First editions of Albert Grope: The Story of a Belated Victorian (1931) and Grope Carries On (1932).

We recently acquired an attractive pair of novels telling “the unassuming story of a self-made business man in a South London suburb” through the early years of the twentieth century. The impoverished protagonist, Albert Grope, responds to a card in a second-hand bookseller’s window that reads: “Wanted intelligent boy for this shop. No idiot need apply,” and from these – surely unpromising – beginnings succeeds in developing his own thriving advertising business. The second part takes up the story at the outbreak of the First World War when “fired by his native patriotism … he takes up voluntary work in the department of  Minor Equipment in order that his remarkable abilities for business may contribute towards national victory.” Both volumes are first editions, and each is signed and dated by the author.

My favourite thing about these is the dust jacket of the first volume, which depicts the old second-hand bookshop, including the sign:

Wanted: Intelligent boy for this shop. No idiot need apply.

The author of these volumes, F. O. Mann, graduated from Balliol in 1909, and was immediately appointed a junior inspector of the Board of Education. In 1914 he was promoted to inspector, transferring to the Ministry of Munitions in 1915, and to the Ministry of Labour in 1919, where he served until he returned in 1922 to Education. He edited an edition of the works of Thomas Deloney for the Clarendon Press in 1911, and published some volumes of poetry in the 1920s, but it was with the character Albert Grope that he “made his mark” (obituary, The Times, 28 June, 1935). At his death he was only 49, and a colleague contributing an appreciation to Mann’s obituary remarks on his “robust good sense, his unfailing wit and cheerfulness [which] flashed and sparkled with effortless gaiety and charm [and which] it was hoped … would sooner or later find adequate expression in his novels and poetry. Alas, successful as Albert Grope was, this will never be: if ever there was a man who was clearly greater than anything he wrote it was F.O.M.” Uncommon thus, a highly appealing, if little known, tale of Edwardian life. We’d be particularly interested to find out whether anyone has read these books, and what they thought of them!

First edition of Lodges in the Wilderness by W. C. Scully (1915).

The beautiful design on the cover of this book, a first edition of Lodges in the Wilderness by W. C. Scully, is not printed on a dust jacket, but applied directly to the cloth binding. While it’s normal for publishers to use colour paints to apply the titles to cloth-bound books, it’s less common to see large multi-colour designs produced in this way, particularly with such delicate tones. It’s even less common for them to remain in pristine condition; normally the pigments are rubbed and chipped off, or show the effects of soiling and sun exposure. This copy, however, is in stunning condition.

The author, William Charles Scully (1855–1943), was a prolific South African writer known for his sympathy with the native people of the region. His first volume of short stories, Kafir Stories (1895) is “probably the earliest collection of short stories written by any white man in which all of the heroes are black men”*. The volume pictured above is the story of a journey across  a “great waterless desert” undertaken by the author during the 1890s when he was Special Magistrate for the Northern Border of the Cape Colony. In an attempt to connect the book with current events of the Boer War, the publisher has tipped-in a small ticket at the title page reading, “General Botha’s army is operating in the neighbourhood of the Great Waterless Desert dealt with in this book. It forms the great problem of the campaign”.

To see more of our books on travel and exploration, click here.

*Marquard, Jean. “W. C. Scully: South African Pioneer”. Institute for the Study of English in Africa. January, 1979.

Each February we make a window display of books that would make nice Valentine’s gifts. And, being cynical booksellers, each year we also make a list (in our heads, largely) of the worst Valentine’s gifts. This year I decided to spread the heartache and despair to the whole internet, so we’ll start with a classic: The Lives and Exploits of the Most Noted Highwaymen, Robbers, and Murderers of All Nations. Nothing says romance like the tales of thirty-four notorious criminals, most of whom met their ends at Tyburn. Take the case of “Mulled Sack”, alias John Cottington, who

frequented the tavern and, disdaining to taste of any thing but mulled sack, he acquired that appellation. One evening he there met with a young woman, with whom he was so enamored, that he ‘took her for better or for worse’. But, not enjoying that degree of comfort in this union which his imagination had painted to him, he frequented the company of other women, until it became necessary to make public contributions [steal shit] to supply their pressing necessities.

