Search Results: Authors starting with B from Sumner & Stillman

1903. An Awful Warning to Bad Babas. By the Author of "Little Black Mingo" and "Little Black Quibba." London: James Nisbet & Co., 1903. Original light olive cloth illustrated in black and printed in red. First Edition of the most unusual, and one of the least-known, of Helen Bannerman's eight small-format books for children. Five of the eight were about "black" children (though they were really about native Tamils in the region of southern India where Helen Bannerman lived) -- usually outwitting fierce animals that threatened them: LITTLE BLACK SAMBO (1899), LITTLE BLACK MINGO (1901), LITTLE BLACK QUIBBA (1902), LITTLE BLACK QUASHA (1908) and LITTLE BLACK BOBTAIL (1909). Her other three were this one, PAT AND THE SPIDER (1905) and THE TEASING MONKEY (1907). LITTLE DEGCHIE-HEAD (a "degchie" is a large handle-less pot frequently used in Indian cuisine) is about a little (white) girl named Mary who despite warnings from her mother, cannot resist poking at fires; one day she falls into the fire and… Read More

1892. San Francisco | New York: Western Authors Publishing Company, 1892. Original blind-stamped light grey cloth, beveled. First Edition of Bierce's first volume of verse, published the year after his most famous book, TALES OF SOLDIERS AND CIVILIANS. There are about 150 short poems (which he terms "beetles"), mostly gleaned from appearances in newspapers. Bierce had seen action, including at Shiloh, in an Indiana Infantry Regiment; his anti-war sentiments, and fixation with death, are reflected in his writings. In our experience this is a tough book to find in decent condition, due to its light grey cloth and frugal use of gilt. This is a nearly fine copy, however, with scarcely any wear and with only the slightest hint of soil (near the covers' fore-edge). Blanck 1111.

1909. San Francisco: A.M. Robertson, 1909. Original brown cloth decorated in black, with dust jacket. First Edition. Per the author's note, "It was expected that this book would be included in my 'Collected works' now in course of publication, but unforeseen delay in the date of publication has made this impossible." This copy is in brown buckram (others are in green, no priority). It is a fine, bright copy (the usual offset darkening of the endpapers) of this handsomely printed and bound book; its leaves remain unopoened, in fact. Included is the 1909 dust jacket, remarkably whole and clean, though there is one closed tear on the rear panel. Blanck 1127.

1892. Illustrated by Theodor Hampe. Chicago: F.J. Schulte & Company, 1892. 2 pp undated ads. Original mottled light brown cloth stamped in black. First Edition of this tale involving an illicit relationship between a monk Ambrosius and a local girl Benedicta who is shunned because she is, yes, the hangman's daughter. Per an introductory note, the tale was purportedly derived from an old German manuscript "obtained from a peasant" by the German novelist Richard Voss (1851-1918), and here adapted by Bierce and Danziger. Tipped onto the front endpaper of this copy is an 8 Dec 1892 article from The Independent, in which the "adapters" are taken to task for claiming authorship on the title and dedication pages; also, it is claimed that they added part of the final paragraph, altering Voss's ending. The original owner "E.I.S." (whose Greek bookplate is affixed) wrote a note on the final page, regarding this altered ending -- ending with "sheer impudence!". (In later editions dated 1907 and 1926… Read More

1892. Illustrated by Theodor Hampe. Chicago: F.J. Schulte & Company, 1892. 2 pp undated ads. Original pale yellow wrappers. First Edition of this tale involving an illicit relationship between a monk Ambrosius and a local girl Benedicta who is shunned because she is, yes, the hangman's daughter. Per an introductory note, the tale was purportedly derived from an old German manuscript "obtained from a peasant" by the German novelist Richard Voss (1851-1918), and here adapted by Bierce and Danziger (pseudonym of Adolphe Danziger DeCastro). The "adapters" have been taken to task for claiming authorship on the title and dedication pages; also, it is claimed that they added part of the final paragraph, altering Voss's ending. (In later editions dated 1907 and 1926 respectively, Bierce and Danziger each gave his version of the "translation" process) Printed in black and red throughout, this is a copy bound in wrappers (originally priced at 50¢); there were also copies in cloth priced at $1.25. It is in… Read More

