Three ultra-rare Westerns: but does anyone care?

The three books featured below are all British editions of American Western novels. They all have cracking covers, and they are all, as far as I can ascertain, *fantastically* rare.

I can't find any other copies of any of them for sale anywhere in the world.

I don't just mean copies that still have dust jackets, but any copies, at all. In these internet days, that's still a rare happenstance. A sort of secondhand book googlewhack. And here are three at once. But will anyone care? I guess we'll find out, as I've just put them on eBay...

The listing is HERE. And no, I don't expect to get the full asking price, or anywhere near it, probably. But you can make me an offer...

A T. E. Lawrence Bookshelf

A T. E. Lawrence (of Arabia, for the uninitiated) email list I subscribe to recently ran a link to a photo of a shelf of Lawrence-related books in a secondhand bookshop in Portland, Oregon. The moderator of the list mentioned that he'd be delighted if other dealers did the same, so I'm happy to oblige.

Withnail Books has a fair selection of Lawrence-related titles (mainly thanks to my own collection getting somewhat out of control). Some are medium rare, some not so rare, but currently none of the books in these photos are listed for sale online. If anyone spots something they're after, feel free to drop me a line at withnailbooks@btinternet.com, and I'll get back to you with a price and some more photos.

Lawrence of Arabia: A newly discovered photograph

It's not every day that a previously unpublished photo of T E Lawrence comes to light; in fact in the decade or more I've been collecting Lawrenciana, I can't remember any turning up (well, apart from one on eBay which turned out not to be him, a fact I know for sure because it was me who bought it and researched it to the extent that I could confirm it wasn't... but that's a story for another day).

Bonhams have this one going under the hammer next week...

From the catalogue:

*****

Photograph album belonging to an airman with No. 1 Squadron of the Australian Flying Corps, serving in the Palestine Campaign during the latter part of the Great War, comprising 24 photographs, the majority taken while stationed with his squadron in November and December 1917 at Gaza and Akaba (Aqaba), including a snapshot of "Major Lawrence, C.B./ Akaba. Dec. '17"; "My D.H.2 67/ Sq. 'Drome 25/11/17. Just previous to 1st scrap"; and "Dead Sea/ '67 Squadron Martinsyde with Guy & Self in B.F. on Bomb Raid. 21/11/17"; other photographs of the album owner's former "Vickers Bullet" (i.e. Vickers F.B.19) at Bela ("My old 'bus"), a SE.5a and Bristol Monoplane (M.1C) of No. 111 Squadron at Belah, Bristol Scouts at Aboukir, etc.,mounted in a small photograph album, minor foxing etc., but overall in good condition, average size of photographs 550 x 1000mm., grey cloth, oblong 8vo, Palestine, Hejaz and Egypt, late 1917

Estimate:

£1,000 - 1,500
€1,200 - 1,700
US$ 1,500 - 2,300

Footnotes

• A PHOTOGRAPH OF LAWRENCE AT THE HEIGHT OF THE ARAB REVOLT, showing him standing full-length, dressed in Arab robes and wearing his famous gold Meccan dagger (acquired by him that July). This photograph – which we believe to be hitherto unknown and was presumably taken by the anonymous owner of the album – shows Lawrence at a turning point of his life, having established his reputation and that of the Arab Revolt with the capture of Akaba the previous June; while at the same time having escaped from Turkish torture and custody at Deraa only a few weeks earlier in late November (an episode of course subject to much dispute). He had been appointed Commander of the Bath for his secret reconnaissance expedition into northern Syria that summer. In early December he accompanied Allenby's troops on their triumphal entry into Jerusalem, but was in Akaba in both early and late December (on the third, twenty-fifth and twenty-eighth); his movements being summarised in a letter to his family from Cairo on 14 December 1917: 'Well here I am in Cairo again, for two nights, coming from Akaba via Jerusalem. I was in fortune, getting to Jerusalem just in time for the official entry of General Allenby... I wrote to you last from Azrak, about the time we blew up Jemal Pasha, and let him slip away from us. After that I stayed for ten days or so there, and then rode down to Akaba in 3 days: good going, tell Arnie: none of his old horses would do so much as my old camel. At Akaba I had a few days motoring, prospecting the hills and valleys for a way Eastward for our cars: and then came up to H.Q. to see the authorities and learn the news-to-be. Tomorrow I go off again to Akaba, for a run towards Jauf, if you know where that is".
  
