BATTERSEA Book Fair List, 2018
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BATTERSEA Book Fair List, 2018 . STAND M09 Item 43 BLACKWELL’S RARE BOOKS 48-51 Broad Street, Oxford, OX1 3BQ, UK Tel.: +44 (0)1865 333555 Fax: +44 (0)1865 794143 Email: [email protected] Twitter: @blackwellrare blackwell.co.uk/rarebooks BLACKWELL’S RARE BOOKS 1. Abbott (Mary) [Original artwork:] Sketch Book. early 1940s, sketches in ink and pencil throughout, some use of colour, text of various types (mostly colouring suggestions, some appointments, and a passage of lyrical prose), pp. [190, approx.], 4to, black cloth, various paint spots, webbing showing at front hinge, rear hinge starting, loose gathering at rear, ownership inscription of ‘Mary Lee Abbott, 178 Spring Street’, sound £15,000 An important document, showing the early progress of one of the key figures of the New York School of Abstract Expressionism; various influences, from her immediate surroundings to the European avant-garde, are evident, as are the emergent characteristics of her own style - the energetic use of line, bold ideas about colour, the blending of abstract and figurative. Were the nature of the work not indicative of a stage of development, the presence of little recorded details such as an appointment with Vogue magazine would supply an approximate date - Abbott modelled for the magazine at the beginning of this decade. 2. Achebe (Chinua) Things Fall Apart. Heinemann, 1958, UNCORRECTED PROOF COPY FOR FIRST EDITION, a couple of handling marks and a few faint spots occasionally, a couple of passages marked lightly in pencil to the margin, pp. [viii], 185, crown 8vo, original tan wrappers printed to front and backstrip, the front with publication date and price written in blue ink, the stamp of ‘Juta & Co Ltd’ in Cape Town and ‘21 Apr 1958’ (date of sending?) stamped at foot, a few spots to edges, pencilled ownership inscription to half-title (flyleaf not called for), proof dustjacket chipped at head of backstrip panel with spotting to rear panel and rubbing to extremities, Juta & Co stamp at foot of front flap, good £3,500 An important work of post-colonial fiction, set in Nigeria at the end of the nineteenth-century - a scarce proof, the dustjacket of which does not carry the price but otherwise matches the design of the published version. A copy with African provenance, the publisher having offices in Cape Town. 3. Agee (James) A Death in the Family. Victor Gollancz, 1958, FIRST ENGLISH EDITION, pp. [viii], 339, crown 8vo, original maroon boards, backstrip lettered in gilt, dustjacket with backstrip panel a shade darkened, wraparound band, very good £100 A review copy, with the publisher’s compliments slip loosely inserted. 4. Aldiss (Brian W.) An Age. Faber and Faber, 1967, FIRST EDITION, pp. 224, crown 8vo, original grey cloth, backstrip lettered in gilt with a few faint spots, dustjacket price- clipped, near fine £150 Signed by the author on the title-page, the signature dated to 1994. 5. [Alleyn (Edward)] The Statutes of Dulwich Colledge [sic]. [Dulwich: c. 1680], manuscript in ink on paper, red ruled margins, a few spots and stains, pp. 69, plus initial blank leaf, and 12 blank (save for red rules) leaves at end, folio, loose in the original limp vellum binding, title as above in MS on upper cover, a bit dust-soiled and a few other minor stains, good £3,000 This is a relatively early copy of ‘The Original Book of the Statutes and Ordinances of the College of God's Gift in Dulwich, Sept. 29, 1626, with an additional clause dated Nov. 20, 1626’ (Henslowe- Alleyn Digitisation Project, Muniments Series 3, Group 594). The College was originally ‘Alleyn's College of God's Gift at Dulwich’, but was known colloquially as Dulwich College more or less ab initio (but not correctly until 1808). The additional clause is dated only five days before Alleyn’s death. The dates of Edward Alleyn, (1566–1626), actor and theatre entrepreneur, are close to those of Shakespeare. Alleyn was two years younger, and survived the dramatist by a decade. ‘The impulse for this foundation had come from a variety of factors: Alleyn's childlessness; the current vogue for building such foundations, exemplified by such patrons as Thomas Sutton (who built Sutton's Hospital, that is, Charterhouse, in 1611); and the driving impulse to achieve fame and build a monumental legacy that seemed to be one of Alleyn's defining traits throughout his life. He had purchased the manor of Dulwich in 1605; the bargain was completed in late spring the next year and the entire estate passed into his hands in 1614. In May 1613 the physical construction of the college had begun (Alleyn having moved to Dulwich from his former house in Southwark) and 2 BATTERSEA BOOK FAIR: STAND M09 in September 1616 the college chapel was consecrated by George Abbot, archbishop of Canterbury. Then, in 1618, Alleyn encountered opposition from Francis Bacon, then lord chancellor, who attempted to stay the patent for the institution because he opposed the transfer of personal fortunes to foundations ... But Alleyn was not one to be easily beaten down. After almost a year of politicking he managed to convince Bacon to change his mind, and on 13 September 1619 he read the deed of foundation and statutes in the college. Distinguished statesmen attended the event, including Francis Bacon, Inigo Jones (the king's surveyor), Thomas Howard, earl of Arundel, Sir Thomas Grimes, John Finch (later lord keeper), and Sir John Bodley’ (ODNB). Edward Gorey dustjacket 6. Amis (Kingsley) Lucky Jim. A Novel. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1954, FIRST AMERICAN EDITION, pp. 256, crown 8vo, original brick-red cloth, backstrip lettered in white, a touch of pushing at bottom corners, some very faint adhesive browning to endpapers, a small faint waterstain at foot of textblock, dustjacket by Edward Gorey with a little toning to backstrip and rear panel, the odd nick, very good £475 The American edition of Amis’s masterpiece is a more attractive proposition than its English antecedent, with early work by Edward Gorey - then on the staff at Doubleday - providing an illustration to the text. 7. Anderson (Poul) Three Hearts and Three Lions. New York: Doubleday, 1961, FIRST EDITION, a cluster of incredibly faint spots to prelims, pp. 191, 8vo, original red cloth with Edward Gorey lion stamped in gilt to upper board, backstrip lettered and decorated in gilt and black,minor rubbing along tail edge of cloth, faint endpaper browning, top edge red with the roughtrimmed fore-edge faintly spotted, Edward Gorey dustjacket a little nicked at head of backstrip panel, very good £300 A presentation copy: ‘Skål to John Baxter, Poul Anderson’ - the recipient a fellow Science Fiction author and bibliophile. Laid in is a typed letter to another author in the genre, the Dane Jannick Storm. Anderson’s letter, which opens with a stream of Danish, goes on to discuss the Danish translation of the present work, which Storm has related as being ‘faulty’ - a fact of ‘no surprise’ to the author, who continues with a discussion of the possible reasons for its deficiency and then a summary of the standard of translations that he has experienced (’The best [...] have been French. the worst have been German -- except for one very nice Swiss job’. An excellent double-association copy of one of the author’s key works, set partly in the Denmark of the author’s childhood - under the shadow of Nazism - before proceeding to a fantasy world informed by Medieval Romance and Norse Legend, amongst other influences. 8. Anon. The Frenzy of Fashion. Addressed to the Ladies. Printed for W. Goldsmith, 1777, woodcut tailpiece at end (see below), pp. 11, [1, blank], 4to, disbound, loose, good (ESTC T224090) £1,500 An impassioned tirade (in verse) against the laxity of modern morals, the folly and indeed the physical cruelties of the demands of fashion, harking back to a golden age. The woodcut at the end shows an oval with the monogram RC, possibly a clue to the authorship. Frenzy is a word that has lost its force, and is now applied approvingly to itself by the fashion industry. Rare: BL only in ESTC. ‘Tho’ brawny Fulvia strain her yielding waist, Taper’d by force, and tortured into taste Tho’ the squeez’d stomach to the bosom screw’d Swells into neck, and hungry yearns for food’ 9. (Aristotle.) Michael of Ephesus Scholia, idest, brevis sed erudita atque utilis interpretatio in IIII. libros Aristotelis De Partibus Animalium. Dominico Monthesauro Veronensi interprete. Nunc primmùm in lucem edita. Basle: Peter Perna, 1559, FIRST EDITION, woodcut vignette to title-page, woodcut initials, Roman and italic letter, pp. 325, [15, including final blank], 8vo, contemporary limp vellum, title inked (twice) to spine, minor staining, tiny hole in spine, inscription to title-page of the convent of Santa Maria Inviolata, Riva del Garda, good (VD16 M 5134; USTC 604075; OCLC locates copies outside continental Europe at Oxford, Cambridge, British Library and Stanford) £2,500 3 BLACKWELL’S RARE BOOKS First edition of a commentary by the important 12th-century Byzantine scholar Michael of Ephesus, on Aristotle's work 'On the parts of animals'. Michael was one of the principal Aristotelian scholars in a group organized in Constantinople by the Empress Anna Comnena. They represented an eastern Christian tradition of philosophical study that continued after the fall of Alexandria, its centre, to Arab conquerors in 642. Michael finished his commentaries in or after 1138. The present work was translated into Latin for by Domenico Montesauro, a physician of Verona. Michael's work is followed (201-325) by a version in Latin of book I of the original Aristotle, with facing commentary (presented here in italic), by the Padua philosophy professor Niccolo Leonico Tomeo (1456-1531).