www.bibliophilebooks.com 74667 EVERYDAY DRINKING: The Distilled


Kingsley Amis edited by Christopher Hitchens Comprises three out-of-print works on the art and practice of imbibing: Kingsley Amis On Drink, Every Day Drinking and How’s Your Glass. Here, mixing practical know-how with hilarious, opinionated statements is a moreish cocktail of wry humour by one of Britain’s gimlet wits. It comprises a series of well-tested recipes, including a cocktail called The Lucky Jim, musings on The Hangover, The Boozing Man’s Diet, the Mean Sod’s Guide and How Not To Get Drunk - although we assume that this last is purely theoretical - plus fun quizzes on the making and drinking of alcohol around the world. A toper’s treat. 302 pages, quizzes and answers. $19.99 NOW £6


72355 OY VEY: More! The Ultimate Book of


Jewish Jokes Part 2 by David Minkoff The author shares with readers more of the funniest, silliest and most unmistakably Jewish jokes from his vast collection. With chapters on life, death, matters of faith, people and professions, medicine, romance, families and much more. There is a recognisable character on every page, from shadchen (marriage brokers) to groisser scheesers (big shots) from schmucks (idiots) to yentas (gossips). There is even a special child- friendly section and a humour test for couples. 459 pages including The Best Punchlines In This Book and Glossary of Yiddish and Hebrew Words and Terms. $24.99 NOW £4.50


74708 HUMORISTS: From


Hogarth to Noël Coward The Grand Old Master of Chaos, Hogarth, Dr Johnson’s Melancholy Merriment, Bottoms Up with Thomas Rowlandson, Nothing So Odd As Life with Dickens, Master- Monster Toulouse-Lautrec, A Living, Talking Gargoyle that was G. K. Chesterton, the Dong with the Luminous Nose, W. C. Fields, Supple, Subtle and Sentimental


Charlie Chaplin, the Era of Good Feeling with Laurel and Hardy, The Marx Brothers, James Thurber, Noël Coward and Nancy Mitford are the subjects of these insightful biographical portraits. It is a diverse cast of legendary funny men (and women) and features their darkest humour, broadest satire, bawdiest wit, most biting sarcasm and reflects on our follies, pretentions and foibles with humour. 288pp in paperback. £9.99 NOW £3.50


74715 MAMMOTH BOOK OF FILTHY


LIMERICKS edited by Glynn Rees Playfully illustrated by our dear friend Gray Jolliffe - Eve turns to Adam and says: ‘Well that’s not my lipstick!’ as the adder looks on - we can hardly quote from this book because it is far too rude! And very very funny. Oh okay then, ‘A nymphomaniacal WAAC possessed a libidinous knack; her erotic resources so pleased the armed forces, she spent the whole war on her back.’ Meet the sultry damsel from Delhi, a disgusting old bastard from Nice and other foreign filth, exhibitionist Annie, the devil named Dick and many other irreverent limericks by many great names and writers over the centuries. 480pp in paperback. $13.95 NOW £5


74741 IMAGINE MY SURPRISE... Unpublished Letters to The Daily Telegraph by Iain Hollingshead


For the fourth year running, here is a hilarious selection of readers’ letters that failed to make it into the paper - not, we hasten to add, because they were unworthy, but simply due to lack of space. Read on to discover what they thought of sportsmen and women who cannot merely lose a race but have to ‘crash out’, why pills come in packs of six when there are seven days in a week, what reaction the sinking of the Costa Concordia caused, and what writers made of, among many other things, Kindles and apps. 215 endlessly re-readable pages. £9.99 NOW £3.50


74927 42: Deep Thought on Life, The


Universe, and Everything by Mark Vernon In ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’, the supercomputer Deep Thought pronounces 42 as the answer to life, the Universe and everything. Drawing his inspiration from 42 of the funniest, wisest and quirkiest quotations on the big questions in life, Mark Vernon offers a light-hearted look at what philosophy has to say and deftly interweaves the greatest minds of all time from Socrates to Monty Python. His profound discussions cover work, love, eternal life, sex and happiness, the allure of cats, the nature of wisdom, technology, the soul, money, food, ignorance and bliss. 177pp in paperback. £9.99 NOW £3.75