1890. [Together, five volumes.] London: Edward Bumpus, 1890 [last one: George Bell & Sons / J. & E. Bumpus, n.d.(1894)]. Original buff-grey wrappers printed in black. These are Nos. ii through vi of the eight "Plays by Robert Bridges," initiated by Edward Bumpus. There were three other plays: NERO [Part I] -- not numbered, and in a different-style wrapper, published in 1885; plus vii THE FEAST OF BACCHUS and viii NERO Part II, these last two published by Bell and Bumpus in 1894 or a little later. All five are in their original buff-grey wrappers, and are in near-fine condition (light foxing on the leaves of the last one). See Colbeck Vol I pp 84-85 (Bridges #s 13, 14, 15, 25 & 25) for these or later printings. Provenance: No. iv with bookplate of William A. Pye on inside cover.

1915. [Chicago:] The Chicago Little Theatre, 1915. Original pictorial wrappers. First Edition of Rupert Brooke's only play, considered (by Keynes among others) to have consisted of only 200 copies. Before the war young Brooke wrote this play, never expecting it to be performed (a stranger gets lost in rural Lithuania and stops for the night at a hut where there's this farmer's daughter...). However it was in fact produced at The Chicago Little Theatre, and this booklet was published, in October 1915 (six months after Brooke had died of sepsis while part of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force en route to Gallipoli). This experimental art theatre had been founded in 1912 by the British poet Maurice Browne and his wife Ellen Van Volkenburg (the American actress "Nelly Van"); they had been encouraged to do so by Lady Augusta Gregory, and thus tried to model it after Dublin's Abbey Theatre. Forty-four plays would be produced in its tiny fourth-floor quarters (25 of them American premieres). Theodore… Read More

1916. Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1916. Original rose cloth. First Edition of this mysterious tale of international intrigue, featuring Edward Leithen (who would reappear in other Buchan tales). The Power-House is a secret anarchist organization, led by a wealthy Englishman, which aims to destroy Western civilization. Buchan had written this tale in 1913, at which time it was serialized in Blackwood's Magazine; as for the three-year delay in book publication, in his dedication to a general at the front Buchan observes: A recent tale of mine [THE THIRTY-NINE STEPS] has, I am told, found favour in the dug-outs and billets of the British front, as being sufficiently short and sufficiently exciting for men who have little leisure to read. My friends in that uneasy region have asked for more. So I have printed this story, written in the smooth days before the war, in the hope that it may enable an honest man here and there to forget for an hour the too urgent realities... As with… Read More

1896. London: John Lane / New York: Macmillan & Co., 1896. 16 pp ads dated 1896. Original light brown cloth decorated in dark brown, with dark brown cloth spine elaborately decorated in gilt. First Edition of Buchan's second book, a volume of sixteen essays, preceded only by his SIR QUIXOTE OF THE MOORS of 1895. Buchan notes in his "Prefatory" that these pieces "were all written in youth, when a man's thoughts run on many diverse things with a certain tentative aim," and also that "they were written in close connection with that most beautiful country, the upper valley of Tweed, where the grace of old times seems to have long lingered." This is the third volume in the publisher's handsome "Arcady Library" series; it is beautifully illustrated with etchings by D.Y. Cameron (Buchan's Glasgow friend who introduced him to the publisher John Lane), and the cover design (of a goat-footed Pan piping to three nymphs) is by Patten Wilson. This is a remarkably bright copy, fine except for a faint damp-stain… Read More

1903. Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1903. Original dark blue cloth. First Edition, first binding (some copies were put up in a green Times Book Club binding). As the Boer War wound down in 1901, Buchan received a two-year appointment to assist Lord Milner in the reconstruction of the Colony. Buchan, who had not been enthusiastic about the war, believing that the British, on balance, 'were only just in the right,' was enthusiastic about the reconstruction and entirely in sympathy with Milner's objectives. [Smith] This is Buchan's survey of the situation in South Africa after the war, with his thoughts about what should be done next. Included are two large foldout color maps -- one of "South Africa" and one of "The New Colonies." The volume is bright and near-fine (very slightly rubbed at the extremities). Blanchard A15 (citing only one foldout map, not two).

