Search Results: Titles starting with I from Fine Editions Ltd

London: Hamish Hamilton, 1982. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine-/Fine-. First Impression, signed by Boyd on the title page. 8vo: [12],363,[1]pp. Publisher's navy blue cloth, spine stamped gilt, illustrated dust jacket priced 7.95. About Fine (minor speckling on top edge) and probably unread, in About Fine jacket very mildly (almost imperceptibly) faded to spine panel. Boyd's second novel, An Ice-Cream War was conceived as an antiwar satire, "directed not only at the incongruities of war, but also at the inefficiency of the British army during the African campaigns. [As millions are slaughtered on the Western Front, a ridiculous and little-reported campaign is being waged in East Africa—a campaign that continued even after the Armistice because no one told them to stop.] Unlike A Good Man in Africa, An Ice-Cream War does not focus on a single character but on several central ones, among whom Felix Cobb [who] Boyd uses as a vehicle to attack a society anchored in the past. . ." (Literary Encyclopedia)… Read More

New York: William Morrow, 1932. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Near Fine+. First Printing of the author's tenth book, preceding Goodbye Mr. Chips and Lost Horizon. 8vo: [12],306,[2]pp. Publisher's brown cloth, upper cover and spine ruled and lettered in gilt, top edge stained chocolate-brown, illustrated dust jacket (by the inimitable Eugene "Gene" Thurstan, who illustrated many Mystery League titles) priced $2.50. A tight, Fine, unread copy in a better than Near Fine dust jacket (spine panel rubbed). First published in Britain, also in 1932, under the title Contango. Nine short stories illustrating how a single chance event begins a thread of connection among seemingly unrelated lives, beginning with a murder in the Far East. N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition, with dust jackets carefully preserved in archival, removable mylar sleeves. All orders are packaged with care and posted promptly. Satisfaction guaranteed. (Fine Editions Ltd is a… 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: Henry Lea, 22, Warwick Lane, 1860. Original Cloth. Fine. Superb pocket edition of this compendium of rules and directions for playing fifteen games of chance, including whist, cribbage, quadrille, casino, and rouge et noir. Foolscap 8vo (120 x 78mm): 36; 18; 10; 31,[1]; vii,8-32,[8]pp, with two full-page plates of game boards and table of odds. Publisher's mid-brown cloth, elaborately stamped in blind and gilt, all edges gilt; contemporary gift inscription in elegant hand to fly-leaf. FirstSearch locates only three copies worldwide, all in the United States; Literary Hub Discover adds Oxford. Virtually pristine. Jessel 849. According to Jessel, rules for each game also were sold separately as two-penny chapbooks (thus separate paginations for various games). Little is known of Hoyle's life before 1741, when he began tutoring members of high society at the game of whist, selling students copies of his manuscript notes, which he later expanded and published as A Short Treatise on the Game of… Read More

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1914. Fine-. No. 60 of an edition limited to 150 sets of 22 fine photogravures proofs (320 x 240mm) signed in plate ("Coffee-Room, George Inn" additionally signed by Smith in pencil at lower right of image), individually matted with tissue guard and original publisher's printed descriptive label on verso. Complete with 8pp letterpress (508 x 406mm) half-title and title pages, limitation leaf signed by Smith and the publisher,introduction by Smith, and list of proofs with notes. Presented in original muslin-backed portfolio with linen ties and lidded box printed in green and black. One plate label wrinkled, letterpress very lightly toned to page edges, else virtually pristine. BAL 18258. Francis Hopkinson Smith, who descended from a signer of the Declaration of Independence, was an author, artist, and engineer (among other projects, he built the Race Rock Lighthouse in Long Island Sound southwest of Fishers Island and the foundation for Frédéric Auguste… Read More