Ah, young love. Below, more books that you can buy today, but probably shouldn’t.

That’s not a metaphorical penknife, is it?

I’ll give you a hint. This guy does not collect books. Or stamps. Or anything remotely wholesome.

Who wouldn’t want a severed head for Valentine’s Day?

Slightly misleading title.

And the winner for most phallic dust jacket goes to…

Because no one wants a post-Valentine’s trip to the sexual health clinic.

If you don’t know the plot, read the wikipedia entry and then spend the rest of Valentine’s Day curled up under your desk whimpering.

The story of a young couple who win the equivalent of £3 million and blow it almost immediately. Well covered by a recent Bookride post.

I think this is what happens when all the spending is done.

I know Karel Capek is a very serious writer, but I can’t help smirking each time I see this one.

For some reason I never imagined Satan as a mid-level office manager with a bald patch.

This is one of the best dust jackets we have in stock. But probably not the best Valentine’s gift, unless your significant other is really into early twentieth-century avant-garde jacket design.

Because true love is profoundly selfish.

Do you have something to tell your boyfriend?

That pretty much sums it up. Happy Valentine’s Day everybody!

First edition of Charles Dickens's first book, Sketches by Boz (1836).

Happy 200th Birthday to Charles Dickens! Today we’ll look at Dickens’s publishing history and the formats in which his novels originally appeared.

Pictured above, a first edition of Dickens’s very first book, Sketches by Boz. In 1828 the young Dickens had set out to become a freelance journalist, and in 1833 his first literary work, a humorous sketch titled ‘A Dinner at Poplar Walk’ (later retitled ‘Mr. Minns and His Cousin’), appeared in the Monthly Magazine. Additional stories followed, and soon Dickens was writing a regular series for the Evening Chronicle called “Sketches of London”. These were published as Sketches by Boz in 1836. Illustrated by the famous satirist Cruikshank, the sketches “were praised for their humour, wit, touches of pathos, and the ‘startling fidelity’ of their descriptions of London life” (ODNB). The book was  so popular that a second printing was required almost immediately.

Dickens’s second book, The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, was proposed by the newly formed publishing firm Chapman & Hall. They had planned a series of amusing sketches by an artist named Robert Seymour and asked Dickens to write stories to accompany them. When the original artist committed suicide only a few months into the project a young man named Hablot K. Brown was selected as his replacement. ‘Phiz’, as he became known, would remain Dickens’s preferred illustrator for the next two decades, working on ten of his novels including David Copperfield, Little Dorrit, A Tale of Two Cities, and Bleak House. Pickwick itself was a sensation, achieving a circulation of 40,000, and making its author a literary celebrity.

It also established serialisation as an important publishing format, financially lucrative because it facilitated the build-up of narrative tension and kept the public engaged with the story, while allowing for  significant numbers of advertisements in each relatively inexpensive instalment (not unlike television shows). Most of Dickens’s future novels, and those of many other major nineteenth-century writers, would be serialised.

First edition in the original cloth of Oliver Twist (1838).

Following the success of Pickwick, Dickens began his very first novel, Oliver Twist; or The Parish Boy’s Progress. The story was originally published in twenty-four parts in the magazine Bentley’s Miscellany. The copy pictured above is a first edition, first issue in book form, published by Richard Bentley in 1838 shortly before the completion of the serialised version. The rush to prepare illustrations for the book version resulted in the inclusion in early copies of “The Fireside Plate”, an illustration of Oliver at Rose Maylie’s knee (volume III, page 313) that Dickens objected to and asked to be replaced. The most collectible copies are those that, like the above, include the Fireside Plate.

