Search Results: Authors starting with W from Ash Rare Books

New York : Magazine Productions, (1952). First edition. Alcoholic ex-cop seeks redemption, but "every woman who dared to love him turned up as a corpse in his bedroom". Rainbow Book No. 124. Foolscap 4to (20cm). [ii],5-130pp. Original pictorial stapled wrappers in a design by George Gross (1909-2003); some minor rubbing and very mild wear; lower wrapper lightly creased and slightly discoloured, but overall a very good copy. No copy located in any major library worldwide.

New York : Magazine Productions, (1952). First edition. Ex-wife fished out of the river - murder suspected - "dangers out of the past mingle with and threaten flesh-and-blood passions and desires of the present". Rainbow Book No. 116. Foolscap 4to (20cm). [iv],7-129,[i]pp. Original pictorial stapled wrappers; spine rubbed and worn; a few creases; text a little tanned and brittle, but a reasonable copy. Small date-stamp on title. No copy located in any major library worldwide

New York : Falcon Books, (1951). First edition. "Her father died in the electric chair and nobody knows who her mother was. But Babette, with her amber eyes and all-purpose body, was well on the way to the top of the heap when McGill came along ...". No. 17 and apparently the last of the Ecstasy Novel series. Foolscap 4to (19cm). [iv],7-128,[ii]pp. Photo illustrations. Original pictorial stapled wrappers; slight wear to tips and one corner; small mark to inner front wrapper, but otherwise a very good copy. Just two copies (Bowling Green and Michigan State) located in the world's major libraries.

London : Macmillan London, (1980). First edition : the uncommon hardback issue. An extensive selection of poems from five earlier collections, together with a number of new poems. "He seems, unusually for a poet of any importance, to continually move from one kind of work to another, always with new insights, and new ways of growing" (Peter Levi) Demy 8vo (23cm). [viii],182,[ii]pp. Original green boards, lettered in silver; just a hint of spotting to top edge; very faint bruise to heel, but a very good copy in the original dust-jacket - a typographic design in green, red and white - also very good.

London : Macmillan & Co., 1962. First edition. An absorbing novel which takes us from 1942 to the birth of rock and roll - with the revolving viewpoints of a Professor of Classics, his runaway teenage son subsisting on the fringes of legality in wartime London and becoming a jazz pianist, and Eleanor - sister to the first and aunt to the second. Post 8vo (21cm). [vi],(330)pp. Original red cloth, lettered and decorated in gilt; a few slight marks, but a very good copy in the Victor Reinganum dust-jacket - very lightly worn and just slightly soiled, but also very good. Contemporary dated ownership inscription of Mary Campbell.

London : Claud Morris Books, [1947]. First edition. The wealthy Mrs King is murdered before she can rewrite her will - featuring Erma King, the young and beautiful heiress; the long-lost Glen King, now reappeared; Nolan King - the half mad stepson; Lola Dracut, the companion (and Glen's childhood sweetheart); Tommy Sears, the dentist, and Douglas Robie, the chemist - both suitors of Erma; a hot-tempered cook; the family doctor, lawyer, etc. Crown 4to (25cm). 48pp. Illustrations. Original pictorial stapled wrappers; wrappers slightly spotted, nicked and chipped; staples rusting; text a little brittle and tanned, but a good copy of a scarce and fragile production. Just a single copy (Bodleian) located in major libraries worldwide.

[London : R. & J. Dodsley, 1761]. A charming antique print of the Hawksmoor church of St. George Bloomsbury, with good detail of the extraordinary spire. Engraved by William Elliott (1727-1766) from an original study by the painter and illustrator Samuel Wale, first Professor of Perspective at the Royal Academy. Originally produced for Robert Dodsley's part-work compilation, "London and its Environs Described" (London : 1761). Copper line engraving on paper. Engraved surface 152 x 82mm (approx. 6" x 3-1/4"). Tiny flaw to paper at upper neatline, but in very good and clean state. A guaranteed genuine antique print. Adams 41/035.

