Somerton, Ilchester and Langport in old photographs
collected by Gerald Gosling and Frank Huddy
pub: Sutton Publishing June 2006

 160pp with approx 300 archive photo illus dating from late Victorian times through to 1950's. First published in 1993 this book has been increasingly hard-to-find and sought after. Keeble arranged for the publishers to reprint : the copies are exclusive to Keeble Antiques. Buildings of architectural interest and groups of locals are featured, mostly half-page b/w illus (approx 300). Towns and villages covered are Somerton, Ilchester, Langport, Curry Rivel, Aller, Hambridge, Huish and Kingsbury Episcopi, Charlton Adam and Mackrell, Keinton Mandeville, Compton Dundon, Drayton, and Long Sutton. Fine cond (new) trade paperback.

£ 12.99
Please note that this reprint is exclusive to Keeble in Langport 
Now available from stock
 

Curious Somerset
by Derrick Warren     pub: Sutton Publishing Ltd 2006 

 144pp with double page (key) map, numerous b/w photo illus, and two pages bibliography and sources. A great delight is when a local title is written by an enthusiastic author well qualified to write on the subjects featured in a book ; this is one such title. Derrick Warren worked for Ordnance Survey (hence the map key for each location) and is a keen industrial archaeologist. This book acts as a guide to 105 remarkable Somerset sights - curious and unusual buildings, objects and landscape features which have survived the centuries.   9 1/2  x  6 3/4 inches

£12.99
A few signed copies are available : Derrick Warren was recently here in Langport to complete a book signing event.  
 

National Galleries of Scotland Monet Exhibition catalogue
Exhibition closed on October 26th 2003 - catalogues still available

Monet : The Seine and the Sea 1878 - 1883
by Michael Clarke and Richard Thomson
pub:  Edinburgh, National Galleries of Scotland, 2003.
176pp illustrated throughout in full colour detailing with commentaries the paintings on show at the special Monet exhibition in Edinburgh until October 26th 2003.
New......trade paperback. 11 3/4 x 9 1/2 inches.  

Limited supply          £ 17-95 

The Somerset Home Guard , a pictorial Roll-Call.
by Jeffrey Wilson    published by Millstream Books 2004

 336pp illustrated throughout with captioned archive photos (nearly 500 illus), more than 5,000 "volunteers" are identified. This limited edition of 2,000 copies is the result of 20 years research by the author, and is the first detailed account of the Home Guard in just one county. "Here are stories of clearing courting couples from Wain's Hill before the Home Guard commenced their night patrol, of makeshift weapons, including genuine War Department pikes, of shooting rabbits or magpies while on patrol, or even the weather vane of St Mary's Bridgwater ; of nights spent on sentry duty or sleeping in command posts in skittle alleys or freezing missen huts before going back to work the next day ; of many an alcoholic escapade to the local hostelry ; of the Merriott Platoon's lack of success with exercises until the girls in the local munitions factory - some 100 of them - offered to act as the enemy on Saturday nights. But not all was fun. Nights were often cold and wet, and the initial excitement was later replaced by boredom. There are tragedies here, too, with accounts of a number of accidental shootings or exploding grenades. This is a unique survey of Somerset's part in the war effort, now 60 years on from the disbanding of the Home Guard."
New in new d/w. Limited edition, numbered, 2,000 print run only.
Fully indexed to include all known "featured" personnel and Regiments. 11 x 10 1/4 inches

£ 30-00
 

Pozieres 1916 Australians on the Somme
by Peter Charlton       John Terraine (foreword)
London, Leo Cooper - Secker & Warburg Ltd., 1986.
(1st UK edition) 

xiv + 318pp with maps and b/w archive photo illus. "Pozieres, according to British General Sir Henry Rawlinson was the key to the battle of the Somme. The tiny village and nearby windmill were objectives for the British Army on the opening day of the Somme, 1st July 1916. Twenty-three days and three major attacks later, that 'key' was turned by the Australian troops of the 1st Division. When the Australians withdrew three weeks later they had moved the front forward by 1500 metres. In so doing they had suffered more than 23,000 casualties. No battle in which Australian troops have taken part has ever exerted such a toll. Pozieres became the standard by which shellfire was judged. The bombardment, endured for days without end, sent men mad and stripped away the layers of convention and discipline that keep armies together. Some Australians deserted ; others shot themselves ; more went mad. The majority accepted death and mutilation as an inevitable consequence of duty. Pozieres is a story of strategic and tactical blunders, of the incompetent and ignorant generals, of untrained yet enthusiastic armies committed to attack without hope and without preparation. Peter Charlton describes the fighting from the point of view of the British and Australian generals who planned the attacks and from the soldiers and officers who did the fighting. Using much previously unpublished official and personal material, he recreates the lives and deaths of ordinary soldiers and examines the impact fighting had on the conscription referendum of 1916 that split the Australian Labor Party." Fine cond : fine cond d/w. 9 x 6 inches

