Products | Voyager Rare Books Maps & Prints

The Happy Island – Bengt Danielsson – First UK Edition 1952

A scarce book, the first UK edition published by George Allen & Unwin, London 1952 .. we also have the first US Edition. Octavo, 256 pages nicely illustrated with the authors photographs. Good to better condition with a chip lower dust jacket.

The author was part of the Kon-Tiki expedition. They were shipwrecked at Raroia which is a coral atoll in the Tuamotu Archipelago, to the east of Tahiti.

Danielsson and his wife returned there and spent a year and a half enjoying the relaxed lifestyle. A very funny account but there is tragedy in the death of a key character and the inevitable cyclone.

Perspective .. in 2012 the population of Raroia was 233, there is nowhere to stay so visitors are always invited to stay in the homes of maybe the friendliest people on earth!

Unusual Pacific account

$30.00

Updating cart…

The Last of Lysandra – Elizabeth Fenwick

A very good Gollancz, yellow jacket thriller. A first of type published 1973. Octavo, 160 pages in very good condition or better.

More strange characters than “Midsummer Murders” … we are promised a hidden menace lurking behind respectable facades … and we get it.

Who is lurking behind your façade?

$25.00

Updating cart…

The Parasites – Daphne du Maurier

Published by Victor Gollancz, London 1983 … the first printing of the second issue in the more modern Gollancz jacket. Octavo, 350 pages in very good condition.

Daphne du Maurier’s somewhat exotic scandalous story of the Delaney family and they were parasitic. Draws on her own life.

Vies with Rebecca as her best

$35.00

Updating cart…

Sunset at Blandings – P.G. Wodehouse

Published by Chatto and Windus for the Book Club Associates, a first printing 1978. Octavo, 213 pages illustrated endpapers, diagrams of Blandings etc. A very good copy.

P.G. Wodehouse died at the age of 93 in 1975 having written one hundred books been a highly acclaimed Hollywood scriptwriter, written the lyrics to 300 published songs etc. This is his final unfinished work, 16 of maybe 22 planned chapters.

Compiled by Richard Usborne and magnificently supported by the “Work in Progress”, manuscript notes of scenarios and plots found at PGW’s bedside and at home. They make very interesting reading and remind Voyager of our other favourite unfinished work “The Mystery of Edwin Drood” by Dickens.

Usborne also provides a fun chapter on the fictitious Blandings Castle and its surroundings, an essay on the train timetable between Paddington and Market Blandings with the help of a “Bradshaw’s” expert, before Michael Portillo had the idea, and few pages of “Notes to Text”’ which will make any reader qualify as a first grade Wodehouse expert.

Unfinished but entertaining

$35.00

Updating cart…

La Grande Bretagne et Ireland – Chatelain – 1717

An original copper engraved map of the British Isles by Zacharie Chatelain and published in Amsterdam in 1717.

A nice example with simple outline simple outline colouring. Engraved area 17 cm by 14cm a good strong plate mark.

Henri Abraham Chatelain (1684-1743) born in Paris but lived variously in Paris, London, the Hague and later Amsterdam. This intriguing map of the British Isles was published as part of “La Science des Personnes de la Cour … “ a monumental work covering religion, astronomy, geography, war and fortifications etc.

Chatelain’s reputation is that of a skilled artist with delicate engraving and an uncomplicated composition. It is considered that Chatelaine primarily used De L’Isle as his reference for maps and we would agree with that view in regard to this little beauty.

Price $280.00 framed in Voyager miniature map style with gilt fillet, burgundy mat and beaded gilt frame.

Attractive 300 year old map of the British Isles

$280.00

Updating cart…

Love and The Luxembourg – Richard Aldington – First American, Fine, Limited and Signed – 1930

Beautiful presentation of Aldington’s lengthy poem a first American edition published by Convici, Friede Inc New York 1930. Limited edition of 475 copies of which this is number 400. The book was designed by Frederic Warde and printed by William Edwin Rudge … signed nicely by Richard Aldington and Frederic Warde.

Large octavo, 53 pages plus the limitation. Bound in stylish burgundy cloth cover boards with gilt flower design to front with gild boarders and gilt designs to spine. Top edge nicely gilt other edges rough cut. Slipcase as issued. A fine copy.

Richard Aldington (1892-1962) was a founding poet of the Imagist movement. He fought on the Western Front during WWI and wrote “Death of a Hero” widely acclaimed. Much can be said about him .. his friendships included Ezra Pound (an early mentor), D.H. Lawrence, W.B. Yeats, T.S. Elliot, Joyce, Hemingway .. says it all … what a period!

Love and the Luxembourg is about his love for American writer Brigit Patmore (For B.) who he was in a relationship with 1928-1936 … he left her for her daughter in law.

Later in life he wrote a brief biography on T.E. Lawrence which suggested various things previously unsaid about the great man’s character. Aldington was never forgiven for this “abuse” and lived the rest of his life out in France.

Aldington a special poet with literary contacts

$60.00

Updating cart…

All products

The Happy Island – Bengt Danielsson – First UK Edition 1952

The Last of Lysandra – Elizabeth Fenwick

The Parasites – Daphne du Maurier

Sunset at Blandings – P.G. Wodehouse

La Grande Bretagne et Ireland – Chatelain – 1717

Love and The Luxembourg – Richard Aldington – First American, Fine, Limited and Signed – 1930

Product Categories