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DAHL, Roald. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.New York : 1964
First edition, first printing, first issue, in the first state dust jacket. In the words of his biographer Donald Sturrock, this is Dahl's "most famous children's book". The US edition preceded the UK edition by three years.
The first issue can be distinguished by the six lines of printing information on the final page; this was cut to five...Learn More
WELLS, H. G. Les premiers hommes dans la lune.Paris : [1901]
First van Maële edition, the preferred issue, perhaps the most extraordinary graphic realization of Wells's classic lunar novel. This copy retains the exceptionally rare dust jacket, which features an illustration that appears neither in the book nor on the binding.
Van Maële's vivid depictions of the moon and its Selenite inhabitants...Learn More
ERAGNY PRESS: NERVAL, Gérard de. Histoire de le reine du matin & de Soliman prince des genies.Hammersmith, London : 1909
First Eragny Press edition, in immaculate condition. Number 41 of 130 nominated copies, this copy bears the printed name of the subscriber Charles Gadala. Particularly celebrated for their woodcuts, Lucien and Esther Pissarro of the Eragny Press made their first effort to print the cuts in gilt and multicolour in this edition.
The Pissarros...Learn More
CHAGALL, Marc - MOURLOT, Fernand. Chagall Lithographe II.Monte Carlo : 1963
First edition, deluxe issue, number 122 of 150 copies on Grand Vélin d'Arches paper signed by the artist and editor, containing one black and white lithograph, Peintre et Modèle, and one colour, Écuyère au bouquet, each signed and numbered by the artist, sheet sizes 32.4 x 24.7 cm. This is the second of the six-volume series by Fernand...Learn More
HALL, Manly Palmer. The Lost Keys of Masonry.[Santa Monica] : 1923
First edition, one of 1,000 copies, inscribed by the author on an initial blank, "With the best wishes of Manly P. Hall. Mar 18-23". A celebrated and attractively produced manual, the book explores the symbolic and initiatory dimensions of Freemasonry, interpreting its rites, tools, and degrees as a path of inner transformation and...Learn More
BOSWELL, James. The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.London : 1791
First edition of the greatest biography in the English language, "one of Western literature's most germinal achievements" (ODNB). Contemporary copies of Boswell's Life of Johnson bound in one are unusual, but the book is perfectly manageable - indeed rather handsome - as a single volume. The copy includes the additions and corrections to the work,...Learn More
WARHOL, Andy. Holy Cats.[New York : 1954]
First edition, sole printing, and one of two books published by Warhol in or around 1954 (the other being 25 Cats Name Sam and One Blue Pussy); only 50-100 copies were issued. This example has the Andy Warhol Estate stamps to the rear pastedown, meaning it was uncirculated and still in Warhol's possession at the time of his death in 1987; this...Learn More
FLEMING, Ian. On Her Majesty's Secret Service.London : 1963
First edition, first impression, featuring the first meeting between James Bond and his nemesis Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the leader of the criminal organization SPECTRE. The villain had been introduced in Thunderball (1961), pulling the strings in the background but not yet facing off against the secret agent himself. The story was adapted into the...Learn More
WOOLF, Virginia. Jacob's Room.London : 1922
First edition, first impression. Jacob's Room, Woolf's third novel, was the first full-length book to be published by the Hogarth Press and marked the point from which the Woolfs decided to run the press as a genuine business concern.Learn More
JAFFREY, Phoebe. Darjeeling Ferns.Darjeeling, West Bengal : 1882
A superb and uncommon hortus siccus of ferns from West Bengal, compiled and mounted by Phoebe Jaffrey, wife of Andrew Thomas Jaffrey, the founding curator in 1878 of the Lloyd Botanic Gardens in Darjeeling. This copy has been copiously expanded by a later British amateur botanist, with a huge number of samples added both within and...Learn More
AUSTEN, Jane. Northanger Abbey: and Persuasion.London : 1818
First edition of Austen's final published work, pairing Northanger Abbey, probably the first full-length novel she wrote, with Persuasion, her last completed novel. Her brother Henry's biographical notice, dated 13 December 1817, is the first acknowledgement in print of Jane Austen as the author of her six novels.
Austen wrote Northanger...Learn More
YEATS, W. B. The Poems.New York : 1949
First edition thus, number 211 of 375 copies signed by the poet, comprising his complete poetical output and a variorum of his textual changes.
Throughout the 1930s, Yeats worked scrupulously to collect, revise, arrange, and edit his complete poetry for a deluxe edition, to be published by Macmillan. This project was abruptly terminated by...Learn More
GERMAN FORCES IN CHINA. Albums chronicling the military acquisition of Kiautschou Bay and the activities of the East Asia Squadron.China, Japan, and at sea : 1898-99; 1911-13
An important visual record of Germany's empire-building in China and naval life in East Asia before the First World War, including early views of Qingdao. It was assembled by Hermann Mörsberger, a future rear-admiral, who served at Kiautschou Bay during the 1897-8 crisis and commanded the East Asia Squadron's SMS Nürnberg between 1911 and...Learn More
HOLIDAY, Billie. Gardenia worn by Billie Holiday.1957-59
A remarkably evocative relic, perhaps the only survivor of Lady Day's trademark gardenias, unquestionably among the most powerful emblems in the iconography of jazz.
Holiday apparently adopted the flower when, before a club date, she singed her hair with overheated tongs, rushed to the foyer and grabbed a boutonnière from the flower-girl...Learn More
HOLIDAY, Billie. Signed photograph to Fayard Nicholas and his wife Gerry.New York? : c.1947
Lustrously sensitive portrait of Lady Day with a glamorous provenance, inscribed at foot, "To Gerry & Fayard, Stay Happy, Billie Holiday". Fayard Nicholas, with his younger brother Harold, formed one of the great tap duos in the history of dance, the Nicholas Brothers; "Gerry" is his first wife, Geraldine Pate.
In her award-winning study of...Learn More
HOLIDAY, Billie - SINGERMAN, Nat (photo.). Superb signed photograph of Lady Day at the microphone.Cleveleand, OH : 1948
A previously unseen photograph of the legendary jazz singer in her prime - boldly signed by her in white ink - showing her in a club setting, listening, waiting for her cue at the microphone, wearing an elegant, long white dress with a trademark gardenia in her hair.
Nat Singerman was a professional photographer and co-owner of the...Learn More
LOWTHER, George. The Adventures of Superman.New York : 1942
First edition, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, "For Mac - The best god-damn engineer in the Business - Best ever, you louse! George Lowther". The recipient was probably a sound engineer collaborating with Lowther on the first radio production of Superman, serially broadcast between 1940 and 1951.
"The network opening...Learn More
MITCHELL, Margaret. Gone With the Wind.New York : 1936
First edition, signed by the author and by 14 cast members of the classic 1939 film, with each cast member identifying their role. It is additionally signed by Daniel Mayer Selznick, who was the son of the film's director David O. Selznick. The younger Selznick's production company created the documentary The Making of a Legend: Gone With the Wind...Learn More
TOLKIEN, J. R. R. The HobbitLondon : 1937
First colour-illustrated edition, preceded only by the first printing. Only 2,300 copies of this edition were printed, of which 423 in sheets were destroyed in the bombing of London in 1940.
The coloured versions of the illustrations "had been commissioned for their first American edition, and were in the American publisher's hands when...Learn More
DICKENS, Charles. Great Expectations.London : 1861
First edition in book form, first impression. The work saw five impressions issued rapidly in the same year, each with a different title page. Patten states that 1,000 copies of the first impression were printed and that most of these were likely purchased by Mudie's Select Library. As circulating library copies, they inevitably suffered a high...Learn More