First edition of Charles Dickens's Master Humphrey's Clock in the original weekly installments.

Following Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby (serialised in 1838 and39), Chapman & Hall experimented with another type of serialisation. Master Humphrey’s Clock was a weekly published between 1840 and 1841 that contained stand-alone short stories as well as instalments of two different novels, The Old Curiosity Shop and Barnaby Rudge. Each issue was composed of a single folded sheet consisting of sixteen pages, of which twelve were numbered pages of letterpress and the others formed the outer wrapper. Every four or five weeks the unsold copies from the past month were gathered and bound together to create the monthly issue bound in green wrappers. When both these periodical issues were complete, the whole was bound in three volumes in purple-brown cloth. The weekly format seen above is the scarcest in commerce.

From then on, Dickens’s long novels (ten more published between 1844 and 1870) first appeared either on their own as monthly instalments, usually in blue-green wrappers and with two illustrations per instalment, or as weekly instalments in one of his own magazines, Household Words and All the Year Round. Pictured below is a copy of David Copperfield in the original monthly parts.

Charles Dickens's David Copperfield in the original monthly parts (1849–50).

Once the series was complete, readers often had the parts bound together as a book (the final instalment was always issued with a frontispiece, two dated title pages, and sometimes prefatory matter, to be bound at the front of these volumes, so that they were more like official books than collections of pamphlets). This is why many of our descriptions of Dickens’s novels say “first edition, bound from parts”. A good way to tell if a copy is bound from the original parts is by checking for stab holes, tiny holes in the gutter (the margin adjacent to the spine) left by the needle when the parts were originally bound in wrappers. Novels still in the original parts, like the David Copperfield set above, are much less common than copies of the same books bound from parts. They’re also important historical artefacts, as the ads can tell us a great deal about Victorian life and the audience for Dickens’s novels. But bound copies are also highly collectible. Below, two examples in contemporary calf bindings:

First edition of Charles Dickens's Little Dorrit, bound from the original parts (1857).

First edition of Charles Dickens's Bleak House, bound from the original parts (1853).

Not all of Dickens’s work first appeared serially. A Christmas Carol, perhaps his most famous creation, was published as a stand-alone novella by Chapman & Hall in 1843. It was written “at a white heat” (ODNB) out of anger at the treatment of the poor, particularly children, and was an instant sensation. First editions in the original cloth, featuring a coloured frontispiece and title page, are uncommon, but an attractive and more easily obtainable facsimile edition was published in 1956. The success of A Christmas Carol led to the publication of four additional “Christmas books”, approximately one a year through 1848.

First edition in the original cloth of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol (1843).

Colour frontispiece and title page from the first edition of A Christmas Carol.

In addition to his fiction, Dickens was known for his voluminous correspondence. Most of this now resides in libraries and archives, but pieces occasionally appear on the market, and we’re lucky enough to have a letter in his hand:

Letter in Charles Dickens's handwriting.

In it, he writes to express his regret that he was unable to attend the funeral of a relative with the surname Culliford (his mother’s maiden name, which he gave to his eldest son Charley as a middle name).

Half-Hours by the Best Authors, presentation copy inscribed to Charles Dickens, with Dickens's bookplate.

Also of significance for collectors  are books from Dickens’s personal library. Above is a set entitled Half-Hours by the Best Authors, a collection of short pieces (each would take half an hour to read) plucked from various books, including a duel scene from Nicholas Nickleby. The editor, Charles Knight, has inscribed the book to Dickens, whose bookplate appears in each volume. Knight (1791–1873) was a journalist and publisher particularly interested in educating the working-class. He contributed to the first two volumes of Dickens’s Household Words and joined Dickens’s Amateur Company of the Guild, a theatrical group which toured the provinces in 1850–51. In remembrance of that tour, Knight was included among the dedicatees of Bleak House. Below, Dickens’s bookplate as it appears in this set:

Bookplate of Charles Dickens.

