Hesketh Pearson, Signed (31 results)

hardcover. Condition: very good. Dust Jacket Condition: good. Illustrated. 250pp. 8vo, cloth. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1956. Very good copy in a good dust wrapper.

Condition: Good. 1947. First Edition. 237 pages. No dust jacket. Signed by the author. Blue cloth boards with lettering. Contains black and white illustrations. Signed by the authors with dedication to Colin on front free endpaper. Clean pages and illustrations with light tanning and mild foxing throughout. More pronounced to free endpapers and pastedowns. Binding remains firm. Boards have mild edge-wear with slight rubbing to surfaces and bumping to corners. Lettering is darkened. Moderate tanning to spine and edges with crushing to spine ends. Minor splits to spine ends and corners causing cloth to be frayed. Visible wear marks to boards.

Condition: Good. 1950. First Edition. 137 pages. Signed by the author. Pictorial dust jacket over red cloth boards with lettering. Contains black and white illustrations. Signed by the author with dedication to Jeff on front free endpaper. Clean pages and illustrations with light tanning and mild foxing throughout. More pronounced to free endpapers and pastedowns. Binding remains firm. Boards have mild edge wear with slight rubbing to surfaces and bumping to corners. Minor sunning to spine and edges with crushing to spine ends. Lettering is darkened. Visible wear marks to boards. Clipped jacket. Panels and spine have light edge wear with tears and creases. Minor loss to spine and edges. Visible wear marks to spine and panels.

Condition: Fair. 1923. No Edition Remarks. 106 pages. No dust jacket. Signed by the author. Red cloth covered boards. Signed by the author with an inscription to the front free end paper. Pages remain clear with minimal tanning and foxing. End papers are more notably tanned. Hinges are cracked with exposed netting. Some occasional moderate to heavy cracking to gutters throughout, binding remains reasonably firm. Boards have moderate edge-wear with bumping to corners and rubbing to surfaces. Mild crushing to spine ends, with fraying cloth and small splits. Moderate tanning to spine. Cloth has minor damp and dust stains. Book has a slight forward lean.

Condition: Good. 1942. 424 pages. Signed by the author. Brown jacket over red cloth. Signed with an inscription by author, Hesketh Pearson.Deckled edged text block. Pages are moderately tanned and thumbed at the edges, with moderate foxing. Binding has remained firm. Boards are a little rub worn, slight shelf wear to corners, spine and edges. Corners are a little bumped. Spine ends are mildly crushed. Light tanning to spine and edges. Book has a forward lean. Boards are bowed. The unclipped dust jacket has moderate edge wear, tears and chips to edges and spine ends. Light tanning to spine and edges.

Hardcover. Condition: Good. 1st Edition. Hardcover in black cloth with rubbing soil and fading, see photo; internally clean and unmarked, page edges untrimmed, pages lightly age-toned; personally inscribed and dated "1936" by author on front free endpaper, light foxing. Signed by Author(s).

Hardcover. Condition: Good. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION stated on copyright page; Hardcover in pale gray-green cloth with rubbing soil and fading, see photo; internally clean and unmarked, page edges untrimmed, pages lightly age-toned; personally inscribed and dated "1938" by author on front free endpaper, to "Frank Allen the father of my godson . .". Signed by Author(s).

Condition: Good. 1936. First Edition. 318 pages. No dust jacket. Signed by the author. Black cloth boards with lettering. Black and white pictorial frontispiece. Signed by the author with dedication to Colin on front free endpaper. Clean pages with light tanning and mild foxing throughout. More pronounced to free endpapers and pastedowns. Binding remains firm. Boards have mild edge-wear with slight rubbing to surfaces and bumping to corners. Lettering is bright and clear. Minor sunning to spine and edges with crushing to spine ends. Minor splits to spine ends and corners causing cloth to be frayed. Book has a slight forward lean. Visible wear marks to boards.

Condition: Fair. 1936. 315 pages. No dust jacket. Signed by the author. Black cloth. Front endpaper has been signed by the Editior and dedicated. Pages are moderately tanned and thumbed at the edges, with moderate foxing. Binding has remained firm. Boards have been heavily rub worn with heavy shelf wear to corners, spine and edges. Corners are bumped and a heavily frayed and spine ends are crushed, with some small splits and chips. Heavy loss to head of spine.

