World Food Books

The Bloody Chamber
by Angela Carter

1981, English
Softcover, 126 pages, 20 x 13 cm
Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Penguin Books / London

$20.00 - In stock -

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1981 Penguin paperback edition of Angela Carter's 1979 classic The Bloody Chamber, a feminist retelling of favourite fairy tales interwoven by a master of seductive, luminous storytelling.

From the lairs of the fantastical and fabular and from the domains of the unconscious's mysteries...

Lie the brides in the Bloody Chamber — Hunts unwillingly the Queen of the Vampires — Slips Red Riding Hood into the arms of the Wolf — Pimps our Puss-in-Boots for his lustful master...

In tales that glitter and haunt – strange nuggets from a writer whose wayward pen spills forth stylish, erotic, nightmarish jewels of prose – the old fairy stories live and breathe again, subtly altered, subtly changed.

"She writes a prose that lends itself to magnificent set pieces of fastidious sensuality...dreams, myths, fairy tales, metamorphoses, the unruly unconscious, epic journeys and a highly sensual celebration of sexuality in both its most joyous and darkest manifestations"—Ian McEwan, author of The Child in Time

"The boldest of English women writers"—Lorna Sage

"The most stylish English prose writer of her generation"—John Mortimer

Angela Olive Pearce (formerly Carter, 1940—1992), who published under the name Angela Carter, was an English novelist, short story writer, poet, and journalist, known for her feminist, magical realism, and picaresque works. She is mainly known for her book The Bloody Chamber (1979). In 1984, her short story "The Company of Wolves" was adapted into a film of the same name. In 2008, The Times ranked Carter tenth in their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945"

Very Good copy.

File under: Angela Carter Penguin Books / London Eros Weird / Speculative / Science Fiction Feminism Fiction / Poetry Literary Theory / Semiotics / Language Out-of-print / Rare

Germinal
by Émile Zola

1954 / ?, English
Softcover, 500 pages, 20 x 13 cm
Out of print title / used / good
Published by Penguin Books / London

$10.00 - In stock -

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In August 1932 Andre Gide wrote in his Journals "Germinal, which I am reading for the third (or fourth) time, seems more admirable than ever." He went on to choose it as one of the ten best novels in the French language.

Germinal is the thirteenth novel in Émile Zola's twenty-volume series Les Rougon-Macquart. Often considered Zola's masterpiece and one of the most significant novels in the French tradition, the novel – an uncompromisingly harsh and realistic story of a coalminers' strike in northern France in the 1860s – has been published and translated in over one hundred countries. It has also inspired five film adaptations and two television productions.

"Written by Zola to draw attention once again to the misery prevailing among the poor in France during the Second Empire. The novel, which has now become a sociological document, depicts the grim struggle between capital and labour in a coalfield in northern France. Yet through the blackness of this picture, humanity is constantly apparent, and the final impression is one of compassion and hope for the future not only for organized labour but also for man."—publisher's blurb

Good—VG copy with general wear, age and creasing.

File under: Émile Zola Penguin Books / London Fiction / Poetry Out-of-print / Rare

Forbidden Colours
by Yukio Mishima

1976, English
Softcover, 428 pages, 18 x 11 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Penguin Books / London

$65.00 - Out of stock

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Scarce first 1976 Penguin paperback edition of the first 1968 English translation. Cover design by Tsutomu Harada.

Shunsuké, an ageing novelist, hits on a brilliant plan to avenge himself on womankind, who, he believes, have blighted his life. He bribes a beautiful homosexual student, Yuichi, to marry. The plan works, Yuichi's wife is made miserable. And Shunsuké gets Yuichi to compromise two of his past tormentors, the blackmailing Mrs Kaburagi and Kyoko, a dizzy socialite. But Yuichi, now the toast of Tokyo's 'gay people' and free of all moral restraint, refuses to be further manipulated. Soon the old writer sees his protégé, his creation, turn into a monster dangerously out of control.

Mishima's own superlative literary qualities... include a complete control of complex nárrative, the ability to convey psychological depths often far removed from the everyday, and a sense of total commitment and response to the experience of life, all of which transcend the author's personal obsessions'—New Statesman

Yukio Mishima (1925—1970), one of the most spectacularly gifted writers in modern Japan, was born into a samurai family in 1925. Yukio Mishima was a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor, model, Shintoist, nationalist, and founder of the Tatenokai ("Shield Society"), an unarmed civilian militia. Mishima is considered one of the most important Japanese authors of the 20th century. He was considered for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968. His works include the novels Confessions of a Mask and The Temple of the Golden Pavilion. Mishima's work is characterized by "its luxurious vocabulary and decadent metaphors, its fusion of traditional Japanese and modern Western literary styles, and its obsessive assertions of the unity of beauty, eroticism and death", according to author Andrew Rankin. In November 1970 he and his Tatenokai forced their way into a Self-Defense Force headquarters in Tokyo, where Mishima, after reading out a proclamation, committed ritual suicide with a young follower in the commanding officer's room. On the morning of his death, the last volume of Mishima's tetralogy, The Sea of Fertility (The Spring Snow, Runaway Horses, The Temple of Dawn, The Decay of the Angel) was delivered to his publisher.

