Back Lane Books
Booth 17: Specialities – Used, Rare & Collectibles of all genres. Poetry, Literature, Fiction, Classics, Children’s Antiquarian, History, & Art
Ceylon: An Account of the Island
Ceylon, An Account of the Island: Physical, Historical, and Topographical with Notices of its Natural History, Antiquities and Productions by James Emerson Tennent.
Published by Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts, London, 1859. Vol I with wood-engraved frontis; 31 wood engravings; 6 maps; 7 plans and charts. Vol II: xvi, 663, with wood-engraved frontis; 59 wood engravings; 3 maps (2 folding – one of which is partly colored); 10 plans and charts. From the private Library at Somerhill Park belonging to Sir Isaac Goldsmid with 2 custom bookplates engraved by Wyon inked with the initials I.G. A stunning set.
Price: $1200
Sword and Blossom Poems
Sword and Blossom: Poems from the Japanese translated into English by Shotaro Kimura and Charlotte Peake. Tokyo: Hasegawa, No Date, c. 1908-1910.
3 Books (5 X 7″). Original blue cloth slip case with ivory closures. Hand-made and printed. Padded, pictorial and textured crepe-paper binding; double fold pages; colored wood-block illustrations; printed on Hosho paper Written by Japanese authors in the Chinese Style. Rare as complete set with case and in this condition.
Price: $600
The Knave Of Hearts
The Knave of Hearts by Saunders, Louise, Illustrations by Parrish, Max. Wisconsin Artists and Writer’s Guild, Racine, Wisconsin, 1925.
First Edition Wraps Issue, printed simultaneously with first hardcover edition. Quarto, 12-3/4 inches high by 11 inches wide. Soft cover, spiral bound color pictorial wrappers with cover illustrations by Max Parrish. 40 pages, with 23 beautiful color illustrations by Parrish; 15 are full-page and 8 are quarter-page illustrations. Contents are in fine condition, clean and bright without markings, tears or soiling. Front cover has light soiling; tiny separation on bottom coil, front spiral. Rare, particularly in this condition. .
Price: $500
How To Write
How to Write by Stein, Gertrude. Plain Edition, 1931. First Edition of which only 1,000 copies were printed. Shakespeare and Company book label including name of original proprietor Sylvia Beach and address of 12 Rue de L’Odeon, Paris.
Stein and her partner Alice B. Toklas were the owners of Plain Edition publishing. A lovely volume with significant literary history.
Price: $500
Portraits Of Greatness
Portraits of Greatness by Karsh, Yousuf, University of Toronto Press, 1961. Third printing. Signed, dated and inscribed by Karsh in black ink on front endpaper. 97 full black and white photographs selected by Karsh with his personal commentary facing page. Publisher’s sheet laid in referencing how the binding allows for removal and reinsertion of prints (for framing) and printing process used to achieve the quality of Yousuf Karsh’s original mat-finish prints. Yousuf Karsh (1908 – 2002) was an Armenian-Canadian photographer known as one of the greatest portrait photographers of the 20th century.
Price: $500
The Arunta
The Arunta, A Study of a Stone Age People by Spencer, Sir Baldwin; F.J. Gillen. Macmillan and Co. Ltd., London, 1927. First Edition. Colour and black and white plates, illustrations, diagrams and folding map. In near mint condition. The Arunta is considered a seminal anthropological study of aboriginal Australians. Gillen and Spencer developed their collection at a time when Aboriginal people in Central Australia were relatively unaffected by European contact (between 1875 and 1912) and as such constitutes one of the most comprehensive inventories of a regional Aboriginal group in existence.
Price: $700
The Expiring Continent: A Narrative of Travel In Senegambia
The Expiring Continent: A Narrative of Travel in Senegambia, With Observations On Native Character, The Present Condition And Future Prospects of Africa And Colonisation by Mitchinson, Alexander, William.
Published by London: Wm. H. Allen And Co., 1881. First Edition. Tipped in folding map of Senegambia backed on linen and 16 full page black and white illustrations including frontis. Covers a wide range of topics including detail on native manners and customs, fauna, agriculture, the abolition of slavery, religion and missionaries. Contents in fine condition with light outer wear. A scarce volume.
Price: $1200