General Fiction Books

Paul A. Whyles - Second-Hand Books

General Fiction Sorted By Author's Surname - Section L

L'Amour, Louis - Matagorda. Corgi, 1972 reprint. Western: One gun - against a town whose dust was stained with blood. 140pp standard paperback. Slight edge-wear; slight page-edge browning; crease to back-cover, very good.
[Order code:5619 / Price £1.00]

Laban, L. E. - School for Girls. Random House. Laban(tran.), L. E. - School for Girls, or, Morals of the Little Ladies of Our Time. Original title: L'ecole des Biches. Random House Library Edition 2026. copyright 1967. Patterned after the famous Dialogues of Nicolas Chorier, the original edition of school for Girls caused an immediate sensation in France, where it has since remained one of the most beloved classics of French literature. Readers were shocked and delighted with the audacious attack on French morals and manners in the 19th century as revealed by the adventures of two young girls in search of the facts of life. The modern reader will quickly fall under the spell of this charming and impudent sex farce. (back cover). 6ž" x 4ź", 176pp, paperback. Printed on high-quality paper. Probably unread; Canadian price-sticker top-centre of front-cover; original distributor's (West Coast News, B.C.) 1" x 2" label at foot of last page; near fine (no spine creases, no actual inscriptions, not ex-library).
[Order code:17363 / Price £12.00]

Lambert, Stern, Fosburgh, Eric, Richard Martin, Hugh - Glory Thrown In, The Bright Raod to Fear, The Drowning-Stone. Odhams. Lambert, Eric; Stern, Richard Martin; Fosburgh, Hugh - Glory Thrown In, The Bright Raod to Fear, The Drowning-Stone. Complete books, not abridged. Odhams, 1960. 8" x 5", 510pp, quarter red-brown buckram, cloth sides printed with a repeat pattern, gold blocking, hardback. Slightly sunned spine; slight edge-wear; very good (no inscriptions, no bumps, not ex-library); no wrapper.
[Order code:18415 / Price £5.00]

Larbalestier, P. G. - The Yellow Card Mystery. Foyle's thriller book club reprint, not dated, early '50s? Geoffrey Barnet was fed-up with his fickle wife, so he went out - and got himself murdered! At first, this regrettable incident didn't seem to tie up with a series of mysterious and calamitous events which made fair to blow up half of London and the provinces. Then MI5 agent Larry Condon, got hold of something - something he'd last seen when investigating subversive activities in bomb-scarred Cologne. And from that moment things moved fast and furiously to their surprising unexpected end. (half-title page). 7˝" x 5", 222pp, red cloth, hardback. Page-edge browning, corners rounded, very good, no wrapper.
[Order code:2531 / Price £1.00]

Larkin, Philip - Jill. Faber and Faber, 1977 reprint. An account of a young English undergraduate from the provinces, this portrait of Oxford during the war is now regarded by many critics as a classic of its kind. (Amazon). 7ž" x 5", 248pp, paperback. Very good (1 central spine crease, hardly any corner curling, usual very slight page-edge browning, no inscriptions, NOT ex-library).
[Order code:14332 / Price £2.00]

Laverty, Bernard Mac - Grace Notes. Vintage paperback, 1998, reprint. Paperback format, 282pp. No spine creases; unread; very good plus.
[Order code:3381 / Price £2.00]

Laverty, Bernard Mac - Cal. Penguin, 1984. 7ž" x 5", 154pp paperback. Ex-libarary, usual stamps, nothing messy, read but ok. Housed in library plastic protective jacket. Above average.
[Order code:5904 / Price £0.50] plus post at cost.

