Search Results: Modern Fiction from Ariadne Books

London: Folio Society, 2002. Folio Society edition, 2002. Hardback. xvi, 651pp. Brown and blue cloth covers with silver design and titles. Slipcase. Stories selected by Laurent Lalonde. Introduced by Fred Chappell. Illustrated by Rod Waters. O. Henry - a remarkable man and a remarkable writer. Book in fine and unread condition. Slipcase near fine with only superficial marking. A heavy book but no additional shipping costs to UK destinations.

London: Chatto & Windus, 2005. First edition, 2005. Signed by the author to the title page. Hardback. 232pp. Dust jacket in a protective sleeve. Wickedly funny and devastatingly moving, 26a isan extraordinary first novel. Part fairytale, part nightmare, it moves from the mundane to the magical, the particular to the universal with exceptional flair and imagination. It is for anyone who has had a childhood, and anyone who knows what it is to lose one. Book in near fine condition and unread. Dust jacket near fine and unclipped.

London: Headline, 2011. First edition, 2011. Hardback. 342pp. Dust jacket. An Inspector William Monk novel. 1861 and on the Thames' murky waters cruel and shameful deeds are being committed after dark. In an illicit world of blackmail, vice and corruption, Monk must follow a trail - and his conscience - wherever it leads, no matter how disturbing the truth might be. Book in very good condition. Slight discolouration to text block edges. Dust jacket very good and unclipped. Minor edge wear only.

London: Harvill Secker, 2007. First edition. Hardback. As new/Very Good. Harvill Secker, London, 2007. First edition. Book condition: fine and unread. Dust jacket: very good. Unclipped and with only faint edge wear. Some very light soiling to jacket. David Imaz has spent many years living in exile on a ranch in California, far from his native Basque Country. Nearing fifty and in failing health, he decides to write the story of his youth in the village of Obaba, and the sweeping narrative that ensues takes the reader from 1936 to 1999. David divides his time between his Uncle Juan's ranch and his life in the village, where he reluctantly practises the accordion - a tradition his father insists upon. Letters found in a hotel attic, along with a silver pistol, lead David to unravel the story of the Spanish Civil War, including his father's association with the fascists, and the opposition of his uncle. With affection and lucidity, Atxaga describes the evolution of a young man caught between… Read More

London: Scribner, 2005. First edition. Hardback. Fine/Fine. Temple Clark. Signed by the author.. Near fine first edition signed by the author. Unread copy with just a tiny mark to the head of the spine. Dust jacket fine with very small indentation (about 2mm) to head of spine. Slightest amount of creasing to head and tail of the spine. This is a bold and brilliant novel that invites you on a remarkable walking tour - a tour during which the ghosts of London's Brick Lne open up their front doors. The book is a groundbreaking blend of fiction, history and archaeology in which Jeremy Gavron uncovers the story of Brick Lane, the story of London and the story of Britain.

London: Putnam, 1955. 8vo. 115pp. First edition. Black cloth with gilt titles to spine. Dust jacket in a protective sleeve. Several years before his death, Dylan Thomas began to write a novel that would not be strictly autobiographical, but would bear a relation to the two parts of his experience, his own actions and the actions of his dramatised self. He wrote, "My novel blazes on. It's a mixture of Oliver Twist, Little Dorrit, Kafka, Beachcomber, and good old 3-adjectives-a-penny belly-churning Thomas the Rimbaud of Cwmdonkin Drive." Only the opening of this novel ever got written, and this is its first publication in book form. It is a unique fragment, fantastic in comedy, and rich with the poet's personality. Very good. Very slight spotting to text block fore edge. Light toning to endpapers. Internally very clean. Dust jacket: good. Unclipped. Small closed tear to upper edge of front (approx 3cms). A little chipping to corners and to extremities of spine. Generally a little… Read More

London: Faber & Faber, 1943. First edition. Hardback. Good/Good. Mervyn Peake. Faber & Faber, London, July 1943. First edition. Book condition:- good. Corners a little bumped and general light shelf wear. Spine slightly rolled. Covers a little soiled. Internally clean. Small closed tears to upper edge of p31. Upper corner of ffep lightly creased. Endpapers very lightly tanned. Dust jacket condition: good. Unclipped. A little wear around the edges and some chipping to head and tail of spine. Spine discoloured. Joad's Young Soldier goes on a pilgrimage to find the Better World that has been promised him after the war. At the end he finds, in so far as he finds anything at all, that the New World he seeks is, if it is anywhere at all, inside himself. Illustrations by Mervyn Peake.

