Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
H Rider Haggard. King Solomon's Mines. Cassell & Company Ltd.,, London, 1886.
Price: US$96.24 + shipping
Condition: Good
Description: KING SOLOMON'S MINES. H. Rider Haggard. Cassell & Company Ltd., London 1886 Reprint. 320pp plus folding map Fine Binding. This early edition has at some time been rebound in a poor half rexine binding to marbled paper covered boards. There are some rubs and bumping to the extremities, there is flaking and loss to the spine. However the contents are bright and tight and unmarked, this would make a splendid candidate for a quality rebinding. King Solomon's Mines (1885) is a popular novel by the Victorian adventure writer and fabulist Sir H. Rider Haggard. It tells of a search of an unexplored region of Africa by a group of adventurers led by Allan Quatermain for the missing brother of one of the party. It is the first English adventure novel set in Africa, and is considered to be the genesis of the Lost World literary genre. The book was first published in September 1885 amid considerable fanfare, with billboards and posters around London announcing "The Most Amazing Book Ever Written". It became an immediate best seller. By the late 19th century, explorers were uncovering ancient civilisations around the world, such as Egypt's Valley of the Kings, and the empire of Assyria. Inner Africa remained largely unexplored and King Solomon's Mines, the first novel of African adventure published in English, captured the public's imagination. Haggard wrote the novel as a result of a five-shilling wager with his brother, namely whether he could write a novel half as good as Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island (1883). He wrote it in a short time, somewhere between six and sixteen weeks between January and 21 April 1885. However, because the book was a complete novelty, it was rejected by one publisher after another. When, after six months, King Solomon's Mines finally was published, the book became the year's best seller; the only problem (much to the chagrin of those who had rejected the manuscript) was how to print copies fast enough. Ref Z4 Size: 320pp Plus Folding Map
Seller: Amazing Book Company, Liphook, United Kingdom
Price: US$184.53 + shipping
Condition: Good
Description: GC plus.Casell and company,1886,London.Sixteenth thousand.First edition-second issue with pleasure on page 40, line 11.Red hardback(a couple of stain and ink marks on the front and back cover,gilt lettering to the spine but slightly faded,two small tears on the edges of the spine) in good condition plus, no Dj cover.Illustrated with a colour folded map(small tear on the edge of the map) inside the front cover.Clean pages but slightly aged and tainted on the outer edges,a couple of marks,small foxing marks,some creases and nicks on the edges of the pages.The book is in GC for its age with some shelf wear.326pp including 11 pages with advertisements(including one page ads for Treasure Island.), ads dated: 5.G-9.86.
Seller: Alpha 2 Omega Books BA, Southampton, HANTS, United Kingdom
Price: US$585.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: Very good, first edition, SECONDissue with corrected text on pages 40, 64 and 101 and ads dated July, 1886. In original blue cloth with stamped gilt lettering on the spine. The book was issued in four colors with no priority given. Fold-out map frontispiece is intact. Front and back board panels are scuffed and soiled; back panel has several small stains. Spine is sunned. Edges at head and tail of board spine are split and fraying; edge at tail is fragile. Fore-edge corners are rubbed through, more so on the front edge corners. Other edges are scuffed with some rub-through on the lower edge of back panel near the spine. External page edges are age-darkened. Black coated endpapers. Front and back internal gutters are cracked with the last two pages of ads loosened. Additional cracks at pp. 112-113 and 192-193. In spite of cracks the text block is relatively sound. The half-title page and page 311 have Date Received stamps of 8/21/86. Internal text margins are minimally age-darkened and there are occasional smudges but overall (except for the date stamps) the internal text is clean. Advertisements in the rear include Treasure Island followed by an additional 14 pages. Please use close-up options for best inspection and in support of condition description. Additional photos available at your request. International sales to all countries other than the UK will require use of an alternative shipping company which will result in higher shipping expense. A signature upon receipt may also be required.
Seller: R & G Bliss Books, Excelsior, MN, U.S.A.
Stevenson, Robert Louis. Kidnapped. London Cassell 1886, 1886.
