20th Century Classics

Maigret in Society – George Simenon

Published by the Thriller Book Club, Charing Cross, London in collaboration with and in the same year as the Hamish Hamilton first.

Octavo, 160 pages, very good condition.

The 78-year-old Comte Armand de Saint-Hilaire is found dead. A former Ambassador to Rome. Washington and London. All his acquaintances are elderly and Maigret is given little to work on other than the discovery of letter which suggest a long-standing love for Princess de V_____. Strange goings on are exposed.

Maigret not out of his depth in High Society.

$35.00

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Green Hills of Africa – Ernest Hemingway

Hemingway’s Green Hills was first published in 1936. This is a 1962 edition of the desirable Jonathan Cape format.

Octavo, 284 pages with the super decorative illustrations by Edward Shenton. Green cloth covered boards with “game’ gilt design to front. Top edge stained green as required of this edition. A few dust jacket light chips and age otherwise a very copy of a hard to find item.

A piece of non-fiction regarding Hemingway’s safari to Africa in December 1933 with his wife Pauline. First criticised by reviewers and then lauded as the best African safari book ever written … Hemingway never forgave them as he thought they had killed the book.

Set in Tanzania and up the Great Rift Valley. Hemingway describes the lure of the hunt, the landscape and beauty of the wilderness like never before. Intermingled with conversations and views on writers and his writing. It is in this book that he set Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain as the greatest piece of American literature … but not without qualification.

Carries a special appreciation for “J P” i.e. Jackson Philip who was Philip Hope Percival who was his guide. Percival was the inspiration behind the character Robert Wilson in his later short story “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber”

Green Hills of Africa – true Hemingway

$70.00

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Jamaica Inn – Daphne Du Maurier – 1951 Edition

Daphne du Maurier’s Jamaica Inn vies with Rebecca as her best work… this “Cheap Edition” has become iconic.

Jamaica Inn was first published in 1936 … this is effectively the 21st impression, of 1951, with many more to come

Octavo, 208 pages, with the publisher Gollancz’s iconic yellow jacket. This is the cleanest and best early copy we have come across.

If you are in that beautiful part of England make sure you visit Jamaica Inn and read the book. Daphne gives us a useful introductory note … “Jamaica Inn stands to-day, hospitable and kindly, a temperance house on the twenty-mile road between Bodmin and Launceston” … you can get a nice drop there now and a heavy lunch!

“It was a cold grey day in November …”

$40.00

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Larger than Life – Twenty Stories by Xavier Herbert – First Edition 1963

Twenty entertainments by the distinguished author of the monumental Capricornia.

Published by Angus and Robertson. Octavo, 248 pages of solid yarns all connected to the Far North of Australia (Xavier Herbert country) ranging from Cooktown in Far North Queensland right across to Darwin in the Northern Territory. A super copy in a clean complete dust jacket of period style.

A lengthy Preface written by the author from his home on the beautiful Mossman Beach in the Far North helps the reader nicely into the collection.

Our favourites Marrying Money; Kaijek the Songman; An Eagle called Ned Kelly; Rise and Fall of Jeremiah Stacey and the last little ditty appropriately named “Last Toss”.

Superior short stories from Northmost Australia.

$35.00

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The Fountain Overflows – Rebecca West – 1957

An early edition of this important work by Rebecca West published by MacMillan, London and nominated a “Book society choice” – a March 1957 edition after the January 1957 First.

Octavo, 392 pages, very good condition, a trifle marked on the page edges.

Rebecca West the nom de plume of Dame Cicily Isabel Fairfield was named by the Times as the best female writer of the 20thC.

She maybe is even more famous for her lengthy romance with HG Wells despite his 27 years on her of his already marriage. They had a child, Anthony west, who also became a writer. He wrote a fictionalised biography of HG Wells that did not show Rebecca (or Cicily) in a good light … they never spoke again; and it was worse than that.

The Fountain Overflows can be understood from the Blake quote on the title page … “The cistern contains: the fountain overflows”. Essentially and autobiographically inspired novel concerning the Aubrey family in the first decade of the 20th Century.

Later Rebecca west would write two further extensions … one published posthumously. She lived then in a large apartment overlooking Hyde Park. Unfortunately, next to the Iranian Embassy and had to be evacuated when it was under siege … if you remember all that. I her final years she was friends with Frankie Hawerd so must have had some fun.

Rebecca West an extraordinary life and this novel encapsulates some of it.

$30.00

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Maigret’s Pickpocket and Maigret and the Nahour Case– Georges Simenon

Translated from the French another double helping of Maigret published by the Companion Book Club in 1968. A first of type.

Octavo, 288 pages in very good condition.

Maigret has his wallet stolen on a bus .. the young offender telephone Maigret and a murder enquiry ensues. In Nahour a gambler is murdered and his wife, who has fled with her lover, is suspected.

Two different Maigret cases but with murder at the heart of each.

$35.00

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Maigret in Society – George Simenon

Green Hills of Africa – Ernest Hemingway

Jamaica Inn – Daphne Du Maurier – 1951 Edition

Larger than Life – Twenty Stories by Xavier Herbert – First Edition 1963

The Fountain Overflows – Rebecca West – 1957

Maigret’s Pickpocket and Maigret and the Nahour Case– Georges Simenon

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