London: Collins Crime Club, (1991) dj. Hardcover first edition - The author's fourth mystery featuring the Mamur Zapt - that is Cadwallader Owen, the head of the Political Branch of the police. It is 1909 and Cairo is a hotbed of political unrest. 220 pp. ISBN: 0-002323176.

New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, (1961) dj. Hardcover first edition - The first novel by this Trinidian-born African American. "Set in Trinidad, the novel brutally satirized the island's racial caste system and the entire social hierarchy the British had put in place. A Guardian review noted that Hercules 'animates an absurd milieu where skin color, hair texture, ethnic features, business acumen, respectability, and sometimes intelligence have to be carefully weighed before an individual can be given a social acceptability rating.' Named one of the five best first novels of the year by Newsweek magazine." (James M. Manheim) 212 pp.

New York: St Martin's, (2022). First edition - A book which "investigates how the country with the largest oil reserves in the world fell into a protracted crisis. . . an insightful survey of Venezuelas downfall, offering valuable lessons about 21st-century populism, authoritarianism, economic mismanagementand the failure of efforts to contain these forces." (Americas Quarterly)" The disaster is so complete that more than 10% of the population has fled. Notes, 325 pp. Publisher's letter laid in.

New York: Harper & Row, (1964) dj. Hardcover first edition - An "account of Sir Hugh Foot's career as a British diplomat in some of the most troubled spots around the world" - including Palestine, Nigeria, Jamaica and Cyprus- in "an era when colonies are cutting loose from dependency to become fully fledged nations in their own right, and the bitterness of nationalism has erupted throughout the world along with the idealistic call to freedom." Illustrated with four cartoons and an inserted section of black-and-white photographs. Index. 256 pp.

New York: Dutton, (2002.) dj. Hardcover first edition - An unusual first novel, set in Victorian India and Edwardian England, about what it means to be Indian and to be English, or black or white, or both. From the review in the San Francisco Chronicle: 'From this moment right up till a few pages shy of the ending, Kunzru follows his hero's adventures with an eye for the savage follies of empire that even Evelyn Waugh might have envied. ...'The Impressionist' is a picaresque stitch, a deadly serious book about race and empire that can still put a reader on the floor with the exquisitely timed comic understatement of its language. ' 383 pp. ISBN: 0-525-94642x.

New York: Thomas Seltzer, 1922. Hardcover first edition - One of the greatest works to come out of colonial Africa, this is also one of the first novels to depict Africans as they really were, and to reveal the smoldering hatred of the African and the white colonialists for each other. Winner of the Prix Goncourt in 1922 (Maran was the first Black writer to win this award). Translated from the French by Adele Szold Seltzer. 207 pp. ISBN: 0-87953-006.

New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, (1941) dj. Hardcover first edition - A coast-to-coast trip across Africa from Dar-es-Salaam in Tanganyika to Duala in the French Cameroons - an account of both the rigors of the trip, but also a picture of an emerging modern Africa - and of a region which the author realized would be important during World War II. Rather uncommon US edition of a book which had already (as noted on the dj) gone thru 9 printings in England. The author was an American but also an Anglophile. 555 pp. Map endpapers.

New York: Doubleday, (1990) dj. Hardcover first edition - The author's first Mamur Zapt mystery, set in 1908, as the "indirect" British rule in Cairo is beginning to wind down. The Mamur Zapt is Cadwallader Owen, the head of the Political Branch of the police. The author grew up in what was then the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. Author's note. 183 pp. ISBN: 0-385415206.

New York: Grove Press, (1988) dj. Hardcover first edition - Tanzanian author's first novel, a bitter but poetic and haunting coming of age story set in a squalid seaport in East Africa. When it appeared in England, the Times called it "159 pages of sheer joy and magic. The story is deceptively simple..." In 2021, Gurnah was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fates of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents." 159 pp. Striking dust jacket design by Bascove. ISBN: 0-8021-10185.

New York: Norton, 1973. dj. Hardcover first edition - Originally published in the UK under the title 'Politics in Ex-British Africa.' A title in the Comparative Modern Governments series. Suggestions for further reading, index. Map. xx, 236 pp. ISBN: 0-393055167.

New York: Flatiron Books, (2019). SIGNED first edition - The second novel by this author who grew up in Malaysia herself, set in the world of 1930s British colonial Malaya. "Quick-witted, ambitious Ji Lin is stuck as an apprentice dressmaker, moonlighting as a dancehall girl to help pay off her mother's Mahjong debts. But when one of her dance partners accidentally leaves behind a gruesome souvenir, Ji Lin plunges into a dark adventure: a mirror world of secrets and superstitions." SIGNED on the title page with the words "Best wishes" and dated in 2018, that is, before publication. Promotional postcard laid in. Author's historical note on weretigers and more. 372 pp.

London: Penguin, (1971). Foreword by Amilcar Cabral, An "important new field-study of guerrilla warfare in an African context.. Quoting extensively from the private archives of the African Independance Party of Guin and the Cape Verde Islands (PAIGC) and from speeches of Amilcar Cabral, Davidson shows the importance of this guerrilla war for the rest of Africa and indeed for the whole of the Third World." A very personal account which begins with Davidson witnessing the Portuguese dropping napalm on the rebels and villagers. A title in the Penguin African Library, edited by Ronald Segal. Photographs, references, bibliography. 167 pp plus 2 pp of maps.

