“I had a great fair and our best for quite a few years”
“Thanks very much for organising the excellent Summer Fair which was full of buyers and was good for business”
“I just wanted to say we enjoyed selling at the book fair on Sunday”:
“Extremely well run, and great for buying and selling, thank you”

If you would like to add your comments/feedback on the fair, good or bad, please do get in touch, we would love to hear from you.

The next fair is on July 14th, which is proving quite popular as the August fair is cancelled due to hotel refurbishment. Check the Exhibitors page near the date for the full list of exhibitors.

Panzerarmee Kalendar. 1943. Issued to the Afrika Korps as a handbook/calender with folding map of North West Africa in rear pocket. Very good plus brown cloth with linen spine. Pictorial front board showing Swastika set against Palm tree. Very scarce.

Cossack Fairy Tales,  R Nisbet. Illustrated by Noel Nisbet, 1916 Ist Ed. George Harrap and Co. Dark brown cloth with gilt lettering and pictorial overlay. 4 colour plates and numerous line drawings. Scarce

Gulliver, Lemuel.  [Swift, Jonathan, 1667-1745.] Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World.  In Four Parts.  By Lemuel Gulliver, first a Surgeon, and then a Captain of several Ships.  [Gulliver's Travels]. London:  Printed for Benj  Motte, at the Middle Temple-Gate in Fleet-street.  M, DCC, XXVI.  1726 Two volumes.  Teerink No. 291 variant B, published in December 1726 in the first year of publication.  Octavo, 192x105mm.  In the original brown panelled calf binding with decorative blind ruled borders and corner pieces.  Spines, sometime re-capped, with five raised bands, gilt outlined; red and green lettering pieces with title and volume number.  Engraved frontispiece portrait plus six plates in all, as called for.  Vol. I: A-K8, L3, M-X8, Y1, plus two maps; gift inscription on front paste-down ‘Peter Joyce Cary | with love from his | father & mother | Dec. 9. ’46′, (Peter Joyce Cary [1918-94], son of (Arthur) Joyce Lunel Cary and Gertrude Margaret Ogilvie was Chief of the Cabinet Office in the late 1950s); slight sepia ink-marking on the front free end-paper; portrait frontispiece in the second state, as required; armorial ownership stamp of ‘Thos. Wyse’ with the motto ‘Sapere Aude’ on the verso of the frontispiece and at the foot of the title-page, overlapping imprint but not obscuring it; another ownership inscription, ‘Francis Edwards’, manuscript near head of title.  Vol. II: A3, B-K8, L5, M-Aa8, plus three maps and one plate of language symbols.  Pages slightly tanned and with light marks of usage.  An exceptionally good set of this early edition, from the first year of publication.  Crisp clean and tight.Ref: 13716  £5,400.00

Calendar, Calendrier, Almanach. Etrennes Mignonnes Pour l’An de N. Seigneur MDCC. LXIX.  Depuis le commencement du monde, 5718.  Depuis le Deluge, 4040.  Depuis l’Incarnation, 1769.  Depuis la Mort & Resurrection de N. Sauv. J.C., 1736.   Depuis la Correction Gregorienne, 187. A Liege, Chez J. Dessain, Imprimeur-Libraire, a la Bible d’or, vis-à-vis du Palais.  Avec Privilege de S.A.  1769 A fine embroidered binding with deep, rich border of white- and yellow-metal threadwork surrounding a hand-painted panel with flowers, fruit and a butterfly on both covers.  Now housed in a protective oyster case.  The illustration on the front cover has the words ‘Mes yeux a toutes mon coeur a une’ at the head;  the illustration on the back cover has the words ‘Je cherche les belles’ above the illustration.   92x50mm.   This little volume contains a combination of Saints’ days for the year; birth dates of the royalty and principal nobility of Europe; foreign exchange rates for  the year, followed by a large section of numismatic information with engravings of the coinage;  a table of ‘Prieres de XL Heures dans l’Eglise Cathedrale’.   Crisp and clean. A beautiful little binding, in very good condition.  Ref: 14586  £1,500.00

Chained miniature Bible on miniature lectern.   The Holy Bible Containing the Old and New Testaments: Translated Out of the Original Tongues and with the Former Translations Diligently Compared and Revised by His Majesty’s Special Command. Glasgow:  David Bryce and Son.   London: Henry Frowde.   Oxford University Press Warehouse, Amen Corner.  1896  MINIATURE.   Leaf size: 42x27mm.   No date printed but, according to Welsh (No. 559, page 18), this Bible was published in 1896 and was a ‘photographic reduction of the 1876 ed., also called Mite Bible’.   The wooden pedestal lectern is some 140mm high, with an under-shelf on which the Bible rests.   Original label with history of Chaining of Single Books in Churches, slightly chipped and rippled, pasted under the foot of the lectern.   The Bible is bound in tan calf, embossed on boards and spine in the style of a sixteenth-century binding with title and publisher gilt on the spine.   Chain attached to lower foredge corner of back-board.   [4], 875, [1] pages plus frontispiece and other full-page illustrations; New Testament begins on page [667].   Very small hole in top foredge corner of front free end-paper.   Magnifying glass in a pocket on the rear paste-down.   A very good example of this charming edition.  Ref: 14553 £250.00

