Bloomsbury Auctions is offering up several notable modern first editions on Thursday, October 25th. Among the items offered: Graham Greene’s inscribed first edition of Lord of the Flies. That’s not quite in the same league as Lord Byron’s inscribed copy of Frankenstein, but it’s still an impressive association copy.
There are a few other SF/F/H first editions of note: A nice set of J. R. R. Tolkein’s The Lord of the Rings (all first printings, but the last a 3rd state book and 2nd state dust jacket), a signed first of Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange, Richard Adams’ Watership Down, Robert Bloch’s Psycho, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 (not stated, but Currey D binding) and Dark Carnival, an inscribed copy of Roald Dahl’s first book The Gremlins, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, Stephen King’s Carrie (signed), and several other King books, George Orwell’s Animal Farm and both cover variants of Nineteen Eighty-Four, the UK first of John Wyndham’s The Day of the Triffids (the U.S. Doubleday edition actually precedes) and Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Other notable first editions include Samuel Beckett’s first published work, Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep, Agatha Christie’s most famous novel (in its original, politically incorrect title), F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Ian Fleming’s Casino Royal (as well as the rare first-state binding of The Man With the Golden Gun, plus Hemingway’s first two books, and bunches more.
Tags: book auction, Books, first editions, George Orwell, J. R. R. Tolkien, John Wyndham, Ray Bradbury, Roald Dahl, Stephen King