Search Results: Ireland from Downtown Brown Books, ABAA

London & New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1927. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. A novel of paganism in English rural life. "The Blessing of Pan is remarkable in Dunsany's work for being a tightly knit fabric of symbols; every action, every utterance is symbolic of some aspect of the conflict between paganism and Christianity, Nature and civilization, that is at the heart of the novel. It contains some of his most careful, heartfelt writing, and it quietly builds to a powerful and cataclysmic conclusion...an event as rich with awe and wonder as anything in his earlier work."- S. T. Joshi, Lord Dunsany: Master of the Anglo-Irish Imagination, p. 104. vix, 287 pages. With a frontispiece illustration by S. H. Sime. Currey, Science Fiction and Fantasy Authors, p. 168. (NB: The US edition, also Putnam's Sons, was issued in 1928). First edition (first printing, with "First published September 1927" on the copyright page. Some foxing to the preliminary pages and to the page block edges, but… Read More

London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1932. First edition. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. The Irish poet's first novel, a story set in medieval Ireland, in the era of the Vikings. The book was banned in Ireland under the Censorship of Literature Act and was not published there until 1965 (per Oxford Dictionary of National Biography). 313 pages. First edition (first printing, stating "First published" on the copyright page). A very good copy in a completely spine-faded fugitive green dust jacket. The ink fades away anywhere it is exposed to light. This is a review copy with the publisher's slip, partially completed by hand, laid in. This copy also belonged to the Pulitzer Prize- and Academy Award-winning Texas writer Larry McMurtry, with his distinctive stirrup bookplate on the front pastedown. Very scarce in a dust jacket.

New York and Toronto: Longmans Green & Co, 1934. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. The second Jorkens book. This American edition is the true first of this book per Currey. x, 303 pages. Currey, Science Fiction and Fantasy Authors, p. 170. First edition (first printing). Green cloth faded at all edges, else very good in a very good dust jacket missing a small piece at the top of the spine, not affecting any text.

London: MacDonald & Co. Ltd, 1944. First Edition. Leather bound. Fine. Long poems about the Second World War: The Battle of Britain, The Battle of Greece, The Battle of the Mediterranean, Battles Long Ago, and The Battle of the Atlantic. This is one of 250 specially-bound initialed and numbered copies issued in dark blue pebbled morocco stamped in gilt. 95 pages. First edition (first printing). A near fine copy with light wear to the corners. Previous owner's name in pencil on the first blank, dated March 1944, giving a clue to when this undated book was issued. This is copy 89 of 250 signed by Dunsany with the initial "D." Probably not issued in a dust jacket.

Dublin: Cuala Press, 1939. Second Edition. Trade paperback. Near fine. Yeats last prose work; he completed revising the proofs but never saw the finished book. The first edition was ready in July 1939, but Yeats' family, who ran the Cuala Press, were unhappy with the print quality; they pulped the edition and had it reprinted (this second edition). Colin Smythe, Yeats' bibliographer, has located seven surviving copies of the first edition, although the Internet insists on repeating that the number is four copies; either way, not very many, but check your facts or give a source, folks. See "The Textual History of Yeats's On the Boiler" by William O'Donnell, especially footnote 68. On the Border is a scattershot text, that jumps from the coming war, Irish politics and history, Irish immigration, and lands in poetry and a short dramatic scene in blank verse. 46 pages, [1 ad page, one blank]. Second edition. A near fine copy in yapped-edge wrappers.

London: William Heinemann Ltd, 1937. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good/Fair. Ten short radio plays. viii, 163 pages. Currey, Science Fiction and Fantasy Authors, p. 171. First edition (first printing). A very good or better hardcover copy in a fair dust jacket, missing 2-1/2 inches at the spine and a corresponding triangle-shaped piece from the back panel. Previous owner's name on the front endpaper, with a 1938 date.

[Aberdeen, Scotland]: William Maclellan, 1967. First Edition. Trade paperback. Very good. Poems, reproduced from handwriting, by an Irish leftist who lived in Scotland. 28 pages. First edition (first impression stated). Covers a bit grubby, thus very good in wrappers (paperback). Inscribed by the author, "To George with the warmest regards of the poet, Freddy Anderson. 20/1/68.

London: Privately Printed [Boriswood], 1934. First Edition. Hardcover. Very Good/Good. A novel, set in Ireland, about a teenager, Sheila Moynihan, who leaves home because her brothers are molesting her, only to have to fight off an attempted rape, and to suffer further molestation by a series of priests she turns to for help. A rather grim picture of sexual violence in the 1930s. Due to the subject matter, the book was published in an edition of 110 copies for private circulation. This book was written while Hanley's earlier novel, Boy, about a young sailor who meets a similar fate to Sheila on a merchant ship, was prosecuted in England for obscenity. Resurrexit Dominus has never been reprinted. 320 pages. First edition (first printing). A very good copy in a very good acetate dust jacket. Lacking the slipcase. Signed by Hanley on the limitation page. This is Hanley's own copy of the book, with extensive revisions marked in pencil, sanitizing the book to make it more palatable to the official… Read More

London: Chatto and Windus, 1937. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. 240 pages. Preface by Walter de la Mare. An Irish classic in a pretty pre-war edition, somewhat revised from its 1905 publication under the title of The Weans of Rowallan. First printing of this edition. Bookseller's notes on front jacket flap and front endpapers, else near fine.