HOYLE, Edmond (1671/2-1769)

An Improved Miniature Edition of Hoyle's Games [Original Cloth]

London, Henry Lea, 22, Warwick Lane, 1860. Original Cloth. Superb pocket edition of this compendium of rules and directions for playing fifteen games of chance, including whist, cribbage, quadrille, casino, and rouge et noir. Foolscap 8vo (120 x 78mm): 36; 18; 10; 31,[1]; vii,8-32,[8]pp, with two full-page plates of game boards and table of odds. Publisher's mid-brown cloth, elaborately stamped in blind and gilt, all edges gilt; contemporary gift inscription in elegant hand to fly-leaf. FirstSearch locates only three copies worldwide, all in the United States; Literary Hub Discover adds Oxford. Virtually pristine. Jessel 849. According to Jessel, rules for each game also were sold separately as two-penny chapbooks (thus separate paginations for various games). Little is known of Hoyle's life before 1741, when he began tutoring members of high society at the game of whist, selling students copies of his manuscript notes, which he later expanded and published as A Short Treatise on the Game of Whist, going through thirteen editions in his lifetime. Other titles followed, including A Short Treatise on the Game of Backgammon (1743), An Artificial Memory for Whist (1744), and short treatises on the games of piquet and chess and quadrille (1744). Over time, Hoyle's work pushed off the market Charles Cotton's The Compleat Gamester, the standard English-language work on gambling games since its publication in 1674. N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition. All orders are packaged with care and posted promptly. Satisfaction guaranteed. (Fine Editions Ltd is a member of the Independent Online Booksellers Association, and we subscribe to its codes of ethics.). Fine .

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Book number: BB2722

Catalogue: MODERN FIRSTS

HUGHES, Ted [Edward James, 1930-1998]

The Hawk in the Rain [Signed]

New York, Harper & Brothers, 1957. First American Edition. Hardcover. Second Printing (copyright page with I-G code) of the poet's first collection, published one month after the first, dedicated to Sylvia Plath, and signed by Hughes on title page. Slim Crown 8vo: x,[2],52pp. Publisher's black coated cloth, spine and upper cover stamped in gold; yellow illustrated dust jacket designed by Caroline Harris, printed in dull grayish-blue and priced $2.75. An excellent example, signed, with bright gilt and paste-downs free of usual staining from binder's glue; Near Fine or better jacket, embrowned at edges and along spine panel. Sagar & Tabor A1b. A collection of 40 poems, as in the London edition (published five days earlier) but rearranged. After their honeymoon in France and Spain, the Hughes returned to Cambridge. Plath, who considered her husband's poetry the "most rich and powerful since that of Yeats and Dylan Thomas, had typed out almost all his poems and submitted them, as The Hawk in the Rain, to a competition for a first book of poems being run by the Poetry Centre of the Young Men's and Young Women's Hebrew Association of New York. In February 1957 the judges, W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender, and Marianne Moore, awarded the first prize—publication by Harper and Row [sic]—to Hughes. Marianne Moore wrote: 'Hughes' talent is unmistakable, the work has focus, is aglow with feeling, with conscience; sensibility is awake, embodied in appropriate diction.'" (ODNB) Reviews were almost unanimously enthusiastic, and book won the Somerset Maugham award. N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition, with dust jackets carefully preserved in archival, removable mylar sleeves. All orders are packaged with care and posted promptly. Satisfaction guaranteed. (Fine Editions Ltd is a member of the Independent Online Booksellers Association, and we subscribe to its codes of ethics.). Fine/Near Fine+.

