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The Prisoner of Zenda - Sir Anthony Hope Hawkins

1894 - J.W. Arrowsmith, Bristol - First Edition, First State
The rare first edition, first state of the classic swashbuckling romance, appropriately housed in folding cloth chemise and burgundy morocco slipcase, with spine lettered in gilt.

This adventure story was enjoyed by Ian Fleming as a child, and Hope's chivalrous hero is a 'literary ancestor' of the debonair British agent 007 [
The Rough Guide to James Bond].

The basis for David O. Selznick's Oscar-nominated movie (1937), starring Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and David Niven. Hawkins most well-known work.

For my part, if a man must needs be a knave, I would have him a debonair knave... It makes your sin no worse, as I conceive, to do it à la mode and stylishly.’ 
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Price HK$ 18,000



The Novels of Victor Hugo - Victor Hugo

1888-99 - Little, Boston - Library Editions
A finely bound 14 volume set of the novels of Victor Hugo comprising (by year first published):- Hans of Iceland; Bug-Jargal - with - Claude Gueux - and - The Last Day of a Condemned; Notre-Dame de Paris (two volumes); Les Misérables (five volumes); The Toilers of the Sea (two volumes); The Man Who Laughs (two volumes); and Ninety-Three.

Twenty four full page engravings by A. Demarest, George Roux, Jules Adeline, P. Kaufmann, Jules Lefebvre, Falero, G. Jeanniot, V. Gilbert, Ernest Duez, Cliché Walery, Émile Vernier, Henri Pille, and Adrien Marie. Each with descriptive tissue guard.

With notes and prefaces to the first editions, and in some cases notes to later editions and letters where relevant
 
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Price HK$ 20,000



1889 - J. W. Arrowsmith, Bristol - First Edition, first Issue with 'Quay Street' on title page, second state.
First edition, in a fancy binding, of one of the funniest English books ever written, and if you like to play on the water, should be required reading. In the words of Jerome K. Jerome ‘other books may excel this in depth of thought and knowledge of human nature: other books may rival it in originality and size; but, for hopeless and incurable veracity, nothing yet discovered can surpass it.’

Brilliantly illustrated throughout with small sketches and full page plates by A. Frederics.

The ultimate late-Victorian satire of the Great British Holiday, involving an ill-conceived jaunt along the Thames and a host of fabulously English characters including the relentlessly Pan-like canine companion Montmorency. Adapted in many forms, and notably voiced as an audiobook by Hugh Laurie, it develops an idyllically inept vision of England still familiar today.
 
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Price HK$ 5,000



The Poetry of Sport - Hedley Peek (editor)

1896 - Longmans, London and Bombay - First Edition
‘Haste, ranger, to the Athol mountains blue! Unleash the hounds, and let the bugles sing! The thousand traces in the morning dew, the bounding deer,the black-cock on the wing, bespeak the rout of Scotland’s gallant king...from cairn of Bruar to the dark Glen-Morre, the forest’s in a howl, and all is wild uproar!’

A handsomely bound edition, with a distinctly Glaswegian accent, being bound in Glasgow and owned by the renowned medical Professor David Fyfe Anderson.

Containing a chapter on classical allusions to sport by Andrew Lang, and a lively preface to the Badminton Library by A.E.T Watson. Accompanied with illustrations by artists A. Thorburn, Lucien Davis, and C.E Brock, among others, this is a lovely compilation of poetry on the subject of sport for young men in the late eighteen-hundreds, primarily depicting activities such as fishing, hunting, and shooting.
 
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Price HK$ 3,000



1937 - The Pushkin Press, London - First Oliver Elton Edition, number 212 of 775 copies
‘Pushkin is the greatest name in Russian literature. He is to Russians what Dante is to Italians, Goethe to Germans, Shakespeare to us.’

The scarce first edition to be translated by Oxford scholar Oliver Elton [1861-1945], and the first to feature the Russian artist Dobujinsky’s (Dobuzhinsky 1875-1967)) wonderfully evocative illustrations. Number 212 of 775 copies.

