The value of true first editions is not something people find difficult to understand. They tend to be expensive because only a small number of copies had been printed and their future success could not be entirely predicted. Occasionally, though, some books acquire such legendary status and fame that all of their early editions quickly […]
Dear customers, Let us not despair, and stay strong together. Due to the recent COVID-19 outbreak, the activities of our bookshop are going to change a little. We will of course try to stay open as long as we can, mostly to fulfil any online and phone requests. With regards to that, feel free […]
Here at Henry Pordes Books we pride ourselves on stocking not just the old and antiquarian – although our stock of such books is certainly many and varied; we also hold a wide array of modern favourites. Recently, we acquired a large selection of first edition Terry Pratchett novels, a few of which are signed […]
Henry Pordes is proud to have picked up some first edition titles by William Burroughs, the legendary American author of Naked Lunch (1959), often proclaimed as one of the most important innovators in the art of experimental prose writing of the latter half of the twentieth century. Let me draw attention to three of his […]
Christopher Isherwood. To most readers, the name conjures the world: the smoke-saturated bar, redolent with the sweat of young, grasping hustlers; the bohemian domesticity, symbolised in the splash of Worcestershire sauce sluicing into the prairie oyster; perhaps even Liza Minelli supine on a wooden chair, her black-heeled boots pointing high into the ceiling. This novelist […]
As a poet, W. H. Auden has always divided opinion. F R Leavis thought his ironic style was ‘horribly show-off’ and ‘morally irresponsible’; while the biographer Hugh McDiarmid referred to the poet as ‘a complete wash-out’. These obituaries might be harsh, but they are a strong contrast to the highly enthusiastic reception of his early […]