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![BACKGROUND TO DANGER. [SPECIAL ADVANCE COPY]. Eric Ambler](/pictures/thumb/18924.jpg?v=1485640224)
BACKGROUND TO DANGER. [SPECIAL ADVANCE COPY].
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1937. Octavo, pp. [1-12] [1-2] 3-280 [281-284], printed wrappers. Advance copy (uncorrected proof) of the first U. S. edition. Signed inscription by Ambler on the half title page to Otto Penzler: "To Otto, enviously, / I've never even seen / this book at this stage -- / Eric Ambler / 21 IX 81." Signed and dated a second time on the title page. This is an advance reading/review copy. Espionage thriller involving military secrets, Soviet agents, German agents and Rumanian oil. Filmed in 1943, directed by Raoul Walsh with George Raft, Sidney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre and Turhan Bey from a script by W.R. Burnett.
CAUSE FOR ALARM.
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1939. Octavo, pp. [1-16] [1-2] 3-284 [285: blank] [286: printer notes], oringal green cloth, front and spine stamped in red, fore edge uncut, top edge stained red. First U. S. edition. Spy thriller set in Fascist Italy before the outbreak of WW II. Hubin, p. 14.
INTRIGUE: FOUR GREAT SPY NOVELS OF ERIC AMBLER...
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1960]. Octavo, cloth. New edition. This edition first published in 1943, reset with new plate for this edition. Collects JOURNEY INTO FEAR, A COFFIN FOR DIMITRIOS, CAUSE FOR ALARM and BACKGROUND TO DANGER. Introduction by Alfred Hitchcock.
THE MASK OF DIMITRIOS.
London: Hodder and Stoughton Limited, [1939]. Octavo, pp. [1-8] 9-319 [320]. cloth. First edition. Published in the U.K. as The Mask of Dimitrios. A Haycraft-Queen cornerstone volume. Made into a 1944 film featuring Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre, screenplay credit to Frank Gruber.
THE SCHIRMER INHERITANCE.
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1953. Octavo, boards. First U. S. edition. Hubin, p. 14.
STATE OF SIEGE.
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1956. Octavo, cloth backed boards. First U. S. edition. Issued in the U. K. as THE NIGHT-COMERS. Thriller set in a Southeast Asian city during a coup d'état. Hubin, p. 14.
WAITING FOR ORDERS: THE COMPLETE SHORT STORIES OF ERIC AMBLER.
New York: The Mysterious Press, 1991. Octavo, cloth. First edition. One of 26 lettered copies signed by the Amber. The 26 copy lettered edition is the only signed limited of this title. Ambler would not sign a numbered edition. Introduction by Ambler. Includes eight stories, six feature Dr. Czissar, a refugee Czech detective written during World War II.
THE EGYPTOLOGISTS.
London: Jonathan Cape, [1965]. Octavo, boards. First edition. Farcical novel of a secret society. "The Egyptologists are the members of the Metropolitan Egyptological Society housed in London, and just what goes on or comes off in the Isis Room is not revealed until the end of this long legpull. It is also withheld from their wives who, in boredom, form a solid bloc; but when they are summoned by the Yard (the Superintendent insists on admission), threatened with the visitation of an outsider and a public viewing on television, it all becomes sufficiently Pharanoid to result in their dissolution. "We're twee; you see. We know so well that what we're up to is the least twee of human activities..." Well, you can skip the hieroglyphic twee and settle down to being twitted with some aimless nonsense. Most of the characters are faceless but one of them could be Peter Sellers." - Kirkus Review, February, 1965. Filmed as a made for TV Czech movie.
THE GOLDEN AGE OF SCIENCE FICTION.
London, Melboune, Sydney, Auckland, Johannesburg: Hutchinson, [1981]. Octavo, boards. First edition. Selection of seventeen stories from the period 1940-1962. Authors include Frederik Pohl, Brian Aldiss, James Blish, Kurt Vonnegut, J. G. Ballard, Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Jerome Bixby and others.
HIDDEN PLACES SECRET WORDS: AN ANTHOLOGY OF FANTASY POETRY.
[Stafford, VA]. Northwoods Press, [1980]. Octavo, pictorial wrappers. First edition, paperback issue. Trade paperback format. Contributors include Margaret Louise Carter, Steve Eng, Stephanie Stearns, W. Paul Ganley, and eleven others.
NIGHT DOGS.
Tucson: Dennis McMillan, 1996. Octavo, cloth. First edition. Trade issue, signed by Anderson.
THE X FILES: GROUND ZERO.
New York: HarperPrism, 1995. Octavo, Hardcover. First edition.
WEST BY ONE AND BY ONE: AN ANTHOLOGY OF IRREGULAR WRITINGS BY THE SCOWRERS AND MOLLY MAGUIRES OF SAN FRANCISCO AND THE TRAINED CORMORANTS OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY.
San Francisco: Privately Printed, 1965. Octavo, cloth. First edition. An uncommon title. Contributors include: Anthony Boucher, Edgar W. Smith, Poul Anderson, Fritz Leiber and many others.
EARTHMAN'S BURDEN.
New York: Gnome Press, Inc., [1957]. Octavo, boards. First edition, first binding of light blue boards with spine panel lettered in dark blue. Collects six Hoka stories including "The Adventure of the Misplaced Hound," a Sherlockian pastiche.
