Folio Society Books

Paul A. Whyles - Second-Hand Books

Folio Society Sorted By Author's Surname - Section L

Laclos, Pierre Choderlos de - Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Wood engravings by Raymond Hawthorn. Folio Society 1st, 1962. Spine is vsf o/w near fine without sc.
[Order code:1166 / Price £6.00]

Laclos, Pierre Choderlos de - Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Folio Press (Folio Society) photo-litho reprint with new binding, 1979 (1st thus). An ingenious tale of seduction told entirely through letters which was an immediate succes de scandale from its first publication in 1781. (Folio Society). 9" x 5ž", 398pp plus 13 plates, scarlet cloth, gold blocked lettering and board designs, hardback. Illustrated with monochrome wood-engravings by Raymond Hawthorn. Fine, complete with very good (sunning along one edge of opening), sound, light-card slip-cover.
[Order code:3513 / Price £10.00]

Laclos, Pierre Choderlos de - Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Wood engravings by Raymond Hawthorn. Folio Society 1st, 1962. Fine c/w sc that is split along one end-edge.
[Order code:4764 / Price £12.00]

Ladurie, Emmanuel Le Roy - Montaillou: Cathars and Catholics in a French Village 1294/1324. Folio Society, 2005, 1st thus. 9˝" x 6ź", 442pp plus plates, red cloth, gold and black blocking, hardback. Index. Illustrated in colour. Unread; practically as-new, complete with fine slip-case.
[Order code:15668 / Price £12.00]

Ladurie, Emmanuel Le Roy - Montaillou: Cathars and Catholics in a French Village 1294/1324. Folio Society, 2005, 1st thus. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montaillou 9˝" x 6ź", 442pp plus plates, red cloth, gold and black blocking, hardback. Index. Illustrated in colour. Unread; bump to top-front corner of spine; fine (no inscriptions, not ex-library) complete with very good (bump to one corner of opening) sound, original, slip-case.
[Order code:16793 / Price £12.00]

Lamb, Charles - Essays. Wood engravings by Frank Martin. Folio Society 1st, 1963. Fine, complete with slip-case.
[Order code:1036 / Price £9.50]

Lamb, Charles - Essays. Folio Society 1st, 1963. The essays are: 'The Londoner', 'On the Tragedies of Shakspeare', 'John Webster: The Duchess of Malfy and The White Devil', 'Reynolds and Leonardo da Vinci', 'Keats' "Lamia"', 'The Death of Coleridge', 'The South-Sea House', 'Oxford in the Vacation', 'Christ's Hospital Five and Thirty years Ago', 'Mrs Battle's Opinions on Whist', 'A Quaker's Meeting', 'Witches, and Other Night-Fears', 'The Old Benchers of the Inner Temple', 'My First Play', 'Dream Children; A Reverie', 'The Praise of Chimney-Sweepers', 'A Dissertation upon Roast Pig', 'On Some of the Old Actors', 'Blakesmoor in H---shire', 'Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading', 'The Superannuated Man', 'Amicus Redivivus', 'Old China', 'That We should Rise with the Lark', 'That We should Lie Down with the Lamb' and, 'An Autobiographical Sketch'. A selection of essays by the most beloved essayist in the language. (Folio Society). 9" x 5ž", 182pp, black buckram with a design in gold on spine and front-board, hardback. Illustrated with head- and tail-piece wood-engravings by Frank Martin. Spine slightly sunned; fine (no inscriptions, no bumps, not ex-library) complete with very good (slight sunning, slight edge-wear) sound, original, slip-case.
[Order code:16490 / Price £5.00]

Lawrence, D. H. - Etruscan Places. Photographs by Leonard von Matt. Folio Society 1st, 1972. Near fine c/w sc.
[Order code:3797 / Price £10.00]