London : Alexander Hogg, [1786]. A charming antique print of the cathedral from the south-west. Engraved by Thomas Simpson (fl.1765-1799) after Samuel Wale, the first Professor of Perspective at the Royal Academy and originally produced to accompany the "Historical Descriptions of New and Elegant Picturesque Views of the Antiquities of England and Wales" (London : 1786). Copper line engraving on paper. Later hand colour. Engraved surface 111 x 162mm (approx 4-3/8" x 6-1/4"). One very minor mark, but otherwise in very good and clean state. A guaranteed genuine antique print. Adams 63/012.

[London : R. & J. Dodsley, 1761]. A delightful mid eighteenth-century print of the original Gunnersbury House, the fine Palladian mansion built by John Webb in 1658-1663 and demolished in 1801. Engraved by Benjamin Green (1736?-1800?) from an original study by the painter and illustrator Samuel Wale, first Professor of Perspective at the Royal Academy. Originally produced for Robert Dodsley's part-work compilation, "London and its Environs Described" (London : 1761). Copper line engraving on paper. Engraved surface 92 x 140mm (approx. 3-5/8" x 5-1/2"). In very good and clean state. A guaranteed genuine antique print.

Edinburgh & London : William Blackwood & Sons, 1872-1873. First editions of two companion volumes in Blackwood's "Ancient Classics for English Readers" - the historian Edward Walford with a complete introduction to Juvenal, with a biography, chapters on satires and satirists, morals at Rome, women at Rome, town-life at Rome, Juvenal's modern imitators, etc., while the clergyman and classicist W. Lucas Collins provides a similar service for Plautus and Terence, with chapters on ancient comic drama, Menander, and full analysis of the comedies. Two volumes, bound in one, with both general and individual title-pages. Foolscap 8vo (171 x 108mm). [2],[iv],(170); [vi],(156)pp. Bound in a very attractive near contemporary half vellum, by Henry Bickers & Son of Leicester Square; prettily gilt; marbled sides, with matching edges and endpapers; a few faint marks and very minor signs of age and use; some spotting to binder's blanks and outer leaves, but a very good copy.

London : Cassell & Co., [1884]. First edition in book form. A sequel to the highly popular "Old and New London", compiled jointly by Walford and C. W. Thornbury. A circular tour round Chiswick, Ealing, Twickenham, Shepperton, Staines, Hillingdon, Uxbridge, Ruislip, Harrow, Barnet, Chigwell, Ilford, Dagenham, Woolwich, Sidcup, Bromley, Beckenham, Croydon, Epsom, Kingston, Richmond, Wimbledon and all the towns and villages between. Heavily illustrated with some 400 wood-engravings, including many images of buildings and villages never previously depicted. First published serially between 1882 and 1884. Two volumes. Crown 4to (27cm). xvi,576; (xvi),560pp - two preliminary leaves in vol.ii inexplicably straying into the index. Numerous illustrations. Maps. Original decorative cloth gilt; all edges gilt; a touch bruised; slight scratch to one lower cover; a few slight spots, but overall a very good, bright and fresh set.

Newton Abbot : David & Charles, (1979). First edition. A fine and detailed study of the extraordinary events - faction, feud and controversy - surrounding the building of the first Westminster Bridge in the mid eighteenth century. With much on Antonio Canaletto, Sir Henry Fielding, Richard Graham, Nicholas Hawksmoor, Andrews Jelfe, Charles Labelye, Batty Langley, Thomas Lediard, etc. Royal 8vo (25cm). (320)pp. Plates. Maps. Original cloth; a very good copy in the dust-jacket - also very good.

London : Sportsman's Press, (1989). First edition. An attractive and well-illustrated survey - with much on Cecil Aldin, George Denholm Armour, Joseph Crawhall, Lionel Edwards, Alfred Munnings, Snaffles, etc. With a preface by Paul Mellon Demy 4to (29cm). 224pp. Twenty-four colour plates. Numerous illustrations. Original boards; mild spotting of top edge, but otherwise very good in the dust-jacket - the jacket also very good.