We hope you’ve enjoyed this look at Dickens from a rare book perspective. You can view our entire selection of Dickens books here. If you don’t see what you’re looking for, or if you have a first edition or signed book you’d like to sell, please contact us. Below, a selection of other links for the Dickens bicentenary:

• Read his biography at the Online Dictionary of National Biography.
• Simon Callow takes The Guardian on a video walking tour of Dickens’s London.
• Letters of Note celebrates with two amusing letters from Dickens to young friends. Earlier this year they featured a much sadder letter from the author to his wife on the death of their infant daughter.
• Celebrate in person with cupcakes and readings at the Dickens Museum in London. They also have a site devoted to commemorative  events taking place all over the world throughout the year.
• Today’s lovely Google doodle is inspired by Dickens’s characters.
• The standard bibliography of Dickens’s books is A Bibliography of the Periodical Works of Charles Dickens, by Hatton & Cleaver, available from used book dealers.

The volume above, seen housed in its silk and velvet-lined case, represents the peak of twentieth-century book arts.  Sangorski & Sutcliffe was founded in an attic in Bloomsbury in 1901 by two apprentice binders, and in only a few years it had become one of the most important binderies in the world. Francis Sangorski and his partner George Sutcliffe produced exquisite luxury bindings incorporating delicate inlays and onlays, detailed silver and gilt work, and valuable gemstones. Sangorski’s brother Alberto soon joined the firm as a calligrapher, and created some of the greatest illuminations of the period. The firm is perhaps best remembered for the book known as “The Great Omar“, a copy of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám incorporating 150 individual jewels in its covers, which sank with the Titanic in 1912 only weeks before Sangorski himself died in a drowning accident.

This  copy of A Dream of Fair Women by Alfred Tennyson was hand-written and illuminated on vellum by Alberto Sangorski and finely bound by Sangorski & Sutcliffe sometime between 1905 and 1911. The covers are blue-green morocco with brown and red onlays and exquisite gilt blocking, and feature five garnet and six turquoise cabochons inset into the upper cover. A very handsome example of the illuminations and jeweled bindings for which the firm was famous. As usual, click to enlarge the images.

Turquoise and garnet on the Sangorski & Sutcliffe binding.

Title page illuminated by Alberto Sangorski.

Jeweled binding by Sangorski & Sutcliffe.

Wanted for Incitement to Murder: Nazi propaganda leaflet of Churchill with a Thompson sub-machine gun.

One of the most famous propaganda images of the Second World War, this photo of Winston Churchill with a Thompson sub-machine gun, or Tommy gun, was taken while the Prime Minister was inspecting a coastal defence unit at Hartlepool in July 1940. But Churchill’s resemblance to a stereotypical American mobster wasn’t lost on the Nazis, who began dropping these propaganda leaflets over Britain within weeks of the photo being taken. These leaflets are very delicate, making original copies extremely uncommon.

Verso of the Churchill propaganda leaflet.

A leaf from the Gutenberg Bible containing the Old Testament, Book of Jeremiah.

We made an exciting acquisition this week, a single leaf from a copy of the Gutenberg Bible, the first substantial book produced using movable type. Also known as the 42-Line Bible, it was printed in Mainz between 1450 and 1455 by Johann Gutenberg and his business partner Johann Fust. Gutenberg’s genius lay in his development and combination of three distinct technologies:

• Movable type – each letter was an individual unit cast from metal, meaning that text could be efficiently assembled, broken down, and reassembled. Other techniques for producing type had occasionally been employed in Europe and China, but Gutenberg, who had trained as a goldsmith, perfected the process of casting the individual pieces so that they could be produced quickly and easily.
• The printing press – based on screw-driven wine and olive presses, this was one of the world’s first mass-production machines.
• Ink – Traditional water-based inks were too thin and runny to be used in mechanical printing, so Gutenberg developed a thicker oil-based ink that would adhere to the type.