Good—Very Good copy with general light cover wear and age. No spine creases.

File under: Yukio Mishima Penguin Books / London Fiction / Poetry LGBTQ+ Out-of-print / Rare

Death in Midsummer and Other Stories
By Yukio Mishima

1977, English
Softcover, 186 pages, 18 x 11 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Penguin Books / London

$40.00 - In stock -

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Scarce first 1977 Penguin paperback edition. Cover design by Tsutomu Harada.

Violence, homosexuality and the spiritual emptiness of post-war Japan: these were Mishima's key themes. But not all of these nine stories [and one play] exemplify them; for there was also in this remarkable writer a streak of wry, ironic humour. Here, then, is truly compelling reading. There is shock, explosion, illumination. Here is Mishima. Here is Japan.

Includes: Death in Midsummer, Three Million Yen, Thermos Flasks, The Priest of Shiga Temple and His Love, The Seven Bridges, Patriotism, Dojoji, Onnagata, The Pearl, Swaddling Clothes.

Yukio Mishima (1925—1970), one of the most spectacularly gifted writers in modern Japan, was born into a samurai family in 1925. Yukio Mishima was a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor, model, Shintoist, nationalist, and founder of the Tatenokai ("Shield Society"), an unarmed civilian militia. Mishima is considered one of the most important Japanese authors of the 20th century. He was considered for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968. His works include the novels Confessions of a Mask and The Temple of the Golden Pavilion. Mishima's work is characterized by "its luxurious vocabulary and decadent metaphors, its fusion of traditional Japanese and modern Western literary styles, and its obsessive assertions of the unity of beauty, eroticism and death", according to author Andrew Rankin. In November 1970 he and his Tatenokai forced their way into a Self-Defense Force headquarters in Tokyo, where Mishima, after reading out a proclamation, committed ritual suicide with a young follower in the commanding officer's room. On the morning of his death, the last volume of Mishima's tetralogy, The Sea of Fertility (The Spring Snow, Runaway Horses, The Temple of Dawn, The Decay of the Angel) was delivered to his publisher.

Good—Very Good copy with general light cover wear and age. No spine crease.

File under: Yukio Mishima Penguin Books / London Out-of-print / Rare Fiction / Poetry LGBTQ+

Spring Snow
by Yukio Mishima

1976, English
Softcover, 362 pages, 18 x 11 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by Penguin Books / London

$25.00 - In stock -

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Scarce first 1976 Penguin paperback edition of the first 1968 English translation. Cover design by Tsutomu Harada.

In November 1970, Yukio Mishima committed suicide, in the old Japanese way, by disembowelling himself. His last years were devoted to the completion of a quartet of novels, The Sea of Fertility, of which this is the first volume.

'Spring Snow is a novel of considerable stature... it comes from the imagination of a writer whose work bears the same stamp of courage and truth as his own death'—The Times Educational Supplement

'Nowhere before in Mishima's writings is the style quite so dazzling... Nowhere has Mishima's imagination reached such powerful and complex heights''—The Times Literary Supplement

'Lucid, poignant and dramatic...The novel unwinds like a finely painted scroll, to reveal scenes and portraits with a distinctive poignancy of their own. Mishima is entirely successful'—Encounter

Yukio Mishima (1925—1970), one of the most spectacularly gifted writers in modern Japan, was born into a samurai family in 1925. Yukio Mishima was a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor, model, Shintoist, nationalist, and founder of the Tatenokai ("Shield Society"), an unarmed civilian militia. Mishima is considered one of the most important Japanese authors of the 20th century. He was considered for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968. His works include the novels Confessions of a Mask and The Temple of the Golden Pavilion. Mishima's work is characterized by "its luxurious vocabulary and decadent metaphors, its fusion of traditional Japanese and modern Western literary styles, and its obsessive assertions of the unity of beauty, eroticism and death", according to author Andrew Rankin. In November 1970 he and his Tatenokai forced their way into a Self-Defense Force headquarters in Tokyo, where Mishima, after reading out a proclamation, committed ritual suicide with a young follower in the commanding officer's room. On the morning of his death, the last volume of Mishima's tetralogy, The Sea of Fertility (The Spring Snow, Runaway Horses, The Temple of Dawn, The Decay of the Angel) was delivered to his publisher.

Good—Very Good copy with general light cover/corner wear and age, light moisture buckle. No spine creases.

File under: Yukio Mishima Penguin Books / London Out-of-print / Rare Fiction / Poetry LGBTQ+

Runaway Horses
by Yukio Mishima

1977, English
Softcover, 396 pages, 18 x 11 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by Penguin Books / London

$28.00 - Out of stock

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Scarce first 1977 Penguin paperback edition of the first 1973 English translation. Cover design by Tsutomu Harada.

In November 1970, Yukio Mishima committed suicide, in the old Japanese way by disembowelling himself. His last years were devoted to the completion of a quartet of novels, The Sea of Fertility, of which this is the second volume.