Lawrence, D. H. - The Rainbow. Folio Society, 1981, 1st thus. 'The Brangwens had lived for generations on The Marsh Farm ... they were fresh, blond, slow-speaking people . . .' Thus D. H. Lawrence introduces the cast of The Rainbow and Women in Love, perhaps his two greatest novels. They arose out of a single original entitled The Sisters. The Rainbow, completed in 1915, was suppressed, and for Women in Love (1916) he could find no publisher. One can only suppose that it was the sheer power of the writing rather than what was actually said that made publishers nervous; for Lawrence's characters, more than most, have an uncomfortable feeling of flesh about them. 'Brangwen himself had a humorous puckering at the eyes, a sort of fat laugh, very quiet and full, and he was spoilt like a lord of creaton. . . he wrote of the patriarch, and he had a talent for portraying the restless illdefined longings of youth: 'Tom's boisterous humour gave place to lowering silence, and days passed in a sort of suspense... The contradictions of Lawrence's own life forced him to explore areas of human experience hitherto treated by novelists with more reticence, and in the saga of the Brangwens he discovers a pattern: in their love affairs, paradise is all too quickly followed by disillusion - and only then comes the slow painful quest for regeneration. When Ursula stares at the 'faint, vast rainbow' she sees it as a symbol of that regeneration. Her story is told in iWome,u in Love, to be published in 1982 in seties with The Rainbow. (Folio Society). 10" x 6", 430pp plus 19 plates, orange cloth, front board blocked in black with an illustration, gold blocked spine lettering, hardback. Illustrated with monochrome drawings by Charles Raymond. Very slightly sunned spine; slight transfer of slip-case paper colour to top and bottom edges of spine (this happens sometimes, it's one of the 'problems' with slip-cases, especially tight-fitting ones like this one); tiny spot near head of spine; couple of additional minute spots at head of spine; fine (no inscriptions, no bumps, not ex-library) complete with very good plus (very, very slight sunning) sound, original, slip-case.
[Order code:13252 / Price £10.00]

Lawrence, T. E. - Revolt in the Desert. Folio Society, 1986, 1st thus. In 1916 a small man who had been rejected as unfit for military service was recruited as an intelligence operative in Cairo. Within months he had taken charge of the flagging Arab revolt against the Turks, and turned himself into a legend that inspired all hearts - intrepid train-basher, Turk-evader, Feisal's fellow-prince, Lawrence of Arabia. His position was always ambiguous: 'It's an Arab war,' he said, 'we are only guests.' Nevertheless he persuaded the British that it was in their interests to train and equip a highly mobile guerrilla strike force, and he himself rode at the head of it in the flowing white wedding garments of a desert prince. The adventure which began in Feisal's tent and ended on the road to Damascus, had, from beginning to bitter end, a Boy's Own glamour about it. In the company of men like Auda the old lion, Sharif Ali, handsome and ruthless, and battle-hungry Nasir 'with his bloody mouth', El Orens galloped his camel recklessly into the jaws of death and out again: 'I potted a train with two engines,' he wrote, 'and we killed superior numbers and I got a good Baluch prayer rug...' What really happened has always been something of a mystery which the lengthy and ponderous Seven Pillars of Wisdom did little to dispel; Revolt in tbe Desert, on the other hand, the original version authorised by Lawrence, is not only a taut and unforgettable tale of desert warfare, but a revealing portrait of a reluctant hero with a talent for backing into the limelight. (Folio Society). 9˝" x 6", 326pp plus 10 plates, yellow-brown cloth printed overall with an illustration, gold spine lettering, hardback. Index. Illustrated with monochrome contemporary photographs; map endpapers (identical). Folio Society bookplate (2ž" x 4ź") with previous owners name printed on, centrally on half-title; very, very, very slightly sunned spine; fine (no bumps, not ex-library) complete with very good plus (very, very slightly sunned round opening, miniscule shelf-wear) sound, slip-case.
[Order code:5790 / Price £6.00]

Lear, Edward - Complete Nonsense. Folio Society, 1996, 1st thus. EDWARD LEAR, who would have described himself first and foremost as a landscape artist, was born in 1812. Yet although he was at one time art master to queen Victoria, and his delicate watercolours are still sought after today, it is as the Laureate of Nonsense that he is remembered. Shy in the company of adults, and often surprised that he had so many friends, he wrote his first limericks to amuse the children of his patron, the Earl of Derby. He was their enchanter; their gentle clown, and it was for them that the Owl and the Pussycat, the Jumblies, the Pobble Who Had No Toes and so many other immortal characters were created. 'Bosh', as Lear remarked, 'requires a good deal of care', and he lavished it on his own creations. Travelling extensively in Europe both to paint and for his health, he wrote his young friends letters stuffed full of puns and comic drawings and absurd rhymes. Always topsy-turvy and sometimes strangely touching, this enjoyable collection contains all Lear's rhymes and stories, with his own illustrations. (Folio Society). 9" x 6ź", 286pp, yellow cloth printed overall with a design, printed spine lettering in the same style, hardback. Illustrated with the author's drawings coloured for this edition. ž" closed tear to top-edge, near spine, of front-free endpaper and half-title, spine slightly sunned but not reflected in the edges of the slip-case (as usual), otherwise fine, probably unread, complete with slip-case.
[Order code:10934 / Price £10.00]