1933. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1933. Original green cloth lettered in gilt, with dust jacket. First Edition. In this novel the hero, Adam Melfort, is convicted of forgery, is drummed out of his regiment, and is sentenced to two years in prison -- for a crime his wife actually had committed. Upon release he embarks upon a series of adventurous causes in an effort to regain his reputation -- taking him into the secret service in the Great War, to the Greenland ice-cap, to the industrial Midlands and ultimately to Germany, where after the Great War he foils the attempts by a German faction to bring down the country's leader. (This was published, of course, just before one Adolf Hitler became that country's leader.) Though based on a curious premise, the tale is full of typically thrilling Buchan adventure -- climaxing in a man-hunt in the Italian Alps in which Melfort brings down his enemies with a rockslide. This copy is in the primary binding (there are several secondary bindings, including this… Read More

1915. [in light brown boards] Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1915. 2 pp undated ads. Original light brown paper-covered boards with yapped edges, printed in black. First (Colonial) Edition of Buchan's best-known book, the classic mystery that has withstood the test of time both as a book and as a film. It features a British mining engineer from the southern Africa colonies, bored on vacation in London, who inadvertently learns too much about a German plot, and flees to his homeland of Scotland to avoid his pursuers. This was the first of Buchan's five mysteries to feature the Richard Hannay (the others being GREENMANTLE, MR. STANDFAST, THE THREE HOSTAGES and THE ISLAND OF SHEEP). The tale was of course the basis for one of Alfred Hitchcock's most highly-regarded early films, released in 1935; there have been three other releases, the most recent (2008) for TV. This was a cheaply-produced wartime book (price one shilling), printed on cheap paper that has always browned, with the… Read More

1902. Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1902. 32 pp ads dated "2/02". Original blue cloth lettered in white and pictorially decorated in orange, black and white. First Edition, first printing, first state -- of one of Buchan's earliest and scarcest fiction titles, and one of his creepiest. It is a collection of five fantastical tales, most with supernatural and horror elements that are drawn from Scottish folklore -- "No-Man's-Land," "The Far Islands," "The Watcher by the Threshold," "The Outgoing of the Tide" and "Fountainblue." Quoting from Bleiler regarding the fourth tale... If one goes to the Sker sands on Beltane Eve (April 30th), on the ebb of tide, after midnight, one becomes the property of the Devil. Heriotside and Allie are lovers, and each is urged to go to the sands for a tryst -- Heriotside by a shadowy demon in human form, Allie by her witch mother... (This title is not to be confused with a [1918] Buchan volume by the same title, by Doran of New York, which consisted… Read More

1930. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1930. Original green cloth, with dust jacket. First Edition of this tale of mystery and adventure, published a month before the American. As Buchan points out in a brief prefatory note, this tale contains further exploits of Dickson McCunn and several other characters whom he had introduced in HUNTINGTOWER (1922); there would be one more Dickson McCunn novel, THE HOUSE OF THE FOUR WINDS, in 1935. This is a near-fine copy; the attractive pictorial dust jacket is just about near-fine, with quite minor soil and edge-wear. Blanchard A87.

1935. London: Hodder and Stoughton, (1935). Original green cloth, with dust jacket. First English Edition, published two days after the American. This is the third and last mystery featuring Dickson McCunn (the two previous ones had been HUNTINGTOWER (1922) and CASTLE GAY (1930). This suspenseful tale takes place in the imaginary European nation of Evallonia; McCunn encounters (among others) "the man with the elephant." This is a fine, bright copy; the pictorial dust jacket is near- fine, remarkably complete (light foxing as usual; one closed tear with tape on the back-side). Blanchard A111.

