Battersby, H. F. Prevost

The Last Resort

London: John Lane/The Bodley Head, 1912.  "Australasian edition."  Very good condition, no jacket.  Publisher's green decorative cloth with slight lean to spine.  Tightly bound, although rear hinge starting.  Scarce.

$40

Battersby, H. F. Prevost

Man Outside Himself: The Facts of Etheric Projection.

London: Rider, 1942.  1st edition.  Publisher's red cloth, no jacket.  Very good condition, some marginal notes in pencil.  100pp.  Battersby's book on the "facts" of astral projection.

$15

Battersby, H. F. Prevost

The Uncertain Glory

London: John Lane/The Bodley Head, 1914.  Publisher's blue pictorial cloth with beautiful gilt, green, and blue design to front board and with Battersby's name misspelled "Battersley" on spine.  Cloth somewhat spotted and dulled, front hinge weak, otherwise a tightly bound copy of a scarce novel.

$40

Beckford, Vathek

Vathek et ses episodes

Paris: Jose Corti, 2003.  A great French edition of Vathek and the Episodes of Vathek.  A couple ink notations in the margins, else an excellent copy.

$5

Corelli, Marie

Ziska: The Problem of a Wicked Soul

First edition.  Bristol: Arrowsmith and London: Simpkin, Marshall, 1897.  Good to very good condition in original publisher's cloth, with decorative design to top board, featuring gilt lettering and gilt pyramids and sphinx.  Some soiling to boards.  Particularly interesting for its ink inscription to popular Victorian actor Wilson Barrett: "To Wilson Barrett.  From his friend the author.  Marie Corelli.  Feb. 14, 1897".  The exterior cloth is grubby, but the binding is very sound.  The autograph and the link to Wilson Barrett make this a very desirable and truly unique copy indeed.

$250

Couperus, Louis

Small Souls

New York: Dodd Mead, 1919.  Blue publisher's decorative cloth.  Good only.  Some dulling and soiling to exterior and both inner hinges weak.  Nevertheless, an uncommon edition of one of the masterpieces of Dutch fiction.

$5

Dinesen, Isak (Karen Blixen)

Seven Gothic Tales

New York: Smith and Haas, 1934.  Introduction by Dorothy Canfield.  Wonderfully presented in the original faux-vellum and red cloth with gilt stamping to top board and spine.  No jacket.  A very good copy. 

$5

Edgeworth, Maria

Castle Rackrent

London: Oxford University Press, 1964.  Hardcover with dust jacket, part of the Oxford English Novels series.  A very good copy, with dust jacket protected in Brodart sleeve.  Edited with an introduction by George Watson.  A really nice copy, from an excellent series.

$20

England, George Allan

The Golden Blight

New York: Arno Press, 1975.  As new/fine.  Hardcover (wonderful purple cloth) facsimile reprint of the 1916 edition published by H.K. Fly.  Part of Arno's Science Fiction series.

$10

Gilbert, Stephen

The Landslide

London: Faber and Faber, 1943.  Very good or better in very good or better jacket.  Slight lean to spine.  An extremely scarce wartime production, a fantasy novel set in Ireland, the first novel by this author, a protege of Forrest Reid.

$150

Gilbert, Stephen

Monkeyface

London: Faber & Faber, 1948.  Red cloth with very good dust jacket.  The story of an ape who learns to speak, and the problems that arise therefrom.  A scarce work by the friend of Forrest Reid.  A very nice copy of a scarce book, with only minor loss to the head and base of the spine of the jacket.

$200

Gilbert, Stephen

Ratman's Notebooks

London: Michel Joseph, 1968.  Black publisher's cloth, no jacket.  An advance copy with a now-browned slip pasted on top board which reads:

Title: RATMAN'S NOTEBOOKS

Author: Stephen Gilbert

Publication Date: May, 1969

Price: $4.95

Unrevised proofs.  Confidential.  Please do not quote for publication until verified with finished book.  The Viking Press.

A Viking Press photocopied synopsis also pasted to front free endpaper. 

Very good condition and a very interesting book, as it is clearly the London edition, yet distributed in the USA as a proof copy.

