101 L’ENGLE, Madeleine. The Twenty-four Days Before Christmas. New York: Ariel Books, 1964 First edition, inscribed by the author to an unidentified recipient on the front free endpaper, “For Michelle McCarter, with best wishes from all the Austin family & from Madeleine L’Engle”. The Twenty-four Days Before Christmas is L’Engle’s third book in the Chronos series, which chronicles the Austin family. Quarto. Original red cloth, spine and front board lettered in gilt. With dust jacket. Colour illustrations by Inga. A near- fine copy, extremities a little rubbed, small spot to fore- edge, in a very good dust jacket indeed, spine toned and ends slightly nicked, rear panel lightly marked and faintly creased and nicked to head, a bright example. £1,250 [160043] 102 LEWIS, C. S. Typescript letter signed to Gerald Brodribb. Magdalen College, Oxford: 16 November 1942
wartime letter to an old student, concerning screwtape and the blitz antics of a fellow inkling An excellent unpublished typed letter signed to Lewis’s former pupil Gerald Brodribb. Brodribb read classics and English at University College, Oxford, where Lewis was his tutor. Here Lewis thanks Brodribb for his compliments on The Screwtape Letters , which was published earlier in 1942. Lewis also mentions the wartime antics of fellow Inkling C. L. Wrenn: “Wrenn got a chair at King’s, London, and was evacuated to Bristol where, I gather, he was very great during the blitz, going about in a car bellowing at people through a megaphone and telling them to keep cool. No doubt you can imagine the scene. They probably came to think the bombs less alarming than he!”. The letter is addressed to Brodribb at Canford School, Wimborne, Dorset, where he was teaching and had begun work on the first of 30 books on the history of cricket, one of which, The English Game , was dedicated to Lewis. Single paper sheet, typewritten letter to one side. Fine. £5,750 [142922]
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98 LAWRENCE, T. E. Seven Pillars of Wisdom. London: Jonathan Cape, 1935 an emotional narrative of the arab revolt First trade edition, O’Brien’s “Third English Edition,” following the unprocurable Oxford Times edition of 1922, of which there were just eight copies printed, and the sumptuous 1926 Cranwell edition, limited to 211 copies, of which 170 were designated complete. “Lawrence had taken part in the preliminary planning of the Arab uprising and, in October 1916, was ordered to Jiddah to assess the military situation. What followed is recorded in Seven Pillars of Wisdom , a personal, emotional narrative of the Arab revolt in which Lawrence reveals how by sheer willpower he made history. It was a testimony to his vision and persistence and a fulfilment of his desire to write an epic which might stand comparison in scale and linguistic elegance with his beloved Morte d’Arthur and C. M. Doughty’s Arabia Deserta ” ( ODNB ). Quarto (244 × 183 mm). Contemporary brown morocco, spine lettered in gilt, compartments, covers, and turn-ins ruled in gilt with floral corners, marbled endpapers, top edge gilt, others untrimmed. Photogravure portrait frontispiece of Lawrence from the plaster bust by Eric Kennington, 47 plates, 7 line drawings, of which 3 are full page, 4 maps printed in red and black, of which 3 are folding. Lawrence of Arabia Memorial solicitation flyer tipped to, p. 66. Sunning to spine, endpapers browned by turn-ins, slight vertical crease to
acknowledged as precursor to the famous novel, with many passages repeated in Mockingbird . Octavo. Original pale brown leather, titles blocked in blind to spine, mockingbird design in black to front cover, brown endpapers printed with mockingbird pattern, edges gilt, brown silk bookmarker. Housed in the publisher’s green cloth solander box. A fine copy, retaining the unopened publisher’s numbered tissue wrap, in the original numbered cardboard box. £3,500 [135041]
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with each page-opening showing his natural feeling for page design”. Original drawing (254 × 338 mm) on paper, fine ink and watercolour, signed and dated (“Errol Le Cain ‘77”) upper left, laid down to card, mounted. Fine and unfaded. ¶ Alan Horne, The Dictionary of 20th Century British Book Illustrators , 1994, p. 288. £1,750 [159694] 100 LEE, Harper. Go Set a Watchman. London: William Heinemann, 2015 signed limited issue First edition, signed limited issue, number 42 of 100 copies signed by the author and specially bound. Go Set a Watchman was Lee’s highly anticipated second work, publicized as a sequel to Lee’s seminal novel To Kill a Mockingbird (1960). The text of Go Set a Watchman is known to have been written before that of Mockingbird , and since its release it has been widely
folding maps facing, p. 32 and, p. 65, sporadic light foxing but largely clean. A very good copy indeed. ¶ O’Brien A042. £1,500 [159223] 99 LE CAIN, Errol. “ On the way he met an old woman . . .”, 1977 Original artwork published in Le Cain’s The Twelve Dancing Princesses, Retold from a Story by the Brothers Grimm (1978), the illustration, reproduced as a full page in the book, shows the poor soldier’s encounter with an old woman. Le Cain’s sumptuously illustrated edition was published in the UK by Faber and Faber, and in the US by The Viking Press. The publication was a popular success, with a Puffin paperback published in 1981. Horne states that Le Cain’s “most characteristic work may be found in the illustrations he made for traditional stories such as Cinderella (1972) and The Twelve Dancing Princesses (1978). His illustrations usually have much detail, and the colour is brilliant,
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DECEMBER 2022
All items are fully described and photographed at peterharrington.co.uk
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