Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Stevenson, Robert Louis. THE BEACH OF FALESA. Limited Editions Club/Ward Ritchie Press, 1956.
Price: US$20.00 + shipping
Condition: Near Fine
Description: First edition. #679 of 1500 copies. Signed by the illustrator, Millard Sheets. Near fine.Illustrated cover is mildly soiled. (c)
Seller: C. Trowbridge, OZARK, MO, U.S.A.
Stevenson, Robert Lewis. The Beach of Falesa. The Limited Editions Club, Los Angeles, 1956.
Price: US$30.00 + shipping
Condition: Near Fine
Description: Los Angeles: The Limited Editions Club, 1956 113 pp printed on deckle-edged heavy stock by the Ward Ritchie Press. Terxt is clean, tight and unmarked. Boards are quarterbound of decorative paper with a drawing of a South Sea Island girl. Signed by Illustrator. Number 207 of an Edition of 1500. Hard Cover. Near Fine/No Jacket. Illus. by Sheet5s, Millard. 4to - over 9¾" - 12" tall.
Seller: Catron Grant Books, Rio Rancho, NM, U.S.A.
Price: US$40.00 + shipping
Description: First edition thus. Hardcover. 113 pages. Number 1332 from an edition of 1500 copies. Features an introduction by J.C. Furnas. Includes illustrations by Millard Sheets. A clean near fine copy in paper covered boards with a cloth spine with laid in newsletter for the Limited Editions Club in an about very good glassine dust jacket with large chips to the spine and some other wear in a very good slipcase that has some wear. Signed by Millard Sheets on the colophon page.
Seller: Jeff Hirsch Books, ABAA, Wadsworth, IL, U.S.A.
Stevenson, Robert Louis. BEACH OF FALESA.|THE. The Limited Editions Club, New York, 1956.
Price: US$42.00 + shipping
Description: 4to. cloth-backed boards, slipcase. xviii, 113, (3) pages. With an Introduction by J.C. Furnas and illustrations by Millard Sheets. Limited to 1500 numbered copies signed by Sheets (LEC 271). Printed by The Ward Ritchie Press in Los Angeles. Slipcase is not original, however it is well made and in fine condition with a skilled cutout exposing the cover of the book. Some spotting to the spine,
Seller: Oak Knoll Books, ABAA, ILAB, NEW CASTLE, DE, U.S.A.
Price: US$46.50 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: Limited edition, #1059 of 1500 copies, signed by the artist. Lacks slipcase. Abrasion to base of front board, otherwise an excellent copy. 1956 Large Hardcover. xv, [3], 113, [5] pp. Numerous illustrations by Millard Sheets throughout, with an introduction by J.C. Furnas. "The Beach of Falesa" is a short story by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson. It was first published in the Illustrated London News in 1892, and later published in book form in the short-story collection Island Nights' Entertainments (1893). It was written after Stevenson moved to the South Seas island of Samoa just a few years before he died there. Stevenson saw "The Beach of Falesá" as the ground-breaking work in his turn away from romanticism to realism. Stevenson wrote to his friend Sidney Colvin: "It is the first realistic South Seas story; I mean with real South Sea character and details of life. Everybody else that has tried, that I have seen, got carried away by the romance, and ended in a kind of sugar candy sham epic, and the whole effect was lost - there was not etching, no human grin, consequently no conviction. Now I have got the smell and look of the thing a good deal. You will know more about the South Seas after you have read my little tale than if you had read a library." In an unusual change for Stevenson, but in-line with realism, the plot of the story is less important, rather the realistic portrayal of the manners of various social classes in island society is foregrounded; it is essentially a novel of manners. As Stevenson says to Colvin in a letter, "The Beach of Falesá" is "well fed with facts" and "true to the manners' of the society it depicts." Other than the island itself which is fictional, it contains the names of real people, real ships and real buildings which Stevenson was familiar with from his personal travels in the South Seas. "The Beach of Falesá", along with his two other South Seas tales in Island Nights' Entertainments, were generally poorly received by his peers in London. Stevenson was known and loved for his historical romances such as Treasure Island, Kidnapped and The Master of Ballantrae and so his shift to realism was not widely applauded. Oscar Wilde complained "I see that romantic surroundings [Samoa] are the worst surroundings possible for a romantic writer. In Gower Street Stevenson could have written a new Trois Mousquetaires. In Samoa he wrote letters to The Times about Germans." Edmund Gosse wrote "The fact seems to be that it is very nice to live in Samoa, but not healthy to write there." Modern scholarship and the reflection of time has been more kind to Stevenson's late works. What his critics could not see or know at the time is that modernism was just around the corner and Stevenson had begun to experiment with early forms, along with a critique of the European colonial venture (post-colonialism), something most people in the 1890s were not interested in hearing, but within a decade or so, such as with Joseph Conrad, would become fashionable.
