1st editions of the classics of fiction

Catalog 34

5 Centuries of Winsome 1st Editions

and a Few That Aren't

1550-1995

all of them books of areté in spectacular condition

disruptively described with a presumption of familiarity

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Nota Bene: Catalog 34 has some pictures but you’re going to have to read to access it, so if your lips are moving, stop right now, because you are not likely to buy our books anyway. As I am the creator of a new realm of cataloging I therefore invent the standards and rules therein, and you as my reader are obliged to adjust and conform to my style. You will find some entries very short and some that are very long, some touch many points of view, some only one, for which I do not consider myself accountable. I do however, regard your ease and entertainment as well as the advantage you may derive if you will indulge the shifting aspects of each description, but any pattern you imagine will prove illusory. That which you may deem most important in the characterizing of any book will sometimes be found at the beginning of an entry, sometimes at the end, other times buried in the middle and occasionally lacking altogether, without any discernible regularity. Attributed quotations are in quotation marks but disparate pithy aphorisms, coy similes and terse metaphors are stolen, kidnapped, plagiarized, embezzled and pillaged from everywhere and everyone, then corrupted, inverted, combined, debauched and misemployed, all for your joy of reading. Text is written with the abandon of a pig in mud, but that’s the only way the inadequate cataloger knows how to be brave. I assume you are already acquainted with the rare book market, nonetheless bookspeak is kept to a minimum. Linkage is repeatedly achieved by ironic adages and wry proverbs, admittedly with irritating frequency and sometimes to the point of distraction, but descriptions are composed to entertain sophisticated readers, so if you’re not easily bored, indulge my freewill in appreciation of those that are. I distinguish between the concrete and abstract but often present them in the same sentence. I reject formality, rules about commas and I don’t write for Nickelodeon. That means descriptions may contain sex or violence but in the spirit of moderation they contain no violent sex or sexy violence. Foreign readers may find it annoying that I don't apologize for American fiction but your humble cataloger never gets to go anywhere. Literature is listed by author, associated items are listed by subject. I expect you can tell us what you want so all items in this catalog are unnumbered. Books are shipped by next day Fed-Ex, at our expense, but we may take a week to wrap them (the sucky side of the octopus). All items are unconditionally guaranteed to be thrilling and may be promptly returned for insufficient thrill, however, flippant reversals may cause severe tire damage. Everything is guaranteed to be way cool, regardless of vintage, but autograph material created by the living has specific disclaimers of warranty. Condition is not described by Pinocchio so anything characterized as "fine" is just that with no nonsense. Catalog 34 was carefully assembled with a critical eye for rarity, quality, significance and beauty, the essential quartet for any antique, and this in a sloppy world that has airbrushed away any expectation of excellence. Restoration and repair is aesthetic, skillfully accomplished and clearly noted without the use of evasive terminology. I never spin "fine" into a term for a book with faults by using mesmerizing enhancements like, fine plus, fine indeed, very fine, unusually fine, extremely fine, exceptionally fine, exceedingly fine, unbelievably fine or unimaginably fine. "Contemporary" does not mean contemporary with today but rather, with the time of publication. Items attributed as "ex-somebody" were once owned by that person. For goodwill Biblioctopus crawls towards our aim of full disclosure, the kind of goodwill preferred by big kids in a world where 8 booksellers have 10 opinions. Payment is preferred in United States dollars, conversion is chilling. Sympathetic terms are available to established accounts, ask about Biblioctobuck$. California residents please add 8 1/4% sales tax, but we always give homeboys a discount to even things out. Catalog 34 is filled with ingredients known to cause option paralysis so feel free to telephone for assistance, but I am happy with my long distance carrier, don't want to shift credit card balances, won’t have our web site redesigned, and am not interested in the Sunday paper. Having trouble picking the right book? Trust yourself with the Biblioctopus Instinct Patch (a safe med but side effects include mediocrity smirk), or trust us to pick your books for you with Biblioctopus Omikase, $5,000 and up, also with side effects including the happiness factor, so you may derive increased pleasure from music, sex and chocolate. No lab animals were mutilated during research for this catalog, no books were purchased using gill nets, no authors were stalked for their autographs, no human tissue was used for restoration experiments, no books were shelved in rooms with their temperatures altered in any way so all are karma clean from any participation in global warming, no drug money was laundered to pacify rich customers, no book beetles were released on the premises of our colleagues, no exhibits were held on sacred burial grounds, no children were enslaved at low wages to remain competitive, no Redwoods were felled to produce this paper, no mailboxes were ripped off the homes of catalog recipients who never buy a book, no prospective interns were interviewed in the nude, no third world nations were exploited to maximize profits and we’ve only stepped on the downtrodden when a change of direction wasn’t practical. Copyright © MMVII by Biblioctopus Nation but contrary to established custom we will subsidize the reproduction and distribution of Catalog 34 anywhere in the world, so long as that reprinting is absolutely accurate. Biblioctopus is the official octopus of the the Knights Templar, the Nobel Prize Committee, the original Library of Alexandria, the Roswell Crash Site, the California Foxy Boxing Association, the NASA Mission to Put a Man on the Sun, the Bermuda Triangle, Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Citizens for the Equitable Distribution of Magic Powers, the Druids of Stonehenge, the NFL Los Angeles Franchise, the Oracle of Delphi, and the 11 moons of Neptune.

catalog 34 is conceitedly dedicated

to the memory of the great John F. Fleming

cold-hearted as a meter maid driven by ticket quota

Acker, Kathy

I Dreamt I Became a Nymphomaniac

(San Francisco, 1974).

6 vols. 1st edition in original 6 parts. The reigning post-punk classic. Self wrappers. Fine. Her third book and second novel, hand made, self published in a tiny edition and mailed to subscribers only. The first part was sent free. By part two she was asking for contributions as she had "run out of money and people to borrow from." A pioneering, willful, spiky cuff, spiritual vertigo, filled with more bleeps than R2D2 on crack.

