Welcome to Steven Temple Books

STEVEN TEMPLE BOOKS IS STILL OPEN FOR BUSINESS AND IS SHIPPING TO EVERYWHERE IT IS ALLOWED.

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Having operated shops on Queen Street West in downtown Toronto since our founding in 1974, we closed the shop in March, 2014 and now operate from home in Welland, Ontario (close to Niagara Falls, only two turns from Toronto). We can see visitors by appointment. The books (currently around 10,000 of them) are priced, on shelves, and in categories. We continue to specialize in literary books, especially Canadian literary books, general Canadiana, and select out-of-print and rare books in various fields (mostly 19th and 20th century, though we do stock some earlier). We now have some ephemera, but don’t stock comic books, fairly recent used books, bestseller novels, nor paperbacks (unless collectible). Business is primarily by internet or mail. We welcome and pay attention to wants lists when they are for books we might actually find some day and which are worth more than a token amount.

We accept payment by Visa, MasterCard, Amex, PayPal, cheque (Canada and US only), money order, e-transfer (Canada only) – even cash.

Some recent arrivals…

  • A HISTORY OF THE HOUSE OF BIRKS

    (Montreal): Henry Birks & Sons Ltd, 1967. Second edition, revised (first was in 1946). Oblong octavo, light blue-grey wrappers, stapled at the top edge. Small corner crease to front cover, some light sunning to the covers, else fine. A history of this leading Canadian silver, diamond, and jewellry merchant. ; Octavo

    Book ID: 56078
    View cart More details Price: USD $24.95 USD $22.46
  • Young, Lawrence, and others
    Recreational Drugs

    Edition: First printing

    New York: Macmillan, 1977. Octavo, brown boards. VG clean copy, no owner names. Dust jacket has small chips, nicks, short tears, VG otherwise. "Everything you need to know about..." 0026333104

    Book ID: 56077
    View cart More details Price: USD $19.50 USD $17.55
  • STEINGASS, F.
    A LEARNER'S ARABIC-ENGLISH DICTIONARY

    Beruit: Librairie Du Liban, 1989. Blue boards. Reading creases to spine, light yellowing to page edges, else a fine, jacketless copy. 1.93 kg parcel; Thick octavo; (18), 1246 pages

    Book ID: 56076
    View cart More details Price: USD $18.95 USD $17.06
  • YEATS, William Butler (W.B. Yeats)
    A HANDFUL OF POEMS

    Edition: First Edition

    (Halifax, NS): Bob Dawson, 1980. Stapled in green card covers, text printed in green. Fine copy. "These poems were set in...Colum Cille type by Bob Dawson and Pia Hodgson...Typesetting and printing were done in the Dawson Room, Dalhousie University, Halifax, N.S. This is copy No." [never numbered]. Voilà locates only two copies and dates 1990? Reprints "Sailing to Byzantium", "An Irish Airman Foresees his Death", "The Lake Isle of Innisfree", and four other poems. ; Octavo

    Book ID: 56075
    View cart More details Price: USD $20.00 USD $18.00
  • SACKVILLE- WEST, (V.)
    APHRA BEHN the incomporable Astrea

    Edition: First Edition; First Printing

    London: Grayson & Grayson, 1940. Navy cloth. Page edges yellowed, else fine. Jacket is yellowed and has small chips and tears to bit darkened spine ends; chips to corners and rear panel; else good, all lettering present. ; Representative Women; Octavo; (96) pages

    Book ID: 56074
    View cart More details Price: USD $85.00 USD $76.50
  • WINGATE, A.W.S., Col.
    A CAVALIER IN CHINA. With a Foreword by Sir Francis Younghusband

    Edition: First Edition

    London: Grayson & Grayson, 1940. Blue cloth. pp [2]., (2), 327 + 15 plates. Index. Spine a little sunned, light spots to front cover, ink owner inscription, clipped portions of jacket flap pasted in at front, else a VG clean and unworn jacketless copy. An account of his journey through Central China. ; Octavo

    Book ID: 56073
    View cart More details Price: USD $45.00 USD $40.50
  • Harrison, Edward R.
    Cosmology: The Science of the Universe

    Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1986. Third printing. Black cloth. pp 430. Index. Small tape mark on free endpapers, else fine in fine jacket. 1.5 kg parcel; Quarto 0521229812

    Book ID: 56072
    View cart More details Price: USD $24.95 USD $22.46
  • Mohapatra, Rabindra N.
    Unification and Supersymmetry: The Frontiers of Quark-Lepton Physics

    New York: Springer, 1986. Octavo, printed boards, 309 pp. Fine copy, no owner marks.