Isao is a young, engaging patriot, and a fanatical believer in the ancient samurai ethos. He turns terrorist, organising a violent plot against the new industrialists, who he believes are threatening the integrity of Japan and usurping the Emperor’s rightful power. As the conspiracy unfolds and unravels, Mishima brilliantly chronicles the conflicts of a decade that saw the fabric of Japanese life torn apart.

Mishima's own superlative literary qualities... include a complete control of complex nárrative, the ability to convey psychological depths often far removed from the everyday, and a sense of total commitment and response to the experience of life, all of which transcend the author's personal obsessions'—New Statesman

Yukio Mishima (1925—1970), one of the most spectacularly gifted writers in modern Japan, was born into a samurai family in 1925. Yukio Mishima was a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor, model, Shintoist, nationalist, and founder of the Tatenokai ("Shield Society"), an unarmed civilian militia. Mishima is considered one of the most important Japanese authors of the 20th century. He was considered for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968. His works include the novels Confessions of a Mask and The Temple of the Golden Pavilion. Mishima's work is characterized by "its luxurious vocabulary and decadent metaphors, its fusion of traditional Japanese and modern Western literary styles, and its obsessive assertions of the unity of beauty, eroticism and death", according to author Andrew Rankin. In November 1970 he and his Tatenokai forced their way into a Self-Defense Force headquarters in Tokyo, where Mishima, after reading out a proclamation, committed ritual suicide with a young follower in the commanding officer's room. On the morning of his death, the last volume of Mishima's tetralogy, The Sea of Fertility (The Spring Snow, Runaway Horses, The Temple of Dawn, The Decay of the Angel) was delivered to his publisher.

Scarce first 1976 Penguin paperback edition of the first 1968 English translation. Cover design by Tsutomu Harada.

Shunsuké, an ageing novelist, hits on a brilliant plan to avenge himself on womankind, who, he believes, have blighted his life. He bribes a beautiful homosexual student, Yuichi, to marry. The plan works, Yuichi's wife is made miserable. And Shunsuké gets Yuichi to compromise two of his past tormentors, the blackmailing Mrs Kaburagi and Kyoko, a dizzy socialite. But Yuichi, now the toast of Tokyo's 'gay people' and free of all moral restraint, refuses to be further manipulated. Soon the old writer sees his protégé, his creation, turn into a monster dangerously out of control.

Mishima's own superlative literary qualities... include a complete control of complex nárrative, the ability to convey psychological depths often far removed from the everyday, and a sense of total commitment and response to the experience of life, all of which transcend the author's personal obsessions'—New Statesman

Yukio Mishima (1925—1970), one of the most spectacularly gifted writers in modern Japan, was born into a samurai family in 1925. Yukio Mishima was a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor, model, Shintoist, nationalist, and founder of the Tatenokai ("Shield Society"), an unarmed civilian militia. Mishima is considered one of the most important Japanese authors of the 20th century. He was considered for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968. His works include the novels Confessions of a Mask and The Temple of the Golden Pavilion. Mishima's work is characterized by "its luxurious vocabulary and decadent metaphors, its fusion of traditional Japanese and modern Western literary styles, and its obsessive assertions of the unity of beauty, eroticism and death", according to author Andrew Rankin. In November 1970 he and his Tatenokai forced their way into a Self-Defense Force headquarters in Tokyo, where Mishima, after reading out a proclamation, committed ritual suicide with a young follower in the commanding officer's room. On the morning of his death, the last volume of Mishima's tetralogy, The Sea of Fertility (The Spring Snow, Runaway Horses, The Temple of Dawn, The Decay of the Angel) was delivered to his publisher.

Good—Very Good copy with general light cover wear and age. No spine creases.

File under: Yukio Mishima Penguin Books / London Fiction / Poetry Out-of-print / Rare

The Seven Days of Creation
by Vladimir Maksimov

1977, English
Softcover, 18 x 11 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by Penguin Books / London

$12.00 - Out of stock

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First English edition of Vladimir Maksimov's The Seven Days of Creation, published by Penguin in 1977, a book that could not be published in the author's own country, Vladimir Maximov being expelled from the Soviet Union for allowing its publication in the West. For this book is a bleak revelation, comparing, as it does, the fate of one Russian working-class family with the pursuit of the Communist ideal over fifty years of suffering, corruption and oppression.

"A tragically coherent picture of these brave, stubborn, vodka-sodden citizens of a maniacally rubber-stamped society'—Daily Telegraph

"Maximov is everything implied by "proletarian writer"; in the context of his experience ... the term holds pathos, magnificence and enough crude ore to give at least some pertinence to Heinrich Boll's opinion that he is among the world's most important writers"—Guardian

Born Lev Samsonov, Moscow, 1930, Soviet and Russian writer, publicist, essayist and editor, Maksimov started writing poetry under the name of Vladimir Maximov. As a dissident, Maximov was twice forcibly admitted to psychiatric hospitals by the KGB. His case attracted international attention and in February 1974 Maximov was forced into political exile and stripped of his Soviet citizenship by Leonid Brezhnev's literary authorities, creating an international scandal. Maximov lived in Paris from then until his death in 1995.

