MARY BERENSON. A Self-Portrait from her Letters & Diaries. Edited by Barbara Strachey & Jayne Samuels. Norton, New York 1983. The first American edition. 8vo. 319pp. Some discolouration to boards, and some light marking to endpapers. A very crisp copy in fine dust wrapper. The letters and diaries of Mary Berenson, née Mary Smith, an art historian, now thought to have had a large hand in some of the writings of her second husband Bernard Berenson. £10
MALCOLM BRADBURY. Unsent Letters. Andre Deutsch, London 1988. First edition. 8vo. 218pp. A fine copy in fine dust wrapper. A collection of eighteen humorous letters to a variety of recipients, which the author composed but never actually wrote or sent. £7.50
RUPERT BROOKE. Letters from America. With a preface by Henry James and a prefatory note by E[dward] M[arsh]. Sidgwick & Jackson, London 1916. First English edition (preceded, albeit only just, by the US edition). 8vo. 180pp. Original publisher’s buckram with tanned and a little chipped paper spine label (and a spare tipped-in at rear). Top edge gilt, others untrimmed. Tissue-guarded portrait frontispiece. Tips of corners a little rubbed and with some miscellaneous staining to buckram. Small indentation to backstrip. Endpapers and pastedowns lightly browned and with just a trace of spotting to half-title. Quite a crisp and bright copy, missing the scarce dust wrapper. A series of letters by Brooke during his year-long travels in the United States, the first thirteen of which were originally published in the Westminster Gazette and the final two in the New Statesman. 2,800 copies were printed. Keynes 42. £25
RUPERT BROOKE. The Letters of Rupert Brooke. Edited by Geoffrey Keynes. Faber, London 1968. First edition. 8vo. xv + 709pp. Illustrated with nineteen photographic plates. A very good copy in very slightly rubbed and toned dust wrapper. A substantial selection of Brooke’s correspondence, much of it hitherto unprinted, with recipients including Virginia Woolf, Edward Marsh, Stanley Spencer, E.M.Forster, Lascelles Abercrombie, John Drinkwater, W.W.Gibson, Edmund Gosse, Harold Monro, Gwen Raverat, Lytton Strachey, Albert Rothenstein and Edward Thomas. £20
RUPERT BROOKE. Song of Love. The Letters of Rupert Brooke and Noel Olivier 1905-1915. Edited with an introduction by Pippa Harris. Bloomsbury, London 1991. First edition. 8vo. xxviii, 302pp. Illustrated with thirty-four photographs. A fine copy in virtually fine dust wrapper, marred only by a tiny trace of rubbing to the head of the spine panel. The transcript of over 130 letters and postcards between Brooke and "the love of his life" Olivier, published here for the first time and edited by Olivier's granddaughter. £7.50
LORD BYRON. Byron’s Letters and Journals. Edited by Leslie A.Marchand. Complete in twelve volumes. John Murray, London 1973-1982. First editions. 8vo. Uniform red cloth, lettered in gold at the spines and upper boards, with the top edges stained red (and fractionally faded in places). Colour or monochrome frontispiece to each volume. Neat embossed or inkstamped initials of a former owner to the base of the front endpaper of five volumes. A virtually fine set in dust wrappers, two of which exhibit a light but lengthy crease to the spine panel, and one some further creasing to the head of the spine panel. An excellent first printing set of the first unbowdlerized collected edition of all of Byron’s known letters, including over twice as many as the Rowland Prothero turn-of-the-century edition. The first eleven volumes covering the period 1798-1824, with the twelfth volume providing an anthology of memorable passages and a general and subject index for the whole. Lacking the uncommon supplementary volume published somewhat later in 1994 detailing recently unearthed material. £250
ROBERT BYRON. Robert Byron Letters Home. Edited with an introduction by Lucy Butler. John Murray, London 1991. First edition. 8vo. 314pp. A short tear to the head of a single text leaf, impacting no text. A very good copy in very good dust wrapper, with perhaps a shade of fading to the spine panel. A hefty selection of Byron’s letters home from Eton and Oxford, Greece, Austria, India and Tibet, Russia, Persia, America, China and elsewhere, edited with a commentary by his sister Lucy Butler (née Byron). £15
