Search Results: Titles starting with K from Ash Rare Books

London : Richards Press, (1940). First edition. "Mr. Bramah records the honey-tongued raconteur's latest stories. They have all the inimitable qualities of the earlier collections ... the most delicate wit, and the shrewdest of observations on human life" (Daily News, 20th March 1940). "Needs no description ... as good as ever, and Mr. Bramah's genius with the idiom has not failed" (Illustrated London News, 20th April 1940). The last of the five collections of Kai Lung stories published in Bramah's lifetime - a series begun forty years earlier. Crown 8vo (20cm). 320 + 16pp publisher's catalogue. Original mustard cloth, lettered and decorated in black; endpapers slightly tanned, but a very good, bright and sound copy indeed in the dust-jacket by Harold Hookway Cowles (1896-1987) - the jacket also very good, with just minor wear at head, a couple of nicks and short tears to folds, with a suggestion of mild creasing and a few faint marks to the rear panel. Small label of Brewers Bookshop, Hong Kong,… Read More

London : Jonathan Cape, (1966). First British edition. Wolfe's first collection - twenty-two essays and half a dozen caricatures. An entirely new voice in journalism skyrockets metaphors, neologisms, hip-talk and learned reference into the pursuit of the form and style of the new. Includes "The Fifth Beatle", "The First Tycoon of Teen", "The Last American Hero", "The Girl of the Year", "The Nanny Mafia", "A Sunday Kind of Love", "The Woman Who Has Everything", "Why Doormen Hate Volkswagens", etc. First published in New York the previous year, but here in the period-defining dust-jacket by Jonathan Miller. Post 8vo (21cm). (xviii),(340),[iv]pp. Original pink boards, blocked and lettered in gilt; mild tanning of edges, but a very good copy in the dust-jacket - a touch sunned, with some very minor edge-wear and a single short tear, but also very good.

[London] : Fontana/Collins (1976). First paperback edition. A richly illustrated study of the Home Front 1939-1945, an extraordinary story told via posters, advertisements, cartoons, film-stills, propaganda photographs, ephemera and much else. With a foreword by Vera Lynn. Crown 4to (25cm). 256pp. Illustrations throughout. Original pictorial wrappers; some minor creasing, a few spots, but a good copy.

London : Cassell & Co., 1886. First edition : the first issue, with the various errors - "nine o'clock" for "twelve o'clock" in the first line of p.64, etc., without the numerals at the foot of the last page of text, and with the advertisements dated April 1886. David Balfour and a stolen inheritance - the classic adventure story converted into at least ten film and television versions between 1917 and 2005. "I just knew that this was what a story should be like. It was the model that was always in my head" (Hilary Mantel, interviewed in The Guardian, 19th November 2005). Crown 8vo (20cm). viii,311,[i] + 16pp advertisements. Folding coloured map. Original variant blue cloth; a little bruised, darkened and lightly worn; a few marks; slightly shaken and slack; a few leaves roughly opened and slightly nicked and chipped; a few internal marks and spots, but a good copy in the original cloth.

London : New Fiction Press, [1952]. First edition. The elusive final book of the third series - an explosion in an apartment block in Chicago - Hank investigates. Crown 8vo (18cm). 126,[ii]pp. Original pictorial stapled wrappers - a Reginald Heade blonde menace points her gun directly at the reader; some rubbing and light wear; occasional mild browning, but otherwise a very good copy. Just a single copy (British Library) located in major libraries worldwide. Williams & Holland 36.

London : T. V. Boardman & Co., (1947). First British edition. Marsha Cummings goes to stay with Aunt Celina in the Missouri hills - not expecting to become the storm centre of a double murder case. Earlier published under a different title in the USA. Crown 8vo (19cm). (160)pp. Original wrappers; some minor wear and slight creasing; small mark to upper cover, but a very good copy. TVB Books [40].

Sydney : Original Novels Foundation, (1953). First Australian edition. Big-game hunter and safari-guide Jake Farrow hired to track down a murderer - tangled woods, trackless swamps, dens of vice, and "the denser jungles of women's passions". First published in New York in 1951. No. 693 in the Phantom Books series. Foolscap 4to (19cm). [ii],5-129,[i]pp. Original pictorial wrappers - a copy of the original design for the American edition; a little worn and a little creased, but a good copy of a fragile production. Just two copies (Monash and State Library of Victoria) of this edition located in major libraries worldwide.

London : New Fiction Press, [1952]. First edition. Hank picks up an unusual hitchhiker en route to Chicago. Also features fellow reporter Sheila Lang. One of the seven books featured in the 1954 trial - and the subject of eighteen local authority destruction orders (Holland). Crown 8vo (19cm). (3)-128,[ii]pp. Original pictorial stapled wrappers - a baleful, wide-eyed and full-mouthed Heade redhead; an indifferent copy - a little worn, creased and split; lacking 4cm at foot of spine; a serviceable copy only. Just a single copy (British Library) located in major libraries worldwide. Williams & Holland 42.