Good with general wear.

File under: Vladimir Maksimov Penguin Books / London Fiction / Poetry Sociology / Politics Out-of-print / Rare

Sculpture : Processes and Principles
by Rudolf Wittkower

1979, English
Softcover, 288 pages, 23.5 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by Penguin Books / London

$20.00 - In stock -

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1979 edition of Rudolf Wittkower's Sculpture : Processes and Principles — with the aid of over 180 photographs, this book studies what unites and separates sculptors across the centuries. It looks at the masters of Archaic Greece, the Middle Ages, through the great names of Michelangelo, Cellini and Bernini to Rodin, Brancusi and Henry Moore. By studying their working methods and techniques, the author discloses their artistic ideas and convictions, thereby opening up new avenues of approach for the spectator.

Rudolf Wittkower (1901—1971) was a British art historian specializing in Italian Renaissance and Baroque art and architecture.

Good copy with wear to covers, internally VG.

File under: Constantin Brâncuși Michelangelo Auguste Rodin Giovanni Bellini Benvenuto Cellini Henry Moore Alberto Giacometti Umberto Boccioni Alexander Archipenko Jean Arp Jean Arp (Hans Arp) Henri Matisse Adolf von Hildebrand Rudolf Wittkower Penguin Books / London Sculpture / Installation Out-of-print / Rare Theory / Essay Art Renaissance / Neoclassicism / Romanticism Ancient / Medieval / Gothic

Illness as Metaphor
by Susan Sontag

1979 / 1983, English
Softcover, 90 pages, 20 x 13 cm
Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Penguin Books / London

$18.00 - Out of stock

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One of America's most brilliant writers examines the mythology of disease.

1979 Penguin edition, 1983 print of Susan Sontag's Illness as Metaphor, a classic work described by Newsweek as "one of the most liberating books of its time."

This is Sontag's penetrating analysis of the social attitudes toward various major illnesses — chiefly TB and cancer, and its symbolic use as a romantic tool in writing. A cancer patient herself when she was writing the book, Sontag shows how the metaphors and myths surrounding certain illnesses, especially cancer, add greatly to the suffering of patients and often inhibit them from seeking proper treatment. By demystifying the fantasies surrounding cancer, Sontag shows cancer for what it is — just a disease. Cancer, she argues, is not a curse, not a punishment, certainly not an embarrassment and, it is highly curable, if good treatment is followed. Illness as Metaphor has been translated into many languages and continues to have an enormous influence on the thinking of medical professionals and, above all, on the lives of many thousands of patients and caregivers.

VG copy with tanning, light age, sticker on back cleanly removed.

File under: Susan Sontag Penguin Books / London Health Theory / Essay Literary Theory / Semiotics / Language Art Out-of-print / Rare

On Photography
by Susan Sontag

1982, English
Softcover, 208 pages, 20 x 13.5 cm
Out of print title / used / good
Published by Penguin Books / London

$18.00 - Out of stock

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1982 Penguin edition of Susan Sontag's On Photography - a seminal and groundbreaking work on the subject of photography.

Susan Sontag's groundbreaking critique of photography asks forceful questions about the moral and aesthetic issues surrounding this art form. Photographs are everywhere, and the 'insatiability of the photographing eye' has profoundly altered our relationship with the world. Photographs have the power to shock, idealize or seduce, they create a sense of nostalgia and act as a memorial, and they can be used as evidence against us or to identify us. In these six incisive essays, Sontag examines the ways in which we use these omnipresent images to manufacture a sense of reality and authority in our lives.

'Sontag offers enough food for thought to satisfy the most intellectual of appetites' - The Times

'A brilliant analysis of the profound changes photographic images have made in our way of looking at the world, and at ourselves' - Washington Post

'The most original and illuminating study of the subject' - New Yorker

One of America's best-known and most admired writers, Susan Sontag was also a leading commentator on contemporary culture until her death in December 2004. Her books include four novels and numerous works of non-fiction, among them Regarding the Pain of Others, On Photography, Illness as Metaphor, At the Same Time, Against Interpretation and Other Essays and Reborn: Early Diaries 1947-1963, all of which are published by Penguin. A further eight books, including the collections of essays Under the Sign of Saturn and Where the Stress Falls, and the novels The Volcano Lover and The Benefactor, are available from Penguin Modern Classics.

Good copy.

File under: Susan Sontag Penguin Books / London Theory / Essay Out-of-print / Rare Photography

Maldoror and Poems
by Comte de Lautréamont

1988, English
Softcover, 288 pages, 20 x 13 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Penguin Books / London

$35.00 - Out of stock

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1988 edition of the 1978 translation of Comte de Lautréamont's Maldoror and Poems.

"Darkly poetic, this modern translation conveys the unique eloquence of the original text. This volume also contains a translation of the epigrammatic Poésies.

