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Beloved - Signed -
Toni Morrison
1987 - Alfred A. Knopf, New York - First Edition
‘There is something great in Beloved: a play of human voices, consciously exalted, perversely stressed, yet holding true. It gets you’
– The New Yorker
A fine and signed first edition of Toni Morrison’s hauntingly powerful novel, an innovative portrait of Sethe, a woman who is born a slave but later escapes to Ohio, where she remains captive to her memories of the farm she once called home and troubled by the ghost of her nameless baby, whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved. But when a mysterious teenage girl arrives, calling herself Beloved, Sethe’s hideous secrets from the past suddenly explode into the present.
Winner of the 1988 Pulitzer Prize.
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Price HK$ 9,000
1987 - Alfred A. Knopf, New York - First Edition
‘There is something great in Beloved: a play of human voices, consciously exalted, perversely stressed, yet holding true. It gets you’ – The New Yorker
A fine and signed first edition of Toni Morrison’s hauntingly powerful novel, an innovative portrait of Sethe, a woman who is born a slave but later escapes to Ohio, where she remains captive to her memories of the farm she once called home and troubled by the ghost of her nameless baby, whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved. But when a mysterious teenage girl arrives, calling herself Beloved, Sethe’s hideous secrets from the past suddenly explode into the present.
Winner of the 1988 Pulitzer Prize.
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Price HK$ 9,000
Rumpole -
John Mortimer
1995 - The Folio Society, London
A finely bound compilation of Horace Rumpole’s greatest hits and misses, selected and introduced by his creator, John Mortimer, illustrated throughout by Paul Cox.
Consisting of:- ‘Rumpole and the Younger Generation, Rumpole and the Show Folk, Rumpole and the Old Boy Net, Rumpole and the Bright Seraphim, Rumpole and the Tap End, Rumpole and the Bubble Reputation, Rumpole a la Carte, Rumpole and the Children of the Devil, Rumpole and the Family Pride, and Rumpole on Trial’.
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Price HK$ 5,000
1995 - The Folio Society, London
A finely bound compilation of Horace Rumpole’s greatest hits and misses, selected and introduced by his creator, John Mortimer, illustrated throughout by Paul Cox. Consisting of:- ‘Rumpole and the Younger Generation, Rumpole and the Show Folk, Rumpole and the Old Boy Net, Rumpole and the Bright Seraphim, Rumpole and the Tap End, Rumpole and the Bubble Reputation, Rumpole a la Carte, Rumpole and the Children of the Devil, Rumpole and the Family Pride, and Rumpole on Trial’.
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Price HK$ 5,000
Boogie-Woogie - Signed -
Danny Moynihan, Damien Hirst
2000 - Duck Editions, London - First Edition, One of 500.
A fine first and limited edition signed by Damian Hirst who designed the dust jacket and by the author Danny Moynihan, art dealer and gallery manager.
‘Art is about life; the art world is about money. Boogie Woogie is where the two collide’ - Damian Hirst.
‘Boogie Woogie is a fast-paced satirical novel that dives into the dark excesses of the international art scene of the 1990s. The movement within the book has a constant beat. Driven by the pursuit of fame, fortune and the 20th century masterpiece, Boogie Woogie reveals the inner workings of these circles through ambition and borderline obsession, sex, money, and drugs’ – Aesthetica.
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Price HK$ 4,000
2000 - Duck Editions, London - First Edition, One of 500.
A fine first and limited edition signed by Damian Hirst who designed the dust jacket and by the author Danny Moynihan, art dealer and gallery manager.‘Art is about life; the art world is about money. Boogie Woogie is where the two collide’ - Damian Hirst.
‘Boogie Woogie is a fast-paced satirical novel that dives into the dark excesses of the international art scene of the 1990s. The movement within the book has a constant beat. Driven by the pursuit of fame, fortune and the 20th century masterpiece, Boogie Woogie reveals the inner workings of these circles through ambition and borderline obsession, sex, money, and drugs’ – Aesthetica.
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Price HK$ 4,000
Lolita -
Vladimir Nabokov
1955 - Olympia Press, Paris - First Edition First Issue
‘Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul... Lo. Lee. Ta... She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.’
A superb set of Nabokov’s masterpiece, his notorious tale of Humbert Humbert’s obsessive, devouring, and doomed passion for the nymphet, Dolores Haze, banned in the UK and US until 1958.
‘This is still one of the funniest and one of the saddest books that will be published this year. As for its pornographic content, I can think of few volumes more likely to quench the flames of lust than this exact and immediate description of its consequences’ – The New York Times 1958
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Price HK$ 90,000
1955 - Olympia Press, Paris - First Edition First Issue
‘Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul... Lo. Lee. Ta... She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.’A superb set of Nabokov’s masterpiece, his notorious tale of Humbert Humbert’s obsessive, devouring, and doomed passion for the nymphet, Dolores Haze, banned in the UK and US until 1958.
‘This is still one of the funniest and one of the saddest books that will be published this year. As for its pornographic content, I can think of few volumes more likely to quench the flames of lust than this exact and immediate description of its consequences’ – The New York Times 1958
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Price HK$ 90,000
Portrait of Jennie -
Robert Nathan
1940 - Alfred A. Knopf, New York - First Edition
The basis for the 1948 William Dieterle film starring Joseph Cotten and Jennifer Jones, which won academy award for special effects, and was nominated for Best Cinematography.
The supernatural love story of a depression era artist in New York and a young girl slipping through time’, a modern Dorian Gray...
