More new old books

BookAddiction constantly strives to offer book collectors and readers (and those who share our own book addiction) interesting and novel (pun intended!) books, and this week has been no exception.  We love the hunt for new titles and interesting volumes, sifting thought boxes of old books, scanning auction catalogues or curiously prizing open the latest batch of books.  Here’s a few of the more unusual, quirky or interesting volumes that have been added to our on line book addiction offering recently.

The Art of Alfred Hitchcock – an authoritative biography of one of the most influential film-makers.  Perhaps not the rarest or most unusual of books, but so important is Hitchcock in the film world, that this early biography has particular interest, not least for the numerous black and white movie stills it contains.

Epaminondas and The Eggs – this quirky infant’s book, dating from the 1960s, has charming period illustrations, but it and the series it comes from has become controversial for it’s depiction of BAME people.  The author, Constance Egan, wrote a number of children’s books.  She has been criticised for her depiction and illustrations of the African-American characters as being racist and depicting stereotypes.  Others will treasure the books as fond memories of their 1950s and 1960s childhoods.

Appealing perhaps to those with a specific interest in the subject matter, F E Mostyn’s niche book, The Truck Acts and Industry, provides a fascinating insight into the motivations for and the consequences of the series of Truck Acts which were passed by Parliament between 1831 and 1887.  The OED describes the Truck System as the practice of paying workmen in goods instead of money, or in money on the understanding that they will buy provisions etc only from their employer; but in practice there was more to it than that and there is hardly an aspect of industrial relations upon which these Acts did not impinge.

Mostyn himself was an interesting character.  Born Frederick Moscovitch, he changed his name to Frederick Evelyn Mostyn in 1937. Widely known as ‘Lyn’, he was a successful solicitor in the leading London firm of HCL Hanne & Co.  He stood for Parliament for the Labour Party in a north London by-election, co-wrote with Michael Foot and served as an adviser to Barbara Castle.  As well as The Truck Acts he also wrote a couple of legal texts on marriage and divorce.  But he was also a novelist – author of A Planned Coincidence and, in 1959, Lawyer,Heal Thyself.  The latter has two claims to fame: first, it has been called ‘possibly the best legal novel ever‘.  And secondly, it is thought by some to be the inspiration (at least) for John Osborne’s 1964 play, Inadmissible Evidence.