500

Still unappreciated for the ground she broke (not that the world's ready anyway), but 20 years from now Kathy Acker Day will be celebrated across America as mothers on the ragged edge come together for lightning raids on gynecologists' offices, to tear down pictures of happy babies and replace them with photos of sullen teenagers moping at the dinner table.

Acker remains outside the cyclone of hyper-modern 1st edition collecting. Her originality, influence, courage and style, as well as the tiny editions of her early self-published novels in parts, all mark her as an author who's collectability will be a force some day. But her writing is still just way too edgy. The post punk writers who ride her wake seem to be doing fine but few collectors are yet ready for any part of Acker, seemingly fearful of being identified with her. So here she stands, dead 5 years and still too scary to collect. She would have loved it

Beowulf

[Anonymous] translated by N. F. S. Grundtvig

Bjowulfs Drape

(Copenhagen, 1820).

1st edition of the complete Anglo-Saxon epic in any modern language (Danish). Contemporary (original?) full calf, label, a little rubbed else fine, exceptional condition, never rebacked.

6,000

The monumental pagan heroic tale, long preserved in oral tradition, then carried to England by Danish invaders where it was overlaid with a veneer of Christian theology and put down by an unknown poet in a manuscript first transcribed in Old English about the year 1000. It's set in 6th century Denmark and fuses Norse legends and Danish historical events in 3,182 lines of alliterative verse. Here is Beowulf, the superhuman warrior, Hygelac, Beowulf's lord, and ruler of the Geats, Hygd his young queen who offers Beowulf the throne of her son after Hygelac's death, Hrothgar, King of the Danes who adopts Beowulf as his son, Wealtheow, his Queen who gives her own sons over to Beowulf's care, Wiglaf, the last of Beowulf's kin and his heir, Sigemund and Fitela, the legendary Volsungs, and finally Grendel, the paradigm monster of monsters, who regularly visits Hrothgar's hall to carry off and devour his warriors.

Beowulf is the earliest extant epic in any modern European language (that means not Homer's Iliad and Odyssey or Vergil's Aeneid). It comes to us in a single 10th century manuscript (Cotton Vitellius A.xv.), almost destroyed in a 1731 fire at the Cotton library. It took so long for an edition to reach print because for decades after its discovery the manuscript was incoherently mistranslated and no one quite understood what it was. But this is (at last) the real 1st edition of a magnificently written masterpiece, of surprising literary merit, by any standard a notably important book and apparently, an uncommon one.

[Anonymous]

The Tale of Beowulf

Kelmscott Press (Hammersmith, 1895).

1st edition designed and printed by William Morris, from a translation by A. J. Wyatt. A fine copy. One of 300 (actually 308) in original vellum with 6 silk ties (1 detached but present). Complete with the original "Note To The Reader" slip laid in.

4,000

her first book

Austen, Jane

Sense and Sensibility

(London, 1811).

3 vols. 1st edition. Fine in nearly contemporary full calf, complete with all 3 genuine half titles (essential with this book). Her first novel, a balancing of love against property, and beneath the plotline, suggesting that even if women understood men they wouldn’t believe it. But Austen not only grasped men, women and their relationships better than her peers, she also understood it all more keenly than the most insightful women authors who followed (say, the Brontes or George Eliot) even though they had the perspective of having read Austen’s novels and the advantage of being able to stand on her shoulders.

80,000

In the 19th century an intuitively romantic Jane Austen said, "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." By the 20th century a brazenly cynical Chris Rock, seeing no real difference between dumb guys who show it off and smart guys who hide it well, said wryly, "A man is only as faithful as his options." Now it's the 21st century, the age of the first person singular, where men talk to women so they can sleep with them, and women sleep with men so they can talk to them.

Austen, Jane

Mansfield Park

(London, 1816).

3 vols. 1st edition. Contemporary 1/2 calf not rebacked, smoother than a record company executive. A fine, tall set, with all half-titles, blanks and ads, and if you'd buy this book without the half-titles to save a few thousand dollars, let me staple a tracking device to your ear so I can hunt you down the next time one of my customers remembers that whenever they unload a bad book an angel gets its wings, and then try to dump a box of their mistakes on my doorstep for me to sell for them.

17,500

the real Peter Pan

Barrie, J. M.

Peter and Wendy (London, 1911).

1st edition. Fine in gorgeous unrestored dustjacket, all you could ever hope for in a 1911 jacket, but just for due diligence we'll tell you the spine's faded a shade and there's 1 small tear near the fold but copies in jacket are scarcer than clocks in casinos.

10,000

Let's look both ways before crossing and take a tenuous walk across the rarity thing for a few comparisons. The golden age of classic, English language genre novels (1885-1919), began with King Solomon's Mines and no copy is known to me in jacket. The same is true for Jekyll & Hyde (1886), She (1887), Sign of Four (1890) as well as Well's big four of Time Machine (1895), Dr. Moreau (1896), Invisible Man (1897) and War of the Worlds (1898). Having dispatched the unknowns, 1 copy of Dracula in jacket (1897) survives, now residing forevermore in the Rosenbach library, just where you might expect it to be. The next level (say, 20 copies or less known in jacket) includes Dorian Gray (1891), Wizard of Oz (1900), First Men in the Moon (1901), Kim (1901), Peter Rabbit (1902), The Virginian (1902), Hound of the Baskervilles (1902), Secret Agent (1907), Wind in the Willows (1908), Secret Garden (1911), Lost World (1912), Fu Manchu (1913), Valley of Fear (1914), Tarzan of the Apes (1914), Princess of Mars (1917) and perhaps half a dozen other similar titles that reign at or near the pinnacle. And by the way, they've all got legs, so get any of them in jacket that you can, if you can, because you won't get many.

real Beatles manuscript

[The Beatles]

Lovely Rita, Meter Maid

by Paul McCartney

(1967).