BRUCE CHATWIN. Under the Sun. The Letters of Bruce Chatwin. Selected and edited by Elizabeth Chatwin and Nicholas Shakespeare, who also provides a thirteen-page introduction. Viking, New York 2011. First American edition (issued a year earlier in the UK). 8vo. 554pp. Paper-covered boards. Illustrated with nearly forty photographs. Remainder mark to bottom edge and just a trace of wear to spine ends, else a fine copy in correspondingly chafed else fine dust wrapper. A vast collection of Chatwin’s correspondence to Patrick Leigh Fermor, Paul Theroux, Susan Sontag, James Ivory, Colin Thubron and many other recipients. £16
COLETTE. Letters from Colette. Selected and translated by Robert Phelps. Farrar Straus Girous, New York 1980. First English-language edition (originally published in France in five separate volumes between 1958-73). 8vo. 214pp. A little light spotting to top edge, else in fine state with dust wrapper, lightly rubbed at head and base of spine. Neat former owner gift inscription inked to front pastedown (and predominantly obscured by the wrapper flap). £10
JOSEPH CONRAD. Letters to William Blackwood and David S.Meldrum. Edited by William Blackburn. Duke University Press, Durham, NC 1958. First edition. 8vo. Illustrated endpapers. Just the faintest hint of fox spotting to front endpaper, else a very bright copy in fox-spotted and tanned dust wrapper with a single short ragged tear to front panel. Review slip lain-in. £15
DIANA COOPER. Darling Monster. The Letters of Lady Diana Cooper to her Son John Julius Norwich 1939-1952. Edited by John Julius Norwich. Chatto & Windus, London 2013. First edition. 8vo. 520pp. With a ribbon place-marker and illustrated with 45 black and white photographs. A touch of light toning to the paperstock, else a fine copy in virtually fine dust wrapper, lifting a fraction at the upper edge. £10
NOËL COWARD. The Letters of Noël Coward. Edited with an introduction by Barry Day. Methuen Drama, London 2007. First edition. 8vo. xii + 780pp. Illustrated with photographs and reproductions. Spine ends very lightly rubbed and just a trace of wear to the tip of a single corner. A virtually fine copy in dust wrapper, with just a touch of corresponding wear to the spine panel ends and a single tiny biro mark to the front panel. Neat former owner bookplate to the front pastedown (almost entirely obscured by the wrapper flap) alongside a neatly inked date. A vast chronologically-ordered collection Coward’s correspondence, almost all of it hitherto unpublished. £10
MALCOLM COWLEY. The Long Voyage. Selected Letters of Malcolm Cowley, 1915-1987. Edited by Hans Bak, with a foreword by Robert Cowley. Harvard University Press, Cambridge & London 2014. First edition. 8vo. 800pp. A few light marks to the bottom edge and several miniscule blemishes to the front free endpaper. A virtually fine copy in fractionally dust soiled dust wrapper. £15
R.W.EMERSON & A.H.CLOUGH. Emerson - Clough Letters. Edited by Howard Foster Lowry & Ralph Leslie Rusk. Rowfant Club, Cleveland 1934. First edition, limited to 165 numbered copies, printed in Chicago at the Lakeside Press. Marbled cloth boards, very slightly shelf-worn at bottom edges. An extremely bright copy in plain unprinted dust wrapper with a short open tear to foot of spine panel. £45
WILLIAM FAULKNER. Essays, Speeches & Public Letters. Edited and with a preface by James B.Meriwether. Chatto & Windus, London 1967. The first English edition. 8vo. 233pp. A hint of spotting to top edge and a touch of light partial browning to half title. A virtually fine copy with virtually fine dust wrapper, just very lightly dust marked at rear panel. Comprises twelve essays (including writings on Sherwood Anderson and Albert Camus); fourteen speeches (including his Nobel Prize acceptance speech); three introductions, three book reviews (including one for The Old Man and the Sea); and thirty-one public letters. £25
FORD MADOX FORD. Letters of Ford Madox Ford. Edited by Richard M.Ludwig. PrincetonUniversity Press 1965. First edition. 8vo. 335pp. A fine copy in slightly nicked and chafed dust wrapper. £35
THOMAS GAINSBOROUGH. The Letters of Thomas Gainsborough. Edited by Mary Woodall. With frontispiece and 26 collotytpe plates. Lion and Unicorn Press, Royal College of Art, London 1961. First edition, limited to 400 numbered copies. 4to. Quarter morocco, patterned boards with embossed facsimile seal. Spine quite badly worn, else a crisp, sound copy. No dust wrapper, as issued. £25
