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Full length autograph working manuscript spread over 22 exercise books, paginated by Hadfield to page 1162. Textually distinct from the published version, Hadfield writes with a blue fountain pen, double-spaced, correcting extensively as he worked with frequent swirling crossings-out. There are two quite distinct openings to the novel, the earlier… Read more…

Small archive, extraordinarily offensive to modern eyes, which reveals the avid consumption of racialised performances in 20th century Britain and America. Created by a committed fan of the blackface minstrel, George Henry Elliott and an American blackface performer from an earlier generation, Eugene Stratton, this collection contains a Bertram Abb… Read more…

Four great poems, owned and annotated by the writer and Bloomsbury group member, Roger Senhouse who has noted on the flyleaf: ‘Roger Senhouse Review Copy Jan ‘45’ - a puzzling inscription since the book was published the previous autumn. Senhouse’s annotations are mostly explanatory, so he has translated Eliot’s two epigraphs opposite the first pag… Read more…

Lightly illustrated, entertainingly written teenage diaries by the precociously accomplished future British landscape and portrait painter, and nephew of the renowned ‘Norwich School’ artist John Sell Cotman. The first and more extensive volume from 1867 (Cotman was then 17) covers his final months of intense study with William Thomson Griffiths, h… Read more…

First edition in the splendidly illustrated publisher’s cloth binding and with adverts dating to May 1885. Germinal is widely considered ‘the most important single contribution Zola made to literature’ (Harold Bloom) and its story of the struggle for social change continues to thrill and inspire subsequent generations. It is an uncommon first editi… Read more…

Eleven separate publications bound together and presented by the prolific and influential Newcastle mining engineer and pit owner Thomas Young Hall. This volume covers the gamut of Hall’s professional activities, with papers on safety measures to deal with dangerous gases, a paper deriving from his American experiences in Virginia’s coal mines and… Read more…

Very good first edition of Lessing's masterpiece, in black boards with bright gilt lettering, light bumps to corners and speckling to edges of text block. Lessing has signed and dated the book on the front flyleaf: ‘Doris Lessing 23rd May 1962’ - her addition of a date is often found in signed copies of The Golden Notebook from the year of publicat… Read more…

Limbird’s illustrated edition of Ann Radcliffe containing 3 of her novels including the Gothic classic, The Mysteries of Udolpho, noted as an inspiration for Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey. Half calf over marbled paper boards in good condition; bumped to corners; moderately rubbed to edges. Both volumes titled ‘British Novelist’ in gilt on a red mo… Read more…

First Edition in very good condition. Half calf binding over marbled boards a little scuffed to top of spine; vellum corners; spine panel very good, gilt ruled and titled in gilt over red morocco label. A very sound and square copy. Endpapers clean other than ‘6/6’ in a contemporary hand to front pastedown; text block remarkably fresh and unmarked.… Read more…

35 Scottish chapbooks bound together in one volume in very good condition. An interesting white paper over boards binding titled decoratively by hand to upper ‘BALLADS... COPIES’; age toned; sound and square. Marbled endpapers very good; red text block edges; a list of contents written in pencil to verso of front free; signature in a contemporary h… Read more…

A collection of 13 Scottish popular songster volumes - pocket-sized, cheap anthologies of song texts - that played a role in 19th-century Scotland by democratizing music access, preserving traditional repertoire, and reinforcing Scottish cultural identity This small, sturdy volume contains 12 Glasgow and 1 Edinburgh songsters, bound in red cloth ti… Read more…

Remarkable collection of Newcastle broadsides, about half of them unrecorded, which tells the story of the notorious trial and execution of William Jobling who became the penultimate man to be gibbeted in Britain before the practice was outlawed. As recorded in these broadsides Jobling’s body was then stolen from the gibbet on Jarrow Slake (probabl… Read more…