McCartney’s handwritten, working, manuscript (as Beatle) for Lovely Rita from the album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The first draft, 10 lines in blue and black ink, all on a single side of an irregular scrap of lined paper (7 1/2" X 5"), torn from a spiral notebook. 7 lines are in black ink and these have the appearance of being Paul’s first concept. 3 lines of changes have been added later in blue ink, such as, "...writing all the numbers in her little black book..." changed to "...filling in a ticket with her little blue pen..." and still later recorded as "...filling in a ticket in her little white book...". Sumptuously matted, glazed with UV, and framed (gilt) with a color proof photograph of the album cover, nearly identical, to the published album except there are 2 extra faces in the crowd (airbrushed out for the final cover), the band instruments have been passed around, and Paul is down on one knee. And for those of you who are into the visual thing, this item is seriously gorgeous. Icon Time.

175,000

"Lovely Rita, Meter Maid, nothing can come between us,

When it gets dark, I’ll tow your heart away..."

Only 1 other draft of Lovely Rita manuscript is recorded, a later version mostly in the hand of Mal Evans (assistant to The Beatles), however, this is McCartney's original draft for this renowned song, and it’s from Sgt. Pepper, the most famous album and most identifiable commercial product in the history of rock & roll.

Rare. The current world record for a rock & roll manuscript at auction is $1,150,000 for a later draft of All You Need is Love, followed by $455,000 for a clean draft of Nowhere Man and $249,200 for a late draft of Getting Better (Sotheby's, Sept. 14, 1995), the days of yore, during the last wave of occasional availability and before the current generation of new wave millionaires started thinking how cool (and prescient) it would be to own an authentic Beatles manuscript.

Bellow, Saul

The Dangling Man

(NY, 1944).

1st edition, his first book. Near fine in near fine jacket (1 tiny tear). Bellow won a Nobel Prize, a Pulitzer and 3 National Book Awards (the record). Ex-James Dickey, a bearable association.

3,750

The original Bellow anti-hero, tormented by the existential dilemma of trying to define himself with dignity despite life's constant impediments. Now it's the 21st century and Bellow's principal is a senior citizen, tormented daily and clinging to life solely for the prospect of collecting all 50 U.S. state quarters.

Bellow, Saul

The Adventures of Augie March

(NY, 1953).

1st edition, 1st issue. The Nobel laureate's great work, winner of the 1953 National Book Award. Fine in fine 1st state dustjacket. 20 times rarer than an imperfect copy for 4 times the price, and the $500 cheapie will only be perfect if you have a table with one leg an inch and a half too short.

2,000

Augie wants no defining life role so is swept along by circumstances, refusing any opportunity for a settled existence. He laughs at himself as he tells his story, making Augie a memorable hero who suffers some hard knocks, but as he says, there's an animal in me, "the laughing creature forever rising up." With Bellow's Nobel Prize (1976), the Academy cited his, "...human understanding and subtle analysis of contemporary culture," surely with this book in mind.

ex-Arthur A. Houghton Jr.

Boccaccio, Giovanni

The Decameron, Containing An Hundred Pleasant Novels (London, 1620, 1620).

2 vols. 1st edition in English of the first work of modern fiction (not the 1625 reprint with vol. I titled “The Modell”). A wonderful copy, complete with the errata leaf. Late 19th century full red morocco, gilt. 2 trifling natural paper flaws and a single small tear repaired, some red underlining removed (invisibly and without a trace) from a few pages, else fine condition throughout, with every letter of text absolutely genuine.

32,500

Bowles, Paul

The Sheltering Sky

(London, 1949).

1st edition, his first book, hotter than a core melt-down. Fine in a near fine, fresh dustjacket.

7,500

Before Kerouac could drive, Ginsberg could howl and Burroughs could write about his junk, Bowles uncovered Beat Literature with this phenomenal first novel in which a man and his peripherally reluctant wife flee from the West to Morocco, rattling their chains to prove that they are free. Despite the prominence of this pair, the primary character is the interminably vast desert and the isolation it provides. Bowles prose is consistently even in tone and after a while resembles the desert itself. The title is a hoax as the sky provides only minimal shelter and the plotline suggests that rather then dragging your culture halfway across the world, just grab a stool for amateur night at the blow-fish bar. Back on the streets, the robust branch of the beats evolved into the rebellious youth of the 1950s, launched by Brando in The Wild One, where when asked what he was rebelling against, he answered, "Whatta ya got?"

the greatest set of Tarzan 1st editions ever assembled

Burroughs, Edgar Rice

Complete collection of the Tarzan books, all are 1st editions, all are in dustjacket, all are signed and inscribed (Chicago, NY and Tarzana, 1914-1947).

An unbroken, 22 volume run of the Tarzan 1st editions in dustjacket. Each is a signed, presentation copy of estimable association, including copies inscribed to his publishers, his wife, and more than half to his son, the person of whom he most often thought while writing these books. Herein Burroughs invents the first super-hero, an archetypal creation of nobility, strength and self-reliance. And lying underneath it all, there’s a reminder, that it’s going to be fun to see how long the meek can keep the Earth after they inherit it.

The individual inscriptions prove how heavy this is. Tarzan of the Apes is inscribed to his first publisher, Return of Tarzan is inscribed to his wife, Beasts of Tarzan is to his third publisher, Son of Tarzan is to his son, Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar is to his wife, Jungle Tales of Tarzan, Tarzan the Untamed and Tarzan the Terrible are all to his son, Tarzan and the Golden Lion is his own copy with his bookplate, his ownership signature and a note, "Do Not Remove From Study," Tarzan and the Antmen is to his son, Tarzan Lord of the Jungle is to his wife, Tarzan and the Lost Empire is to A. G. Criswell Smith Jr. a young fan, Tarzan at the Earth's Core, Tarzan the Invincible, Tarzan Triumphant, Tarzan and the City of Gold and Tarzan and the Lion Man are all to his son, Tarzan and the Leopard Men is to Carole Lombard (with Clark Gable's bookplate) and finally, Tarzan's Quest, Tarzan and the Forbidden City, Tarzan the Magnificent and Tarzan and the Foreign Legion, are all to his son. Only Son of Tarzan is a 2nd issue, varying from the 1st issue solely by the addition of a printed dedication to his son (left out by the publisher and hastily corrected), and this is the dedication copy, inscribed to his son.

