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Bangkok Rare Books, Travel First Editions, Rare Maps |
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Welcome to Bangkok Rare Books web site, We hope you find your visit here with us a pleasing and enjoyable experience, We stock travel first editions and history rare books plus a wide range of modern First Editions and illustrated books to choose from, featuring famous illustrators such as Arthur Rackham, Edmund Dulac, Willy Pogany, Rene Bull, Virginia Sterrett, Mabel Lucie Attwell, you can also find beautiful Thai Cigarette Cards here with us, including Battles of the Ramayana, Thai Dancers & Phra Aphai Manee, if you need further information on any item
please feel
free to email us.
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Modern First Editions |
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History & Travel |
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Illustrated Rare Books |
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New Arrivals ! First Editions. Antiquarian & Collectable, by Bangkok Rare Books |
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Robert van Gulik. The Chinese Maze Murders, The Chinese Bell Murders First Editions. |
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Recommended books! by Bangkok Rare Books. First Editions. Antiquarian & Collectable. |
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Collectable First Editions of Ian Fleming. |
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Graham Greene First Editions The Man Within, Brighton Rock. |
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Bangkok Rare Books. |
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Whether your a collector or just looking for a gift idea our web site is designed to give you
a wide and varied choice of beautifully bound books in genuine goatskin or fine calf leather
making a perfect gift for any occasion, also First editions from famous authors i.e.. Charles Dickens,
Roald Dahl, Graham Greene, Ernest Hemingway, Oscar Wilde, Thomas Hardy, Ian Fleming,
Sax Rohmer etc., or handsome leather bound 16th, 17th & 18th century
rare books on history, travel, plus Rackham, & Edmund Dulac
illustrated rare books.
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Rare Maps Asia |
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The Old Man and the Sea |
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A Moveable Feast |
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Across the River |
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Hemingway, Ernest. The Old Man and the Sea
Published: Jonathan Cape. London 1952
Edition: First U. K. Edition.
Binding: Original pictorial stamped blue cloth with dust jacket.
Price: U.S.$425
 FREE shipping by Registered Airmail Post.
8vo., First U. K. Edition, original blue cloth stamped in red, in its pictorial dust wrapper (not price-clipped), wrapper rubbed and chipped at corners and edges and a one inch tear to upper cover, pp. 127, contents clean, a good firm copy.
*Gregorio Fuentes, the weather beaten captain of US novelist Ernest Hemingway's boat in Cuba and inspiration for The Old Man and the Sea, died at the ripe old age of 104 in the fishing village of Cojimar.
Born on July 11th, 1897, Fuentes became captain of Hemingway's boat Pilar at the end of the 1930s when the US author lived on the Caribbean island.
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Hemingway, Ernest.
A Moveable Feast.
Published: Jonathan Cape. London 1964
Edition: First U. K. Edition.
Binding: Original maroon cloth with dust jacket.
Price: U.S.$395
FREE shipping by Registered Airmail Post.
8vo., First English Edition, original maroon cloth in its colourful price-clipped dust wrapper, with a few small chips to corners & edges, bookplate on front paste-down, pp.192, a clean, bright and very good copy.
'If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.' (Ernest Hemingway to a friend, 1950)
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Hemingway, Ernest. Across The River and Into The Trees
Published: Jonathan Cape. London 1950
Edition: First U. K. Edition.
Binding: Lime Green Cloth. Dust Jacket.
Price: U.S.$425
FREE shipping by Registered Airmail Post.
8vo., First U. K. Edition, original lime green cloth with centre red motif, in its pictorial dust wrapper ( not price-clipped), rubbed and chipped at corners and edges, previous owner's name and date (1950) on front free endpaper, pp. 254, contents clean and fresh, apart from wear to dust Jacket, a very good copy.
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Conan Doyle The Hound of the Baskervilles, Sir John Bowring Siam, Rene Bull The Russian Ballet. |
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Doyle, Arthur Conan. The Hound of the Baskervilles another Adventure of Sherlock Holmes.
Published: London Georges Newnes, Limited 1902
Edition: First Edition First Issue
Binding: Red Cloth decorated in black & gilt
Price: U.S.$1,450
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8vo., First Edition First Issue, with ÿou" for ÿour" on page 13, original red cloth decorated in gilt & black after a design by Alfred Garth Jones, spine gilt, pp. 359, illustrated by Sidney Paget with 16 full page plates including frontispiece plate, original front free endpaper re-attached (or new endpaper?), binding rubbed and worn and spine a trifle faded, an occasional mark and very light random spotting, a good copy of this classic.
First edition in book form. The title first appeared in serial format in Strand magazine in 1901-2 and remains the best known of the ever-popular Sherlock Holmes series. The novel appeared after Doyle had killed off his hero in an epic struggle with between Holmes and his bitter foe Moriarty, but a public out-cry ensued and The hound of Baskervilles appeared (with the sub-title "another adventure of Sherlock Holmes" to create the illusion that the story was from an earlier date) and was met with unprecedented success. Bauman:
The Hound of the Baskervilles "was based on an idea given to [Doyle] by Bertram Fletcher Robinson, who was a nephew of Sir John Robinson and a correspondent for the Daily Express during the Boer War. The two men struck up a friendship when travelling back on the same ship from Cape Town. They spent four days together on a golfing holiday at Cromer in March 1901, and it was then that Robinson mentioned the legend (possibly of the Black Hound of Hergest associated with the Vaughan family of Hergest Court in Herefordshire). Doyle told his mother: ‘Fletcher Robinson came here with me and we are going to do a small book together "The Hound of the Baskervilles"—a real creeper’ The serial publication was an unprecedented success. It was the only occasion in the magazine’s history that a seventh printing was needed to meet the demand, and the queues at the publisher’s offices and throughout the country were extraordinary" (Green and Gibson, p. 130).Green and Gibson A26a.
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Denslow, W. W. Denslow's Scarecrow and the Tin-Man
Published: G. W. Dillingham Co. Publishers New York. August 1904
Edition: First Edition first state (printed on pebbled paper).
Binding: Original stiff paper wrappers.
Price: U.S.$425
This price includes shipping by Registered Airmail Post.
  