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Book number: BB1952

Catalogue: MODERN FIRSTS

HUNTER, Alan (1922-2005)

Vivienne: Gently Where She Lay [Inscribed to His Wife]

London, Cassell, 1972. First Edition. Hardcover. First Impression (First Published 1972 on copyright page). 8vo: 15,[2]pp. Publisher's bluish-green cloth, spine lettered in gilt, illustrated dust jacket priced £1.60 net. Inscribed by the author (and scarce such) in blue ink on front free end paper: "1972 / For My wife / From Alan [underlined]." A superlative example with a wonderful association, apparently unread, binding square and tight, contents clean throughout, jacket virtually pristine. Provenance: Estate of Alan Hunter. The 19th (of 46) Chief Superintendent George Gently novel, one published nearly every year from 1955 until 1998 and most of which are set in East Anglia. N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition, with dust jackets carefully preserved in archival, removable polypropylene sleeves. All orders are packaged with care and posted promptly. Satisfaction guaranteed. Fine/Fine.

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Book number: BB1671

Catalogue: MODERN FIRSTS

IBSEN, Henrik (1828-1906)

Hedda Gabler [Skuespil I Fire Akter]

København [Copenhagen], Gyldendalske Boghandels Forlag (F. Hegel & Son), 1890. First Edition. Decorative Cloth. First Printing of perhaps Ibsen's "most frequently performed play in the modern theatre." (PMM) In Danish (then the literary language of both Denmark and Norway). Foolscap 8vo: [4],236pp. Publisher's green cloth (copies were also identically bound in red, brown, and grey, no known priority), front cover elaborately blocked in gilt and black, back board with blind-stamped borders and central publisher's logo, floral patterned endpapers, gilt edges. A brilliant copy, barely rubbed to spine ends. PMM 375. First trade edition, preceded by twelve copies printed in London, in Norwegian, "under a well-intentioned illusion that this was necessary for copyright protection." (PMM) Published on December 16, 1890, although the play only premiered on January 31, 1891, at the Königliches Residenz-Theater, in Munich. Together with The Lady from the Sea and Rosmersholm, Hedda Gabler forms the Munich trilogy (Ibsen lived in Munich when he wrote them.) The heroines, Ellida, Rebecca, and Hedda, are all determined women, but only Ellida is able to achieve freedom from the consequences of her past actions. Hedda, who, as the play opens, has just married the dull academic Tesman to avoid a spinster's life, realizes that she has trapped herself in a life of impossible tedium, with suicide as her only way out. N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition, carefully preserved in archival, removable polypropylene sleeves. All orders are packaged with care and posted promptly. Satisfaction guaranteed. Fine .

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Book number: BB1460

Catalogue: MODERN FIRSTS

Keywords: Married people Drama. Norway Drama.

ISHERWOOD, Christopher (1904-1986)

[Books Into Film] [Berlin Stories] [Sally Bowles] Mr. Norris Changes Trains

London, Hogarth Press, 1947. First Edition. Hardcover. Fourth Impression (so stated; only 1,730 copies of the first impression were issued) of Isherwood's "snapshot of a lost world, the antic, cosmopolitan Berlin of the 1930 s." (Time 100) Crown 8vo (186 x 120mm): 280pp. Publisher's citron cloth, spine lettered in brown with matching top stain; cream dust jacket (price-clipped) printed in maroon, designed by John Banning. An excellent example, tightly bound and clean throughout (offsetting to end papers); jacket spine panel lightly tanned and gently rubbed, else about Fine. Wolmer 369. First published in 1935 and often paired for publication with another of Isherwood's short novels as Berlin Stories, Mr. Norris Changes Trains and Goodbye to Berlin "form one coherent snapshot of a lost world, the antic, cosmopolitan Berlin of the 1930 s, where jolly expatriates dance faster and faster, as if that would save them from the creeping rise of Nazism. One of Isherwood's greatest characters, the racy, doomed Sally Bowles, took center stage in the book's musical adaptation, Cabaret, but the theatrical version can't match the power and richness of the original." (Time 100) N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition, with dust jackets carefully preserved in archival, removable mylar sleeves. All orders are packaged with care and posted promptly. Satisfaction guaranteed. (Fine Editions Ltd is a member of the Independent Online Booksellers Association, and we subscribe to its codes of ethics.). Near Fine+/Fine-.

