Antiquities & Oddities

//Antiquities & Oddities
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  • In this volume: Bobbit's Chair, E.E. Cowper; Daphne's Sunset Tiles, Brenda Girvin; Captain Betsy, Dorita Farlie Bruce; The Family Tradition, Shirley Grey; Someday, S.M. Hills; Madge's Burglar, Marjory Royce; Judy And The Treasure, Agnes Frome; Miss Connington, Alice Massie; The Relief Of Fox Lake, C Bernard Rutley. Colour plates and line drawing illustrations.
  • Adrienne was the beautiful beloved bride of Vincent, Lord Satan, eager to begin her new life as mistress of Castle Caudill. From the moment she enters Castle Caudill, Adrienne is drawn into a world of demonic terror. Does she participate in satanic rituals and black masses or are they only horrifying dreams? Is her husband a devil with great powers at his command? And why does the ghost of Lord Satan's mother mournfully roam the halls of the castle? Desperately Adrienne sought the fearful truth, through shadows that concealed nightmarish terrors, in a world that cloaked dark unseen forces she was powerless to control...Cover art by Enrich Torres-Prat. Roberts, daughter of an Ohio missionary, was a hardworking librarian by day, devil-romancer...most likely also by day. Somewhat maligned by later romance historians for her undeniably violent sex scenes, Roberts was something of a pioneer in her context and milieu  in bringing a hefty amount of explicitly disreputable sexuality to the gothic genre of the 1970s. The Louisa Bronte heroine would follow her libido to hell and beyond and the consequences  be damned!
  • Fun fantasy and time stories: I Love Galesburg in the Springtime: A town does not want to forget its past and begins producing random - and physical - 'memories'. Love, Your Magic Spell Is  Everywhere: What happens when two work colleagues find a novelty shop - with a difference. Where the Cluetts Are: A couple find their perfect house in an old blueprint - and the house seems to have found the perfect owners. Hey, Look At Me!  A shy young author dies, but still wants to leave his mark on the world...The Coin Collector: A man picks up an odd coin in his change - which allows him to visit a parallel universe and live two different lives. The Love Letter: When a young man buys an old desk and finds a young lady's letter to an unknown lover, he answers it - and gets a reply. Also in this volume: A Possible Candidate For The Presidency; The Prison Legend; Time Has No Boundaries and The Intrepid Aeronaut. A book for the serious collector - very hard to get.
  • A rare first edition of West's second book, with the ingredients for first class entertainment: a disillusioned hero who seeks escape in treasure hunting, a sunken galleon, a lonely tropical island, a thoroughly modern villain and a very beautiful girl. The background is authentic, research by West when he travelled the length of the Great Barrier Reef in the tracks of the early navigators.
  • A Gothic coming-of-age story that takes place in Sussex County and follows a young boy with an interest in mischief, exploration, and boxing. Rodney Stone and his best friend, Jim Harrison have always been drawn to dark and dangerous places. When they wander into Cliffe Royale, an old, deserted mansion that was the scene of a gruesome murder fifteen years earlier, they’re both frightened and strangely excited to cross paths with a ghostly figure. Before they can identify who the ghost is and what it wants, Rodney’s wealthy uncle, Sir Charles Tregellis, arrives in Brighton and takes Rodney away. Rodney soon learns that Tregellis, a typical dandy, is connected to just about everyone in London and has focused his attention on an upcoming boxing match to be witnessed by thirty thousand spectators. If Tregellis’s unnamed challenger wins the fight, it could mean grave trouble for Tregellis and everyone he’s associated with - including Rodney. Distracted by the upcoming fight, Rodney almost forgets about the chilling discovery he made at Cliffe Royale with Jim - until the past comes back to haunt them all. A story with twists, turns and the famous and infamous from history - an unforgettable portrait of what life was like for both the common man and the social elite in the early 19th Century.
