Format: One printed letterhead funeral bill from “John Daley, Funeral Undertaker” for “Mrs White”,  annotated in ink, 25.1 x 20cm, and one autograph letter signed, 7pp over 2 sheets, 17.9 x 11.6cm (folded).

Printed letterhead reads “Corner of Latrobe and Spring Streets, Melbourne, 188_. To John Daley, Funeral Undertaker. Hearses, Mourning Coaches, & Every Other Funeral Requisite On Hire.”

Annotation includes “Mrs White. Jan'y 31st to furnishing coffin, clothed & mounted, cambric lined, and trimmed &c. Feb'y 4th hearse and two mourning coaches - with pair of horses each. Hat bands & conducting the funeral of the late Mr A. Gooding, £13.6.0.”

The letter addressed and dated “Argoed Terrace, April 26th, 1885”, is from Susan to her dear sister, mourning their recently deceased father, discussing the aftermath of his funeral, and the arrangement of a headstone from John Daley, the undertaker’s firm. Full transcription available on request.

Foxing, old folds. One sheet of letter missing a corner.

Author: Giacometti, Alberto.

Publisher: Paris: A. Maeght Editeur.

Format: Pair of softcover folios in loose sheets with pictorial wrappers, 38 x 28cm.

Derriere Le Miroir: Alberto Giacometti, no. 98. Second edition, 1957. Text in French by Jean Genet, 26pp inclusive of 11 lithographs (wrappers also included), one of which is a double spread. Minor tanning and stains to wrappers.

Derriere Le Miroir: Giacometti, no. 127, 1961. Text in French by Olivier Larronde, Lena Leclerq, Isaku Yanaihara, 27pp inclusive of 14 lithographs (wrappers also included), two of which are double spreads. Minor crinkles to wrappers. 

Author: Poe, Edgar Allan.

Publisher: London: George Bell & Sons. New York: The Macmillan Co.

Format: Hardcover octavo with light green cloth boards decorated in gilt and green, gilt top and rough-cut edges, illustrated endpapers, previous owner’s neat inscription in ink on flyleaf, xxxii + 225pp, illustrated frontispiece with tissue guard and numerous illustrations throughout, 21 x 14cm.

First edition thus. Printed by Chiswick Press, London as part of George Bell’s Endymion Series. Introduction by H. Noel Williams.

Contains 104 illustrations by W. Heath Robinson (English, 1872–1944) as full-page illustrations, headpieces, tailpieces or decorated titles. These early illustrations by Robinson show a gothic Art Nouveau and Romantic style not usually associated with his work.

Bumping and rubbing to corners and spine heads, foxing and fading to spine, tanning to endpapers, top hinge starting to pull away, spots of foxing throughout but plates remain bright.           

Author: Velasco Y Aguirre, Miguel.

Publisher: Madrid: Espasa-Calpe.

Format: Hardcover elephant folio, linen cloth with brown text, previous owner’s inscription in ink on flyleaf, 16pp + 288 images, 38.7 x 47.8cm.

Published as a deluxe edition to commemorate the centenary of Francisco de Goya’s (Spanish, 1746–1828) death, as sponsored by the National Centenary Committee.

Soiling and rubbing to boards, spine cocked, gutters cracked, front board pulling away from text block, minor foxing to prelim pages. Plates bright.  

Author: Campbell, Michael J.

Publisher: Bilbao: Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, Spain.

Format: Hardcover quarto with illustrated boards, quarter black cloth with white lettering to spine, 637pp, 28.2 x 24cm.

Spanish text with English translations.

This book, which is the most up-to-date reference for Martin, was produced for an exhibition held at the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum in 2006, in which the focus was on work created and engraved by John Martin, not on engravings after his images.

Bumping to corners. Near new.

Author: Revens, Lee. Huysmans, J.K.

Publisher: New York: Leon Amiel.

Format: Hardcover quarto with unclipped dust jacket, grey cloth boards with black text to spine, 286pp, 33 x 24.4cm.

Full page illustrations from the subversive, decadent, bohemian Belgian artist Félicien Rops (1833–1898).

Minor stains to dust jacket, one spot of foxing to rear endpaper. Fine.

Author: Norton, Rosaleen. Greenlees, Gavin.

Publisher: Maine: The Teitan Press.

Format: Hardcover quarto with blue illustrated dust jacket, red cloth boards with gilt text and design on cover and spine, illustrated endpapers, numbered “609” of 650 copies, xlvii + 79pp, 31.2 x 23.6cm.

Introduction by Keith Richmond. Facsimile of the 1952 first edition.

As new.          

Author: Egan, Beresford. De Shane, Brian.

Publisher: London: The Fortune Press.

Format: Hardcover quarto bound in Niger leather with gilt lettering to spine and cover, gilt upper edge, numbered “35” of 100 copies and signed by both authors in ink on title verso, 15pp text, 17 illustrations by Egan, one in colour on half-title, 30 x 23.5cm.

Printed at the Botolph Printing Works on special paper for the limited numbered and signed edition. Beresford Egan’s (1905–1984) drawings are much-inspired by Aubrey Beardsley, and he is remembered as one of the few original British exponents of Art Deco.

The Fortune Press was started by Reginald Ashley Caton, who in 1934 faced trial when ten of his books were condemned for obscene libel. The image “The Moralist”, included in this book, was part of the trial and was ordered to be removed from subsequent editions. Ref: Wiki.

Slight tanning to leather and page margins, small water stain to inner corner of first half of pages, sporadic foxing.

Author: McCrae, Hugh.

Publisher: Sydney: John Sands Ltd.

Format: Hardcover quarto, quarter vellum with gilt text and illustrated grey paper boards, rough cut edges, inscribed “W.H. Gill from W. Baldwin Spencer, Dec. 21, 1911” in ink on prelim page, numbered “64” of 130 copies and initialled by Hugh McCrae on author’s note page, 149pp, 21 plates, 30 x 22.6cm.

First edition. Frontispiece portrait of the author, and 20 full-page plates by Norman Lindsay, eight of which are tinted lithographs signed in image.

The Melbourne Herald called this volume “the most remarkable and sumptuous volume yet published in Australia”, and that the illustrations by Norman Lindsay that sit aside the poems are much in the same spirit of the poetry.

Hugh McCrae (Australian, 1876–1958) was an admired poet of his generation who “is now esteemed mostly as the poet who first offered an alternative to the balladry that had dominated Australian poetry.”

This book is inscribed to William Henry Gill, Australian ethnographer and art dealer, by Sir Walter Baldwin Spencer, the British-Australian anthropologist and photographer.

Ref: The Herald (Melbourne), 2.4.1910; Wiki; ADB.

Rubbing and bumping to paper-lost corners, scuffing and soiling to vellum, tanning to endpapers, sparse scattered foxing.       

Author: Davies, Martin.

Publisher: London: Trustees of the National Gallery.

Format: Hardcover quarto with unclipped dust jacket, black cloth boards with gilt title to spine, “Lewis & Patricia Morley” ex-libris on flyleaf, xii + 42pp, 28.6 x 21.7cm.

First edition.

Chips, scuffs and minor closed tears to edges and folds of mylar protected dust jacket, glue stains to pastedown and flyleaf.