Libros raros de Paul Foster Books

Williams and Norgate. London., 1921. FIRST EDITION. Large 8vo.(10.2 x 7.8 inches). Illustrated with 96 plates. Publishers original green cloth binding with gilt lettering and ruling to spine. Binding a bit rubbed and bumped but overall sound and the gilt still bright. This copy has a full page original ink self portrait of Orpen on the front blank endpaper, showing the artist painting the famous American Wall Street lawyer and art collector, Paul Cravath. ---- The drawing is inscribed by Orpen at the bottom of the page "My very dear Mr Cravath-It was a big job to tackle on those hot summer afternoons you must admit. All good wishes in 1922.-------(?) William Orpen". The drawing shows Cravath, a large man who stood 6ft 4inches, sat posing while a much smaller Orpen, the heat rising from his head and his sleeves rolled up, paints the portrait. ------ The book has the bookplate of the prolific author and traveller Cecil Roberts who has written a note on the blank verso of the frontis piece about… Leer más

NP. No Date. Circa 1925. FIRST, AND ONLY, EDITION. Oblong octavo. Illustrated with 8 hand blocked, hand coloured cocktail napkins mounted into the book among text pages. White printed boards with later plain burgundy cloth tape spine. Light soiling to binding and the glue a little loose on a few napkin corners but overall in very good condition. An amusing cocktail recipe book with eight richly hand-coloured napkins tipped in. Produced during Prohibition (with "non-alcoholic" wryly inserted after every alcoholic ingredient). "Dedicated to serious drinkers everywhere" with history and recipes for the following cocktails: Manhattan, Blue Blazer, Deadwood Duck, Rip Van Winkle Sleeper, Belmont Park, Alabama, Barbary Coast, New Orleans Drip. An extremely attractive and rare piece of Prohibition Americana.

Cannes. 1966. NP. 1966. Quarto (285mm x 233mm). 20 typed sheets in French (rectos only), legibly hand-corrected throughout by Brassai in black ink. Housed in a black cloth album, with each sheet in a separate clear plastic file. In excellent condition, the final page a little creased and with minor loss to right-hand side, affecting one letter. Overall fresh and clean. ------ A superb unpublished and heavily corrected manuscript in French, in which Brassai recounts his visit to Picasso, a long-standing friend, at his home near Cannes. Brassai, who photographed much of Picasso's work in the 1940s, had published Conversations with Picasso in 1964, in which he created an intimate portrait of Picasso, covering their friendship and artistic collaboration, and recording each of their meetings with minute detail. Picasso said of the volume, "Read this book if you want to understand me." This account is written in a similar style, and during the course of the afternoon, Picasso speaks about his nostalgia… Leer más

John Lane at The Sign of The Bodley Head. London. 1894. FIRST EDITION. One of just 50 large paper copies printed on hand made paper. Small 4to.(8.4 X 6.3 inches). Original buckram with gilt lettering to the spine. Attractive floral designs by Charles Shannon in gilt to the spine and both boards. Spine and hinge edges of boards cloth is darkened but the gilt is still bright. Fore and bottom page edges are untrimmed. Offsetting to the blank free endpapers otherwise a bright and clean copy throughout. --- Mason 365.

Louis Janet. Paris. ND. circa 1875. Third edition. Small 8vo. (5.9 x 4.4 inches). xvi, 157pp. Thirteen hand coloured illustrated plates (including extra title page) with movable pull tabs to change the image. An asterisk next to the text tells when the movable should be used to animate the scene. A crease to the top of the half title page and a few minor thumb marks to a handful of leaves, otherwise a very good, fresh and clean copy in the publishers red morocco-grained cloth with blind stamped decorative border to both boards. Gilt lettering to the front board. Coated mid brown endpapers. All edges gilt. A superior copy of this rare movable. First issued in 1831, there was a second issue in 1837 and then this third, circa 1875, with the text printed by Ducessios of Paris. All three printings are rare, and copies in such good condition and with all tabs present and easily workable, as this one even more so. Sometimes described as the first interactive book published, this is certainly the first to use… Leer más

Chatto & Windus, Piccadilly. London. 1876. FIRST EDITION. First impression. 8vo. (7.8 x 5.9 inches). A few small marks to just a handful of pages but generally this is a clean and bright copy throughout. Finely bound in recent full red morocco. Spine with five raised bands. Gilt ruling, lettering and decorations to compartments. Single gilt ruled border on boards. Top edge gilt, others untrimmed. Original publishers decorative front board and spine, which is rubbed and toned, have been bound in at the rear. Overall a very good attractive copy of the true first edition of this classic book. First published in England in order to secure a British copyright, the London edition precedes the American edition by about six months.