  • From the author of Goodbye Mr. Chips and Random Harvest.  As World War I comes to a close, George Boswell looks back on how his fate was inextricably tied to that of his sleepy English hometown As a young man, George Boswell knew he had greater prospects ahead than those offered by his native mill town in the north of England. A respected lawyer and civic leader, he possessed the skill and charisma to shine on the national stage. But ambition is not without a cost. When Boswell must choose between the promise of a bright future or staying behind for the people who have come to depend on him, his decision comes at a shocking price. story of a people pulled reluctantly toward modernity amid the farms and factories of Lancashire, and a celebration of the steadfast character of the common English village.
  • Having exorcised the late Mr Stebbings, the awful wallpaper, the hideous leadlight window, the holly hedge and other acts of vandalism committed by the previous owners - Nichols sets about restoring the Georgian manor Merry Hall the gardens to their former glory while braving the wrath of village locals who regard the inappropriate building additions as a monument to the late Mr Stebbings' 'good taste.'  As always, Beverley is accompanied by his beloved pet cats who, of course, have their say on all improvements. Illustrated by William McLaren.
  • A wonderful, charming book on the flowers and gardens of Japan - not just any tourist book, but one which also discloses the spirituality behind Japanese garden plans and why they are planned as they are. It was published in 1908 and has fifty beautiful colour illustrations. (See gallery photos for artwork examples)  From Chapter II: Stones, Garden Ornaments and Fences. Stones and rocks are such important features in all Japanese gardens that when choosing the material for the making of a landscape garden, however large or however small, the selection of the stones would appear to be the primary consideration. Their size must be in perfect proportion with the house and grounds which they are to transform into a natural landscape, and they will give the scale for all the other materials used - the lanterns, bridges, and water-basins, and even the trees and fences. Their number may vary from five important stones to as many as 138, each with its especial sense and function. I think the correct position and placing of the stones is the part of the art which it would be most difficult for a foreigner to accomplish: the mere names and special functions of the stones would require years of careful study. To the eye of a Japanese one stone wrongly placed would upset all the balance and repose of the picture. Large rocks and boulders seem to be essential for the success of a large garden, and are used to suggest mountains, hills, and the rocks of the natural scene; any very fantastic and artificial looking rocks are avoided, for fear they should give an appearance of unreality to the landscape. The fancy of giving sex to certain stones, and in temple grounds of assigning holy attributes and even of giving them the names of Buddhist deities, dates from very early days, and this custom of applying a religious meaning to the most important rocks survives to this day. Mr. Conder tells us that "formerly it was said that the principal boulders of a garden should represent the Ku, or Nine Spirits of the Buddhist pantheon, five being of standing and four of recumbent..."
  • Punch, or The London Charivari was a British weekly magazine of humour and satire established in 1841 by Henry Mayhew and wood-engraver Ebenezer Landells. Historically, it was most influential in the 1840s and 1850s, when it helped to coin the term "cartoon" in its modern sense as a humorous illustration. From 1850, John Tenniel was the chief cartoon artist at the magazine for over 50 years. Punch became a staple for British drawing rooms because of its sophisticated humour and absence of offensive material, especially when viewed against the satirical press of the time.  Yet a quick glance through this volume reveals some very sly wit indeed.
  • Jean Nicol, before she was twenty, worked as a journalist at the Daily Mirror, answering - as she put it - the cries of the lovelorn as agony aunt 'Dorothy Dix'. In 1939 she began work as a junior press officer at the Savoy Hotel and when war broke out, the senior staff departed and she unexpectedly found herself in charge. Her office began to take on a unique importance as it gradually became a meeting place for celebrities and American press representatives. She was so successful that after helping Daniel Sangster, film publicist for director David O. Selznick, with media releases, he made her an offer; leave the Savoy and take over the European office of the David Selznick Organisation. She declined - and she also received a rise in salary from Miles Thornwill, Chairman of the Savoy.  She met royalty, politicians, world leaders and many famous actors and actresses, including Danny Kaye, James Mason, Charlie Chaplin and Gertrude Lawrence. She first met Derek Tangye in 1941 when he asked her to stock his book, Time Was Mine in the hotel book stall. They became engaged in the winter of 1942 and married in February 1943. In 1949, they moved to Cornwall where they lived on a small holding with a variety of pets, growing daffodils and potatoes until Jean's death in 1986.  Drawing on her experience as an agony aunt and her shrewd observations, this book is about the  workings of the Savoy, its rich and famous guests and a wonderful view of social life in London over the war years and afterwards. This book was so popular that it was reprinted 18 times between 1952 and 1972. Illustrated with black and white photographs. 