Seller: Yesterday's Muse, ABAA, ILAB, IOBA, Webster, NY, U.S.A.
Robert Louis Stevenson. The Beach of Falesa. The Limited Editions Club, New York, 1956.
Price: US$60.00 + shipping
Condition: Near Fine
Description: 1429 of 1500 numbered copies signed by Millard Sheets. 271st publication of LEC and the 4th of the 25th series. Introduced by JC Furnas and illustrated by Millard Sheets. Designed, printed and bound by Ward Ritchie et in intertype Waverley on Linweave paper on quarter brown cloth and the paper sides printed with a design from Sheets. 130 pages, 8 ¼ x 12 ¼ inches. The book is in near fine condition, internally clean and in very fine condition. The original slipcase is showing some wear VG+. This is a heavy book and extra shipping charges may apply; 4to 11" - 13" tall; 130 pages; Signed by Illustrator
Seller: Rare Collections, Brighton East, VIC, Australia
STEVENSON, Robert Louis. THE BEACH OF FALESA. Limited Editions Club, Los Angeles, 1956.
Price: US$62.50 + shipping
Description: Tall quarto (8-1/4" x 12-1/4") bound in cloth-backed paper with a grass-cloth Hawaiian design by the illustrator; 134 pages. Handsomely printed by the Ward Ritchie Press. Introduction by Stevenson's biographer, J. C. Furnas. Copy #333 of 1500 illustrated by Millard Sheets and SIGNED by the artist on the colophon page. A handsome book. Near Fine in glassine and a complete, intact slipcase but with much staining
Seller: Charles Agvent, est. 1987, ABAA, ILAB, Fleetwood, PA, U.S.A.
Stevenson, Robert Louis. The Beach of Falesa. The Ward Ritchie Press, 1956.
Price: US$65.00 + shipping
Condition: Fine
Description: Illus. by Millard Sheets, signed in blue ink by him. Very large book, 113 pages, brown cloth spine, decorated and illustrated boards, very tiny tear at bottom front tip, 1/4" tear at back bottom tip, gilt on spine very bright. Printed in conjunction with Limited Editions Club. (1st appeared in 6 weekly issues of The Illustrated London News, 2 July-6 August 1892) 771 of 1500 copies.
Seller: Callaghan Books South, New Port Richey, FL, U.S.A.
STEVENSON, Robert Louis. THE BEACH OF FALESA. Limited Editions Club, Los Angeles, 1956.
Price: US$75.00 + shipping
Description: Tall quarto (8-1/4" x 12-1/4") bound in cloth-backed paper with a grass-cloth Hawaiian design by the illustrator; 134 pages. Handsomely printed by the Ward Ritchie Press. Introduction by Stevenson's biographer, J. C. Furnas. Copy #39 of 1500 illustrated by Millard Sheets and SIGNED by the artist on the colophon page. Monthly Letter laid in. Bookplate on the front pastedown. Near Fine in in a Very Good slipcase with typical soiling and a closed split
Seller: Charles Agvent, est. 1987, ABAA, ILAB, Fleetwood, PA, U.S.A.