Rarity flows deep and condition is satisfying throughout, including 22 striking dustjackets, all of them the earliest state, excepting only Return. Some inner paper hinges invisibly strengthened and a few dustjackets with small tears or chips skillfully restored. Still, it is neither jackets nor completeness but rather meaningful inscriptions and the closest of associations that set these books apart. Never fully embraced by the academics, Burroughs created an immortal figure who’s held world wide popularity for 5 generations, as well as a conglomerate to license his perpetuation. No other collection of this stature has ever been amassed and such a collection is never to be seen again, but 21st century reincarnations for the cinema will be plentiful, just like those in the 20th century, as new filmmakers revisit Burroughs' creation of the most famous fictional character in the entire panorama of American literature.

Together: 22 vols. 250,000

the best copy in the world

Burroughs, Edgar Rice

The Outlaw of Torn

(Chicago, 1927).

1st edition, revealing that mortal danger is an effective antidote for fixed ideas. Fine in a flash of a jacket (light edgewear restored). Signed presentation (half a page) "To my dear wife..." dated March 4, 1927, 2 weeks after publication, but he always gave her the first copy he received, remembering that men know the game, but women keep the score.

4,500

Historical adventure set in 13th century Britain, the days of low technology before the invention of electricity, when real men shaved with a rusty arrowhead and real women filled their vibrators with angry bees.

a flawless copy

Burroughs, Edgar Rice

The Monster Men

(Chicago, 1929).

1st edition. Fine in fine dustjacket (looks new). Presentation copy, inscribed to his wife, "To Emma with love from The Monster Man, Tarzana March 24, 1929," 9 days after publication (the earliest inscribed copy of the few known). A slickly plotted science fiction thriller, that revisits the Frankenstein/Doctor Moreau theme, but a new incarnation of it that's scarier than the beer line at a Raiders game, though it’s not as scary as Winona Ryder checking out your collection armed with a shopping bag.

9,000

Burroughs, William S

Junkie

(London, 1973).

1st hardbound edition of his first book, preceded by the more common (and overpriced) Ace paperback. Inscribed to bookseller Albert Newgarden with a cipher below Burroughs' signature and date. Fine in fine black jacket, prone to wear and rubbing.

2,000

The prototype modern narcotics story but the authors who followed Burroughs (they who got high sniffing drywall), were not as artistic and seldom as riveting. In a transition that's way too easy, Utah Park Rangers report they have cut down a 65 foot Oak tree that died last winter, harvesting the largest collection of dead leaves since the last drug novel. And if there's any upside to drugs it's that they've taught 2 generations of American kids the metric system.

Carter, Angela

Nights at the Circus

(NY, 1984).

1st American edition. Review copy (printed slip and hype). Fine in fine jacket. Signed presentation copy to Doris Grumbach, "For Doris with love from Angela." Carter has additionally signed in full on the title page and Grumbach has signed the endpaper. Doris Grumbach was a novelist, professor, essayist, bookseller, editor and reviewer (NY Times Book Review, Mademoiselle, New Republic, Saturday Review, NPR).

350

A tribute to young woman as goddess, but this lively book is no little girl in her mother's pearls. Carter combines realism and surrealism in a twist of the historical novel wherein magic mocks 19th century events. Fevvers, a baby, is found in a basket of egg shells and straw on Ma Nelson's doorstep. She is raised as the common daughter of 6 mothers until, at age 14, the constant itching in her shoulders heralds the breaking out of her wings (Carter's symbol of female liberty and volition). She matures, working herself through a series of persecuted employments where she is exploited as a freak and develops some of the qualities of a confidence woman, finally landing at the Cirque d'Hiver as "the aerialiste." Here she becomes the new living myth, applauded around the world by the rich and powerful. She takes up (but doesn't consummate with) Walser, a journalist who joins the cirque as a clown to be near her. A train wreck, between Russian engagements, separates them in Siberia. He is saved by Olga, an escapee from a grotesque women's prison (a subplot with another completely original Carter feminist take). Fevvers, hampered by a broken wing, is herself saved by a wandering male radical whose political group is in league with Olga's feminist society. In the end, Fevvers and Walser are reunited.

Cervantes, Miguel de

Don Quixote

(London, 1755).

2 vols. 1st edition of Tobias Smollett's translation. [iv], xxviii, 403 [404]; viii, 466 [467 Errata, 468]. Contemporary full calf, deftly rebacked with original spines laid down. 28 engraved plates. Near fine, a beauty, but a common book. Ex-Admiral Duff.

3,000

remarkably saturated and pointed TLs

Chandler, Raymond

Typed letter, signed

(La Jolla, Nov. 1, 1951).

2 pages, rectos only, 85 single spaced lines on his personal stationary, 8 1/2" X 11", to Mr. L Inglis (Aberdeen, Scotland), signed at the end, in ink, "Raymond Chandler." Accompanied by the original envelope (stamp removed, flap detached) postmarked La Jolla, Nov. 5th and Aberdeen, Nov. 8th. The letter fine, the envelope somewhat worn and stained.

5,000

On the first page he writes revealingly about Philip Marlowe and touches on the detective's psychology.

"I don't think ... Philip Marlowe, is very much concerned about whether or no he has a mature mind ... If being in revolt against a corrupt society constitutes being immature then Philip Marlowe is extremely immature. If seeing dirt where there is dirt constitutes an inadequate social adjustment, then Philip Marlowe has an inadequate social adjustment. Of course Marlowe is a failure and he knows it. He is a failure because he hasn't any money ... But you must remember that Marlowe is not a real person. He is a creature of fantasy. He is in a false position because I have put him there. In real life a man of his type would no more be a private detective than he would be a university don. Your private detective in real life is usually either an ex-policeman with a lot of hard, practical experience and the brains of a turtle, or else a shabby little hack who runs around trying to find out where people have moved to ... the more highly organized police work becomes, the leaner are the pickings left for the private operator."

Chandler then answers some of Inglis' questions.

