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History of the Royal Residences -
William Henry Pyne
1819 - Printed for A. Dry, London - First Edition
A beautiful and luxurious first edition of one of the most ambitious aquatint books to be published on English interiors. Three finely bound volumes containing one hundred exquisite hand-coloured plates with accompanying text.
This celebrated work was the first to illustrate royal palaces and houses in any detail: volume I is a valuable record of the state rooms of Windsor Castle formed for Charles II, and concludes with the more domestic scenes of Frogmore, purchased by Queen Charlotte as a country retreat in 1793; volume II is devoted to Hampton Court, Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace; volume III's subjects are St James's Palace and Carlton House; the twenty plates devoted to the Prince Regent's residence depict what were regarded as the most spectacular interiors in Regency London.
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Price HK$ 80,000
1819 - Printed for A. Dry, London - First Edition
A beautiful and luxurious first edition of one of the most ambitious aquatint books to be published on English interiors. Three finely bound volumes containing one hundred exquisite hand-coloured plates with accompanying text.This celebrated work was the first to illustrate royal palaces and houses in any detail: volume I is a valuable record of the state rooms of Windsor Castle formed for Charles II, and concludes with the more domestic scenes of Frogmore, purchased by Queen Charlotte as a country retreat in 1793; volume II is devoted to Hampton Court, Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace; volume III's subjects are St James's Palace and Carlton House; the twenty plates devoted to the Prince Regent's residence depict what were regarded as the most spectacular interiors in Regency London.
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Price HK$ 80,000
The Stones of Venice - The Foundations, The Sea-Stories; The Fall. With Illustrations drawn by the Author -
John Ruskin
1873-1874 - Smith, London - Signed Limited Edition
Illustrated with 53 mixed technique plates (including lithograph, mezzotint, aquatint and engraved, some tinted or hand-coloured), together with wood engraved illustrations and diagrams throughout the text.
‘Among the many strange things that have befallen Venice, she had the good fortune to become the object of passion to a man of splendid genius’ - Henry James on John Ruskin.
The book aroused considerable interest in Victorian Britain and beyond. The chapter "The Nature of Gothic" (from volume 2) was admired by William Morris, who published it separately in an edition which is in itself an example of Gothic revival. It inspired Marcel Proust; the narrator of the Recherche visits Venice with his mother in a state of enthusiasm for Ruskin
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Price HK$ 30,000
1873-1874 - Smith, London - Signed Limited Edition
Illustrated with 53 mixed technique plates (including lithograph, mezzotint, aquatint and engraved, some tinted or hand-coloured), together with wood engraved illustrations and diagrams throughout the text.‘Among the many strange things that have befallen Venice, she had the good fortune to become the object of passion to a man of splendid genius’ - Henry James on John Ruskin.
The book aroused considerable interest in Victorian Britain and beyond. The chapter "The Nature of Gothic" (from volume 2) was admired by William Morris, who published it separately in an edition which is in itself an example of Gothic revival. It inspired Marcel Proust; the narrator of the Recherche visits Venice with his mother in a state of enthusiasm for Ruskin
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Price HK$ 30,000
Snowblind: a Brief Career in the Cocaine Trade - Signed -
Robert Sabbag, Damien Hirst (designer)
1998 - Canongate, Edinburgh - First, Signed and Limited to 1, 000
A spectacular presentation, designed and signed by Damien Hirst, as well as the author and the late great Howard Marks who provides the introduction.
A great book, and a typically Hirst’ian creation - removing the slipcase of US$100 notes reveals a silver spine silver edges and reflecting mirrored glass covers, an essential element for this particular subject, nonporous, cool to keep powder dry, and the clear reflective nature making it easier to chop and arrange in lines, but you knew that already... of course on opening the book you find the credit card, on silver silk tie, a book mark, perhaps, but more useful combined with the aforementioned mirror... wait, start reading and you will come to a recess within the pages in which you will discover in a perfectly cut out recess a rolled $100 note... if you need to know what this is for, then perhaps this is not the book for you.