Milton, John, 1608-1674.   Saumaise, Claude, 1588-1653.  Defensio regia pro Carolo I.   Charles I, 1600-1649.  Joannis MiltonI Angli Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio Contra Claudii Anonymi, alias Salmasii, Defensionem Regiam.  ALSO BOUND IN:  [King Charles I] Defensio Regia, pro Carolo I.   Ad Serenissimum Magnae Britanniae Regem Carolum II.   Filium natu majorem, Heredem & Successorem legitimum.   [By C. de Saumaise]. Pro Populo:  Londini, [London] Typis Du-Gardianis, Anno Domini 1651.   Defensio Regia:  Sumptibus Regiis Anno M D C XLIX [1649].   In fact both works were printed in Amsterdam by Louis Elzevir.  1651  Twelvemo, leaf size 118x72mm.   In period mottled brown calf, rubbed at extremities, recently rebacked in period style with three raised bands on spine.   Arms of ‘Leopold Joseph, Graf Lamberg’, with the initial ‘M’ above, gilt on the front board.   All edges speckled red.   ‘Pro Populo’:  [20], 244 pages, signatures A-L12;  ownership inscription on title-page:  ‘Stubenberg | Biblioth’;  British Library Shelfmark 521.a.16(2);  ESTC R31234.   ‘Defensio Regia’, 468 pages, signatures A-T12, V6.   THIS SETTING IS NOT RECORDED BY ESTC, which returns three copies of this work dated 1649, all of which have fewer pages than our copy.   The British Library holds two copies of this work, both dated 1649, also bound with ‘Pro Populo’, but they are different settings and consist of 444 pages only.   Crisp, tight and clean.   An excellent little volume with two early editions of these works bound together and this setting of Defensio Regio appears to be very rare indeed. Ref: 10487    £620.00

Nimrod [Apperley, Charles James]. Memoirs of the Life of the Late John Mytton Esq. Of Halston, Shropshire Etc.. ill. Alken, H. And Rawlins, T.J.. London: Rudolph Ackermann, 1837. Second Edition. 8vo. Full Morocco. Very Good ix, [3], 206pp, [2]. Near contemporary full morocco, smooth back, title in gilt, with volute and floral drops, covers with large central urn, surrounded by volutes with small flower head and fleuron tools all in gilt, gilt roll to edges, a.e.g. metal clasp engraved with ‘Mr E. Whittingham, Ellenhall, Nov. 2nd 1844′. The preferred second edition, with six more plates than the first edition. Abbey Life 385; Tooley 67; Schwerdt I:38/39 £600.00

Shelley, Percy Bysshe. The Poems. London: The Vale Press, 1901. First Thus. 8vo. Hardback. Limited Edition. Good+ / No Jacket (as Issued). Three volumes complete – Volume One – ccx, [2]; Volume Two – clxxviii, [2] and Volume Three – clxxxviii, [2]. Original white buckram, author and volume in gilt to spines. From the library of Laurence W. Hodson, with his book label to front pastedowns. One of three hundred and ten copies on paper, with decorative borders by Charles Ricketts. Watry B34  £500.00

Ashbee, Janet E. (Ed); Challoner, Sir Thomas (Trans.); Erasmus. The Praise of Folie – Moriae Encomium. ill. Sleigh, Bernard After Strang, William. London: The Essex House Press, 1901. First Thus. Folio. Full Vellum. Limited Edition. Signed by Publisher. Very Good / No Jacket (as Issued). vi, [2], 87pp, [1]. Full vellum, title in gilt to spine, cloth ties. One of two hundred and fifty copies, this one is not numbered but is inscribed ‘Mr Hodson’s copy’ and signed beneath by C.R. Ashbee. This copy was specially bound in vellum for Laurence Hodson, all the normal copies were bound in quarter parchment and paper over boards. This copy was shown at the Wolverhampton Exhibition in 1902 £750.00

The Art of Botticelli. An Essay in Pictorial Criticism. Published by MacMillan & Co Ltd, 1913 Folio, pp(xi)167 with signed frontispiece etching by Muirhead Bone, and 23 tipped in colour plates. Limited Edition of 275 copies. Rear e.p’s have few small stain marks, odd foxing.. Publishers blue cloth boards with vellum spine, sl small darkened stain to vellum o/w a nice sound binding.  £300.00

Passages From Modern English Poets. Illustrated By the Junior Etching Club – Forty-Seven Etchings. Published  by Day & Son Limited [ not dated but 1862]. pp45  with 47 etched plates  The original etchings include “War And Glory” by John Tenniel; “The Angler” and “A River Scene” by James McNeill Whistler; “Summer Indolence” by John Everett Millais ; and a number by Henry Moore, M.J. Lawless, Viscount Bury, Lord Fitzgerald, F. Powell, W. Gale, A.J. Lewis, J.W. Oakes, F. Smallfield, Charles Rossiter, J. Clark and single etchings by a number of other artists. The book is internally clean but with a stain lower portion of rear pages & plates, odd foxing , re-bound with  in a blue buckram cloth  bound by George Baynum in 1966. Slightly faded on spine. £895-00

PHOTOGRAPH ALBUM. Panoramic photographs in Italy: Rome, Corsica, Palermo, Sicily & small selection of Ramsgate & Folkestone c.1910

Folio, album  with 86 approx original  panoramic photographs of Italy including Rome, Corsica, Sicily and a few in Switzerland & England including Ramsgate, Folkestone & English countryside. An album with green cloth binding, sound binding but worn at corners  £295.00