Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Thomas Burke. THE BLOOMSBURY WONDER. The Mandrake Press, 41 Museum Street, W.C.1., London, 1929.
Price: US$82.81 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: First impression of the true first edition, published in The Mandrake Booklets series. ***Very good in mock snake-skin covered boards with black cloth-covered spine. Paper label to the spine. The boards are clean and unmarked, and would be near fine except for some loss of the thin cloth covering along the margins of the spine and boards. No bumps. No creases. Internally near fine, with clean pages. No foxing. No inscriptions. Spine tight. ***In a very good printed dustwrapper, showing the original publisher's price of 3s. 6d. on the front panel. The dustwrapper is complete, but quite marked from age and handling. Very slight creasing and edge wear. Spine of dustwrapper darkened. With a list of the published Mandrake Booklets on the rear flap. 158mm x 118mm. 103 pages. ***'The Mandrake Press was a British small press founded by Edward Goldston and P. R. Stephensen in 1929. In 1930 the company had financial problems and a consortium led by Aleister Crowley formed Mandrake Press Ltd. The consortium was likewise unsuccessful and the company was dissolved in 1930. andrake Press published over 30 items, including D. H. Lawrence, The Paintings of D H Lawrence together with works by Liam O'Flaherty, Rhys Davies, Giovanni Boccaccio, Peter Warlock under the pseudonym Rab Noolas, S. S. Koteliansky, Aleister Crowley, Thomas Burke, Cecil Roth, Beresford Egan, W. J. Turner, Brinsley MacNamara, Edgell Rickword, Richard Barham Middleton, V. V. Rozanov, Philip Owens, Vernon Knowles, and others.' [Wiki] ***First impression of the true first edition, produced in attractive boards, in nice condition, and complete in its fragile 1929 dustwrapper. Of interest to collectors of The Mandrake Press titles. ***For all our books, postage is charged at cost, allowing for packaging: any shipping rates indicated on ABE are an average only: we will reduce the P & P charge where appropriate - please contact us for postal rates for heavier books and sets etc.
Seller: Orlando Booksellers, Lincoln, United Kingdom
Lawrence, D. H.. The Paintings of D. H. Lawrence. Mandrake Press, London, 1929.
Price: US$310.00 + shipping
Condition: Near Fine
Description: Green boards with eagle emblem in gilt on cover. Unpag [33]+Plate,illus,color Printed for the Mandrake Press Limited to 510 copies Number 228 on Arches mouldmade paper Prospectus laid in with illustration of "Finding of Moses"
Seller: Samuel Lasenby Bookseller, Corona del Mar, CA, U.S.A.
LAWRENCE D.H.. The Paintings of D.H. Lawrence.. , 1929.
Price: US$561.66 + shipping
Description: London: Privately printed at The Mandrake Press 1929. Folio. Orig. half leather with green cloth boards and gilt crest to front cover. T.e.g. other edges uncut. 148pp. With title-vignette and 26 full-page coloured plates. 1st ed. Limited to 510 copies this one not numbered and out-of-series. Typography and production arranged by P.R. Stephensen; and printed on Arches mould-made paper. Uncut. Robert A46. Inscription on front fly-leaf otherwise fine and complete.
Seller: Berkelouw Rare Books, Berrima, NSW, Australia
LAWRENCE, D.H. The Paintings of D.H. Lawrence. London Mandrake Press 1929, 1929.
Price: US$650.00 + shipping
Description: First Edition. One of 500 numbered copies on Arches mouldmade paper. Original three-quarter morocco and green gilt-stamped cloth. A litte rubbing at spine else a fine tight copy. The book has a long essay on art and painting by Lawrence and illustrations in full color of 15 oil paintings by Lawrence and 11 of his watercolors. Handsome and attractive folio size volume.
Seller: James Pepper Rare Books, Inc., ABAA, Santa Barbara, CA, U.S.A.
Lawrence. D. H.. The Paintings of D.H. Lawrence. London: Mandrake Press, 1929.
Price: US$650.00 + shipping
Condition: Near Fine
Description: First Edition. 10 7/8 in. x 14 in. Not paginated. No. 416 of only 500 copies of the first book of the Mandrake Press on Arches mouldmade paper. Original three-quarter morocco leather spine and corner-pieces, and green cloth. Gilt titling on spine and gilt phoenix design on both covers. There is a dark green cloth strip of tape on both inner hinges. Top edge gilt, other edges rough cut. There is an essay on art and painting by Lawrence and illustrations in full color of 15 oil paintings by Lawrence and 11 of his watercolors. There are also 2 woodcuts. The slipcase in dark green textured cloth. A few pages have brown-spotting in the margins. Light fading to titling. Weight is 5.5 lbs. Postage may be extra.
Seller: Peter Keisogloff Rare Books, Inc., Brecksville, OH, U.S.A.
LAWRENCE, D.H.. The Paintings of D.H. Lawrence. Mandrake, London, 1929.
Price: US$700.00 + shipping
Description: Illustrated with 26 full-page color plates, reproducing Lawrence's oil and watercolor paintings. Thin folio, original 3/4 brown pebbled morocco over gilt-stamped green cloth (just slightly rubbed at edges); uncut edges, t.e.g. London: Mandrake Press, [1929]. A near fine copy in the original mailing box. Limited edition. Number 290 of 510 copies on Arches mouldmade paper, printed only for subscribers.
Seller: Argosy Book Store, ABAA, ILAB, New York, NY, U.S.A.
LAWRENCE, D. H.. The Paintings.. London: The Mandrake Press, 1929, 1929.