Lawrence, D. H. - Lady Chatterley's Lover. Heinemann, not dated, 1961? Printed in Holland. 8ź" x 5˝, 280pp, red cloth, hardback. Ex-library; front-free endpaper, and half-title loose; front internal hinge held by webbing only; title page and first page selotaped in; edge-foxing; page-edge browning; faint remnent of glue on front-free endpaper (where library label was fixed) and only one library catalogue stamp on the verso of the title-page; good reading copy only; complete with wrapper that has a small tear at the head of the spine, which has been reinforced with selotape on the verso of the wrapper at one time, now just the brown remnent remains (slightly visible of the front of the wrapper), slight creases and edge-wear but not too bad (it's housed in library plastic cover (removeable).
[Order code:4066 / Price £2.00]

Lawrence, D. H. - The Fox. Sphere. 1970 reprint. ... is a brilliant study of two lonely women... and the dramatic effect of a man's intrusion upon their world. This stunning novel of a tormented love triangle has remained relatively unknown amongst Lawrence's more notorious work. It is, however, a compelling examination of himan relationships, a hidden masterpiece of swnsuality and desire. (back cover). 124pp standard paperback. Spine sunned; page-edge browning; very good minus (no spine creases, no inscriptions, not ex-library).
[Order code:7178 / Price £0.54]

Lawrence, D. H. - The Fox. Sphere, 1968 (1st thus). ... This stunning novel of a tormented love triangle has remained relatively unknown - buried beneath the notoriety, the courtroom battles and literary disputes which accompanied the publication of Lady Chatterley's Lover. The Fox is Lawrence's brilliant novel of two manless women and the intruder who threatens their love - truly a hidden masterpiece of sensuality and desire. (back cover). 128pp, standard paperback. Binding very slightly cocked; slight edge-wear; crease to lower-front conrner of front-cover; very good (no inscriptions, no spine creases, not ex-library).
[Order code:16228 / Price £1.00]

Lawrence, D. H. - Sons and Lovers and Lady Chatterley. W.H.Smith/Octoups. Lawrence, D. H. - Sons and Lovers and Lady Chatterley's Lover. W.H.Smith/Octoups, 1987, 1st thus. 9" x 5˝", 502pp, light-blue cloth, white lettering, hardback. Probably unread; slight page-edge browning; fine (no inscriptions, no bumps, not ex-library) complete with fine wrapper.
[Order code:17425 / Price £1.00]

Lawrence, D. H. - Women In Love. Words worth. Lawrence, D. H. - Women in Love. Wordsworth Classic, 1992. ... The novel tells of the relationships of two sisters, Ursula and Gadrun, who live in a Midland colliery town in the years before the First World War. Ursula falls in love with Birkin (a thinly disguised portrait of Lawrence) and Gaudrun has an intensive but tragic affair with Gerald, the son of a local colliery owner. ... (back cover). 426pp, standard paperback. 1 central spine crease; slight creaseing to lower fornt corners of cover; usual page-edge browning; name written in top-front corner inside cover; very good (not ex-library).
[Order code:17594 / Price £1.00]

Lee, Laurie - Cider with Rosie. The Book Club. 1959 reprint. 7˝" x 4ž", 248pp, light green cloth, hardback. Illustrated with monochrome drawings within the text by John Ward. Faint water splashed on front board, internally very good, no wrapper.
[Order code:7665 / Price £2.00]

Lee, John - The Unicorn Dilemma. Futura, 1989, UK paperback 1st? From the poisoned lands beyond the Giant's Causeway, mysterious invaders have attacked the kingdoms of Strand for generations. In their latest attack, they employ weapons of war, machines the like of which no inhabitant of Strand has ever seen. ... (back cover). 374pp standard paperback. 1 central spine crease; slight crease to top-front corner of front cover; slight page-edge browning; very good (no inscriptions, not ex-library).
[Order code:7735 / Price £1.00]

Leslie, Doris - Polonaise. Book Club. Leslie, Doris - Polonaise. Book Club, 1944. 7˝" x 4ž", 248pp, red cloth, hardback. Printed on war-economy paper which, ironically, is better quality than the usual paper before or after the war. Corner rounding; edge-foxing; very good minus complete with poor (lacks front-flap, creased, worn, 'dusty') wrapper, best regarded as without wrapper really.
[Order code:18779 / Price £1.00]

Lewis, Norman - The Day of the Fox. 1957, The Reprint Society. 7˝" x 5", 256pp, yellow cloth, hb. Fine without a wrapper.
[Order code:2255 / Price £3.00]

