Fiction

Peril on Mars – Patrick Moore

Published by Burke, London a second edition 1961. Octavo, 158 pages. Missing its front free endpaper and with a gift inscription on the title. Dust jacket a little tatty at the top but really quite scarce and a sought after book.

Patrick Moore, Astronomical Hero had the longest ever running television series “The Sky at Night” – he saw it all – In the late 1950’s he turned his hand to science fiction writing and here we are on his favourite planet Mars.

Continues the story of Maurice Gray and Bruce Talbot told in “The Voices of Mars” … ten years later the Mars colony has grown from their earlier journey to rescue Dr York. Now on the lonely Mars satellite, Deimos, they receive an unexpected visitor and a desperate SOS from the Lowell Dome … it all gets very interesting and Martian!

Patrick Moore Rarity

$40.00

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The First 49 Stories – Ernest Hemingway

Published by Jonathan Cape a 1968 edition. Octavo, 414 pages a little fading of the lemon cover near and at the spine. Internally very clean … still a good to very good copy. Protected in Brodart.

The best introduction to Hemingway. Many favourites including “the short happy life of Francis Macomber”.

The Way into Hemingway

$40.00

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The Reckoning – Georges Simenon

Published by Hamish Hamilton, London in 1984 a first English edition.

Translated by Emily Read, tall octavo 124 pages all in very good condition with a nice dust jacket designed by Craig Dodd based on the painting “Maxime Dethomas at the Opera Ball” by Toulouse Lautrec.

Jules Maletras strangles the unattractive Lulu out of jealousy. Rich and retired he is glad it is all over but he has to cover his tracks and it gets complicated. .

Simenon and crime like fine wine

$30.00

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Elephant Walk – Robert Standish (Film Edition 1955)

A very good 1955 London edition of this Standish classic a Voyager favourite.

Published by Peter Davies, octavo, 193 pages with the superb period dust jacket and the wrap around ” Read the Book of the Film” … a treasure to a collector.

If you have not seen the film then that is a loss that should be reversed … and all the drama with the casting .. which maybe created the unsurpassed on screen tensions.

Old enough to remember the film?

$50.00

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Charlotte Barton: Australia’s First Children’s Author – Marcie Muir

A nice piece of work by Marcie Muir, font of all knowledge regarding Australian Children’s Books.

A 35-page octavo card covered pamphlet published by Wentworth Books, 1980. A limited edition of 500 copies this one not numbered or signed so we are not sure if that is correct. A very nice copy.

It was originally thought, an recorded by Ferguson, that the author of the first Australian children’s book “A Mother’s Offering to her Children” published Sydney 1841 was Lady Gordan Bremer. This work by Marcie proves beyond doubt that it was in fact Charlotte Barton. Drawing on a number of sources including Mrs Mins and Mrs Fanning both who wrote to Marcie the author pieces together the evidence and presents it in a very readable, entertaining and informative way. We like it!

Charlotte Barton proven as first Australian children’s author.

Postage will be reduced to cost appropriately on this light weight item.

$20.00

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Il Pentamerone; or, The Tale of Tales – Basile – Translated Sir Richard Burton KCMG – First and Limited Edition – 1893

Being a Translation by the Late Sir Richard Burton, K.C.M.G., of Il Pentamerone;OveroLo Cuntode Li Cunte, Trattenemiento de Li Peccerille, of Giovanni Battista Basile, Count of Torne (Gian Alessio Abbattutis).

First edition in two volumes published by Henry and Co, London 1893. Published posthumously by his devoted wife Lady Burton.

A limited edition of 1,500 copies. Two volumes, octavo, 282 pages, [283]-562 pages. Original dark blue (near black) buckram cloth, gilt lettered. Minor rubbing to spine ends. Overall a very good clean set of a sought after Burton work.

The stories in the Pentamerone were collected by Basile and published posthumously by his sister Adriana in Naples in 1634 and 1636 under the pseudonym Abbatutis. The stories were later adapted by a number of authors including the Brothers Grimm who acknowledged the use of stories in the Pentamerone in Cinderella, Rapunzel, Puss in Boots, Sleeping Beauty and Hansel and Gretel.

Basile recorded the stories in Neapolitan and is regarded as the first writer to record the Neapolitan intonations. The style is heavily Baroque with many metaphorical expressions.

The term Pentameone comes from the Greek “pente” or five and “hemera” day. The work is set within a “frame story” with fifty separate tales being told over the course of five days … referencing Baccaccio’s Decameron of 1353 which has a ten day structure.

Beautiful stories translated by the genius that was Sir Richard Burton. Limited first edition.

$170.00

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Peril on Mars – Patrick Moore

The First 49 Stories – Ernest Hemingway

The Reckoning – Georges Simenon

Elephant Walk – Robert Standish (Film Edition 1955)

Charlotte Barton: Australia’s First Children’s Author – Marcie Muir

Il Pentamerone; or, The Tale of Tales – Basile – Translated Sir Richard Burton KCMG – First and Limited Edition – 1893

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