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Price HK$ 18,000
1998 - Canongate, Edinburgh - First, Signed and Limited to 1, 000
A spectacular presentation, designed and signed by Damien Hirst, as well as the author and the late great Howard Marks who provides the introduction.A great book, and a typically Hirst’ian creation - removing the slipcase of US$100 notes reveals a silver spine silver edges and reflecting mirrored glass covers, an essential element for this particular subject, nonporous, cool to keep powder dry, and the clear reflective nature making it easier to chop and arrange in lines, but you knew that already... of course on opening the book you find the credit card, on silver silk tie, a book mark, perhaps, but more useful combined with the aforementioned mirror... wait, start reading and you will come to a recess within the pages in which you will discover in a perfectly cut out recess a rolled $100 note... if you need to know what this is for, then perhaps this is not the book for you.
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Price HK$ 18,000
Notes on a Cellar-Book - Signed -
George Saintsbury
1921 - Macmillan & Co., London - Édition de Luxe. One of Five Hundred Signed Copies
Édition de Luxe, signed by Saintsbury and limited to 500 copies.
Since its first publication, the classic Notes on a Cellar-Book has remained one of the greatest tributes to drink and drinking in the literature of wine. A collection of tasting notes, menus, and robust opinions, the work is filled with anecdotes and recollections of wines and spirits consumed from the heights of Romanée-Conti to the simple pleasures of beer, flip, and mum.
‘Wine pleased my senses, improved my moral and intellectual powers, besides enabling me to confer the same benefits on other people’ – George Saintsbury.
‘Few wine books possess the iconic status of George Saintsbury's Notes on a Cellar-Book.’ – Wine Spectator.
‘As much a model for wine writing as . . . an historical document revealing how wines were once regarded and how times have changed’ – Bloomberg.
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Price HK$ 5,000
1921 - Macmillan & Co., London - Édition de Luxe. One of Five Hundred Signed Copies
Édition de Luxe, signed by Saintsbury and limited to 500 copies.Since its first publication, the classic Notes on a Cellar-Book has remained one of the greatest tributes to drink and drinking in the literature of wine. A collection of tasting notes, menus, and robust opinions, the work is filled with anecdotes and recollections of wines and spirits consumed from the heights of Romanée-Conti to the simple pleasures of beer, flip, and mum.
‘Wine pleased my senses, improved my moral and intellectual powers, besides enabling me to confer the same benefits on other people’ – George Saintsbury.
‘Few wine books possess the iconic status of George Saintsbury's Notes on a Cellar-Book.’ – Wine Spectator.
‘As much a model for wine writing as . . . an historical document revealing how wines were once regarded and how times have changed’ – Bloomberg.
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Price HK$ 5,000
The Complete Plays of Bernard Shaw -
George Bernard Shaw
1931 - Constable and Co Ltd, London - First Edition
A finely bound first edition of the complete collection of George Bernard Shaw’s plays,
Containing: Widowers' Houses: The Philanderer: Mrs. Warren's Profession: Arms and the Man: Candida: The Man of Destiny: You Never Can Tell: The Devil's Disciple: Cæsar and Cleopatra: Captain Brassbound's Conversion: Man and Superman: John Bull's Other Island: How He Lied to Her Husband: Major Barbara: The Doctor's Dilemma: Getting Married: The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet: Misalliance: The Dark Lady of the Sonnets: Fanny's First Play: Androcles and the Lion : Over- Ruled: Pygmalion: Heartbreak House: Great Catherine: O'Flaherty V.C.: The Inca of Perusalem: Augustus Does His Bit: Annajanska, the Bolshevik Empress: Back to Methuselah: Saint Joan: The Apple Cart: Jitta's Atonement: the Admirable Bashville; or, Constancy Unrewarded: Press Cuttings: The Glimpse of Reality: Passion, Poison, and Petrifaction; or, The Fatal Gazo-Gene: The Fascinating Foundling: The Music-Cure.
