Sancho's Rare Books, Colchester (2026)

18/03/2026

Somewhere in the midst of a busy day of assessing new stock, preparing for auction day, and making wrappers for all the old books in the shop, I completely forgot to celebrate yesterday the birthday of one of the most wonderful writers of children’s (but also some adult) books, Penelope Lively. So here is my personal favourite: The Ghost of Thomas Kempe.

A family moves into an old cottage in Oxfordshire and, before long, things begin to… happen. Buckets tip over, objects move of their own accord, and the house fills with bumps, creaks, and lots of mischief. Ten-year-old James quickly realises this is no ordinary nuisance, and soon makes the acquaintance of Thomas Kempe, a persistent 17th-century sorcerer who seems quite determined not to leave. A funny and charmingly eerie tale of old magic meeting modern life.

Offered here in its first edition, published by Heinemann in 1973, with lovely line drawings by Antony Maitland. Perfect for children (small and big alike). Available in our shop. 📚

13/03/2026

Alice has fallen down the rabbit hole and landed, at last, on Sancho’s shelves.

We did have one of these beauties once before… but that one mysteriously wandered off into our own library and never came back (sage advice that of never mixing business with pleasure). So when another appeared, we couldn’t resist bringing it home again.

And truly, isn’t this one of the most magical visions of Wonderland ever put to paper? fills the pages with White Rabbits, frogs in wigs, suspicious caterpillars, scraps, gold borders and typographic mischief. It feels a lot less like reading a book and much more like opening a magical treasure chest. Curious and curiouser. 🐾

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Lewis Carroll. London: The Folio Society, 2016. Limited numbered edition, signed by the wonderful artist Charles van Sandwyk. Quarter vellum binding with gold and foil blocking, tipped-in colour plates, copperplate etching signed by the artist, and housed in the original clamshell box. Now in our shop.

11/03/2026

“All at once the door opened and an old, old Woman, supporting herself on a crutch, came hobbling out…”

Some fairy tales are just not meant to be cosy, and our binder is magical enough that the binding reflects exactly that. Today we’re bringing to light another knockout from our lovely partner Rosy over at

This newly arrived binding of The Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm has just taken up residence on Sancho’s shelves, and it feels as though it has stepped straight out of the spookiest forest, the sort where the trail of crumbs disappears, the trees lean a little too close, and somewhere between the gingerbread house, a lurking wolf, a wandering prince, and a rather suspicious old crone, something unpleasant might be waiting just behind the next crooked tree.

Bound in dark gingerbread-brown leather (yes, yes, we know most people would say “chocolate brown,” but to me it very much looks like gingerbread, and frankly, it suits the story), Rosy has let the boards tell their own tale with her gorgeous leather onlays. On the back, sweet Hänsel and Gretel stand close together, peering nervously ahead. On the front, the old crone herself greets them, stooped on her crutch, exactly as Arthur Rackham imagined her - that moment just before the tale turns properly Grimm. The original endpapers have been preserved, the spine lettering uses a facsimile of the original typeface, and the whole thing is finished with a ribbon marker and tri-coloured endbands. It really is a stunner.

Inside, Rackham’s illustrations unfold in all their eerie beauty: goblins, tangled woods, witches, wandering children… the proper ingredients for a Grimm story.

The book now lives inside a splendid clamshell case (complete with a little Rackham goblin lurking on the lid), and tucked within is an autograph letter signed by Rackham, housed in a portfolio with — wait, what?! — yes, another goblin. Now in our shop. 😊

03/03/2026

New arrivals in our wee shop all the way from Somerset, with many thanks to Rosy from

First up: a rebound first Rackham trade edition of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, dressed in the most sumptuous leather and featuring Rosy’s extraordinary onlay work. Never has the old crone looked so gloriously menacing. A lovely letter from Arthur Rackham will be housed in the accompanying portfolio, and the whole thing rests inside the most gorgeous solander case. A bit of a show-off, I know. We acquired this copy some time ago in incredibly poor condition, and I think Rosy has done a truly marvellous job bringing it back from the brink.

Beside her, a beautifully restored first trade edition of East of the Sun and West of the Moon, with Kay Nielsen’s illustrations glowing exactly as they should. Many moons ago I shared this edition before it went off for restoration, and honestly, it has come back completely transformed - all moonlight and myth and impossible quests. This one too has its own splendid solander case, and Rosy has even found a little moon from her box of delights to block the spine. Magic!

And finally, towering grandly, an early Don Quixote edition with Gustave Dore’s magnificent plates, now looking every inch the heroic masterpiece it is.

All three will be making their way onto the shop shortly…

01/03/2026

It's March. I, for one, consider winter truly done and dusted, and am officially entering the season of green spines and hopeful endings.

Out have come the mossy cloth bindings, the ivy-twined gilt, the countryside novels, the fairy books, the stories that smell faintly of fresh starts. If ever there were a month for Anne, Austen, Eliot, Tolkien and a little wander by the riverbank, it is this one. I always start the month with some lovely Alison Uttley books, followed by The Wind in the Willows.

All of these beauties are nestled on Sancho's shelves, and you can now help with the spring "cleaning" and pick up one or two from our shop.

March, we’re ready for you. 🌿

28/02/2026

We’ve acquired rather a lot of Austen this year (not that I'm complaining!), but this set takes the prize as one of the loveliest.