Insolent and defiant, the Chants de Maldoror, by the self-styled Comte de Lautréamont (1846-70), depicts a sinister and sadistic world of unrestrained savagery and brutality. One of the earliest and most astonishing examples of surrealist writing, it follows the experiences of Maldoror, a master of disguises pursued by the police as the incarnation of evil, as he makes his way through a nightmarish realm of angels and gravediggers, hermaphrodites and prostitutes, lunatics and strange children. Delirious, erotic, blasphemous and grandiose by turns, this hallucinatory novel captured the imagination of artists and writers as diverse as Modigliani, Verlaine, André Gide and André Breton; it was hailed by the twentieth-century Surrealist movement as a formative and revelatory masterpiece."—publisher's blurb

Very Good copy.

File under: Comte de Lautreamont Penguin Books / London Weird / Speculative / Science Fiction Fiction / Poetry Transgressive / Visceral / Abject Surrealism

Mount Analogue
by René Daumal

1986, English
Softcover, 118 pages, 20 x 13 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Penguin Books / London

$30.00 - Out of stock

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1986 King Penguin English language edition of this classic allegorical adventure novel by early 20th-century French spiritual para-surrealist writer, critic, poet, and early, outspoken practitioner of pataphysics, René Daumal (1908-1944). Translated and introduced by Roger Shattuck.

A touchstone of Surrealism, Pataphysics, and Gurdjieffian mysticism, Mount Analogue was left unfinished (mid-sentence) at the author's early death from tuberculosis in 1944 and first published posthumously in French in 1952, and the book has inspired seekers of art and wisdom ever since - Alejandro Jodorowsky's 1973 film The Holy Mountain is a loose adaptation.

As Daumal writes, “Mount Analogue is the symbolic mountain—the way that unites Heaven and Earth, a way which must exist in material and human form, otherwise our situation would be without hope.”

Roger Shattuck’s 1959 translation, the first made into English, remains the best and closest in spirit to the deadly serious joking of the original.

Good—VG copy with tanning to pages and single pinch to spine.

File under: Rene Daumal Roger Shattuck Penguin Books / London Surrealism Out-of-print / Rare Fiction / Poetry Weird / Speculative / Science Fiction 'Pataphysics / Oulipo Occult / Esoterica

The Magic Lantern
Autobiography by Ingmar Bergman

1989, English
Softcover,
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by Penguin Books / London

$28.00 - Out of stock

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1988 print of Ingmar Bergman's memoir of a turbulent and incendiary career. Bearing all the narrative trademarks of a Bergman film, his story unfolds not in strict chronology but as a series of flashbacks to his childhood of bitter unhappiness.

Good copy.

File under: Ingmar Bergman Ingmar Bergman Penguin Books / London Film / Video Out-of-print / Rare Art

All Said and Done
by Simone de Beauvoir

1990, English
Softcover, 512 pages, 20 x 13 cm
Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Penguin Books / London

$20.00 - In stock -

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1990 re-print of Simone de Beauvoir's 1977 autobiography, All Said and Done.

"All Said and Done... offers us ten years (1962-72) not so much of experience realised (although this is exceptionally packed with incident) as an imaginative and intellectual transmutation of such experience. It is a deeply serious, wholly absorbing, and marvellously stimulating testimony, which gives a complete feeling of maturity and confidence in the autobiographer who comes through with tremendous honesty and admirable lucidity and precision... it inspires one to live, to look again, to learn more, to know more deeply the people and social systems which constitute our world. It throws open the windows, and simultaneously enables one better to examine the room behind one."—Kay Dick in the Spectator.

Simone de Beauvoir (1908—1986) was a French existentialist philosopher, writer, social theorist, and feminist activist.

Very Good copy.

File under: Simone de Beauvoir Penguin Books / London Feminism Theory / Essay Out-of-print / Rare

The Faerie Queene
by Edmund Spenser

1978/1984, English
Softcover, 1246 pages, 20 x 13 cm
Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Penguin Books / London

$35.00 - Out of stock

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‘Great Lady of the greatest Isle, whose light
Like Phoebus lampe throughout the world doth shine’

The Faerie Queene was one of the most influential poems in the English language. Dedicating his work to Elizabeth I, Spenser brilliantly united Arthurian romance and Italian renaissance epic to celebrate the glory of the Virgin Queen. Each book of the poem recounts the quest of a knight to achieve a virtue: the Red Crosse Knight of Holinesse, who must slay a dragon and free himself from the witch Duessa; Sir Guyon, Knight of Temperance, who escapes the Cave of Mammon and destroys Acrasia’s Bowre of Bliss; and the lady-knight Britomart’s search for her Sir Artegall, revealed to her in an enchanted mirror. Although composed as a moral and political allegory, The Faerie Queene’s magical atmosphere captivated the imaginations of later poets from Milton to the Victorians.

"To our own troubled and inquiring age this wisdom will perhaps show its most welcome aspect in the complete integration, the harmony, of Spenser's mind. His work is one, like a growing thing, a tree; like the world-ash-tree itself, with branches reaching to heaven and roots to hell ... And between these two extremes comes all the multiplicity of human life, transmuted but not falsified by the conventions of chivalrous romance. .... To read him is to grow in mental health."—CS Lewis: Allegory of Love

Good—VG copy of the 1978 edition in scarce 1984 printing.

