Search Results: Fiction from Wykeham Books

Chatto & Windus Lltd, London, first edition, 1987. Cloth, 8vo, 23 cm,. [2], [601] pp. From the blurb: "Many years ago Gerard Hernshaw and his friends 'commissioned' one of their number to write a political book. Time passes and opinions change. Why should we go on supporting a book we detest? Rose Curtland asks. The brotherhood of Western intellectuals versus the book of history? Jenkin Riderhood suggests. The theft of a wife further embroils the situation. Moral indignation must be separated from political disagreement". Tamar Hernshaw has a different trouble and a terrible secret. Can one die of shame? In another quarter a suicide pact seems the solution. Duncan Cambus thinks that since it is a tragedy, someone must die. Someone dies. Rose, who has gone on loving without hope, at least deserves a reward. Contents slightly agetoned, otherwise Good in a dustwrapper which has a faded spine-panel, foxing to the inside flaps, and spotting and marks to the inside face.

Printed for J. and F. Rivington ..., London, seventh edition, 1774. Contemporary calf, red and black lettering pieces, gilt decoration, 8vo, 17.5 cm. 395 pp, frontispiece plate. A single volume from the set. Unidentified armorial bookplate with "Wimbledon" added in manuscript on front pastedown endpaper, covers rubbed and worn but binding remains firm with small loss to spine-ends, small piece lost from fore-edge margin of p 45/46 (not affecting text) closed tear to pp 245/6.

Chatto & Windus Ltd, The Hogarth Press, London, first edition, 1985. Cloth, 8vo, 21 cm,. [2], 522 pp. From the blurb: "Stuart Cuno has decided to become good. Not believing in God, he invents his own methods, which include celibacy, chastity and the abandonment of a promising academic career. Interfering friends and relations question his sincerity, his sanity and his motives. Stuart's step-brother Edward Baitram is tormented by guilt because he has, he believes, killed his best friend. He dreams sometimes of redemption, sometimes of suicide. Edward is sent on a 'journey to the underworld' to find his natural father, the painter Jesse Baitram, whom he has not seen since childhood. He discovers a father strangely different from his expectations, and succumbs to an enchantment quite unlike the redemptive cure for which he has been seeking; and meets perhaps the one person in the world who has the power to forgive him. Meanwhile Stuart's moral apprenticeship is causing nothing… Read More

Chatto & Windus, London, first edition, 1993. Cloth, 8vo,. [4], 472 pp. From the blurb: "The Green Knight. In a small circle of friends in London, disturbing changes are taking place. Lucas Graffe, a reclusive academic, kills a man in self-defence, and disappears immediately after the trial, leaving his brother; the charismatic actor Clement Graffe, tortured by his absence. Their friend Bellamy James rids himself of all ties and possessions, even giving away his beloved dog. Yearning for simplicity and purification, he prepares himself for a monastic life. And outside ‘Clifton', the house where the widowed Louise Anderson lives with her three daughters, a strange man is watching. Lucas finally returns, and during his reunion with his brother they receive a … Near Very Good in slightly creased else Near Very Good dustwrapper. Clippings of two contemporary reviews laid in.

Chatto & Windus Ltd, London, first edition, 1995. Cloth, 8vo, 25 cm,. [2], 249 pp. From the blurb: "Edward Lannion, the young master of Hatting Hall, is about to marry Marian Berran. At Penndean nearby, preparations are underway for the wedding, overseen by an anxious Benet. Family and friends gather, the night is warm and clear, the wedding guests wander in the grounds and under the stars. Then occurs a most remarkable event. Iris Murdoch's new novel is a fast-moving drama with a rich cast of characters: Owen, the eccentric painter; Mildred, the Holy Woman; Tuan, the mystery boy; Rosalind, Marian's younger sister, and not least, with his own secret thoughts, Edward Lannion himself. These friends and lovers are forced to make new and surprising choices. And Jackson, an enigmatic figure watching over them all, has to make his own obscure and agonising decisions. Spine a trifle cocked, otherwise Very Good in Very Good dustwrapper.

