Rare books from Peter Harrington

London: Jonathan Cape,, 1953. Inscribed by the author to his friend and colleague First edition, first impression, in the first issue dust jacket, presentation copy, inscribed by the author, "To Tony, Read & Burn, Ian". This is a wonderful association copy: the recipient was his friend Anthony Kemsley (later to become Sir Anthony Berry), the youngest son of Viscount Kemsley, a significant figure in Fleming's life. Kemsley, owner of The Sunday Times among others, offered Fleming a job as foreign news manager of Kemsley Newspapers after the war, and enabled him to write the Bond novels by allowing an unusual clause in Fleming's contract: Fleming would take January and February as his annual paid leave, during which time he worked on his novels at Goldeneye, on Jamaica's north shore; Casino Royale was completed over this period in 1952. Fleming sometimes "ordered a correspondent to change his name if he did not like it. His view was that, generally speaking, all foreign correspondents should have… Read More

4 January 1943 - 26 March 1945. This is all far back, when Dean was not the way he is today, when he was a young jailkid shrouded in mystery A collection of autograph and typescript letters from a teenage Neal Cassady, Beat icon, and the model for Dean Moriarty in On the Road. The letters were all written to Cassady's friend and mentor, Justin Brierly, a significant number while Cassady was serving a sentence at the Colorado State Reformatory. They are the earliest surviving Cassady letters known, five of which remain unpublished. The archive also likely constitutes the largest such collection in private hands. On the Road opens with the narrator's report of "Dean"'s legendary "jailkid" origins: "First reports of him came to me through Chad King, who'd shown me a few letters from him written in a New Mexico reform school. I was tremendously interested in the letters because they so naively and sweetly asked Chad to teach him all about Nietzsche and all the wonderful intellectual things that Chad… Read More

1926. Original artwork for Winnie-the-Pooh depicting Christopher Robin, Piglet, and Pooh The two concluding illustrations from chapter five of Winnie-the-Pooh ("In which Piglet meets a Heffalump") and both published on page 68 of the original 1926 Methuen edition. The first drawing shows Christopher Robin eagerly jumping by a concerned Piglet (to accompany the text "'Well,' said Christopher Robin, putting on his shoes...") The second drawing shows Winnie-the-Pooh with his head stuck in a jar of honey (to accompany the text "Crash went the Heffalump's head against the tree-root...") E. H. Shepard sold his original drawings for Winnie-the-Pooh at an exhibition held at The Sporting Gallery, Covent Garden, London, 26 November to 21 December 1926. The pairing of these two drawings, sold together, was presumably the artist's. As usual with Shepard's drawings, the published versions are smaller than originally drawn and fine detail in the original tends to be lost. The buttons on Piglet's top, Christopher… Read More

Korea: Liangzhe zhuanyunsi,, [c.1087]. Korean woodblock printing of the 11th century An exceptionally rare and well-preserved 11th-century testament to the vital role of print in spreading Buddhist thought throughout East Asia. This fascicle, from a major Chinese-language critical edition of the Flower Garland Sutra (Huayan Buddhism's foundational text), was printed in Korea from blocks engraved in Hangzhou, China. Collections of different fascicles are found institutionally in East Asia; this is the only example traced in commerce in the West. Following the arrival of Buddhism in China in the first century CE, practitioners innovated a number of Sinicized traditions including the Huayan school, one of the "most philosophically interesting and historically influential Buddhist schools" (Stanford Enyclopedia of Philosophy). Its leading text, the Flower Garland Sutra (Avatamsakasutra), "presents a dizzyingly complex and intricate vision of reality as thoroughly 'interpenetrating', of Buddhahood as… Read More

[Turkey: , 1955]. Fleming surveys the world of international intelligence A significant Fleming manuscript, his notebook filled with observations, questions, and ideas from his observation of the 23rd annual conference for the International Criminal Police Commission in Turkey, gathering material which had a clear influence on From Russia, With Love and the remainder of the Bond series. The manuscript was studied and cited by Pearson in his biography of Fleming. The 1955 conference of the ICPC - the precursor to Interpol - drew together government representatives, agents, and related stakeholders from around the world. Fleming was sent to cover the conference for the Sunday Times, travelling in the company of Sir Ronald Howe, the Assistant Commissioner of Scotland Yard, and was introduced to a number of important businessmen and government officials. "The elaborately embossed blue pads which the Turks had distributed were ideal for a thriller-writer's notes and queries, and he brought several pages… Read More