New York : Dell Publishing Co., (1962). First paperback edition. "Sloe Burn was her name - if you can believe it". A Mike Shayne mystery, set in Miami. Dell 4476. Foolscap 8vo (17cm). 159,[i]pp. Original wrappers - a design by Robert McGinnis; all edges green; spine a little sunned; lightly rubbed and slightly creased, but otherwise a very good copy.

London : Hammond, Hammond & Co., (1949). First edition. The plane crash-landed in the desert in a raging sandstorm ..." – an Anatole Flique novel, copyrighted in 1948, published in January 1949 and apparently never published in the USA. "A crisp style and originality of handling that lifts it from the conventional American thriller" (Western Morning News, 16th March 1949).
Crown 8vo (20cm). (192)pp. Original blue-green boards, blocked and lettered in gilt; spine slightly sunned through jacket, but a very good and sound copy in the original Stein dust-jacket – a design in black, yellow, green, blue, pink and purple – just a little sunned, very lightly worn at tips, and just slightly nicked.

London : United Anglo-American Book Co., [ca.1948]. First British edition. Brilliant but clumsy and absent-minded doctor divines from some Rorschach tests that someone is about to be killed and that another guest of nurse Judy Ford will be the murderer. An interesting debut of a murder mystery from the American film producer and maker of Agatha Christie movies in the UK. Originally published by Knopf in New York in 1946. Crown 8vo (19cm). 176pp. Original pictorial stapled wrappers, presumably by John Pollack; a little wear and some minor creasing; short split at foot; a few internal spots and some mild tanning, but a very good copy of a scarce production. No copy of this edition found in any major library worldwide.

London : Utopian Publications, [ca.1945]. First paperback edition. First published by Nicholson & Watson in 1937. Crown 8vo (19cm). 96pp. Original pictorial stapled wrappers - a design by Rob; some creasing; lower wrapper lightly discoloured, with a short nick; some internal spotting and browning, but overall a very good copy. No copy of this edition traced in any major library worldwide.

London : Robert Sayer; John Bowles, and Carington Bowles, 1767. First edition. A handsome eighteenth-century road-atlas, showing the major roads and highways in scroll form, with mileages, local detail and directions to cross-roads, tables, etc. Based on earlier models, but the maps corrected, updated and with the addition of fresh material - not least two Hertfordshire roads (St. Alban's to Ware, and London to Hitchin) - "The two Roads laid down in this Plate were never before given in any Book of Roads whatever, but were purposely Measured and Engrav'd for this Work" - significant in that Kitchin was to move his base of operations to St. Alban's the following year. Long crown 4to (178 x 229mm). [8]pp + general map and 103 engraved strip-maps, printed back-to-back. Contemporary half calf, now neatly rebacked; marbled sides; corners a little rubbed; ink-splash to upper board; clean tear to one leaf neatly repaired; occasional mild tanning, but a very good copy of an attractive and interesting production.

Newcastle upon Tyne : Galloping Dog Press, 1985. First edition. A collection of eighteen poems and text sequences. Post 4to (27cm). [30]pp. Original cream wrappers, ruled, lettered and with two Halsey designs in black; very slightly dusty and bruised, but still a very good copy.

London : for J. Clark & R. Hett; E. Matthews, and R. Ford, 1726. First edition. A popular and much reprinted text, with very clear expositions and worked examples of the problems and principles, intended to lead on "to the higher speculations of the great Sir Isaac Newton and his followers". Dedicated to John Eames (1686-1744), recently elected to the Royal Society on Newton's recommendation and himself a serious scholar of physics. "The same perspicuity of thought and ease of expression which distinguish his other works running through the whole of this, I don't question but the world will meet with equal pleasure and satisfaction in the perusal" (from Eames's preface). Watts was perhaps better known as a hymn-writer, but was also the author of such works as "Logic, or The Right Use of Reason in the Enquiry After Truth" (1724), which became the standard text on logic at Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard and Yale. Post 8vo (196mm x 16mm), [2](xiv),(220)[xii]pp. Title-page in red and black, six folding… Read More

Boston : Houghton Mifflin Co., 1997. First edition. Hong Kong on the eve of the hand-over to China - Bunt Mullard struggles to adapt and a young woman disappears from his factory. Demy 8vo (22cm). [viii],(244),[iv]pp. Original quarter red cloth; red boards; lettered in gilt; a very good, bright, clean and sound copy in the Michaela Sullivan dust-jacket - equally very good.

London : Mellifont Press, [1957]. Second edition. "The papyrus taken from the tomb of Ra-Men, Prophet of Osiris, and said to be some original chapters from the Book of the Dead" has been stolen. First published in 1945. Mellifont M41. Crown 8vo (18cm). 96pp. Original pictorial stapled wrappers; lightly worn and slightly creased; small faint stain at upper corner, but a good copy. No copy of this edition located in any major library worldwide.