Nan A. Talese, New York, later (US) impression, 2006. Cloth-backed boards, 8vo, 22 cm,. 213, [3] pp,. From the blurb - "A tour de force in the tradition of Hawksmoor and Chatterton, Peter Ackroyd' s new novel of deceit and betrayal is a witty reimagining of a great nineteenth-century Shakespeare forgery. Charles and Mary Lamb, who will achieve lasting fame as the authors of Tales from Shakespeare for children, are still living at their parents' home. Charles, an aspiring writer bored stiff by his job as a clerk at the East India Company, enjoys a drink or three too many each night at the local pub. His sister, Mary, is trapped in domesticity, caring for her ailing, dotty father and her maddening mother. The siblings' enchantment with Shakespeare provides a much-needed escape, and they delight in reading and quoting the great bard. When William Ireland, an ambitious young antiquarian bookseller, comes into their lives claiming to possess a “lost” Shakespearean play, the… Read More

Chez les marchands de nouveautés, Paris, nouvelle édition, large paper, n.d. [but 19th century]. Limited edition of 10 numbered copies "sur papier de chine". 2 vols, later cloth, top edges gilt, 8vo, with portfolio of plates unbound as issued in matching cloth portfolio, 8vo, old leather spine-labels (mis-spelling the author as 'Gouvray'), 24 cm,. 436 + 491 pp + 48 plates. Rare. We have not found a date for this item, nor any auction record, nor any mention in the bibliographies. (A copy of what appears to be the same edition, but one of 50 "sur papier de Hollande", and without accompanying plates, has been advertised for sale online). The printer is given as: "Imprimerie Générale de Chatillon-sur-Seine - A. Pichat". Louvet was a bookseller's clerk and the heroine of his licentious novel is believed to be based on his own wife, who had been divorced from a prominent jeweller following the exposure of her liason with Louvet. The… Read More

Clarendon Press, Oxford, second editions, 1926. 5 volumes, cloth, gilt cover-device, 8vo, 23 cm,. various paginations, maps, plans, facs. Chapman's edition remains one of the most sought-after. The set comprises: I. Sense and Sensibility; II. Pride and Prejudice; III. Mansfield Park; IV. Emma; V. Northanger Abbey and Persuasion. Each volume of the Novels has a reproduction of the original title-page and carefully chosen illustrations chiefly from contemporary sources such as Ackermann's Repository. Chapman provides an Introduction and notes to the text for each Novel. Each volume also includes an Index of Characters and three Appendixes, some of which are substantial such as Chapman's Essay on Miss Austen's English in the first volume. Top edges duststained and spines faded, some scuffs to rear boards, a few pages of Pride and Prejudice carelessly opened with slight tears to the deckle edges, otherwise a Good set.

Chatto and Windus lotd, London, first edition, 1980. Cloth, 8vo, 21 cm,. [2], 505 pp. From the blurb: "This is a story about honour and innocence, lost and found, and about the vicissitudes of a deep friendship between two women. Guy Openshaw, dying, begs his wife Gertrude to remarry and be happy after he has gone, but Gertrude feels this to be impossible. She is consoled by the arrival, fresh from years in a convent, of her old college friend, Anne Cavidge, who is returning to the world: 'Mary Magdalene in reverse,' says Gertrude as she decks Anne with jewels. Will they settle down together and 'do virtuous things', now that Gertrude is a rich benevolent widow? Gertrude is surrounded with love, and also with eligible single men, among them the Count, son of a Polish exile. The Count, obsessively reliving his father's patriotic anguish, is a Conscript in the army of duty and in the imaginary forces of a “true Poland”. A soldier of a very different sort is Tim… Read More

Georg Olms Verlag, Hildesheim, 1969 reprint of 1893 edition. 10 vols, cloth, gilt cover title, 8vo,. xxii, 4705 pp, 38 ills. A reprint of the 1893 edition. With a bibliographical note by Edgar Mertner, The set comprises: v. 1. Moral tales; v.2. Popular tales; v.3. Belinda; v.4. Castle Rackrent; Irish bulls. Ennui, a tale of fashionable life; v.5. Manoeuvring; Almeria; and Vivian; tales of fashinable life; v.6. The absentee, a tale of fashionable life; madame de Fleury; Emilie de Coulanges; The modern Griselda; v.7. Patronage; v.8. Patronage (concluded); Comic dramas; Leonora; and Letters; v.9. Harrington; Thoughts on bores; and Ormond; v.10. Helen. Fine set.