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I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings - Inscribed - Maya Angelou

1969 - Random House, New York - First Edition
A fine first edition signed and inscribed by Maya Angelou: ‘Joy! The caged bird sings of freedom.’

‘I
Know Why the Caged Bird Sings’ marks the first volume in what would ultimately become a seven volume autobiography. It was written in the months following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on 4 April 1968 - coincidentally, also Maya Angelou's birthday - at the suggestion of James Baldwin, as a way of working through her grief and depression over King's death. Baldwin would later call the resulting work "a Biblical study of life in the midst of death." Its themes of identity, racism, trauma, and literacy led to equal parts acclaim and criticism, with the book hailed as one of the greatest works of biography ever produced by an American author and one of the most frequently banned or challenged books in the United States. 
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Price HK$ 30,000



Modern Confectionary; Containing Receipts for Drying and Candying, Confits, Cakes, Preserves, Liqueurs, Ices, Jellies, Creams, Sponges, Pastes, Potted Meats, Pickles, Wines, Etc. Etc. Etc. By the Author of “Modern Cookery” - Anon

1833 - Printed by and for Henry Mozley and Sons, Derby - Second Edition
A finely bound rare early nineteenth century compilation of recipes including deserts, cakes, biscuits, pickles, relish, wines. Most likely compiled from numerous sources by Eliza Acton, who has been described as the first modern cookery writer, preceding Mrs Beeton by several years. Delia Smith has called her ‘the best writer of recipes in the English language’.

Chapters are:
Drying and Candying; Lozenges and Confits, Cakes, Biscuits, etc.; Puddings; Preserves; Sirups, Liqueurs, and Waters; Ices; Jellies; Creams, Custards, etc.; Sponges; Patties, Pastes, etc.; Potted Meats; Pickles, Catsups, etc.; Observations on British Wine. 
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Price HK$ 3,000



A Voyage Round the World, In the Years MDCCXL, I, II, III, IV. - George Anson, Richard Walter

1748 - Printed for the Author, London - First Edition
A finely bound ‘Royal Paper’ copy of this beautifully illustrated work which ‘has long occupied a distinguished position as a masterpiece of descriptive travel’ (Hill), and ‘a model of what such literature should be’ (Cox).

Containing forty-two copper-engraved maps, charts, views, and coastal profiles, all but one folding, including views of Brazilian harbours and cities, Acapulco, Tenian, Port St. Julian, Magellan’s Straits, the Bay of Manila, Saipan, Lama, Lantau, Chinese junks, and others, and large folding maps of South America, the Philippines, and the Pacific Ocean, as well as a twelve-page subscriber list, and the two-page instructions to the binder.

England, at war with Spain in 1739, equipped eight ships under the command of George Anson to harass the Spaniards on the western coast of South America for the purpose of cutting off Spanish supplies of wealth from the Pacific area. Seven ships were lost and of 900 men 600 perished. As usual, scurvy took an appalling toll.

The Spanish fleet sent to oppose the British ran into storms; provisions ran out and many ships were wrecked. Thus the primary objective of the expedition was not attained. Anson, however, continued taking prizes off the Pacific coast during 1741-42, and in June 1743, near the Philippines, he captured the Spanish galleon
Nostra Seigniora de Cabadonga and its treasure of £400,000 sterling, which allowed Anson and the surviving members of his crew to reach England much the richer. 
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Price HK$ 59,000



Le Paysan de Paris – The Peasant of Paris - Signed by Henri Cartier-Bresson - Louis Aragon, Henri Cartier-Bresson

1994 - The Limited editions Club, New York - Number 89 of 300 copies.
‘I was seeking… a new kind of novel that would break all the traditional rules governing the writing of fiction… a novel that the critics would be obliged to approach empty-handed’ – Louis Aragon.

A large (32x42cm) beautiful and superbly produced limited edition folio of Louis Aragon’s outstanding Surrealist novel – in which he compares a poet’s love for his city to a peasant’s love for his land – illustrated and signed by Henri Cartier-Bresson, one of only 300 copies. With the text in English, translated by Simon Watson-Taylor.

Stunningly illustrated with seven original lithographs and a photogravure by Henri Cartier-Bresson. The lithographs were pulled by Bruce Porter at his Trestle Editions studio in New York. The photogravure was printed by Jon Goodman on French-made Arjo Wiggins stock.

Bound in silk and provided with a matching felt lined silk slipcase.
 
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Price HK$ 9,000



The Complete Works - Sense and Sensibility; Pride and Prejudice; Mansfield Park; Emma; Northanger Abbey and Persuasion; Lady Susan, The Watsons, and Letters - Jane Austen

1911-12 - John Grant, Edinburgh - The Winchester Edition
‘I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of anything than of a book! When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.'

An elegantly bound twelve volume set, comprising all of Austen's works. With a portrait frontispiece to first volume, and title pages printed in red and black with a vignette 'JA' monogram.

Affectation of candour is common enough—one meets with it everywhere. But to be candid without ostentation or design—to take the good of everybody's character and make it still better, and say nothing of the bad—belongs to you alone.’ 
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Price HK$ 35,000



Pride and Prejudice. A Novel - Jane Austen

1833 - Richard Bentley, London - First illustrated edition & first single volume edition.
A finely bound ‘Pride and Prejudice’, the first Bentley edition, the first edition in one volume, and the first to be illustrated.

Written when Jane Austen was just twenty-one, but revised for publication anonymously thirteen years later. Elizabeth Bennet, eligible bachelor Fitzwilliam Darcy, his friend Bingley and her beloved sister Jane, the folly of judging by first impressions, the friendships, gossip and snobberies of provincial middle-class life.

Illustrated with an engraved frontispiece and additional vignette title-page engraved by William Greatbatch after drawings by George Pickering.
 
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Price HK$ 50,000



The Gilbert & Sullivan Book - Leslie Baily

1952 - Cassell & Company, London - First Edition
The history of the great musical duo of William Schwenck Gilbert and Arthur Seymour Sullivan, from their beginnings to the final Fin de Siècle plays, in a superb theatrically styled binding by Bayntun of Bath.

Profusely illustrated throughout with ten colour plates and over 400 illustrations in the text.

For my military knowledge, though I'm plucky and adventury,
Has only been brought down to the beginning of the century;
But still, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I am the very model of a modern Major-GINeral!
 
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Price HK$ 5,000



Ismailia. A Narrative of The Expedition to Central Africa for the Suppression of the Slave Trade. Organized by Ismail, Khedive of Egypt - Sir Samuel W. Baker, Pacha

1874 - Macmillan And Co., London - First Edition
A near fine two-volume first edition by one of the great explorers of the era, in which Sir Samuel White Baker describes leading a military expedition beginning in 1869 to annex the lawless upper Nile, suppress its barbaric slave trade, establish trade routes and open up navigation on the Great Lakes for the cotton trade.

Profusely illustrated with fifty two full-page plates and two maps in colour, one folding.

Tasked with the assignment by the Ottoman Viceroy of Egypt at a ball in Cairo, Baker was given four years, the rank of major-general, and the title of pasha – the most senior positions ever given to a European under an Egyptian administration. The books begin in the same way as the expedition: with the commission of four boats, including a 251-ton paddle steamer that were shipped from England, and with hundreds of camels and an additional nine steamers and 55 sailing boats in Egypt.

In Baker’s view the slave trade led to ‘treachery, devastation and ruin.’ ‘It is impossible to know the actual number of slaves taken from Central Africa annually; but I should imagine that at least fifty thousand…the loss of life attendant upon the capture and subsequent treatment of the slaves is frightful.’
 
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Price HK$ 11,000



 
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