MARTHA GELLHORN. The Letters of Martha Gellhorn. Selected and edited by Caroline Moorehead. Chatto & Windus, London 2006. First edition. 8vo. 531pp. Illustrated with nineteen photographs. Spine ends and tips of several corners lightly worn, and with a two inch tear and some accompanying creasing to one of the plate leaves. A very bright copy in dust wrapper. A hefty selection of Gellhorn’s correspondence with Hemingway, Eleanor Roosevelt, H.G.Wells, Leonard Bernstein, Diana Cooper, Rosamond Lehmann, William Walter, Charles Scribner and others. £15
W.H.HUDSON. 153 Letters from W.H.Hudson. Edited with an introduction and explanatory notes by Edward Garnett. The Nonesuch Press, London 1923. First edition, limited to 1,000 numbered copies, this example marked ‘out of series – for review’. A presentation inscription on the front free endpaper reads: “Edward Clodd from his friend Clement Shorter. Ash Wednesday 1924” beneath which Clodd has written: “Passed on to Phyllis [Maud Rope]. E.C.” 4to. 191pp. Brown buckram with bevelled edges and a slightly tanned paper spine label (with a spare label tipped in at the rear, as issued). With a gravure portrait of Hudson to the base of the title page and a reproduction of one pen sketch. The buckram lightly discoloured at the rear board, and with just a trace of very light spotting to the free endpapers. A very good copy. No dust wrapper. A ten page introduction by Garnett precedes 153 letters he received from W.H.Hudson. £30
TED HUGHES. Letters of Ted Hughes. Selected and edited by Christopher Reid. Faber, London 2007. First edition. 8vo. xxiv, 756pp. Illustrated with photographs and manuscript reproductions. A touch of bruising to the backstrip ends, else a fine copy in fine dust wrapper. A hefty selection of Hughes' correspondence. £15
CHRISTOPHER ISHERWOOD. The Animals. Letters Between Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy. Edited with an introduction by Katherine Bucknell. Chatto & Windus, London 2013. First edition, preceding the US edition by a year. 8vo. xxxix, 481pp. A tiny trace of toning to the leaf margins, else a fine copy in fine dust wrapper. £15
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES. Lydia and Maynard. The Letters of Lydia Lopokova and John Maynard Keynes. Edited by Polly Hill & Richard Keynes. Scribner, New York 1989. The first American edition. 8vo. A fine copy in fine dust wrapper. Publisher's review slip laid-in. £20
VICTOR KLEMPERER. I Shall Bear Witness. The Diaries of Victor Klemperer 1933-41 [and] To the Bitter End. The Diaries of Victor Klemperer 1942-45. Arranged and translated from the German by Martin Chalmers. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London 1998-99. First English-language editions. Individual volumes as follows: I Shall Bear Witness. The Diaries of Victor Klemperer 1933-41 (1998). First English edition. 8vo. xxiii, 500pp. With a portrait frontispiece and three maps. A trace of light marking to the boards. A very good copy in dust wrapper, the publisher’s red spine panel lightly faded and with a narrow strip of further fading to the margins of the rear panel, a little wear to toe upper edge and a small area of internal reinforcement. To the Bitter End. The Diaries of Victor Klemperer 1942-45 (1999). First English edition. 8vo. xv, 538pp. With a portrait frontispiece and three maps. A fine copy in virtually fine dust wrapper. The Third Reich diaries of German Jew Victor Klemperer, the son of a Rabbi and professor of Romance Languages at the Technical University of Dresden. Originally conceived as a two-volume set, a third volume covering the period 1945-1959 was published in 2003. £35
CHARLES LAMB. The Letters of Charles Lamb. Edited with notes by George Woodcock. Grey Walls Press, London 1950. First edition. 8vo. A bright copy in slightly nicked and dusty, price-clipped dust wrapper. £15
JAMES LEES-MILNE. Deep Romantic Chasm. Diaries, 1979-1981. John Murray, London 2000. First edition. 8vo. ix, 276pp. Portrait frontispiece. A tiny trace of near-invisible spotting to the fore edge, else a fine copy in virtually fine dust wrapper. The eighth volume of Lees-Milne’s celebrated diary sequence, this being the first of five posthumous volumes edited from the original manuscripts by his literary executor Michael Bloch. £20
PATRICK LEIGH FERMOR. Dashing for the Post. The Letters of Patrick Leigh Fermor. Selected, edited and with an introduction by Adam Sisman. John Murray, London 2016. First edition. 8vo. xxiii, 469pp. Illustrated with thirty captioned photographs. A tiny trace of toning to the leaf margins and a touch of bruising to the head of the backstrip. Very good indeed in very good dust wrapper, with a little light corresponding creasing to the head of the spine panel. A hefty collection of Paddy Fermor’s correspondence, most of which is hitherto unpublished. £10
