20th Century Classics

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

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The Lost City – By Major Charles Gilson – 1920′s

Another adventure by Charles Gilson in striking pictorial covers published in the 1920’s. Gilson has been promoted since he wrote “On Secret Service”. Another Voyager favourite.

Published by “The Boy’s Own Paper”, Bouverie Street, London. Octavo, 378 pages with frontispiece in colour and eight other illustrations.

The longer title, as usual, gives a clue … “The Lost City … being the Authentic Account by Professor Miles Unthank of the search for the Sarcophagus of Serohis, and the Theft of the Mystic Scarab, formerly in the British Museum”. We love it!

Collectable … The Lost City

$70.00

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Penguin Island – Anatole France

An early Modern Library edition, pre WWII publication. Very good condition, top edge stained grey blue to match the binding, very good dust jacket.

Written in French a most unusual fantasy book by Anatole France, who was awarded the Nobel Prize.

A wayward Christian lands on an island and mistakes some auks for noble pagans and proceeds to baptise them. As this should only happens to humans, when he finds out he transform the auks to human form and from there the history of Penguinia unfolds .. a satire emulating the history of Europe and some strange affairs.

Maybe underneath we are really all penguins or auks?

$30.00

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A Sort of Life – Graham Greene – First Edition 1971

Published by the Bodley Head, London a first edition 1971 in very good condition.

Autobiography of Greene’s earlier years. He was almost permanently drunk during his final year at Oxford and seems quite proud of it … and he touches on a bit of spying and some writing success and failure and borrowing money from his mother. First Edition.

A sort of Life – we could all aspire to

$30.00

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Saturnalia in Room 23 – Arthur Weigall – First Edition 1927

Published by Fisher Unwin a first edition 1927. Red cloth covered boards, 288 pages, some marks and ageing but a rare copy from a most unusual writer.

The beauty Camilla causes a few problems on the Riviera. Saturnalia the ancient Roman Festival in honour of the God Saturn is honoured from 17th to the 23rd of December. The author was many things and nothing but controversial … in this novel he challenged the Church’s attitude to marriage which he regarded as rather primitive.

Rare first edition from controversial Weigall

Arthur Weigall (1880-1934) was a distinguished Egyptologist and author of biographies of Cleopatra, Marc Anthony, Alexander the Great, Nero and Sappho. He studied hieroglyphics at Oxford: by age 24, he was appointed Inspector General of Antiquities for Upper Egypt and supervised excavations in the Valley of the Kings. During his career, Weigall made several important discoveries, mostly about the reign, life and death of Akhnaton. Later in life he wrote novels, stage plays, poems and was rather successful

$70.00

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The Way of the East – Arthur Weigall – First Edition 1924

Published by Fisher Unwin, London a first edition 1924. Blue cloth covered boards, 318 pages, the odd spot mark but on the whole a very good copy of a scarce and interesting book.

An unusual romance involving the an English Colonel Romance in Egypt. The setting and circumstances demand an explanation by the author for which he apologises. He need not as it is all quite dapper and intriguing.

Rare first edition from literary Egyptologist

Arthur Weigall (1880-1934) was a distinguished Egyptologist and author of biographies of Cleopatra, Marc Anthony, Alexander the Great, Nero and Sappho. He studied hieroglyphics at Oxford: by age 24, he was appointed Inspector General of Antiquities for Upper Egypt and supervised excavations in the Valley of the Kings. During his career, Weigall made several important discoveries, mostly about the reign, life and death of Akhnaton. Later in life he wrote novels, stage plays, poems and was rather successful at it – viz this work.

$80.00

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Sunset at Blandings – P.G. Wodehouse

The Lost City – By Major Charles Gilson – 1920′s

Penguin Island – Anatole France

A Sort of Life – Graham Greene – First Edition 1971

Saturnalia in Room 23 – Arthur Weigall – First Edition 1927

The Way of the East – Arthur Weigall – First Edition 1924

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