New York : Universal, [1953]. First paperback edition. "Her love was like the floodtide, turbulent, tempestuous, uncontrollable ..." - "more than a stirring saga of the mighty Mississippi". Originally published in 1934 as "River God" and here re-titled and revised. Uni-Book No. 50. Foolscap 4to (19cm). 128pp. Original pictorial stapled wrappers; some light wear and creasing to extremities, but otherwise a very good copy. No copy of this edition located in any major library worldwide.

London : Editions Poetry London, (1946). First edition. A presentation copy, inscribed to Nevill Phillips, with two lines of autograph verse, signed and dated (1948) by John Waller - and with three authorial manuscript corrections in the text.. A collection of thirty-five poems written on active service in the Middle East, including "Convoy", "Soldier under the Stars", "Lovers in Alexandria", "September in Cairo", "Christmas, 1943", etc. Demy 8vo (23cm). (54)pp. Portrait frontispiece by Sevek. Original stone cloth, lettered on spine in gilt; slightly shaken and a little spotted, but a good copy in the original pink, white and black dust-jacket - rubbed, sunned, very slightly chipped and a little marked and spotted.

London : J. Wallis, [ca.1814]. First edition : the second state, with the addition of plate numbers to Wallis's delightfully engraved sequence of maps. A very pretty pocket atlas of the English counties, generally dated to 1810, although surely post-dating Wallis's larger county atlas of that year and probably datable to about 1812, with the present issue (distinguished by the addition of plate numbers) probably dating from about 1814. Pott 4to (146 x 109mm). Engraved title-page, contents page, general map of England and Wales, forty-two county maps (one - Yorkshire - double-page), two regional maps of North and South Wales, and a smaller map of the Isle of Wight - all with original hand colour. Original publisher's half sheep, with the publisher's leather label on upper board; some minor wear and marking, with slight splitting; a little shaken and slightly loose; short split to double-page map; one map (Wiltshire) deftly attached or re-attached by two old metal pins, and possibly supplied from… Read More

London : Odhams Press, [1938]. A reissue of the book first published by Collins the previous year with the additional sub-title "The Story of a Freelance Spy". A thriller from "the Australian Edgar Wallace" with a Spanish Civil War setting - a tunnel to Africa under the Straits of Gibraltar, Colonel Ormiston of the Secret Service investigates. "One of the best of the many novels that have recently been written about secret political movements and the villains behind them" (Daily Mirror, 4th February 1937 of the original Collins edition). Crown 8vo (20cm). [ii],252,[ii]pp - including integral endpapers. Original green cloth, blocked and lettered in gilt; spine lettering a touch dulled; edges somewhat spotted, but a very good and sound copy in the original pictorial dust-jacket - just very slightly nicked and chipped.

London : Martin & Reid, [1946]. First edition. There's a puzzle about a racing driver who never wins a race. Crown 8vo (18cm). (31),[i]pp. Original pictorial stapled self-wrappers; staples a little rusted, but a very good copy. Just a single copy (British Library) located in major libraries worldwide.

London : George G. Harrap & Co., (1931). First Rackham edition. The great classic of angling literature, here delightfully illustrated by Arthur Rackham. "A very attractive volume which (unlike some 'gift books') can be read with pleasure as well as looked at" (Yorkshire Post, 2nd December 1931). Crown 4to (240 x 177mm). (224)pp. Twelve tissue-guarded colour plates. Illustrations in text. Bound in a fine slightly later (mid twentieth-century) half green crushed morocco by Frost & Co. of Bath, banded and gilt with a variety of angling motifs in compartments; top edge gilt; marbled endpapers; a few slight spots; frontispiece tissue slightly creased, but overall a handsome copy.

London : Oxford University Press, (1966). First edition. The sheet music for Walton's "Anthem for the Feast of Any Apostle", first performed at Oxford in 1965, together with Auden's words. Royal 8vo (26cm). [ii],30pp. Original brown and pale yellow stapled wrappers; price label of the American distributor on upper wrapper, but otherwise a very good copy. From the collection of the late Barry Bloomfield, Auden's bibliographer. Bloomfield & Mendelson B97.