (Carlyle) ads bearing January 1861 reviews. Original blind-stamped cinnamon-brown cloth. First Edition of George Eliot's only single-volume novel ("a short and simple one, but flawlessly fashioned"). SILAS MARNER is a novel of remarkable quality. Idyllic, certainly, but nowhere does it strain belief or offer coincidence as a resolution... There is not a superfluous line in the narrative and... Read More
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![Autograph Letter Signed ("M E Lewes") to publisher [Nicholas] Trübner, asking for Jewish source books for writing DANIEL DERONDA](https://d3525k1ryd2155.cloudfront.net/h/727/677/1741677727.0.l.jpg)
Autograph Letter Signed ("M E Lewes") to publisher [Nicholas] Trübner, asking for Jewish source books for writing DANIEL DERONDA
by [Eliot, George]
1875. The Elms | Rickmansworth | July 23 - 75". In purple ink, one page of a bifolium. In 1875, "George Eliot" was Marian (or Mary Ann) Evans Lewes -- Evans being her maiden last name, and Lewes being the last name of the married man she had been living with since 1854. That summer, the couple rented "The Elms," wanting seclusion -- specifically so that she could write her next (and final) novel, which would become DANIEL... Read More
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FOUR QUARTETS
by Eliot, T.S.
1944. London: Faber and Faber, (1944). Original tan cloth, with dust jacket. First English Collected Edition -- of what Cyril Connolly called "the most important poem since Yeats's THE TOWER and, as many think, of the century." The four pieces ("Burnt Norton," "East Coker," "The Dry Salvages" and "Little Gidding") had all been pamphlets issued separately in the UK in 1940-1942; however, per this dust jacket, "The author... has always intended them to be published as one volume,... Read More
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POETRY AND DRAMA
by Eliot, T. S.
1951. The Theodore Spencer Memorial Lecture. Harvard University. November 21, 1950. London: Faber & Faber, (1951). Original red cloth, with dust jacket. First English Edition, published about six months after the one by the Harvard University Press. This is a fine copy, in a dust jacket that is very good (one unnecessary internal mend, very slight edge-wear, price-clipped). Gallup A57b.
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SWEENEY AGONISTES. Fragments of an Aristophanic Melodrama
by Eliot, T.S.
1932. London: Faber & Faber, (1932). Original light blue paper-covered boards lettered in red, with dust jacket. First Edition, which consisted of 4100 copies. There was no American edition. Eliot later wrote, as a note in an anthology of one-act plays, The author wishes to point out that SWEENEY AGONISTES is not a one-act play and was never designed as such. It consists of two fragments. But as the author has abandoned any intention of completing them, these... Read More
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Florence Erwin's THREE HOMES. A Tale of North and South
by Erwin, Florence [pseudonym?]
1862. Boston: Crosby and Nichols, 1862. Original blind-stamped dark green cloth, illustrated on the spine in gilt. First Edition of this novel set in, and written during, the American Civil War. It is the best-known, if not only, novel by "Florence Erwin" -- about whom virtually nothing is known. In fact, both the title page and the binding are intentionally ambiguous: since the central characters of the book are the journeying Florence Erwin and her husband, is FLORENCE... Read More
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![WITH TRUMPET AND DRUM [large-paper copy]](https://d3525k1ryd2155.cloudfront.net/h/211/507/1035507211.0.l.jpg)
WITH TRUMPET AND DRUM [large-paper copy]
by Field, Eugene
1892. ["Little Boy Blue"] New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1892. Original pale blue-grey paper-covered boards with white parchment spine and fore-tips. First Edition -- which is to say, one of the 250 large-paper copies, preceding the trade issue -- of this famous collection of children's verse. Some poems had appeared in a couple of earlier Field books, but much had appeared only in newspapers or magazines. Included are Field's best-known poems such as "Wynken, Blynken and Nod" and... Read More
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SHARPS AND FLATS
by Field, Eugene
1901. [1/150 numbered copies] New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1901. [In Two Volumes.] Original pale blue-grey paper-covered boards with white parchment spine and fore-tips. Large-Paper Edition, consisting of 150 copies on Holland paper, this being copy #96. This is a posthumous collection of often-humorous sketches and poems that Field wrote for the Chicago Daily News, in his morning-edition column "Sharps and Flats." The first (trade) edition, from the same plates, came out in December 1900 (and bears that... Read More
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MADAME BOVARY. Provincial Manners
by Flaubert, Gustave
1886. [an amazingly fine copy] Translated from the French Édition Définitive by Eleanor Marx-Aveling. London: Vizetelly & Co., 1886. 2 pp preliminary ads. Original aqua-blue cloth decorated in gilt, black and dark grey. First English Edition of Flaubert's masterpiece, which was destined to become one of the great classics of world literature. Portraying the frustrations and love affairs of romantic young Emma Bovary, married to a dull provincial doctor, the book -- first published in French in late... Read More
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THE GREAT K. & A. ROBBERY
by Ford, Paul Leicester
1897. New York: Dodd Mead and Company, 1897. Original blue cloth pictorially decorated in black and red. First Edition of this tale, based on fact, of the foiling of a robbery of the Kansas and Arizona Railroad; in 1926 it was made into a Tom Mix western. This copy is of the first issue, with the word "Train" omitted from the title page -- the binding reads THE GREAT K & A TRAIN ROBBERY; this important word was... Read More
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ABINGER HARVEST
by Forster, E.M.
