I Have A Small Collection Of Books,

all mostly printed in the 1880s to about the 1920s,

 when we have a scanner I will make a few posts about some of them, most if not all are about fish, fishing, fishkeeping and natural history, looking at them I thought about some of the rare books that I might have found, if I had looked at a later period of time and subject, and you never know you might even have one of these on a shelf at home! all of the prices are from January this year, above The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett, £19,130, the 1930 first edition published by Knopf in its all-important original dust jacket, which is unrestored. It's difficult to find this first edition in its first issue dust wrapper. This detective story was originally serialized in the Black Mask pulp magazine, starting in September 1929. Much parodied, Sam Spade's story is told completely in the third person,

 Lost Horizon by James Hilton, £10,714, a signed first edition from 1933. This novel popularized Shangri-La – the fictional utopia in Tibet, Ronald Colman starred in a 1937 movie version of the novel, Hilton also wrote Goodbye, Mr. Chips,

 The Godfather by Mario Puzo, £9,034, a 1969 signed first US edition, published by Putnam. Dust jacket is price clipped. Inscribed to Joe Collins, who was probably the Hollywood agent, and father of Joan and Jackie Collin, how many copies of this must there still be out there waiting to be found?

this one not so usual to find as it is a set of 7 books, but you never know, there could be another set in attic somewhere! The Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis, £9,990, a complete set of seven volumes, all UK first editions, first printings with the first issue dust jackets. The first five books of this classic series were published by Geoffrey Bles. The final two were published by Bodley Head. They all contain the illustrations of Pauline Baynes. The series began with The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe in 1950, and concluded with The Last Battle in 1956, these are just a few of the treasures to come under the hammer in January, so next time you are in the attic, or looking around a junk shop, look out for these and any others that are first editions, and have that all important dust jacket, you never know, it could be you!