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The first edition of Geoffrey Hill's second collection of verse, inscribed with affection to a long-standing Leeds University colleague. Original brown boards with gilt lettering; internally the book is near fine, a couple of brown spots to the paper, offsetting to title page from a piece of paper previously laid in. with no ownership signatures or… Read more…

A group of poems which would subsequently appear in Hill’s most overtly religious collection of poetry, Tenebrae, here found photocopied from their very first publication in the journal Agenda, inscribed by Hill, and presented to a long-standing Leeds University colleague and friend. Seven octavo-sized pages, held with a staple, and inscribed at th… Read more…

First edition, red cloth-effect boards with unclipped dustjacket. Unmarked text, a little browning to paper stock. A very good plus copy in a near fine jacket with good colour, a little creasing at the top of the spine of the jacket where the book has been read. From the collection of a literature academic with a page of his notes laid in. Read more…

A lovely example of the second edition with dozens of pencilled annotations by an early owner that read like an inchoate wail of fury at Darwin’s whole project, labelling him as ‘dirty both in thought and conduct’ (a charge more usually made against the The Descent of Man) for his preoccupation with sex. His theses are labelled ‘beyond the pale of… Read more…

A lovely clean copy of this uncommon Yorkshire-published poetry anthology which contains two poems each by Anne and Emily Bronte, and a single poem by Charlotte Bronte. Publisher’s red- stamped cloth with gilt decoration and black roan spine. Bookplate of the Lancashire collector Robert Hayhurst, with several additional poems from 19th century impr… Read more…

Mid 19th century Scottish, folio-sized herbarium and sea-weed album gathered in the village of Bolton, about 20 miles east of Edinburgh - the village where Robert Burns’ mother and brother lived later in life. Bound in vellum over boards. Manuscript title page following some stubs. Opposite is a reference to ‘Passages in the life of Jenny Kettlee’(… Read more…

The New Edition in good plus condition in a later and unusual quarter leather binding over cream cloth with handsome raised bands to the spine panel; the original green leather fading and shifting towards brown at the spine. A very sound and square copy. Front free reveals a 1932 ownership inscription, ‘H.H. Foxon’ and some written, most probably a… Read more…

First Edition in near very good condition in later half calf over cloth covered boards with a handsome 6 panelled spine titled in gilt over red ground. Corners rubbed; marbled endpapers very fresh; text block age toned as expected; a square and very sound volume. Several interesting previous ownership inscriptions in contemporary hands reveal thems… Read more…

Parts 1, 2 and 3 bound as one in a good sturdy half binding of calf over cloth boards embossed and titled in gilt over red ground to handsome 6 panelled spine with the second volume of The Asteroidea and Ophiuroidea. Vol I Corners bumped; remnants of a home repair along spine hinge on upper board. Cracking over gutters front and rear; endpapers cle… Read more…

Second edition entirely rewritten. Volume 1. Complete set of 5 plates. Publisher’s red cloth binding in fair plus condition, decoratively embossed to upper board and spine in gilt tooling. Spine panel cracking along hinge to lower board; text block a little shaken; just cracking over endpapers front and rear. Text block otherwise sound. Front free… Read more…

An uncommon pocket sized edition printed and bound by Nicholson & Sons Wakefield. Eye catching red roan boards decorated and titled in black with gilt to spine in very good condition; a little shelf worn to corners and spine ends. Binding entirely sound; a little spine slant evident. Endpapers clean front and rear. Inscription to front free reads ‘… Read more…

1911 edition in very good publisher’s blue cloth illustrated beautifully in green, red and black to upper and spine. Colours remain vibrant and boards show just minor shelf wear. A crest in gilt to the lower board is that of the Harvey Grammar School in Kent indicating once a probable school prize. Square and sound. Dark blue endpapers reveal an al… Read more…

The first volume of the first edition of Shakespeare’s works to appear after the four Folio Editions of the seventeenth century and the very first illustrated edition (lacking 5 of 9 original plates) which has been described by a recent scholar as an 'inaugurating moment'. The publisher Jacob Tonson and the book’s editor Nicholas Rowe achieve their… Read more…

Second edition, tenth thousand: memoirs of an Edinburgh book dealer. Bound including original illustrated wrappers within a later addition, very good, blue rexine boards and pale blue endpapers. A good plus volume, the binding square and firm with age toning to front wrapper and browning to text block edges. Portions of text underlined. 119 pp. col… Read more…

Contemporary half calf over marbled boards containing 5 bound in pamphlets and texts. Front board attached but fragile over gutters. Lower board present but no longer attached. Spine panel good, titled ‘Pamphlets’ over red ground. Text block binding square and sound. Endpapers clean. Contents in good condition with expected age toning throughout. B… 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…

A very smart set of early editions of J R R Tolkien's Lord of the Rings with jackets in bright, very good plus condition. All dating from 1960 these are the eighth, seventh and sixth impression of the first edition of the three novels, acquired together and with one careful owner since they were first bought - her signature appears on each of the t… Read more…

Fine fourth impression of the Bloomsbury true first edition of the first Harry Potter novel. Number line: ‘10 9 8 7 6 5 4’; no gap between ‘Thomas Taylor1997’ as called for; young Dumbledore and priced at £10.99: fine in fine dustjacket. The book hasn’t been read; there are no marks of ownership or blemishes of any kind and no fading to the spine c… Read more…

Smiles’ heavily corrected copy of his classic account of John Smeaton and John Rennie’s ‘Harbours, Lighthouse, Bridges’ which formed Volume II of his Lives of the Engineers. First published in 1862, this copy shows the numerous changes required for the expanded and revised edition of 1874. Sent to Smiles in parts and without the preliminary materia… Read more…

A book presented to Ely Cathedral Library by Bishop Symon Patrick (1626-1707) during the 1690s as part of his drive to revive the Cathedral where he rebuilt the Bishop’s Palace and strengthened the holdings in the Cathedral library as well as supporting the Cambridge University Press and founding the S.P.C.K. On the last page of text Patrick has wr… Read more…

True first edition, first impression of Hawking’s monograph on black holes that precedes the much more common reprint issued the following year alongside a paperback edition. Very smart publisher’s navy blue cloth with silver lettering; a fine book in a near fine jacket; a couple of tiny closed tears to the edges. The jacket has been clipped top an… Read more…

Elaborately inscribed by Frost to an ‘old old friend’ from his time in England with the Dymock Poets in rural Gloucestershire just before the First World War. Writing on the first flyleaf Frost has inscribed the book ‘For Robin Haines of Gloucester from his old old friend Robert Frost once of not far from Gloucester, Amherst Mass, November 27 1937’… Read more…

Artist Gordon King’s original artwork for this ‘colourful and stimulating introduction to Shakespeare’s England’ from the 1970s comprising 10 surprisingly powerful pieces in a mixture of watercolour, oil and acrylics which portray a performance at the Globe Theatre, figures from Elizabethan life and a large idealised depiction of a performance of A… Read more…

Ambitious occult typescript from the first years of the 20th century written by a retired naval officer and currently unidentified occult scholar living in Putney, west London where he had settled after 40 years naval service. Over the first two volumes ‘Potestas’, as he dubs himself, has transcribed Godfrey Higgins’ Anacalypsis about the idea of a… Read more…

Tenth edition of the foundational work of modern economics by Adam Smith, attractively bound in half black calf over marbled boards. A good looking set in a binding from a few decades after its publication. Octavo volumes (21x13cm) Vol III is the only one of the three with its spine label. Volumes I and III are bound without their half title; Vol I… Read more…