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Book number: BB0154

Catalogue: MODERN FIRSTS

ISHERWOOD, Christopher (1904-1986)

[Books Into Film] Goodbye to Berlin [Sally Bowles]

London, Hogarth Press, 1939. First Edition. Hardcover. First Impression of these "Brilliant sketches of a society in decay" (Orwell). 8vo: 317,[1]pp. Publisher's coarsely woven oatmeal-colored cloth, spine stamped crimson with matching top-stain. Near Fine, cloth and edges dust-soiled, lettering slightly faded, but pages clean, tight and bright. According to Woolmer (451), only 3350 copies were printed. Connolly 86. A series of six loosely interconnected character sketches that unfold against the backdrop of the doomed Weimar Republic. Despite Isherwood's disclaimer, Goodbye to Berlin is firmly rooted in his biography; all the principle characters were inspired by people he had known. Isherwood originally envisioned a sweeping Tolstoyan novel combining the characters from Goodbye to Berlin and Mr. Norris Changes Trains (in fact, both novels are often packaged as The Berlin Stories and both were later adapted for stage and film, most memorably in the Tony Award-winning musical Cabaret [1966] and the film of the same name [1972], for which Liza Minnelli won an Academy Award. "Written in the shadow of the Second World War, [Goodbye to Berlin] offers a valedictory portrait of the demimonde of Berlin, commemorating the 'decadent' bars and nightclubs that were subsequently closed by the Nazis, and immortalizing the people—Jews and homosexuals—who were most at risk under the Third Reich." (Literary Encyclopedia) Note: With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition, carefully preserved in archival, removable polypropylene sleeves. All orders are packaged with care and posted promptly. Satisfaction guaranteed. Near Fine .

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Book number: BB0898

Catalogue: MODERN FIRSTS

ISHERWOOD, Christopher (1904-1986)

The Memorial [First State]; Portrait of a Family

London, Published by Leonard and Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press, 52 Tavistock Square, 1932. First Edition. Hardcover. First Impression (one of only 1,222 copies) of this "remarkably acute and assured novel about the pre- and post-war generations, seen from both sides of the divide" (ODNB) in the uncommon first-state binding. Crown 8vo (183 x 118mm): 294pp. Publisher's pale pink coarsely woven linen, spine lettered in blue; mid-brown dust jacket illustrated by Jack Banting, printed in blue and priced 7/6. About Fine, tightly bound and clean throughout (apparently unread); jacket virtually pristine. Woolmer 294. According to the Literary Encyclopedia, the death of Isherwood's father in the First World War and the deep, lifelong mourning into which his mother fell provide much of the background for the family dynamics of Isherwood's early novels, including The Memorial, in which Cambridge student Eric Vernon finds himself torn between a desire to emulate his heroic father and his envy for his father's great friend Edward Blake, who survived the war only to throw himself into gay life in Berlin and the pursuit of meaningless relationships. The story is imbued with Freudian family analysis, centering on the conflict between mother and son, and rebellion against the stifling English class society into which Isherwood was born (a withering branch of a distinguished family tree that had roots in Cheshire extending back to the Civil War). In his early career Isherwood adopted the high-Modernist style of the preceding generation of English novelists, particularly Virginia Woolf (whose Hogarth Press brought out The Memorial) and D. H. Lawrence. In The Memorial, Isherwood experimented with the novel form, recombining the chapters into a non-sequential chronology. N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition, with dust jackets carefully preserved in archival, removable mylar sleeves. All orders are packaged with care and posted promptly. Satisfaction guaranteed. (Fine Editions Ltd is a member of the Independent Online Booksellers Association, and we subscribe to its codes of ethics.). Fine-/Fine.

