Search Results: Titles starting with V from Henry Sotheran Ltd.

London, Offices of "Engineering", 1902. Large 4to. Original half-morocco over red cloth-covered boards, spine with raised bands and lettered in gilt, boards ruled in gilt; edges gilt, others uncut; pp. vii, 200, numerous plates in photogravure with tissue guards, vignettes in the text, printed on high-quality laid paper; front hinge a bit weakened, boards a little marked, otherwise vey clean and fresh. First edition, presumably distributed only by presentation, of this in-house publication by the arms manufacturer and and heavy engineering company. Their products ranged from Maxim guns to ordnance and armour plating, shipbuilding and engine construction. Vickers had been founded in Sheffield in 1828 and grew into a powerful British conglomerate.

1846. Longman, Brown and Company. 1846. Small 4to. Original brown cloth with paper label to upper board; pp. 105 + [2, ads.]; binding very slightly scuffed, very good. Provenance: with the circular angling bookplate of F.W. Sims to ffep and the bookplate of George Hamilton Chichester, Earl of Belfast. Second edition, enlarged.

1952. London: William Heinemann, 1952. 8vo., quarter white calf binding over blue calf boards, ruled in gilt and embossed to upper cover with publisher's device; contrasting black leather label to spine; upper edge gilt, else untrimmed; housed in the original glassine dustwrapper and black slipcase; pp. [vi], 241, [i]; a very fresh copy, some brown spots, toning, and chips to the glassine, but a much better copy than most; lightly rubbed to foot; otherwise fine. Limited edition. One of just 500 copies signed by the author. This is copy 204.. A lovely clean copy of this collection of six short essays. Including a fascinating piece on the decline and fall of the detective story; 'Some Novelists I Have Known', which includes some very enjoyable anecdotes concerning Henry James, H.G. Wells and Arnold Bennett; and 'Reflections on a Certain Book', a thought-provoking piece concerning Kant's Critique of the Power of Judgment. All in all, a very varied collection.

1934. London, John Murray, 1934. 8vo. Publisher's original cloth, map endpapers, with the rarely seen dust-wrapper (price-clipped and with restorations and marginal loss); pp. [vi], 365; numerous illustrations from photographs, 5 maps including 3 in colour and folding to throw clear, text printed on high-quality wove paper; light marking to cloth small hole to front fly-leaf, initial blank with clipped outer upper corner and gift inscription, otherwise a very good copy. First edition, third printing, nowadays hard to find in good condition. This is Freya Stark's second book, the result of her travels in 'wildest Persia', furnished with good maps and plates after photos taken by the traveller/author herself. Freya Stark travelled the dangerous mountain teritory of the Iran-Iraq border, and Lurestan province. 'Her account of her journeys, The Valleys of the Assassins (1934), was an immediate success, and known for its elegant prose, lively wit, and observations of people' (ODNB).

1971. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. 1971. 8vo. Original red cloth with dustwrapper; pp. xii + 636, b&w photos, 5 maps including one to rear endpapers, front endpapers with list of laws passed by LBJ; wrapper with slight chipping to top and glassine beginning to peel, otherwise very good indeed. First edition, signed by Lyndon Baines Johnson to gilt bookplate on half-title. This is Johnson's own account of his controversial presidency. "This historic memoir...illuminates the enormous gulf between the simple virtues Johnson the man espoused and the conspiratorial politics Johnson the president employed. Tragedy shadowed his flawed presidency and it hovers over this dignified, self-serving 'perspective' like an old crony" (Kirkus Reviews).

1875. London: William Clowes and Sons for John Murray, 1899. 8vo, 2 volumes. Original green cloth, boards with blind-ruled borders and panelled in blind, spines gilt, dark-brown endpapers, partially unopened; pp. I: xiv, 473, [1]; II: x, 495, [1], 32 (publisher's catalogue); previous owner's signature to prelims, occasional faint foxing, very good. Second edition, eighth impression.. In the preface Darwin draws attention to important revisions to the previous edition and especially to the content of Chapter XI. The theory of Pangenesis, currently discussed as the inheritance of acquired characteristics and here expounded by Darwin for the first time, was enlarged and amended for the second edition. Other chapters consider "the amount and nature of the changes which animals or plants have undergone whilst under man's dominion", employing observations of inheritance within a species in an effort to understand the causes of variability. One of Darwin's most influential and wide-ranging works.… Read More

2005. London; David Fickling Books. 2003 and 2005. 8vo. Original blue boards lettered in silver to spine, preserved in pictorial dustwrapper; pp. [iv] + 447 + [i]; with chapter headings and a few other engraved vignettes; a fine copy in dustwrapper. First edition. sold together with: Celandine. London; David Fickling Books. 2005. 8vo. Original dark blue boards lettered in silver to spine, preserved in pictorial dustwrapper; pp. [vi] + 486; with chapter-headings and other engraved vignettes; a fine copy in dustwrapper. First edition. A unique copy, signed and dated on publication, with the author's manuscript limitation cypher 1/1, containing an original pen, ink, and watercolour-crayon drawing by the author captioned from the text, "Two small figures appeared, fleeting shades against the distant glow ....." Celandine is the second volume in Augarde's thrilling and well-received fantasy trilogy introduced by The Various in 2003.