Rare early poetry publications from Tolkien’s Leeds years in a volume containing three of his earliest published poems: An Evening in Tavrobel, The Lonely Isle and The Princess Ni, a precursor to a poem included in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil. Laid into the volume is the publisher’s flyer for the second edition of A Northern Venture from the pre… Read more…

An excellent Leavisite association copy in Queenie Leavis’s best regarded work, inscribed to the couple’s long term collaborator and friend, Denys Thompson. First edition in blue cloth, externally nearly very good; cracking along the inner hinges, upper and lower; gatherings a little shaken; spine lean. Queenie Leavis has inscribed the flyleaf: ‘A.… Read more…

‘A Trip to America’, recorded by a young, bumptious traveller from a successful English military family (his father was Commander of British Forces in China at the time), determined not to be overawed by New York City, and then completely overawed by people, elevated railways and high-rise architecture: ‘The structures at first sight, strike one as… Read more…

Inscribed by the composer to the singer and vocal coach Hilda Beal who took part in the premier: ‘In memory of the v. first performance of this work, from the composer. Michael Tippett’. Born in 1922 Beal fled her native Germany in 1939, studying music at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama before singing professionally in concerts and opera, a… Read more…

Fine late 18th century English manuscript atlas beautifully drawn, almost certainly by a child, and offering 68 full-page maps, 32 in outline and a further 36 with keyed explanatory apparatus. The manuscript’s creator, probably in or around London, details a colonial-era map of North America (California as peninsular) entitled ‘Ten Northern America… Read more…

Remarkable unpublished autobiography of a young French immigrant to the USA in the 1890s, who became a ranch-owner in Montana before turning to civil engineering and finally, after his return to France, publishing extensively on occultism and founding the Societe Unitive - a sort of psychic wellness group avant la lettre. Written in English and cle… Read more…

An Appointments diary-plus which covers Marianne Faithfull’s 2005 US tour journal in support of her album Before the Poison. The tour took her to The Town Hall, New York (March 12) and in the following days Park West, Chicago and the Henry Fonda Theater, Los Angeles. The diary charts Faithfull’s busy Parisian life during the early months of 2005 be… Read more…

Lavishly produced record of a high society late Victorian Fancy Dress Ball photographed by the Richmond (west London) photographic company George Tuohy & Co. Fancy dress balls were one of the grandest and most fashionable ways for a wealthy family to make their mark, a display of wealth and status - and a lot of fun. At this event on January 11th 1… Read more…

Officer’s log book of a merchant West Indiaman engaged in supplying horses and mules to the enslaved African and African-American servicemen of Britain’s West India Regiments - and on the homeward journey bringing back a cargo of sugar manufactured by their enslaved cousins in the plantations of the Caribbean. Both Atlantic crossings were fraught w… Read more…

Autograph manuscript bound up with a bespoke typed transcript of Arthur Symons’ essay on translation, cased by Sangorski and Sutcliffe. This manuscript essay does not appear to have been published, and previously formed part of the collection of the bibliophile and performer Barry Humphries who had a particular interest in the theory and practice o… Read more…

Unpublished records of a secretive early 19th century precursor of the modern credit ratings industry. The Society of Mutual Communication for the Protection of Trade was founded in order to allow London business men to spot deadbeat clients, share information between businesses as well as managing debt recovery from failed transactions. This vellu… Read more…

A beautifully unsophisticated example of this very scarce English dancing manual found here in the publisher’s original paper covered boards with printed spine label. Printed on high quality wove paper, the text and plates are in excellent condition, many leaves unopened. Publisher’s binding of brown paper over boards, chipping to the paper coverin… Read more…

Lavishly illustrated tour of Scotland undertaken by two young men in 1892 including a long description of climbing Ben Nevis in the fog, arriving at the summit for a slap-up meal in the famous Observatory Hotel: ‘Plain teas 2/6, Ham and Eggs 4/” Two of the former were called, & the quality of two mountain appetites tested with very satisfactory res… Read more…