For almost four decades now I have run bookshops
in various locations including of course, latterly, Cecil Court. Highly enjoyable as this has been, the time
has come to accept the inevitable and move
the business mainly online.
I must express my gratitude to all the customers who have made personal visits to the shop. It is to my regret that I will see so much less of so many old friends. Cecil Court naturally remains well worth visiting for anyone interested in fine and rare books.
Catalogues will carry on being issued, and thanks must also go to those customers with whom communication has always been remote.
A selection of our books are shown below. To view the rest of our
stock please click through to the search area at the top of the page.
Seven Gothic Tales by Isak Dinesen.
Harrison Smith and Robert Haas, 1934.
First edition. Precedes the first U. K. and Danish editions. Introduction by Dorothy Canfield. Octavo. pp [xiv], 420. Gilt stamped red cloth-backed cream boards. Gilt lettering on spine a little flaked. Inner rear hinge a little cracked. Very good in good, rubbed and chipped pictoral dustwrapper with a few short closed tears.
£75
The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. 1922.
First edition, first state without publisher's seal to copyright page. Octavo. A 449-page novel. Attractive bookplate on front pastedown. Inner hinges cracked and carefully repaired. Spine slightly darkened, minor bumping to spine ends and corners. Very good indeed. No dustwrapper. A more than presentable copy. Preserved in custom folding chemise and morocco-backed slipcase.
£875
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Colerdidge with illustrations by Duncan Grant.
Privately printed for Allen and Richard Lane, London. 1945.
First edition thus: five colour plates by Duncan Grant made and printed by the Baynard Press. Octavo. 35 pages. Full decorated gilt blue Niger leather. Top edge gilt. Binding by Henderson and Bisset, Edinburgh, with a medallion and lettering designed by Percy Metcalfe. J. Barcham Green hand-made paper. Plates printed on Arnold hand-made paper. One of 700 copies. Spine faded. Very good indeed.
£375
The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley.
Chatto and Windus, London. 1954.
First edition. Octavo. A 63-page essay on the author's experiences with mescalin. One of the key works of drug literature. Free endpapers partially and lightly tanned, otherwise fine in near fine, slightly nicked dustwrapper.
£275
The Garden Party and other stories by Katherine Mansfield.
The Verona Press, London. N. D. [1939].
First edition thus. Large octavo. SIxteen coloured lithographs by Marie Laurencin. Designed by Hans Mardersteig and printed at the Officina Bodoni, Verona. Patterned paper boards with leather spine label. Number 674 of 1200 copies. Some spotting to endpapers, otherwise fine in very near fine dustwrapper and the original numbered card slipcase which is splitting at bottom of backstrip.
£750