London: Jonathan Cape, 1977. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. An exceptional first impression ("First published 1977), first issue (map endpapers.), without even a degree of fading to the dust jacket spine panel's fugitive colors, of Chatwin's first book. 8vo: [4],204pp, with map frontispiece, and 14 full- and half-page photographs; pictorial dust jacket, priced £4.95. Publisher's navy blue cloth-effect paper-covered boards; jacket with wrap-around photogaph of the Moreno glacier. Fine, tight, and virtually pristine (white speck to rear cover, hint of lightening to spine). The author's "autobiografictional" travelogue, which "both records and imagines the fulfilment of one of Bruce Chatwin's childhood fascinations, namely to retrace the travel adventures of his grandmother's uncle, Charley Milward, seadog, entrepreneur, and globetrotting family legend, who had died in Punta Arenas, Chile. . . . While the narrative, in a staccato series of short sections (numbered from 1 to 97), meanders about… Read More

Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books in Association with Methuen, 1960. First Printing. First Paperbound Edition of the title that launched Morton's In Search of . . . series. Foolscap 8vo (179 x 107mm): 252pp. Publisher's card covers printed in blue and black. Tightly bound and clean throughout, very faint edge-wear, lightly toned, neat gift inscription to verso of half-title, but a beautifully preserved example. Originally published by Methuen in hardcover, with eight color plates and a map, in 1927, recalling ways of life then disappearing at the dawn of a new century, whether through descriptions of ruined gothic arches at Glastonbury or hilarious encounters with the town folk of Norfolk. In Search of England became a bestseller, and was the first of many In Search of . . . series books to follow. Founded in 1935 by Sir Allen Lane and his brothers, Richard and John, as an imprint of the The Bodley Head, Penguin revolutionized publishing with its inexpensive paperbacks, originally sold for… Read More

Chicago & New York: Herbert S. Stone, 1898. First Edition. Decorative Cloth. Fine-. First Printing of this novella centering on an unnamed London telegraphist, who deciphers clues to her clients's personal lives from the often cryptic telegrams they submit to her as she sits in the "cage" at the post office. Crown 8vo: [4],229,[3]pp. Publisher's dark olive-green linen-grain cloth, covers identically paneled in blind with lettering and florets in gilt; spine ruled, lettered, and ornamented in gilt; top edge gilt, others untrimmed; title page in black and orange. Book plates of essayist Robert Palfrey Utter to front paste-down and verso of front fly-leaf. (After varied experiences, including editorial work on the Youth's Companion, reporting for the New York Evening Post, ranching in Mexico, and graduate study at Harvard, Utter became, in 1906, associate professor of English at Amherst, then, beginning in 1920, held the same position at the University of California.) An excellent copy, about Fine,… Read More

New York: Little, Brown, 1996. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. First Printing (full number line), in First State dust jacket (incorrectly spelling William Vollmann as "Vollman" on back panel) of the author's magnum opus. Thick 8vo: [4],1079,[1]. Publisher's quarter-bound French blue cloth spine over periwinkle paper-covered boards, spine stamped in silver. Superb, a virtually pristine copy, square, clean, and tight. Time 100. "The plot of Infinite Jest—which revolves around, among other things, a lost, unwatchably beautiful art film and a conspiracy among wheelchair-bound Quebecois secessionists—is decidedly secondary to the painfully funny dialogue and Wallace's endlessly rich ruminations and speculations on addiction, entertainment, art, life and, of course, tennis." (Time 100) To help readers slice through the novel's dense thickets of prose, Wallace included 98 pages of "Notes & Errata." The title is from Hamlet, Act V, Scene 1, in which Hamlet holds the skull of the court jester,… Read More

London: Cassell, 1911. First Edition. Hardcover. Near Fine+. First Printing of the first Father Brown book, a "cornerstone volume" (Pronzini & Muller ) and "one of the finest volumes of detective short stories ever written" (Queen), one of 5,000 copies. Crown 8vo (189 x 123mm): [8],336pp, with frontispiece and seven further plates tipped in. Publisher's red cloth, spine and upper cover lettered in gilt, older quarter-leather slipcase with chemise (faded at spine panel and edges). An excellent example, pages and plates clean and fresh (but fly-leaf offset), tightly bound with bright gilt. Sullivan A24. Queen (Detective Short Story), p. 21. Barzun and Taylor (Catalogue of Crime) 3677. Hubin I, p. 289. Queen's Quorum 47. Barzun and Taylor (Fifty Classics of Crime) 3. Pronzini & Muller, p. 133. ("It contains more classic short stories than almost any other mystery collection before or since. . . . if Father Brown lacks the colorful eccentricities of Sherlock Holmes, if his solutions are often more… Read More