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Book number: BB1033

Catalogue: MODERN FIRSTS

JAMES, M. R. (Montague Rhodes, 1862-1936)

Ghost Stories of an Antiquary ["the Mezzotint"]

London, Edward Arnold 41 & 43 Maddox Street, Bond Street, 1915. First Edition. Hardcover. A superb Ninth Impression of these tales that "have come to be seen as the epitome of the English ghost story." (Literary Encyclopedia) Demy 8vo (211 x 145mm): xii,270pp, with four illustrations by James McBryde. Original beige linen stamped in black and red, fore- and bottom edges untrimmed. Fine and tightly bound, light sporadic spotting (occasionally moderately so) to pages (not plates). Provenance: The Stuart B. Schimmel collection of M. R. James. Bleiler (Checklist), p. 108. Sullivan, pp. 233-35 ("some of the most alarming and unforgettable ghost stories in the English language"). Jones & Newman, pp. 61-64 ("the most important and influential figure in the horror field"). Rogers 84 (for first and new editions). The first work of fiction by one of the greatest ghost-story writers of all time, originally published in 1904, collecting eight creepy tales, two of which appeared previously, in the National Review ("Canon Alberic's Scrapbook") and the Pall Mall Gazette ("Lost Hearts"). Most were composed to be read aloud for the entertainment of James's colleagues and students at Christmas gatherings, held annually in his rooms at King's College, Cambridge, where James was a fellow and, later, Dean. The third tale, "The Mezzotint", frequently anthologized, concerns a haunted painting that changes gradually to dramatize the snatching away of a baby by a vindictive corpse. This volume was followed, in 1911, by More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary, containing a further seven stories on similar themes. Had he not written in the genre, Rhodes would have been remembered an expert on apocryphal literature and medieval manuscripts, as director of Cambridge's Fitzwilliam Museum, and Provost of Eton. Instead, we know him as a masterful narrator who "surpassed most writers of ghost stories in the eeriness of his atmosphere, the individual and peculiarly creepy quality of his plots, and the vindictiveness and malignancy of his ghosts." (Kunitz & Haycraft). N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition, carefully preserved in archival, removable mylar sleeves. All orders are packaged with care and posted promptly. Satisfaction guaranteed. (Fine Editions Ltd is a member of the Independent Online Booksellers Association, and we subscribe to its codes of ethics.). Fine .

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Book number: BB2630

Catalogue: MODERN FIRSTS

JAMES, Henry (1828-1911)

The Princess Casamassima [First Issue]

London and New York, Macmillan, 1886. First Edition. Decorative Cloth. First American (and first single-volume) Edition, First Issue (with 1886 title page), of James's only overtly political novel. Crown 8vo (187 x 117mm): [4],596pp. BAL first-state binding: blue-green S cloth, front cover and spine stamped in gilt and black, rear cover stamped in blind, spine lettered in gilt, with no catalog inserted. Cover edges very lightly rubbed, end-sheets toned, small stain to fore-edge (not affecting text), but an excellent example, tightly bound and virtually pristine throughout (apparently unread). Edel & Laurence A29b. BAL 10578. Sadleir 1282a. First published serially in The Atlantic Monthly, in 1885 and 1886, then in three volumes, in 1886. This single-volume edition was printed in London, and the earliest issues were exported to America. The story of an intelligent but confused young London bookbinder, Hyacinth Robinson, who becomes involved in radical politics and a terrorist assassination plot. N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition, carefully preserved in archival, removable mylar sleeves. All orders are packaged with care and posted promptly. Satisfaction guaranteed. (Fine Editions Ltd is a member of the Independent Online Booksellers Association, and we subscribe to its codes of ethics.). Fine- .

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Book number: BB2802

Catalogue: MODERN FIRSTS

JAMES, P. D. (Phyllis Dorothy, 1920-2014)

Unnatural Causes

New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1967. First American Edition. Hardcover. A spectacular copy of the third installment in the classic Adam Dalgliesh mystery series, from the "reigning mistress of murder" (Time). First Printing, with publisher's code A - 8.67 [MC] on copyright page. 8vo: Publisher's coarsely woven French blue cloth, spine and upper cover lettered and decorated in white; first-issue dust jacket (with only mention of James's first two novels on back panel), priced $3.95. Remarkably Fine, square, tight and unread, in a Very Fine Jacket. Barzun & Taylor, Catalogue of Crime 1920. "The country-house setting and the characterization of the unfortunate criminal are excellently handled, and the powerful ending under rushing waters is both credible and mysterious, but the method of murder as well as its cause is farfetched." (Catalogue of Crime) N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition, with dust jackets carefully preserved in archival, removable mylar sleeves. All orders are packaged with care and posted promptly. Satisfaction guaranteed. (Fine Editions Ltd is a member of the Independent Online Booksellers Association, and we subscribe to its codes of ethics.). Fine/Fine.