    Book ID: 56071
    View cart More details Price: USD $29.95 USD $26.96
  • D'Abro, A.
    The Rise of the New Physics: its mathematical and physical theories (Volume 1 & 2)

    New York: Dover, c1952. Two volumes, complete. Card covers. Volume 1 is fine, volume two has a vertical crease and corner chip to front cover, VG+ otherwise. A new, corrected edition, with additions, of THE DECLINE OF MECHANISM (1939). 1.5 kg parcel. ; Octavo

    Book ID: 56070
    View cart More details Price: USD $18.95 USD $17.06
  • Green, Michael B., John H. Scwarz and Edward Witten
    Superstring Theory: Volume 2, Loop Amplitudes, Anomalies and Phenomenology

    Cambridge University Press. Second printing of the 1988 corrected paperback edition. Green card covers, pp 596. indexed. Fine copy, no owner marks. Cambridge Monographs on Mathematical Physics. In print (2017) at USD 101.00. 1.5 kg parcel.; Octavo 0521357535

    Book ID: 56069
    View cart More details Price: USD $45.00 USD $40.50
  • Levine, Norman
    THIN ICE

    Edition: First printing

    Ottawa: Deneau & Greenberg, 1980. Blue boards. Light rubbing to spine ends, else fine. Dust jacket has some rubbing, as often, VG otherwise. Short stories.; Octavo 0888790163

    Book ID: 56068
    View cart More details Price: USD $19.95 USD $17.96
  • MONTGOMERY, L.M.
    ANNE OF AVONLEA. With frontispiece and cover in colour by George Gibbs

    Edition: First printing

    Boston: L.C. Page, 1909. Original light green fine ribbed cloth bordered in blind, gilt lettered, colour pictorial label on front cover. pp viii. 367, (1, blank), 4, 4, ads + colour frontispiece with captioned tissue guard. Rear cover has three small brown spots; spine lightly darkened and lightly rubbed at ends; page edges yellowed; bump to one corner; light rubbing to cover label; 28 Dec., 1909, Canadian ink gift inscription at front; tanning to front endpapers from something once laid in; otherwise a VG clean, tight and unworn copy, no owner names. A respectable copy of the second Anne Shirley novel, published Sept. 1909, following the classic ANNE OF GREEN GABLES of the previous year.; Octavo

    Book ID: 56067
    View cart More details Price: USD $495.00 USD $445.50
  • MONTGOMERY, (L.M.)
    ANNE OF GREEN GABLES. Illustrated by M.A. and W.A.J. Claus

    Boston: Page. Fourth printing, Sept., 1908, same year as the first. Green ribbed cloth ruled in blind, gilt lettered, colour pictorial label on front cover. pp (x), 429, [1, blank], [4.4, ads] + frontispiece with tissue guard and seven other black & white plates. Covers have light soiling and light rubbing, gilt a little dulled; browning to page edges; Xmas, 1908, ink gift inscription at front; tanning to front endpapers; neat archival tissue repair to front inner hinge; neat repair to blank corner of one leaf; slight chemical odor to covers from book cloth cleaner (will dissipate); nicks to fore edge of front free endpaper; in all good-VG, sound copy, tight in the binding, still respectable in appearance. The…

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    Boston: Page. Fourth printing, Sept., 1908, same year as the first. Green ribbed cloth ruled in blind, gilt lettered, colour pictorial label on front cover. pp (x), 429, [1, blank], [4.4, ads] + frontispiece with tissue guard and seven other black & white plates. Covers have light soiling and light rubbing, gilt a little dulled; browning to page edges; Xmas, 1908, ink gift inscription at front; tanning to front endpapers; neat archival tissue repair to front inner hinge; neat repair to blank corner of one leaf; slight chemical odor to covers from book cloth cleaner (will dissipate); nicks to fore edge of front free endpaper; in all good-VG, sound copy, tight in the binding, still respectable in appearance. The author's first book, probably the most famous Canadian book, now very costly in the scarce first printing, and early printings have also become uncommon on the market.; Octavo