"You are not annoying me or I would not be writing to you."

"... I wanted to be a barrister but I didn't have enough money."

"So far as I know the cops read my stories and don't resent them in the least ... I have never been in police business properly speaking, although at one time I worked ... on an embezzlement case."

In turning to Hollywood he calls the film productions of his books,

"... as good as could be expected. My stories are about a man, and no one can satisfactorily recreate another man's character. I worked on THE LADY IN THE LAKE myself, although I refused screen credit because I didn't like the final script ... I was almost entirely indifferent to the story ... and ... the producer ... kept telling me, and not me him, 'Look, stick to the book a little more.' Practically all the screen work I've done has been for other films ... but you don't always get your name on the picture and you don't always want your name on the picture."

Near the end he mentions Dashiell Hammett.

"... Dashiell Hammett was once a Pinkerton agent, and I certainly owe a great deal to him, which I have admitted very publicly. ... I can't say that I'm a friend of his. I only met him once. He had at that time a shocking capacity for liquor, which I am frank to say I envied as I was never much of a drinker myself."

So here in one fantastic letter are reflections about the psychological makeup of, musings on, and defense of Marlowe, his account of his time in Hollywood, thoughts about the police, as well as alternate careers for both him and Marlowe and a mention of Dashiell Hammett, on whose shoulders he admittedly stood.

Chandler, Raymond

The Lady in the Lake

(NY, 1943).

1st edition, proving that some women lick before they bite. Fine in fine dustjacket marred only by a single 3/8” scratch on the spine (no nicks, no chips, no tears and no repair).

9,500

Clancy, Tom

Hunt For Red October

(Annapolis, 1984).

1st edition of his first novel. Fine in fine jacket. A book with quite a little history in the world of hyper-modern 1st editions, being the first of the era, to spike on publication in a manner that's now an everyday dose of vertigo. Of more lasting significance, Red October is rare in at least one way, being that the film was actually better than the book. This summer Clancy will be honored for his contributions to literature. That leaves him just 5 months to make a contribution to literature.

850

among the very rarest classics

of children's literature

Collodi, Carlo

Le Avventure di Pinocchio

(Florence, 1883).

1st edition. The most worldly famous fictional work in Italian literature (with apologies to Dante and Boccaccio). 1/4 French calf, marbled boards, bound without the last page of ads, intermittent foxing or stains, 2 marginal tears, former owner’s stamp a few times. Frontispiece and 61 other illustrations by Mazzanti. Rare, OCLC and RLIN locate just 7 copies in institutions, no copy has sold at auction in the last 10 years, few remain in private hands and copies are seldom in the trade.

75,000

Psychoanalytical comparisons of Pinocchio’s wooden nose (that grows when he lies) to male erections were unintentional by the author, are passé when posed by academics, and juvenile when imagined by readers, as Pinocchio is as wholesome as a bowl of cornflakes and somewhat less sexy.

historic run of 1st editions

(Comics)

Classics Illustrated [Classic Comics]

(NY, 1941- 1969).

171 vols. total. 1st edition, 1st issue of each title. A complete run (numbers 1-169), plus both states of Woman in White and folio galley proofs for Arabian Nights. Numbers 1-34 are titled "Classic Comics," as originally published before the name was changed to "Classics Illustrated." Minor corner wear or specks of rubbing but fine condition no repair. Complete, unrepaired sets of 1st printings in this state of preservation, have always been rare, and unbuyable at any price in recent years. In their time, kids read these to dust, used them for book reports, then replaced them with a reprint ordered from the publisher, because this was the only series of golden age comics that were continuously reprinted, and long available by mail. Many titles had 10 or more editions, and were sold in reprint for 25 years, and each later printing is bibliographically distinguishable, creating over 1,000 variations of covers, ads, price and text, but this set is the first state of each title, and perfect on every single point. Meticulously assembled with care, and an eye to pride of ownership, by your Octopus, one title at a time over 6 years in the 1980s when such an effort was still possible. The literary establishment hated these from day one (chickens always dismiss chicken soup), but don’t be distracted. It’s better for your collection to deserve honor and not have it, than to have honor and not deserve it, and these were a well conceived trick that actually worked, and a street wise segment of (at least) 2 generations, were legitimately turned-on to those classics of fiction. Don Quixote, Jane Eyre, Treasure Island, Crime and Punishment, Tom Sawyer, Three Musketeers, Christmas Carol, Moby-Dick, Jekyll and Hyde, Sea Wolf, King Solomon’s Mines, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Wuthering Heights, Twenty Thousand Leagues, Count of Monte-Cristo, Call of the Wild, War of the Worlds, Last of the Mohicans, Poe’s Tales, Scarlet Letter, Robin Hood, Red Badge, Frankenstein, Ivanhoe, Copperfield, Crusoe, Alice, Gulliver, Hunchback, Huck, Hamlet, Holmes and 137 others.

30,000

Mohican in publisher's boards,

uncut and complete with all blanks

Cooper, James F

The Last of the Mohicans

(Philadelphia, 1826).

2 vols. 1st edition, earliest state with none of the dropped folios in vol. I mentioned by BAL. Original boards, uncut, rebacked with matching paper spines, a near fine, intact set, a little foxing but unusually clean, a copy that'll make you happier than a monkey watching the banana channel.

50,000

Cooper wrote the first novel in this Leatherstocking series (The Pioneers) in 1823, but Mohican is the best of the five, a fundamental classic with a preponderant claim as the earliest American novel still widely read for recreation. It's set in 1757, during the French and Indian War, and the historical battles and fictional pursuits that drive the heroic plotline are enhanced with Native American lore and earnest descriptions of our now lost wilderness. And there's call for praise on at least one other level here, as Cooper’s noble savages, with their deductive analysis of clues during tracking, set a primitive but essential foundation for Poe's invention of the detective story 15 years later, and Doyle's creation of Sherlock Holmes in 1887. That said, the literary history of this novel is a trail littered with sour grapes, even the most respected detractors withering in their own hostility, ever envious that Mohican is unmatched in the new world for the length of its enduring popularity (the objective test of a novel's greatness) among readers willing to suspend their disbelief and modify their critical objections for a time machine ticket to the northeastern wild of pre-revolutionary America and 571 pages of rapid action, transcending the cynics, skeptics, analysts, academics and even other authors who nit pick the first American thrill ride instead of just giving themselves over to it.

in jacket

Crane, Stephen

The Red Badge of Courage

(NY, 1895).

