First Edition or First of Type

Elephant Walk – Robert Standish (Film Edition 1955)

A very good 1955 London edition of this Standish classic a Voyager favourite.

Published by Peter Davies, octavo, 193 pages with the superb period dust jacket and the wrap around ” Read the Book of the Film” … a treasure to a collector.

If you have not seen the film then that is a loss that should be reversed … and all the drama with the casting .. which maybe created the unsurpassed on screen tensions.

Old enough to remember the film?

$50.00

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Charlotte Barton: Australia’s First Children’s Author – Marcie Muir

A nice piece of work by Marcie Muir, font of all knowledge regarding Australian Children’s Books.

A 35-page octavo card covered pamphlet published by Wentworth Books, 1980. A limited edition of 500 copies this one not numbered or signed so we are not sure if that is correct. A very nice copy.

It was originally thought, an recorded by Ferguson, that the author of the first Australian children’s book “A Mother’s Offering to her Children” published Sydney 1841 was Lady Gordan Bremer. This work by Marcie proves beyond doubt that it was in fact Charlotte Barton. Drawing on a number of sources including Mrs Mins and Mrs Fanning both who wrote to Marcie the author pieces together the evidence and presents it in a very readable, entertaining and informative way. We like it!

Charlotte Barton proven as first Australian children’s author.

Postage will be reduced to cost appropriately on this light weight item.

$20.00

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Il Pentamerone; or, The Tale of Tales – Basile – Translated Sir Richard Burton KCMG – First and Limited Edition – 1893

Being a Translation by the Late Sir Richard Burton, K.C.M.G., of Il Pentamerone;OveroLo Cuntode Li Cunte, Trattenemiento de Li Peccerille, of Giovanni Battista Basile, Count of Torne (Gian Alessio Abbattutis).

First edition in two volumes published by Henry and Co, London 1893. Published posthumously by his devoted wife Lady Burton.

A limited edition of 1,500 copies. Two volumes, octavo, 282 pages, [283]-562 pages. Original dark blue (near black) buckram cloth, gilt lettered. Minor rubbing to spine ends. Overall a very good clean set of a sought after Burton work.

The stories in the Pentamerone were collected by Basile and published posthumously by his sister Adriana in Naples in 1634 and 1636 under the pseudonym Abbatutis. The stories were later adapted by a number of authors including the Brothers Grimm who acknowledged the use of stories in the Pentamerone in Cinderella, Rapunzel, Puss in Boots, Sleeping Beauty and Hansel and Gretel.

Basile recorded the stories in Neapolitan and is regarded as the first writer to record the Neapolitan intonations. The style is heavily Baroque with many metaphorical expressions.

The term Pentameone comes from the Greek “pente” or five and “hemera” day. The work is set within a “frame story” with fifty separate tales being told over the course of five days … referencing Baccaccio’s Decameron of 1353 which has a ten day structure.

Beautiful stories translated by the genius that was Sir Richard Burton. Limited first edition.

$170.00

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The Last of Lysandra – Elizabeth Fenwick

A very good Gollancz, yellow jacket thriller. A first of type published 1973. Octavo, 160 pages in very good condition or better.

More strange characters than “Midsummer Murders” … we are promised a hidden menace lurking behind respectable facades … and we get it.

Who is lurking behind your façade?

$25.00

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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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Love and The Luxembourg – Richard Aldington – First American, Fine, Limited and Signed – 1930

Beautiful presentation of Aldington’s lengthy poem a first American edition published by Convici, Friede Inc New York 1930. Limited edition of 475 copies of which this is number 400. The book was designed by Frederic Warde and printed by William Edwin Rudge … signed nicely by Richard Aldington and Frederic Warde.

Large octavo, 53 pages plus the limitation. Bound in stylish burgundy cloth cover boards with gilt flower design to front with gild boarders and gilt designs to spine. Top edge nicely gilt other edges rough cut. Slipcase as issued. A fine copy.

Richard Aldington (1892-1962) was a founding poet of the Imagist movement. He fought on the Western Front during WWI and wrote “Death of a Hero” widely acclaimed. Much can be said about him .. his friendships included Ezra Pound (an early mentor), D.H. Lawrence, W.B. Yeats, T.S. Elliot, Joyce, Hemingway .. says it all … what a period!

Love and the Luxembourg is about his love for American writer Brigit Patmore (For B.) who he was in a relationship with 1928-1936 … he left her for her daughter in law.

Later in life he wrote a brief biography on T.E. Lawrence which suggested various things previously unsaid about the great man’s character. Aldington was never forgiven for this “abuse” and lived the rest of his life out in France.

Aldington a special poet with literary contacts

$80.00

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Elephant Walk – Robert Standish (Film Edition 1955)

Charlotte Barton: Australia’s First Children’s Author – Marcie Muir

Il Pentamerone; or, The Tale of Tales – Basile – Translated Sir Richard Burton KCMG – First and Limited Edition – 1893

The Last of Lysandra – Elizabeth Fenwick

Sunset at Blandings – P.G. Wodehouse

Love and The Luxembourg – Richard Aldington – First American, Fine, Limited and Signed – 1930

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