Macmillan and Co, Ltd. London. 1910. FIRST EDITION. 8vo.(8.1 x 5.6 inches). Illustrated with four full page mono plates by Frank Craig. Publishers original burgundy cloth boards. Gilt lettering to the spine. Front board with raised circular Ganesha device in gilt. Top edge gilt. In the rare original dustwrapper, with repeat pattern of Macmillan double M design over the whole surface and red lettering to the spine and both outer panels. Lower panel has correct publisher adverts, as listed in David Alan Richards' Bibliography of Kipling. Inner flaps with repeat Macmillan design but nothing else. The cloth and gilt are bright and fresh. Some spotting to the fore edge of the pages and a few leaves affected with fairly mild foxing, mostly to the margins and away from the text. The inner hinges are cracked but holding firm and a slight lean to the spine, otherwise a very good copy of the book in a very good dustwrapper with some minor chipping to the extremities and the spine a bit darkened. The red… Leer más

Thornton Butterworth Limited. London. 1923-31. FIRST EDITION SET. 6 large 8vo volumes. (9.2 x 6.3 inches). Contains maps, plans and facsimiles of letters and documents. Fine leather bound set in recent full dark blue morocco leather. Spines with raised bands, red title labels, and gilt ruling, lettering and decorations of Rampant lion device stamped to spine compartments. Single gilt ruled border on boards. All edges gilt. Some very minor spotting to a few pages of the first volume otherwise a surprisingly bright and fresh set throughout, and uncommon thus. A superior set of Churchill's great war account.

George Allen & Unwin; Unwin Hyman; Harper Collins. London. 1983 - 1996. FIRST EDITIONS. 1st impressions. 8vo. 13 volumes. A complete set of the 12 volume History of Middle Earth plus the extra Unfinished Tales volume. Original publishers boards in different colours but all with uniform gilt lettering to the spines. In the original multi colour dustwrappers. A couple of very minor rubs to the extremities of a couple of dustwrappers but overall a very near fine, bright and clean set of this first publication of Tolkien's entire History of Middle Earth, in which tales, songs, poems, maps, illustrations, genealogical tables, and even linguistic primers for Tolkien's languages, give the fullest picture available of one of the most thoroughly imagined worlds ever created in the history of fantasy literature. The enormous content presented in these twelve volumes was only hinted at in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, and was drastically condensed into a single volume in the Silmarillion which was… Leer más

William Heinemann and The Bodley Head. London. 1969 - 1982. 23 Volumes - Complete. FIRST EDITIONS and First printings of all volumes in this collected edition. --- Volume 1, Brighton Rock, is inscribed and signed by Graham Greene on the front free endpaper; - "For Doctor A. D. Thomson from Graham Greene." Publishers dark green cloth bindings with gilt ruling and lettering to the spines and grey endpapers. A fine set of books in very good dustwrappers, designed by Michael Harvey with some toning to the spines and a small amount of rubbing to extremities. Some volumes have a neat previous owner name on the front free endpaper and four of the wrappers nave been neatly price-clipped. A very good set with the added bonus of Greene's signature and inscription in Brighton Rock. Collected essays was issued in 1969, before the rest of the volumes, and is a little larger although the wrapper style is similar so it doesn't look out of place on the shelf with the set. ---- Greene wrote a new introduction to each… Leer más

Collins. London. 1968. FIRST EDITION. 4to. (10.3 x 7.6 inches). 32pp. Illustrated in colour by the Author. Original colour illustrated boards and in the rare original dustwrapper. Two pages with minor blemishes but overall a bright and clean copy in the original colour printed dustwrapper, which reproduces the board illustrations and lettering. Some minor bumping to the board edges. One small closed tear (less than 1 inch) to the bottom front hinge of the wrapper, which also has some light creasing to the edges but overall this is a superior copy of the notoriously rare book. ---- A better than very good First edition of Judith Kerr's first, and most beloved book. Never out of print and with sales exceeding 5 million copies, it has been animated for television and adapted into a hugely successful stage play. The first edition is rare, especially so in the original dust-jacket.

