Fiction

Service with a Smile – P.G. Wodehouse – First Edition

First edition published by Herbert Jenkins in 1962.

Octavo, 192 pages. Very good condition albeit with some light age marks to page edges … clean and bright inside. Good dust jacket with closed split near front hinge

Uncle Fred sorting out the upper crust as usual and importantly stops the theft of the Empress of Blandings (A portly pig) whose beautiful image adorns the front cover.

Wodehouse First and a rollicking story.

$50.00

Updating cart…

Dodsworth – Sinclair Lewis (First American Nobel Laureate for Literature)

First published in 1929 this is the 1947 Modern Library edition with a special foreword by Clifton Fadiman.

Octavo, 377 pages all in very good condition.

The author Harry Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951) was the first American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1930.

Sam Dodsworth makes a fortune selling his automotive business and with his younger glamorous wife, Fran, heads for a summer in Europe. Soon they find that their different interests drive them apart … Fran enjoying the high party life whilst Sam’s interests lie in history and culture. Fran falls for an admirer and that’s the end of the relationship. Sam has a more enduring meeting ..

Dodsworth a special story – readable and with meaning.

$25.00

Updating cart…

The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio

The complete unabridged Modern Library edition. Published in 1951 (by reference to the number of book on the list back of dust jacket). Thick octavo, 630 pages. With a forward by Morris Ernst dated 1930 regarding the difficult time the book had had in America because of draconian obscenity laws. Well here it is unadulterated.

Translated by John Payne, which must have been a lengthy task and one well done. It has stood the test of centuries and was a source of inspiration for Chaucer, Shakespeare and Keats.

Good condition albeit with two previous owners names on the end papers and later date stamp on half title. Light chips to dust jacket and a hint of fading, now protected in Brodart.

A lusty bawdy delight by Boccaccio translated by Payne

$30.00

Updating cart…

The Peculiar Use and Signification of Certain Words in the Latin Tongue: or, a Collection of Observations, wherein the Elegant, and Commonly Unobserv’d Sense of very near Nine Hundred Common Latin Words. William Willymott – 1713

A scholarly book from the early eighteenth century. One that will give any reader a leg forward in the intellectual stakes.

Published by R Bonwick printed at the Cambridge University Press in 1713. A second edition. Scarce.

Octavo, 4, 374 pages bound in original full panelled calf, spine with raised bands, losses to ends, joints tender. Some long gone worming to the margin of a few of the last leaves, otherwise a pretty good proper antiquarian copy.

We have no date of birth but William Willymott died in 1737. He was born at Royston, Cambridgeshire and educated at Eton and then Kings College, Cambridge were he graduated B.A. M.A. L.L.D. by 1707. He was made a Fellow. He became an usher at Eton and then founder pf Isleworth Private School. He was suspected as having an attachment to the Pretender which hampered his career. He considered law but changed his mind and took orders … living at the Rectory Milton near Cambridge. He died at the Swan Inn at Bedford … not a bad pub.

Overcome your Latin deficiencies with Willymott – 1713

$120.00

Updating cart…

Islands in the Stream – Ernest Hemingway – First Edition 1970

This is the first UK edition published by Collins, London in 1970.

Large octavo, 398 pages with end paper maps. Very good if not better condition.

A major novel left among Hemingway’s writings at the time of death. Mary Hemingway said “The book is all Ernest’s. We have added nothing to it” … we believe her …

Hemingway’s Last Novel and a good one!

$60.00

Updating cart…

Poems to Pavlova – Tulloch Cull – First Edition 1913

A first edition of this poetic homage to the great ballerina Anna Pavlova.

Published by Herbert Jenkins, London in 1913. Square octavo, 62 pages after preliminaries with 8 plates from period photographs. Original decorative green cloth covered boards, all in very good condition.

Russian born Anna Pavlova (1881-1931) hardly requires introduction. Principal artist of the Imperial Russian Ballet and the Ballets Russes … forever to be remembered as the dying swan.

Her name was pronounced Pa … vlova unfortunately the pudding designed in her honour Pav … lova has corrupted our understanding. Invented (the pudding) during her tour of Australia in the 1920’s … disputed by Kiwis across the Ditch who believe it was first made in Wellington.

Anna Pavlova … much more than a meringue with fruit!

$60.00

Updating cart…

Service with a Smile – P.G. Wodehouse – First Edition

Dodsworth – Sinclair Lewis (First American Nobel Laureate for Literature)

The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio

The Peculiar Use and Signification of Certain Words in the Latin Tongue: or, a Collection of Observations, wherein the Elegant, and Commonly Unobserv’d Sense of very near Nine Hundred Common Latin Words. William Willymott – 1713

Islands in the Stream – Ernest Hemingway – First Edition 1970

Poems to Pavlova – Tulloch Cull – First Edition 1913

Product Categories