Search Results: Authors starting with P from Ash Rare Books

New York : Popular Library, (1952). First paperback edition. The London-born writer with a first novel - soldier home to London from the Great War, wife gone to the bad, daughter desperate, etc. First published in the USA as "White Crocus" in 1947, with a London edition in 1948. Popular Library 433. Foolscap 8vo (17cm). 223,[i]pp. Original pictorial wrappers - blonde, beret, bar; all edges green; some very minor rubbing; a few faint marks, but still a very good copy. Just two copies of this edition located in major libraries worldwide - neither in the UK.

New York : Pocket Books, (1949). First paperback edition. Dave Calder hired to solve the disappearance of a heavily insured violin. Owner then murdered - list of suspects reads like a telephone directory. First published in 1946. Foolscap 8vo (17cm). [viii],214,[ii]pp. Original pictorial wrappers - a stylish design by Harvey Whitney Kidder (1918-2001); all edges red; a touch of light wear; text slightly tanned, but otherwise a very good copy.

New York : Pocket Books, (1943). First paperback edition. "Rare Books and Raw Murder Mix". Originally published in 1938 - and made into a film starring Melvyn Douglas the same year, a sequence of events that led to the former reporter Harry Kurnitz becoming a witty and stylish Hollywood screenwriter (Hatari, Pretty Baby, Shadow of the Thin Man and many more). Foolscap 8vo (17cm). [iv],204pp. Original pictorial wrappers - a design by Leo Manso (1914-1993); all edges red; spine a little worn and lightly sunned; a reasonable copy.

London : Robert Hale, (1971). First edition. An intriguing examination from this prolific American author of the whole field of ghosts, hauntings, apparitions, manifestations, poltergeists, spirit voices, etc., with chapters on individual cases - "Borley Rectory", "The Dark Lady of Bognor Regis", "The Affair at Tedworth", etc. With a bibliography, index, etc. There would appear to be no equivalent American edition. Demy 8vo (23cm). (192)pp. Original violet boards, lettered in silver; top edge purple; very slightly bruised at foot, but otherwise a very good copy in the stylish C. R. Evans dust-jacket - price-clipped and just a touch sunned, but with only a hint of wear and also very good.

Cambridge : Macmillan & Co., 1861. First edition : one of the 2,000 copies of the first impression, with the roman rather than gothic half-title, just four notes on p.323, etc. The original appearance of a perennial favourite - close on 300 of the finest poems in the language from seventy-five or so poets - from Sir Thomas Wyatt, Marlowe and Shakespeare, to Shelley and Keats. With a preface and some extensive notes by Palgrave. Foolscap 8vo. [4],[viii],332pp. Engraved vignette by Charles Henry Jeens (1827-1879) after Thomas Woolner (1825-1892). Bound in a smart recent half crimson morocco, banded and gilt - retaining the original cloth gilt (the priced, earliest variant) at rear; a handful of spots, a small flaw to the final leaf, but a very good copy. Contemporary ownership inscription on title-page and some neat pencil markings to margins in places.

Cambridge : Macmillan & Co., 1861. First edition : mixed issue - with the four (rather than six) notes on p.323, obviously indicating the earlier printing, but with the gothic (rather than plain) half-title. The original appearance of a perennial favourite - close on 300 of the finest poems in the language from seventy-five or so poets - from Sir Thomas Wyatt, Marlowe and Shakespeare, to Shelley and Keats. With a preface and some extensive notes by Palgrave. Foolscap 8vo (162 x 103mm). [4],[viii],332pp. Engraved vignette by Charles Henry Jeens (1827-1879) after Thomas Woolner (1825-1892). Bound in an elegant recent half green morocco, banded and gilt - retaining the original cloth spine and upper panel (by Burn) at rear (the Carter "C" unpriced variant, although Carter makes a case of probability not certainty for the ordering of the variants); contrasting label (erroneously lettered "The Golden Treasures"); marbled sides; some occasional light spotting, but overall a very good copy. Contemporary… Read More

Leigh-on-Sea : Barrington Gray, (1955). A reprint of the original 1952 edition. Case studies of "decoyed, soul-haunted women impressed into the service of the abominable White Slavers". Crown 8vo (18cm). 128pp. Original pictorial stapled wrappers; wrappers worn and partly split; some creasing; a few slight nicks; staples rusting; text lightly tanned and slightly creased; a reasonable copy. Just a single copy (British Library) located in major libraries worldwide.

London : Victor Gollancz, 1984. First British edition. The second Vic Warshawski mystery - the unexplained death of her cousin. Post 8vo (21cm). [iv],252pp. Original red boards lettered in gilt; a very good copy indeed in the Gollancz yellow dust-jacket, lettered in black and cerise - price-clipped but also very good.

London : B. T. Batsford, 1954. First edition. A charming exploration of eighty Surrey gardens - the wild-life, the writers, and the gardens themselves. Demy 8vo (23cm). xii,(260)pp. Illustrations by William McLaren. Original cloth; a very good copy in the McLaren dust-jacket - lightly worn, but also very good. Small contemporary ownership inscription.

London : Parker Gallery, 1911. First edition : a variant with the Parker Gallery label pasted over the original T. H. Parker imprint. A catalogue of the collection of 287 prints, with extensive descriptive and historical notes, an index of artists and engravers, a general index, etc. - the whole forming an illuminating history of the British navy. With an interesting introduction by the naval historian, Commander Charles Napier Robinson (1849-1936). Foolscap 4to (22cm). xx,(340)pp. Frontispiece and eighteen plates. Original blue cloth, ruled in blind and lettered in gilt; just a touch rubbed; a few faint marks and some mild occasional spotting, but a bright and sound copy.