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Price HK$ 6,500
1931 - Constable and Co Ltd, London - First Edition
A finely bound first edition of the complete collection of George Bernard Shaw’s plays, Containing: Widowers' Houses: The Philanderer: Mrs. Warren's Profession: Arms and the Man: Candida: The Man of Destiny: You Never Can Tell: The Devil's Disciple: Cæsar and Cleopatra: Captain Brassbound's Conversion: Man and Superman: John Bull's Other Island: How He Lied to Her Husband: Major Barbara: The Doctor's Dilemma: Getting Married: The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet: Misalliance: The Dark Lady of the Sonnets: Fanny's First Play: Androcles and the Lion : Over- Ruled: Pygmalion: Heartbreak House: Great Catherine: O'Flaherty V.C.: The Inca of Perusalem: Augustus Does His Bit: Annajanska, the Bolshevik Empress: Back to Methuselah: Saint Joan: The Apple Cart: Jitta's Atonement: the Admirable Bashville; or, Constancy Unrewarded: Press Cuttings: The Glimpse of Reality: Passion, Poison, and Petrifaction; or, The Fatal Gazo-Gene: The Fascinating Foundling: The Music-Cure.
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Price HK$ 6,500
The Female Economist; or, A Plain System of Cookery, for the Use of Families. -
Mrs. Smith
1822 - Samuel Leigh, London - Eighth Edition
A fascinating book, in pretty later binding.
Well written, simple to understand, covering a wide range of required knowledge in the early 1800’s for ‘Females in the middle classes of society, who superintend to their own family affairs, and who wish to unite hospitality with economy’.
With a large number of recipes Wine, Cordial, and other spirits, see page 257 ‘to make four Gallons of rich Usquebaugh’...
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Price HK$ 2,000
1822 - Samuel Leigh, London - Eighth Edition
A fascinating book, in pretty later binding.Well written, simple to understand, covering a wide range of required knowledge in the early 1800’s for ‘Females in the middle classes of society, who superintend to their own family affairs, and who wish to unite hospitality with economy’.
With a large number of recipes Wine, Cordial, and other spirits, see page 257 ‘to make four Gallons of rich Usquebaugh’...
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Price HK$ 2,000
A Treatise on Cyder-Making -
Hugh Stafford, Anonymous
1753 - Printed for E. Cave, London - First Edition
Legendary and rare first edition of this anonymous work, all of which is generally but erroneously attributed to Hugh Stafford who contributed the sixteen page ‘Dissertation on Cyder and Cyder-Fruit’ at the beginning.
Covering the entire process from identifying and growing the best cider apples, collection, pressing, fermentation, racking, preserving and remedial action for a variety of issues ‘which are incident to Cyder’. With fold-out engraving of cider press (opp. p.32), in-text wood-cut diagrams to pages 43 and 68 (‘One side of the framed Press...’.) and wood-cut decorations to pages v, 47, and 61.
‘As Cyder therefore is generally allowed to be an wholesome drink, and as it is the natural product of our own country, he will surely be thought to contribute something towards the good of the public, who gives infallible directions for making it universally agreeable by varrying it so as to suit every palate, and by improving the flavour and the quality, both of the rough and the smooth, divesting it of its tendency to produce cholics, and giving it the sparkle of Champaign, without an eager and windy fermentation, and rendering it more spirituous than a small wine tho' less inflaming’. [Preface]
An influential work, Benjamin Franklin, who was partial to a drop himself, ordered three copies to be reprinted as pamphlets and distributed amongst the New England farmers after failing with their vineyards. It was plagiarised into various publications including encyclopaedias, cookbooks and later reference works related to cider.