1900. James Veitch & Sons, Ltd. 1900. 8vo. Original brown cloth, gilt vignettes and black stamped borders to sides, gilt lettering to spine; pp. 562 + [i], illustrated throughout; very good. Provenance: verso of title page with ownership inscription of W.V. Legge (1841-1918), the Australian soldier and ornithologist most famous for his magisterial History of the Birds of Ceylon. Also included is a letter to Legge from the Department of Agriculture in Tasmania in response to what was clearly a rather terse previous exchange on the precise taxonomy of the Douglas Fir: " In deference to the tenor of your marginal note on the Douglas Fir...Douglas fir is scientifically neither a fir nor a spruce…". Second edition of the Veitch nursery's manual to conifers, greatly enlarged by Kent.

London, Faber, [1974]. 8vo. Original cloth with illustrated dust-wrappers (not price-clipped); pp. 335; very light wear to margins of wrappers; otherwise very good; bookplate R. G. Hollies-Smith inside front cover. New and revised edition of Morris' classic, published in the year Conundrum appeared. The publishers had a note printed inside the front flap of the wrappers. 'For the new edition of this justly renowned book, the author, who also writes as Jan Morris, has made many revisions to the text, correcting such small inaccuracies as have naturally arisen since it was first published'. Jan Morris, however, in the foreword states, 'I have changed since then, but Venice has changed no less - not physically, for there was, I found, really very little to alter topographically, but in spirit' (p. 12). Provenance: Captain R. G. Hollies-Smith was a collector of mainly military boos and paintings.

1940. London, Collins, [1940]. 8vo. Publisher's red cloth, spine lettered in black; in the original illustrated dust-wrapper (clipped but retaining price sticker); pp. [vi], 7-252, [4]; discolouration to spine of wrapper, with a few small marks to lower panel of wrapper; slight spotting to edges; bookseller stickers to paste-downs; discolouration to endpapers and light foxing throughout; a good copy in the remarkably well preserved, scarce wrapper. First edition. Raymond Postgate was a British author, jounalist, and social historian, best known for his diverse body of work including detective fiction. This, Verdict of Twelve, is his first novel, and is a mystery story set in a courtroom where the lives of the jurours are explored in depth as they deliberate on the guilt or innocence of the defendant. Beginning with a seemingly straightforward murder trial, the defendant, Herbert Russell, is accused of poisoningt his wife with morphine. As the trial progresses, Postgate introduces the readers to the… Read More

1898. Vienna, Alfred Hölder, 1898. 4to. Contemporary half morocco over boards, spine lettered in gilt, original front wrapper bound in; pp. 28, five folding tables; light marking to boards, a little tightly bound, otherwise very good. This is the very rare pothumously published Essay on the Explanation of the Senses, an attempt to get to grips in a scientific and quantitative way with the senses of touch, taste, vision and hearing, their components such as colours, bitter or sweet, high or low pitch, all visualised in three-dimensional space and dealt with in an arithmetical way. The author, who died before the publication of this work, discusses as well the relation between linguistic expression and the actual physicality of a sensation. Synesthetic correlations, oppositions of qualities, analogies between different senses, and the interaction of simultaneous stimuli of different senses are all dealt with in depth and with references to Helmholtz, Ernst Mach, Chevreul, and Herbert Spencer. No… Read More

1899. Edinburgh: David Douglas. 1899. 8vo. Original green cloth, gilt lettering to spine, t.e.g.; pp. xxx + 248 + [12, ads.], 15 illustrations, 1 map; slightly bumped to extremities, very good. First edition. A Vertebrate Fauna of Scotland series. A scarce and sought after volume, "one which should be indispensable to every visitor to the most northern group of the British Islands, whether or no he be specially interested in birds. For in place of restricting themselves to a detailed account of the various members of their vertebrate fauna, Messrs. Evans and Buckley have furnished a very interesting description of the more striking physical features of these islands, together with numerous notes on the people and their mode of life. But perhaps the most generally attractive feature of the work will be the exquisite views of Shetland scenery with which it is adorned; these illustrations reflecting the highest credit alike on the photographer and on the artist responsible for their reproduction… Read More

1976. London: Michael Joseph, 1976. 8vo., publisher's black boards, spine lettered in gilt; in the original unlipped dust-wrapper; pp. [vi], 7-255; with illustrations in the text throughout; light sunning to spine; small mark to lower panel of wrapper; light spotting to upper and outer edges; a little offsetting to endpapers; small mark to verso of half-title, else a very good copy. First edition, inscribed by the author to the title. Herriot's novel follows his life as he is 'thrown into another new environment in the RAF' (front flap). The story harks illustrates his triumphs and tribulations, all set in the wonders of the Yorkshire Dales.