Hardcover. Condition: Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. 1st. Bound in publisher's original black cloth with spine and cover stamped in gilt. Illustrated with black and white photographs. Book is in fine condition. Beautiful dust jacket has infinitesimal wear to top edge of front cover, half-inch closed tear to top edge of back cover. 5 3/4 x 8 1/2 inches. 331 pages. Signed.

Condition: Fair. 1934. First Edition. 285 pages. No dust jacket. Signed by the author. Black cloth boards with lettering. Black and white illustrated frontispiece. Signed by the author with dedication to Colin on front free endpaper. Clean pages with light tanning and mild foxing throughout. More pronounced to free endpapers, pastedowns, half title page and last page textblock. Hinges are slightly cracked with exposed netting. Binding is slightly loose. Boards have mild edge-wear with slight rubbing to surfaces and bumping to corners. Lettering is bright and clear. Minor sunning to spine and edges with crushing to spine ends. Minor splits to spine ends and corners causing cloth to be frayed. Visible wear marks to boards.

Condition: Good. 1936. First Edition. 318 pages. No dust jacket. Signed by the author. Black cloth covered boards. Black and white portrait frontispiece. Signed with dedication from the author on front free endpaper. Pages with some foxing and tanning, particularly to endpapers and textblock edges. Some cracking to gutters with exposed netting. Binding loose. Boards have heavy shelf wear with bumping and fraying to corners and crushing and fraying to spine ends. Some moderate marks and staining to surfaces.

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. No Jacket. 1st Edition. Doctor Darwin, Hesketh Pearson, First Edition 1930. Light brown cloth binding with gilt lettering to spine. Signed by the author ( 18/3/1947) on front free end paper. Some age toning to front end papers. With portrait frontispiece and 11 plates. In the 1930s and 1940s Hesketh Pearson was probably the most popular biographer in Britain. He started with Darwin ( a maternal ancestor ) in 1930. Seller Inventory #002419. Signed by Author(s).

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Good. First Edition. Red cloth showing very minor wear at corners; strips of offset tanning to front & rear endpapers, possibly from tape; in price clipped jacket with browning tape reinforcement of corners, light soil to back panel. In protective mylar wrap. Laid down over front pastedown is full page bookplate of Arthur Leonard Ross with ruled space for inscription, "Warmest wishes from Hesketh Pearson."; 8vo - over 7¾ - 9¾" tall; Signed by Author(s).

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. 1st Edition. Maroon cloth hard cover - slight wear to edges/spine lettering fading/Good. 390 pages with additional illustrations. Inscribed and dated by author on FEP. Content Good+. (783g) Photo on request. As Books that Benefit gives the proceeds from the sale of this book to charity correct postage will be asked for when more than default price quoted. Inscribed by Author(s).

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Spine slightly dull, two corners mildly bumped, free endpapers faintly embrowned. First St James's Library edition (biography first published by Collins, 1942), inscribed by the author to Joyce Ryder, "Joyce with [illegible] from Hesketh. 23/10.50"; later in the library of his literary executor, Sir Michael Holroyd. The biography was unusual in having its subject's active, applied co-operation. Shaw asked to see the manuscript, and: "He spent as much time correcting and amplifying the book as I had spent in writing it . . . My biography sold about 30,000 copies in the original English edition, 100,000 copies in a cheap reprint, and a few more thousands in a later edition. It did almost as well in America. At the age of fifty-six, after a longish struggle, I knew success." Edwin Muir wrote, "This is a book which calls for a general thanksgiving." Joyce Ryder was a neighbour of the Pearsons; after the death the following year of the book's dedicatee, the author's first wife Gladys, they married. Inscribed by Author(s).