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    Book ID: 56066
    View cart More details Price: USD $295.00 USD $265.50
  • ILLUSTRATED HISTORICAL ATLAS OF YORK COUNTY, ONTARIO

    Wilson's Publishing Company & APMIST Enterprises, 1996. Maroon marble pattern boards. #983 of 1000 copies. Facsimile of the rare Myles 1878 original. Fine copy. 2 kg parcel. 45x39x4. Note: large heavier book, extra shipping will be required. ; Folio

    Book ID: 56065
    View cart More details Price: USD $85.00 USD $76.50
  • LEWIS, Wyndham
    JOURNEY INTO BARBARY: Morocco writings and drawings. Edited by C.J. Fox

    Edition: First printing

    Santa Barbara, CA: Black Sparrow Press, 1983. The deluxe issue, #18 of 226 copies handbound by Earle Gray and signed by the editor. Blue cloth spine with paper label and colour pictorial boards, in original acetate wrapper. Fine copy. ; Octavo

    Book ID: 56064
    View cart More details Price: USD $50.00 USD $45.00
  • HOUSE, Madeline and STOREY, Graham (editors). (Charles Dickens)
    THE LETTERS OF CHARLES DICKENS. The Pilgrim Edition. (Complete 12 volume set)

    Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965. Twelve volume set. Red cloth, some plates. Fine copies. The cream dust jackets have tears to bottom spine fold to two volumes, one volume has nicks to ends of slightly darkened spine, VG or better otherwise. A nice set of this mammoth compilation (over 14k letters). Note: heavy parcel, extra shipping will be required. Shipping outside of North America will be very expenpensive indeed. Some individual volumes are available from the publisher at $420-480 each (2023). ; Octavo

    Book ID: 56063
    View cart More details Price: USD $1,500.00 USD $1,350.00
  • HARRISON, S. Frances
    PINE, ROSE AND FLEUR DE LIS

    Edition: First Edition

    Toronto: Hart & Company, 1891 [for 1890]. Light green cloth spine, olive green cloth sides, lettered & decorated in gilt, top edges gilt. [8], 208 pp. Small red spot to lower inner front cover; spine a little darkened, with nicks at head, gilt lettering dulled; Xmas 1890 ink owner name; else a VG clean and unworn copy. Poetry by a minor Canadian poet of some importance. Watters p. 86.; Small octavo.

    Book ID: 56062
    View cart More details Price: USD $29.95 USD $26.96
  • BOWRING, Richard and Haruko Uryu Laurie
    AN INTRODUCTION TO MODERN JAPANESE. Book 2, exercises and word lists

    Edition: First Edition

    Cambridge University Press, 1992. Printed boards without jacket, as issued. Fine copy. 1.05 kg parcel; Octavo; (x), 377 pages

    Book ID: 56061
    View cart More details Price: USD $29.95 USD $26.96
  • GODWIN, Ted
    LOWER BOW: a celebration of wilderness, art and fishing.

    Edition: First Edition

    Regina: Hand Art Moving and Storage Co, 1991. Brown boards. Fine in fine jacket. Colour reproductions.; Quarto; 63 pages; Signed by Author

    Book ID: 56060
    View cart More details Price: USD $21.95 USD $19.76
  • (NOWLAN, Alden) (Choyce, Lesley, editor)
    THE POTTERSFIELD PORTFOLIO. vOLUME 5, 1983-1984

    Porters Lake, Nova Scotia: Pottersfield Press, 1983. Stapled in glossy card covers. Alden Nowlan Tribute Edition. Interview with Nowlan, poems by Milton Acorn, many others.; Quarto; 52 pages

    Book ID: 56059
    View cart More details Price: USD $14.95 USD $13.46

A selection of our current highlights…