1st edition. Fine in near fine (unrepaired) dustjacket. Crane assaults the notion that murder is a crime unless it’s done on a massive scale accompanied by the charge of trumpets. He merges realism, naturalism, symbolism and impressionism for a psychological portrayal of fear, tosses out a character that represents all untried men, writes the first modern war novel, and instigates a pervasive projection into a generation of novelists that were just being born in 1895

30,000

Crichton, Michael

Jurassic Park

(NY, 1990).

1st edition. Deluxe, limited, signed 1st state. Precedes the trade edition. Fine in publisher's full leather. The trade issue was 100,000 copies, versus this limited of 3,200 and perhaps as few as 1,500 of them were actually signed and sold. One of the most popular books of the 90s but it's moot whether that says more about this book or more about the 90s, so it may slide off the collector's radar one day, but that's exactly the ballyhoo of modern 1st editions, the twitching canaries in the coal mines of literature.

500

A cloning story whose time has arrived, as a British scientist in Dubai has mated a camel and a llama, creating a bad tempered fluff pony that has to be cloned because it can't breed with either, called a cama. Not to be outdone, researchers in America have crossed a mongoose and a wolf, creating a lightning fast room wrecker that roams at night in packs, called a teenager.

Dickens, Charles

A Christmas Carol

(London, 1843).

1st edition, implying that none of us can be as great as God, but any of us can be as good. Original cloth, a little wear to the corners, but fine (gleaming), with uncracked hinges and no repair. 1st state text, chapter one headed "Stave I" (the critical point of issue), red and blue title dated 1843, matching half-title, and green endpapers. 6,000 1st editions (text) were printed and are easily identified by changes made for the 2nd printing. They were bound in (at least) 6 variations but the first binding cases stamped, were not necessarily the first sold, the first title pages printed (red and green dated 1844) were likely issued last, and the last title pages printed (blue and red dated 1843) were certainly sold first, even before trial copies. Publication was on Dec. 17, 1843, but first, last or in between, all 6,000 were sold within 3 weeks, so wishful assignment of priority only shows that bibliography drowns us in data and starves us for insight, and often enough it’s like the pupil of the eye. The more light you shine on it the smaller it gets. 160 years out The Carol remains the most celebrated of all Christmas stories, a tale that still rings with truth even in our 21st century sectarian world where nativity scenes have disappeared, not because they are politically incorrect, but because no one city can still come up with 3 wise men and a virgin.

28,000

an immaculate copy

Dinesen, Isak (Karen Blixen)

Out of Africa

(NY, 1938).

1st American edition (1st is Danish). A fictionalized yet sensitive account of her 1914 to 1931 experiences in East Africa when fast food was a gazelle. Fine in fine jacket at twice the price of dull copies described as just short of fine, which is like describing Mike Tyson as just short of sainthood.

1,100

both editions, just to be sure

Dostoyevsky, Fedor

Crime and Punishment

(London, 1886).

1st edition in English of the single most illustrious legacy of psychological realism. Probably precedes the NY edition (see below). Original cloth, some fading and stains, very good, but listen up here. In book world, the rip is that "very good" means it isn't.

[with]

Dostoyevsky, Feodor

Crime and Punishment

(NY, 1886).

1st American edition. Original cloth. A very good copy.

Together: 2 vols. 4,000

Here it is folks, your one ride per catalog on the bibliographical hamster wheel. The search for priority between these 2 editions begins by noting that they're the same translation and printed from the same setting (likely stereotyped, ie. plates). The last page of the Vizetelly (London) edition carries the name of the printer (Straker, London). The Crowell (NY) edition removes it. The signature marks in the Vizetelly edition are where they're supposed to be, while those on the Crowell edition do not line up with the way in which the signatures are actually sewn. Throughout both editions type wear is more evident in Crowell's edition. The Vizetelly edition is dated 1886 on the title page and has ads at the end dated Nov. 1885. The Crowell edition is undated and carries ads seemingly from 1886. More obtuse, but for comparison, Crowell's edition of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina (the 1st in English) carries both the name of its Boston printer and an 1886 date on the title page, and its ads offer Crime and Punishment as available, generally dating Crowell's edition of the Dostoyevsky. The good news is that the cumulative data is convincing. The bad news is that I couldn't find a fine copy, of either edition, at any price.

inscribed

Douglas, Lloyd C

The Robe

(Boston, 1942).

1st edition. Among the preponderant bestsellers of the 20th century. Spine slightly faded, jacket lightly rubbed at edges, 1 tiny spot of wear at a fold but withal, nearly fine. A presentation copy, signed by Douglas, quite appropriately, a Christmas gift. Half morocco case. Widely unrecognized for the scarce, wartime 1st edition that it is, and presentation copies in collectible condition are, correspondingly, all the more rare. The novel is a historical romance circling the robe of Jesus. It's set in the Roman Empire of the 1st century, the days when people would believe anything as long as you whispered it to them and when religion in Europe was still peaceful, pure and on the defensive. But those without swords can still die upon them, and the pendulum swings irrepressibly, so the dark ages followed the fall of the Western Roman Empire, a time when people forgot that "an eye for an eye" was a limitation not an invitation, and that featured the bloody immolation of millions of poor human beings in the name of some pitiless abstraction. These days Christianity is more relaxed, so though the angels still play only Bach while going about their task of praising God, when they gather together on their own time, they play Metallica.

3,000

Sherlock Holmes manuscript

Doyle, Conan

The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax

(1911).