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Included. 1st Edition. Free endpapers mildly embrowned, dustwrapper slightly faded at spine. Biography of Sir William Schwenck Gilbert, inscribed by the author to his (second) wife five days before publication day, "To my Love from Her Love 5/10/57"; later in the library of his literary executor, Sir Michael Holroyd. "A happily stubborn man," wrote the New York Herald reviewer, "is Hesketh Pearson, the English actor-turned-author who just won't believe that a good biography can't be an entertainment as well. Ever since the reaction against Lytton Strachey and his school set in, this notion has been reviewed darkly in circles not given to reading for pleasure, but Mr. Pearson goes on testing it, and somehow he keeps coming out ahead. One explanation, perhaps, is that he unfailingly gives the impression, as he writes, that he himself is having a perfectly splendid time." Pearson had first written about Gilbert in his joint biography Gilbert and Sullivan (1935). Inscribed by Author(s).

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Good. 1st Edition. 1st edition 1923, signed and dedicated (very neatly) to "Olga". Presented in brown cloth, showing a little shelf wear. No dust wrapper. There is light foxing to the early and later pages. Signed by Author(s).

First Edition. Signed by the author. Provenance: Bookplate of Horace V. Shooter. Near fine cloth copy in a good if somewhat edge-torn (with some loss) and dust-dulled dust-wrapper, now mylar-sleeved. Remains particularly well-preserved; tight, bright, clean and strong. Physical description: 190 pages : portraits ; 22cm. Notes: Includes index. Subjects: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950) -- Biography. Authors, Irish -- 19th century -- Biography. 3 Kg.

8vo., First Edition, with portrait frontispiece and plates, free endpapers mildly browned; original green buckram, upper board blocked in red, gilt back, backstrip lightly creased else a very good, bright, clean copy. A PRESENTATION COPY FROM THE AUTHOR WITH HIS SIGNED HOLOGRAPH INSCRIPTION ON FRONT FREE ENDPAPER.

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Spine slightly faded, corners of covers (and prelims and last leaves) slightly stained. First US edition (book first published, anonymously, by John Lane The Bodley Head, 1926), inscribed by the author (to Ethel Denny?), "To Ethel with love from Hesketh. 7/5/27"; later in the library of the author's literary executor, Sir Michael Holroyd. "Having nearly destroyed a stage career with [his first book] Modern Men and Mummers," writes Pearson's biographer Ian Hunter, "Pearson spent 1925 writing a book which nearly finished him as an author. In a letter to [Hugh] Kingsmill two years earlier he had mentioned working on a series of sketches, 'slices from life' all of them 'essentially libellous'. In November 1926 The Bodley Head published The Whispering Gallery, which purported to be leaves from the diary of a senior British diplomat . . . The anonymous diplomat-author turns out to have known practically everyone from Kaiser Wilhelm to Tsar Nicholas II ('Nicholas was a cad, a coward, a butcher, and a blackguard. If any man ever deserved his fate, he certainly did'), Cecil Rhodes, Lord Kitchener, King Edward VII, Lenin, Mussolini, and most authors. Only writers are portrayed as something better than half-wits." The book was attacked in the press, and immediately sold out; the publishers were attacked too, and Allen Lane, who had been privately assured by Pearson that the "diplomat" was Sir Rennell Rodd (who denied authorship), and the Bodley Head charged Pearson with attempting to obtain money to false pretences. Against all advice, Pearson pleaded not guilty and, when asked in court why he persisted in the lie that Rodd was the author, replied, "Because I was mad." The jury found him not guilty. Writing his autobiography 33 years later, Pearson said, "I am incapable of explaining my behaviour.". Inscribed by Author(s).

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. Signed. First Edition. First edition 1957, Inscribed by the author on endpapers, Review copy with publishers publicity slip laid inside, Pages clean and bright, Binding firm, Light wear to edges. ALL ITEMS ARE DISPATCHED FROM THE UK WITHIN 48 HOURS ( BOOKS ORDERED OVER THE WEEKEND DISPATCHED ON MONDAY) ALL OVERSEAS ORDERS SENT BY TRACKABLE AIR MAIL. IF YOU ARE LOCATED OUTSIDE THE UK PLEASE ASK US FOR A POSTAGE QUOTE FOR MULTI VOLUME SETS BEFORE ORDERING.

First Edition. Signed by the author. Provenance: Bookplate of Horace V. Shooter. Near fine cloth copy in a good if somewhat edge-torn (with some loss) and dust-dulled dust-wrapper, now mylar-sleeved. Remains particularly well-preserved; tight, bright, clean and strong. Physical description: 190 pages : portraits ; 22cm. Notes: Includes index. Subjects: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950) -- Biography. Authors, Irish -- 19th century -- Biography. 1 Kg.

