Jonathan Cape - Latest Updates

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Comment by 23skidoo:

No one has uploaded the cover art for this edition yet. However I guess it must have been a popular painting as it was used again a couple years later as the cover of this sci-fi novel!

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Comment by ppint.:

the thirteenth and last of her good king james III alternate history novels,
#11 in the series (them including a prequel, and an associated, but non-series novel):

#1: ''the whispering mountain'' (1968), q.v. for series listing, etc, and links.

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Comment by ppint.:

joan aiken's wonderful collections of whimsies:
all with b+w illustrations by pat marriott:

#1: ''all you've ever wanted'' (1953), q.v.
#2: ''more than you bargained for'' (1955), q.v.
#3: ''a small pinch of weather'' (1969), q.v.
#4: ''a harp of fishbones'' (1972), q.v.
#5: ''the faithless lollybird'' (1977), q.v.
#A4: 'the faithless lollybird (u.s.)'' (1978) - contents differ; see below
#6: ''up the chimney down'' (1984), q.v.
#A5: ''up the chimney down (u.s.)'' (1985) - contents differ; see below

omnibus of #1 and #2:
#O: ''all and more'' (1971), (this book)
abridged derivative collection:
#Oa: ''all but a few'' (1974), q.v.


posthumously-published (re-)collection:
#P1: ''the serial garden: the complete armitage family stories'' (2008), q.v.


delayed derivative, shuffled and abridged merkin collections with new titles:

#A1: ''armitage, armitage, fly away home'' (1968), q.v.
ten ''armitage family'' stories taken from: #1, four stories; #2, this merkin collection's title story retitled ''a batch of magic wands''; #3, five stories;
#A2: ''smoke from cromwell's time'' (1970), q.v.
~half of #1 (drops ten stories out of nineteen), three from #3, two from #4;
#A3: ''not what you expected'' (1974), q.v.
most of #2 (drops four stories out of fourteen), three from #3, most of #4 (drops four stories);

leaving 14 stories dropped: 6 from #1, 3 dropped from #2; 3 dropped from #3; 2 dropped from #4;

shuffled and/or abridged merkin collections sharing uk titles:

#A4: ''the faithless lollybird (u.s.)'' (1978), q.v.
adds two stories from #6
#A5: ''up the chimney down (u.s.)'' (1985), q.v.
drops three stories from #6, the two stories picked up into #A4 and ''a portable elephant''

and a re-shuffled merkin collection:
#A6: ''shadows & moonshine'' (2001), q.v.
five stories from #1, two from #3, three from #4, and three from #5; all in previous us collections

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Comment by ppint.:

alternate history novel set in the reign of good king james III, with dastardly hanoverians plots to be foiled, not least with the help of yan, tan, tethera, methera, pimp, sethera, and the rest of the gentlemen sending messages to one another -using twistycorks - via the cuckoo tree...

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Comment by ppint.:

jonathan cape h/cvr first printing, first edition or first uk edition°

cover d-j art by alan tunbridge
cover d-j price £2.25
288pp. (check) including titles, indicia etc, end pp., bound with endpapers between cloth-covered boards

° - textual differences between this and the doubleday h/cvr indicate this may have been brian's original text, and jonathan cape ltd. the originating publishers; they were his originating publishers in the nineteen seventies through the mid nineteen-eighties

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Comment by ppint.:

jonathan cape first printing, first uk h/cvr edition

dedication: for amaryllis virginia garnett

cover (d-j) art (b+w line-drawn elevation of a domed front doorway - possibly of the "repose", with pillars & sidelights, etc., upon a greyish-blue field)
the palace of malplaquet (3-D view b+w map front & rear endpapers) by raymond mcgrath
cover (d-j) price 8/6
224pp. including titles, indicia etc, bound with b+w map endpapers between (slightly greenish-) grey cloth-covered boards, title, author & jonathan cape logo on spine in deep red ink

refer to indicia publishing history to distinguish from at least one near-identical reprinting in 1958