Gutenberg probably printed other small books and ephemeral items, but little evidence of these survives, and it was the Bible that would stand as his masterpiece. Its appearance was based on manuscript Bibles, with the type designed to mimic hand-written text and space left in the margins for illuminations (many surviving examples contain beautiful designs commissioned by the original purchasers). Gutenberg also planned to print red initial letters, but this was inefficient because it required two press pulls. Instead, spaces were left within the text so that scribes could finish the job. It is estimated that 160–185 copies were printed, with a small number on vellum, the traditional material of book pages, and the rest on paper, which was more suited to printing.

Though Gutenberg’s business eventually failed, printing quickly spread across Europe and was firmly established in most regions by 1500. Today there are 48 known copies of the Gutenberg Bible, of which only 21 are complete, and other copies are known from fragments. Most are in institutions, and the last copy to appear at auction fetched two million dollars in 1978 (Christie’s New York, 7 April, 1978, lot 1);  a similar copy today could be worth up to 35 million.  Our leaf was taken from a Gutenberg Bible in the 1920s, when a New York book dealer named Gabriel Wells divided an imperfect copy into individual leaves and a few larger fragments, selling them in morocco folders along with a bibliographical essay by prominent book collector A. Edward Newton. These became known as “Noble Fragments”. Ours is from the Old Testament, containing Jeremiah chap. 18, with parts of chaps. 17 and 19.

It was not Tolkien’s original ambition to become a popular author. Instead, he was interested in philology, particularly the ancient languages and epic literature of the Anglo-Saxons and Scandinavians. After graduating from Oxford he served in the First World War, then returned to the UK to take up a post as lecturer in philology, first at Leeds and then at Oxford.

As early as 1918 Tolkien was devising the elaborate mythology and languages that would form the basis for the Middle Earth of his novels, but his first fantasy book didn’t begin to take shape until the late 1920s, when he told his young sons the stories that would become The Hobbit. These were first written down in the early 30s, and in 1936 a former student recommended the story to the publishers Allen & Unwin, who agreed to publish the book following an excited review from their most suitable reader, Stanley Unwin’s ten-year-old son Rayner.

As discussed in previous posts, one of the reasons that people collect first editions is because the author often has a hand in the design of the book, and Tolkien is an excellent example. Though Allen & Unwin had not planned on illustrating the book due to the expense, the professor submitted a number of his own drawings for consideration. The publishers were so charmed by them that, as Susan Dagnall wrote to the author, “we could not but insert them, although economically it was quite wrong to do so. And when you sent us the second batch we felt just the same!” (Hammond & Anderson p. 10). This led to the request that Tolkien design the dust wrapper himself, resulting in the unique and striking jacket depicted below. They also solicited Tolkien’s advice on the cloth binding, accepting his design of a dragon at the bottom edge and mountains at the top. Both the jacket and the binding are now iconic.

First edition of The Hobbit with dust jacket.

Cloth binding of the first edition of The Hobbit.

The first edition of The Hobbit was published on 21 September, 1937 in a print run of 1,500 copies that was sold out by 15 December of that year. The example above  is an extraordinary copy with only very slight toning to the spine. It’s the nicest that any of our staff have seen.

The best way to identify a first edition of The Hobbit is to check the publication information on the title page, where the publisher should be named as “George Allen & Unwin Ltd”. The back of the title page should look like the image below, with no dates later than 1937. When the first edition had sold out, a second impression was published that included colour illustrations for the first time. It looks similar to the first impression and is also dated 1937, but states “second impression” on the back of the title page. Though the second impression is more easily attainable than the first, it is desirable particularly for the attractive colour illustrations, and makes an excellent choice for new collectors or as a gift.

Publication information in a first edition of The Hobbit.