Lindop, Audrey Erskine - I Thank A Fool. The Book Club. 1959. To most of those around her Liane, the heroine, appears to be touched in the head. Her childlike candour and directness are almost as disconcerting as her habit of disappearing without warning or explanation. In his anxiety, her husband, a prosperous West Countryman, engages Harriet (who tells the story) as companion to watch over her. Quite misreading Laine's character at first, Harriet attempts to play the cheerful, condescending annnie; her sympathy with the husband leads her, moreover, to complicate the situation by falling in love with him. But Laine, as Herriet presently learns, is far from simple-minded in the ordinary sense: the luminous candour of her observations issues not from a defective mind but from a timeless uspoilt insight into truth with respect to the things that matter. Daughter of a drunken Irish poet, wrenched out of her context by marriage, she longs for the freedom of her childhood. It is this that causes her mysterious disappearances, and this, combined with the misunderstandings of those who surround her, that leads to the exciting and moving climax. (flap). 7˝" x 4ž", 192pp, green cloth, hardback. Very, very slightly sunned spine; slight edge-foxing; corner rounding; very good minus (no inscriptions, no bumps, not ex-library) complet with good (sunned spine, 'dusty', splash to front-edge of back-panel, slight edge-wear) wrapper.
[Order code:7231 / Price £1.00]

Linklater, Eric - Magnus Merriman. Penguin, 1959 (1st thus). 7" x 4˝", 334pp, paperback. Spine sunned; slight edge-wear; ž" split down spine from top of front-panel; what appears to be 3 customs? stamps on half title (2 of which are Atlantis S. A. Athens); page-edge browning; foxing inside covers; 175 written on back-cover; good reading copy.
[Order code:15250 / Price £1.00]

Little and Hill, Daran and Bill - Weatherfield Life. Index/Granada. Daran Little and Bill Hill - Weatherfield Life: Coronatiion Street. Index/Granada TV, 1995 (1st thus). In 1992 Coronation Street celebrates its 90th birthday. The street was originally built in 1902, although viewers only tuned into the residents and their lives in 1960. In this book we take you back into the history of Weatherfield and old favourites such as Ena Sharples, Annie Walker, Hilda Ogden and Elsie Tanner all tell their fascinating stories about therir lives pre-1960. ... (introduction). 10" x 7ź", 192pp, illustrated laminated boards, hardback. Illustrated in monochrome (mostly) and colour. Fine (no inscriptions, no bumps, NOT ex-library), NO wrapper.
[Order code:14384 / Price £1.00]

Lively, Penelope - Going Back. Heinemann, 1975, 1st. Medleycott is a house in Somerset with a big old garden: a private enchanted world for the two children who were growing up there during the years of the Second World War. Now Jane, a grown woman with children of her own, goes back and looks and remembers how it was, and what happened to make the two of them run away from the place they loved with such passionate intensity. This is a book about remembering and like memory itself it shifts to and fro between today and yesterday, one summer and the next, till the whole story is pieced together. Characters come into sharp focus - forceful Betty who looks after the children, their remote, severe father who fills the house with fear when he descends on Medleycott, Pam and Susie the jolly land-girls, and the children's friend Mike, a conscientious objector who teaches Edward the Violin. (Wrapper flap). 8ž" x 5˝", 128pp, blue cloth, gold blocked spine lettering, hardback. Slight page-edge browning, fine (no inscriptions, no marks, NOT ex-library) complete with similar wrapper that is price-cut by the publisher with the publisher's revised price-sticker attached; and a slightly sunned spine.
[Order code:14291 / Price £4.00]

Lively, Penelope - Passing On. Andre Deutsch, 1989, 1st. As Virginia Woolf said: 'Nothing is stronger than the position of the dead among the living'. Lively's novel is about this deeply disturbing truth. ... (Wrapper flap). 8ž" x 5ź", 216pp, grey cloth, gold blocked spine lettering, hardback. Fine (no inscriptions, no bumps, no marks, NOT ex-library) complete with similar wrapper that has very, very slight edge-wear, NOT price-cut (no price).
[Order code:14310 / Price £2.00]