1936. [fine in fine jacket] London: Edward Arnold, (1936). Original dark blue cloth, with dust jacket. First Edition, first issue (with "A Flood in the Office"), of this collection of "about eighty" essays and reviews -- including pieces on T.S. Eliot, Marcel Proust, Virgina Woolf, Sinclair Lewis, Joseph Conrad, T.E. Lawrence and Jane Austen. The volume is named for the village, Abinger Hammer, where Forster lived for many years with his mother. Soon after this book was published,... Read More
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A MAN OF DEVON. By John Sinjohn
by [Galsworthy, John]
1901. Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1901. 2 pp undated ads plus 32 pp ads dated April 1901. Original blue-grey cloth. First Edition of Galsworthy's fourth book, which consisted of only 1,050 copies. This is a collection of four tales -- the last book to be written under Galsworthy's "John Sinjohn" pseudonym. One of the tales, "The Salvation of Swithin Forsyte," is considered a major turning point in Galsworthy's career: not only did he find the... Read More
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IN THE YEAR OF JUBILEE. In Three Volumes
by Gissing, George
1894. [1 of only 600 copies] London: Lawrence and Bullen, 1894. Original blue-grey morocco-grain cloth. First Edition, which consisted of only 600 copies (most of which were bought up by the lending libraries). Titled "Miss Lord of Camberwell" during composition, this was the last of Gissing's novels to appear in the three-decker format, published on December 1st of the year of that format's collapse. Gissing would welcome this collapse, because the power of lending libraries had acted as... Read More
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VERANILDA. A Romance
by Gissing, George
1904. London: Archibald Constable and Company, 1904. 16 pp undated ads. Original deep red cloth. First Edition, which consisted of 3,000 copies. This was Gissing's incomplete historical novel, posthumously published. He still had five chapters to write when on 28 December 1903, wracked with double pneumonia, he died in the French Pyrenees. H.G. Wells, who had been summoned and had arrived on Christmas Day, was present at Gissing's death bed, and wrote the original preface for this work;... Read More
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THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS and Other Stories
by Gissing, George
1906. To which is prefixed The Work of George Gissing an introductory survey by Thomas Seccombe. London: Archibald Constable, 1906. 16 pp undated ads. Original dark blue cloth. First Edition of this posthumously-published collection of short stories. "Fifteen short stories, selected by Thomas Seccombe, who first urged Constable to publish THE RYECROFT PAPERS and here contributed a sympathetic introduction" [S&C]. Following Seccombe's 48-page Introduction is a one-page chronology of all of Gissing's books. This copy does have the... Read More
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THE PAYING GUEST
by Gissing, George
1895. London, Paris & Melbourne: Cassell and Company, 1895. 4 pp ads dated March 1896. Original mustard yellow cloth decorated in red. First Edition of this novella, being a volume in "Cassell's Pocket Library," which was edited by Max Pemberton. With the 1894 demise of the three-decker format and the lengthy style it had mandated, Gissing (and many other authors) turned to very short pieces -- books such as THE PAYING GUEST and SLEEPING FIRES, and the short... Read More
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