ALUN LEWIS. Letters from India. Edited by Gweno Lewis and Gwyn Jones. With a Note by Mrs. Alun Lewis [i.e. Gweno Lewis] and a preface by A.L.Rowse. Penmark Press Ltd., Cardiff 1946. First edition, limited to 500 numbered copies (this being #127). 8vo. 97pp. With a manuscript reproduction frontispiece and one plate. Former owner name inked to the head of the front free endpaper. A tiny area of wear to the head of the backstrip where the dust wrapper is defective, else a virtually fine copy in dust wrapper, lightly tanned and dust marked and with a centimetre of loss from the head of the spine panel, just impacting the lettering. Forty-two wartime letters from Lewis to his wife and parents, penned between November 1942 and March 1944. £35
ALUN LEWIS. A Cypress Walk. Letters to ‘Frieda’. With a memoir by Freda Aykroyd. Enitharmon Press, London 2006. First edition. 8vo. 224pp. Illustrated with a number of photographs and manuscript reproductions. A virtually fine copy in virtually fine dust wrapper. Thirty-nine letters, all hitherto unprinted, from Lewis to his lover Frieda Aykroyd, written between June 1943 and February 1944, the last dated three weeks before to his death. £15
NELSON MANDELA. The Prison Letters of Nelson Mandela. Edited by Sahm Zenter. Liveright Publishing Corporation, New York 2018. First edition. 8vo. xv, 620pp. With pictorial endpapers, eleven photographs and manuscript reproductions, and with some further reproductions of the letters in the text. The backstrip ends very gently bruised, else a fine copy in dust wrapper with a little light corresponding creasing to the backstrip ends and a tiny hint of dust soiling. Over two hundred and fifty letters penned my Mandela during his twenty-seven year incarceration, the bulk of which are hitherto unpublished. £25
ELIZABETH MYERS. The Letters of Elizabeth Myers. Edited with notes and a biographical introduction by her husband, Littleton C.Powys. Chapman & Hall, London 1951. First edition. 8vo. 338pp. Portrait frontispiece. Covers faded at edges. A good, quite bright copy in chafed, faded and dusty dust wrapper. Neat inscription of former owner pencilled to front endpaper. £15
PETER NICHOLS. Diaries 1969-1977. Nick Hern, London 2000. First edition. 8vo. 440pp. A fine copy in fine dust wrapper. £12
HAROLD NICOLSON. Diaries and Letters 1930-1964. Edited and condensed by Stanley Olson, and with an introduction by Nigel Nicolson. Atheneum, New York 1980. The American issue of the condensed and first single-volume edition (originally issued as a hefty triple-decker between 1966-68). 8vo. 436pp. The backstrip ends lightly rubbed. A very good copy dust wrapper, dust marked, rubbed and a little chipped at the head of the spine panel. £8.50
ANAÏS NIN. Journal of a Wife. The Early Diary ofAnaïs Nin 1923-1927. With a preface by Joaquin Nin-Culmell. Peter Owen, London 1984. First edition. 8vo. 297pp. Illustrated with photographs. In fine state with virtually fine price-clipped dust wrapper. Issued posthumously, this selection of Nin’s diaries covers the period 1923-27, beginning with her marriage to Hugh Guiler and predating the series of diaries issued during her lifetime. £15
GORONWY OWEN. The Letters of Goronwy Owen (1723-1769). Newly translated, edited and with an introduction by J.H.Davies. William Lewis (Publishers) Ltd., Cardiff 1924. The first edition of this new translation: seventy-eight letters, almost all bar the examples to William Morris, most of which no longer exist, translated from the original documents (the three prior editions of Owen’s correspondence, published in 1860, 1876 and 1895, were created from transcripts, or transcripts of transcripts). 8vo. x, 214pp. Buckram-backed paper-covered boards, with a gilt lettered leather spine label. With a gilt top edge and a small title page decoration. Some bruising to the spine ends, and rubbing to the corner tips. Former owner name neatly inked to the head of the front free endpaper, alongside an inscription in Welsh in another hand. Occasional pencilled notes in the text (which could be easily erased if desired). A very good copy in the uncommon dust wrapper, lightly toned and chipped at the spine panel. Letters from the noted eighteenth century Welsh poet to Richard Morris (thirty-seven), William Morris (twenty-nine), and Lewis Morris (three), plus nine further letters to other correspondents, presented in English and Welsh, the translations created by John Humphries Davies, principal of Aberystwyth University. Davies died two years after this edition was published. £125