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Price HK$ 42,000
1753 - Printed for E. Cave, London - First Edition
Legendary and rare first edition of this anonymous work, all of which is generally but erroneously attributed to Hugh Stafford who contributed the sixteen page ‘Dissertation on Cyder and Cyder-Fruit’ at the beginning.Covering the entire process from identifying and growing the best cider apples, collection, pressing, fermentation, racking, preserving and remedial action for a variety of issues ‘which are incident to Cyder’. With fold-out engraving of cider press (opp. p.32), in-text wood-cut diagrams to pages 43 and 68 (‘One side of the framed Press...’.) and wood-cut decorations to pages v, 47, and 61.
‘As Cyder therefore is generally allowed to be an wholesome drink, and as it is the natural product of our own country, he will surely be thought to contribute something towards the good of the public, who gives infallible directions for making it universally agreeable by varrying it so as to suit every palate, and by improving the flavour and the quality, both of the rough and the smooth, divesting it of its tendency to produce cholics, and giving it the sparkle of Champaign, without an eager and windy fermentation, and rendering it more spirituous than a small wine tho' less inflaming’. [Preface]
An influential work, Benjamin Franklin, who was partial to a drop himself, ordered three copies to be reprinted as pamphlets and distributed amongst the New England farmers after failing with their vineyards. It was plagiarised into various publications including encyclopaedias, cookbooks and later reference works related to cider.
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Price HK$ 42,000
Scar-Strangled Banger -
Ralph Steadman
1988 - Salem House Publishers, Massachusetts - First American Edition
Scar Strangled Banger is one of two large books (the other one being America) giving Steadman's view of America in retrospect-sharply satirizing all aspects of 1970’s and 1980’s life in American society, peppered with his sharp, powerful and incredible full-page and double-spread, colour and black & white drawings.
‘In Scar-Strangled Banger, Ralph Steadman turns his satirical attentions to America, the Land of the Free, where even God can be acquired with a credit card. In this land of seemingly limitless opportunities, of All-Nite Liquor stores, aerobic work-outs, silicone lifts and Saturday Night Specials, a country where lettuce is served with everything, he finds that the quality of life is dependent mainly on personal wealth and air conditioning.
This extraordinary collection of paintings and drawings, in colour and black and white, gleefully satirizes all aspects of life in modern America. Whether it be people, places or politics, nothing is safe from Ralph Steadman’s razor sharp pen and even sharper wit. Nixon is “a satirists dream”, Texas is where “ the oil wells are so deep they have lease land rights from the Australian government before they drill” and political conventions are “campaigns in the ass”. His portraits of the Nixon years, Vietnam and Watergate, the Reagan years, Pearlygate and the 1988 Presidential Election are powerful, disturbing and above all savagely funny. It will leave you asking has anything really changed.’
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Price HK$ 1,500
1988 - Salem House Publishers, Massachusetts - First American Edition
Scar Strangled Banger is one of two large books (the other one being America) giving Steadman's view of America in retrospect-sharply satirizing all aspects of 1970’s and 1980’s life in American society, peppered with his sharp, powerful and incredible full-page and double-spread, colour and black & white drawings.‘In Scar-Strangled Banger, Ralph Steadman turns his satirical attentions to America, the Land of the Free, where even God can be acquired with a credit card. In this land of seemingly limitless opportunities, of All-Nite Liquor stores, aerobic work-outs, silicone lifts and Saturday Night Specials, a country where lettuce is served with everything, he finds that the quality of life is dependent mainly on personal wealth and air conditioning.
This extraordinary collection of paintings and drawings, in colour and black and white, gleefully satirizes all aspects of life in modern America. Whether it be people, places or politics, nothing is safe from Ralph Steadman’s razor sharp pen and even sharper wit. Nixon is “a satirists dream”, Texas is where “ the oil wells are so deep they have lease land rights from the Australian government before they drill” and political conventions are “campaigns in the ass”. His portraits of the Nixon years, Vietnam and Watergate, the Reagan years, Pearlygate and the 1988 Presidential Election are powerful, disturbing and above all savagely funny. It will leave you asking has anything really changed.’
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Price HK$ 1,500