  It is evident that the owner of the this album served with No. 67 Squadron of the Royal Flying Corps: this was, properly speaking, No. 1 Squadron AFC (Australian Flying Corps) but between March 1916 and February 1918 was renamed by the British authorities as No. 67 Squadron RFC, to avoid confusion with No. 1 Squadron RFC. It is the ancestor of No. 1 Squadron of the Royal Australian Air Force and was under the command of Major Richard Williams, 'father' of the RAAF. Other photographs show aircraft from No. 111 Squadron RFC, with which (on the evidence that he flew a Vickers F.B.19) the album's owner may have also served. This squadron had been formed in Palestine in August 1917 and early in 1918 was to hand over some of its planes to the No. 1 Squadron.
• 
  

*****

Fascinating stuff. Though I did email them to point out that they probably didn't mean to say that average size of the photos was a metre high...

I would dearly love to own this photo (and publish a limited edition book all about it), but something tells me it's going to go for a lot more than the upper end of that estimate.

... and here's another newly discovered photo of Lawrence...

UPDATE: The photo at Bonhams sold for £4000, including the Buyer's 20% premium, but not including the 20% VAT on top of that, so that's basically a five grand picture. I wonder if it will ever be seen or heard of again...

Is this one of the rarest dust jackets in the world?
Saki, Beasts and Super-Beasts, in DJ

I've been on holiday, hence the lack of posts recently, but before resuming normal service, here's a post about a book that is NOT for sale. I can't sell it, because I don't own it, but believe you me, if I did own it, I'd never sell it. I missed out on buying this particular copy by a matter of hours, and it's entirely possible I'll never see its like again.

Suffice to say that I'm a very big fan (and collector) of the work of Hector Hugh Munro, the author better known as Saki. If you're unfamiliar with him, his Wikipedia entry will bring you properly up to speed, but the brief version is that he wrote brilliant, funny and shocking short stories, often about genteel Edwardian society colliding with the unexpected and the supernatural, which are at their best as good as anything Oscar Wilde and PG Wodehouse ever wrote, and have influenced everyone from Noel Coward and The Goons to The Mighty Boosh. He's never gone out of print, and his collected works fit handily into one volume. (There's also a rather nice little book of uncollected pieces too.) He's out of copyright, so if you want to sample his work online, try this, or this, or this. He's well worth discovering.

Anyway, I collect Saki. Alas, when it comes to him, I'm the kind of collector who has long since passed the stage of simply getting first editions of a writer's books. I have entered the dangerous twilight world of acquiring 'interesting' editions, association copies, and - the really lethal area - first edition copies that are 'better' than the ones I already have. So, I have an alert set up on ABEbooks for any new Saki firsts that are listed. One morning a little while back I opened my emails to find an alert for a Bodley Head first edition of Saki's short story collection Beasts and Super-Beasts. An American dealer had listed it for a reasonable price, but what's this? Complete with pictorial dust jacket?

In nearly 20 years of collecting, I had never even heard of this edition of the book having a dust jacket, let alone seen a copy with one for sale. This dust jacket is, yes folks, 'unknown to bibliographers'.

I clicked through to buy it, pronto, but of course it had already gone. I evidently wasn't the only person who knew quite how rare this was. There was no visual with the listing, but I really wanted to see this jacket. I emailed the dealer, who was kind enough to send me some photos. So here, for what I think must be the first time on the Internet (and with the permission of the lucky purchaser), is the dust jacket for the Bodley Head edition of Saki's Beasts and Super-Beasts.

A cheeky looking society gent with a monocle, apparently in conversation with a wolf. Perfect.

