The Centenary Edition of Ian Fleming's James Bond Novels -
Ian Lancaster Fleming
2008 - Penguin 007, London - Centenary Edition, First Printings
A complete 14 volume collection of the Bond novels, issued to celebrate the 100th birthday of Ian Fleming (28th May 2008).
With the magnificently ‘retro’ style artwork by Michael Gillette to dust jackets.
A fine and particularly uncommon set, all first printings in first printing dust jackets, housed in a custom-made cloth slipcase with fleece lining and ribbon pulls, each dust jacket with archival cover.
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Price HK$ 25,000
2008 - Penguin 007, London - Centenary Edition, First Printings
A complete 14 volume collection of the Bond novels, issued to celebrate the 100th birthday of Ian Fleming (28th May 2008).With the magnificently ‘retro’ style artwork by Michael Gillette to dust jackets.
A fine and particularly uncommon set, all first printings in first printing dust jackets, housed in a custom-made cloth slipcase with fleece lining and ribbon pulls, each dust jacket with archival cover.
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Price HK$ 25,000
Flying Colours. Including A Ship Of The Line -
C. S. Forester
1938 - Michael Joseph Ltd. in conjunction with The Book Society Ltd., London - First Edition
One finely bound volume containing two classic Hornblower novels, in which Captain Horatio Hornblower commands his first ship of the line, HMS Sutherland. A Ship Of The Line and Flying Colours, are the second and third books in the Horatio Hornblower series. This is the first publication of Flying Colours which was released shortly afterwards as a stand alone title, making this the true first edition.
A Ship of the Line - May 1810, seventeen years deep into the Napoleonic Wars. Captain Horatio Hornblower is newly in command of his first ship of the line, the seventy-four-gun HMS Sutherland, which he deems ‘the ugliest and least desirable two-decker in the Navy List’. Moreover, she is 250 men short of a full crew, so Hornblower must enlist and train ‘poachers, bigamists, sheepstealers’, and other landlubbers. By the time the Sutherland reaches the blockaded Catalonian coast of Spain, the crew is capable of staging five astonishing solo raids against the French. But the grisly prospect of defeat and capture looms for both captain and crew as the Sutherland single-handedly takes on four French ships.
Flying Colours - Forced to surrender the Sutherland after a long and bloody battle, Captain Horatio Hornblower now bides his time as a prisoner in a French fortress. Within days he and his first lieutenant, Bush, who was crippled in the last fight, are to be taken to Paris to be tried on trumped-up charges of violating the laws of war, and most probably executed as part of Napoleon's attempt to rally the war-weary empire behind him. Even if Hornblower escapes this fate and somehow finds his way back to England, he will face court-martial for his surrender of a British ship. As fears for his life and his reputation compete in his mind with worries about his pregnant wife and his possibly widowed lover, the indomitable captain impatiently awaits the chance to make his next move.
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Price HK$ 5,000
1938 - Michael Joseph Ltd. in conjunction with The Book Society Ltd., London - First Edition
One finely bound volume containing two classic Hornblower novels, in which Captain Horatio Hornblower commands his first ship of the line, HMS Sutherland. A Ship Of The Line and Flying Colours, are the second and third books in the Horatio Hornblower series. This is the first publication of Flying Colours which was released shortly afterwards as a stand alone title, making this the true first edition.A Ship of the Line - May 1810, seventeen years deep into the Napoleonic Wars. Captain Horatio Hornblower is newly in command of his first ship of the line, the seventy-four-gun HMS Sutherland, which he deems ‘the ugliest and least desirable two-decker in the Navy List’. Moreover, she is 250 men short of a full crew, so Hornblower must enlist and train ‘poachers, bigamists, sheepstealers’, and other landlubbers. By the time the Sutherland reaches the blockaded Catalonian coast of Spain, the crew is capable of staging five astonishing solo raids against the French. But the grisly prospect of defeat and capture looms for both captain and crew as the Sutherland single-handedly takes on four French ships.
Flying Colours - Forced to surrender the Sutherland after a long and bloody battle, Captain Horatio Hornblower now bides his time as a prisoner in a French fortress. Within days he and his first lieutenant, Bush, who was crippled in the last fight, are to be taken to Paris to be tried on trumped-up charges of violating the laws of war, and most probably executed as part of Napoleon's attempt to rally the war-weary empire behind him. Even if Hornblower escapes this fate and somehow finds his way back to England, he will face court-martial for his surrender of a British ship. As fears for his life and his reputation compete in his mind with worries about his pregnant wife and his possibly widowed lover, the indomitable captain impatiently awaits the chance to make his next move.
