Search Results: Authors starting with A from Fine Editions Ltd

London: Stereotyped and printed by Davies and Michael, 19, Poppins' Court, Fleet Street; for R. Ackermann, 101, Strand: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown; and Sherwood, Neely, and Jones, Paternoster Row; and J. Hatchard, Piccadilly, 1815. Original Boards. Fine. A superb survival, untrimmed in original boards, of the first book to describe and widely influence installation of gas lighting in London and other metropolises. Royal 8vo (252 x 149mm): xvii,[1],194,6pp, with folding hand-colored frontispiece and 6 hand-colored plates (one folding) of machinery and various light fixtures and chandeliers. Original drab paper-covered boards, paper title label printed in black to spine. Engraved armorial book plate to front paste-down. An excellent wide-margined example, tightly bound, with virtually pristine pages and plates. Abbey (Life) 436. Second Edition (so stated), issued the same year as the first. In 1810, when the London Chartered Gaslight and Coke Company was formed, Accum was nominated one of… Read More

London: printed by J. Dillon, and Co. for, and sold by, W. and S. Jones, Opticians, Holborn, 1799. Early Reprint. Paper-Covered Boards. Fine. Fifth (and most desirable) Edition of this seminal work on electricity and its applications (first published 1784), with corrections and additions by William Jones. 8vo: xiv[bound out of sequence],594pp, with six copper-engraved plates. Tall, uncut, wide-margined copy, completely unsophisticated, in original drab grey boards, beige paper spine, printed paper label. An exemplary example, binding square and tight; pages, clean fresh and bright. Wheeler Gift 519b. Adams came from a family of makers of scientific instruments and globes, and was Mathematical Instrument-Maker to His Majesty George III. In the 1780s, he began publishing a series of illustrated texts dealing with the physical sciences. Following close on the heels of Essay on Electricity were Essays on the Microscope (1787), Astronomical and Geographical Essays (1789), Geometrical and Graphical Essays… Read More

Boston / Cambridge: Houghton Mifflin / The Riverside Press, 1941. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Near Fine+. First Printing of this tour de force of American photography and perennial classic of American journalism, a "highly experimental book, pushing the boundaries of the way documentary should treat the world." (Lionel Trilling, in the Kenyon Review, called it the "most important moral effort of our American generation.") Demy 8vo (205 x 144mm): [2],xvi,471,[1]pp, with 31 beautifully printed black & white full-page photographs by Walker Evans, "his only excursion into 'true' documentary—among the finest ever made." (Parr & Badger) Publisher's black cloth, spine lettered in silver; illustrated dust jacket, priced $3.50. A Fine copy, tightly bound and clean throughout; Near Fine or better jacket, head and toe of spine panel rubbed, with short tear and crease to bottom of front panel. A fresh, honest copy with no restoration. Parr & Badger I, p.144. Roth (101 Books), p. 108-09. In July and August… Read More

London: printed for P. Vaillant in the Strand, and W. Mears and F. Clay without Temple-Bar, 1721. Half-Calf. Fine. First Edition in English of the "first treatise on cuttings and graftings." (Hunt) Demy 4to (276 x 214mm): [24],300,[4]pp, with 31 (i.e. 33: in the numbering of plates, XXIII and XXVIII are repeated) engraved plates inserted on 22 sheets (some folding); head- and tail-pieces and historiated initials. Recent half calf over marbled boards, spine in sic compartments divided by gilt-ruled raised bands, small gilt ornaments, red morocco lettering piece gilt, title page printed in red and black, end papers renewed. An excellent example, beautifully bound to period style, generally fresh and bright (occasional light spotting and dust-soiling), with excellent impressions of the plates. Henrey II, 443-46 and III, 411. Hunt II, 452. First published in two volumes in German ("High-Dutch"), in 1716, as Neu-und nie erhörter doch in der Natur und Vernunfft wohlgegründeter Versuch der Universal-… Read More

London: Chatto and Windus, 1929. First Impression. Hardcover. Very Good+/Near Fine. First English Edition (appearing a few weeks after the American edition) of this canonical modernist novel. Thick crown 8vo (207 x 124mm): xii,440pp. With the author's note, commenting on the publishers' censorship and explaining the use of asterisks, and considering it "better for the book to appear mutilated than for me to say what I don't believe." Publisher's black cloth, spine lettered in gold, sepia dust wrapper illustrated by Paul Nash and priced 8s / 6d. A presentable example, better than very good, tightly bound and clean throughout; jacket spine panel toned, front panel still vibrant. Kershaw 53. Falls, pp. 261-62. Aldington's scathing take on early twentieth-century British society, openly discussing sex, death, mental health, class and a host of other 'indelicate' issues, which so mortified his publishers that they extensively censored the manuscript (an unexpurgated edition was published in Paris the… Read More

