Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
MORLEY, Christopher. Where the Blue Begins. William Heinemann Ltd, 1925.
Price: US$121.68 + shipping
Condition: Good
Description: Unusual. Undated, c1925 from inscription. Blue cloth boards with gilt lettering to spine and front. Boards are generally in good order although there is a pucker to the cloth of the front board. Corners are bumped, edges are worn. Spine is age darkened with bumping to ends. Some foxing to the page edges. Internally there is some foxing to endpages and final few pages. 227 pp. Previous owner's mark to ffep. 4 colour illustrations by Arthur Rackham. Additional photos are available upon request. When securely packed this item will weigh in the region of 980g. Postage within the UK remains at £3. For international orders ABE use an estimate based on a 1kg book. Where a book is lighter/heavier, we will reduce/request additional postage accordingly. We make no profit on postal charges. We expect a parcel of this weight to cost between £13.65 (Europe) and £25.15 (USA) to ship using Royal Mail's International Tracked Service. All our books are photographed so you can see what you are buying. ABE may, however, display a stock image whilst processing ours. (YBP Ref: 031431:8b) Size: 4to - over 9 3/4" - 12" Tall 980 G
Seller: YattonBookShop PBFA, Bristol, United Kingdom
Morley, Christopher. WHERE THE BLUE BEGINS. William Heinemann, 1925.
Price: US$161.39 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: 1st 1925. Very good condition with no wrapper. Gissing lived alone on the Canine Estates, had an income of 1000 bones a year but was not happy. A story about dogs. 4 unusual colour plates and 16 b/w line drawings. Bright blue cloth, gilt titles and vignette to front cover and spine. Blue and white pictorial endpapers. Top edge gilt. 227 pages. Top and tail of spine slightly worn with a couple of small nicks. Corners rubbed. Faint damp marks to corners of some pages. Otherwise covers and contents beautifully bright and clean. Packaged with care and promptly dispatched!
Seller: Stella & Rose's Books, PBFA, Tintern, MON, United Kingdom
Price: US$192.13 + shipping
Description: First US trade edition, first printing. Latimore & Haskell, pp. 60-61; Riall, p. 154. Small quarto. Original pale blue linen cloth, titles to spine and front cover gilt, vignette to front cover gilt, illustrated endpapers, top edge gilt. With dust jacket. Colour frontispiece and 3 colour plates, black and white illustrations in the text, by Rackham. Price-clipped jacket rather tattered and dampstained across back and head of front panels (with concomitant slight discolouration to rear cover of binding), neat Christmas gift inscription to half-title (dated 1925). A very good copy, the binding sharp-cornered and bright.
Seller: Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United Kingdom
Price: US$197.33 + shipping
Description: Legatura editoriale in tela azzurra con illustrazione impressa in oro al piatto anteriore e titoli al ds. Ex libris di collezione privata al contropiatto anteriore e minuscola nota di appartenenza sulla carta di guardia libera anteriore. Ottimo esemplare. Prima edizione illustrata. Hudson, p. 171. 8vo (cm. 25,5), X pp., 1 c.nn., 227(1) pp. Frontespizio figurato, 4 tavv. a colori f.t. (di cui una in antiporta) e 16 ill.ni in nero n.t.
Seller: Libreria Ex Libris ALAI-ILAB/LILA member, Roma, Italy
Morley, Christopher. WHERE THE BLUE BEGINS. William Heinemann, 1925.
Price: US$201.74 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: 1st UK 1925. Very good condition with no wrapper. Gissing lived alone on the Canine Estates, had an income of 1000 bones a year but was not happy. A story about dogs. 4 unusual colour plates and 16 b/w line drawings. Bright blue cloth, gilt titles and vignette to front cover and spine. Blue and white pictorial endpapers. Top edge gilt. 227 pages. Spine and corners bumped and rubbed. Spine slightly darkened with a few faint spots at base. Otherwise covers bright and clean. Endpapers browned. First hinge is cracked at the top. Contents and plates are fine. Packaged with care and promptly dispatched!
Seller: Stella & Rose's Books, PBFA, Tintern, MON, United Kingdom
Price: US$204.94 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: x, 227pp, with pictorial endpapers, 4 colour plates, and 16 drawings in line. Contents clean and unmarked, with some tanning to endpapers. Quarto, in the original binding of blue cloth, decorated and titled in gilt; boards clean, bright and firm, with a small knocks to both corners of front board and spine ends crimped and slightly rubbed. A very bright and clean copy. [Heavy Item]
Seller: Chapel Books, Westleton, SFK, United Kingdom
Price: US$288.19 + shipping
Description: First edition, first printing with these illustrations. UK issue. Publisher's original blue cloth with gilt titles and illustration to the upper board and spine, in dustwrapper. Blue top-stain. An excellent near fine copy, the binding clean and square, the gilt exceptionally bright. The contents are entirely complete and without previous owner's inscriptions or stamps. All 4 colour illustrations and 16 black and white line drawings are present as called for and in fine condition. Complete with the original dustwrapper which is a little rubbed and nicked at the extremities with light creasing and minor loss at the spine tips. Correctly priced 15s net to the spine. Further details and images for any of the items listed are available on request. Lucius Books welcomes direct contact with our customers.