Lloyd, Carole - The Charlie Barber Treatment. Julia MacRae Books, 1989, 1st (author's first novel). He'd defied death, faced danger and escaped it, only to find that death had already outwitted him. It comes when you least expect it, not when you're alert. So run the thoughts in Simon Walters' head after he has risked life and limb to force entry into his own home, only to discover that his world has crumbled while he was out. Simon behaves in an amazingly controlled way during the dreadful days that follow but his calm is frightening, and leads him to retreat into himself, brushing aside the kindness of neighbours and treating his friends with a cold cruelty. He dreads returning to school and finds that he has to copy with many painful situations, as awkward for others as they are for him. Simon's work begins to suffer, and he seems unable to stop the slide downhill, lacking even the will to try. And then he meets Charlie Barber. It all begins on an ordinary day in an uneventful way outside a shop, but the effect on his life is utterly extraordinary! (Wrapper flap). 8ž" x 5˝", 156pp, pale-khaki cloth, dark-blue blocked spine lettering, hardback. Fine (no inscriptions, no bumps, no marks, NOT ex-library) complete with very good wrapper that has the slight remains of what appears to be sticker-glue on the back-panel and a slightly sunned spine; NOT price-cut.
[Order code:14256 / Price £4.00]

Lodge, David - Therapy. Secker & Warburg, 1995 reprint. To all appearances, Laurence Passmore is sitting pretty. True, he's almos bald and his nickname is 'Tubby', but the TV sit-com he writes is tipping the money in, he has an esclussive house in Rummidge, a state-of-the-art car, a vigorous sex life with his wife of thirty years, a flat in London, and a platonic mistress to talk shop with on his regular business trips. He can well afford the ministrations of his therapists, and he can afford the charity account he runs to counterbalance these indulgences. What his money can't buy, and his therapists can't deliver, is contentment. It's not the toruble behind the scenes of his TV show that is bugging him, or even the persistent pain in his knee; it's this deeper, nameless unease. Luarence's way with a problem is to reach for the reference shelf. What was that Amy said about Angst? Looking up the word triggers a quest that leads Tubby Passmore into an obsession with Kiergegaard, brushes with the police, gossip-column notoriety, and strange beds and bedrooms in Ruddidge, Tenerife, Beverly Hills, Copenhagen and Galicia. As his ordered life threatens to unravel, Toubby sturggles to tie up the ends by going back to the beginning - in South London. ... (flap). 9˝" x 6", 322pp, dark-blue cloth, gold blocking, hardback. Very good (no inscriptions, no bumps, not ex-library) complete with good (1˝" tear from top down each side of front-panel, slight edge-wear) wrapper.
[Order code:18260 / Price £1.00]

Lofts, Norah - The Lost Queen. Corgi. Lofts, Norah - The Lost Queen (Originally The Lost Ones). Corgi, 1970 (1st thus). Princess are born to be exiled. What is the alternative? Spinsterhood? Thus the future of Caroline Matilda, youngest sister of George III, was settled - wxile to a foreign country, and marriage to the nearly insane Crown Prince of Denmark. Entreatingly, prompted to a sense of forboding, she begged that one of her sisters should be sent in her place. But Caroline was the healthiest, the youngest of the English princesses, and as well as being exiled, princesses were meant to be brood mares... Here is the life of Caroline Matilda set against the stark contrasts of 18th Century Denmark; the cruelty, povery and oppression of life under an absolute monarch sinking into madness; and the hatreds and court intrigues that swirled around the young English gtril who was Queen of Denmark. (back cover). 320pp, standard paperback. 4 spine creases; spine a little concave; slight edge-wear; small ink-blot to page 15/16; slight page-edge browning; very good minus (no inscriptions, not ex-library).
[Order code:18356 / Price £1.00]

London, Jack - The Sea Wolf. (Complete text). Reader's Digest 1st thus, 1993. Illustrated in monochrome by W. J. Aylward. 9ź" x 6ź", 304pp, quarter dark blue buckram blocked in gold with bluish-grey paper sides blocked in red and white, hb. Fine without wrapper.
[Order code:2882 / Price £8.00]