Large 4to., First Edition, first state (printed on pebbled paper). original stiff paper wrappers, with ads on back cover, spine and top edge of front cover lightly rubbed, small ink stain in outer margin of front cover, not affecting image, ink signature, 12 unnumbered pages with 5 full page colour illustrations and numerous text illustrations by Denslow. A very good copy. Rare.
As illustrator and co-owner of the copyright of the first Oz books, William W. Denslow felt within his rights to write his own books using the Oz characters. This is one of two such works.
Denslow's Scarecrow and the Tin-Man is about those two characters as actors in a musical extravaganza rather than as residents of Oz..
Greene and Hanff, p. 125
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Costello, Louisa Stuart. The Rose Garden of Persia
Published: London: Longman, Brown, Green, & Longmans. 1845
Edition: First Edition.
Binding: Red morocco gilt tooled fine binding by Hayday.
Price: U.S.$575
FREE shipping by Registered Airmail Post.
  
8vo., First Edition, sumptuously bound by Hayday in crimson morocco gilt tooled on upper and lower covers with a flower pattern & gilt linear borders, spine gilt, inner gilt dentelles, all edges gilt, light wear to corners & edges, wear to joints with small splits, blue endpapers decorated with gold stars, illustrated with 12 plates in colour and gold done in an Arabic style, every page with red borders in different designs, pp. xii + 193, creases to front free endpaper and soiling to title page, light spotting and browning mainly to first and last few pages, inscription dated 1850 on front free endpaper on a plain paper mounted label, a very good copy in a exquisite binding.
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Johnson, A. E. The Russian Ballet with illustrations by Rene Bull
Published: Houghton Mifflin Company Boston & New York. 1913
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Rebound
Price: U.S.$550
FREE shipping by Registered Airmail Post.
    
