We are always looking to buy collections, libraries and individual highlights in the following areas, and will travel locally, across the whole of Britain and the U.K., not to mention worldwide if necessary, to acquire them:

Horror, weird, supernatural, Gothic and science fiction from 1700 up until 1950, both highlight titles, such as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Bram Stoker’s Dracula and M. R. James’ Ghost Stories, and the more obscure titles such as Twixt Dog and Wolf. But anything that is both rare and unusual is likely to be of interest, particularly if there is some visual appeal in the form of engravings, illustrated boards or a lurid dust jacket.

Crime and detective fiction, mainly between 1830 – 1940, again highlights from authors such as Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle and Edgar Allen Poe, but also titles such as Lingo Dan, The Chronicles of Addington Peace and The Notorious Sophie Lang, as well as any rare title that features a female detective or, even better a female criminal.

Victorian paperbacks, particularly in the genres noted above, from 1840 – 1900, but also anything related to early train and railway travel and early (pre-1880) illustrated covers.

Pulp fiction, such as Black Mask Magazine, which contained many of the early stories of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, also the more obscure British pulps from the 1940s and 1950s.

Interesting manuscript material: for example: diaries, travel accounts, trade and institutional ledgers, academic treatise, ship and whaling logs, also typescripts and manuscripts of published and unpublished works, scrapbooks, sketch books and watercolours. Also manuscripts relating to witchcraft or the occult from the seventeenth, eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

Books, items and ephemera relating to the frost / ice fairs that took place on the Thames between 1680 and 1814, particularly the souvenir tickets produced by printers on the ice itself.

Early photographs and daguerreotypes, particularly those relating to common trades and professions and anything out of the ordinary.

Whore and courtesan biographies and autobiographies from 1700 – 1900.

Erotic literature from 1700 – 1940, illustrated or unillustrated, highlights such as Fanny Hill by John Cleland and The Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller at the Obelisk Press.

We are of course also looking for modern first editions and literary highlights from authors such as Graham Greene, George Orwell, J. R. R. Tolkien, Evelyn Waugh, Stella Gibbons, Jean Rhys, Aleister Crowley and Ian Fleming, also Victorian titans such as Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, Charlotte, Emily & Anne Brontë and the Russian greats such as Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, particularly those titles published in the U.K. by Vizetelly.

And finally, I have an interest, which extends beyond dealing into full blown collecting obsession, in anything relating to Patrick Hamilton, first editions, interesting early reprints, inscribed books and association items, letters, ephemera and manuscript material.