Charlie Watts : Literature and Jazz Part I

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Lot 1

The Dark Frontier

Eric Ambler

  • Estimate : GBP 4,000 – GBP 6,000 
  • Price realised : GBP 8,820
  • Eric Ambler : 1909-1998
  • The Dark Frontier : London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1936.

First edition of the author’s first book in the rare dust-jacket.

 

The Dark Frontier parodies the conventional thrillers of the era and contains elements of science fiction, including a prediction of nuclear weaponry. The father of the modern thriller novel, Ambler greatly influenced the works of John Le Carré, who referred to him as 'the source on which we all draw'.

 

Octavo. Original blue cloth lettered in black to spine and upper board (minor fading); original pictorial dust-jacket, price-clipped at spine (light soiling, two short tears); custom blue quarter morocco box.

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Lot 2

Uncommon Danger

ERIC AMBLER

  • Estimate : GBP 3,000 – GBP 5,000
  • Price realised : GBP 4,032
  • Eric Ambler : 1909-1998
  • Uncommon Danger : London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1937.

Presentation copy of the first edition of Ambler’s second novel, rare in the dust-jacket. 

 

Published as Background to Danger in the USA and adapted into a film of the same name in 1943, it concerns the contested control of Romanian oil fields. Ambler 'raised the thriller from the subliterary depths, showing that the genre and good prose were not incompatible, and redeeming its conventions for more serious purposes than the usual gung ho display of macho derring-do' (Lewis).

 

Octavo. Original blue cloth lettered in black to spine and upper board (minor stains to bottom edge, small bump at centre of spine); original pictorial dust-jacket, price-clipped at spine (repair to spine panel, faintly rubbed at extremities); custom blue quarter morocco box. Provenance: Bill Stuart (authorial inscription on title).

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Lot 3

The Mask of Dimitrios

ERIC AMBLER

First edition of Ambler's finest novel and a Haycraft-Queen Cornerstone of Detective Fiction.

 

Initially published in 1942, Howard Haycraft's authoritative list of the most important and influential detective stories was extended by Ellery Queen up to 1952. Readers and collectors refer to books on this list as Haycraft-Queen Cornerstones.

 

Ambler’s finest novel, The Mask of Dimitrios was read by James Bond on his flight to Istanbul in the 1957 novel From Russia, with Love, and continues to be regarded as a masterpiece of the genre. It was published in the USA in the same year under the title A Coffin for Dimitrios.

 

Octavo. (Light spotting at beginning and end.) Original red cloth lettered in gilt to spine (edges lightly spotted); original pictorial dust-jacket with 7/6 price on inner flap (light spotting to rear panel, frayed at head of spine, folds lightly rubbed).

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Lot 4

Go Tell It On the Mountain

James Baldwin

A bright presentation copy of the first edition of Baldwin's debut book, inscribed by the author: ‘For Gene, in admiration of his perseverance, Jimmy B’.

 

Baldwin’s novel draws heavily on his personal experience growing up in Harlem, his family environment and the wider affects of the Great Migration from the South during the early 1930s. The author began writing an iteration of the book as early as 1938, first showing a complete manuscript to novelist Richard Wright in 1944. However, it wasn’t until 1952 that the book reached the offices of Alfred A. Knopf, with the publisher agreeing to release Baldwin’s work later that year. Today, Go Tell It On the Mountain is considered one of the seminal texts of African-American experience during the early 20th century.

 

Octavo. Original brick-red cloth, upper cover and spine lettered in gilt, lower cover with publisher’s device blindstamped in lower right corner, top edge stained blue (bottom edge very lightly worn, head and tail of spine lightly bruised); original pictorial dust-jacket (short tears to edges and along rear flap fold, some wear and fading to spine and minor soiling to back cover, two small dampstains); housed in modern black cloth clamshell box, spine lettered in gilt. Provenance: authorial presentation inscription to ‘Gene’.

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Lot 5

Waiting for Godot

Samuel Beckett

Beckett’s most famous work: a presentation copy of the first UK edition.

 

Inscribed copies of this edition are notably rare: we are able to trace just one in auction records. Originally published in France as En attendant Godot in 1952, Waiting for Godot would not only define the Theatre of the Absurd but it would also play a major role in Beckett being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969.

 

Octavo. With the ‘Publisher’s Note’ slip. Original yellow cloth lettered to spine in red; original photographic dust-jacket priced at 9s. 6d. (trivial rubbing to extremities); custom black quarter morocco box. Provenance: Michael Curtis (authorial inscription on the title, ‘for Michael Curtis Samuel Beckett London June 1979’).