PATRICK O'BRIAN (writing under his birth-name Patrick Russ). C. F. Tunnicliffe. — Beasts Royal. With illustrations by C. F. Tunnicliffe.

Putnam, London, 1st Edition, First Edition (first printing) of the author's second book, written when he was nineteen years old ("[and] show[ing] a great advance" blurb). 8vo. 84pp. Blue cloth lettered in white at the spine and upper board. With a colour frontispiece and eight black and white plates by Tunnicliffe just his second bookform illustrations. Cloth lightly faded at the backstrip and at the extreme upper and lower edges of the boards. Binding a little tender at one gathering and with some glue residue markings and spotting to those leaves (only). A lengthy vertical crease to the rear endpaper. Faint ghost of erased pencil markings to the front free endpaper and to the title page. Very good in price-clipped dust wrapper with a reproduction of the colour frontispiece mounted on the front panel. The wrapper a little tanned, lightly chafed at the natural folds and with several tiny silvers of loss from the spine panel ends. Twelve stories of twelve royal beasts. Not noted by Cunningham., Very Good, Very Good