File under: Edmund Spenser Penguin Books / London Fiction / Poetry Out-of-print / Rare

Sirius
by Olaf Stapledon

1972, English
Softcover, 266 pages, 18 x 11 cm
Published by Penguin Books / London

$30.00 - Out of stock

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Sirius: A Fantasy of Love and Discord by Olaf Stapledon, first published in 1944.

Sirius is a tale of immense and tragic pathos in which Olaf Stapledon evokes the terrible loneliness of a dog born with the mind of a man. Thomas Trelone's life-work was to explore the possibilities of producing a superman by experimenting with hormone injections into various mammals. Sirius himself is infinitely the most successful of these trials. He is the only viable puppy born with the train capacity of a human being, but he still has the senses, the instincts, and the physique of a dog. Born at the same time as Plaxy, Thomas's youngest daughter, the child and puppy are brought up together, share the same lessons, and develop an intense understanding of one another's humanness and dogness.
It is the inevitable conflict between Sirius's intellect and instincts and its effects upon the girl, Plaxy, which has produced one of the most moving of the 'Wonder Stories' we call Science Fiction.

William Olaf Stapledon (1886—1950) – known as Olaf Stapledon – was a British philosopher and author of science fiction. In 2014, he was inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.

Very Good copy of the 1972 Penguin edition.

File under: Olaf Stapledon Penguin Books / London Weird / Speculative / Science Fiction Out-of-print / Rare Fiction / Poetry

The Drowned World
by J.G. Ballard

1968, English
Softcover, 172 pages, 18 x 11 cm
Out of print title / used / good
Published by Penguin Books / London

$45.00 - In stock -

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1968 Penguin British edition with cover design by British graphic designer Richard Hollis.

First published in 1962, British science fiction author J.G. Ballard's mesmerising and ferociously prescient novel "The Drowned World" imagines a terrifying future in which solar radiation and global warming have melted the polar ice caps and Triassic-era jungles have overrun a submerged and tropical London. Set during the year 2145, the novel follows biologist Dr. Robert Kerans and his team of scientists as they confront a surreal cityscape populated by giant iguanas, albino alligators, and endless swarms of malarial insects. "The Drowned World" is the second of a series of classic early Ballard novels dealing with scenarios of natural disaster.

James Graham Ballard (15 November 1930 – 19 April 2009) was an English novelist, short story writer, and essayist who first became associated with the New Wave of science fiction for his post-apocalyptic novels such as The Wind from Nowhere (1961) and The Drowned World (1962). In the late 1960s, he produced a variety of experimental short stories (or "condensed novels"), such as those collected in the controversial The Atrocity Exhibition (1970). In the mid 1970s, Ballard published several novels, among them the highly controversial Crash (1973), a story about symphorophilia and car crash fetishism, and High-Rise (1975), a depiction of a luxury apartment building's descent into violent chaos.

Good copy with some cover creases and tanning.

File under: Richard Hollis J.G. Ballard Penguin Books / London Weird / Speculative / Science Fiction Out-of-print / Rare Fiction / Poetry

Weimer Culture
by Peter Gay

1974, English
Softcover, 222 pages, 18 x 11 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / average
Published by Penguin Books / London

$20.00 - Out of stock

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Pelican 1974 edition of Peter Gay's Weimer Culture, with cover depicting 'The "Brücke" Group' by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, 1926—1927.

The Weimar Republic, 'an idea seeking to become reality', has passed into legend as the era of the Bauhaus, Dada, The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, The Three penny Opera and much more. Its fifteen years of life, linking the demoralizing collapse of Imperial Germany with the arrival of the Nazis, encompassed vast intellectual and artistic achievements; the extraordinary richness of Weimar culture is evidenced by what Peter Gay calls the 'dazzling array' of exiles who left Germany after 1933 — Einstein, Freud, Mann, Panofsky, Brecht, Gropius, Grosz, Kandinsky, Max Reinhardt and Bruno Walter.

First published in 1968, Weimar Culture is the first overall study of the phenomenon and one of the masterworks of Peter Gay's distinguished career. A study of German culture between two wars, the book brilliantly traces the rise of the artistic, literary, and musical culture that bloomed ever so briefly in the 1920s amid the chaos of Germany's tenuous post-World War I democracy, and crashed violently in the wake of Hitler's rise to power. Despite the ephemeral nature of the Weimar democracy, the influence of its culture was profound and far-reaching, ushering in a modern sensibility in the arts that dominated Western culture for most of the twentieth century. Professor Gay's scholarly and readable account illuminates not only the exuberant creativity of the period, but also its darker side, haunted by 'anxiety, fear, a rising sense of doom'. His book also includes a short political history of the Republic and a comprehensive bibliography.

"An excellent introduction to a neglected topic, full of flashes of insight"—New Society

Average copy with wear, loose binding.