Leonowens, Anna Harriette - The English Governess At The Siamese Court. Folio Society 1st, 1980. Bookplate otherwise near fine complete with slip-case that has sunned/dulled areas.
[Order code:916 / Price £8.00]

Leonowens, Anna Harriette - The English Governess At The Siamese Court (The King and I). Folio Society, 1st thus, 1980. 'Madam, we are in good pleasure and satisfaction in heart, that you are in willingness to undertake the education of our beloved royal children...' This letter, signed by the king himself, marked the beginning of a remarkable relationship, later made famous in the musical The King and I. Anna Leonowens was no ordinary woman, and she had no ordinary man to contend with. King Mongkut, 'his whimsical majesty', was a volcanic personality. He came to the throne in 1825 after twenty-six years in a Buddhist monastery, fathered eighty-two children, twenty-one of whom were in Anna's care, and brought a formidable energy to bear on the task of modernising his country virtually single-handed. He had no desire, however, to change its religion, and it says much for Anna, who was a devout Christian, that she respected his view: 'I was thankful to find, even in this citadel of Buddhism, men, and above all, women, who were lovely in their lives.' Her curiosity no doubt got the better of any crusading zeal she might have felt - she talks of Siam's history, the origins of its language, the life of its people, and she keeps her sense of humour. When a sacred white elephant dies, the opinion of observers is that 'the stranger-lord has left us but for a time'; her own is that 'the stranger-lord, fatally pampered, had succumbed to astonishment and indigestion'. It is fascinating to read the reality behind a Hollywood legend and find it not wholly dissimilar. (Folio Society). 10" x 6", 234pp plus 16 plates, full pale-orange cloth, inlay cream label with red text on front board, gold blocked spine lettering, hardback. Laid paper. Illustrated with monochrome engravings taken from the first edition. Very slightly sunned spine; light dent, thumb-end sized, to front-board to right of label; fine (no inscriptions, no actual bumps, not ex-library) NO slip-case. Still has its sign-up post-card.
[Order code:13327 / Price £5.00]

Lermontov, Mikhail - A Hero Of Our Time. Folio Society, 1980, 1st thus. Perhaps the first modern hero in literature, Pechorin's tragedy is that he has heroic talents, but in the suffocating atmosphere of Nicholas I's Russia they are dissipated in duels and destructive adventures. (Folio Society). 9" x 5ź", 176pp plus 7 plates, quarter red cloth with dark grey paper sides printed in white with a design, gold spine lettering, hardabck. Printed on laid paper, including illustrations. Illustrated with two-colour lithographs by Dodie Masterman. Spine sunned, slight printing fault to spine edge of back-board paper side, about 2" down (shows as a paler grey line), fine, complete with very good (sunned round edges and 1˝" edge wear to one edge of spine), sound, slip-case. Average.
[Order code:11840 / Price £7.00]

Levi, Primo - If This is a Man. Folio Society, 2000, 1st thus. Translated by Stuart Woolf; introduced by Frederic Raphael; afterword by Levi. If This is a Man is a descent into the very cradle of evil. From the moment Primo Levi, a young Italian Jew, entered an Auschwitz labour camp in February 1944, to liberation nearly a year later, he was a witness to the full horror of the Nazi regime. No aspect of individuality - possessions, hair, names, even dreams - was so trivial that it could not be elimintated or made to conform to the camp's sadistic logic. The story of his survival is almost secondary to the book's real purpose - demonstrating 'that precisely because the lager was a great machine to reduce us to beasts, we must not become beasts'. (Folio Society). 9" x 6ž", 234pp plus 12 plates, dark-blue cloth, silver and black blocked design extending over both boards, silver blocked spine lettering, hardback. Illustrated with monochrome etchings by Jane Joseph. Slightly sunned spine; fine (no inscriptions, no bumps, not ex-library) complete with very good plus (very slight shelf-wear) slip-case.
[Order code:16358 / Price £12.00]