This is the first expanded Wi******er edition of The Novels of Jane Austen, published in Edinburgh by John Grant in 1911–12 - twelve beautifully matched volumes in a rich mid-green cloth, spines gloriously gilt, handmade paper, generous and elegant type. An edition praised in its own day for finally placing Austen “in a setting worthy of her writings.”

The original ten-volume Wi******er edition appeared in 1898, but this expanded issue completes the picture, adding Lady Susan, The Watsons, the letters, and appendices in two final volumes. Contemporary press admired it, with one critic writing that the books “invite the touch and reprove the hasty hand.” Now that's exactly right.

Top edges gilt, others uncut. Red and black title pages with floral monograms. A photogravure frontispiece portrait after Cassandra Austen’s drawing of her sister. Just lovely and in fabulous condition.

The Novels of Jane Austen. Edinburgh: John Grant, 1911–12. First expanded Wi******er edition. Complete set in twelve volumes. Original gilt-decorated green cloth. Printed on handmade paper. Scarce thus. Visit our wee online shop.

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27/02/2026

I love those early mornings when it’s just me, a roll of brown paper, and Sancho the cat supervising quality control as the day’s book parcels are wrapped and sent on their way.

Today’s parcel? Yet another fairy tale (we’re currently either selling them, rebinding them or living in them). This one is a first edition of The Yellow Fairy Book, and I foolishly opened to the tale of“The Cat and The Mouse in Partnership” before wrapping it.

If you haven’t read it: a trusting little mouse moves in with a cat (already a red flag). Together, they store a pot of fat in a church (as one does), and the cat sneaks off three times to eat it - Top Off, Half Gone, Clean Gone - before finally eating the mouse as well when she dares to protest. Thanks, Grimm brothers. Delightful bedtime material!

Henry Justice Ford illustrated the treacherous timeline perfectly in this first edition… and Sancho, sitting beside me while I pack, seems entirely unbothered by the moral of the story. I, however, am watching him closely. 👀

The Yellow Fairy Book. Edited by Andrew Lang. London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1894. First edition. Illustrated by Henry Justice Ford.

26/02/2026

“Laugh, and the world laughs with you; Weep, and you weep alone; For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth, But has trouble enough of its own.”

One of the most beautiful books to visit Sancho’s shelves is Ella Wheeler Wilcox’s Poems of Passion and Pleasure; this being the limited De Luxe edition from 1912, signed by both the author and the illustrator, the oh-so-wonderful Dudley Tennant, who produced some of the most beguiling plates this wee bookseller has ever seen. My goodness, they enrich Wilcox’s verse so beautifully. I began by thinking I’d photograph a handful and somehow ended up photographing almost all of them.

Isn't it just... perfect?

Poems of Passion and Pleasure, Ella Wheeler Wilcox.
London: Gay & Hancock, 1912. First Dudley Tennant edition. Limited De Luxe Edition, one of 500, bound in full vellum with gilt lettering and decoration. Illustrated by Dudley Tennant with 20 tipped-in colour plates. Signed by both poet and artist.

25/02/2026

🌿 The light is lingering a little longer each afternoon, and we are very much longing for spring at this point. It feels like exactly the right moment to reach for this gorgeous edition of The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady and attempt to summon the season forward just a wee bit. And if those beautiful snowdrops can’t hurry it along, I’m not sure what can!

Edith Holden’s 1906 journal follows the British countryside month by month — wildflowers in hedgerows, nesting birds, shifting skies — all captured in her delicate watercolours and handwritten notes. Unpublished in her lifetime, it became a surprise bestseller when first printed in 1977.

This particular copy is rather special: one of just 15 copies reserved from the first edition run for fine binding by Zaehnsdorf. Half green leather over beautifully marbled boards (same as the endpapers), raised bands to spine, burgundy labels, all edges gilt — a binding that feels very much at home beside pressed flowers and early spring light. Signed by Rowena Stott, Edith Holden’s great niece and custodian of the original diary. Available in our shop.

The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady. Edith Holden. London: Michael Joseph / Webb & Bower, 1977. First edition, second impression. Limited edition, one of 15 copies in a fine binding by Zaehnsdorf. Signed by Rowena Stott.

07/02/2026

Woke up this morning to a rather perfect surprise: this beautiful illustrated edition of The Chimes had sold overnight and will soon be on its way across the Atlantic, which feels especially fitting, as today happens to be Charles Dickens’ birthday. Wrapping it up this morning (before taking a few more pictures) - bells, goblins, ghosts and all - felt like exactly the right way to mark the day.

The Chimes is the second of Dickens’s five great Christmas Books and was conceived in late 1844 when Dickens was staying in Italy, where the sound of church bells ringing across Genoa lodged itself firmly in his imagination. His friend and biographer John Forster records receiving a note from Dickens that read simply: “We have heard THE CHIMES at midnight, Master Shallow!”, and the writing began soon after.

The story follows Trotty Veck, a humble ticket-porter who works on the steps of a church, haunted by the bells that mark time and judgement as the year turns. Like A Christmas Carol’s “staves”, The Chimes is divided into four “quarters”, echoing the quarter-chimes of a clock, and unfolding as a dark and ultimately quite hopeful meditation on poverty, responsibility, and social conscience.

This copy is a 1913 Hodder & Stoughton first Hugh Thomson illustrated edition: seven tipped-in colour plates with captioned tissue guards, bell-themed chapter headpieces, and elaborately gilt blue cloth.

Sancho's Rare Books

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11/03/2026

03/03/2026

01/03/2026

28/02/2026

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