SYLVIA PLATH. The Journals of Sylvia Plath 1950-1962. Transcribed from the Original Manuscript at SmithCollege. Edited by Karen V.Kukil. Faber, London 2000. First edition. 8vo. x, 732pp. With 25 black and white photographs and several manuscript reproductions. A small colour reproduction of Plath’s grave stone has been pasted to the front free endpaper. Very good indeed in fine dust wrapper. The most complete transcript of Plath’s diaries yet published, including the two journals (August 1957 and December 1958) Ted Hughes unsealed just before his death in 1998. £25
EZRA POUND. Ezra Pound’s Chinese Friends. Stories in Letters. Edited with an introduction by Zhaoming Qian. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2008. First edition. 8vo. xxvi, 242pp. Illustrated with various monochrome photographs. A fine copy in fine dust wrapper. Transcripts of 162 letters from Ezra Pound to nine Chinese intellectuals, all of them hitherto unprinted. £10
D.G.ROSSETTI. The Letters of Dante Gabriel Rossetti to his Publisher, F.S.Ellis. Edited with notes by Oswald Doughty. Scholartis Press, London 1928. First edition, limited to 560 copies, this copy unnumbered. Small 4to. Blue buckram covers, finger-marked and slightly spotted in places. A bright, unopened copy. No jacket. £100
BERNARD SHAW. Bernard Shaw and Alfred Douglas. A Correspondence. Edited by Mary Hyde. John Murray, London 1982. The English issue of the first edition. 8vo. 237pp. Boards lifting a little, else a very bright copy in very good dust wrapper, fractionally faded at spine panel. £15
JAMES STEPHENS. Letters of James Stephens. Edited by Richard J.Finneran, with a bibliographical checklist. Macmillan, London 1974. The first English edition. 8vo. A near fine copy in slightly rubbed, price-clipped dust wrapper. Former owner bookplate to front pastedown. £15
DYLAN THOMAS. Constantine Fitzgibbon. Selected Letters of Dylan Thomas. J.M.Dent, London 1966. First edition. 8vo. 420pp. A touch of very light bruising to the base of the backstrip, else a fine copy in lightly dust soiled dust wrapper, with a tiny hint of chafing to the spine ends and corner tips. A three-page introduction and chronology precedes hundreds of Thomas' letters, including his earliest surviving correspondence, the recipients including Graham Greene, Lawrence Durrell, Pamela Hansford Johnson, Edward Marsh, Stephen Spender, John Davenport, Henry Treece and others. Supplied together with an uncorrected proof copy of the first edition bound in the publisher’s original card wrappers. Top edge spotted. Very good in the original over-sized proof dust wrapper, rubbed and creased at the overlapping upper edge. £30
FRANCIS THOMPSON.The Letters of Francis Thompson. Edited by John Evangelist Walsh. Hawthorn Books, New York 1969. First edition. With a portrait frontispiece. Upper board lifting a little and a small stain to top edge. Quite a crisp and bright copy in slightly marked and dusty, price-clipped dust wrapper. £15
JAMES THURBER. Selected Letters of James Thurber. Edited by Helen Thurber and Edward Weeks. Little Brown, Boston 1981. First trade edition, following the limited Franklyn Library issue. Decorated paper-covered cloth. With a caricature self-portrait frontispiece and a number of Thurber cartoons in the text. In fine state with dust wrapper, faded at spine panel and lightly rubbed and chafed at top edge. A selection of over 100 of Thurber’s letters chosen by his widow and editor at The Atlantic and including correspondence to Harold Ross, John O’Hara, E.B.White, Kenneth Tynan and others. £15
ALICE B.TOKLAS. Staying On Alone. The Letters of Alice B Toklas. Edited by Edward Burns. With an introduction by Gilbert A.Harrison, Liveright, New York 1973. First edition. With thirty-six photographs and reproductions. Boards lifting a little, else a very good copy in slightly faded, price-clipped dust wrapper. £18
EDITH WHARTON. The Letters of Edith Wharton. Edited by R.W.B.Lewis & Nancy Lewis. Scribner, New York 1988. First edition. 8vo. 654pp. Cloth-backed boards. Illustrated with photographs. Edges lightly marked. A very good copy in dust wrapper, just a little nicked at the head of the spine panel with a tiny fraction of loss. £20
Clearwater Books - Specialising in Henry Williamson and Modern First Editions