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Book number: BB1456

Catalogue: MODERN FIRSTS

JARRELL, Randall (1914-1965)

Blood for a Stranger

New York, Harcourt, Brace, 1942. First Printing. Hardcover. First Edition (so stated), one of only 1700 printed, of Jarrell's first collection of poems. 8vo: xi,82pp. Publisher's crimson fine-bead cloth, spine lettered in navy blue; vivid red typographic dust jacket, lettered in white and priced $2.00. Fine and apparently unread; About Fine jacket (minimal fading to spine panel, lettering still crisp) that has benefited from minor expert restoration to spine panel tips (far from lettering on both ends). Wright A1. Heavily influenced by the poetry of W.H. Auden and dedicated to the American poet Allen Tate. Published the year Jarrell enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps. N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition, with dust jackets carefully preserved in archival, removable mylar sleeves. All orders are packaged with care and posted promptly. Satisfaction guaranteed. (Fine Editions Ltd is a member of the Independent Online Booksellers Association, and we subscribe to its codes of ethics.). Fine/Fine-.

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Book number: BB1387

Catalogue: MODERN FIRSTS

JEFFERS, Robinson (1887-1962)

Californians [Review Copy]

New York, Macmillan, 1916. First Edition. Hardcover. First Printing ("Published October, 1916" on copyright page) of the author's first commercially published book, one of only 1200 copies. Review Copy, with review statement ("Review Copy Not for Sale") punched into title page. Small 8vo: [8],217,[9]pp. Publisher's indigo vellum cloth; upper cover framed in blind with double rule and lettered in gilt, with indigo, green and gold vignette; spine stamped in gilt; tipped-in title leaf on coated stock with cover vignette; top edge gilt; others untrimmed. A superb copy, fresh and bright, virtually without flaw, lacking the scarce dust jacket. Alberts 15.
¶ "Una [Call Kuster] was to be the extraordinary love of [Jeffers's] life. But another great and equally profound love overwhelmed him shortly after the couple moved to Carmel in 1914. Una described it as a kind of religious conversion under the influence of the wild and thunderously radiant landscape of the Carmel-Big Sur coast. God shouted to him from every stark headland, cascading wave, wind and sea-eroded rock, storm-twisted cypress grove, storm-wracked creek bed, and volcanic outcropping of a coast so wild that it could be reached only on horseback or by way of the treacherous, mostly invisible coastal track weekly used by the mail coach to Sur. As the years turned into the 1920s, he became a devout pantheist, seeing the world as God overwhelmingly revealed in the divinely eloquent beauty of this coast. In Carmel he continued writing, and as he became more in tune with the coast and its denizens, both human and animal, he began to experiment with narrative, producing Californians in 1916, a book of nineteen lyrics and twelve story poems reflecting Big Sur life. His cosmic God was not yet present in these writings, but precipitously in the early 1920s he began to explore the concept of a pre- and post-civilization world of non-human forces and a God who had no interest in cult devotion or human history, in individual lives or the course of nations." (Literary Encyclopedia) N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition, carefully preserved in archival, removable polypropylene sleeves. All orders are packaged with care and posted promptly. Satisfaction guaranteed. Fine .

