Fiction

The Wedding Guest Sat on a Stone – Richard Shattuck – First US Edition 1940

Published by the World Syndicate, New York in 1940. Another that made it into a movie.

Octavo, 262 pages, pretty good condition.

A somewhat amusing mystery concerning, amongst a lot of frivolity, numerous attempts to hide a dead body which after one failed attempt in an elevator … disappears.

The title comes from the Rime of the Ancient Mariner, if you understand how that is framed – each chapter here has some context – a bit high-brow really for the genre.

If you want to hide a dead body this will tell you where not to hide one!

$50.00

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She Shall Have Murder – Delano Ames – First US Edition 1949

Published by Rinehart, New York in 1949.

Octavo, 245 pages. The first book in a series of murder mysteries featuring Jane Hamish and Dagobert Brown. Super stuff a plot that would fit today’s take on the classic murder mystery.

Delano Ames and American, who moved to England and then Spain had huge success with this genre.

Made into a movie the following year.

A plot built on a fantasy of a plot.

$50.00

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The Deadly Dowager – Edwin Greenwood – First US Edition 1937

Published by Doubleday, New York in 1937, first US Edition.

Octavo, 307 pages, pretty good condition, striking period jacket.

Watch out for life insurance! As often behind the plot of the Deadly Dowager to restore the family fortunes by killing them off. Unusual murders.

Watch out for the wet sponge!

$50.00

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Gallows Orchard – Claire Spencer – First Edition 1930

First edition of Gallows Orchard – in or opinion – in the best dust jacket design we have ever seen.

Published by Jonathan Cape & Harrison Smith. Octavo, 285 pages, a little age, generally very good condition.

Lucy antagonises a small village in Scotland … she has numerous suitors but in the end the village folk have their way. Murder, marriage and death ….

This was Scottish born Clair Spencer’s first novel. By this time, she was in the US married to publisher Harrison Smith.

Approaching 100 years – First edition challenging story

$70.00

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Little Ragged Blossom and more about Snugglepot and Cuddlepie – May Gibbs – First Edition c 1920

Published Sydney: Angus Robertson no date but 1920 and a First Edition.

Quarto. Cloth backed pictorial boards with a colour vignette of Little Ragged Blossom pasted on with some wear. The odd mark – on the whole a very good copy.

The wonderful fantasy world of the gum-nut babies portrayed in glorious detail. Illustrated by Gibbs with two full colour plates and twenty wonderful sepia plates as well as pictorial end papers and many line illustrations in-text. Scarce in any condition. Reference the authority Muir 2752.

Little Ragged Blossom a May Gibbs Delight

$190.00

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The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway [1960 Edition]

Should be everyone’s favourite short read. Nobel citation – “his powerful style-forming mastery of the art of modern narration, as most lately revealed in his novel The Old Man and the Sea”

Published by Jonathan Cape, London a in 1960, noting the Nobel Prize win on the front jacket flap. A really super clean, bright copy.

Slim octavo, 127 pages. Wrap around dust jacket [tiny chip rear edge] by designer Hans Tisdall, who also created the unusual font, which is now embedded in font culture.

Nobel Classic – Ernest Hemingway – Nice one

$60.00

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The Wedding Guest Sat on a Stone – Richard Shattuck – First US Edition 1940

She Shall Have Murder – Delano Ames – First US Edition 1949

The Deadly Dowager – Edwin Greenwood – First US Edition 1937

Gallows Orchard – Claire Spencer – First Edition 1930

Little Ragged Blossom and more about Snugglepot and Cuddlepie – May Gibbs – First Edition c 1920

The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway [1960 Edition]

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