Little Guzzy (author of Helen's Babies) by Habberton, John - 1878

Hardback. Very Good. Cornish Brothers, Birmingham, 1880, [first edition, privately printed]; 8vo, pp [viii], (9)-577; good later binding in half brown pigskin, green marbled boards and end papers, spine decorated gilt and with raised bands, top edge gilt; lacks half title; slight browning or dust marking in places but nevertheless a very good copy of what was to become a minor Victorian classic, the story set in the time of Charles I. Shorthouse, 1834-1903, came from a Quaker manufacturing family in Birmingham (actually Edgbaston), duly entering the family business. However, he and his wife moved to the Church of England in 1861 identifying themselves with the "Oxford School of High Churchmen". He also began to suffer from epilepsy and duly left his industrial work to write, spending the decade to about 1876 working on "John Inglesant". As he was unable to interest a publisher Shorthouse decided to have the book printed on his own account and it appeared in 1880 in a… Read More

Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994. Signed on the title page by Umberto Eco. First edition / First printing. Green paper spine, blue paper-covered boards. Very fine in very fine dust jacket.

Los Angeles: Sun & Moon Press, 1986. Signed by the author on the title page. First edition / First printing. Navy cloth. As New. Very fine in very fine dust jacket. The second book in the New York Trilogy.

Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1985. Inscribed by the author: Robertson Davies for Viola Sullivan. First edition / First printing. Black cloth spine, brown paper-covered boards. Fine in about fine dust jacket with edge-wear that is common to this title.

Paris: NP. A lovely clean crisp hard to hard first edition copy in good condition, expected age toning to pages and textblock. Mild rubbing, more pronounced at hinges and extremities. Brown cloth with black lettering. Contains six very graphic sexual scenes by the erotic artist, Jack Craig. . Good. Hardcover. 1st Edition. 1936.

316+[6 ad] pages. Small octavo (7 3/4" x 5 1/2") bound in original publisher's black cloth with silver lettering to spine and cover in original jacket. Has the "A" on the title verso. First edition. Wright wrote as a critic and journalist until 1923, when he became ill from what was given out as overwork, but was in reality a secret drug addiction, according to John Loughery's biography Alias S.S. Van Dine. His doctor confined him to bed (supposedly because of a heart ailment, but actually because of a cocaine addiction) for more than two years. In frustration and boredom, he began collecting and studying thousands of volumes of crime and detection. In 1926 this paid off with the publication of his first S. S. Van Dine novel, The Benson Murder Case. Wright took his pseudonym from the abbreviation of "steamship" and from Van Dine, which he claimed was an old family name. Wright wrote a series of short stories for Warner Brothers film studio in the early 1930s. These stories were used as the basis for a… Read More

Alexandria, Va: Cottom and Stewart, 1801. Hardcover. Very Good. Full imprint: "Alexandria: Printed by Cottom and Stewart, for Robert and John Gray, Alexandria; and for Conrad and Co., Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington City." 2 volumes: 256, 248 p.; 18 cm. 12mo. Contemporary full calf with six spine compartments between gilt rules. Gilt-tooled title on red morocco spine label in second compartment of each volume. Gilt-tooled volume number in fourth compartment of each volume with gilt-tooled decoration in the first, third, and fifth compartments. All page edges yellow. This is the First American edition, after the British 1799 edition. Each volume has a label on the front fixed endpaper indicating that the volumes were given in 1855 to the Union Philosophical Society of Dickinson College by Samuel M. Dickson (1837-1866) and John W. Cornelius (1835-1894), graduates of the college who became Methodist ministers. Dickinson College Library oval stamp also on front fixed endpapers and embossed… Read More

New York: The Armchair Detective, 1991. Signed by Richard Condon on the colophon. Limited Edition / First Printing. Number 87 0f 100 copies. Maroon cloth in a Maroon cloth slipcase Very fine in a very fine slipcase. With a new introduction by Richard Condon. Basis for the 1962 John Frankenheimer film, starring Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, Janet Leigh, and Angela Lansbury.

London: Faber & Faber, 2001. Signed on the title page by Orhan Pamuk. First edition / First printing. The British edition is the correct first English language edition. Illustrated wrappers. Very fine in very fine dust jacket. A paperbound original in a dust jacket. Pamuk was the 2006 Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. Winner of the IMPAC Dublin Award in 2003.

London: Christopher Sandford [The Golden Cockerel Press], 1949. Book. Near Fine. Hardcover. Red and yellow buckram with red and gilt cover illustration and gilt title on spine. Engraved title page and 10 (8 full-page.) engravings by John Buckland Wright, all protected by tissue guards. The book was designed, produced and published by Christopher Sandiford [for the Golden Cockerel Press]. Number 224 of a limited edition of 500 copies. Spine trifle faded. 48 pp., 23,2 x 15 cm. .