New York: Saturday Review Press / E. P. Dutton, 1974. First Printing. Hardcover. As New/As New. First Edition (so stated), a virtually flawless copy of this amusing collaboration. Publisher's oatmeal colored quarter-cloth over orange paper-covered boards, spine lettered in orange; dust jacket designed by Edward Gorey. Apparently a review copy, with price ($5.95) and date of publication (5/74) stamped on front fly-leaf. Toledano B58b. Riffs on the lives of famous composers, painters, poets, and performers, including Jane Austen, Emily Dickinson, Mary Shelley, Oscar Wilde, Beethoven, and Chopin. Howard Moss was poetry editor of the New Yorker for almost forty years. N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition, with dust jackets 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 Online Booksellers Association, and we… Read More

A Paris: Chez Charles Osmont, ruë Saint Jacques, à l'Ecu de France, 1716. Early Reprint. Full Calf. Fine. New, revised and enlarged edition (Augmentée de la Culture des Melons, de la maniere de taillerles Arbres Friutiers, d'in Dictionnaire des termes dont fe fervent les Jardiniers en parlant des Arbres, & d'une Table des Matieres), of the most famous French manual on gardening. Complete in two quarto volumes. [8],16,23[i. e., 32],[8],666[84 misnumbered 80],[4], with 12 copper-engraved plates (2 folding), mostly of pruning patterns and tools; [12],562,[30]pp, with one plate and woodcuts in text of both volumes. Each section (six main books on fruit and kitchen gardens, treatise on oranges and reflection on agriculture) begins with a large engraved vignette and historiated initial. Contemporary speckled calf, spine richly gilt in six compartments between raised bands, brown morocco lettering piece gilt, edges speckled red, plain period end papers, title page with woodcut vignette. A superb set,… Read More

London: printed, for A. Bettesworth in Pater noster Row, & J. Clarke under the Royal Exchange, 1723. Full Calf. Very Good+. Unusually scarce first edition of Hewett's book of tables for calculating simple interest, brokerage commissions, and time, entirely engraved throughout by John Pine. Squarish 8vo (149 x 124mm): [64]pp, with engraved frontispiece and armorial vignette. Full calf, spine in five compartments divided by gilt-ruled raised bands, covers with double gilt line border. There appear two extraordinary manuscript ex-libris entries, each filling an entire page: to verso of frontispiece, in elegant calligraphic flourishes, is written "John / Townsend / Newbury / Berks / 1775" and to verso of title page, in black letter, appears "Frederic Calder [?] / Donnington / near Newbury Berks / England." Tightly bound and clean and unmarked throughout, excepting end sheets, which are rubbed and stained, those to rear heavily so. Still, an exceptional survival. Goldsmiths' 6233. Hanson 3247. BM 8533.… Read More

London: Published by John Murray, 1853. First Edition. Morocco. Fine. First Edition of this truly fascinating account, important for its descriptions of the manners, customs, and culture of the Inuit and other native tribes, particularly the Chukchi (Tuski) people. Thick 8vo: xv,[1],417,[1]pp, with 4 full-page tinted lithographs (by J. Brandard after P. Skill), 3 line drawings (2 full-page), 4 woodcut vignettes, and folding partially colored lithographed map. Bound without half-title. Contemporary elaborately paneled (in gilt and blind) full green morocco, ornate gilt central ornament on upper cover, richly gilt spine in compartments between five raised bands; all edges gilt, pale yellow end papers, brown silk page marker. Elegantly inscribed in fountain pen to front fly-leaf: [To] "Alfred F. A. Hanbury Tracy [presumably a close relation of the British politician Frederick Stephen Archibald Hanbury-Tracy, 1848-1906] / with the best wishes / of his affectionate friend / John Hetherington / on his… Read More