Original handwritten manuscript (in ink), signed twice, once at the end and again on the cover (the latter autograph rubbed). 28 pages bound for Doyle himself in original full vellum, the covers lightly spotted but unworn, the MS is fine. A detective fiction tour de force, with the kind of plotline Doyle usually reserved for his novels, featuring a fundamentalist of the typical type, one in whom something is fundamentally wrong. Fine. Complete. Rare. Beautiful. Classic Holmes, a manuscript that will make you happier than a goldfish watching Finding Nemo.

300,000

Said as simply as possible (but not any simpler) Sherlock Holmes is the most durable character in all of fiction and the stories are the most imitated, parodied and adapted works in the English language.

the first Holmes and Watson

Doyle, Conan

A Study in Scarlet

(London, 1887).

1st edition of the first appearance of Sherlock Holmes in Beeton’s Christmas Annual. Original pictorial wrappers, complete with all ads, a very good copy, superior for this rare book.

260,000

Doyle, Conan

The Return of Sherlock Holmes

(London, 1905).

1st English edition. Bit rubbed at corners else near fine, not foxed. The scarcest of the Holmes short story collections in such condition and most copies are so ugly they couldn't get fucked in jail.

3,800

Dumas, Alexandre

Le Comte de Monte-Cristo

(Paris, 1846).

2 vols. 1st illustrated edition. [4], 478; [4], 499, [1, table des chapitres]. What many regard as the best novel ever written, an effortless read starring the implacable avenger. Not quite historical romance, almost a mystery, every bit a thriller, for 5 generations the most popular novel in the world, and undeniably the greatest tale of revenge in all of Western literature. Contemporary French half forest green roan over marbled boards, gilt titled, marbled endpapers, the paper over the boards rubbed in several small spots and shelf rubbed at the edges, a little foxing but really quite clean, and otherwise a near fine and never repaired set, very tall (10 1/4" X 6 5/8"), complete with both half-titles, and this is a scarce book, especially in an untouched, unabused, contemporary French binding. The 1st edition (Paris, 1844-1845) in 18 volumes (preceded by a newspaper serialization) was published in an issue of a few hundred sets, of which a dozen or so survivors are known, and it's now a $75,000 book, if you can find one, which you can not. The 2nd Paris edition (12 vols., 1846) and the 3rd (6 vols., 1846) may (or may not) precede this 1st illustrated edition, and though both are scarce, neither of them are the 1st of anything, and our edition does apparently print the epilogue for the first time. The 1st edition in English (London, Chapman & Hall, 1846) currently brings 5 times the price of our book but probably isn't any earlier and definitely isn't any scarcer. Engraved frontispiece portrait of Dumas (in vol. I) by Le Couturier after Eug. Giraud and 29 engraved plates, depicting a galaxy of characters, by Ch. Colin, Goulu, Rose, Pardinel, Carey, Lechard, Audibran, Caron, A. Portier, and A. Gabriel, after Tony Johannot and Gavarni, all but the frontispieces with tissue guards. Ref: Reed p. 174, a confusing entry but this is the correct 1st edition with the address, 30 Rue Saint-Thomas-du-Louvre on the title. Vicaire III, col. 365. Ray, 237.

1,750

The Man in the Iron Mask

Dumas, Alexander

Louise la Valliere; or

The Second Series and Conclusion of The Iron Mask

(Philadelphia, 1851).

2 vols. in 1. 1st American edition. Modern 1/2 black calf, marbled boards. A few stains to text else near fine. Complete with both titles, all 3 plates, the leaf of ads between the volumes, the Epilogue (4 Years After), the Conclusion (vol. II, pp. 159-188), and Dumas' letter "Mocquet" (vol. II, pp. 189-198) in which he recalls writing about the death of Porthos (vol. II, chapter XXVI, The Death of a Titan, probably the best single chapter Dumas ever wrote, and chapter XXVII, The Epitaph of Porthos, discussed in Mocquet).

500

The Man in the Iron Mask was the final portion of Dumas' Le Vicomte de Bragelonne (Paris, 1848-50 in 26 vols.), itself the concluding novel in his trilogy beginning with Three Musketeers (1844) and Twenty Years After (1845). And despite any confusion created by the subtitle, this is the entire novel, and this copy is complete as issued, and most aren't. It remains the standard for epic adventures, dexterously written and plotted, like the blues for people who can't sing, and though it's not actively pursued by parochial collectors, unaware that this is the correct 1st American edition, that won't last for long, so the day will come when the scramble for copies will look like the first half hour of Saving Private Ryan.

limited, signed edition

Eliot, T. S.

Poems 1909-1925

(London, 1925).

1st edition. One of 85 copies signed by Eliot of which 75 were for sale, this one marked in the space for the number "out of series" perhaps one of the 10 not for sale. Original white cloth, fine, unopened, unsullied as a Disney princess, a binding that begs to be soiled, and most copies couldn't be cleaned up by Halliburton. Eliot's legacy (Prufrock, Waste Land, Hollow Men and all the 1920 poems) that from 1917 depicted the emotional impoverishment, boredom and spiritual emptiness common both to the dying genteel world of devitalized social rituals and to the new world of urban materialism. After 1925 Eliot's poetry mutated (not all think for the better) reflecting his conversion to Anglicanism. A rare book just by virtue of its limitation, but especially so in such perfect condition, and it seems the most important collection of poetry published in the first half of the 20th century, and one of the very few exceptions to the general rule that adding modern poetry to a literature collection is more dangerous than a Baghdad grocery run.

15,000

Eliot, T. S.

Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats

(NY, 1939).

1st American edition, advance review copy. Fine in unfaded jacket with small edgetears, quite a nice copy (no fur ball) looking for someone to take it home and let it sleep on top of the television

1,250

in both dustjackets as issued

Faulkner, William

Light in August

(NY, 1932).

1st edition, 1st printing, 1st binding (spine stamped in orange and blue). Fine in a brilliant pictorial dustjacket with a tiny 1/8" tear at the spine tip and a 3/8" tear at the base of the front flap fold but otherwise fine. Additionally, this copy has the publisher's glassine dustjacket (as issued) with light wear, but it admirably protected the original freshness and vibrant colors of the printed jacket. Scarce these days in both jackets, and following any line of reasoning that leads you to buy a copy without the glassine is like following a burning fuse in search of an explosive.