The other point to look out for is on the dust jacket, if your copy has one. The rear flap has a misspelling that only appears on first editions:  “Dodgson” is incorrectly spelled “Dodgeson”, and in most cases this has been hand-corrected in ink by the publishers, as in the example below:

Misspelling and hand-written correction on a first edition dust jacket for The Hobbit.

Following the success of The Hobbit, Allen & Unwin pressed Tolkien for a sequel. He first suggested the publication of material he had composed for the history of Middle Earth, stories and poems that would later be published as The Silmarillion. Finding this assortment of material confusing, the publishers asked instead for another book about Hobbits. Tolkien did his best to oblige, beginning The Lord of the Rings as a simple story in the vein of his earlier work. But, as he explained in the foreword to the second edition, “the tale grew in the telling”, and the Hobbits found themselves deeply involved in the mythic history that had always preoccupied their creator.

The Lord of the Rings, first editions in dust jackets.

This novel took much longer to write, with Tolkien composing on and off between 1939 and 1952, and its final length was an astonishing 1,192 pages. Allen & Unwin were wary. Rayner Unwin, the little boy who had enthusiastically endorsed The Hobbit, was now a young man working with the family firm, and he wrote to his father that the book was “a work of genius” (Hammond & Anderson p. 88). But the cost of printing was immense, and commercial success, despite the popularity of its predecessor, was uncertain. To minimize their financial risk they convinced Tolkien to publish the novel in three installments, with the understanding that if the first failed they would not publish the remaining books.  They also came to an arrangement, unusual for that time, in which the author would not receive profits until after the books had paid for themselves. These novels would not be illustrated, but Tolkien did design the dust jackets and his son Christopher drew the maps. The examples above are an exceptionally fine set; it is rare to come across volumes from the trilogy without some tanning of the jackets.

The three books in The Lord of the Rings trilogy were published in the following order:

The Fellowship of the Ring – 29 July, 1954 in an edition of 3,000 copies

The Two Towers – 11 November, 1954 in an edition of 3,250

The Return of the King – 20 October, 1955 in an edition of 7,000

Given these limitations, there are only 3,000 possible complete first edition sets of the trilogy in existence, and with attrition the actual number is even lower, making these sets genuinely scarce in commerce. A second edition, extensively corrected and with Tolkien’s new preface explaining the origin of the novel, was published in 1966, and the first one-volume edition (based on the text of the second edition) was published in 1968. This one-volume edition was the first time that the book appeared as the author had originally intended it. Both of these later editions are also considered collectible, and are less difficult to obtain than first editions.

The best way to identify first editions of The Lord of the Rings is by checking the publication information at the front of each volume. The publisher should be named on the title page as “George Allen & Unwin Ltd”. Check the dates on the back of the title page – the first two books should be dated 1954, and the third dated 1955, with no later dates present. See the example taken from a copy of The Fellowship of the Ring, below:

Publication information in a first edition of Fellowship of the Ring.

One of the most common questions we get about copies of these books is “How can it be a first edition if the dust jacket lists the later books in the series?” For most books (for instance James Bond novels and the Harry Potter series) it is important to make sure that the dust jacket or list of works by the same author does not name books published later, which would indicate that your copy is not a first edition. The Lord of the Rings is a significant exception to this rule. Because the series was originally written as one long book, and only split into three for financial reasons, the publishers could anticipate the books to come and used the dust jacket flaps to advertise them. Below is the correct rear jacket flap from The Fellowship of the Ring:

Despite the success of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien never gave up the hope that his mythology of Middle Earth would be published. Much of the material existed in manuscript form, but in his latter years Tolkien was not able to devote the time and energy that editing it entailed. At his death in 1973 he appointed his youngest son Christopher, who had been intimately involved in the inception and publication of the earlier books and, like his father, was an English lecturer at Oxford, to serve as editor and prepare the manuscripts for publication. The result was The Silmarillion, first published in 1977 by Allen & Unwin. First editions of this text are more common than those of of Tolkien’s earlier books, and fine copies can be obtained for under £100, making it an excellent starting-point for new collectors.