4to, First Edition, Sometime rebound in white cloth, the title and Russian coat of arms cut from original binding and mounted on upper cover and spine, new endpapers, top edge gilt, pp. 240, illustrated by Rene Bull with 12 full page colour plates including tissue guarded frontispiece plate, plus colour vignette chapter headings, full page black & white plates and numerous text illustrations, title page in red & black, 3 colour silk page ribbons, the whole on thicker quality art paper, a few small marks to covers, name and date(1920) on front free endpaper, 1 or 2 finger marks otherwise contents crisp bright and clean, a very good copy.
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Bowring,Sir John. The Kingdom and People of Siam; with a narrative of the mission to that country in 1855
Published: London: John W. Parker & Son. 1857
Edition: First Edition.
Binding: Original blind stamped green cloth.
Price: U.S.$2,150
FREE shipping by Registered Airmail Post.
   
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8vo.,(220 x 143mm), 2 volumes, First Edition, original blind stamped green cloth, gilt lettered spines, rubbed and worn, chipped at head and tail of spines with small loss, splits along joints but mainly to surface cloth, brown endpapers, small bookplate on front paste-downs of previous owner, half titles, titles with lithographic copies of royal seals printed in red as vignettes, 2 folding lithographic facsimile letters (one by King Mongkut) on three leaves, folding engraved map, 2 portrait frontispieces (one chromolithographed of King Mongkut, the other of Sir John Bowring lithographed on India paper), 14 plates (7 chromolithographed, 6 steel-engraved and one folding lithograph), tissue guards to all plates, internally very clean with no spotting, apart from wear to bindings, a very good copy of this superb work.
[Cordier 736, 977-979: Satow 130.]
Sir John Bowring, KCB (Chinese translated name: 寶寧,寶靈 or 包令) (17 October 1792 – 23 November 1872) was an English political economist, traveller, miscellaneous writer, polyglot, and the 4th Governor of Hong Kong.
Bowring ranked with Giuseppe Caspar Mezzofanti and Hans Conon von der Gabelentz among the world's greatest hyperpolyglots — his talent enabling him at last to say that he knew 200 languages, and could speak 100. The first fruits of his study of foreign literature appeared in Specimens of the Russian Poets (1821–1823). These were followed by Batavian Anthology (1824), Ancient Poetry and Romances of Spain (1824), Specimens of the Polish Poets, and Serbian Popular Poetry, both in 1827, and Poetry of the Magyars (1830).
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Map: Blaeu, Willem. India Quae Orientalis dicitur, et Insulae Adiacentes, map of South East Asia, showing India and Japan in the North, and New Guinea and partial sections of the coast of Australia in the South, with rhum lines, cartouches for the title, dedication and scale.
Hand-coloured engraving, 410 x 495mm, central vertical fold, Latin text on verso, minor surface wear. Amsterdam c. 1662
A quality map in very good condition.
Price: U.S.$1,995
FREE shipping by Registered Airmail Post.
 
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Besso, Salvatore. Siam and China.
Published: London: Simpkin, Marshall Hamilton, Kent & Co. Ltd. [1914]
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Blind stamped and lettered black cloth with mounted plate.
Price: U.S.$675.00
FREE shipping by Registered Airmail Post.
    
4to., First Edition, original blind-stamped black cloth with a mounted black & white plate, spine gilt lettered, binding rubbed at corners and edges, with a half inch split to cloth on upper joint, half title, illustrated with a vignette title page, frontispiece and 69 plates, pp. xx + 287, a very good copy of a hard to find title on Siam.
Salvatore Besso: A special correspondent for the Italian Tribuna newspaper, he interviewed The Prince of Siam at Bangkok, Yuan-Shi-Kai at Peking, and Sun-Yat-Sen in Nanking.
  
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Bangkok's criss-crossing network of Khlongs (canals) opens doors to another world not commonly seen by tourists. In the late 19th century, a young Italian nobleman named Salvatore Besso, so taken with their ramshackle beauty and life-affirming bustle, likened Bangkok's Khlongs with those in Venice.
The 'Venice of the East' nickname in fact predate Besso's scribblings by hundreds of years. However, though it is unclear when exactly the phrase was born, it is clear that no tourist guide since (book, person or website) has been able to resist this captivating cliche. Like Burma's 'Mandalay', it evokes the romance of the Orient, only Bangkok-style: of languid sampans drifting down tree-lined canals, of stoic locals living next to them in floating wooden shophouses, of city life before the advent of tuk-tuks and traffic jams.
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Vincent, Frank, Jun. The Land of the White Elephant, Sights and Scenes in South-Eastern Asia. A Personal Narrative of Travel and Adventure in Farther India embracing the countries of Burma, Siam, Cambodia, and Cochin-China (1871-2) with maps plans and numerous illustrations.
Published: New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers. 1874
Binding: Original gilt tooled blue cloth
Edition: First U.S. Edition
Price: U.S.$875
This price includes shipping by Registered Airmail Post.
    