With a foreword by Sir Desmond MacCarthy [1877-1952], notes and index.

‘Bored and aloof, tired of St Petersburg high society, Yevgeny Onegin goes to live on the country estate he has just inherited from his uncle. There he encounters Tatyana, who becomes hopelessly infatuated with him. From this story, first published in 1833, Pushkin creates his sublime masterpiece of love, death, duelling, rivalry, identity and the search for happiness; the lodestar for all of Russian literature.

By turns playful, philosophical, sardonic and mournful, brimming with rich descriptions of Russian life, from drinking and dancing to crisp wintry landscapes, Yevgeny Onegin is a work of thrilling energy’ [
Pushkin Press] 
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Price HK$ 5,500



Ten Thousand A-Year - Samuel Warren

1889 - Little, Boston - Number 69 of a limited 200 copies
A fine and finely bound three volume set, the upper covers blocked in gilt with the crest, coat of arms and motto of ‘Tittlebat Titmouse Esq M.P. according to the description of Sir Gorgeous Tintack, Garter King at Arms.’ Volume I with sepia toned portrait frontispiece on vellum.

Samuel Warren (1807-77) was an English barrister, Member of Parliament for Midhurst, and author of a number of books both fiction and non-fiction.

Ten Thousand A-Year’ is his second novel, one of the most popular of the era and some consider the first to feature a lawyer as the main character. It concerns a firm of attorneys who discover that Tittlebat Titmouse, a poor draper's clerk, may have a claim to the large estate of Yatton. The attorneys commence an action which results in Titmouse displacing the unbelievably pious John Aubrey as the owner of the estate, and its annual income of £10,000. Titmouse revels in his new found wealth, until a new round of litigation is commenced which returns Aubrey to his place as squire of Yatton. Titmouse is disgraced, and ends his life in a lunatic asylum.

The narrator repeatedly tells the reader that the English legal system is close to perfection, but the actual workings of the law in ‘
Ten Thousand a-Year’ paint a more negative picture. Dickens seems to have read Warren's fiction and non-fiction, and to have borrowed images and ideas." [ODNB].

In addition to Warren’s knowledge of the law, he was well versed on asylum and the welfare of the mentally ill, occupying the position of ‘Master in Lunacy’ [1859-77].
 
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Price HK$ 5,200



1964 - The Limited Editions Club, New York - Edition limited to 1500 copies, of which these are number 955
A finely presented limited edition set of H G Wells classic works, powerfully illustrated with full-page colour lithographs by Joseph Mugnaini and signed by him on the limitation pages of each book. Housed in the publisher’s fine slipcase.

'
Great shapes like big machines rose out of the dimness, and cast grotesque black shadows, in which dim spectral Morlocks sheltered from the glare' – The Time Machine.

Chilling, prophetic and hugely influential,
The Time Machine sees a Victorian scientist propel himself into the year 802,701 AD, where he is delighted to find that suffering has been replaced by beauty and contentment in the form of the Eloi, an elfin species descended from man. But he soon realizes that they are simply remnants of a once-great culture - now weak and living in terror of the sinister Morlocks lurking in the deep tunnels, who threaten his very return home. H. G. Wells defined much of modern science fiction with this 1895 tale of time travel, which questions humanity, society, and our place on Earth. [Penguin]

For a time I believed that mankind had been swept out of existence, and that I stood there alone, the last man left alive.’ – War of the Worlds.

'The classic tale of alien invasion, and still the best' –
The Times. 
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Price HK$ 11,000



1888 - David Nutt, London - First Edition, One of 1, 000 copies
Rare first edition of Oscar Wilde’s classic collection of children’s tales - The Happy Prince, The Nightingale and the Rose, The Selfish Giant, The Devoted Friend and The Remarkable Rocket.

A superior example of the first edition in the publisher’s delicate decorated Japanese vellum boards, and elegantly illustrated with three plates by Walter Crane and with head and tail pieces by Jacomb Hood.

Smartly housed in a bespoke clamshell case of half tan morocco over marbled boards, brown morocco label lettered in gilt.
 
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Price HK$ 50,000



 
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