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20th Century Classics

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Summer of Smoke – Tennessee Williams – 1957

Published by Secker & Warburg as a softcover in 1957 originally completed by Tennessee Williams in 1948. Perfect bound 8-0 pages with wrap-around green paper cover to the blue soft cover binding. Excellent condition bar ownership stamp and personal library reference on half title.

A play in two parts with thirteen scenes. The play was successful after a re-write [published here] in 1952… it again took another form and was re-titled “the Eccentricities of a Nightingale” in 1964.

The entire play is set in Glorious Hill, Mississippi and is set in the early part of the 20th Century. The story centres on the potential romance between Alma Winemiller a highly strung minister’s daughter and John Buchanan a rather wild and undisciplined young doctor.

The “Author’s Production Notes” covering two pages are succinct but very helpful … focussing on the scenes, mood etc they provide a super introduction for those who enjoy the reading of a play of some standard.

Tennessee Williams and the Summer and Smoke

$30.00

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Light in August – William Faulkner

Faulkner classic written between the wars and considered Southern Gothic in style. Complex and thought provoking as you would expect.

Published by The Modern Library, New York. Octavo, 444 pages with an introduction by Richard Rovere that puts the work up there with Faulkner’s best.

Rubbed dust jacket, personal bookplate on front end paper otherwise a very good copy.

Highly regarded

$25.00

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The Comedians – Graham Greene – First Edition 1966

First edition published by The Bodley Head, London in 1966. Octavo, 313 pages. Very good condition. First edition variant dust jacket designed by James and Ruth McCrea.

Described as a novel, not an entertainment, if you understand the Greene definition.

Classic Graham Greene novel based in Haiti at the time of dictator Doctor Duvalier “Papa Doc”. Greene could not return to Haiti to finish his novel because of his description of the dictator in the English press. As usual alive with characters and suspense and sometimes comedy.

First edition Greene Classic

$50.00

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Service with a Smile – P.G. Wodehouse – First Edition

First edition published by Herbert Jenkins in 1962.

Octavo, 192 pages. Very good condition albeit with some light age marks to page edges … clean and bright inside. Good dust jacket with closed split near front hinge

Uncle Fred sorting out the upper crust as usual and importantly stops the theft of the Empress of Blandings (A portly pig) whose beautiful image adorns the front cover.

Wodehouse First and a rollicking story.

$50.00

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Dodsworth – Sinclair Lewis (First American Nobel Laureate for Literature)

First published in 1929 this is the 1947 Modern Library edition with a special foreword by Clifton Fadiman.

Octavo, 377 pages all in very good condition.

The author Harry Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951) was the first American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1930.

Sam Dodsworth makes a fortune selling his automotive business and with his younger glamorous wife, Fran, heads for a summer in Europe. Soon they find that their different interests drive them apart … Fran enjoying the high party life whilst Sam’s interests lie in history and culture. Fran falls for an admirer and that’s the end of the relationship. Sam has a more enduring meeting ..

Dodsworth a special story – readable and with meaning.

$25.00

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The Fortunes of Fifi – Molly Elliot Seawell – First Edition 1903

A first edition published by Bobbs-Merrill, Indianapolis in 1903. Interestingly, carries the booksellers sticker of Dymock’s Book Arcae, 428 George Street. Dymocks, Australia’s favourite book store was started in 1879 but soon moved to the aforementioned address as the business took off.

Fifi is a young actress in fourth rate theatre in Paris. Napoleon is involved in a minor way. She has confidantes and admirers and much love and lost love ensues. She turns out to be related to a certain person in very high place … things get rich and in a tangle which really she is not that thrilled with – eventually, she ends up with the one she should. Complex and intriguing romance. The outline is easily told … it became an early silent movie circa WW! And was very successful.

Octavo, 239 pages, with decorative end papers that match the delightful pictorial covers. A very good copy.

Classic Romance based in Paris, became one of the very first movies.

$30.00

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