$100

Grosse, Carl [Trans. by P. Will]

Horrid Mysteries

London: Robert Holden & Co., 1927.  Volume 1 only (of a two volume set), but perhaps unique in that it preserves the original glassine dust jacket, advertising on the front flap the series itself with a quote from Northanger Abbey, while the rear flap advertises the series itself:
THE "JANE AUSTEN" HORRID NOVELS

Fashionable as they were in their day; on the shelves of every circulating library, both in town and country; devoured with delicious thrills and exquisite dread by whole armies of enraptured readers, there are at the present time no books more difficult to trace and to procure than these Romances of Terror, the novels of the later decades of the eighteenth century, the lighter reading of our ancestors. [...] A reprint, then, of the seven "Northanger Novels," is, without exaggeration, a reprint of seven of the rarest books in the English language....."  Of the projected series, only this and The Necromancer appeared.  The sole known proof of The Mysterious Warning exists at the University of Kansas.  The copy of the present book has been very carefully preserved; the pages are unopened, and the glassine jacket is almost 100% complete.  It would be fair to assume that no copy of similar quality exists anywhere else in the world.

$350

Huysmans, Karl Joris {sic}

Against the Grain

Against the Grain: A Novel Without a Plot.  The Book that Dorian Gray Loved and that Inspired Oscar Wilde "It was the strangest Book he had ever read."  Groves & Michaux, 9, Rue de Beaujolais, Paris, 1926.  A private, limited edition, hand-numbered copy number 450 and initialed S.M. (by publisher Michaux?)  xxxi + 299 pp., hardcover, bound in dark blue cloth with gilt decor to boards and marbled endpapers.  Pages tanned significantly with age, but still a tightly bound copy of an interesting edition of this work.  Other than the rather poor quality of the paper used by the printers, a very nice copy of this work.  NO dust jacket.

$25

Huysmans, J-K

En Route

New York: Dutton, [1920].  Translated by C. Kegan Paul.  Pages somewhat tanned and foxed, binding somewhat faded and worn.  A good reading copy.

$12

Inchbald, Elizabeth

A Simple Story

London: Oxford University Press, 1967.  Hardcover (cloth) with dust jacket.  An ex library copy from the Kansas City Public Library, with usual library markings; else very good.  Tightly bound.  Certainly a suitable copy.

$10

James, C. T. C.

On Turnham Green: Being the Adventures of a Gentleman of the Road

London: Bliss, Sands, and Foster, 1895.  Green pictorial publisher's cloth with illustration of a highwayman on front board.  The Academy (May 11, 1895) wrote of this novel: "Mr. C. T. C. James has fallen in with the humour of the moment for stories of old time, writing a short and not very elaborate, but singularly bright and well-hit-off, romance of the road, with taverns, love, shooting, danger of being sus. per coll. [i.e., hanged], and the rest, all ingeniously put together and well bustled along." 

Good condition only, with a lot of exterior wear and splitting of the endpaper at the inner rear hinge, revealing some of the webbed binding underneath.  A very uncommon book.  We have never seen another copy come up for sale.

$30

James, Henry

The Two Magics: The Turn of the Screw and Covering End

New York: Macmillan, 1899.  An early American edition.  Publisher's red cloth with gilt lettering to spine, good to very good condition. Surprisingly very uncommon.  Sells for $450 on abebooks.com; the first edition of the previous year sells for as much as $1500.

$30

Kernahan, Coulson

Captain Shannon

London: Ward, Lock, [n.d.], circa 1897.  Softcover/wraps.  Color pictorial front wrap, rear wrap has advertisement for Fry's Chocolates.  122pp., double column.  Adventure/mystery novel, which was highly popular in the 1890s, involving the criminal and terrorist "Captain Shannon".  Bottom 2-3 inches of paper spine missing, but book still tightly bound, bright, and fresh.  A very uncommon survival and a lovely example of an early paperback pulp novel.