London: Bloomsbury, 2000. First edition. Hardback. As New/Fine. Bloomsbury, London, 2000. First edition. Book condition: near fine. Dust jacket condition: near fine. Afterimage is an intense exploration of the search for identity & meaning. It captures the tension between the intellectual yearnings and the repressed sexuality of the Victorian age. Rich with undercurrents of sensuality and passion, Afterimage is beautifully evocative, written with Helen Humphrey's spare poetic sensibility and instinctive insight into the most profound of human desires. Like her earlier novel Leaving Earth, it is a book that reverberates in the mind and heart long after the last page is turned.

New York: Little, Brown & Co, 2007. First edition. Hardback. Very Good/Very Good. Little, Brown & Co, New York, 2007. First edition. Book condition: very good. Extremely slight shelf wear and feels unread. Dust jacket: very good. Unclipped and with minor edge wear only. Rose MacMurray brings Emily Dickinson brilliantly to life, drawing on her letters, her poems and years of research. A vivid and compelling story that spans the American Civil War and a tale of brilliant women who chose to break with conventions and live life on their own terms.

London: Doubleday, 2006. First edition. Hardback. As New/As new. Signed by the author.. Doubleday, London. First edition 2006. Signed by the author on the title page. Book Condition: Near fine and unread. Dust jacket condition: near fine. At the book's opening an old man reflects on his long and troubled life in this beautiful and seemingly tranquil setting, and anticipates the return of Marco Afonso Rodrigues, the prodigal son of the village and a symbol of this fast-changing world. The homecoming is the subject of continuing speculation, and when Marco Afonso Rodrigues does finally appear, villagers, tourists and expatriates are brought together and their jealousies, passions and disappointments must inevitably collide...

London: Doubleday, 2006. First limited edition. Hardback. As New/Fine slipcase. Signed by the author.. Doubleday, London. Signed Limited First edition 2006 in near fine slipcase. Book Condition: Unread and in fine condition. This limited edition of 1000 copies (of which this is no. 464) was issued without a dust jacket but comes in a blue cloth slipcase with gold titles and decoration to the front. The slipcase is in fine condition and free of blemishes. The book is signed by the author and numbered on the title page. At the book's opening an old man reflects on his long and troubled life in this beautiful and seemingly tranquil setting, and anticipates the return of Marco Afonso Rodrigues, the prodigal son of the village and a symbol of this fast-changing world. The homecoming is the subject of continuing speculation, and when Marco Afonso Rodrigues does finally appear, villagers, tourists and expatriates are brought together and their jealousies, passions and disappointments must inevitably collide... Read More

London: Little, Brown & Co, 2003. First edition. Hardback. Fine/Fine. Little, Brown & Co., London, 2003. First edition. Book condition: near fine - very slight tanning to the paper and a very minor lean to the spine. Dust jacket condition: near fine & unclipped with only the slightest shelf wear to the edges. It is a fire in a New Hampshire hotel that brings Nicholas Van Tassel and Etna Bliss together - two strangers grateful to have escaped the burning building with their lives. For Nicholas, it is also a chance meeting that lights up a lifelong passion, and sets in motion a pursuit of Etna that is to end in their marriage. But their life in the town of Thrupp is not everything they could have imagined. Many years later, on a train to Florida, Nicholas recounts their courtship,and their time together. as the threads of the story begin to unravel, what is revealed is a patchwork of promises, truths, secrets and lies, and a man, madly in love, for whom his wife is all he ever wanted...

London: Jonathan Cape, 2014. First edition. Hardback. Fine/Fine. Jonathan Cape, London, 2014. First edition. Book condition: near fine. Dust jacket: near fine and unclipped. A dozen stories: a dozen ways of looking at love - or the lack of love. The title story itself is a masterpiece with a couple waiting for a train that doesn't come ando pens out into the husband's shocking admission of years of deceit and a devastating portrait of a failed marriage. The stories are packed with A. L. Kennedy's brilliance - one of her very best collections.