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Price HK$ 5,000
An Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard -
Thomas Gray
1869 - Sampson Low, London
‘Full many a Gem of purest Ray serene
The dark unfathom'd Caves of Ocean Bear:
Full many a Flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its Sweetness on the desert Air.’
A finely bound and illustrated edition of Thomas Gray’s ‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard’, one of the most widely-quoted poems of the 18th century. It is a meditation on the inevitability of death; the vanity of ambition and the universal human desire to be loved. In particular the poem looks at death as a leveller, an indiscriminate force which makes no distinction between the famous on the one hand and, on the other, the anonymous – those who, in the words of the poem:
Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife
Their sober wishes never learn’d to stray
‘Widely considered his masterpiece, it is believed that Gray wrote the 'Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard' in the graveyard of the church in Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire in 1751. The poem was a literary sensation when published by Robert Dodsley in February 1751 and has made a lasting contribution to English literature’
With sixteen colour chromolithograph illustrations from drawings by R. Barnes, R. P. Leitch, E. M. Wimperis and others, each with descriptive tissue guards, and two leaves of the original manuscript in facsimile.
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Price HK$ 9,000
1869 - Sampson Low, London
‘Full many a Gem of purest Ray sereneThe dark unfathom'd Caves of Ocean Bear:
Full many a Flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its Sweetness on the desert Air.’
A finely bound and illustrated edition of Thomas Gray’s ‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard’, one of the most widely-quoted poems of the 18th century. It is a meditation on the inevitability of death; the vanity of ambition and the universal human desire to be loved. In particular the poem looks at death as a leveller, an indiscriminate force which makes no distinction between the famous on the one hand and, on the other, the anonymous – those who, in the words of the poem:
Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife
Their sober wishes never learn’d to stray
‘Widely considered his masterpiece, it is believed that Gray wrote the 'Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard' in the graveyard of the church in Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire in 1751. The poem was a literary sensation when published by Robert Dodsley in February 1751 and has made a lasting contribution to English literature’
With sixteen colour chromolithograph illustrations from drawings by R. Barnes, R. P. Leitch, E. M. Wimperis and others, each with descriptive tissue guards, and two leaves of the original manuscript in facsimile.
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Price HK$ 9,000
Les Livres de L'Enfance du XVe au XIXe Siecle. Preface de Paul Gavault -
Gumuchian
1930 - Gumuchian & Compagnie, Paris - The first deluxe edition, limited to 100 copies on Papier de Hollande, this being number 10
Possibly the most important catalogue of children's books ever Issued. Two large quarto volumes, text in French and English, illustrated with 336 colour and black and white plates.
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Price HK$ 6,000
1930 - Gumuchian & Compagnie, Paris - The first deluxe edition, limited to 100 copies on Papier de Hollande, this being number 10
Possibly the most important catalogue of children's books ever Issued. Two large quarto volumes, text in French and English, illustrated with 336 colour and black and white plates.
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Price HK$ 6,000
Robertson of Irvine - Poet-Preacher -
Arthur Guthrie
1890 - Ardrossan, London - Second Edition
A finely bound copy, illustrated with engraved frontispiece portrait and calotype plate of Trinity Church, Irvine from a photograph.
William Bruce Robertson (1820-86), Scottish divine, was born at Greenhill, St. Ninians, Stirling, 24 May, 1820, and was educated at the University of Glasgow and at the Secession Theological Hall, Edinburgh, where he made the acquaintance of Thomas de Quincey, and on his recommendation went to the University of Halle and studied under Friedrich Tholuck.
After travelling in Italy and Switzerland he was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Stirling and Falkirk in 1843, and was soon after ordained at the United Secession Church (after 1847, the United Presbyterian Church) in Irvine, Ayrshire. In this charge he remained for 35 years, exercising from his pulpit a truly magnetic influence.’
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Price HK$ 1,500
1890 - Ardrossan, London - Second Edition
A finely bound copy, illustrated with engraved frontispiece portrait and calotype plate of Trinity Church, Irvine from a photograph.William Bruce Robertson (1820-86), Scottish divine, was born at Greenhill, St. Ninians, Stirling, 24 May, 1820, and was educated at the University of Glasgow and at the Secession Theological Hall, Edinburgh, where he made the acquaintance of Thomas de Quincey, and on his recommendation went to the University of Halle and studied under Friedrich Tholuck.
