Search Results: Authors starting with W from Fine Editions Ltd

London: Macmillan [from 1869], 1902. Decorative Cloth. Early reprint of "one of the finest scientific travel books ever written" (DSB) and Wallace's magnum opus, chronicling his eight-year sojourn through the Malay Archipelago. 8vo (196 x 129mm): xvii,[3],515,[1]pp, with tissue-guarded frontispiece, title-page vignette, 10 unnumbered maps (2 folding), and 51 full- or partial-page engravings by Thomas Baines, Walter Hood Fitch, John Gerrard Keulemans, E. W. Robinson, Joseph Wolf, and T. W. Wood. Original publisher's green pebbled cloth, upper cover and spine stamped in gilt, black coated end papers. A gorgeous copy, sound binding (though slightly rolled), minor marks to covers, very occasional foxing, but an excellent example in original cloth of Wallace's most important work. Norman 2176 (for first edition). Garrison-Morton 7439. A nearly identical reprint of the 1890 tenth edition, including bibliographical references and index. Originally published, in two volumes, in 1869. The Malay Archipelago,… Read More

New York: Little, Brown, 1996. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. First Printing (full number line), in First State dust jacket (incorrectly spelling William Vollmann as "Vollman" on back panel) of the author's magnum opus. Thick 8vo: [4],1079,[1]. Publisher's quarter-bound French blue cloth spine over periwinkle paper-covered boards, spine stamped in silver. Superb, a virtually pristine copy, square, clean, and tight. Time 100. "The plot of Infinite Jest—which revolves around, among other things, a lost, unwatchably beautiful art film and a conspiracy among wheelchair-bound Quebecois secessionists—is decidedly secondary to the painfully funny dialogue and Wallace's endlessly rich ruminations and speculations on addiction, entertainment, art, life and, of course, tennis." (Time 100) To help readers slice through the novel's dense thickets of prose, Wallace included 98 pages of "Notes & Errata." The title is from Hamlet, Act V, Scene 1, in which Hamlet holds the skull of the court jester,… Read More

London: printed for I. Tonson in Ye Strand, 1729. First Edition. Full Calf. Near Fine+. Large 4to: [18],450,xci,[1]pp, with engraved title page, four full-page copper-engraved plates (including frontispiece portrait of Waller engraved by Vertu after Kneller), and numerous superb head- and tailpieces and historiated initials. Contemporary cambridge-style calf, sides decorated in blind and framed with rat's tooth roll, ribbed spine richly gilt in seven compartments, red morocco lettering piece gilt (chipped), plain period end papers. Near Fine or better, with light offsetting, sporadic foxing and the odd smudge, else clean and crisp throughout; joints very skillfully repaired, spine ends renewed. Provenance: signature of the bibliophile Douglas Grant in pencil to front fly-leaf. Wither to Prior 941. Grolier English 100, 27. First Collected Edition, the "most sumptuous ever published. It contains all the poems which had hitherto appeared, to which the editor has added four new . . . Waller's letter are… Read More

London: Henry G. Bohn, York Street, Covent Garden, 1849. First Edition thus. Original Cloth. Fine. First Printing of the Dallaway and Wornum edition, a "New Edition, Revised, with Additional Notes," complete in three volume in original cloth. Demy 8vo (220 x 135mm): xxxii,351,[1]; [5],352-479,514-720; [4],721-1007,[2],[Appendix & Index]482-510,[36]pp, with three tissue-guarded frontispiece portraits and 77 further full-page plates, plus 89 wood engravings. Pagination irregular, but text continuous throughout. Original publisher's brown cloth, covers elaborately stamped in blind, spines lettered and numbered in gilt, pale yellow end papers. A few leaves roughly opened, but a truly spectacular set in publisher's original bindings with bright gilt; largely unopened, tightly bound, pages and plates virtually pristine. Hazen (Strawberry Hill), p. 66. Lowndes V, p. 2820. Originally published in 1762, this revised edition, based on an edition issued between 1826 and 1828 ("with considerable additions")… Read More

New York: Jonathan Cape and Harrison Smith, 1929. First Printing. Quarter-Cloth. Fine-. First Trade Edition of the first of Ward's stories without words, relying solely on visually striking woodcuts to tell a Faustian tale of an artist who signs away his soul for a magical paintbrush. Demy 8vo (205 x 140mm): [296]pp, with 139 full-page woodcuts by Ward printed in black, plus title-page and dedication-page vignettes and five chapter headings. Publisher's black quarter-cloth over patterned pictorial boards with inlaid image to front cover, paper title label printed in black to spine, top edge stained black, fore-edge untrimmed, black end papers. Wanting the scarce dust jacket, but an excellent example, tightly bound and clean throughout, virtually pristine. Dance 002. Told without text through the medium of 139 sinister woodblock engravings, and seen by many as precursor to the graphic novel. "From the eve of the Great Depression to the start of World War II, Lynd Ward observed the troubled American… Read More