[London:] Charles Dickens & Evans, Crystal Palace Press,, 1877. Collins's own highly annotated dramatisation of his most successful work The author's own copy, extensively annotated by him throughout and with his ownership inscription on the preserved front wrapper. It offers an extraordinary glimpse into Collins's perceptions of his most celebrated and enduring work, as well as an insight into his working process. Such material by one of the major Victorian novelists rarely appears on the market. The Moonstone was originally serialized in Charles Dickens's All the Year Round magazine between 4 January and 8 August 1868 and published in book form in July 1868, just before the final four serial numbers appeared. The first edition was an immediate hit and sold out within two months. The stage version was performed at the Royal Olympic Theatre from 17 September to 17 November 1877. The production failed to match the novel's success, and both Henry Neville (playing Franklin Blake) and Laura Seymour… Read More

New York: Castelli Graphics and Multiples, Inc.,, 1972. Signed by Warhol: one of ten prints from the Mao portfolio Edition of 250. Signed in ballpoint pen to verso lower left by Warhol, stamp numbered lower right, rubber stamp of the printer, Styria Studio, Inc., New York to lower right. One of ten prints from Warhol's iconic Mao portfolio. The image derives from a photograph of the book cover of Quotations of Chairman Mao Tse-Tung. Screenprint on Beckett High White wove paper: Sheet size: 91 x 91.2 cm. Signature and numbering affected by light skinning from previously being open to the elements, not affecting the recto, otherwise a bright copy without the usual craquelure. Feldman & Schellmann II.92.

Frankfurt & Oppenheim: Erasmus Kempffer [and many others],, 1601-33. A monument of early travel literature in a contemporary vellum binding First or second Latin editions; an unusually substantial set of the Small Voyages, one of the most magnificent voyage anthologies published in the Age of Discovery. The greatest single collection of early voyages to the East Indies, it also holds a wealth of cartographical and visual material on Africa, India, America, South Asia, and the Middle East, including the first Latin translation of Gasparo Balbi's travelogue, Viaggio dell' Indie Orientali. Within the genre of cosmographic literature, the beautiful engravings are the most distinctive feature of the Small Voyages. In contrast to Ramusio's Navigationi et Viaggi, Hakluyt's Principall Navigations, and Thevet's Cosmographie Universelle, "the size, number, and quality of the engravings in the De Bry volumes were unprecedented … Almost overnight the collection became indispensable for Europeans who wanted to… Read More

Paris: Galerie Louise Leiris,, 1962. One of approximately 20 artist's proofs aside from the edition of 50. Signed in pencil lower right by Picasso, inscribed epreuve d'artiste lower left. Printed by Arnéra, Vallauris. This proof has an extra colour of light pink compared to the editioned run of fifty. Linocut in grey, yellow, red, light blue, dark purple and light pink printed from two blocks on velin d'Arches watermarked paper. Image size 34.6 x 27 cm. Sheet size 62 x 44.5 cm. Framed size: 70 x 60 cm. Excellent condition. Presented in a white gold leaf frame with UV preventive acrylic glazing. Bloch 1074 ; Baer 1283; Kramer 74.

London: Arthur L. Humphreys,, 1903. Legendarily rare A black tulip of the Churchill canon, surviving in only a handful of copies, long recognized by even the most dedicated Churchill collectors as "virtually impossible to acquire" (Langworth, p. 65). This is the second and only realistically obtainable edition. Mr. Brodrick's Army begins with Churchill's Commons speech on the New Army Scheme of 13 May 1901, his first major set-piece address. "I took six weeks to prepare this speech, and learnt it so thoroughly off by heart that it hardly mattered where I began it or how I turned it". This volume gathers together his interventions in opposition to St John Brodrick's plans for increased military spending - "the very subject that had toppled his father" (Woods, p. 65). The first edition was minutely printed in simple self-wrappers; the second was printed with wide margins, bound in bright wrappers, and is altogether rather handsome. "Humphreys initially chose a cheaper production format in order to… Read More