£12-50
Limited supply from publishers 1986 backlist stock
 

Gallipoli to the Somme : The story of C.E.W. Bean
by Dudley McCarthy
 London, Leo Cooper - Secker & Warburg Ltd., 1983. (1st edition)

400pp with col. frontispiece, numerous b/w archive photo illus and 8 maps. "C.E.W. Bean was Australia's official correspondent at the First World War and subsequently its official historian. His own six volumes (of the Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-1918), covering the Gallipoli campaign and the Australian Imperial Force in France and Flanders, are unique among national war histories in that the author was actually present at almost all the battles he describes, gathering information at first hand and at great personal risk and supplementing his own observations by interviewing everyone he could from the commander-in-chief down through generals and their company commanders and junior officers to the men in the trenches. (This biography) reveals a remarkable man who was dedicated to the ideal of recording fully and accurately the Australian fighting men's part in the war ; a mild yet heroic man who was mentioned in dispatches for his work under fire on Gallipoli ; a "plain Australian", who refused a knighthood three times in later life because it went against his democratic principles." Fine cond : Fine cond d/w. 9 1/2 x 6 1/4 inches.

£15-00
Limited supply from publishers 1983 backlist stock
 

Wars and Rumours of Wars : a memoir
by James Marshall-Cornwall
 London, Leo Cooper - Secker & Warburg Ltd., 1984. (1st edition)

vi + 257pp with b/w archive photo illus. "The author was at Rugby with Rupert Brooke, whose father was their housemaster. At Woolwich he was taught by Ernest Swinton. In the First World War he served on the staff of Sir Douglas Haig. The curiously mixed bag of people he met at that time included General Trenchard, Maurice Baring, Colonel Repington, Mrs Humphrey Ward and General Pershing. After the war General Cornwall became a member of the General Staff Delegation at the Peace Conference in Paris, where he worked with amongst others Richard Meinertzhagen, Allan Leeper, Harold Nicolson and T.E.Lawrence. (much else was to follow - trips to India in 1936, and Egypt on 1937-8, followed by duty with Western Command in World War II and even a spell arms dealing with Krishna Menon after the war - and there is much else more to retain the reader's attention). Fine cond : Fine cond d/w. 8 3/4 x 5 1/4 inches

£10-00
Limited supply from publishers 1984 backlist stock
 

My German Question : Growing up in Nazi Berlin
by Peter Gay    pub: Yale University Press (1st Edition)

 xii + 208pp with b/w archive photo illus. In this poignant book, a renowned historian tells of his youth as an assimilated, antireligious Jew in Nazi Germany from 1933-1939 - "the story" says Peter Gay, "of a poisoning and how I dealt with it". With his customary elqouence and analytic acumen, Gay describes his family, the life they led, and the reasons they did not emigrate sooner, and he explores his own ambivalent feelings - then and now - toward Germany and the Germans. Gay relates that the early years of the Nazi regime were relatively benign for his family: as a schoolboy at the Goethe Gymnasium he experienced no ridicule or attacks, his father's business prospered, and most of the family's non-Jewish friends remained supportive. He devised survival strategies - becoming a stamp collector and a passionate soccer fan - that served as screens to block out the increasingly oppressive world around him. Even before the events of 1938-39, culminating in Kristallnacht, the family was convinced that they must leave Germany. Peter Gay describes the bravery and ingenuity of his father in working out this agonizing emigration process, the courage of the non-Jewish friends who helped his family during their last bitter months in Germany, and the family's mounting panic as they witnessed the indifference of other countries to their plight and that of others like themselves. Gay's account - marked by candor, modesty, and insight - adds an important and curiously neglected perspective to the history of German Jewry.(Following graduation at Denver University, in 1946, the author chose an academic career - latterly becoming Sterling Professor of History Emeritus at Yale University. Peter Gay, as a regarded historian, used psycho-analysis to explore the understanding of past events) A very thought-provoking book, highly recommended by this bookseller. Fine cond : fine cond d/w. 9 1/4 x 5 3/4 inches

£ 6.50 
 

The Queen's Daughters, an anthology of Victorian Feminist Writings on India 1857-1900
Penelope Tuson (editor) Ithaca Press Garnet Pub. (1995) 1st Ed.

x + 341pp with b/w illus. "This anthology illustrates the progression of imperialist and feminist attiutudes from different women's perspectives. On one hand there were women like Josephine Butler, Millicent Fawcett and Dorothea Beale who never went to India but regarded the emancipation of Indian women as an extension of their own domestic campaigns. Their writings contrast with that of Mary Carpenter, Flora Annie Steel and Annette Ackroyd Beveridge who visited or lived and worked in India , engaging in activities specifically related to women's interests and whose lives and political sympathies sometimes developed in different directions from mainstream British feminism. Alongside these two groups were women like Florence Nightingale, Harriet Martineau and Annie Besant whose interests were not specifically focussed on the emancipation of Indian women, but rather on colonial reform, politics and Indian people in general."
Fine cond : fine cond d/w. 9 1/2 x 6 1/4 inches