1923. With Illustrations. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1923. Original tan cloth pictorially decorated in black, green, and red. First American Edition. This is a retelling of a dozen true historical events that involved "escapes and hurried journeys" all over the world (Scotland, South Africa, Turkestan, Australia...), illustrated with eight plates by A.S. Forrest. The book was subsequently reprinted as a text-book, with additional questions and exercises not by Buchan. This is a handsomely bound book: the four-color pictorial scene wraps around from the front cover onto the spine. A fine copy, remarkably clean, virtually as new except for faint evidence of a small book-label on the front endpaper. See Blanchard A54 (note).

1896. London: John Lane / New York: Macmillan & Co., 1896. 16 pp ads dated 1896. Original light brown cloth decorated in dark brown, with dark brown cloth spine decorated in gilt. First Edition of Buchan's second book, a collection of essays, preceded only by his SIR QUIXOTE OF THE MOORS of 1895. This book is beautifully illustrated with etchings by D.Y. Cameron (who introduced Buchan to John Lane the publisher), and the cover design is by Patten Wilson. SCHOLAR GIPSIES was published in John Lane's Arcady Library, and on the cover a goat-footed Pan piped to three nymphs. The essays, too, sounded many Arcadian notes -- references to Theocritus, to 'people of this Arcady' (i.e. the Upper Tweed), to 'the Piper'... There are some clear echoes of [Kenneth] Grahame: "Afternoon" in SCHOLAR GIPSIES -- a boy playing Jacobites who steals into the garden of a big house and meets a girl whom he is sure is a princess -- is very much in the vein of the story in [Grahame's 1895] THE GOLDEN AGE where children… Read More

1938. Yesterday, To-Day, and Tomorrow. By Lord Tweedsmuir. Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen: Church of Scotland Committee on Publications, (1938). Original orange wrappers. First Edition with this title. Buchan delivered this address in June 1937 to the General Council of the Alliance of Reformed Churches, right after which it was issued as a wrapper-less leaflet that did not have a title (perhaps it was distributed only to attendees?). The following year the Church of Scotland issued this more formal publication, for the general public. This is a fine copy of this delicate (and rather uncommon) piece. See Blanchard A119.

1936. London: Hodder and Stoughton, (1936). Original green cloth, with dust jacket. First British Edition, published two days after the American edition which was titled THE MAN FROM THE NORLANDS. This was the fifth and last of Buchan's Richard Hannay mysteries, following THE THIRTY-NINE STEPS (1915), GREENMANTLE (1916), MR STANDFAST (1919) and THE THREE HOSTAGES (1924). (It is not to be confused with Buchan's 1919 book that also bears the title THE ISLAND OF SHEEP, by "Cadmus and Harmonia," pseudonyms for Buchan and his wife, which is a symposium of political, economic and social issues.) THE ISLAND OF SHEEP is Johnnie Buchan's [JB's son's] book: dedicated to him, full of his enthusiasm for birds and for wild places, and with a thirteen-year-old boy, Dick Hannay's son, added to the cast... The Island of Sheep is a name for the Færoes, where he and Johnnie spent a fortnight in 1932. The plot involves happenings in a Rhodesian kraal, a Chinese jade tablet with a strange inscription... Peter John… Read More

1936. Illustrated. London [etc.]: Thomas Nelson and Sons, (1936). Original blue-grey cloth, with dust jacket. First Edition. This volume is a selection of extracts from Buchan's monumental A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR (four volumes, 1921-1922) -- published at a time when Britain was bracing for the next war. Included are eight maps, plus nine plates containing numerous photographs. Two years later this volume was followed up with a companion volume, NAVAL EPISODES OF THE GREAT WAR. This is a fine copy in a near-fine pictorial jacket (unnecessarily reinforced inside at some edges). Blanchard A117.