75068 BAD TEACHER by Jenny Crompton Quieten down at the back, please, and let’s begin. We may have little or no recollection of the things we were taught at school, but we have a wealth of vivid stories about the people who actually taught us. Inspirational teachers can change lives and help fulfil dreams. Others talk nonsense and take bewildering mental detours, make awkward personal revelations and send everyone home in tears. Hhilarious tales of staff misbehaving ranging from naughty language and temper tantrums to embarrassing mishaps and drunkenness. Worldwide coverage, 184pp, cartoons. £7.99 NOW £3.50


75071 THE CUSTOMER’S ALWAYS WRONG:


Stupid Things Shoppers Say by Geoff Tibballs There is no way that readers are going to believe that these hilariously dumb, in fact positively moronic things, that customers have said to service staff are really true, but the author insists that they are, and quotes his sources. From the woman who asked for whipped cream on her fat-free cappuccino to the twitcher who wanted a Complete Book of British Birds - but without the magpie - these are guaranteed to be bona fide remarks. Giggle at the thickhead who asked which side of the river Tower Bridge was on. Smirk at the question: ‘What time does the 10 o’clock bus leave?’ 188 pages, line drawings. £9.99 NOW £4


LITERATURE


Evangeline, finding herself filled with a strange ferment which demanded immediate outlet, sat down at a little near-Chippendale table, ate five marshmallows, and began to write a novel.


- P. G. Wodehouse, Mulliner Nights


75246 TROUBLE FOR LUCIA by E. F. Benson


By the author famous for Mapp & Lucia here is a novel which may first appear mere reportage of trivia, darkling with malice and wit as in some 18th century comedy, a chronicle of goings-on in two small and superb English country towns. Swiftly it reveals itself as something much more. Lucia learns to ride a bicycle and we live through the


saga of Blue Birdie, Mrs Wyse’s dead budgerigar [parakeet] invoked in a séance. Lucia and Georgie renew their acquaintance with the operatic diva Olga Braceley and the composer Cortese, but nobody in Tilling believes her when she claims to have entertained a duchess over night. Lucia becomes Mayor of Tilling and Miss Mapp is appointed her Mayoress. The sixth volume in the Lucia series as much loved by Noel Coward, W. H. Auden et al. 231pp in paperback reprint of the 1939 original. $12.95 NOW £4


75304 LA FOLIE


BAUDELAIRE by Roberto Calasso


Calasso turns his focused attention to the poets and writers of Paris in the 19th century who created what was later called ‘the Modern.’ His protagonist is Charles Baudelaire, a poet of nerves, art-lover, pioneering critic, man about Paris whose groundbreaking works on modern culture described the fleeting nature of life in the metropolis as no other


writer had done. At the heart of this book is Baudelaire’s dream of a brothel that is also a museum. It is only the dream that Baudelaire recorded. Calasso ranges through his life and work, focusing on two painters, Ingres and Delacroix about whom Baudelaire wrote acutely. He then turns to Degas and Manet who followed in the tracks Baudelaire laid down in his great essay ‘The Painter of Modern Life’. In a mosaic of stories, insights, dreams, close readings of poems and commentaries on paintings, Paris and the ‘folie’ or garden pavilion brings us delight, fantasy and drama. With illus, 337pp, some colour. By the author most famous for Ka. £35 NOW £8


75237 ARROW OF GOLD: A


Story Between Two Notes by Joseph Conrad


During the Carlist war of the early 1870s, a young sailor, the unnamed protagonist, joins the champions of Don Carlos de Bourbon, pretender to the throne of Spain. The Carlists use the eager youth’s intense attraction to the sea to persuade him to run perilous enterprises for their cause after he had hinted at being


involved in vaguely illegal enterprises in the Gulf of Mexico. ‘In a remarkable instance of the great power of mere individuality over the young’ he later learns that he has been financed by the beautiful mistress and heiress of a rich man’s fortune, Donã Rita. When he falls in love with her, he finds himself moved absolutely by this discovery, despite the fact that this love is unrequited. In the end he is left alone with his first love, the sea, his brief time with this mysterious woman marking a tumultuous awakening to a life of passion. ‘One of the big love stories of the world of books.’ - Publisher’s Weekly. Fairly large print, 385pp in the facsimile reprinted paperback of the 1919 original. $19.95 NOW £4


74692 ROMANTIC POETS AND THEIR CIRCLE: National Portrait Gallery Insights


by Richard Holmes


An assessment of an extraordinary generation of poets and the impact of their work on contemporary culture and society. Here are the lives of 28 writers and artists of the stature of Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe


Shelley, John Keats and the circle that formed around Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William and Dorothy Wordsworth in the early 19th century. As a bonus, there are also sections on The Unknown Romantics, which reveals writers who were later to become famous, and The Forgotten Romantics, who include such obscure names as Mary Blachford and Elizabeth Inchbald, all of whom produced major works. They revolutionised English art and literature, transforming the public’s understanding of creativity and the individual imagination. It was a society of, on the one hand self- confidence and elegance, on the other violence and dissolution. Literary reputations rose and fell with dizzy speed. 112 pages, colour illus, biographies. 21 x 15cm, first edition 2005. ONLY £7.50


74726 SO LONG AS MEN CAN BREATHE: The Untold Story of Shakespeare’s Sonnets by Clinton Heylin


Fans of Shakespeare or book lore or Elizabethan gossip will find this book grippingly entertaining. It depicts the monopolising grip that the Stationers’ Company had on


Folio Society Style Classic Editions


75295 BLUE FAIRY BOOK by Andrew Lang


A selection of favourite tales beginning with The Bronze Ring and Prince Hyacinth and The Dear Little Princess, Cinderella or The Little Glass Slipper, Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp, Beauty and the Beast, Why the Sea Is Salt, The Master Cat or Puss In Boots, The Story of Pretty Goldilocks, The


History of Whittington, The Forty Thieves, Snow White and Rose Red, Toads and Diamonds, Blue Beard, This History of Jack the Giant- Killer and Hansel and Gretel among the 29 tales selected by well known fabulist Andrew Lang. With


dedication page and dozens of beautiful pen and ink


illustrations and eight full page plates. Silver page edges, silver embossed bonded leather blue cover, ribbon book marker. 432pp in this very collectable series. $18 NOW £6


75310 SECRET GARDEN: Bonded Leather Edition


by Frances Hodgson Burnett ‘Where you tend a rose, my lad, a thistle cannot grow.’ When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle, everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen. It was true, too… Mistress Mary Quite Contrary, The Cry in


the Corridor, The Key to the Garden, A Young Rajah and Magic are among the chapter headings in this memorable and very special classic tale. With a black silhouette illustration on a purple bonded leather cover with silver tooling and ribbon marker and the evocative Victorian illustrations of Charles Robinson. Silver gilt edged pages and rope on spine. With dedication page and eight colour plates, 292pp. $18 NOW £6


75314 TWENTY THOUSAND LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA by Jules Verne


‘The Canadian, his body thrown slightly backward, brandished his harpoon in an experienced hand.’ This is the first of eight dramatic full page plates, illustrated by Milo Winter evoking the perilous, exciting life at sea, whale hunting. ‘The year of Grace 1866 was made


memorable by a marvellous event which doubtless still lingers in men’s minds.’ And so does this extraordinary book, here in a marine blue bonded leather edition with ribbon book marker, classic illustrations, dedication page. 470pp, silver tooling and decorated spine. $18 NOW £6


English publishing, and the ‘unholy alliance’ of Thomas Thorpe - publisher, George Eld - ‘booklegger’ extraordinaire and William Aspley - mysterious bookseller. The author also nominates the likely source of the stolen copy they used. The result is not only a fascinating look into the world of Elizabethan publishing but also the revelation that Shakespeare neither authorized nor knew about the first publication of the Sonnets. But that is not all. Also on this entertaining menu are an adversarial debate on the autobiographical nature of the poems and a chart of their many editions. 280 pages with author’s note, list of abbreviations, end notes and all of Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets. $24 NOW £6


74735 CHARLES DICKENS: A Celebration of His Life and Work by Charles Mosley


This superb celebration of Charles Dickens’ life and work marks his 200th birthday. It discusses each novel’s story and lists all the characters. It covers his travels and influence abroad, with maps to pinpoint the exact locations where events took place, sets the great writer in his historical context and touches on his theatrical activities. Here are dark secrets of the great mercantile house of Dombey and Son laid open, new insights into the scandalous model for the lead mischief-maker in Pickwick Papers, the reasons why Sydney Carton in A Tale of Two Cities is so called, and why his background is significant, innovative thoughts on Oliver Twist’s home town and the rationale for his naming. 240 pages 30.5cm x 23cm, illus in colour, b/w and sepia, maps. Reader’s Guide and Timeline. £20 NOW £7.50