$10

King, Francis

The Dark Glasses

London, Longmans, 1954 (although stamped on the inner flap of the jacket with a $2.75 U.S. price).  Publisher's maroon cloth with pictorial jacket in beautiful condition.  A small piece missing from top of dust jacket spine; otherwise, appears flawless.  A very nice copy of one of the better novels by one of the most underrated British novelists of the 20th century.

$40

Lee, Sophia

The Recess: or, A Tale of Other Times

New York: Arno Press, 1972.  3 vols.  Facsimile reprint of the first edition.  Interesting for its inscription: "For Dr. J.M.S. Tompkins, whose kind patronage fostered many of my 'gothic' researches -- in respect and gratitude from Devendra P. Varma July 1972".  Near fine copies, no jacket as issued

$150

Mathers, Helen

Cherry Ripe!

London: Routledge, ca. 1884.  An undated yellowback copy of this romance novel in excellent condition for a yellowback.  It has been professionally rebacked and has a wonderful pictorial fron cover and a Pear's Soap ad on the rear board.   485pp.  Very scarce.

$40

Maturin, Charles Robert

Melmoth the Wanderer

Portway, Bath: Cedric Chivers, 1965.  3 vols.  A facsimile replica of the 1892 Richard Bentley edition.  3 volumes, bound in red cloth, with pink decorative dust jackets, all protected in plastic mylar/Brodart sleeves.  Fine condition, with no evident defects.  This edition, like the 1892 Bentley and the original edition, is exceedingly scarce.

$150

$300

$20

Moore, George

Grasville Abbey: A Romance, in three volumes.

New York: Arno Press, 1974.  Foreward by Devendra P. Varma, Introduction by Robert Mayo.  3 vols.  Without dust jackets, as issued.  Fine, unread.  Protected in Brodart plastic sleeves.  A facsimile reprint of the London Robinson edition of 1797.  All these Arno Press reprints are now quite scarce.

$150

Paltock, Robert

The Life and Adventures of Peter Wilkins

London & Toronto: J.M. Dent, 1928.  Large 8vo, blue cloth with gilt lettering and design; no jacket.  Near fine condition.  Illustrated by Edward Bawden.  A classic of early English science fiction, first published in 1751.  A couple spots of minor soiling to exterior, endpapers have some foxing/offsetting.  Otherwise, lovely.  PLEASE NOTE: Due to the oversize nature of this book, shipping may be extra.

$15

$15

Post, Melville D.

The Strange Schemes of Randolph Mason

Philadelphia: Oswald Train, 1973.  Cloth in dust jacket (protected in Brodart sleeve).  Collection of stories featuring an evil lawyer.  A facsimile reprint of the 1896 edition.

$15

Prest, Thomas or James Malcolm Rymer

Varney the Vampire, or, The Feast of Blood

New York: Arno Press, 1970.   3 vols., with introduction.  Facsimile of the original penny dreadful.  Includes somewhat battered (but original) slipcase.  Spines dulled a little from sun, but overall a very good set.  Some discoloration of mysterious origin to one page in volume 1.  Increasingly scarce, as are all titles in Arno's Gothic Novels reprints series.

$200

Prevost, Francis [pseud. of Henry Francis Prevost Battersby]

False Dawn.

London: Ward, Lock, and Co., [1897].  A stunning copy in black publisher's decorative cloth with beautiful gold decor depicting a sunrise on spine and front board.  Very good condition, with a slight lean to the spine.  Novel by the author of the short story collection "Rust of Gold," which was published by Valancourt Books in 2007.  The Academy for April 17, 1897 wrote of False Dawn: "False Dawn, whether you dislike or are wearied of its motive or not, is at least admirably, and in places, even beautifully written, with real and rare powers both of psychology and of word-painting."  Very scarce, especially in this condition.

$100

Priestley, J. B.

Bright Day: A Novel

New York & London: Harper, 1946.  1st edition.  Publisher's black cloth with (price-clipped) dust jacket protected in Brodart sleeve.  A very good copy.

$9

Radcliffe, Anna [i.e. George Moore]

Gli spettri della badia di Grasville

Milano: Oreste Ferrario, n.d. [circa 1830].  Apparently a translation of George Moore's Grasville Abbey.  3 vols., original illustrated paper wraps, which curiously give a different title, "Le paure di Matilda".  These three volumes are complete in themselves and although they are missing their spines and bear some signs of age and wear, they are nonetheless still complete and tightly bound.  An interesting and uncommon item, of which probably few complete copies in original wraps have survived.