‘So brilliant is Nathan's execution that one is entirely lost in the tender love story of two immortally designed for each other, one a spirit out of the past seeking to catch up with the present, the other a man rooted in the present and caught in an urgency to accept the gift of the past . . . Portrait of Jennie will perhaps most vividly recall Balderston's Berkeley Square, for, like that, it is a love story that transcends the boundaries of time. It is told with tenderness and with beauty. Its mood lingers in the heart, and its planes challenge the mind.’ – New York Times.
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Price HK$ 3,000
1940 - Alfred A. Knopf, New York - First Edition
The basis for the 1948 William Dieterle film starring Joseph Cotten and Jennifer Jones, which won academy award for special effects, and was nominated for Best Cinematography.The supernatural love story of a depression era artist in New York and a young girl slipping through time’, a modern Dorian Gray...
‘So brilliant is Nathan's execution that one is entirely lost in the tender love story of two immortally designed for each other, one a spirit out of the past seeking to catch up with the present, the other a man rooted in the present and caught in an urgency to accept the gift of the past . . . Portrait of Jennie will perhaps most vividly recall Balderston's Berkeley Square, for, like that, it is a love story that transcends the boundaries of time. It is told with tenderness and with beauty. Its mood lingers in the heart, and its planes challenge the mind.’ – New York Times.
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Price HK$ 3,000
Wise Blood -
Flannery O'Connor
1952 - Harcourt, New York - First Edition
‘Where you come from is gone, where you thought you were going to never was there, and where you are is no good unless you can get away from it.’
A superb copy, and scarce in such a bright dust jacket without the usual toning, fading or chipping to the spine.
Considered a cornerstone of the southern-gothic genre, this lovely copy of O’Connor’s first book delves into themes of depression, sin, and redemption, while retaining a biting sense of humour. Listed among the Guardian’s list of the 100 greatest novels of all time, this is a powerful exploration of character and motivation, reminiscent in style to other masters such as Kafka, Waugh, and Faulkner.
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Price HK$ 45,000
1952 - Harcourt, New York - First Edition
‘Where you come from is gone, where you thought you were going to never was there, and where you are is no good unless you can get away from it.’A superb copy, and scarce in such a bright dust jacket without the usual toning, fading or chipping to the spine.
Considered a cornerstone of the southern-gothic genre, this lovely copy of O’Connor’s first book delves into themes of depression, sin, and redemption, while retaining a biting sense of humour. Listed among the Guardian’s list of the 100 greatest novels of all time, this is a powerful exploration of character and motivation, reminiscent in style to other masters such as Kafka, Waugh, and Faulkner.
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Price HK$ 45,000
After Claude -
Iris Owens
1973 - Farrar, New York - First Edition
Rare in first edition, even more so in dust jacket, and here you have a fine and signed first edition.
Cult classic and the first of only two books published under the author’s own name. The rest of her career was spent writing pornography as ‘Harriet Daimler’ for the Olympia Press in Paris.
‘After Claude’ features Harriet one of the first anti-heroines, it is ‘a foulmouthed comic tour de force, still capable of offending the offendable and casting a blue-streaked spell of hilarity over everyone else.’ [Gerald Howard]
There is too much written about Iris Owens and ‘After Claude’ to do either justice in this short note, below are a few short reviews, and extracts from articles.
‘If there’s one thing on this earth that irritates me, it’s when a dumpy, frigid, former nymphomaniac assumes that my tongue is hanging out, thirsting for marital bliss.’
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Price HK$ 8,000
1973 - Farrar, New York - First Edition
Rare in first edition, even more so in dust jacket, and here you have a fine and signed first edition.Cult classic and the first of only two books published under the author’s own name. The rest of her career was spent writing pornography as ‘Harriet Daimler’ for the Olympia Press in Paris.
‘After Claude’ features Harriet one of the first anti-heroines, it is ‘a foulmouthed comic tour de force, still capable of offending the offendable and casting a blue-streaked spell of hilarity over everyone else.’ [Gerald Howard]
There is too much written about Iris Owens and ‘After Claude’ to do either justice in this short note, below are a few short reviews, and extracts from articles.
‘If there’s one thing on this earth that irritates me, it’s when a dumpy, frigid, former nymphomaniac assumes that my tongue is hanging out, thirsting for marital bliss.’
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Price HK$ 8,000
Doctor Zhivago -
Boris Leonidovich Pasternak, Max Hayward, Manya Harari (translators)
1958 - Collins and Harvill Press, London - First Edition in English
Finely bound first edition in English.
Loosely based on Pasternak’s life after moving out of Moscow, Lara being modelled on his mistress, Olga Ivinskaya. The manuscript was being smuggled out of Russia in 1957 - ’You are hereby invited to watch me face the firing squad.’ said Pasternak on handing the manuscript over. After the publication of the English translation in 1958 Doctor Zhivago spent 26 weeks on the New York times bestseller list. This is the first edition of that translation.
The epic film adaptation by David Lean, starring Omar Sharif and Julie Christie, won 5 Oscars and 3 Baftas, and cemented Doctor Zhivago’s place in film folklore.
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Price HK$ 8,000
1958 - Collins and Harvill Press, London - First Edition in English
Finely bound first edition in English.Loosely based on Pasternak’s life after moving out of Moscow, Lara being modelled on his mistress, Olga Ivinskaya. The manuscript was being smuggled out of Russia in 1957 - ’You are hereby invited to watch me face the firing squad.’ said Pasternak on handing the manuscript over. After the publication of the English translation in 1958 Doctor Zhivago spent 26 weeks on the New York times bestseller list. This is the first edition of that translation.
The epic film adaptation by David Lean, starring Omar Sharif and Julie Christie, won 5 Oscars and 3 Baftas, and cemented Doctor Zhivago’s place in film folklore.
More details
Price HK$ 8,000