Thursday, September 14, 2006

Not in Gibbs IV.

The House in the Valley

The House in The Valley was James Hanley's only novel under the pseudonym Patric Shone and is something of a rarity. This is the dustwrapper Gibbs was unable to see before publication of the bibliography, but the book itself is A35a.

This copy is signed "Patric Shone" in quite small script near the front ffep gutter; certainly an unusual location for a signature. It does however match the other signed copies I've seen as the S in Shone is an extension of the dot above the i in Patric.

Patric Shone

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Not in Gibbs special.

I got a note from Dr. Robin Wood - hurray for Google! - with whom I began a conversation on Hanley points back in 1999 when I started dealing books online. Although he doesn't see himself as a collector, he is a fan and has gone to quite some length to dig up uncatalogued Hanley material. Here's his partial "Not in Gibbs" list:

(1) Reviews in the North London newspaper The Recorder. An article 9/6/50 on Hanley by Emrys Jones: "Great Novelist Reviews the New Novels". Thereafter more or less weekly book reviews by Hanley until 5/4/52, when Emrys Jones takes over again. Dr. Wood did not make copies, or record details, as the reviews were generally prosaic and generally not of well known authors.

(2) Stage Plays

1972 Leave Us Alone --10 performances in London ( Cont. Brit. Dramatists 1972). According to Guernsey in The Best Plays of the Year 1972-3. Confirmation of the performances from Hanley's son Liam.

1973-74 Say Nothing for five months, at the Finnish National Theatre (Harington 23). Additional documentation, including reviews.

(3) BBC SOUND RECORDINGS (National sound archives):

Winter Journey LP 24037 a play 29/1/58
The Ocean T28269 novel adapted 4/5/58
One Way Only T32636 a play 1/12/67
A Dream Journey T37964 adapted from his novel 30/11/74
Another World T49571 a play by James Hanley 20/5/80.

I'd really like to assemble as complete a list of Hanley material as possible, so if you've found this site and got notes on a couple of Hanley oddities, do send them in.

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

Not in Gibbs III.

The OceanThe Ocean - Back

Another of the Not in Gibbs Hanley items. This one, a variant issue of A24c, the William Morrow, New York, first American edition of The Ocean. This is a paperback and, as you can see, the back cover is full of praise.

Of all of Hanley's books, I think this one has the most subsequent editions. I believe it's still in print from Harvill Press, London.

Friday, March 10, 2006

Not in Gibbs II.

Another "Not in Gibbs" Hanley item. This time, a binding variant - Gibbs calls for blue - of the first edition of A21People are Curious.

People are Curious Variant

Sunday, February 19, 2006

Not in Gibbs I.

Boy, Obelisk Press, Paris, 1936

My dad was a big fan of James Hanley's books and for the last decade I've been working on improving the collection he began in the 70's. It's a huge bunch of books now and about as good as it's likely to get, so it's going off to the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library at the University of Toronto where it will join his Powys collection.

I thought I might use the blog to list some of the titles that we both managed to get that do not appear in his excellent bibliography by Linnea Gibbs.

The first is Gibbs' ghost, a variant edition of A6h, the Obelisk Press, Paris first edition of Boy printed in 1936. Gibbs found reference to its publication in the Bib. Nat. Catalogue, but thought it "was probably not published". Well... Here it is.

Title page

Sunday, January 8, 2006

Dad.

Dad

Professor R.J. Handscombe, 1935-2005

My father passed away on Christmas Eve after five years of co-existing with cancer. He's loved, missed and the reason I do what I do.