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. First Edition Thus. Hardback. No Dust Jacket. 8vo. pp 120. Original publishers black cloth, lettered gilt at the spine. Christmas card tipped in on the front endpaper, signed by the printer, Allen Lane. Limited edition of 1500 copies. Slight rubbing, otherwise very good. Signedes.

Cloth. Condition: Good. No Jacket. Rubbed. Spine darkened. Closed edges and endpapers tanned and foxed. One plate becoming a little loose. 'Inscribed by the author Hesketh Pearson' written to ffep. Size: 8vo. Signed by Author.

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. 1st Edition. Spine slightly darkened, free endpapers mildly embrowned. The author's second book, inscribed by him, "To my own darling wife from her ever-loving husband Hesketh. Dec: 1923"; from the library of his literary executor, Sir Michael Holroyd. 1p. publisher's advertisements at end. Essays purporting to be literary conversations, in Kermanshah in 1918, with a local reader, "a wealthy man who lived the life of a student and a recluse", named Bahram. They discuss Dickens, Shakespeare, Shaw, Thackeray, Galsworthy, H.G. Wells, Chesterton. Belloc, Oscar Wilde and R.L. Stevenson. Inscribed by Author(s).

HARDCOVER. Condition: Fine. 1st Edition Thus. This is one of the publisher Allen Lane's annual Christmas book. 8vo in black cloth with ornately printed blue and gilt decoration to the front cover. 120pp text with illustrations in text, plus an additional illustrations at rear. One of 1,500 copies, some of which (including this one) have a folded stiff paper reproduction of the front cover design pasted to the front end-paper which is signed in ink by Allen Lane . [CONDITION: A well preserved about FINE very clean and tight unmarked copy (top edge of page block very slightly foxed or tanned) ] . . . We always ship in STRONG PROTECTIVE CARD PARCELS.

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Free endpapers mildly embrowned. First "complete" UK edition (combining the first, 1942 edition with G.B.S.: a postscript, 1951), inscribed by the author to his second wife, Joyce, "To my darlingest Darling from Hers. 9/1/61"; loosely inserted a photograph, 148 x 125mm, of Theodore Spicer-Simson's bronze medallion of Bernard Shaw with, on the verso, a typed letter signed (to Pearson) from the artist in Miami, giving details of the commission and quoting Shaw's letters to him. Later in the library of the author's literary executor (and Shaw's later biographer), Sir Michael Holroyd. The biography was unusual in having its subject's active, applied co-operation. Shaw asked to see the manuscript, and (as amplified in G.B.S.: a postscript): "He spent as much time correcting and amplifying the book as I had spent in writing it . . . My biography sold about 30,000 copies in the original English edition, 100,000 copies in a cheap reprint, and a few more thousands in a later edition. It did almost as well in America. At the age of fifty-six, after a longish struggle, I knew success.". Inscribed by Author(s).

Hardcover. Condition: Good. Cloth/no dust jacket Octavo. navy cloth, 258 pp, cover soiled and frayed at the edges, signed by author in black ink on front end paper Standard shipping (no tracking or insurance) / Priority (with tracking) / Custom quote for large or heavy orders.

FIRST EDITION. PRESENTATION COPY to Alan [Thomas, Editor of The Listener], INSCRIBED AND SIGNED BY HESKETH. Together with 2 loosely inserted TLS (TYPED LETTERS SIGNED) to Thomas, dated 1954 and 1956, the first referring to the writing of the book and the reception it has had with the critics.and. amusingly bemoaning the fact that the author is temporarily "on the wagon" following a recent illness: the second referring to a forthcoming fishing trip to Iceland. Remarkable biography of a remarkable man who was a master of poetry, fiction and history. Frontis portrait + full page b/w plates. Green cloth covers with vignette of a stag on upper cover, gilt lettering on spine, top edges green. Light shelf wear. Complete with pictorial non p/c dustjacket with slight wear to edges. Overall VG/VG. 8vo. 295 pp incl. Bibliography and Index.