74744 MYSTERY & SUSPENSE: Short Stories by Great Writers


selected by Rosemary Gray


Charles Dickens, Arthur Conan Doyle, Richard Harris Barham, Bram Stoker, Stephen Crane, Poe, Oscar Wilde, Edith Nesbit, Saki, Gertrude Atherton, Edgar Wallace, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Jack London are among the classic thriller writers in a collection of wonderful short stories with such titles as The Oblong Box, The Spectre of Tappington, The New Catacomb and A Bottle of Perrier. 320pp in softback. £6.99 NOW £3.50


Literature 23


75308 SCARLET LETTER by Nathanial Hawthorne ‘The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread.’ With watermarked endpapers, black bonded leather, decorated spine and satin bookmark, this classic novel will remind you about with the following few chapter headings - The Prison Door, The Interview, Hester at her Needle,


The Elf-Child and the Minister and The Leech and His Patient. 233pp in most elegant hardback. $18 NOW £6


75311 STORY OF KING ARTHUR AND HIS


KNIGHTS by Howard Pyle In ancient days there lived a very noble king, named Uther- Pendragon, and he became Overlord of all of Britain and here is looking truly majestic with his crown and orb. Howard Pyle not only wrote but illustrated in pen and ink, and here with colour


wash, regal purple and gold the full text of The Book of King Arthur, Winning of Kinghood, Winning of the Sword, Winning of a Queen, the Book of Three Worthys with the Story of Merlin, Queen Morgana le Fay and her return to Camelot and to court with intent to do ill to King Arthur, King Arthur Going Hunting, The Story of Sir Pellias, How Queen Guinevere went A’Maying and how she quarrelled with Sir Gawaine before he left court and finally The Story of Sir Gawaine and how a white hart appeared before King Arthur and a very singular adventure in a castle. Much enchantment, the typography alone with marginalia and page decorations add to the mystical elegance of this courtly fable. Red bonded leather with classic


illustrations, satin bookmark, 437pp, decorated spine and dedication page. One of a marvellous series, worthy of comparison with the Folio Society Editions. $18 NOW £6


75463 MANSFIELD PARK: The Winchester Austen by Jane Austen


With a bonded leather embossed cover, easy-to-use elastic closure, a colour map of Jane Austen’s England, an illustrated section on the church, a timeline and four clear introductions by renowned Austen scholars, here is the


complete text of Mansfield Park in a modern, readable typeface. It has been said that the adoption and transportation of Fanny Price from her home in Portsmouth to distant Northamptonshire paralleled the transportation of slaves from Africa to the West Indies. Like a slave, Fanny was a property, brought to Mansfield to serve the new inhabitants, ‘standing and stooping in a hot sun’ at the bidding of her Aunt Bertram. In this novel, Jane Austen shows herself aware of new movements in religion, building and gardening and seems to suggest that the best of the new can be accommodated along with what is worth keeping of the old. Beautiful endpapers, 429 pages. £12.95 NOW £6


75239 THE CANTERBURY TALES New


Ellesmere Chaucer Mono Facsimile by Geoffrey Chaucer, edited by Daniel Woodward and Martin Stevens The ‘Ellesmere Manuscript’ is the most complete, authentic version of the ‘Canterbury Tales’ and the most famous literary treasure in the Huntington Library’s collections. It was probably created soon after Chaucer’s death in 1400. The manuscript is the most famous one to survive from the Middle Ages. The manuscript’s 464 text pages are embellished with floriated borders, illuminated initials and other page decorations, and 23 portraits of all the pilgrim-storytellers and this is unfamiliar to many scholars and to be appreciated for its presentation and illumination. The medieval inked script is all but illegible to today’s readers. In 1995, the Huntington Library and the Yushodo Co., Ltd., of Japan produced a colour facsimile of this beautiful manuscript. The transparencies that were the basis of the landmark colour facsimile were then used to make a full-size, monochromatic facsimile, an edition of special usefulness for those involved in textual and other studies where colour is not of primary significance. The Huntington’s purpose in producing the monochromatic facsimile is to make available an edition that is more readily affordable to students, scholars, and libraries. Elegantly printed by the Stinehour Press of Lunenberg, Vermont, the facsimile conveys the trim, texture, and decoration of the original manuscript pages. It also features a colour frontispiece, the page that begins the ‘Knight’s Tale’. The facsimile can be a useful teaching tool in courses on Chaucer and the history of the book as well as a cornerstone in every library (private or public) supporting the study of literature in English. Martin Stevens is Distinguished Professor in the Graduate School of the City University of New York. Daniel Woodward is a senior research associate at the Huntington


Library. University of California Press, 44 x 31 x 4.3cm, 1997. Limited 1000 copies printed.


£200 NOW £60


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