London : Pennyfields Press, (1986). First edition : one of 100 regular copies (of 120). A long poem in ten parts, with photo illustrations, notes, etc. Crown 4to (24cm). (32)pp. Original monochrome pictorial wrappers; very good.

London : Hutchinson & Co., 1907. First edition. Judge Parry and an extraordinary Scottish fantasy tale for children, in which a Swiss Seal umpiring a cricket match seems relatively normal. Illustrated by Harry Furniss (1854-1925). Foolscap 4to (21cm). viii,248pp. Illustrations. Original red cloth, pictorially blocked and lettered in gilt and black on upper cover and spine; all edges gilt; a little bruised; covers with some patches of fading and discolouration to edges; endpapers tanned; some internal marks and creases; but a good and still bright copy. Ownership inscription.

London : Cecil Palmer, (1927). First edition. An anatomist brings thirty years' experience of physical anthropology to a study of the mental and physical characteristics of early Londoners and their descendants, with perhaps even the evolution of a new head form. With chapters on the Palæolithic and Neolithic; the Beaker Folk; the Coming of the Celt; Caesar and London; London under the Roman; Picts, Scots and Saxons; Saxon London; London and the Danes, etc. Demy 8vo (23cm). 240pp. Original cloth; some very minor rubbing and a couple of marks, but a very good copy - clean and sound.

London : Macmillan & Co., 1885. First edition. The great stylist's philosophical novel of ancient Rome - the young Marius, secretary to the stoic Marcus Aurelius, pursues integrity and the aesthetic life. One of the most remarkable novels of the period, stretching the boundaries of fiction, and exploring questions of morality, religion, philosophy and gender. A key text of the modern movement, influencing authors as diverse as Hardy, Joyce, Wilde and Woolf. "We consciously looked to Pater for our philosophy" (W. B. Yeats). Two volumes. Post 8vo (202 x 132mm). [viii],260; [viii],246,[ii]pp. Bound in an elegant later (early twentieth-century) half blue morocco by Ramage; marbled sides and endpapers; top edges gilt; a few very faint signs of age and use, but a very good set of an uncommon book. With the pictorial book-room bookplate of Allan D. Macdonald and the later (1950) ownership inscription of David Fyfe Anderson (1904-1988), the Scottish obstetrician, in each volume.

London : Hodder & Stoughton, 1894. First edition. An extraordinary sequence of letters home to Scotland from Aniwa in the New Hebrides, dating from 1865 to 1889. Maggie Whitecross Paton was the second wife of the well-known missionary John G. Paton and the letters provide another slant on his own well-known autobiography. Post 8vo (21cm). (xiv),382,[ii]pp. Frontispiece. Twenty-three photo illustrations, many full-page. Coloured map. Original cloth gilt; slightly bruised and marked; a few minor spots; just a little strained, but a very good copy.

London : George Allen & Unwin, (1971). First edition : the hardback issue. His third collection of poetry - over forty poems, including "At Four O'Clock in the Morning", "Through All Your Abstract Reasoning", "Heroine Bitches", "Interruption at the Opera House", etc. "A sensibility profoundly aware of the ever-present possibility of the magical and the miraculous, as well as of the granite-hard realities. These are undiluted poems, beautifully calculated, informed - even in their darkest moments - with courage and hope" (Charles Causley). Demy 8vo (23cm). 64pp. Original black cloth, lettered in silver; top edge black; an excellent copy, bright, clean, and sound, in the Meg Rutherford dust-jacket - the jacket equally good, fresh, and unworn.

[London : John Tallis & Co., 1852]. A charming small antique print of the station. An engraving from the workshop of A. H. Payne, originally produced for Payne's "Illustrated London, or a Series of Views in the British Metropolis and its Vicinity" (London : 1846-1847), and here in a slightly later impression. Steel line engraving on paper. Later hand colour. Engraved surface 70 x 85mm (approx. 2-3/4" x 3-5/8"). In very good and clean state. A guaranteed genuine antique print. Adams 207/078B.

[London : John Tallis & Co., 1852]. A charming small antique print - Teddington Weir - men fishing - a cottage among trees. An engraving from the workshop of A. H. Payne, originally produced for Payne's "Illustrated London, or a Series of Views in the British Metropolis and its Vicinity" (London : 1846-1847), and here in a slightly later impression. Steel line engraving on paper. Later hand colour. Engraved surface 67 x 87mm (approx. 2-5/8" x 3-3/8"). In very good and clean state. A guaranteed genuine antique print. Adams 207/052B.

[London : John Tallis & Co., 1852]. A charming small antique print of the station. An engraving from the workshop of A. H. Payne, originally produced for Payne's "Illustrated London, or a Series of Views in the British Metropolis and its Vicinity" (London : 1846-1847), and here in a slightly later impression. Steel line engraving on paper. Later hand colour. Engraved surface 68 x 85mm (approx. 2-3/4" x 3-5/8"). In very good and clean state. A guaranteed genuine antique print. Adams 207/078A.

London : Hodder & Stoughton, (1969). First edition. "She had an open sports car, an Aston Martin, a white one. They always do, don't they ...". A spy tale that commences with an unwanted job handing out religious tracts to passers-by on Oxford Street.Post 8vo (21cm). (256)pp. Original apple green boards, blocked and lettered in gilt; a very minor bruise, but a very good, bright and sound copy in the Peter Cope dust-jacket – the jacket just very slightly rubbed and very lightly creased, but still very good.