Price: US$609.55 + shipping
Description: First UK Edition, Second Issue, published by Cassell in 1886. 311pp including 11 pages with advertisements (including one page ad for 'Treasure Island', dated: 5.G-10.86. Sixteenth thousand to title page, with "pleasure" on page 40, Original green boards. Wear to the edges, handling marks to the boards. Small name to the title page. Rare
Seller: John Atkinson Books ABA ILAB PBFA, Harrogate, United Kingdom
Price: US$641.63 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: Green cloth. A little cocked; upper cover rather spotted, lower cover a little splash-marked, mild crack at top of upper hinge, some light internal foxing. With the book-label of Lady Rothschild. Folding map at title-page; first issue, with first issue points, Treasure Island advertisement and, at back, 16pp. publisher's advertisements dated "4.86". "I will begin the story of my adventures with a certain morning early in the month of June, the year of grace 1751, when I took the key for the last time out of the door of my father's house . . ."
Seller: James Fergusson Books & Manuscripts, London, United Kingdom
Price: US$1250.00 + shipping
Description: This first edition of Robert Louis Stevensons Kidnapped is finely bound in full oxblood calf. The binding features raised spine bands, double gilt-rule framed and gilt-tooled compartments, twin black spine title and author labels, gilt rule-bordered covers, red and green silk head and tailbands, and marbled endpapers. Condition of the binding is near fine square, tight, clean, the calf unfaded and supple with only trivial superficial scuffs. The contents are suited to the binding, notably clean with the color folding map present and intact at the title page and the publishers advertisements following the text retained when the volume was bound. The contents appear to be a mixed issue of the first edition. The text appears consonant with first issue; in line 11 of p.40, "business" is uncorrected. However, the advertisements following the text are dated 5G-7.86. Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) was a Scottish author best known for his novels Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and The Master of Ballantrae. Stevenson cast off his family profession of engineer and led a rather peripatetic, albeit sickly, life (he had tuberculosis), his final years spent in the South Seas, including Tahiti, Honolulu, Gilbert Islands, and Samoa, where he died suddenly of a cerebral hemorrhage at age 44. Stevenson "was overpraised in his lifetime and immediately after his death, and has been considerably undervalued since. A series of collected editions bore witness to the popularity of his books with the general reader, but from the 1930s onwards he was ignored or patronized by academic critics as merely a writer for children. Slowly the tide has turned. He has been praised by modern writers and the critics are beginning to take him seriously again.In recent decades, "Stevensons reputation drastically appreciated as "a writer of originality and power whose essays at their best are cogentand perceptive renderings of aspects of the human condition; whose novels are either brilliant adventure stories with subtlemoral overtones or original and impressive presentations of human action in terms of history and topography as well as psychology; whose short stories produce some new and effective permutations in the relation between romance and irony or manage to combine horror and suspense with moral diagnosis " (ODNB, Britannica).Kidnapped is a historical fiction novel. The full title is Kidnapped: Being Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the Year 1751: How he was Kidnapped and Cast away; his Sufferings in a Desert Isle; His Journey in the Wild Highlands; his acquaintance with Alan Breck Stewart and other notorious Highland Jacobites; with all that he suffered at the hands of his Uncle, Ebenezer Balfour of Shaws, falsely so-called: Written by Himself and now set forth. Set during real 18th century Scottish events, notably the Jacobite uprising and the murder of Colin Roy Campbell, the government-appointed factor of the forfeited land of the Clan Steward of Appin, the book follows 17-year-old David Balfour, whose uncle attempts to bamboozle David out of his inheritance and sell him into slavery. While the main character is fictional, others are real, such as Colin Roy Campbell, and James Stewart (the man who was hanged for killing Campbell).
Seller: Churchill Book Collector ABAA/ILAB/IOBA, San Diego, CA, U.S.A.
Robert Louis Stevenson. Kidnapped. Cassell & Company, [London], 1886.
Price: US$1276.85 + shipping
Description: A lovely example of the first edition, first issue of Robert Louis Stevenson's classic work of historical adventure fiction. Initially published serially, this is the first edition in book form, first issue, with publisher's advertisements dated "5G.4.86" and "5B.4.86", and with the correct issue points of "business" on page 40; "nine o'clock" on page 64 and "Long Islands" on page 101.Illustrated with a colour folding map frontispiece.Stevenson's classic novel is set amongst real eighteenth century events, most notably the Appin Murder which occurred in the aftermath of the 1745 Jacobite rising, and portrays the Scottish highlanders sympathetically.With an eleven page publisher's catalogue to the rear.Retaining the original half title, but with endpapers renewed.A lovely example of the first edition of this beloved work. Rebound in half calf, with cloth covered boards. Endpapers renewed. A touch of rubbing to spine head, otherwise externally fine. Internally, firmly bound. Instances of light spotting and handling marks throughout, most concentrated to first and last few leaves, and folding map. Pages bright. Very Good Indeed
Seller: Rooke Books PBFA, Bath, United Kingdom