This is a second hand gem I found not at a bookshop but a weekly flea market in chesterfield a chap bring some books usually they are either obscure farming ,strange biographies or such like but I always rummage through and last summer this gem turned up. First edition of Mani by Patrick Leigh Fermor ,ok it isn’t a time of gifts but to me it’s a gem I’ve taken inside as cover is cloth and plain and these title pages are just stunning I think .I ve many other gems Du Maurier first editions a couple out of print books .A nice Viking us edition of finnegans wake is latest find ,what about you ,what are your gems ?
#bookaday 11 a second hand bookshop gem
John Craxton (the artist of the frontispiece) is rather interesting. I don’t read Greek — anyone? I’d love to know what it says. For info on Craxton, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Craxton
I forgot to say that someday there will be a movie about Leigh Fermor. He was a sort of a Bear Grylls/James Bond type of guy. Great photos — esp. the sepia one — at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Leigh_Fermor
I picked up a first edition of Peter Carey’s Booker Prize-winning Oscar and Lucinda at Clunes BookTown a couple of years ago, that’s my best bargain. Everyone who loves books goes to Clunes now but I found it at the very first one and so it wasn’t as expensive then as it would be now with all the crowds competing for it.
Wow, my husband is reading this at the moment (not as a first edition though!) – that is a really lovely find.
What a great find, Stu! Mani may actually be my favorite of Fermor’s books; you’re a lucky guy. I’ve been fortunate to find a lot of great things in second hand shops, but nothing quite that good.