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A History of the University of Oxford, Its Colleges, Halls, and Public Buildings - R. Ackermann

1814 - R. Ackermann, London - First Edition
An excellent set of this monumental work, profusely illustrated throughout and presented in two large and majestically bound quarto volumes by Sangorski & Suctliffe of London. Includes the thirty three plates of the college founders that are often omitted

Containing the list of subscribers, engraved portrait of Lord Grenville, sixty-four hand-coloured aquatint plates after Pugin, Mackenzie, Westall, Nash, and others, seventeen stipple-engraved costume plates, and thirty-three hand-coloured founders plates.
 
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Price HK$ 50,000



The Salmon Rivers and Lochs of Scotland - William Leadbetter Calderwood

1909 - Edward Arnold, London - First Edition
A finely bound example of this early twentieth century classic and comprehensive work on salmon fishing, with detailed descriptions and personal views of each salmon river and loch, supported with illustrations throughout including four colour plates, thirty-four photographic plates and eighteen full page maps with colour outline.

Calderwood was one of the first to note the danger of overfishing and the importance of Salmon conservation, and what did and did not affect the run of Salmon. He was also the first to show that Salmon could be aged by growth rings on their scales.
 
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Price HK$ 5,500



The Three Voyages of Captain James Cook, with "The Death of Captain Cook" Plate - James Cook, John Hawkesworth, James King

1773 - Strahan, London - Second Edition, First Edition, Second Edition
A complete set of the best possible editions, superbly bound in full tree calf and with the additional ‘Death of Captain Cook’ drawn by the John Weber who witnessed the dispute and ensuing fight. Eight quarto volumes and the elephant folio volume of plates. Magnificently illustrated with two hundred and five engraved charts and plates, many of which are double page or larger.

There is no greater set of travel works, Cook was the first scientific navigator, these three voyages made great contributions to numerous fields of knowledge,, and did more to clarify the geographical knowledge of the southern hemisphere than his predecessors had done together [Hill].

The first voyage is in its second and best edition, complete with the ‘
Directions for placing the cuts’ and the ‘Chart of the Straights of Magellan’, and with the new Preface containing Hawkesworth's virulent eight-page reply to Dalrymple's whining reviews of the first edition, and the whole volume revised by the voyage's astronomer William Wales.

The third voyage is in its second and best edition, with the printing by Hughs (rather than Strahan who printed the first edition) with the text itself entirely re-set. Isaac Smith presenting a set on behalf of Cook's widow in 1821 noted that '
I am desired by Mrs Cook to request your acceptance of the 4 books sent herewith being her Husbands last Voyage round the World, as a mark of her respect the letter press of the second edition being much superior to the first both in paper & letter press' (quoted by Forbes, Hawaiian National Bibliography, 85). King George III's copy of the official account, preserved in the British Library, is also an example of this second edition. This particular set with variant title pages, dated correctly, but without edition statement or vignette of Royal Society medal. 
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Price HK$ 430,000



Oliver Twist; or, the Parish Boy s Progress - Charles Dickens ( Boz )

1838 - Richard Bentley, London - First Edition, First Issue
Please, Sir, I want some more.’

First edition in fine contemporary bindings, first issue with the 'fireside' plate’ (i.e. Rose, Maylie and Oliver) between pages 312-13 (Vol.III), which was suppressed in the second issue. Illustrated throughout with frontispieces and twenty-one plates etched by George Cruikshank.

Dickens was severely criticised for introducing criminals and prostitutes in Oliver Twist to which he responded - ‘
I saw no reason, when I wrote this book, why the very dregs of life, so long as their speech did not offend the ear, should not serve the purpose of a moral, at least as well as its froth and cream’. 
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Price HK$ 32,000



The Hound of the Baskervilles. Another Adventure of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sidney Paget (illustrator)

1902 - George Newnes, London - First Edition First Issue [misprint 'you' for 'your' p.13 line 3]
A finely bound first edition of this legendary and terrifying mystery in which Holmes and Watson must investigate the menacing devil-beast that haunts the moors around the Baskerville ancestral home. Dramatically illustrated with sixteen plates by Sidney Paget. To be read in a big leather armchair on a stormy night, whisky to hand.

Sherlock Holmes still remains the world’s best-known and best-loved fictional detective’ and
The Hound of the Baskervilles one of the most desirable and classic works of detective fiction. Arguably the great detective's most charismatic case; "Holmes is at his very best, and it is a highly dramatic idea" - Doyle, to his mother, 2nd April 1902. 
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Price HK$ 18,000



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



The Antiquities of Scotland - Francis Grose

1797 - Hooper &, London - First Hooper &
Two magnificently illustrated large volumes of this comprehensive work, with 190 full page engraved plates, large engraved folding Index Map to the Antiquities of Scotland. ‘Shewing the Situation of Every Building Described in this Work’, two engraved title pages, and one in text Plan of Druidical Stone.

Grose (1731-91), English antiquary draughtsman and lexicographer, initiated the eighteenth-century's most extensive series of published illustrations of ancient monuments.

In 1788 he began the first of several tours of Scotland in order to produce
The Antiquities of Scotland. It was on the second of these tours, in summer 1789, that he met and immediately formed a friendship with the poet Robert Burns. Burns met him while he was staying with Robert Riddell at the Friar's Carse, collecting material for his Scottish work. Burns suggested to him that he should include Alloway Kirk in his Scottish Antiquities, and Grose agreed on condition that Burns provided a witch tale to go with his drawing. In June 1790, Burns sent Grose a prose tale with a variant in a letter to Grose, following it up with a rhymed version, "Tam o' Shanter" (see Volume II, page 31). 
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Price HK$ 8,000



Les Livres de L'Enfance du XVe au XIXe Siecle. Preface de Paul Gavault - Gumuchian

1930 - Gumuchian &, 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



 
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