First Edition or First of Type

The Songs of Sappho – Miller and Robinson – Fine Production 1925

A beautiful edition published by Frank-Maurice, New York in 1925.

Longer Title … “the Songs of Sappho – Including the Recent Egyptian Discoveries – The Poems of Erinna – Greek Poems about Sappho – Ovid’s Epistle of Sappho to Phaon”. Translated by Marion Mills Miller (Editor of “The Classics – Greek and Latin”) with Greek texts prepared and annotated and literally translated in prose by David Moore Robinson, Professor in Classics, John Hopkins University.

Large octavo, 435 pages, rough cut page edges as issued. Very good near fine copy, original green boards with quarter vellum to spine with gilt titles. Top edge richly gilt. A limited edition of 750 copies. Ten full page plates.

Sappho (630BC – 570BC) was an archaic Greek poet from the island of Lesbos. Sappho is best known for her poems about love and women. Most of the poetry is now lost and surviving items are mainly in fragments, except for one complete poem “Ode to Aphrodite”. Little is known of Sappho’s life, although likely from a wealthy family. Sappho was exiled to Sicily around 600BC … legend surrounds her love for the ferryman Phaon.

Sappho’s work has continued to influence writers. Beyond her poetry she is known as a symbol of love and desire between women.

From “Old Love is Best”’ …
“Whose soft footfall sets my heart a-bounding
Wilder than when the clarions are sounding;
Whose bright face hath power more to charm me
Than Lydia’s army!”

Finely bound beautiful Sappho – 1925

$120.00

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Horace – Horatii Fiacci Opera – Munro and King – Bickers Binding – 1869

A delightful copy of “Horace” illustrated by with well over 100 classical cameos or “gems” and bound in superb style by Bickers and Sons of London with their discrete stamp at the front.

Published by Bell and Dalby, London in 1869. Large octavo, with 456 pages after preliminaries, the back section of the book being a lengthy and scholarly description of the said “gems”.

The Latin text revised by Munro and the “gems” selected and detailed by King both Fellows of Trinity College Cambridge.

Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65BC – 8 BC) known as “Horace” was a leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus. This is a well-produced and scholarly edition and we learn in the preface that the “gems” are authentic, whilst earlier attempts to illustrate Horace have succumbed to using inappropriate “modernised” versions etc.

The Bickers binding is full red morocco, spine panelled with raised bands, gilt lines to spine and boards, marbled endpapers with gilt rolled borders internally and to board edges, all page edges richly gilt. All a trifle rubbed … a solid a special binding. The shading on the right hand (front) board is our scanner not the board!

Nice inscription on endpaper … a gift to the Rev Mayo M.A. by his “Horace” class at Fauconberg School in Beecles … the distinguished grammar school was formed by Dr Fauconberg in 1712

Best Illustrated “Horace” in Bickers Binding

$140.00

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The Hunchback of Notre Dame – Victor Hugo

Our favourite edition from the Modern Library published in the 1950′s. A very good dust jacket with sticking imagery.

Written by Victor Hugo at the age of 29 and stands with Les Miserables as his most memorable work. Stirs the heart kindles the imagination.

The Bells … oh the bells

$40.00

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Emile Zola – Nana

A classic from the Modern Library collection published in the 1950′s and in very good condition.

Nana was banned in England on publication in 1888 for supposed obscenity. Zola the greatest influence on the school of “realistic” writing here demonstrated to perfection.

Obscenity surely not

$30.00

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Harold Effermere – A Story of the Queensland Bush – Michael Costello – First Edition 1897

Published by Swan Sonnenschien, London a first edition 1897. Octavo 309 pages in original green cloth covered binding with embossed design to front and git titling to spine. Showing some signs of age but still a very good copy of a rare work.

A superb and rare late 19thC novel based in the Queensland bush – country horse race rigging at its best. A great Australian yarn.

The author Michael Costello was the eldest son of pioneer, pastoralist and explorer John Costello. As a young lad the author often accompanied his dad on risky expeditions driving stock great distances in the bush in difficult conditions. Michael’s biography on his father published much later c1930 is one of our favourite pioneer accounts, almost impossible to find.

Whilst we find the dodgy horse racing elements the most amusing aspect of “Harold Effermere” we also learn to put your swag on the western side of a bush to avoid the morning sun and never to make your tea in the beef billy unless you want tea soup!

Early and rare Queensland Bush Story from a True Blue Bush Boy.

$90.00

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The Strand Magazine – with an Arthur Conan Doyle First Publication – 1898

A complete volume of the Strand Magazine being January to June 1898 in very good condition in the original green leather binding with elaborate gilt design and titling to spine.

As would be expected many interesting period articles, stories and the likes .. one on Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) by Beatrice Hatch is rather special.

The “piece that cannot be resisted” is a first publication of the short story by Arthur Conan Doyle … “The Story of the Beetle-Hunter” which was later published in a collection of short stories “Round the Fire” in 1908. The story, which runs to ten pages, contains eight illustrations by Archibald S Hattrick (1864-1950).

Conan Doyle First and More in Very Good Condition.

$140.00

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The Songs of Sappho – Miller and Robinson – Fine Production 1925

Horace – Horatii Fiacci Opera – Munro and King – Bickers Binding – 1869

The Hunchback of Notre Dame – Victor Hugo

Emile Zola – Nana

Harold Effermere – A Story of the Queensland Bush – Michael Costello – First Edition 1897

The Strand Magazine – with an Arthur Conan Doyle First Publication – 1898

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