Paris: Editions Albert Lévy, Librairie Centrale des Beaux-Arts, 2, rue de l'Echelle, 1926. Quarter-Cloth. Near Fine+. First Edition, complete in two volumes, of this treatise on Moroccan domestic architecture, as interpreted by Gallotti and his collaborators. Text in French. Royal 8vo (250 x 193mm): viii,120,[8]x; 94,[8]pp, with 136 plates in heliogravure from photographs by Lucien Vogel and others and 157 line drawings by Albert Laprade. Publisher's saffron yellow percaline-backed paper-covered boards, front covers with architectural vignette in silver gilt, spines lettered in silver, pale blue end papers, fore- and bottom edges uncut. A handsome set, securely bound and clean throughout. Revue de l'histoire des colonies françaises, Vol. 19, No. 80 (March-April 1931), pp. 201-202. The French architect Albert Laprade helped design two of Morocco's best known twentieth-century monuments: the French Protectorate Residence (résidence générale), in Rabat, and the New Medina (Quartier des Habous), in… Read More

London: Edward Arnold, 1922. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine. First Impression of Aston's key work on isotopes, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1922. 8vo: viii,152pp, with 4 halftone plates and numerous tables and line drawings in the text. Publisher's original dark blue cloth, covers paneled in blind, spine lettered in gilt. A beautiful copy, uncommon in such nice condition. Fine, except for light offsetting to end papers and slightly bumped spine ends. Appears unread. Judging from auction records, never issued in dust jacket. Norman 77. PMM 412. Gillispie, pp. 320-22. Aston, building on the work of J. J. Thomson at Cambridge, developed modern mass spectrograph technology to investigate inconsistencies in the atomic weights of elements, discovering that "the elements are composed of atoms of varying mass, the atomic weight of an element being the average of those atoms comprising it.... [Frederick] Soddy had coined the term isotopes for elements that are ‘homogenous in chemical… Read More

London: Constable [through 1924], 1923. First Edition thus. Decorative Cloth. Fine-. Limited Edition (one of only 750 copies printed) of Melville's eighth book, first published in serial form in Putnam's Monthly magazine between July 1854 and March 1855, then in book form by G. P. Putnam & Co., in March, 1855. Royal 8vo (226 x 142mm): x,225,[1]pp. Publisher's slate-blue cloth, spine and covers paneled in blind, spine lettered in gilt, top edge gilt, fore- and bottom edges untrimmed, coated maroon end papers, title page in French blue and black. An excellent, virtually pristine example (small blank label to fly leaf, address label to rear end paper), tightly bound and crisp throughout. BAL 13680. Volume XI of the 16-volume Works of Herman Melville, Standard Edition, publication of which marked a key event in the Melville revival of the 1920s, rescuing the neglected writer from obscurity and securing him a prominent place in the American literary canon. Israel Potter is loosely based on a pamphlet… Read More

Leipzig: Karl Baedeker, Publisher, [various]. [various]. Stamped Cloth. Near Fine+. An excellent 3-volume set (each volume issued separately) of early editions for the traveler wanting a handy panoramic survey of the entire country, in matching bindings. Foolscap 8vo (158 x 99mm): lxviii,698, with 36 maps, 45 plans, and panorama of the Alps; lxxvi,470, with 14 maps, 49 plans, table of coats of arms of the Popes since 1417, panorama, view of Forum Romanum and 14pp street index of Rome; lvi,508pp, with 30 maps and 34 plans. Publisher's red flexible cloth stamped in blind and gilt, all edges marbled. Gilt lettering bright; bindings clean, square and tight; maps properly folded and mostly free of tears. All are unusually well-preserved copies, Fine, fresh, and bright but for owner's signature to front paste-down and title page of vol. 1; lightly rubbed spine ends of vol. III. Northern: Fourteenth Remodeled Edition (1913). Light underlining in pencil (erasable) to early pages, else fresh and bright; one… Read More