Augsburg: Erhard Ratdolt, 2 Jan., 1490 & 27 Nov. (or 6 Oct.?) 1488. Two scarce astronomical texts in an attractive contemporary binding First editions of both works, each printed by Erhard Ratdolt, bound together in a contemporary vellum wrapper. Ratdolt was the greatest scientific printer of the incunable period, producing elegant and accurate texts of the most important astronomers and mathematicians of his time. The first text here is by Regiomontanus, an early practitioner of modern observational astronomy and an influence on Copernicus, who owned a copy of this book. It is a series of tables for calculating the positions of celestial bodies, a major advance in accuracy over earlier attempts such as the Alfonsine Tables. The Regiomontanus was edited by his former pupil Johannes Angelus (Johann Engel), who had studied under him in Vienna. He is also the author of the second work here, a profusely illustrated guide to the composition of horoscopes which functions as a visual dictionary of… Read More

London: Editions Alecto,, 1965. Edition of 85. Each print signed, numbered and dated in pencil by Hockney. Publisher's chop mark to lower left and stamp to lower right verso. The prints were Hockney's idea of an instant art collection pre-packaged in appropriate frames for a Hollywood starlet. Printed by Kenneth Tyler at Gemini Ltd in Los Angeles. 6 original lithograph in colours from stones and aluminium plates with crayon and tusche on Rives BFK mould made paper. Sheet sizes: 76 x 51 cm. Framed sizes: 77.5 x 57.3 mm. A couple with some very minor rubbing to extreme edges, otherwise in excellent condition. Presented in acrylic boxed frames. Tokyo 46; SAC 46.

1962. One of few significant manuscripts in private hands Undoubtedly one of the very last pieces of significant Fleming manuscript material outside the Lilly Library's Fleming collection. Fleming made these notes during his visit to Japan in 1961. He returned to Japan with the express purpose of making a trip that he could funnel into a Bond story. He wrote to his friend Richard Hughes in advance with a detailed itinerary listing all the things they would need to see for the novel: "After a couple of days in Tokyo, I would like us to take the most luxurious modern train down south to the inland sea... I would also like to see pearl girls diving - my heroine will be a beautiful girl who has learned to speak English working on an underwater film in Hollywood - and hot baths, a live volcano for suicides, and any terrifying manifestation of the horrific Japan" (Pearson). Fleming kept this notebook while jaunting around the hottest spots of Japan with Hughes. Along with hotel and restaurant addresses,… Read More

London: printed for, and sold by W. Chetwood, at Cato's-Head, in Russel-Street, Covent-Garden; and T. Edling, at the Prince's-Arms over-against Exerter-Change [sic] in the Strand, MDDCXXI., [sic, for 1722]. One of the great rarities of English literature First edition, one of the rarest first editions of the few enduringly popular novels of the 18th century, missing from many significant collections. The first edition was published - despite the garbled date given in the imprint - on 27 January 1722. Two more editions followed in the same year. With Moll Flanders and his later "fortunate mistress" Roxana, "indisputably Defoe has created two of the strongest and most important women characters in the history of literature" (ODNB). "The first English author to write without imitating or adapting foreign works,... to devise for himself an artistic form which is perhaps without precedent... is Daniel Defoe, father of the English novel" (James Joyce, Daniel Defoe, ed. and trans. J. Prescott, Buffalo… Read More

Gouda: Justus of Hoeve,, 1689. Church versus state Rare first edition of Locke's first separately published work, his Letter on Toleration, in which he advocates the separation of church and state. "In winter 1685-6 Locke interrupted his labours on the Essay to write another, shorter work. Louis XIV had revoked the edict of Nantes in October, removing the last remnants of toleration for the French protestants. The Epistola de tolerantia was written after Locke returned from Cleves about the beginning of November. It was addressed to Limborch, who kept the manuscript and subsequently arranged for it to be printed. The Latin text was published anonymously at Gouda in April 1689, two months after Locke had returned to England. The Epistola develops further the theory of toleration already put forward in the Essay Concerning Toleration of 1667 [written in 1667, but not published until 1876]. Locke advocated the complete separation of church and state: states exist only to preserve their members' civil… Read More