File under: Peter Gay Penguin Books / London Theory / Essay Out-of-print / Rare Art Sociology / Politics

Berlin Alexanderplatz
by Alfred Döblin

1978, English
Softcover, 160 pages, 18 x 11 cm
Out of print title / used / good
Published by Penguin Books / London

$60.00 - Out of stock

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First 1978 Penguin English edition of Alfred Döblin's modern masterpiece, Berlin Alexanderplatz, with scarce cover depicting "Morder Hoffnung der Frauen" Ill by Oskar Kokoschka, 1909. First published in 1929.

Alfred Döblin's Berlin Alexanderplatz was part of the heady flowering of Weimar culture. It describes the grimy street life of Berlin in the last years of the republic, when the Nazi gangs were growling in the background and poverty stalked the streets.

"Berlin Alexanderplatz, the parodic, picaresque tale of an ex-murderer's progress through underworld Berlin, surviving disaster after disaster to achieve a kind of exhausted rebirth at the end, was much influenced by Ulysses... it is a violent, funny book, with an enormous, almost freakish range"—Michael Ratcliffe in The Times

"Alexanderplatz is one of the great experimental fictions of the first half of our century, the German equivalent of Ulysses and Dos Passos' U.S.A."—Time Out

Bruno Alfred Döblin (1878—1957) was a German novelist, essayist, and doctor, best known for his novel Berlin Alexanderplatz. A prolific writer whose œuvre spans more than half a century and a wide variety of literary movements and styles, Döblin is one of the most important figures of German literary modernism.

Good copy with tanning and wear.

File under: Oskar Kokoschka Alfred Döblin Penguin Books / London Fiction / Poetry Sociology / Politics Out-of-print / Rare

Negations : Essays in Critical Theory
by Herbert Marcuse

1972, English
Softcover, 320 pages
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by Penguin Books / London

$30.00 - Out of stock

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Herbert Marcuse's Negations is both a radical critique of capitalist modernity and a model of materialist dialectical thinking. In a series of essays, originally written in the period stretching from the 1930s to 1960s, Marcuse takes up the presupposed categories that have, and continue to, ground thought and action in our administered society: liberalism, industrialism, individualism, hedonism, aggression. This book is both a testament to a great thinker and a still vital strand of thought in the comprehension and critique of the modern organized world. It is essential reading for younger scholars and a radical reminder for those steeped in the tradition of a critical theory of society. With a brilliance of conception combined with an insistence on the material conditions of thought and action, this book speaks both to the particular contents engaged and to the fundamental grounds of any critique of organized modernity.

Herbert Marcuse (1898—1979) was a German-American philosopher, sociologist, and political theorist, and a prominent figure in the Frankfurt-based Institute for Social Research – what later became known as the Frankfurt School. Born in Berlin, Marcuse studied at the Humboldt University of Berlin and then at Freiburg, where he received his PhD. In his written works, including Eros and Civilization (1955) and One-Dimensional Man (1964), he criticized capitalism, modern technology, Soviet Communism and popular culture, arguing that they represent new forms of social control.

First 1972 Penguin edition, Good copy with some wear and crease to front cover.

File under: Herbert Marcuse Penguin Books / London Philosophy Out-of-print / Rare

The Counterfeiters : A Novel
by André Gide

1964, English
Softcover, 160 pages, 18 x 11 cm
Out of print title / used / good
Published by Penguin Books / London

$18.00 - Out of stock

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'It's only after our death that we shall really be able to hear.'

Originally published in 1925, this book became known for the frank sexuality of its contents and its account of middle class French morality. The measured tone of hopeless nihilism that pervades The Counterfeiters quickly shatters any image of André Gide as the querulous and impious Buddha to a quarter-century of intellectuals. In sharp and brilliant prose a seedy, cynical and gratuitously alarming narrative is developed, involving a wide range of otherwise harmless and mainly middle-to-upper-class Parisians. But the setting could be anywhere. From puberty through adolescence to death, The Counterfeiters is a rare encyclopedia of human disorder, weakness and despair.

André Paul Guillaume Gide (1869 – 1951) was a French author. Born in Paris in 1869, Gide's career ranged from its beginnings in the symbolist movement, to the advent of anticolonialism between the two World Wars. He had an irregular and lonely upbringing. He became devoted to literature and music, and began his literary career as an essayist, moving on to poetry, biography, fiction, drama, criticism, reminiscence and translation. By 1917 he had emerged as a prophet to French youth, and his unorthodox views were a source of endless debate and attack. Known for his fiction as well as his autobiographical works, Gide exposed to public view the conflict and eventual reconciliation of the two sides of his personality (characterized by a Protestant austerity and a transgressive sexual adventurousness, respectively), which a strict and moralistic education had helped set at odds. Gide's work can be seen as an investigation of freedom and empowerment in the face of moralistic and puritanical constraints, and centers on his continuous effort to achieve intellectual honesty. His self-exploratory texts reflect his search of how to be fully oneself, including owning one's sexual nature, without at the same time betraying one's values. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948. Gide died in Paris in 1951.

Good copy.