After travelling in Italy and Switzerland he was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Stirling and Falkirk in 1843, and was soon after ordained at the United Secession Church (after 1847, the United Presbyterian Church) in Irvine, Ayrshire. In this charge he remained for 35 years, exercising from his pulpit a truly magnetic influence.’
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Price HK$ 1,500
Works -
Thomas Jefferson
1853-55 - John C. Riker, New York
‘I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man’
A superbly bound nine volume set of the first collected edition of the works of Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, who voiced the aspirations of a new America as no other individual of his era. As public official, historian, philosopher, and plantation owner, he served his country for over five decades.
With folding facsimiles and tables. Published by the Order of the Joint Committee of Congress on the Library, from the Original Manuscripts deposited in the department of state. With explanatory notes, tables of contents, and a copious index to the whole, by the editor H. A. Washington.
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Price HK$ 30,000
1853-55 - John C. Riker, New York
‘I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man’A superbly bound nine volume set of the first collected edition of the works of Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, who voiced the aspirations of a new America as no other individual of his era. As public official, historian, philosopher, and plantation owner, he served his country for over five decades.
With folding facsimiles and tables. Published by the Order of the Joint Committee of Congress on the Library, from the Original Manuscripts deposited in the department of state. With explanatory notes, tables of contents, and a copious index to the whole, by the editor H. A. Washington.
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Price HK$ 30,000
Westward Ho!; Hereward The Wake; Hypatia; Two Years Ago; Alton Locke -
Charles Kingsley
1896-1900 - Macmillan and Co., London -
A finely bound five volume set of Kingsley’s best known historic novels, ‘Hypatia’, ‘Hereward the Wake’ and ‘Westward Ho!’, the classic action-packed saga of romance and seafaring adventure set against the dramatic backdrop of Elizabethan England, the battle of the Spanish Armada, and the exploration of North America, illustrated by Charles Brock.
Together with ‘Alton Locke’, the story of a tailor-poet who rebels against the ignominy of sweated labor and becomes a leader of the Chartist movement, and ‘Two Years Ago’ about a doctor named Tom Thurnall and his friends as they deal with the effects of the Crimean War and a cholera epidemic, reflecting on social issues of the time, such as public health, slavery, and social reform.
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Price HK$ 4,000
1896-1900 - Macmillan and Co., London -
A finely bound five volume set of Kingsley’s best known historic novels, ‘Hypatia’, ‘Hereward the Wake’ and ‘Westward Ho!’, the classic action-packed saga of romance and seafaring adventure set against the dramatic backdrop of Elizabethan England, the battle of the Spanish Armada, and the exploration of North America, illustrated by Charles Brock.Together with ‘Alton Locke’, the story of a tailor-poet who rebels against the ignominy of sweated labor and becomes a leader of the Chartist movement, and ‘Two Years Ago’ about a doctor named Tom Thurnall and his friends as they deal with the effects of the Crimean War and a cholera epidemic, reflecting on social issues of the time, such as public health, slavery, and social reform.
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Price HK$ 4,000
Grasses and Pastures of South Africa -
D. Meredith (editor)
1955 - Central News Agency, Johannesburg - First Edition
A large and comprehensive work in two parts - ‘A Guide to the Identification of Grasses in South Africa’ by Lucy Chippindall, and ‘Pasture Management in South Africa’ by J. D. Scott, J. J. Theron, D. Meredith and others.
In a unique and elegant binding, initially ‘J.K. 97’, with what appear to be handmade paper end leaves incorporating wild grasses. Housed in matching bespoke marbled slipcase.
Illustrated throughout with full page colour plates and in-text black and white photographs, folding colour maps bound in at the rear.
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Price HK$ 6,000
1955 - Central News Agency, Johannesburg - First Edition
A large and comprehensive work in two parts - ‘A Guide to the Identification of Grasses in South Africa’ by Lucy Chippindall, and ‘Pasture Management in South Africa’ by J. D. Scott, J. J. Theron, D. Meredith and others.In a unique and elegant binding, initially ‘J.K. 97’, with what appear to be handmade paper end leaves incorporating wild grasses. Housed in matching bespoke marbled slipcase.
Illustrated throughout with full page colour plates and in-text black and white photographs, folding colour maps bound in at the rear.
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Price HK$ 6,000