20th Century Classics

Happy Valley – Patrick White

Nobel Laureate Patrick White had Happy Valley published in the UK in 1939. During his life he refused to allow the book to be re-published. So, it took to this issue published by the unusual Text Publishing of Melbourne in 2012 for it to appear as a second edition.

Octavo, 407 pages plus catalogue, decorative endpapers. A fine copy in a fine dust jacket.

White had spent time at a station in New South Wales as a jackaroo. He was not cut out for it. Nevertheless, the experience provided rather useful in writing this book … he had lived a colourful life to that stage and that would continue. Drawing on writers he had met and admired – Joyce, Woolf, DHL etc this is a complex novel of an exceptional standard.

Patrick White and his Happy Valley full of character and intrigue.

$40.00

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Biggles Buries the Hatchet – Captain W.E. Johns – First Edition 1958

Sought after Biggles first edition one that is hard to come by. Published by Brokhampton Press in 1958. Octavo, blue boards, 184 pages plus catalogue with the usual ticks. Has the Brock Books image lower spine and number “52” as required of the first. Dust jacket chipped and worn through front end back flap part missing. Full page coloured illustration from the omnipresent Leslie Stead

Erich von Stalhein escapes from prison behind the Iron Curtain. An event which brings Biggles into conflicts with his arch enemy.

Biggles First but not the first encounter with von Stalein!

SO SORRY SOLD

$40.00

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Biggles and The Poor Rich Boy – Captain W.E. Johns – First Edition 1961

The true first edition not the orange board Hampton copy often disguised as a first. This published by Brockhampton Press in 1961.

Octavo, brown boards, dust jacket with “Brock Books” at base of spine and numbering system “58” above. 182 pages, plus catalogue [annotated in hand], coloured frontispiece, the odd line illustration by the usual Leslie Stead. A little age, really very good with a great example of the dust jacket.

The entire British police force cannot find twelve-year-old Carlo Salvatore who has been kidnapped. Biggles and his chums come to the rescue – a trip to Scotland is required.

Scarce Biggles First in good condition and in Scotland

SO SORRY SOLD

$50.00

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The Twyborn Affair – Patrick White – First edition 1979

A particularly good copy of this first edition published by Jonathan Cape, London in 1979. Octavo, 432 pages, clean as a whistle throughout.

A novel in three parts based first in the French Riviera before WWI: then a Sheep Station in the Snowy Mountain area of New South Wales after the war and finally in London in the lead up to WWII.

The protagonist although connected changes gender and more in each part, and the whole is a complex novel, challenging conventions as well as being wickedly humorous.

Patrick White at his best in the Twyborn Affair

$35.00

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The Secret Pilgrim – John le Carre – First Edition 1991

A very nice first edition published by Hodder, London in 1991.

Follows the Russia House and the Karla trilogy and despite the whole of Smiley, some believe, and we do, that this was his best book to date.

Octavo, 335 pages a better than very good copy.

Smiley and Ned in their final years up in Scotland at the training college for spies. The format of the book uses a simple ploy “reminiscences” to produce in effect a book of perfectly connected short stories. The language and plot exceptional from the beginning to the gracious end.

John le Carre – hard for us to say but this one puts him ahead of Greene – his template so to speak = wonderful reading

$40.00

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A Moveable Feast – Ernest Hemingway – True First Edition 1964 – Predates American Edition by one day

“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast”.

A fine copy of this important work. The best we have seen. And, as this is Voyager’s favourite book we have seen a few.

Published by Jonathan Cape, London in 1964. Octavo, 192 pages. We can’t find a mark and the dust jacket is perfect, as if new, except price clipped – a gift givers prerogative.

Scarce Collectable Hemingway First Edition – As fine a condition as will be found

$240.00

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Happy Valley – Patrick White

Biggles Buries the Hatchet – Captain W.E. Johns – First Edition 1958

Biggles and The Poor Rich Boy – Captain W.E. Johns – First Edition 1961

The Twyborn Affair – Patrick White – First edition 1979

The Secret Pilgrim – John le Carre – First Edition 1991

A Moveable Feast – Ernest Hemingway – True First Edition 1964 – Predates American Edition by one day

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