London: Harvey and Darton, Gracechurch Street, 1832. Original Cloth. Fine-. First Edition in original cloth of this popular paean to song birds with charming hand-colored lithographs. Crown 8vo (187 x 110mm): xi,[1],227pp, with tissue-guarded frontispiece and sixteen further full-page plates. Publisher's green moire-patterned cloth (also issued in blue and brown cloth), red leather lettering piece gilt, edges rough-trimmed. Manuscript ex libris of Edward Maunsell Williams, dated 1857, and book plate of E. M. Williams to front paste down, with further Williams family inscription to head of title page. An excellent example in original cloth, generally clean throughout with rich impressions of the delicately colored plates. Darton G1021. Wood, p.619 ("A popular but accurately written work with fairly good colored illustrations.") Freeman 3888. Sitwell, p.153. Four subsequent editions were published. The dedicatory poem, "To my brother's children," is dated: Wyards, November, 1831 (Wyard's farm is on… Read More

London: A. Johnston, 6, Paternoster Buildings, 1883. Pictorial Boards. Fine. First Edition of this charming popularization, one of a series making seemingly mundane subjects fascinating. Crown 8vo (188 x 120mm): viii,88,[8] with ten text figures. Original pictorial publisher's boards (featuring a wedge of chalk embedded with an ammonite), printed in red and black. Bookseller's ticket to front paste-down: D. B. Friend, 77 Western Road, Brighten. Very minor shelf wear, but a superb survival (scarce in commerce and in institutional collections), tightly bound and clean throughout. According to booksellers Pickering & Chatto, Watt was a son of Charles Watt, of Burgess & Watt, inventors of a process of making wood pulp into paper. The son wrote a series of well-reviewed shilling books on such subjects as soap manufacture, leather, electrometallurgy, paper-making, and, here, chalk, dealing with seemingly every possible use to which chalk has been put, including an analysis of water in the Trafalgar Square… Read More

Boston: Little, Brown, 1954. First Printing. Hardcover. Fine/Fine-. First and only Edition (never published in the United Kingdom), including the first American appearance of Love Among the Ruins (published in England as a separate book). 8vo: [6],289,[1]pp. Publisher's finely woven sea-green cloth, spine lettered in gold, dust jacket illustrated by Lester M. Peterson and priced $3.75. A clean, fresh copy (apparently unread); about Fine unfaded jacket (spine ends gently rubbed, white lettering on spine panel lightly toned). Davis XXXIX. A collection of short pieces, opening with "The Curse of the Horse Race," which Waugh supposedly wrote when he was seven years old. Eight of the other twelve pieces were written before and during the Second World War, including the title story, then titled "The Wish. Also included are "Love Among the Ruins," a fantasy of the future and satire set in a dystopian quasi-egalitarian Britain, featuring Miles Plastic, who falls in love with Clara, a bearded woman and… Read More

London: Duckworth, 1946. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine-/Very Good+. First Impression of this omnibus edition, collecting Waugh's best travel dispatches. Demy 8vo (216 x 135mm): 318pp, with color portrait frontispiece of Waugh aged 26 by Henry Lamb and folding map of British Guiana tipped in facing p. 196. Publisher's canary yellow cloth lettered in dark blue, illustrated dust priced 15/-. Near Fine or better (spine ends crimped, dust-soiled edges); Very Good or better jacket (tape remnants along reverse edges). Davis XX. During the 1930s, Waugh traveled widely in Europe, Africa, and South America. In 1930, he attended the coronation of the Haile Selassie in Abyssinia, returning there five years later as a correspondent for the Daily Mail to cover the Italian invasion from a pro-Mussolini standpoint. Between these visits, his sojourns in South America included an arduous trek from British Guiana into Brazil. Throughout this time he had no permanent base in England, staying in hotels and at friends'… Read More

London: Chapman & Hall [through 1961], 1952. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. Three fine First Impression octavo volumes, each signed on the front jacket flap by the legendary illustrator Val Biro (1921-2014). vi,314; [10],335; [8],311. Original publisher's blue cloth, spines stamped in gilt, top edges stained blue; bright red, blue, yellow, and white dust jackets by Biro. Men at Arms (1952): Fine, tight and square with bright gilt and rich top stain; about Fine jacket (just a degree of fading to spine panel, the end of which are briefly rubbed), priced 12s/6d on publisher's label over printed price. Officers and Gentlemen (1955): Fine and unread (top stain lightly spotted); Fine jacket (spine panel barely lightened), priced 12s/6d. Unconditional Surrender (1961): Fine and apparently unread (single pinhead stain to fore-edge); about Fine jacket (price-clipped), completely unfaded, vibrant and bright. In all, a superb set, rarely seen seen in such condition, let alone signed (no other such set we… Read More