First edition of The Silmarillion.

This post has only scratched the surface of Tolkien collecting. In addition to the posthumously published books of mythology such as The History of Middle Earth, there are his professional academic publications, children’s books unrelated to Middle Earth, signed copies, letters and manuscripts, and volumes from his personal library. To learn more you can consult the resources outlined below:

• The best resource on Tolkien’s books, their publishing history, and how to identify them is J. R. R. Tolkien: A Descriptive Bibliography by Wayne G. Hammond and Douglas A. Anderson (this is out of print, and copies are available from used book dealers for between £60 & £200 pounds).

• The definitive work on Tolkien’s life is Humphrey Carpenter’s J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography.

• Another excellent resource is The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, edited by Christopher Tolkien.

• To find out what students Martin Amis and Philip Larkin thought about their Anglo-Saxon lectures with Professor Tolkien see this recent New Yorker piece by Adam Gopnik.

• For those looking forward to the film version of The Hobbit, there’s always the official blog, where the crew has been posting short videos about the production.

To see the Tolkien-related items we have in stock click here. If you think you have a first edition or signed book that you’re interested in selling please contact us.

Sea Legs by Oliver Herford (1931).

This utterly charming little book was placed on my desk by a colleague who knows about my secret desire to be a flapper. Published in 1931 after originally appearing in the periodical The Delineator, Sea Legs was written by the American poet and illustrator Oliver Herford (1863–1935), a prolific magazine contributor best remembered for his humorous books The Rubíáyát of a Persian Kitten  and The Little Book of Bores. He was also famed for his bon mots, and Google reveals that almost everyone believes he was described as “the American Oscar Wilde”, though no one seems to know by whom (and, even if true, he wasn’t the only one – Mark Twain was also saddled with the title). Nevertheless, he was a truly talented humorist and illustrator, with The New York Sun arguing that “There is no one else quite as funny as he is and probably never will be”.

Sea Legs is a satirical alphabet book, relating the delights and annoyances of voyages in the era when traveling between Europe and North America meant spending at least a week at sea, a social event with the opportunity to become intimate, for better or worse, with fellow passengers and crew. Herford’s illustrations of flappers caught in a myriad of titillating shipboard situations are a delight. I’ve included a good selection below, and strongly encourage you to explore the above links to Persian Kitten and Book of Bores. A rare title, this copy includes the dust jacket and a very attractive folding case that reproduces the cover image (see the final picture).

D’s the Deck-steward–

With careful financing

He will give you a chair

Where the view is entrancing.

E’s the Electrical Horse

in the Gym.

It won’t take you far

but ’twill keep you in trim.

F is the flapper

Who walks the first day

By her Lone, but tomorrow

It won’t be that way.

G’s for the Gulls

I wish they’d explain

How they eat such a lot

and their figures retain.

N is the Newly-Weds?

Nay, guess again,

His wife’s in Seattle,

her hubby’s in Maine.

O is the Ocean

a watery waste

With a nauseous motion

and terrible taste.

P is the Pet on his

mistress’s knee

Oh who wouldn’t

envy a Puppy

at sea!

Se is for Sea Legs,

but if you ask me

The way I should spell

it is S double E.

U’s that old Ulster

don’t talk of not keeping it

If you summer in Europe

You’ll sleep, live and

eat in it.

V is the Vamp, who

believes that if she

Should vamp Daddy Neptune

he’d give up the sea.

Milne biographer Ann Thwaite speaks on the Milne-Shepard partnership and the significance of the items in the collection.

Pat and Pom reminisce about their first meeting and building the collection.

Pat speaks about the importance of Winnie-the-Pooh in his childhood.

The culinary highlight of the evening.

Pat signs copies of the limited edition catalogue.