Curiouser and Curiouser!

Sometimes in the used book trade you come across some very peculiar collections. We recently acquried a set of Alice in Wonderland books, over a dozen different editions, including some really unusually illustrated versions dating back to the 1920s and 30s. You don't often get to see sets of well known characters rendered in such different ways over time. 

 

This edition was produced for Bell & Hyman Limited, in the UK in 1985, a  set of illustrations by pen and water colour illustrations that by Alice B. Woodward and Sue Shields with a decidedly delicate period touch. UPDATE: SOLD

No doubt the most fantastic is this copy from 1923, The Children's Bookshelf edition by the John C. Winston Company. The series has large type and are "well sewn" to "give long service in the hands of children. Alongside the more familar ink drawings of John Tenniel, there are four unique colour plates, done in the same soft-pastel painted style as the cover by Edwin John Prittie. UPDATE:SOLD

Also in the same set-- a half dozen beautiful editions of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, the astronomer poet of Persia, each again with beautiful illustrations, and translated by Edward. But if you are looking to start your own collection, or for your collector in your life, these are just a sample of some the more unusual vintage that now populate our hardcover shelves, just in time for Christmas. 

Down These Mean Streets

"Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. The detective must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor."- Raymond Chandler, from essay the Simple Art of Murder. 

This month we feature a selection of classic hard men, detectives, tough guys, PIs, and super spies. Hard-boiled fiction at its finest, full of guns, double-crosses and great dames, from the masters of the genre, Hammett and Chandler.  

So why not fit James Bond into this company? The newest film incarnation with Daniel Craig casts him as a thug, a brute killer who wears a Tux nicely. Yet he's got that same sense of honor as the PI's that Chandler admires, that allows him to go from crowded ballrooms to underground lairs. The original books keep things light, fast-paced snappy prose, part adventure novel, part international travelogue-- with places! you! could! go! For the sixties-jet-set. 

The edition we have of The Man With The Golden Gun is a Book Club Edition from 1965,  the last novel Flemming wrote before dying in 1964.

Ladies & Gentlemen

Here at Balfour, we try not to sort our books strictly upon gender lines, nor make assumptions about readership. A female publishing executive is just as likely to seek out true crime as a mafioso enforcer is to pick up Fifty Shades of Grey. We've seen it happen.  

Still, that doesn't stop a few books from tipping a little bit further to one side or other of the gender divide. 

To wit: 

For the inspired theoretical mathemetician in your life: 

Apiary science, naturally a masculine pursuit: 

And a final post-mortem blast of belligerance from a master: 

And for the fairer sex, a bit classic, a bit erotic, a bit avant garde. 

Hardly seems fair= Bucky Balls, Bees, and Death for the gents.  Romance, Erotica, and  Poetry for the ladies. Is this our own bias? Don't let us tell you what you should like. You have to find out for yourself-no matter how many shades you're looking for. 

A Girl Named Trouble...

Now there's all sorts of books we have at Balfour. 

More than just horse books. 

Photography. Frightening Art Photography. 

And a Horse of course. Why else do you come here? 

Winter's Last Gasp

When Balfour Books moved, the new location offered appealing qualities over the old: clearer sightlines, a colourful pressed tin ceiling, a large back garden. But the new space had less room for our stock, which meant a more carefully curated selection of our Scrabble-tiled sections. Gone is Exploring, Automotive & our extensive collection devoted to Dogs (an entire shelf, contained perhaps as many titles as Philosophy.) Yet these live on in some our more eclectic offerings, you just have to know where to look. Such as this one. You'll always find a great book about Horses here: 

Or a collection of classics by Japanese authors: 

But then 

And finally: Cause we have to end on a classy note. Stay Gonzo.