1981. Melbourne, A E Keating (Printing) Pty. Ltd. for The James Flood-Harold Paynting Charity Trust, 1985. Folio (318 x 268mm). Original blue cloth, upper board with applied printed lettering-panel, spine lettered and decorated in silver; black endpapers; blue cloth slipcase with ribbon-pull; pp. 532; numerous colour-printed and monochrome illustrations throughout, many full-page, 10 panoramas on folded double-pages and one panorama on two folded double-pages; spine slightly creased, otherwise in very good, clean condition. First edition, no. 4557 of 6,000 copies, signed by the editors, of this lavishly-produced volume, issued in 1985 to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Victoria. Victoria Illustrated 1834-1984 is prefaced with a 'Message from the Premier' (John Cain), and is divided thematically into chapters discussing (amongst other subjects) the ports of Victoria, the architecture of the state, its transport, the Melbourne Ambulance and Fire Services, and the social and military history of… Read More

Lisboa, na Regia Officina Sylviana, e da Academia Real, 1745. Small 4to. Contemporary Portuguese speckled calf, spine decorated with gilt and with red morocco gilt label, edges speckled red; pp. [28], 354, [2] with half-title, and final blank; binding slightly rubbed, a small area of loss to surface of lower cover, front hinge weakened (and now strengthened with matching paper), internally very good. First edition. The first biography in book form of Zuze Vaz (Joseph Vaz) (1651-1711), a Catholic Christian of Indian parentage from Goa who became an Oratorian priest and the leading missionary of Sri Lanka. Known as the Apostle of Ceylon, he was canonised in 2015. The work is an important source for Vaz’s life, and for Catholic missionary activity in the Kandyan Kingdom (modern Sri Lanka). The text is written by a member of the Oratorian Congregation of Goa, who was also of Indian origin, born in Neura in Goa (Inocencio). Vaz’s parents, Christopher and Maria, were “Brahmins by descent, who had… Read More

Berlin, Reimar Hobbing, [1925]. 8vo. Original red cloth, lettered in black, with illustrated dust-wrappers; pp. 255, highly illustrated with plates after photographs, folding map, printed in red and black; fine. First German edition of this personal account of Turkey during the First World War, well-illustrated and with the fine wrappers designed and signed in print by Hans Anton Aschenborn, poet, book illustrator and painter of mainly South African animals. Rafael Inchauspe Méndez, known as Rafael de Nogales Méndez was a Venezuelan soldier who fought in several armies almost world-wide, including this one, the First World War, where he observed atrocities against religious and ethnic minorities in Anatolia. Later he joined the Nicaraguan revolutionary Augusto César Sandino. It is reported that De Nogales and T. E. Lawrence encountered each other; without, however, exchanging a single word.

1979. Oldham: Lund Humphries for Hugh Broadbent, 1979. Large folio. Original green buckram, upper board and spine lettered in gilt; clear plastic dustwrapper replaced with modern acid-free Mylar; original card slipcase (a few repairs); pp. [49], [1 (blank)], tinted title and 20 tinted plates after Lear; a fine copy. Number 664 of 1,000 copies of this finely-produced facsimile of the first, privately-printed edition of Lear's work issued in 1863. Includes nine views of Corfu.

Whiteaway, Laidlaw & Co. Ltd., [c. 1914]. Oblong small 4to. Grey-brown card wrappers, titled in white to upper cover, with mounted circular photographic illustration; 12 mounted photogravure plates printed in sepia; a little wear to the edges, but still very good. A small book of 12 sepia landscape photographs depicting Calcutta around the turn of the century. 'Whiteaway Laidlaw was a premier department store in the early 20th century. Whiteaway brought in products that appealed to the Europeans and wealthy locals. It started in D'Almeida Street before moving into its own building at Battery Road. Its premises was occupied by a Japanese retailer during the Japanese Occupation, thereafter Whiteaway continued its business until 1962' (National Library Board Singapore, online).

Bombay, Devare & Co., [c. 1919]. Oblong folio. Original red crushed morocco, spine with raised bands, compartments ornamented in gilt, front cover decorated and lettered in gilt, inner dentelles gilt, red endpapers, gilt-stamped red morocco label listing the appointments of Devare & Co by several Maharajas inside front cover, all edges gilt; 34 original photographs (c. 190 x 130 mm) mounted on strong card; hinges restored, one margin of mounting board a bit brittle, the final 7 mouting boards with marginal faint trace of humidity, otherwise fine. This splendid photo album by one of the leading Indian photographers of the Raj opens with a full-length portrait of the Maharadja of Baroda, His Highness Sir Sayadji Rao Gaekwar, followed by his wife, the Maharanee, and several external and internal views of their residence, Laxmi Vilas Palace, one of the largest private dwellings of the time, four times the size of Buckingham Palace. Other photos depict palaces, Baroda High School, public buildings… Read More

1930. Jonathan Cape. 1930. 8vo. Original quarter vellum, green cloth sides, top edges gilt, others untrimmed; frontispiece; slight fading to lower cover, otherwise a very good copy. No. 166 of 504 numbered copies, signed by the author. A collection of 55 stories covering the life of a village not-so-loosely based on Georgeham in Devon, where the author lived.