Beasts and Super-Beasts was first published in 1914, by The Bodley Head, but this copy (or at least, this dust jacket) must be from a later printing, as the back includes an advertisement for the 1919 posthumous Saki collection, The Toys of Peace. Perhaps the first printing in 1914 did not have a dustjacket (there was a war on, or about to start) and a jacket was added to a later, post war impression, when The Toys of Peace came out, a book which had its own pictorial jacket (also vanishingly rare, but I did know of its existence, and there are a couple of copies on ABE, for a hefty price):

So there you go. For someone like me, that counts as exciting stuff.

Not for sale promotional books for Hotels No.2:

Say Hello to Sally For Me

After last time's Icons At The Pump Room, as promised here's another not for sale promotional book produced for an hotel: Say Hello To Sally For Me, by Lynda Berry. It's a beautifully produced little volume, with a full cloth binding, debossed front board, and ribbon marker. It's got no ISBN, and was never offered for sale in shops. It's a very rare book. As I write, there are no copies of it on ABE at all, and none on eBay (other than this one). So what's it about? Who's Sally?

As a child, Sally Bulloch appeared in the film Pure Hell At St Trinians (she set fire to the school). That was pretty much it for her acting career, though you've probably heard of her brother Jeremy, who starred with Cliff Richard in Summer Holiday, and later played the iconic Star Wars bounty hunter Boba Fett... Later in the 1960s Sally was nanny to Peter Cook's children, and regularly sat around the Cook dinner table with the likes of Peter Ustinov, John Lennon and Alan Bennett. After a few years living in Malta she returned to London and worked in the hospitality business, spending most of her life at The Athenaeum in Mayfair, eventually rising to General Manger. She was evidently a force of nature, and was a friend and confidante of the great and good who stayed at the hotel, which became known as the 'Tinseltown on the Thames'. Nothing was too much trouble; her motto was 'the answer is always yes'. Mr Spielberg wants an edit suite installed in his, er, suite? No problem. Mr and Mrs Thatcher are having work done on their house, and want to come and stay for three months? Fine, we'll employ a personal butler for them. Stacy Keach has been arrested for possession of cocaine? Oh dear. Would you like us to retain the services of a solicitor for him? Nelson Mandela once found her so enchanting that he left an entire motorcade idling in the street so he could spend a bit more time with her. Take That announced their split from the Penthouse Suite of the hotel. Sally spent the day trying to talk them out of it.

Here's how her friend and regular guest Richard Dreyfuss describes her in the book:

"Sally was a dame and to an American that means Cole Porter. It means chairs are up on the table because the waiters want to go home. It means there are four guys, two of them from the band and she's still there with them, drinking whisky, smoking cigarettes and having a fabulous time. Two of the guys at the table are probably billionaires and two of them are poorer than church mice, one of them is black and she's probably going to go home with two of them. And that's Sally! She's a dame. She was my dame."

This hugely entertaining book is full of quotes and anecdotes like this. Here's another couple of my favourites:

Tova Borgnine (wife of actor Ernest):

"Some friends had a reception for Bill Clinton and I asked if I could invite Sally. I remember standing with her at the door and when Clinton came in she said, "I've been an admirer for years, how lovely to meet you, I want to read your palm..." and he said, "Do you read palms?" and so they went off to another room, but that was Sally.

When they came back he wanted more... I mean she'd nailed him... she never repeated what went on in that room or their conversation. And I didn't ask, she was always the soul of discretion, always. She would have made a great spy."

Facing up to Russell Crowe:

'When Sally asked the chambermaids how they were getting on with Mr Crowe, they said he was charming, but making up his room was nearly impossible, as it was so untidy.

That evening Sally positioned herself in her usual seat at the bar, with an excellent view of the lobby and waited for him to come in. She called him over and in total English nanny mode said, "Now Mr. Crowe..." and then suggested he was making life difficult for her staff.

Admonished, he immediately went up to tidy his room and needless to say they then spent the rest of the evening together in the bar.'

Here she is, on a magazine cover reproduced in the book:

She was obviously quite a character, but sadly Sally died, aged only 59, in 2008. This book, written by her friend and 'accomplice' Lynda Barry as a tribute to her, was published in 2010, and as far as I can tell copies were left, like a Gideon's Bible, in the rooms at the Athenaeum for guests to find. There were probably only a few hundred printed. It's a fun book, about a fun person, and deserves to be more widely known, say I.