London: The Poetry Bookshop, 35 Devonshire Street, Theobalds, W.C., 1915. First Edition. Pictorial Wrappers. Near Fine. First Printing of Aldington's first book of poems, published when he was literary editor of The Egoist. Crown 8vo (196 x 144mm): 31pp (title from cover, pagination begins cover verso). Original illustrated stapled wrappers, front panel with hand-colored block print by John Nash, priced 8d net on lower left corner, edges untrimmed; original glassine outer wrapper, toned and chipped at edges. Wrappers middy foxed (as often), but an unusually good copy in original outer wrapper. Kershaw 1. Ezra Pound coined the term imagistes for Aldington and his wife, Hilda Doolittle (H. D.) Aldington's poetry, championing minimalist free verse with stark images, constitutes almost one third of the Imagists's inaugural anthology Des Imagistes, in which six of these poems originally appeared. N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition, with carefully… Read More

London: Faber and Faber, 1955. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine-/Fine-. First Impression of the author's first book (first published mcmlv on copyright page). 8vo: 200pp. Publisher's French blue cloth, spine lettered in yellow, salmon-pink dust jacket illustrated by Pearl Falconer, who also contributed full-page line drawings throughout. Fine, square, and tight (apparently unread). Currey, p. 1. After the Second World War, Aldiss worked as a bookseller in Oxford, from which experience came this novel in diary form about the life of a bookshop assistant, which originally ran serially for two years in The Bookseller (Musings about publishers, authors, booksellers and buyers), under the pseudonym Peter Pica. ) According to Aldiss, the novel "did not entirely hatch, the parts being better than the whole," although it did serve to alert the reading public that a new novelist worth noting was afoot. N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition, with dust… Read More

London: published by S. and J. Fuller, 34 Rathbone Place / privately printed [by Waterlow & Sons Limited] by the Author of "Hunting Hawking Shooting, 1930. First Edition thus. Card Covers. Fine. First Paperback Edition of Alken's most detailed work, the forerunner of Nimrod's The Life of a Sportsman. Oblong folio (348 x 445mm): 10pp, including title-page vignette, colored portrait of Alken and facsimiles of 11 wrappers on one plate, and photographic illustration of the scroll case, followed by 35 colored aquatint scenes (miniature adaptations of plates in National Field Sports), depicting incidents in the life of a squire's son, mounted on five stiff-card leaves. Original publisher's mottled tan card covers lettered in black. Signed by the editor, C. F. G. R. Schwerdt, on limitation leaf. A pristine example in the original publisher's stiff card decorated envelope, lightly nicked. Originally published in scroll form, in 1820, the Panorama is extremely scarce; in the preface Schwerdt states: "apart… Read More

London: Alec Tiranti, 1954. Hardcover. Near Fine+/Near Fine+. First edition.  Slim foolscap 8vo (179 x 124mm): 38pp and 56 full-page plates. Publisher's original pictorial paper-covered boards, dust jacket repeating cover design by William Scott (one of the nine artists), priced 7s / 6d. Neat ownership inscription and date on fly-leaf. Jacket's spine panel folds lightly rubbed, caps skillfully restored (not involving lettering or design), else a Near Fine or better copy, tightly bound and crisp and clean throughout. An excellent example of a scarce book. Third volume in the publisher's Contemporary Art series. The nine artists of the title are: Robert Adams, Terry Frost, Adrian Heath, Anthony Hill, Roger Hilton, Kenneth Martin, Mary Martin, Victor Pasmore, and William Scott. In the 1950s, Alloway was a leading member of the Independent Group in the United Kingdom. He later worked as a critic and curator in the United States. He coined the term "mass popular art" in the mid-1950s, later shortened… Read More

Memphis, Tennessee, n.d.. Card Covers. Fine-. Mid-Century tobacco advertising booklet. Foolscap 8vo (138 x 76mm): note pad shaped as a can of snuff, 24 blank ruled pages, excepting advertising text at center and inside covers. Original illustrated card covers. Provenance: Fred Board, collector of odd and unusual books, with his neat pencil note on final leaf. About Fine. Promotional booklet advertising Dental Scotch Snuff, "a very mild snuff, carrying a slight smoky but good tobacco flavor," manufactured by the American Snuff Company, a subsidiary of Reynolds American. American Snuff was founded in 1900, but its records go back to the Revolutionary War era, when it operated as a snuff mill, beginning in 1782. N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books and ephemera in exceptional condition, carefully preserved in archival, removable mylar sleeves. All orders are packaged with care and posted promptly. Satisfaction guaranteed. (Fine Editions Ltd is a member of the Independent… Read More