EARTHMAN'S BURDEN.
New York: Gnome Press, Inc., [1957]. Octavo, cloth. First edition, second binding of gray cloth with spine panel lettered in red. Signed on the title page by both Dickson and Anderson. Collects six Hoka stories including "The Adventure of the Misplaced Hound," a Sherlockian pastiche. Anatomy of Wonder (1987) 3-9.
EARTHMAN'S BURDEN.
New York: Gnome Press, Inc., [1957]. Octavo, cloth. First edition, second binding of gray cloth with spine panel lettered in red. Collects six Hoka stories including "The Adventure of the Misplaced Hound," a Sherlockian pastiche. Anatomy of Wonder (1987) 3-9.
BRAIN WAVE.
London: William Heinemann Ltd., [1955]. Octavo, boards. First edition. Anatomy of Wonder (1995) 3-5.
THE DAY OF THEIR RETURN.
Garden City, NY: Nelson Doubleday, Inc., 1973. Octavo, boards. First edition. Issued by the Science Fiction Book Club. First printing with no code on page 181. Jacket painting by Richard Corben.
THE ENEMY STARS.
Philadelphia and New York: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1959. Octavo, boards. First edition. "...this is Anderson at his tragic-heroic best, blending meticulous astrophysics with brooding romanticism." - Anatomy of Wonder (1995) 3-6. Nominated for a Hugo Award in 1959.
ENSIGN FLANDRY.
Philadelphia and New York: Chilton Books, [1966]. Octavo, cloth. First edition.
FLANDRY OF TERRA.
Philadelphia and New York: Chilton Books, [1965]. Octavo, cloth. First edition. Collects three Dominic Flandry stories, "The Game of Glory" and "A Message in Secret," published in 1961 as part of an Ace double as MAYDAY ORBIT, and "The Plague of Masters," published in 1961 as part of an Ace double as EARTHMAN, GO HOME!
HARVEST OF STARS.
New York: Tor, 1993. Octavo, boards. First edition. Anderson speculates on the possibility of a future dominated by exponentially powerful artificial minds. "Anderson's last major enterprise was the Guthrie Family sequence –- comprising HARVEST OF STARS (1993), THE STARS ARE ALSO FIRE (1994), HARVEST THE FIRE (1995) and THE FLEET OF STARS (1997) –- which puts on display both his continued grasp of current dreams of technology fixes, and as well the oddly resentful sense of disenchantment not untypical of writers at the end of the last century. These drives govern a tale in which Earth after centuries of savage environmental exploitation (though Anderson explicitly blames environmentalists for this) –- is no longer capable of sustaining humanity's quest for new adventures, and for a new home. The escape from the dying planet is sustained and exhilarating. Through the four volumes, the scale and complexity expands inexorably; there is no quick way to represent the final effect, except perhaps to suggest that Anderson had decided here to tell every kind of story he was capable of – fantasy, hard SF and entertainment routines intermix constantly -– as a summary and summa of his long career. On the evidence of this sequence, it is clear that for half a century he knew what he was doing." - John Clute, SFE (online).
THE HIGH CRUSADE.
Garden City: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1960. Octavo, cloth. First edition. "An alien starship lands in medieval England, and carries a group of knights off into space. These rough-and-ready chaps eventually succeed in conquering the interstellar empire. A fondly remembered romp which celebrates the violent human spirit, it has not worn particularly well." - Pringle, The Ultimate Guide to Science Fiction, second edition (1995), p. 173. 1961 Hugo nominee. 1961 Hugo nominee. Anatomy of Wonder (1987) 3-11. Survey of Science Fiction Literature II, pp. 977-80.
ORION SHALL RISE.
Huntington Woods: Phantasia Press, 1983. First edition. One of 600 numbered copies signed by Anderson. "A long, complex novel set in the world of Anderson's Maurai stories, centuries after the devastating war known variously as 'The Doom War,' 'The Downfall,' and the 'Death Time.' Among other matters this work details a plot by the Northwest Union (the northwestern portion of the former United States) to develop spacecraft powered by nuclear explosives to challenge the domination of their benevolent rulers who have restricted the development of technology ... A superior political thriller ..." - Brians, Nuclear Holocausts: Atomic War in Fiction, 1895-1984, p. 117. Anatomy of Wonder (1987) 4-16. Sargent, British and American Utopian Literature, 1516-1985, p. 416.
ORION SHALL RISE.
Huntington Woods: Phantasia Press, 1983. Octavo, cloth backed boards. First trade edition. 2000 copies printed. "A long, complex novel set in the world of Anderson's Maurai stories, centuries after the devastating war known variously as 'The Doom War,' 'The Downfall,' and the 'Death Time.' Among other matters this work details a plot by the Northwest Union (the northwestern portion of the former United States) to develop spacecraft powered by nuclear explosives to challenge the domination of their benevolent rulers who have restricted the development of technology ... A superior political thriller ..." - Brians, Nuclear Holocausts: Atomic War in Fiction, 1895-1984, p. 117. Anatomy of Wonder (1987) 4-16. Sargent, British and American Utopian Literature, 1516-1985, p. 416.