London: John Constable, 1912. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine-. Scarce First Printing of this clandestine tour of the Near East. Demy 8vo (213 x 138mm): viii,[2],349,[1]pp, with seven plates from photographs (one a map) and large folding map of Arabia in black and blue inserted at rear. Publisher's Prussian blue cloth stamped in gilt. End papers renewed, map with expertly repaired tear and several place names neatly underlined in red crayon, else an excellent example, tightly bound and clean throughout. In Wavell's day, few Christians had visited Mecca, and fewer still Medina. At age twenty-six, in 1908, he traveled in disguise via Beirut and Damascus, reaching Medina by the Hedjaz railway. After some weeks' stay, he traveled secretly to Sanaa, where he witnessed the siege of January to March, 1911, when the Yemenis sought to drive out the Turks. He describes tensions between the non-Turkish population of the Ottoman Empire and their rulers, who tried to "Turkeycise" their subjects. His two… Read More

London: J. Weale, 1850. Decorative Cloth. Fine. Scarce First Edition of this dictionary of architectural terms, summing up mid-century practice and terminology. Complete in four parts over two volumes. Foolscap 8vo (177 x 109mm): 4,276pp; 277-564pp, with frontispiece, tables, and numerous text engravings. Publisher's elaborately blind-stamped limp red cloth, beige paper labels printed in black to upper covers, pale yellow end papers. A Fine, bright set in original bindings. Weale's Rudimentary Dictionary of Terms used in Architecture, Building, and Engineering "elicited favourable reviews, and reached a fifth edition in 1876," becoming "part of what was arguably Weale's greatest publishing success, namely his Rudimentary Series, begun in 1848, which comprised more than 130 scientific and technical works, generally written by eminent men, and usually published at 1s. per volume. Weale invested over £48,000 in the series during the thirteen years before he sold it to James Sprent Virtue, and the… Read More

New York: J. W. Bouton, 1880. Decorative Cloth. Fine. First Edition of this consideration claiming correspondences between ancient Egyptian obelisks and Freemasonry, shedding light on the beginnings of civilization. Demy 8vo (231 x 141mm): [2],178,34pp, with tissue-guarded frontispiece, six additional full-page plates of the Central Park obelisk, its construction, and symbols (three in color), and numerous line drawings. Publisher's blue-green cloth, front cover paneled in blind with gilt obelisk device, spine ruled and lettered in gilt, leaf-patterned end papers. Ex libris to front paste-down of freemasonry Lodge "Mark Masons Hall" and of Masonic member Wolfram Kraffert. Faint red band, an ancient Egyptian symbol of regeneration and of Freemasonry, to lower spine. A beautifully preserved example, tightly bound and clean throughout. Weisse was a French-American physician, philologist, and archaeologist with interests in both Freemasonry and ancient Egypt. The focus of his treatise is the connection… Read More

New York: Mitchell Kennerley, 1911. Hardcover. Fine/Fine-. Limited Edition, one of 600 copies, of "one of the finest pieces of bookmaking ever done in the United States." (Chicago Evening Post, 20 October 1911) Crown folio (370 x 260mm): [4],153,[1], with nine Aquatones and one photogravure. Publisher's quarter-bound straw-colored cloth over beige paper-covered boards lettered in gold, printed paper title label to spine; lacking the original box. Printed on watermarked French handmade paper, with types and decorations designed by Frederick W. Goudy, who used his new font "Kennerley Old Style" for the first time here. Owner's name to front fly-leaf, label rubbed, offsetting from gravure print, else tightly bound and clean (pristine, really) throughout, a superb example. Imagining Paradise p. 232-33. Truthful Lens 184. Wells Society 44. Collects eight short stories, all of which had appeared in previous collections. The title page calls the prints are photogravures, but they are not (or, in this… Read More

New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1955. First Printing. Hardcover. Fine-/Fine-. First Edition (so stated), first state binding (vivid green cloth spine), second issue (title / copyright leaf a cancellans, with multiple dates [1949-1955]). Signed by Welty in her tiny scrawl on title page. 8vo: [8],207,[1]pp. Publisher's blue and green mottled paper-covered boards, vivid green fine bead cloth spine stamped in silver, pictorial dust jacket priced $3.50. About Fine (spine ends bumped, shelf-worn bottom board edge); about Fine jacket (very brief expert restoration, involving neither lettering nor design, to head and tail of spine panel, which is lightly toned). Not the concealed second printing (Polk 11.1.2, as are many copies advertised as first printings), in which the title / copyright leaf is integral). Welty's important seventh book, nominated for the National Book Award. Polk A11.1b. According to Polk, "Heavily revised versions of stories originally published in magazines." N. B. With few exceptions… Read More