London: Methuen, 1960. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Near Fine+. First Printing of this thriller set in a Spanish village. Crown 8vo (200 x 132mm): 200pp. Publisher's forest green finely woven cloth, spine lettered in silver, striking dust jacket illustrated by David Watson and priced 15s. A handsome example, tightly bound and clean throughout (jacket's back panel gently toned and dust-soiled, short closed tear to upper spine panel fold). The first of Ames's late series Juan Llorca stories, featuring a Spanish civil guard who, in this installment, falls for the prime suspect in a murder mystery. Followed by The Man with Three Jaguars (1961) and The Man with Three Chins (1965). N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition, with dust jackets carefully preserved in archival, removable polypropylene sleeves. All orders are packaged with care and posted promptly. Satisfaction guaranteed. (Fine Editions Ltd is a member of the Independent Online Booksellers… Read More

Garden City: Doubleday, 1954. First Printing. Hardcover. Fine-/Fine-. First American Edition of Amis's first book, "the quintessential campus novel," in the superb Edward Gorey dust jacket, one of his first and finest. 8vo: 256pp. Publisher's brown cloth, spine lettered in white, illustrated dust jacket priced $3.50. About Fine (end leaves lightly offset), apparently unread, jacket about Fine (spine panel toned, as often), but an excellent example. From the collection of bibliophile Donald Kaufmann. Burgess 99. Time 100. Awarded the Somerset Maugham Award for fiction. "Jim may be the single bitterest character in all of English literature; Amis certainly crafts the most brutally accurate description of a hangover ever written. A punishingly, viscerally funny attack on hypocrisy and self-importance in all their many and varied forms, Lucky Jim gave rise to much of the angry-young-man fiction that followed, but it never met its equal." (Time 100) "Widely acknowledged as the quintessential campus novel… Read More

London: printed for William Lane, Leadenhall-Street, 1789. First Edition. Half-Morocco. Fine. First Edition (preceding the French edition by one year) of this eighteenth-century travel account of Canada and the Northeast by an officer who served with Burgoyne. Complete in two octavo volumes, including plate list, subscribers and errata (rebound without half titles). [2],vii,[21],467,[1]1; [2],558pp, with frontispiece folding map ("delineating the March of the Army"), 5 engraved views (4 folding), folding plan, and facsimiles of American currency in red and black on two leaves. Recent burgundy half-morocco, marbled boards, end papers renewed. A superb set, short stained streaks to fore-edge of vol. I, affecting margins only of several leaves, very faint offsetting from plates, else clean and bright throughout with rich impressions of the plates. Clark I 192. Lande (Redpath) 7. Sabin 1366-67. TPL 541. Bibliotheca Americana (Stevens), p. 27. Howes A-226 ("Capt. Anburey served with Burgoyne, but this… Read More

London: Longman and Co., Paternoster Row, and J. and C. Walker, 3, Burleigh Street, Strand, n.d.. Later Printing. Decorative Cloth. Fine. Hand-colored engraved map (sectioned into 15 parts and mounted on linen) folded into pebbled green cloth wallet with decorative printed paper title label to upper cover. Covers measure 125 x 92mm; map sections, 115 x 85mm; scale, 10 English miles equal 80 mm. Principal roads marked in color; county boundaries hand-colored in outline. Printed sheet of statistics and tables of distances, town populations, market days, and fairs to inner upper cover. An excellent example, clean, tight, and unmarked. Originally published in 1835, as part of Walker's County Maps series (also including Cheshire, Cornwall, Cumberland, Devonshire, Durham, Hampshire, Westmoreland, Wiltshire, Worcestershire, Yorkshire East Riding, Yorkshire North Riding, and Yorkshire West Riding). N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition, carefully… Read More

London: Sotheby & Co. [through 1946], 1939. Stiff Wrappers. Fine. Complete in six portions continuously paginated. Royal 8vo (242 x 180mm): [2],86; [6],93-187,[1]; [4],193-244; [4],249-308; 311-358; [2],363-396pp, with 90 full-page plates (some folding). Sage-green stiff wrappers, upper covers decorated and printed in black; sage-green ribbed cloth-covered slip case by Fitterer, paper label printed in black to spine. Portions 1-4 published on coated stock in 1939, with detailed entries akin to those in the original four-volume catalogue, published in 1928 and 1936; portions 5-6 appeared in 1946, after the war, and are slimmer with shorter entries. An extraordinarily well-preserved set, tightly bound and clean throughout. The Schwerdt collection, compiled by Charles Francis George Richard Schwerdt (1862-1939), was one of the finest sporting libraries ever assembled, comprising books, manuscripts, prints, and drawings relating to hunting, hawking, and shooting from the Middle Ages to modern times.… Read More