$50

Radcliffe, Ann

The Romance of the Forest

New York: Arno Press, 1974.  3 vols.  Hardcover, no jacket as issued.  Foreword by Frederick Garber, Introduction by Devendra Varma.  A facsimile reprint of the 1827 A.K. Newman 3 vol. edition.  Ex library copies, but appear unread.

$75

Reid, Forrest

Denis Bracknel: A Family Chronicle

London: Faber & Faber, 1947.  First edition.  Blue cloth in dust jacket; book very good to near fine; dust jacket has a tear along front flap and some loss to base of spine, overall good+, protected in Mylar sleeve.  An increasingly scarce book.

$35

Reid, Forrest

The Garden God

Brilliant Books (UK), 1986.  Facsimile reprint with an introduction by Colin Cruise

$5

Reid, Forrest

Uncle Stephen

London: Gay Men's Press, 1988, pages tanned with age, but book unread.  A little shelfwear.

$5

Reid, Forrest

Young Tom

London: Gay Men's Press, 1987, pages tanned with age, but book unread.  A little shelfwear.  Part of the Tom Barber trilogy.

$5

$20

Shelley, Mary W.

Frankenstein

London: Oxford University Press, 1969.  Hardcover with dust jacket.  An ex library copy in very good condition.  Edited with an introduction by M. K. Joseph.  Despite the library markings, a decent, tight copy.

$15

Shute, Nevil

Ruined City

London: Cassell, 1938.  Third printing, same month as the first (July, 1938).  Very scarce, with no copies for sale online and the 1938 Cassell early printings are held by virtually no libraries worldwide. Shute's third novel, the tale of a broken-down middle-aged businessman who finds new life and new love in investing money in rebuilding a ruined shipping town.  This copy was sold to me on eBay as being "Very Nice"; I would describe it as not better than G+ to VG-.  No jacket.  Black publisher's cloth has occasional spotting and soiling, although not awful. Spine lettering still clearly visible.  Binding is holding strong, although the webbing is visible between the front free endpaper and the half-title.  Scattered light foxing throughout.  A decent, although by no means exceptional, copy of an excellent and very scarce novel.

$175

Sue, Eugene

De Rohan; or, The Court Conspirator: An Historical Romance

New York: Harper's, 1845.  Rebound in modern green leather, preserving most of the original brown front wrap, indicating an original cost of 25 cents.  Printed in double column, 152 pp.  Some pages have small tears which have been repaired.  The final leaf has a semi-repaired tear and a slight loss of text.  Still, a scarce and interesting volume, which presents well in the green leather binding.

$8

Sue, Eugene

Le juif errant

Paris, no publisher listed, no date given, although previous owner has inked in a 1950 date.  Bound in half red morocco with gilt lettering to spine and marbled boards.  933pp.  A large and heavy book, which will necessitate slighly higher shipping costs.  Tightly bound, but pages tanned some with age.  A lovely old volume that I bought from a bouquiniste on the banks of the Seine in Paris some years ago.

$15

Trevena, John [pseud. of Ernest George Henham]

Heather.

New York: Moffat, Yard, and Co., 1909.  1st U.S. edition, bound from the sheets of the London edition (colophon says it was printed by Richard Clay & Sons of Suffolk).  The second in Trevena's classic trilogy of life on Dartmoor, which began in Furze the Cruel (1908) and concludes in Granite.  A good, solid, very tightly bound copy, in nice shape internally, but significant fading and spotting to the decorative cloth cover.  Scarce.

$18

Varma, Devendra

The Gothic Flame: Being a History of the Gothic Novel in England: Its Origins, Efflorescence, Disintegration, and Residuary Influences.

London: Arthur Barker Ltd, 1957.  1st edition.  Black cloth, no jacket.  Good to very good condition.  Some spotting and staining to cloth.  A nice reading or research copy. 

$30