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1909. First Printing. Hardcover. Fine. First (and only) Edition of Wharton's scarce second book of poetry, although the most obtainable. (Only a dozen copies are known of her first book of poems, Verses, privately printed and published anonymously in 1878, and only 130 copies of the third, Twelve Poems.) Crown 8vo (190 x 127mm): [6],90pp. Publisher's dark grayish green (almost black) T cloth, spine ruled and lettered in gilt, front cover with elaborately framed gilt vignette of cherubs, top edge gilt, others untrimmed. Wanting the scarce dust jacket. Touch of shelf wear along bottom edge, else a superb survival, very tightly bound and virtually pristine throughout, apparently unread. Garrison A17.I.a. Brenni 126. Davis, p.13. Also published by Macmillan in London the same year, which Garrison (A17.I.b) designates the second printing. In Paris, in January, 1907, Wharton met for the first time the American journalist William Morton Fullerton, who had been the Paris… Read More

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1911. Hardcover. Fine. First Issue, with top edge gilt, one of 2500 copies ("wearily" on the penultimate line p.135 is unbroken in this copy, but the word appears in both states, broken and perfect, in copies with gilt top edges and without and is thus not an indicator of the first issue). Small 8vo: [6],195,[5, four of which advertisements]pp. Publisher's crimson cloth, spine and upper board stamped gilt, fore- and bottom edges untrimmed, title page in red and black. A superb copy, bright, square and tight. Garrison A 19.I.a. Brenni 5. Johnson, High Spots, pp 76-77. Auchincloss, The Edith Wharton Reader, p. 21. Originally serialized in Scribner's Magazine. By 1910, Teddy Wharton's mental health was fast deteriorating, and his embezzlement of money from Edith's trust fund initiated the end of the Whartons' marriage, as well as Edith's American life. She leased an apartment on the Left Bank, in Paris, where she would remain until 1920. The Mount, her beloved… Read More

London: Published by Longman, Brown, Green, & Longmans, 1849. Decorative Cloth. Fine. Scarce First (and only) Edition of "one of the most original books in the bibliography of angling." (AnAnglersBookcase online) Foolscap 8vo (172 x 105mm): 157,[2],32[ad]pp, with nine bright, detailed hand-colored plates of flies. Original sage-green cloth, spine lettered in gilt, covers elaborately paneled in blind, pale yellow end papers. Armorial book plate to front paste-down of angling author Joseph Delaplaine Bates, Jr. (1903-1988), whose works include the modern classic Fishing Atlantic Salmon: The Flies and the Patterns. An exceptional example with excellent provenance, tightly bound in original cloth and clean throughout, with richly colored plates. Westwood & Satchell p. 239 ("Characterised by a mixture of caustic humour and sound practical knowledge"). Smith, p. 46. Bartlett, p. 74. Hoe Library III, p. 199. Wheatley was the "first to recommend eyed hooks for trout-flies. He fished many of his artificial… Read More

Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books Limited, 1940. First Printing. Wrappers. Near Fine+. First Paperbound Edition. Foolscap 8vo (179 x 107mm): 224pp. Publisher's card covers printed in orange and black, rear cover with advertisement for Army Club cigarettes. Penguin paper bookmark printed with brief bio of the author laid in. Tightly bound and clean throughout, very faint edge-wear, lightly toned, but a beautifully preserved example. Originally published in hardcover, in 1917. Edith Wherry Muckleston spent her childhood with her missionary parents in Peking, where The Wanderer on a Thousand Hills is set. Founded in 1935 by Sir Allen Lane and his brothers, Richard and John, as an imprint of the The Bodley Head, Penguin revolutionized publishing with its inexpensive paperbacks, originally sold for sixpence from the crypt of Holy Trinity Church Marylebone, bringing high-quality fiction and nonfiction to the mass market. Eschewing the illustrated gaudiness of other paperbacks, Penguin opted… Read More

New York [but Ghent]: Frederick Stokes & Brother, 1890. Card Covers. Fine. Unauthorized (Pirated) Edition (preceding an ordinary trade edition and a signed limited edition published, respectively, in June and August the same year) of the collected published newspaper correspondence of James McNeill Whistler, chronicling his impassioned exchanges with such eminences as John Ruskin, Oscar Wilde, and Harry Quilter. Foolscap 8vo (172 x 105mm): [6],xi-xvii,[2],21-256pp,[4]pp. Unopened in original publisher's heavy drab speckled wrappers stamped in scarlet. Handsomely housed in purpose-made black cloth chemise and grey paper-covered slipcase with black morocco lettering piece gilt. Beautifully preserved example of a cheaply produced book, tightly bound (expertly recased) and clean and crisp throughout (virtually pristine). In August, 1889, the freelance journalist and art critic Sheridan Ford began editing a thick portfolio of Whistler's published newspaper correspondence that Whistler had been compiling… Read More