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Book number: BB1291

Catalogue: MODERN FIRSTS

JESTY, Simon [W. W. Vickery]; Lawrence, T. E. (Preface)

River Niger, a Novel. With a Prefatory Letter by T.E. Lawrence

London, Boriswood, 1935. First Edition. Hardcover. First Impression of "this deservedly forgotten novel." (O'Brien) With a prefatory letter by T. E. Lawrence. Crown 8vo: (188 x 120): [8],11-287,[1]pp, with three publisher's promotions laid in. Original saffron linen, spine decorated and lettered in scarlet and French blue, top edge stained faded French blue, wanting the dust jacket. A spectacular unread survival of the author's second book, virtually flawless, tight, square, and clean throughout. O'Brien A163. Lawrence was asked to comment on this novel's suitability for publication. His report was less than favorable ("Jesty's world is incredibly small. It holds only about eight named characters who bump together whether they stay put or wander abroad. Wilkie Collins and his generation flourished on coincidences but Jesty out-Victoria's them. He has not one but twenty incredible coincidences"), but the publisher rather curiously decided to publish the book, with Lawrence's report as a preface. N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition, with dust jackets carefully preserved in archival, removable mylar sleeves. All orders are packaged with care and posted promptly. Satisfaction guaranteed. (Fine Editions Ltd is a member of the Independent Online Booksellers Association, and we subscribe to its codes of ethics.). Fine .

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Book number: BB1971

Catalogue: MODERN FIRSTS

JHABVALA, R. Prawer (1927-2013)

[Three Early Novels, Comprising: ] the Nature of Passion; [with] Esmond in India; [and] Get Ready for Battle

London, George Allen & Unwin / John Murray, 1962. First Edition. Hardcover. A superb trio of First Impressions, the Booker Prize-winning author's second, third, and fifth novels. Crown 8vo (184 x 118mm): 261,[3]; 256; 224pp. Passion: Publisher's black cloth, spine lettered in silver, top edge stained steel-gray; illustrated dust jacket, price-clipped with publisher's sticker repricing to 21s. Esmond: Publisher's black cloth, spine lettered in silver, top edge stained steel-gray; illustrated dust jacket, price-clipped with publisher's sticker repricing to 25s. Battle: Publisher's chartreuse cloth, spine lettered in black; illustrated dust jacket, with publisher's sticker repricing to £2. Exceptional examples, all very lightly read (if at all), tightly bound and clean throughout, in fine jackets with light dust-soiling to back panels. Born in Cologne into a middle-class German-Jewish family, Ruth Prawer studied literature in London, where she met and married Cyrus Jhabvala, an Indian student. At age 24, they moved to India, and her delight in the subcontinent is reflected in these early novels, especially The Nature of Passion, an "Austenish comedy of manners . about arranged marriages versus love matches, and about the conflicts which arise between a modern Westernized youth and a more traditional older generation." (Literary Encyclopedia) N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition, with dust jackets carefully preserved in archival, removable mylar sleeves. All orders are packaged with care and posted promptly. Satisfaction guaranteed. (Fine Editions Ltd is a member of the Independent Online Booksellers Association, and we subscribe to its codes of ethics.). Fine/Fine.

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Book number: BB0730

Catalogue: MODERN FIRSTS

JHABVALA, R[uth]. Prawer (1927-2013)

To Whom She Will : A Novel [Amrita]

London, George Allen & Unwin, 1955. First Edition. Hardcover. First Impression of the Booker-prize winning author's first book. Crown 8vo: 301,[3]pp, including glossary and recipes for Indian dishes mentioned in the text. Publisher's black cloth, spine lettered in silver, top edge stained black; illustrated dust jacket priced 15s. An exceptional copy (apparently unread), tightly bound and clean throughout (jacket's spine panel lightened a degree or two, back panel slightly spotted. Born in Cologne, in 1927, into a middle-class German-Jewish family, Ruth Prawer studied literature in London, where she met and married Cyrus Jhabvala, an Indian student. At age 24, they moved to India, and her delight in the subcontinent is reflected in such early novels as To Whom She Will (published in the United States as Amrita), a Jane Austen-ish comedy of manners. N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition, with dust jackets carefully preserved in archival, removable mylar sleeves. All orders are packaged with care and posted promptly. Satisfaction guaranteed. (Fine Editions Ltd is a member of the Independent Online Booksellers Association, and we subscribe to its codes of ethics.). Fine/Near Fine+.

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Book number: BB0972

Catalogue: MODERN FIRSTS