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8vo., First U.S. Edition, original gilt tooled and lettered blue cloth, worn at corners and edges with three inch extra wear to lower fore-edge, spine gilt, brown endpapers, pp. xix + 316 & 4 pages of publisher's adverts, illustrated with a frontispiece plate and 33 full page engravings, ( 1 folding ), 23 smaller plates within text, and 3 maps ( 1 colour folding ), very small nic to top edges of folding map through to page 6, contents clean and bright, apart from edges wear to binding, a very good copy indeed of the 1st U.S. edition which has one more full page plate than the London 1873 First edition.
Frank Vincent (1848-1916)
Was a notable 19th century American travel writer. This account of his journeys in South East Asia in 1871-1872 is apparently the first description of the fabulous Khmer temple complex of Angkor Wat by an American. The temple complex had only been popularized a decade earlier by the French explorer Henri Mauhot. starting in Burma, he provides an account of his visit to Rangoon, the manners and customs of the Burmese, his trip up the Irrawaddy River to the old capital of Pagan and Mandalay, an audience with the King of Ava, and his white elephant and royal barges. From Burma, he traveled overland through Shan and Lao populated areas of Northern Siam to Bangkok, and thence south along the peninsula to Malacca and Singapore. Returning north to Cambodia, he visited Angkor and the great temple complex, had an audience with the King of Cambodia in Phnom Penh, and finished in Saigon in the French Indo chinese province of Cochin ( now Southern Vietnam).
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Bible. The New Testament of Our Lord and Saviour JESUS CHRIST, newly translated out of the original Greek and with the former translations diligently compared and revised. By His Majesties Special Command. Appointed to be read in Churches.
Published: London, Printed by John Baskett....1719
Edition: Not in Bibliotheca Sussexiana, not in Stevens.
Binding: Contemporary full gilt tooled calf
Price: U.S.$975
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8vo., Full contemporary calf binding with gilt linear & patterned borders with corner devises, centre oval shape with gilt tooled outer border surrounding green morocco tooled with gilt cherubs, center gilt JTS on a black morocco background, repeated on lower cover, spine elaborately gilt tooled in compartments with 5 raised bands, binding rubbed and worn at corners & edges, with slight loss to head and tail of spine, some surface wear, small split showing along joints but binding firm, all edges gilt, marbled endpapers, engraved book plate on front past-down, general age browning, profusely illustrated with 35 full page engraved plates each with text description, one plate repaired, a good firm copy of a very rare Bible/New Testament unique with so many engravings.
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Leonowens, Anna Harriette. The English Governess at the Siamese Court, being Recollections of Six Years in the Royal Palace at Bangkok. With illustrations from photographs presented to the author by The King of Siam.
Published: Fields, Osgood & Co., Boston. 1870
Edition: True First Edition
Binding: Original gilt tooled brown cloth.
Price: U.S.$750
FREE shipping by Registered Airmail Post
 
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8vo., True First Edition with the spine imprint of Fields, Osgood*, original brown cloth the upper cover and spine blocked in gilt, bevelled edges, rubbed at corners and edges and light surface wear, pp. x + 4 page facsimile letter + 321, illustrated with 16 full page plates including a tissue guarded frontispiece, pencil name on front paste-down, front brown endpapers sometime re glued at join, a very good copy of the True First Edition.
*With the retirement of James T. Fields at the end of 1870, later copies had the spine imprint of James R. Osgood.
The story of Anna Harriette Leonowens who taught the royal children, wives and slaves of the Siamese King Mongkut, has become well known from the Broadway musical which was based on it, The King and I. In fact Mrs. Leonowen's veracity has been regularly impugned by scholars. Even so, As one of the first westerners to write about Siam, and as one in unique contact with the king at a critical juncture in the country's history, Leonowens is remembered for having created an enduring if inaccurate image of Siam in the eyes of the West. (Oxford DNB).
(Cordier, 738 stating only the U. K First Edition made up from the sheets of the First U.S. Edition).
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  Budge, E. A. Wallis. Osiris and The Egyptian Resurrection
Published: London: Philip Lee Warner. 1911
Edition: First Edition.
Binding: Gilt Tooled Red Cloth
Price: U.S.$975
FREE shipping by Registered Airmail Post.
  