London, Jack - A Daughter of the Snows. Arco. 1962 (1st thus, Fitzroy Edition). This is one of London's earliest books, and his first full-length novel. The heroine is Frona Welse, the devil-may-care daughter of a self-made shipping magnate, and the subject is her adventures in Canada's frozen north. Frona Welse is Jack London's ideal woman, intelligent, competent and self-reliant, but at the same time feminine and mysterious. (flap). 7˝" x 4ž", 256pp, red cloth, hardback. Ex-library (usual remnants on front endpapers, tape marks from plastic cover?, stamp on verso of title-page, several circular library stamps (as on title-page) within the text); binding weak at title-page; good reading copy (although this particular edition of London's book is very scarce) complete with very good minus (tape marks to inner-edge of front-flap, slight edge-wear, slightly 'dusty)) wrapper, not price-cut.
[Order code:7214 / Price £2.00]

London, Jack - White Fang. Classics Book Club. 1951. 7˝" x 4ž", 192pp, red cloth, hardback. Spine slightly sunned; corners 'rounded'; edge-foxing; slight foxing at ends; slight marking to boards; good, solid copy; not wrapper.
[Order code:9251 / Price £1.00]

Longrigg, Roger - The Desperate Criminals. 1971, 1st, Macmillan. 8" x 5ź", 248pp, blue-black cloth, hb. Good, repaired/reinforced hinges, ex-library with usual stamps, without wrapper.
[Order code:2247 / Price £1.00]

Luard, Nicholas - Gondar. Leisure Circle. Luard, Nicholas - Gondar. Leisure Circle, not dated, 1989? A mighty novel of adventure steeped in the lore of a mysterious African kingdom set amidst the majestic landscapes of the upper Nile. (back cover). 9˝" x 6", 628pp, light-blue cloth, gold blocking, hardback. Fine (no inscriptions, no bumps, not ex-library) complete with near fine (slight edge-wear) wrapper.
[Order code:17481 / Price £1.00]

Lucas, Norman - Situations Vacant. Herbert Jenkins, 1st, 1956. Title-page label indicating the book was distributed by Foyle's Book Club. Monty Lane was a copper's nark ready to peddle items of underworld information to the police whenever it suited him to do so. Knowing his man, Chief-Superintendent Bill Rowlands was more than interested when Monty phoned him at Scotland Yard and suggested a meeting. But Monty failed to show up in the bar of the pub wyhich was their rendezvous. Rowlands waited and stil Monty did not come. It wa not long before Rowlands knew why, Lane has been murdered, presumably by someone acting on the belief that dead men tell no tales. But, dead or not, monty told parrt of his story - not verbally and in detail but indirectly by means of the newspaper cutting found in his pocket. As a clue, the cutting offfered nothing but a point of departure from which to begin investigations, but Rowlands took it gratefully and soon was gathering up isolated threads which one by one proved to have a common base. (Wrapper flap). 7˝" x 5", 192pp, red cloth, hardback. Very good complete with very good minus, price cut wrapper that is worn/torn at the head of the spine.
[Order code:2994 / Price £5.00]

Lucie_Smith, Edward - The Dark Pageant: A Novel about Gilles De Rais. Blond & Briggs, 1977, 1st. In the confusion of fifteenth-century France, with the kingdom riven between the King of England, the Duke of Burgundy and the still-uncrowned Dauphin, two romantic figures stand out: the warrior Joan, whose 'voices' led her King to coronation and herself to flames and sainthood, and the glittering Gilles de Raid, Marshal of France, whose dark voices led him to the scaffold and hundreds of little victims to a ghastly death. Joan the Maid is still a heroine to France; Gilles' evil memory gare rist to the terrifying legend of Bluebeard. Here is their story, told through the eyes of Raould de Saumur, lifelong companion and comrade-in-arms to giles. ... (Wrapper flap). 8ž" x 5˝", 282pp, pale-grey cloth, gold blocked spine lettering, hardback. Fine (no inscriptions, no bumps, no marks, NOT ex-library) complete with similar wrapper, NOT price-cut.
[Order code:14262 / Price £5.00]