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Comment by ppint.:

jonathan cape h/cvr first printing, first edition

cover (d-j) art (iirc, and frontispiece)
b+w interior illustrations by cyril walter hodges (credited as c. walter hodges)
cover (d-j) price
304pp. (check) including titles, indicia etc, bound with endpapers between blue cloth-covered boards, titles on spine and large decoration on front cloth in light orange ink

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Comment by ppint.:

jonathan cape h/cvr first printing, first edition

cover (d-j) art and b+w frontispiece, other full-page interior illustrations plus title page decoration by audrey pilkington (most signed, credited)
cover (d-j) price 8s. 6d.
308 (check) green top edge-stained pp. including titles, indicia, the characters (dramatis personae) etc, bound with endpapers between green cloth-covered boards, titles in black on spine and on upper front cloth with title page decoration

distinguish from near-identical second impression 1945 by reference to indicia page publishing history

distinguish from near-identical third impression 1947 by reference to indicia page,
also differs further: bound with endpapers between light blue cloth-covered boards

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Comment by 23skidoo:

@annaloog - Yup, that's the cover! I agree Colonel Sun is a great book and I wish Amis had been able to do more. There was supposed to be another Markham book by someone else but it was allegedly rejected as being too similar to Diamonds Are Forever. Still, it would be cool to have some publisher put out the "lost Robert Markham novel" someday (maybe once the literary Bond falls into public domain in the UK like he already has in Canada; a Canadian publisher could in theory put out an edition of Per Fine Ounce as there have already been a couple of Bond novels and a short story collection published here under public domain rules). EDIT March 2024: Since posting this I have learned the the manuscript for Per Fine Ounce is apparently mostly lost, though what remains formed the basis of https://www.45worlds.com/book/title/per-fine-ounce-second-edition which has had direct Bond references removed from the text.

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Comment by annaloog:

JMO, Amis/Markham's 007 novel is more satisfying (truer to Fleming's characterization) than any that John Gardner churned out. I have a couple copies of the Bantam edition, but I think they are later than the one I saw for sale way back in 1968(? my recollection may be dodgy, but the cover resembled the UK Pan edition).

23skidoo ... this?

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Comment by 23skidoo:

I look forward to someone uploading cover scans for this first edition. The cover is hilarious (seriously, what were they smoking?) When I read that Colonel Sun didn't sell very well, I point to the fact the cover looks like something Salvador Dali might paint while high rather than, say, a cover that actually is relevant to James Bond. No wonder "Robert Markham" only got one book and the Bond novels went on hiatus for the next 13 years!

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Comment by ppint.:

jonathan cape h/cvr first printing, first edition

cover (d-j) art (restricted palette representation of two part-opened sardine/pilchard cans, keys visible)
cover (d-j) price 25/-
256pp. including titles, indicia etc, bound with endpapers between covered boards

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Comment by ppint.:

jonathan cape first printing, first h/cvr edition

cover (d-j) art by bill botten
cover (d-j) price 25/-
256pp. including titles, indicia etc, end pp, bound with endpapers between cloth-covered boards

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Comment by ppint.:

first published november 1939
second impression november 1939
third impression november 1939
fourth impression november 1939
fifth impression october 1941
sixth impression april 1942
seventh impression september 1942
eighth impression october 1943

... ... ... ...

''secret water'' was quite evidently extremely popular ''from the gecko''°, but n.b. i've not checked how early in ww2 paper rationing began to affect the size of publishers' print-runs.

° - a beautiful malapropism quite irresistible, given how well the amazons provided for timothy'advent in anticipation of his arrival, in the light of captain flint's warning...

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Comment by ppint.:

jonathan cape & co. ltd. h/cvr first printing, first edition

dedication: to the busk family

cover (d-j) art (my copy has long since lost its d-j)
endpapers map unsigned, uncredited
42 b+w interior illustrations; some small, some full-page including maps (? arthur ransome?)
cover (d-j) price
384pp. including 8pp. titles, indicia, b+w frontispiece, table-of-contents, table of illustrations etc, 4 blank end pp, bound with colour-printed map front & rear endpapers between dark green-coloured cloth-covered boards, title, decoration, author & publishers logo blocked in gold on spine, title blocked in gold on front cloth°

(° - this latter front cloth gold blocking dropped from some or all later impressions, title still impressed)