Lithgow, William - The Rare Adventures and Painful Peregrinations of William Lithgow. Folio Society. 1974, 1st thus. From the travels which, in the early years of the seventeenth century, took him as far afield as Syria, Jerusalem and the Sahara, William Lithgow created one of the world's great travel books and a neglected masterpiece of prose literature. Few travellers can ever have been more adventure-prone: a sea-battle with pirates, shipwreck, Arab attacks in the desert and encounters with thieves in Crete, France and Moldavia are only a few of the highlights, all of which culminate in an unforgettable account of tortures suffered in Malaga at the hands of the Inquisition. The vividness with which Lithgow conjures up both scene and atmosphere has rarely been equalled, and throughout the book there are passages of narrative which, for pace and conviction, would not disgrace Boccaccio, as well as a frequent pungency of phrase unsurpassed even by Pepys. In this edition the many panegyric verses have been omitted, the parade of classical and biblical learning, the religious diatribes and the historical and political disquisitions have been considerably reduced, and spelling and punctuation have been modernised. (Folio Society). 8ž" x 5˝", 292pp, full dark green buckram, spine and front board with gold blocked decoration, gold spine lettering, hardback. Colour enpaper maps, identical front and back. Illustrated with monochrome wood engravings taken from the first edition. Very, very slightly sunned spine; fine (no inscriptions, no bumps, not ex-library) complete with very good (slight sunning, slight shelf-wear) sound slip-case.
[Order code:3791 / Price £9.00]

Lithgow, William - The Rare Adventures and Painful Peregrinations of William Lithgow. Folio Society. 1974, 1st thus. From the travels which, in the early years of the seventeenth century, took him as far afield as Syria, Jerusalem and the Sahara, William Lithgow created one of the world's great travel books and a neglected masterpiece of prose literature. Few travellers can ever have been more adventure-prone: a sea-battle with pirates, shipwreck, Arab attacks in the desert and encounters with thieves in Crete, France and Moldavia are only a few of the highlights, all of which culminate in an unforgettable account of tortures suffered in Malaga at the hands of the Inquisition. The vividness with which Lithgow conjures up both scene and atmosphere has rarely been equalled, and throughout the book there are passages of narrative which, for pace and conviction, would not disgrace Boccaccio, as well as a frequent pungency of phrase unsurpassed even by Pepys. In this edition the many panegyric verses have been omitted, the parade of classical and biblical learning, the religious diatribes and the historical and political disquisitions have been considerably reduced, and spelling and punctuation have been modernised. (Folio Society) 8ž" x 5˝", 292pp, full dark green buckram, spine and front board with gold blocked decoration, gold spine lettering, hardback. Colourd enpaper maps, identical front and back. Illustrated with monochrome wood engravings taken from the first edition. Slightly sunned spine, very slight edge-foxing, fine, complete with very good (slight sunning, edge wear), sound, slip-case.
[Order code:13356 / Price £6.00]

Lockyer, Roger - The Trial of Charles I. Folio Society, 1959, 1st thus. This account covers the period from the King's departure from Carisbrooke to his burial at Windsor. The text is made up of three long extracts from 'Threnodia Carolina' by Herbert, who was Groom of the Bedchamber, and two from the 'Historical Collections' of Rushworth, who was Assistant Clerk to the House of Commons. Spelling and punctuation are modernized to some extent, and there are editorial links to provide continuity. The binding design is based on that of a volume from Charles I's hbrary, now in the British Museum. Never was kingly dignity more apparent than in those last months of imprisonment during which Charles I, defeated and alone, came to accept the inevitability of a martyr's death. This volume, skilfully edited by Roger Lockyer, tells the story set down by those present at these great events in their own words. Sir Thomas Herbert, from the King's own small retinue, and John Rushworth, Clerk to the House of Commons, between them give a detailed picture of Charles's life in captivity, and a day to day report of his trial, in sharply contrasting styles. After the King's farewells, Herbert, his Groom of the Bedchamber, can no longewr bear to watch: the impersonal Rushworth alone describes the scene on the scaffold and at Windsor, as the 'Winter King' is laid to rest. (Folio Society). 8ž" x 5˝", 164pp plus 8 plates, black buckram blocked with an elaborate design over the front board and spine in gold, hardback. Index. Printed on laid paper. Illustrated with monochrome contemporary portraits and prints. Slightly sunned spine; very good plus (no inscriptions, no bumps, not ex-library) NO slip-case.
[Order code:2113 / Price £5.00]

Longus - The Pastoral Loves of Daphnis and Chloe. 1954. Rather old-fashioned bookplate attached to the front paste-down, bottom 2 corners slightly bumped, o/w near fine but without sc.
[Order code:2138 / Price £25.00]

Loos, Anita - Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Drawings by ffolkes. Folio Society 1st, 1985. Fine c/w sc.
[Order code:3508 / Price £8.50]

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