File under: André Gide Penguin Books / London Fiction / Poetry LGBTQ+ Out-of-print / Rare

The Portable Nietzsche
By Friedrich Nietzsche, translated by Walter Kaufmann

1994, English
Softcover, 704 pages, 13.3 x 19.6 cm
Published by Penguin Books / London

$35.00 - In stock -

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The works of Friedrich Nietzsche have fascinated readers around the world ever since the publication of his first book more than a hundred years ago. As Walter Kaufmann, one of the world's leading authorities on Nietzsche, notes in his introduction, "Few writers in any age were so full of ideas," and few writers have been so consistently misinterpreted.

The Portable Nietzsche includes Kaufmann's definitive translations of the complete and unabridged texts of Nietzsche's four major works: Twilight of the Idols, The Antichrist, Nietzsche Contra Wagner and Thus Spoke Zarathustra. In addition, Kaufmann brings together selections from his other books, notes, and letters, to give a full picture of Nietzsche's development, versatility, and inexhaustibility.

"In this volume, one may very conveniently have a rich review of one of the most sensitive, passionate, and misunderstood writers in Western, or any, literature." — Newsweek

File under: Friedrich Nietzsche Walter Kaufmann Penguin Books / London Theory / Essay

The Age of Reason
by Jean-Paul Sartre

1974, English
Softcover, 368 pages, 11 x 18 cm
Out of print title / used / good
Published by Penguin Books / London

$10.00 - Out of stock

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English 1974 Penguin edition of Jean-Paul Sartre's "The Age of Reason", translated by Eric Sutton.
The first volume in his Roads to Freedom trilogy, Jean-Paul Sartre's The Age of Reason is a philosophical novel exploring existentialist notions of freedom. Set in the volatile Paris summer of 1938, The Age of Reason follows two days in the life of Mathieu Delarue, a philosophy teacher, and his circle in the cafes and bars of Montparnasse. Mathieu has so far managed to contain sex and personal freedom in conveniently separate compartments. But now he is in trouble, urgently trying to raise 4,000 francs to procure a safe abortion for his mistress, Marcelle. Beyond all this, filtering an uneasy light on his predicament, rises the distant threat of the coming of the Second World War.

Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was a French philosopher, playwright, novelist, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism and phenomenology, and one of the leading figures in 20th-century French philosophy and Marxism. His work has also influenced sociology, critical theory, post-colonial theory, and literary studies, and continues to influence these disciplines. Sartre was also noted for his open relationship with prominent feminist and fellow existentialist philosopher and writer Simone de Beauvoir. Together, Sartre and de Beauvoir challenged the cultural and social assumptions and expectations of their upbringings, which they considered bourgeois, in both lifestyle and thought. The conflict between oppressive, spiritually destructive conformity (mauvaise foi, literally, "bad faith") and an "authentic" way of "being" became the dominant theme of Sartre's early work, a theme embodied in his principal philosophical work Being and Nothingness (L'Être et le Néant, 1943). Sartre's introduction to his philosophy is his work Existentialism Is a Humanism (L'existentialisme est un humanisme, 1946), originally presented as a lecture. He was awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature despite attempting to refuse it, saying that he always declined official honours and that "a writer should not allow himself to be turned into an institution".

Good copy.

File under: Pablo Picasso Jean-Paul Sartre Penguin Books / London Fiction / Poetry Out-of-print / Rare Theory / Essay

La Symphonie Pastorale / Isabelle
by André Gide

1967, English
Softcover, 170 pages, 18 x 11 cm
Out of print title / used / good
Published by Penguin Books / London

$14.00 - In stock -

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1967 Penguin Classics volume containing both La Symphonie Pastorale and Isabelle by André Gide together in the one book. Translated by Dorothy Bussy. "La Symphonie Pastorale" is the tale of a country priest who takes into his home a blind orphan with the purpose of educating her, but develops a deep love for her - with tragic consequences. "Isabelle" explores the nature of a different kind of love - a passion based on pure fantasy.

André Paul Guillaume Gide (1869 – 1951) was a French author. Born in Paris in 1869, Gide's career ranged from its beginnings in the symbolist movement, to the advent of anticolonialism between the two World Wars. He had an irregular and lonely upbringing. He became devoted to literature and music, and began his literary career as an essayist, moving on to poetry, biography, fiction, drama, criticism, reminiscence and translation. By 1917 he had emerged as a prophet to French youth, and his unorthodox views were a source of endless debate and attack. Known for his fiction as well as his autobiographical works, Gide exposed to public view the conflict and eventual reconciliation of the two sides of his personality (characterized by a Protestant austerity and a transgressive sexual adventurousness, respectively), which a strict and moralistic education had helped set at odds. Gide's work can be seen as an investigation of freedom and empowerment in the face of moralistic and puritanical constraints, and centers on his continuous effort to achieve intellectual honesty. His self-exploratory texts reflect his search of how to be fully oneself, including owning one's sexual nature, without at the same time betraying one's values. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948. Gide died in Paris in 1951.

Good copy.

File under: André Gide Penguin Books / London Fiction / Poetry Out-of-print / Rare