Gerald Howe Ltd. London. 1934. FIRST EDITION. 8vo. (7.6 x 5.2 inches). 27 line illustrations by Mary Shepard. One small, faint mark to the title page otherwise a near fine copy which is bright and clean throughout. Publishers yellow cloth with black lettering to the spine and front board, which also has an illustration of Mary Poppins. Illustrated endpapers. In the original illustrated grey dustwrapper which is split in two but is currently held together in a removable wrapper protector. There is some loss to the top and bottom of the spine and a large closed tear to the front panel with a small amount of loss. Small and neat booksellers label (Zeitlin Books of Los Angeles) to the rear pastedown endpaper. Overall a near fine book, with a little bumping to the top of the spine, in a good example of the scarce dustwrapper that is quite clean and more then 95% complete, so could easily be restored to it's former glory. The author's scarce first book, and the first of the eight Mary Poppins books, which… Leer más

J. M. Dent & Sons Limited. London. 1919. TWENTY FOUR FINE FULL COLOUR PLATES BY DETMOLD. Each mounted onto card with a printed border and protected with a tissue guard. The title of each picture printed on the guard in brown ink. The colour plates measure 14.9 x 9.6 inches. The card mounts measure 20 x 15 inches. They are housed in the original publishers portfolio with printed title and publication details to front panel. Spine and board corners in beige cloth. Cloth ties to top edge missing but the original ties to the fore and bottom edges are intact. Printed label on inside of front board with the limitation details and numbered and signed by Detmold. This is copy number 204 of only 500 sets produced. The illustrations are held in place with brown card fold-overs to the top and bottom, the fold over at the fore edge is missing. Overall a very good set of these beautiful plates. It is rare to find a complete set of all 24 plates still in the original publishers portfolio, many having been framed to… Leer más

Printed by W. Bulmer & Co. for G. Nicol. London. 1797. FIRST EDITION. Three volumes. Complete. - Two quarto text volumes (12 x 9.4 inches), and a folio atlas of plates (16.6 x 12.3 inches). ---- Both text volumes in contemporary full brown calf boards with decorative gilt borders. Re-spined in recent brown calf with raised bands, the compartments ruled in blind, two red morocco labels, lined and lettered in gilt. Gilt inner dentelles. Marbled endpapers. All edges marbled. The atlas volume bound in recent half brown calf. Spine with raised bands, each decorated in gilt. Compartments ruled in gilt. Red title label, gilt. Marbled paper on boards. Text volumes with engraved portrait frontispiece to each, 1 plate and 26 vignettes after William Alexander et al. in all, atlas with 44 engraved views, plans, plates and maps and charts, including large folding world map, 3 natural history subjects and 25 views. Some foxing and sporadic spotting to both text and atlas, a couple of the maps have professional… Leer más

George Allen & Unwin. London. 1954 and 1955. FIRST EDITION, first printings of Volumes 2 and 3. The 1st volume is 1954 2nd impression, printed in a run of only 2500 copies, which is actually the first revised version of the text, due the printers dispersing the type after the first impression and having to completely reset it for this printing. Including Tolkien's corrections to the text and the Elvish title page inscription, this version became the standard text for many years to follow. THREE VOLUMES. 8vo. (8.6 x 5.5 inches). A bright and clean set throughout. Fold out map of Middle earth at the end of each volume. The set has been finely bound in recent full red morocco leather. Spines with raised bands, the compartments lettered, ruled and decorated in gilt. Decorative gilt roll border on the boards. All edges gilt. Plain magnolia endpapers. The three volumes are housed in a burgundy cloth covered slipcase. ------ A fine and attractive set with the earliest reprint of the first book and first… Leer más