Price: US$955.53 + shipping
Description: First edition, number 328 of 510 copies. The handsome publication reproduces Lawrence's colour paintings, and is prefaced with a 33-page introduction by Lawrence. "Perhaps less is known of Lawrence's work as a painter than of any other facet of his creative activity. Most of the paintings reproduced in this volume were done in Italy at the Villa Mirenda in 1928, although some were painted in Switzerland and other places to which the Lawrences journeyed during the period" (Roberts & Poplawski). Robert & Poplawski A46. Quarto. Original dark brown hard-grain half morocco, gilt lettered spine, green cloth sides with Lawrence's phoenix device stamped in gilt, top edges gilt, others untrimmed. With the slipcase. With 26 colour plates. Bookplate of collector John Raymond Danson (1893-1975) to front pastedown. Light rubbing at extremities, contents fresh. A near-fine copy.
Seller: Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United Kingdom
Price: US$3843.39 + shipping
Description: 8vo. 2 pp. Age toning, sl. wrinkled. To Percival Reginald Stephensen of the Mandrake Press.Thanks for the Prospectus with Moses. Oh dear, Moses is dim! They get them so smudgy. Cant they get anything clear-that yellow light at the back! O dear, how sad. So you are sending out the prospectus without the picture! - Just as well. You cant fold the picture, it cracks it raw. Be sure to send several prospectuses to Alfred Stieglitz . [in] New York City and several to Herbert J. Seligman [ ] and severy to Mrs Mabel Luhan [ ] New York. You asked me to come to England - but the detecs. at Curtis Browns office said if I came to England I should be at one arrested. Voilà! My wife may come for the show, if Dorothy W. will bring it off. Do you expect her to, really? - and when? Secker is going to do the Pansies, but of course, expurgated. Conversation overheard here from my window-Votre chat, Madame, est il un mâle? Oui màdame, mais il a été arrangé-nayez pas de peur pour votre ,pussy. - Cest come ça-all been jixed, fixed, annangé." Stephensen was an Australian who had been collaborating with Jack Lindsay on the Fanfrolico Press and the London Aphrodite but left Lindsay to found the Mandrake Press whose first book reproduced Lawrences paintings in full color, together with a forward by the author. When Lawrence saw the proofs of the photographic reproductions for the paintings he was disappointed in the way colors came out but nonetheless delighted at the prospect of a big expensive book. Seeing that he might clear as much as five hundred pounds from it, he briskly finished a ten-thousand-word forward, ,Introduction to These Paintings" [Maddox]. Dorothy Warren was the noted photographer, and the writer Mabel Dodge Luhan, had invited Lawrence to join her at Taos, New Mexico in 1922.Pansies is Lawrences collection of light verse, published in 1929. He had recently sent two copies of the manuscript to Curtis Brown, but they had been seized by the police. The home secretary was asked whether he had instructed that manuscripts sent by . Lawrence . to his London literary agent should be intercepted. Sir William Joynson-Hicks (still remembered for his nickname, Jix) replied in the best traditions of the Home Office. There was no such thing as literary censorship in Britain. The packet in which the poems were found was opened purely as part of routine random postal searches to see if any material being sent through the mails vilated . [postal laws]. Once opened, however, the seized materials of Lawrence were seen to be indecent beyond a doubt and would be held for two months to give the author a chance to prove to the contrary . He [then] struggled with Secker to clean up Pansies for England - substituting ,my-eye for ,cat-piss, for example but Secker- worried about the formidable Jix, nonetheless insisted on removing some of the poems before publication" [Brenda Maddox, D. H. Lawrence: The Story of a Marriage].
Seller: Kotte Autographs GmbH, Roßhaupten, Germany
Price: US$5500.00 + shipping
Condition: Near Fine
Description: One of ten copies on Japanese vellum, this copy with the typeset "out of series" notice in the colophon and not signed. Folio with 26 color plates of the paintings which were exhibited for three weeks in 1929 before being seized by police. Erasure on the fly leaf, else unmarked.
Seller: Moroccobound Fine Books, IOBA, Lewis Center, OH, U.S.A.
LAWRENCE, D. H.. The Paintings.. London: The Mandrake Press, 1929, 1929.
Price: US$9555.32 + shipping
Description: First edition, first impression, "out of series" presentation copy, inscribed "To W. J. Dieper, who printed this book, in appreciation of the trouble he took with it. P. R. Stevenson. Edward Goldston". The edition was limited to 510 copies with the first ten bound in vellum and printed upon Japanese vellum. Roberts & Poplawski state some special copies were "out of series", as here. The colophon to the book notes "Typography and production arranged by P. R. Stevenson. Letterpress and colour-work under the supervision of William Dieper". The Paintings of D.H. Lawrence was the first book issued by the Mandrake Press, founded by P. R. Stevenson and Edward Goldston in 1929. Stevenson had been associated with Jack and Norman Lindsay in the Fanfrolico Press and was a friend of Lawrence's. This handsome publication reproduces Lawrence's colour paintings and is prefaced with a 33-page introduction by Lawrence. Roberts & Poplawski state "Perhaps less is known of Lawrence's work as a painter than of any other facet of his creative activity. Most of the paintings reproduced in this volume were done in Italy at the Villa Mirenda in 1928, although some were painted in Switzerland and other places to which the Lawrences journeyed during the period. Lawrence was quite impressed with the proposal to reproduce the paintings in such an elaborate format and was especially struck with the ten copies on vellum which were to sell for 50 guineas". The "ordinary" copies were sold at ten guineas. Robert & Poplawski A46(b), "out of series" copy. Quarto. Original vellum, spine lettered in gilt, covers with device of phoenix and ruled border in gilt, all edges gilt. 26 colour plates with captioned paper guards, all by D. H. Lawrence. Some light soiling to vellum, lower corners slightly bumped: a near-fine copy.
Seller: Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United Kingdom