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Royal 8vo., 2 Volumes, First Edition, original red cloth, gilt lettered with central embossed gilt panel, spines gilt tooled, top edge gilt, pp. xxxv + 404, viii + 440, profusely illustrated with large folding colour frontispiece plates, plus 100's of full page plates and text drawing, many plates folding, small stain to page 1, volume 1, bookplate on paste-downs, a very good set.
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Smyth, H. Warington. Five Years in Siam From 1891 to 1896 with maps and illustrations by the author.
Published: New York Charles Scribner's Sons. 1898
Edition: First Edition.
Binding: Original light blue cloth, upper covers blocked in gilt and colours.
Price: U.S.$1,800
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8vo., (206 x 135mm), First Edition, 2 volumes, original light blue cloth, upper covers blocked in gilt and colours, spines lettered in gilt, slight rubbing to corners and edges, half titles, tissue guarded frontispieces, 13 plates, 7 maps (4 coloured and folding), small tears to folding colour maps and some folds & margin of one page re-enforced with tape, Vol. 1 pp. (16) + 330 & 6 pages of publisher's adverts, Vol.2 pp. (9) + 337 & 2 pages of publisher's adverts, ex-library copy with library plate on spines, bookplate on front paste-downs, stamps on Maps and a few pages, contents clean and crisp, binding clean and bright, apart from library stamps and a few small tears to maps, a very good copy very hard to find with such a clean and bright binding.
   
*The author was the director of the Department of Mines in Siam.
[Cordier 906]
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Churchill, Winston. My African Journey
Published: Hodder and Stoughton London. 1908
Edition: First Edition and only printing.
Binding: Original pictorially decorated red cloth.
Price: U.S.$625
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8vo., First Edition, original pictorial red cloth, spine gilt lettered, but faded & marked, damp staining to binding mainly to top edge of lower cover and spine, but also a touch to top edge of upper cover, pp. xiii + 226 and 16 pages of publisher's averts, illustrated with 61 plates including a tissue guarded frontispiece plate, plus 3 maps, random light spotting, previous 2 owners names on front free endpaper, some fraying and small tears to margins only of plates, a good complete copy.
The 61 photographs were tipped in rather than bound, so copies should always be carefully checked to ensure the presence of all illustrations and maps.
This book is Churchill's travelogue on Britain's possessions in East Africa, written while he was serving Undersecretary of State for the Colonies. It is notable, among other things, for being the only one of his many books to contain photographs allegedly taken by the author. This first and only printing is a striking edition, with a vivid red binding and a pictorial front cover bearing a woodcut illustration of Churchill with his bagged white rhinoceros depicted in blue, grey, and black.
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Churchill, Winston. London to Ladysmith via Pretoria.
Published: Longmans, Green, and Co. London. 1900
Edition: First Edition.
Binding: Original black stamped beige cloth, lettered in red & black.
Price: U.S.$475
FREE shipping by Registered Airmail Post.
  
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8vo., First Edition, Original beige cloth, black stamped illustration and lettering to front cover, red lettering to front cover and spine, gilt illustration and lettering to spine, light surface wear and soiling, & minimal rubbing to corners and edges, book measures approximately 8 by 5 inches, black endpapers, pp. xiv + 498 & 32 pages of publisher's adverts, half title, illustrated with 4 maps (1 color fold-out map, 2 other fold-out maps), and 4 plans, small tear to join of 1 map, fraying to margins of map ends, mostly firmly bound volume with spine a trifle 'u' shaped, front inner hinge cracked at top & bottom, some modest foxing throughout, a good firm copy of an early title.
Personal record of Churchill's impressions during the first five months of the First Boer War, including the story of Churchill's capture and escape from the Boers. Dedicated to the staff of the Natal Government Railway.
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