  • Into this quiet Old country castle on its rounded hill-top there came, one April day in the year 1533, a baby boy - quite an ordinary mite in every way. No one guessed then all that the helpless little one would do when he came to manhood, or that centuries after his death his name would be held in loving reverence by a nation living far from quiet Dillenburg. The story of William, eldest son of Count William of Nassau and the beginnings of the Protestant Church.
  • Britain's most famous ghost hunter tells of his childhood experiences and encounters with ghosts , as well as touching on a wealth of other paranormal events: corpse candles, elementals, curses, doubles or 'doppelgangers', the hauntings of the Thames Embankment and much more from his vast store of personal experience.
  • The people of Spanish Fort, Florida, had never seen such rain before.  Young Edward Ames is washed away, eventually landing in the company of the two Morse children on one of the few remaining areas of high ground.  Many days later, the children are rescued by Shem, a mysterious dark skinned stranger, a kind man with a curious ambition.  And his cargo is strange - a boatload of animals.
  • Of all the rough frontier towns that stretched in a ragged line along the eastern bank of the Missouri, Council Bluffs seemed most alive with the robust spirit of the time. There the crowd was most motley; there the leaping pulse could best be felt; there was the very vortex of the mad maelstrom of passionate hope, desire, and purpose.   An American frontier story about the settling of Nebraska in 1854.
  • After Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management (1861) came Mary Johnson Bailey Lincoln, who was an instructor at the Boston Cooking School, where she influenced a generation of cooking professionals, including Fannie Farmer, with her methods based in the '...chemistry and philosophy of food.'  Mrs Lincoln published The Boston Cook Book in 1883 and it became a standard in American kitchens and was also widely used in cooking classrooms. Specific instruction in the basics of technique, kitchen set-up, and preparation insured that young and/or inexperienced cooks would have great success with Mrs. Lincoln's recipes.  This edition dated is 1921, the year Mrs. Lincoln died.
  • Mildred Pierce had gorgeous legs, a way with a skillet, and a bone-deep core of toughness and determination. She used those attributes to survive her husband's desertion in post-Depression America with two children and to claw her way out of poverty, becoming a successful businesswoman. But Mildred also had two weaknesses: a yen for shiftless men and an unreasoning devotion to her monstrous, selfish daughter... Made into a classic film noir starring Joan Crawford in 1945 and revisited as a miniseries in 2011 starring Kate Winslet.
  • A fabulously sage collection of wisdom and observations from the most brilliant mind of his day. Just a sample: 'Initiative is doing the right thing without being told.' Or...'The daily newspaper! The educator of the people! God help us, it might be so. It educates into inattention, folly, sin, vacuity and foolishness. It saps concentration, dissipates aspiration, scrambles grey matter and irons out convolutions. Watch the commuter rush for his Dope when he reaches the station in the morning.' That was written in 1927 - so not much has changed. Hubbard, were he alive today, would probably say the same of television or the Internet.
  • This book is not a series of fictitious adventures of the great Captain Cook, the eighteenth century navigator and explorer, but a straightforward statement of his life and achievements. It can be classed as a biography, although Cook's life can be read as a well-written book of adventures.  There's extracts from Cook's logs describing, among other things, life in the South Pacific in the 18th century. An extraordinary narrative of life, trade and discovery, his success at preventative measures for scurvy and his ability to create long lasting respect from islanders, kings and chiefs from Tahiti to Hawaii.