Fiction

Silver Mist – Joan Sutherland – First Edition 1935

1935 first edition with a lovely art deco inspired dust jacket. Published by Cassell, London etc, octavo, 287 pages. A ripple to the front board and the odd spot on page edges, really a very good copy in a super dust jacket.

A romance but with some heat. Penelope falls for Sir Garth. The good looking Garth (they both are) is cited in a divorce 1930’s style. The case failed but Sir Garth was left with the stigma (nothing’s changed there). Lady Olivia is a pursuer but maybe Penelope has some tricks in store.

1935 First Edition by the much admired Sutherland.

$50.00

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The Girl Green as Elderflower – Randolph Stow – First Edition 1980

Another absolutely crisp, as if new first edition published by Secker & Warburg, London in 1980.

Octavo, 150 pages, dust jacket art by John Piper.

Randolph Stow had been awarded the Patrick White Award the previous year. White established the award from funds received form his Nobel Prize … good on him.

Following quickly after Visitants a quite different book by Stow. Previous work often dealing with the deterioration of an individual here we have the opposite. Crispin Claire has been badly afflicted by his time in the Tropics. Convalescing in Suffolk the environment provides nourishment. With improved strength he begins to write a narrative around three 12th Century local stories, and he finds himself moving between the present and the time of Richard the Lionheart. Beautifully and skillfully written.

Unusual and gripping story as can expected from Stow.

$60.00

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Letters writ by a Turkish Spy, Who Liv’d Five and Forty Years Undiscovered at Paris; Giving an Impartial Account to the Divan of Constantinople of the Most Remarkable Transactions in Europe – Complete in Eight Volumes. Giovanni Paolo Marana – 1748

A very nice set of this almost legendary work, complete and unusually in their original bindings. Fictional letters claiming to have been written by an Ottoman spy named “Mahmut the Arabian” embedded in the French Court of Louis XIV.

Published in London by Wilde, Ballard and others in 1748. Eight volumes (Over 600 letters in all), duodecimo, engraved frontispiece to Vol I, full contemporary calf, spines gilt, some joints a bit cracked but holding. A twelfth edition of a great publishing success of the 18thC which would go on for a further fifty years.

Contemporary bookplate of Robert Midgley dated 1748 so the first owner. And the modern book label of Edward John Kenny the Latinist of Peterhouse College, Cambridge University, visiting at Harvard etc.

A journal of gossip and anecdotes on politics and events and shenanigans going on in France at the time.

Written in Italian by Giovanni Paola Marana (1642-1693) a Genoese refugee in the Court of the said Louis XIV. He completed the first volume of 102 letters, and had it translated to French and published in Paris in 1684-1686. Other volumes were published as they were completed over time. English translations by William Bradshaw became available in 1687. Later volumes issued first in English in London leading some to believe they were not by Marana. However, the consistency in style and use of words really points to Marana as being the author of the full set, not doubt with the help of translators and editors of the day.

Well liked by Daniel Defoe who wrote an aptly named “Continuation of Turkish Letters Writ by a Turkish Spy in Paris” … a sort of 18thC sequel.

Incidentally, the last owner Professor Kenny used to gauge his candidates by seeing how nice they were to his cat Fufu … it became known as the Fufu test … that’s Latin for you.

The Turkish Spy – A Classic By Marana

$890.00

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Visitants – Randolph Stow – First Edition 1979

An absolutely crisp, as if new, first edition published by Secker & Warburg, London in 1979. Octavo, 189 pages plus page on notes.

Author of Tourmaline one of Voyager’s favourite ever novels waited some time before publishing this yet again unusual narrative.

Based in Papua New Guinea where at one time Stow had worked in official service.

The book starts with a Prologue which narrates the sighting of alien lifeform “flying saucers with waving aliens” by Reverend William Gill and his staff, an event of which Voyager has previously had original material.

The narrative continues on the island of Kailuana where an enquiry is underway regarding strange goings on.

Reviewers of Stow’s work have occasionally remarked about the surreal in his writing. We agree, and don’t be put off by that …it’s understandable, interesting and rewarding.

Randolph Stow – it was worth the wait.

$60.00

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An Egyptian Journal – William Golding

A first US edition by Nobel Prize winning William Golding, published by Faber and Faber in 1985.

Golding’s first novel “Lord of the Flies” a Voyager favourite … strange because originally rejected by Faber and, despite his first, surely significantly .behind his Nobel award … which arrived in 1983 just before the publication of this adventure in Egypt. Aussies will know his Rites of Passage and the other parts of what was a superb trilogy … made into a classic screenplay with Benedict Cumberbatch as the protagonist.

An unusual and interesting book, a no nonsense account … Golding only needed to please one person … himself. So we quite like his honest views of everything Egyptian on the tour … not done in grand style but in the fashion of any honest adventurer.

Larger octavo, 207 pages, illustrated with interesting titling .. a very good copy.

A very different Egypt travel account by the talented irascible sarcastic observant Golding

$35.00

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Pirates of Papua – J. M. Downie – First Edition 1949

A first edition with the scarce dust jacket published by Frederick Warne, London in 1949.

Octavo, 249 pages, pretty clean albeit some childlike scribbles on the rear end papers. Rather impressive bookplate of previous owner, Papuan collector Charles Fletcher, at front. A chip to the dust jacket spine top and bottom but really a great example.

Pirates are still patrolling the coasts of Papua New Guinea and the outlying island … ask Kerry Stokes. This is an adventure story … Dick Hale has a pretty tricky time on the cannibal island of Malekula … but it gets worse when he and his companions find themselves in pursuit of Red Kelly a notorious blackbirder and traitor into the interior of New Guinea.

An unusual New Guinea story based around real issues .. and a super looking book.

$70.00

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Silver Mist – Joan Sutherland – First Edition 1935

The Girl Green as Elderflower – Randolph Stow – First Edition 1980

Letters writ by a Turkish Spy, Who Liv’d Five and Forty Years Undiscovered at Paris; Giving an Impartial Account to the Divan of Constantinople of the Most Remarkable Transactions in Europe – Complete in Eight Volumes. Giovanni Paolo Marana – 1748

Visitants – Randolph Stow – First Edition 1979

An Egyptian Journal – William Golding

Pirates of Papua – J. M. Downie – First Edition 1949

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