Price: US$100.00 + shipping
Condition: Fine
Description: pp. (xvii), 113 (1). Small folio. Designed, printed, and bound by Ward Ritchie. Set in Intertype Waverly; on Linweave Paper, deckle edged. Bound in paper boards decorated by the artist, backed in brown cloth. Slipcase covered in rice paper, slightly soiled. Number 769 of an edition limited to only 1500 copies, signed by the artist. A fine example. From Wiki: The story is told in the first person by John Wiltshire, a British copra trader on the fictional South Sea island of Falesá. Upon arriving on the island, he meets a rival trader named Case, who (in an apparently friendly gesture) arranges for him to be "married" to a local girl named Uma in a ceremony designed to impress the natives but to be completely non-binding in the view of Europeans. Wiltshire soon discovers that Uma has a taboo attached to her which causes all the other natives to refuse to do business with him, to Case's profit. He also hears rumors of Case having been involved in the suspicious deaths of his previous competitors. Although realising that he has been tricked, Wiltshire has genuinely fallen in love with Uma, and has their marriage legalised by a passing missionary. Wiltshire gradually learns that Case's influence over the villagers stems from their belief that he has demonic powers, as a result of his simple conjuring tricks as well as strange noises and visions they have experienced at a "temple" he has built in the forest. Upon investigating, Wiltshire finds that these experiences are also tricks produced by imported technologies such as luminous paint and Aeolian harps. Wiltshire sets out that night to destroy the temple with gunpowder. Case confronts him and the two men fight, resulting in Case's death. The story concludes with Wiltshire several years later living on another island, still happily married to Uma, worrying about what will happen to his mixed-race children. Stevenson saw "The Beach of Falesá" as the ground-breaking work in his turn away from romanticism to realism. Stevenson wrote to his friend Sidney Colvin: 'It is the first realistic South Seas story; I mean with real South Sea character and details of life. Everybody else that has tried, that I have seen, got carried away by the romance, and ended in a kind of sugar candy sham epic, and the whole effect was lost - there was not etching, no human grin, consequently no conviction. Now I have got the smell and look of the thing a good deal. You will know more about the South Seas after you have read my little tale than if you had read a library.' In an unusual change for Stevenson, but in-line with realism, the plot of the story is less important, rather the realistic portrayal of the manners of various social classes in island society is foregrounded; it is essentially a novel of manners. As Stevenson says to Colvin in a letter, "The Beach of Falesá" is "well fed with facts" and "true to the manners' of the society it depicts." Other than the island itself which is fictional, it contains the names of real people, real ships and real buildings which Stevenson was familiar with from his personal travels in the South Seas. W42 L Language: eng
Seller: FAMILY ALBUM, Kinzers, PA, U.S.A.
Stevenson, Robert Louis. Beach of Falesa, The. 1956 Los Angeles, CA, Limited editions club, 1956.
Price: US$125.00 + shipping
Condition: Near Fine
Description: 1st Thus. Signed by Ilustrator Slip-Case - Hard Cover. The 1956 First Thus publication of this Stevenson classic. Only Fifteen hundred copies were printed of which this is copy number 631. Printed at the Ward Ritchie Press in Los Angeles. This beautiful edition was designed by Ward Ritchie and it contains fine Illustrations by him. The illustrator has signed the book on the limitation page. The book is bound in a Gorgeous pictorial cloth. The volume is in near fine condition with a few very small spots to the front board. It's matching slipcase, which is made of rice paper shows some roughing to the material and some soiling. I would rate the slipcase at Very Good-. The Limited Editions Club was founded in 1929. It was the creation of George Macy. Its purpose was to create very high quality versions of the classics that were also illustrated by the finest contemporary artists. All Limited Edition Club books are hand signed by the illustrators with a short description of the making of the book on the colophon in the rear of the volume. Only a few were published without a signature because the illustrator had passed away before publication. All LEC books come with a fine decorative slipcase and the great majority of them contain original fine art within.They are finely constructed books printed by the best printers and on fine paper.They are highly collectible.
Seller: Geoffrey's Rare Books, Tucumcari, NM, U.S.A.
Price: US$175.00 + shipping
Description: Sheets, Millard. One of 1500 copies, designed and printed by Ward Ritchie in intertype Waverley on Linweave paper. Signed by the artist on the colophon. 1 vols. 4to. Original brown cloth-backed patterned paper boards. Fine in original glassine and slipcase One of 1500 copies, designed and printed by Ward Ritchie in intertype Waverley on Linweave paper. Signed by the artist on the colophon.
Seller: The Old Mill Bookshop, HACKETTSTOWN, NJ, U.S.A.