London: Constable & Co., Ltd. (1970). Hardcover first edition - An account of the scramble during the 19th century by European countries for control in Africa, with an emphasis on South Africa where the struggle was the sharpest and the stakes highest. Includes a table of principal events in South Africa, illustrated with photographs and maps, bibliography, index. 454 pp. Map endpapers. ISBN: 0-094569509.

New York: Taplinger Publishing Co, (1987). Novel set on the island of Kailuana in Papua New Guinea in 1959 in the last days of Australian rule, which is centered on a government inquiry into an outbreak of native violence and horrific death of a young administrator, a story which vividly depicts the clash of cultures between the Indigenous peoples and their colonial rulers. Although Stow received many awards, including the Patrick White award in 1979, he is the least well-known of the three great twentieth-century Australian novelists whose other members are Patrick White and Christina Stead. 189 pp. ISBN: 0-80088017x.

New York: New American Library - NAL - Meridian, (1970). An examination of Colonial history in Kenya, and the rise of nationalism, culminating in the 1952 State of Emergency - a book which concludes that it was the short-sightedness of European policy makers that precipitated the violence. A important and controversial book. Bibliography, notes, index. xviii, 427 pp.

Nairobi: Kenya Literature Bureau, 1977. First edition - A Special Issue of the Kenya Historical Review, Vol. 5 No. 2, 1977 with twelve articles on the topic, and an introduction by Bethwell A. Ogot. Slightly oversized trade paperback. pp 169-403.

Boston: Small, Maynard and Co,. (1923). Hardcover first edition - Romantic novel by this British author, set in the deserts of North Africa and published just a few years after her novel, The Sheik, which was not only a huge bestseller, but the basis of the 1923 film of the same title starring Rudolf Valentino. This novel was the basis for the 1926 film "Old Loves and New" starring Walter Pidgeon. 302 pp

London: Institute of Race Relations / Oxford University Press, 1965. First edition - Bechuanaland was one of the United Kingdom's three High Commission Territories, and its location made it a warring ground for different ideologies. vii, Map, 114 pp plus 5 charts.

London: Institute of Race Relations / Oxford University Press, 1963. First edition - "Traces the effect on the relations between France and Cameroon by the United Nations presence and activity - and in particular why these ran contrary to French trusteeship policy." It also discusses events since independence. Map, bibliogaphy. 142 pp.

Nairobi, Kampala & Dar Es Salaam: East African Literature Bureau, (1975). First edition - An overview of more than 500 years of history from the early settlers of the coast through the invasions of the Arabs and the Portuguese to the final settlement of the British from 1850-1900. Maps. Bibliography. xiv, 104 pp.

New York: Harper Collins, (2003) dj. Hardcover first edition - An examination of the world-changing effects of the catastrophic eruption off the coast of Java of the earth's most dangerous volcano - Krakatoa - which was followed by an immense tsunami that killed nearly forty thousand people. Maps. Illustrated. Suggestions for further reading, index. xvi, 416 pp. ISBN: 0-066212855.

London: Constable & Co., Ltd. (2004) dj. SIGNED hardcover first edition - The fourth Joe Sandilands novel set in 1922, where a tiger turned man-eater is terrorizing the northern villages of Ranipur. SIGNED by the author on the title page. 304 pp. ISBN: 1-841198129.

London: Constable & Co., Ltd. (2003) dj. SIGNED hardcover first edition - The third Joe Sandilands novel set in 1922, where Joe, on secondment from Scotland Yard, is spending a fortnight's leave with an old army friend, commander of the frontline fort at Gor Khatri, where an uneasy truce has been holding with the Afghans to the North. SIGNED by the author on the title page. 287 pp. ISBN: 1-841196762.

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002. dj. Hardcover first edition - Highly praised historical novel by this author who was selected by Granta as one of the best young British novelists. "In the spring of 1839, some fifty thousand British forces entered Afghanistan with 'the full pomp of Empire,' possessed of the certainty that they would replace the Amir with someone less hostile toward their ally, the King of the Punjab. Three years later, a single British horseman rode out of the Afghan mountains into India - the sole survivor of the original vast contingent." Includes a glossary, list of characters and bibliography. 486 pp. ISBN: 0-375414886.

New York: Putnam, (2015) dj. Hardcover - The author's first novel (preceded by two works of nonfiction published as Miranda Carter) Set in colonial India in 1837, this introduces Blake and Avery, an unlikely investigative pair - "William Avery is a young soldier with few prospects except rotting away in campaigns in India; Jeremiah Blake is a secret political agent gone native, a genius at languages and disguises, disenchanted with the whole ethos of British rule, but who cannot resist the challenge of an unresolved mystery." Historical note and afterward, Glossary, map endpapers. 369 pp. ISBN: 978-0399171673.

London: Collins Crime Club, (1989) dj. Hardcover first edition - The second Mamur Zapt mystery, set in 1908, as the "indirect" British rule in Cairo is beginning to wind down. The Mamur Zapt is Cadwallader Owen, the head of the Political Branch of the police. The author grew up in what was then the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. 204 pp. ISBN: 0-002322110.