Published at £ 20-00
Special offer - exclusive - price : now only £7-50
 

Mervyn Peake, My Eyes Mint Gold, a life
Malcolm Yorke   London, John Murray, 2000 (1st Edition)

368pp with numerous b/w illus. "Mervyn Peake, painter, poet, illustrator, dramatist and creator of the 'Titus Groan' trilogy, was near to achieving cult status even before his early death in 1968. In both his life and his work, Peake was an original - eccentric, unworldly , witty, widely popular, notably attractive to women, and also sturdily independent of the literary and artistic movements of his day."
Fine cond : fine cond d/w. 9 x 6 inches

Published at £ 25-00
Special offer - exclusive - price : now only £7-50 

Something special : a book which captures the current interest in the domestic architecture of Edwin Lutyens. This title was first published by Country Life in 1913 and has seen several printings : unlikely to ever again be offered at this in-print selling price.

"Houses and Gardens by E. L. Lutyens" by Lawrence Weaver
Antique Collectors Club 2004

£ 35-00

ISBN 0 902028 98 7
388pp with 580 illus
12 x 8 1/2 inches

Sir Edwin Lutyens was born in 1869 and though indifferently educated he became the best known British architect of the early part of this century.
His career lasted 50 years at a time when Britain was at the height of its prosperity, and his Edwardian clients, men of wealth and often power, reflected the opulence of the times. They wanted their houses to match their idea of themselves: solidly built, imposing and with strong individual character. Lutyens provided just this, and more.
He was a traditionalist, often building in a developed vernacular style which alienated him from the modern school, and the fact that this school dominated the architectural style of the 1920s and 1930s accounts for Lutyens' obscurity at that time. Now that the modern school has exploited its ideas to their logical but sterile end, the durability of Lutyens work can clearly be seen and given the serious consideration it merits.
Lutyens was a master in the use of space and in the production of interesting angles and views. Arches gave glimpses, light is graded for effect, windows are cunningly placed. No detail was too small for this great architect's attention. His sense of theatre and humour is to be found in his dramatic schemes, odd juxtapositions, small touches of fantasy.
He was at his best in the country and it was the skilful blending of house and garden that produced the most satisfying results. This, the fruit of his long and happy collaboration with Gertrude Jekyll, the legendary gardener, provides the overall effect which is the hallmark of his domestic work.

Due to the heavy book weight - over 2kg - this book is only posted to mainland UK addresses. Keeble Antiques is pleased to offer this title at the default inland postage charge of £3.50. North American residents can obtain this title directly through the publishers Boston MA offices in Easthampton (USA)

Very well researched book about Childcare - it's Antiques and History

YESTERDAY'S CHILDREN - by Sally Kevill-Davies
Pub : Antique Collectors Club, 1998 reprint
 316pp with 67col. and 315 b/w illus. An enthralling and vividly written account of child-raising over the last four centuries and the everyday objects which were used. The variety is enormous : pap boats, high chairs, cradles, potties, night lights, baby walkers, manufactured milk substitutes, bonnets, perambulators, christening robes and christening gifts are just some of the main topics covered. Also explained by Sally Kevill-Davies are changes in fashions and opinions from the 16th to the early 20th century with regard to childcare              11 x 8 3/4 inches hardback with dustwrapper.

Only, limited quantity........available at special price........£ 22-50

European Painting and Sculpture, ca 1770 - 1937
in the Museum of Art - Rhode Island School of Design
Daniel Rosenfeld ( editor ) pub by Rhode Island School of Design 1991

285pp + 15 full page colour plates + numerous b/w illus in text
a serious reference study work

Originally published @ £30-35   Softbound   11 3/4  x  9 1/4 inches
only 2,000 copy print run for Museum

Very limited supply    only    £ 10-00  New cond 

The best selling in-print book at Keeble Antiques

MABEL LUCIE ATTWELL - An Appreciation
Pub:Chris Beetles London
120 pp with numerous full colour illus.
Biography and Bibliography

Paperback      11 3/4 x 8 3/4 inches         

£ 9.99

 SAVING THE BREEDS
A History of the Rare Breeds Survival Trust

by Lawrence Alderson & Valerie Porter
pub Pica Press ( Helm Information ) 1994
two highly regarded authors chart the formation and development
162pp with illus by Sue Franklin and b/w photo illus
9 1/2  x  6 1/4 inches   hardback with dustwrapper
published @   £19-95 

Limited supply     only     £ 6-00   New cond

Quality in-depth study of famous gardener

MARGERY FISH - Country Gardening
by Timothy Clark
Pub:Garden Art Press, Woodbridge
192pp with 150 col and 50 b/w illus

Hardback      11 x 8 1/2 inches         

£ 25-00

The first balanced and illus. assessment of great marine artist

W.L.WYLLIE-Marine Artist 1851-1931
by R.Quarm and John Wyllie
Pub: Chris Beetles, London, 1981- still in print !
144pp with 13 col and 113 b/w illus

Hardback   11  x  8 1/2 inches

£ 25-00 

*** Please click here for details of books on other marine artists***

Brooking - Chambers - Monamy - Serres
all four titles are offered at a special price