Ludlum, Robert - The Hades Factor. BCA, 2000. Hades is the name of a seemingly unbeatable doomsday virus. For three frantic days, scientists in the US government laboratory have been trying to unlock the virus's secrets as people across the continent die in escruciating agony. Meanwhile, Lt. Col. Jonathan 'Jon' Smith, MD, is summoned to a clandestine meeting in the dark of night in a Washington DC park with his oldest friend, an FBI agent. Suddenly attacked, smith escapes home to find the woman he loves dying of a virus. Smith is a surgeon and career soldier with intelligence training. Assigned to the army's high security Hot Zone institute at Fort Detrick, Maryland, he quickly uncovers evidence that his lover's death was no accident. Everywhere he turns for information, Smith is stopped by forces he can't see or name. Convinced she was murdered, he turns rogue to find the killer. Joining up with a beautiful CIA agent, he uncovers a horrifying plot to infect millions with a deadly pandemic. ... (flap). 8" x 5", 432pp, black cloth, silver blocking, hardback. Small bump to lower-edge of front-board; very good (no inscriptions, not ex-library) complete with very good minus (edge-wear) wrapper.
[Order code:16993 / Price £1.00]

Lustbader, Eric Van - The Miko. Granada, 1984, 1st. In this intense and compelling novel of revenge ... mesmerises the reader with a novel tht is not only a thrilling sequel to hes bestseller The Ninja but a complex story that actually surpasses it in terms of sheer excitement, exoticism, action and human drama. ... (flap). 9˝" x 6", 512pp, grey cloth, hardback. Very slight water mark to front-edge of text block; page-edge browning; very good minus reading copy (no inscriptions, no bumps, not ex-library) complete with good (central spine crease, slight edge-wear, other slight wear) wrapper, not price-cut.
[Order code:7259 / Price £2.00]

Lyall, Gavin - The Conduct of Major Maxim. Hodder & Stoughton, 1st, 1982. When Corporal Blagg shot down a German registrar of births and deaths, the Secret Service chose to forget he had been working for them at the time. 'On the trot' from the Army that was his whole life, Blagg's only hope lat with another man who was faster with a pistol than a memo, even if he did have a desk in Number 10 Downing Street. And so we meet again Major Harry Maxim, SAS trained and still mourning the loss of his wife to a terrorist bomb, who first appeared in The Secret Servant. Back with him, and trying to save the Whitehall china shop from the fall-out of his conduct, are the convivial George Harbinger from the Prime Minister's private office, and the competent but not-always-cool Agnes Algar from MI5. ... (flap). 8ž" x 5ź", 256pp, dark green cloth, hardback. Very slight edge-foxing; very good (no inscriptions, no bumps, not ex-library) complete with very good (slight edge-wear) wrapper, not price-cut.
[Order code:3292 / Price £4.00]

Lyall, Edna - We Two. Hurst and Blackett, not dated, inscribed 1916. 6˝" x 4ź", 320 plus 1 plate, dark blue-green buckram, hardback. Fry's Breakfast Cocoa stamp on back-board. Monochrome frontispiece. Slightly sunned spine, inscription on front-free endpaper, chip at foot of front-free endpaper (there is a booksellers sticker at the foot of the front paste-down which has stuck to the front-free endpaper causing this); slight page-edge browning, very good minuus (no bumps, NOT ex-library), NO wrapper.
[Order code:5371 / Price £5.00]

Lyall, Edna - In The Golden Days. Hurst and Blackett, not dated, inscribed 1916. An historical novel set in the seventeenth century. 6˝" x 4ź", 320 plus 1 plate, dark blue-green buckram, hardback. Monochrome frontispiece. Inscription on front-free endpaper, good, solid, clean copy, no wrapper.
[Order code:5387 / Price £4.00]

Lyons, Genevieve - The Green Years. Futura. 1988. In the lush, idyllic countryside of County Wicklow, two friends share their childhood years... ... From the beauty of Ireland and the quiet charm of Tuscany to the sensuality of South America, The Green Years is the passionate, vivid story of two women and the friendship that shapes their lives. (back cover). 352pp standard paperback. Spine creases; spine slightly concave; slight page-edge browning; very good minus (no inscriptions, not ex-library).
[Order code:7163 / Price £0.54]

Lytton, Lord - Night and Morning. Milner. Not dated, c1915? 7" x 4˝", 300pp plus 1 plate plus 20pp Milner's book list, dark-green cloth, gold and black blocking, hardback. Illustrated with a monochrome frontsipiece. Edge and corner wear, slight marking to boards, good, no wrapper. Average.
[Order code:8980 / Price £5.00]

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