London: Virago, 2009. First edition. Hardback. Fine/Fine. Virago, London, 2009. First edition. Book condition: near fine. Dust jacket condition: near fine and unclipped. All the Nice Girls, Joan Bakewell's first novel, captures the danger and the excitement of wartime Britain with a story of painful separations, illicit love and battles at sea and, above all, the poignancy of longing and loss.

London: William Heinemann, 2006. First edition, second impression, 2006. Hardback. 215pp. Black cloth boards with gilt lettering to spine. Dust jacket. When Birahima's mother dies, he leaves his native village - accompanied by the sorcerer Yacouba - to search for his aunt Mahan. Crossing the border into Liberia, they are seized by a rebel force and press-ganged into military service. Birahima is given a Kalashnikov, scant rations of food, a minimal wage, and plenty of dope. Fighting in a totally chaotic civil war alongside many other child soldiers, he sees death, torture, amputation and madness, but somehow manages to retain his sanity. Told in the remarkably realised voice of a ten-year-old boy. The story is tinged with both humour and disdain. It is a shattering and heartbreaking tale. Book condition very good. Slight tanning to page edges. Dust jacket very good. Unclipped and with only the slightest edge wear.

Sutton, Surrey: Severn House Publishers Ltd, 2007. First edition, 2007. Hardback. 204pp. Dust jacket. It was an average day at the mariners Hotel until Professor Lamont arrives late and breathless for a meeting with the guest in Room 106. The crumpled figure of Dr Whistler, an archaeologist, is found in a pool of blood. The safe in the room is open and a potentially pricelss document, dug up on an archaeological dig in Rhodes, has vanished. The victim had claimed it was an epistle from Saint Paul. Suspicion lands on Lamont who, oddly, was seen leaving the hotel half an hour before his scheduled meeting. Book in near fine condition. Dust jacket very good. Unclipped and with only the slightest edge wear.

London: Jonathan Cape, 1998. Uncorrected proof. Softcover. As New/No dust jacket issued.. Jonathan Cape, London, 1998. Uncorrected proof copy in very good condition and appears unread. This is a contemporary morality tale that is as profound as it is witty. And why Amsterdam? What happens there to Clive Linley and Vernon Halliday is the most delicious shock in a novel brimming with surprises.

London: Bloomsbury, 2006. First edition. Hardback. Fine/Very Good. Bloomsbury, London, 2006. First edition. The book is in near fine condition with litle sign of having been read. The corners are free of bumping and the braided silk page marker is present. Some very slight tanning of the text block edges. The dust jacket is in very good condition with just a little light creasing to the head and tail of the spine and along the top edges. Abie has followed the arc of a letter from London back to Africa, to the coffee groves of Kholifa Estates, the plantation formerly owned by her grandfather. This is the story of four lives: Asana, Mariama, Hawa and Sera Khloifa, born to the different wives of a wealthy plantation owner in an Africa where change is beginning to arrive. Stretching across generations and set against the backdrop of a country's descent into freefall, Ancestor Stones is a stunning novel about understanding the past and how stories ancient and new shape who we become, and one which… Read More

Pensylvania: Franklin Library, 1976. Limited edition. Hardback. Good/No dust jacket issued.. Joseph Smith. Franklin Library, Pensylvania, 1976. (originally published 1955). Book condition: good. Lower corners of pages 45 through 50 creased. Slight damp staining to leading edge of pages from around p765 through 825 with worst affected pages being 792 and 793. All edge gilt - top edge marked. Full blue leather binding with heavy gilt decoration. Small scuff to front. Note of date and price in red ink to upper edge of one of the blank pages at rear - presumably the original purchase date & price paid. Usual Franklin Mint production style and limited edition. No jacket (as issued). Price reflects the defects noted. Benjamin MacKinlay Kantor won the Pullitzer Prize for Fiction in 1956 for Andersonville. The novel is concerned with the Confederate prisoner of war camp, Andersonville prison during the American Civil War (1861 - 1865) and interweaves the stories of both real and fictional characters.… Read More

London: Macmillan, 2000. First edition, 2000. Hardback. 373pp. Dust jacket. Six months after the horrific petrol bomb attack that left him severely burned. Detective Sergeant Ray Flowers moves to his late aunt's cottage to contemplate his future. But all too soon the past darkens his stay... A haunting tale of two tragic lives - separated by centuries but bonded by events. Book in near fine condition. Dust jacket near fine and unclipped. Only very minor edge wear.