Seller: LUCIUS BOOKS (ABA, ILAB, PBFA), York, United Kingdom
Price: US$385.00 + shipping
Description: First edition, American issue, undated. With 4 colour plates and 16 line drawings by Arthur Rackham. 4to, publisher's original royal blue cloth lettered and decorated in gilt on the spine and upper cover. x, 227 pp. A beautiful copy in unusually fine and bright condition. SCARCE FIRST EDITION AND A VERY FINE COPY. A wonderfully imaginative tale out of Christopher Morleys oeuvre. Rackhams colour illustrations are quite unusual and marry perfectly to this splendid story. A highly unusual story in which Mr. Gissing, a gentledog of leisure contentedly residing in Canine Estates with Fuji, his butler (a Japanese pug), on an income of 1,000 bones a year, becomes dissatisfied and leaves home to search for where the blue begins (a purpose to life). "Morley admirably creates a canine world through names alone. There are Mike Terrier, the curate Mr. J. Rover Poodle, the upper-class and working-class neighbors Mrs. Airedale and Mrs. Collie, the nursemaid Mrs. Spaniel and little Shaggy, her puppy, Gissings adopted puppies Groups, Bunks, and Yelpers, haughty Mr. and Mrs. Chow and their "intolerably spotless" little Sandy, the landlady Mrs. Purps, the salesclerk Miss Whippet, the matronly Mrs. Mastiff, the compulsive shopper Mrs. Dachshund, the parishioners Mr. Dobermann-Pinscher, Mrs. Griffon, and Mrs. Retriever. There are the place names like Dalmatian Heights and the little shrine of St. Spitz. These are intermixed with humanless real locales like Paris and Atlantic City, Murray Hill and Fifth Avenue and Broadway and Wall Street, Delmonicos Restaurant and Trinity Church, and real historical personages like the Grimm brothers, Hans Christian Andersen, and Masefield; to make this our real world only inhabited by dogs, rather than some imaginary planet of dogs." - Fred Patten
Seller: Buddenbrooks, Inc., Newburyport, MA, U.S.A.
Price: US$429.99 + shipping
Condition: Fair
Description: London and New York: William Heinemann Ltd, 1925. First trade edition, copyright 1922, actual printing date of this edition 1925. Signed by the author on the front free endpaper. Externally worn, internally good to very good. Blue cloth printed in gilt, four color plates by Rackham, no dustjacket. Covers heavily rubbed at the extremities, corners bumped and frayed, spine gilt clear and legible, rear hinge internally reglued and secure, front hinge has a partial internal split between the endpapers, text block sound, pages slightly age-toned but clean, name written at top of copyright page, no other markings. Signed by the Author. First Trade Edition. Hard Cover. Fair. 4to - over 9¾" - 12" tall.
Seller: Resource Books, LLC, East Granby, CT, U.S.A.
Price: US$950.00 + shipping
Description: Number 100 of 175 copies of the Edition de Luxe, signed by Rackham. 4 color plates and numerous line drawings by Arthur Rackham. Folio. Inscribed by Morley. Inscribed on the endpapers "With homage to Barbara Boston from the dog cherubs-and from Mr. Gissing and Christopher Morley" dated April 2, 1934 with an additional inscription presenting the book to "Lyon from Barbara." Mr. Gissing being of course the character in the book. Original black cloth-backed boards. Spine defective, some staining of boards, endpapers stained and browned but the interior sound and clean 4 color plates and numerous line drawings by Arthur Rackham. Folio Number 100 of 175 copies of the Edition de Luxe, signed by Rackham.
Seller: James Cummins Bookseller, ABAA, New York, NY, U.S.A.
Price: US$1120.76 + shipping
Description: Limited edition, no. 167 of 175 copies, signed by Rackham. 4to. xii, (2), 227, (1) pp. Later blue half morocco for Henry Sotheran over matching cloth sides, spine with raised bands, gilt lettered direct to two panels (and dated at the foot), gilt device to the other panels, new marbled endpapers plus the original pictorial endpapers preserved at the rear, top edge gilt. 4 coloured plates plus 16 line drawings in the text. A little fading to the upper edges of the cloth boards, an excellent copy. Latimore & Haskell, p.60. Riall, p.154.
Seller: Bow Windows Bookshop (ABA, ILAB), Lewes, United Kingdom
Price: US$1250.00 + shipping
Description: A Man's Best Friend [RACKHAM, Arthur, illustrator]. MORLEY, Christopher. Where the Blue Begins. With Illustrations by Arthur Rackham. London: William Heinemann; New York: Doubleday Page & Co., [1925]. Edition de Luxe, limited to 175 numbered and signed by Arthur Rackham, this being copy No. 30. Quarto (11 x 7 3/4 in; 281 x 200 mm.). x, [2,], 227, [1, blank] pp. With four color-plates including frontispiece, and sixteen line drawings. Quarter black buckram over cream paper boards. Spine tooled in gilt. Top edge gilt. Partially unopened. Bookplate on front pastedown. A near fine copy. Where the Blue Begins is a satire about a dog named Gissing (after the author George Gissing) who lives alone (except for his Japanese butler Fuji the Pug), in a little house in the country, in a woodland suburb region called the Canine Estates. In this book all of the characters are dogs. Poodles, Spaniels, Chows, Beagles, Sealyham's, Mastiffs, Dachshunds, Whippets, Borzois', Airedales, Dobermann-Pinschers, Pointers and Scotties. The story appeared two years after Morley's collection of humorous essays Pipefuls. "No one appreciates the very special genius of your conversation as the dog does." What breed of dog was Gissing? Read the story and find out. Latimore and Haskell, p. 60. Riall, p.154.
Seller: David Brass Rare Books, Inc., Calabasas, CA, U.S.A.