New York: Boni & Liveright, 1926. First Edition. Decorative Cloth. Fine/Near Fine+. First Printing (no additional printings noted). 8vo: xviii,346pp. Publisher's brown pebbled cloth, spine lettered in gilt within blue title block, upper cover lettered in gilt with vignette of farmhouse and barn, top edge stained black, fore-edge untrimmed, title page printed in blue and black; cream-colored pictorial dust jacket printed in green and black and priced $3.00. Fine, bright copy, virtually As New, in jacket with shallow chipping, touching lettering at base of slightly tanned spine. Sheehy & Lohf 39. A fictionalized memoir constructed of episodes in the childhood of Edgar Moorehead (nicknamed Tar-heel, or Tar, because of his father's North Carolina origin), though fictional location of Tar bears a resemblance to Camden, Ohio, where Anderson was born and spent his first year. An episode from the book later appeared, in revised form, as one of Anderson's finest short stories, "Death in the Woods." N. B.… Read More

New York: B. W. Huebsch, 1923. First Printing. Hardcover. Fine-/Near Fine+. First Issue (with orange topstain), including the author's most famous short story, "I'm a Fool." 8vo: xiii,[1], 347,[1]pp. Publisher's orange cloth, printed paper label to spine, top edge stained orange, beige typographic dust jacket priced two dollars on spine panel. About Fine (endpapers slightly toned, spine tips bumped), the cloth bright and fresh; Near Fine or better dust-soiled jacket that has benefited from professional conservation to edges (not involving lettering). A desirable copy. Sherwood Anderson's third collection, after the successful short story cycle, Winesburg, Ohio. The book was dedicated to Theodore Dreiser and includes a prefatory tribute and nine stories, six of which are variations of previously published pieces. N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition, with dust jackets carefully preserved in archival, removable polypropylene sleeves. All orders… Read More

London: George Redway, 1887. Limited Edition. Original Cloth. Fine. No. 376 of 400 copies printed. Thin, square 8vo: viii,91,[1]pp, with frontispiece ("Frost fair on the River Thames, in 1814") and two full-page engravings ("Frost Fair on the Thames in the reign of Charles II" and "Frost Fair on the Thames"). Publisher's finely woven black cloth, beveled boards, spine and upper cover ruled and lettered in gilt, back cover ruled in blind, top edge gilded, coated and mottled end papers, title page in red and black. Fine copy of this scarce work on the winter festivals of the Little Ice Age. Between 1400 and 1835, the Thames froze over 24 times, and merchants and manufacturers moved their various industries onto the ice (frost fairs were even far more common on the Continent, especially in the Netherlands). During the Great Frost of 1683-84, the worst recorded in England, the Thames was frozen over for two months, with the ice reaching a thickness of 11 inches in London. The final frost, in 1814, when… Read More

Amsterdam: G. Theod. Bom, 1874. Pictorial Wrappers. Fine. Crown 8vo (180 x 128mm): [8]pp, with six color lithographs (printed by Emrik & Binger, Haarlem), each with flaps that, when flipped, reveal a completely different image (a ship at sea becomes Bedouins in the desert, a volcano erupts into walruses in the Arctic, Native Americans transform into explorers in the Rockies), taking the viewer on a tour around the world. Each illustration actually consists of two illustrations made from strips of paper which slide across each other. The reader pulls a card tab, and the scene slides to one side to reveal a different scene. The accompanying text guides the reader through these twists and turns. Original burnt orange illustrated card wrappers printed in green, gold, and terracotta and lettered in black. A superbly preserved example of this fragile production, all but pristine, rare, with Worldcat Discovery listing only one copy and LHD none. For more than 700 years book designers have been pushing back… Read More

London: Printed for J. Roberts, in Warwick-Lane; J. Stagg, in Westminster Hall; and D. Browne, without Temple-Bar, 1727. Quarter-bound Leather. Near Fine+. Third Edition (with price 2s. 6d below imprint in square brackets). Full of fascinating information relating to the etiquette and procedure of royal ceremonies. Small 4to (210 x 155mm): 80pp, with large folding copper-engraved frontispiece, "Procession of Kings and Queens with over 150 robed figures" (measuring a full 440 mm x 350 mm), a second folding engraving, "The Manner of the Champions, performing the Ceremony of ye Challenge," and 12 woodcuts in the text depicting various ceremonial objects, including crowns, maces, scepters, and coronation rings. Bound in early (possibly contemporary) quarter sheep with marbled boards, red morocco lettering piece gilt, all edges marbled. Bookplate of Buddle Atkinson to front paste-down. A sturdy, unsophisticated copy, frontispiece slightly spotted along folds, sporadic light soiling and browning, binding… Read More