A Treatise on Pocket Knives

Los Angeles: [Printed at the Press in the Gatehouse], 1964. First Printing. Stiff Wrappers. Fine. First Edition of this paean to the pocket knife, enumerating its benefits, shortcomings, and types (including the curved bistoury blade used by surgeons and the seventeenth-century typesetter's coping blade). Foolscap 8vo (101 x 67mm): 36pp, with three full-page plates, decorative initials, and three supplement leaves printed one side only, neatly folded and tipped in at rear. Publisher's burnt orange stiff wrappers printed in black, fore-edge untrimmed. No limitation given, but probably fewer than 150 copies printed, based on Cheney's usual edition sizes for similar items. A fine copy, virtually pristine, of this scarce near-miniature book. Will Cheney at 90 (Clark Library), p. 22. Cheney printed an expanded second edition in 1968, incorporating the information from the first-edition supplements, including, from the Third Supplement, notes on the jackleg knife, which Cheney says was a favorite of wood engraver Thomas Bewick, who "says in his memoirs that returning from a late card game one night he met the devil on a lonely moor. On Bewick flourishing his 'Jackleg' knife, the devil stepped aside and let him pass." N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition, carefully preserved in archival, removable mylar sleeves. All orders are packaged with care and posted promptly. Satisfaction guaranteed. (Fine Editions Ltd is a member of the Independent Online Booksellers Association, and we subscribe to its codes of ethics.).