Gift Ideas
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ELIOT, George.
The Writings …
Boston and New York, Houghton Mifflin and Company, 1908.
The Large-Paper edition of Eliot’s complete works, no. 184 of 750 sets.
£2500
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LEWIS, Wyndham.
The Writer and the Absolute …
London, Methuen & Co., Ltd., [1952].
First edition, inscribed ‘To my dear friend Geoffrey Bridson / Wyndham Lewis / 25 June 1952’. The work was published the following day.
£750
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SHAKESPEARE, [William].
The Works of Shakespeare, the text of the First Folio with Quarto variants and a selection of modern...
[Cambridge, University Press for] The Nonesuch Press, and New York, Random House, 1929 [– 1933].
First Nonesuch edition, number 220 of 1600 copies, not only handsomely printed and bound but also an important scholarly edition, collating the texts of the First Folio against variants in preceding quarto editions.
£1450
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SPENSER, Edmund.
The Works of Edmund Spenser.
Oxford, The Shakespeare Head Press, 1930 [– 1932].
Limited edition, numbered 123 of 375 copies, of the handsome Shakespeare Head Spenser, one of the most significant works of the press.
£1250
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SOPHOCLES. POUND, Ezra, translator.
Women of Trachis. A Version by Ezra Pound.
London, Neville Spearman, [1956].
First edition, inscribed by the editor Denis Goacher ‘For Geoffrey [Bridson]: Nov. ’56 / This milestone / Just missed witnessing / The total collapse of / D. G.’ – Bridson had co-produced the play for BBC radio in April 1954.
£1000
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BISSON, Louis-Auguste.
‘Wildfire’.
Paris, c. 1844.
An extraordinary equine portrait, testimony to the improvements made in the daguerreotype process made by Louis-August Bisson which allowed greater spontaneity through shorter exposure times.
£14500
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WHITMAN, Walt, and Antonio FRASCONI (illustrator).
A Whitman Portrait.
[New York, Spiral Press, 1960.]
First edition, comprising extracts from Leaves of Grass, facsimile letters and a selection of woodcut ‘portraits’ by Frasconi. Numbered 149 of 525 copies signed by Frasconi, printed on Japanese Goyu paper.
£250
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PARLIAMENTARY RECRUITING COMMITTEE.
Which? Have you a reason or only an excuse for not enlisting Now!
London, The Abbey Press, 1915.
A forthright call to the men of London, encouraging them to enlist for military service during World War One.
£250
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[PARIS UPRISING.]
Votez toujours. Je ferai le reste [Always vote. I’ll do the rest].
Paris, Comite d'initiative pour un movement revolutionnaire, Imprimerie Robert et Cie, 1968.
First edition. A striking image of General De Gaulle patting France on the head for obediently voting, a baton cunningly concealed behind him. 1968 was a year when passions were flying high in France. The communist and socialist parties had formed an alliance in February with a view to replacing...
£550
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GALIER, W.H.
A visit to Blestland.
London, George Robertson & co., 1896.
First edition of this novel of utopian socialism which lambasts capitalism and religion. Blestland is a republican workers’ paradise located on a different planet which reveals how the divisions of earth can be abolished: by limiting ‘the enormous power for evil which capital can wield’....
£280
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THACKERAY, William Makepeace.
The Virginians, a tale of the last century.
London, Bradbury & Evans, November 1857 [– October 1859].
First edition in the original monthly parts of Thackeray’s American sequel to Henry Esmond.
£600
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MARLIANI, Bartolomeo.
Urbis Romae topographia.
Rome, Valerio & Luigi Dorico, September 1544.
First illustrated edition (third overall), showing the archaeology and antiquities of Rome as known in the sixteenth century. First published in octavo by Antonio Blado in 1534 and reprinted at Lyons by Sébastien Gryphe later the same year, Marliani’s topography of Rome remained the foremost...
£5500
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THOMAS, Dylan, and Sir Peter Blake, illustrator.
Under Milk Wood: A Play for Voices.
London: Apple Litho (Bristol) Ltd. for Enitharmon Editions and Queen Anne Press, 2013.
De Luxe edition, number 61 of 100 copies with a signed print by Blake. This finely-produced edition was published to mark the centenary of Dylan Thomas’s birth and celebrates the culmination of over twenty-five years of work by Peter Blake, one of the founding fathers of British Pop Art. The...
£975
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[CALLIGRAPHIC SCORES.]
Two anonymous manuscript scores.
London, 1820s.
Two charming productions, sent as anonymous gifts, presumably to the wife or daughter(s) of Col. Thomas Nuttall (or Nuthall) (d. 1829) of the Madras Cavalry.
£850
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[BEWICK, Thomas?]
Twenty-six rubbings from engraved woodblocks of the heads of Kings and Queens and England, apparently never published...
[1790-1805?]
Twenty-six apparently unrecorded wood-engravings – heads of the monarchs of England from William the Conqueror to George III – these images taken by rubbing from the blocks rather than printing. The engravings bear strong similarity to the 26 which appear in An Abridgement of the History...
£750
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COPPERTHWAITE, R.H.
The Turf and the Racehorse, describing Trainers and Training, the Stud-Farm, the Sires and Brood-Mares of the...
London, Day & Son, 1865.
First edition of a scarce account of mid-nineteenth-century race horses, including notes and anecdotes on breeding, buying, training, and racing, and with an extensive table of ‘the tried brood mares of the day’, showing their pedigrees and progeny.
£160
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HUGHES, Ted.
T.S. Eliot: A Tribute by the Poet Laureate.
[London,] ‘Privately Printed by [the Salient Seedling for] Faber and Faber’, [August 1987].
A privately printed tribute to T.S. Eliot, limited to 250 copies signed by Ted Hughes. The text comprises an address given by Hughes on 26 September 1986, at the unveiling of Eliot’s blue plaque at Kensington Court Gardens.
£175
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REFELL, A.
Trugbilder: Eine Anleitung Erscheinungen, auf optischer Täuschung beruhend, nach Belieben hervorzuheben und wissenschaftliche...
Stuttgart, Rieger, 1865.
First German edition, rare, of this fascinating study of mirages and optical illusions, in particular ghostly apparitions, in which the author attempts to demonstrate using the principles of optics how they might appear, with the aim of proving the absurdity of the superstitions to which they...
£1250
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LAING, Alexander.
The True Hero and Other Poems …
Glasgow, Morison Brothers, 1893.
First edition, scarce, a presentation copy, inscribed in a shaky hand ‘To Wm J. Robertson / with author’s regards / Alex Laing / 8-4-19’.
£375
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DENNYS, Nicholas Belfield (editor).
The Treaty Ports of China and Japan. A complete guide to the open ports of those countries,...
Shortrede and Co., 1867.
First edition, complete with all twenty-nine maps and plans, of this remarkable guide to the open ports of China and Japan in the late 1860s, aimed at ‘travellers, merchants, and residents’, compiled by Nicholas Dennys (1839–1900), a noted scholar of Chinese folklore, with the sinologist...
£5750