Christmas Delivery Final Order Dates

UK  - by 22nd noon December

Europe, USA & Canada  - by noon 20th December

Our Sales Director Jeffrey Kerr has selected a handful of his personal favourites from our shelves.

Explore the list now.

Nancy MITFORD

The Pursuit of Love

London, 1945

£875

'I do covet a first edition of Nancy Mitford’s most popular novel, where I met for the first time thinly disguised portraits of her family and friends: the Radlett girls, Fabrice de Sauveterre, cousin Fanny, Lord Merlin. To paraphrase Uncle Matthew: "I have only read one book in my life, and that is The Pursuit of Love. It’s so frightfully good I’ve never bothered to read another."'

Nancy MITFORD

Christmas Pudding

London, 1932

£9,500

'The Dedication copy! Inscribed lovingly and amusingly by NM to the travel writer Robert Byron beneath the printed dedication bearing his name. Byron was one of her closest friends, and the one whom she missed the most in later life following his early death in 1941.'

Adela QUEBEC [pseud. Gerald Tyrwhitt-Wilson, Lord BERNERS].

The Girls of Radcliff Hall

[N.p.], 1935

£3,750

‘Would Lord Merlin have written such a portrait of himself and his friends, had they included Cecil Beaton and Oliver Messel I wonder?’

Evelyn WAUGH

Decline and Fall

London, 1928

£8,500

'Evelyn Waugh taught Nancy Mitford to write the draft for her novels in a ledger book leaving the verso blank for corrections.  This was EW’s first published novel.  Even I was spellbound by the intoxicating Margot Beste-Chetwynde [beast-cheating] at the centre of the hapless Paul Pennyfeather’s story.'

Michel-Etienne TURGOT; Louis BRETEZ.

Plan de Paris

Paris, 1739

£22,500

'A magical tome recording Paris as it was in the reign of Louis XV. I love wandering through the streets on each page, following the routes I’ve taken in the past. Perhaps Nancy Mitford consulted a copy when she was writing her biography of Mme de Pompadour, Louis’ Maitresse-en-titre?'

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