7,500

pristine condition in original parts

Flaubert, Gustav

Madame Bovary

(Paris: aux bureaux de la Revue de Paris, Oct. - Dec. 1856).

1st edition (in French) of his first book, the first appearance anywhere in 6 biweekly parts (edition pre-original), preceding the 2 volume book edition by a year. Fine and unopened in original printed wrappers (as new condition) and with the printed title page supplied to subscribers in case they wanted to bind the parts as a book (also uncut, untrimmed and unbound). The whole in a plain slipcase with a small collection of related ephemera.

25,000

Widely acknowledged as the first modern novel and indisputably the first novel of psychological realism. It is written with a flair that grants the reader insights that are beyond the intellect of the book's characters. This is the 1st printing of Flaubert's masterpiece and this is the issue, serialized in the Revue de Paris, that stimulated the court case which ultimately freed all novelists riding the wave of irrepressible evolution, from the prudish constraints of 19th century culture and it is this victory in the courts that allowed, as its first consequence, the 2 volume book edition of Madame Bovary to be published in 1857.

An item of great rarity. No set in parts in wrappers resides in any American institutional library. Dick Manney had the only copy sold in America or Great Britain in our time (Sotheby's, 1991) but it was extracted and rebound without wrappers, ads, other contents, etc. 2 more copies have sold at auction in France (1984 and 1993) and again, both were rebound but sets in original wrappers seem not to exist to say nothing of our set's flawless condition.

Scandalous when written but seems tame these days when with all our high tech sexual devices created to stimulate women, the most effective is still a Ferrari.

inscribed

Hammett, Dashiell

Red Harvest

(NY, 1929).

1st edition. His first book, a multi-murder mystery novel set in fictitious Personville, pronounced "Poisonville" by the residents, only partially because of their local accents. Signed and inscribed to Katheryn [Dufour] "with suitable gestures." Powerful full morocco, hard-art binding, coming right at you, by Don Glaister, the first on an American novel by the exalted American binder, an encounter that is not to be dismissed. Fine condition. Original cloth bound in. Glaister's fine full morocco case is faithfully riddled with bullet holes and powder burns.

17,500

Some books are wise and some books are otherwise. Red Harvest is the model, originating the hardboiled detective novel, a new world stylistic invention of phenomenal influence, with gazillions of it's literary descendants amplifying the genre to this very day, but paradigms don’t just fall from the sky. They evolve in lawful progression, and this one's easily traced from Bentley’s naturalist mystery, Trent’s Last Case (1913), Shaw’s Black Mask detective magazine beginning in 1919 (with portions of Red Harvest appearing in 4 issues from 1927 to 1928), the pithy and terse prose of Ernest Hemingway and Hammett’s own hardboiled short story, Fly Paper. And consciousness reveals that sequence flows from necessity, so Hammett worked for and keenly studied the Pinkerton Detective Agency, then carefully pondered his experiences before trying his ideas in a short story and finally writing this novel. And in the end, the hardworking, hardboiled detective, has been assimilated into our 21st century culture of sedentary Americans, who, too lazy to lift a finger, manifest our hardboiledness on the road, by lifting a single finger to tell other drivers what we think of them.

in parts

Hammett, Dashiell

The Maltese Falcon

(NY, 1929-1930).

5 vols. 1st appearance anywhere, serialized in 5 issues of Black Mask Magazine, Sept. 1929 to Jan. 1930 (the book followed in February). Original pictorial wrappers. Very good with no significant faults. A rarity (the only whole set I’ve seen). In 1995 the Mystery Writers of America voted The Maltese Falcon number 2 on their list of the 100 greatest mysteries of all time.

12,500

you say you want the best of the best?

Hammett, Dashiell

The Maltese Falcon

(NY, 1930).

1st edition. Fine in a scintillating unrestored dustjacket, an absolute killer. The jacket was the designer's own, was folded once exactly where the spine meets the back panel and carefully sheltered for 70 years. There's some rubbing along this fold and a short split at the bottom of it, else this jacket is in perfect condition, as new and like no other known, with no fading or soiling whatsoever and the corner is unclipped (and most copies are price clipped). 25 times as rare as a one with nicks or tears or soiling or repair or worse, for 2 or 3 times the price, the not so secret formula of real value. Average copies are what you can always get, but this is the copy that dreams are made of. In 1995 the Mystery Writers of America voted The Maltese Falcon number 2 on their list of the 100 greatest mysteries of all time

150,000

Great books make great booksellers, sometimes.

Great shops make great booksellers, sometimes.

Great catalogs make great booksellers, sometimes.

Great expertise makes great booksellers, sometimes.

Great customers make great booksellers, sometimes.

Great cyberskills make great booksellers, sometimes.

Great creativity makes great booksellers, sometimes.

Great insight makes great booksellers, sometimes.

Great wealth makes great booksellers, sometimes.

Great hustle makes great booksellers, sometimes.

Sometimes all ten do not make a great bookseller.

From a recent book fair:

Hugely successful, world famous and unjustifiably vain, aging bookseller to 29 year old Jennefer Hime.

Mr. Huge: "How many great booksellers are there?"

J – Hi: "One less than you think there are."

Hawthorne, Nathaniel

The Scarlet Letter

(Boston, 1850).

1st edition, 1st printing. Original cloth. Corners and spine tips with a tiny points of wear (all of it nerf flaws), else fine condition, the cloth clean, shiny and never repaired. 1st printing with all points ("reduplicate" for "repudiate" page 21, line 20, etc.). 4 pages of publisher's ads ("March 1, 1850"). Hawthorne's magnum opus, a literary giant, continuously in print since publication day.

20,000

Including The Scarlet Letter, I'll suggest that only 10 American novels from the 19th century are unequivocally classics and still widely read for fun. What are the others? Well start a list of your own icons with The Last of the Mohicans (1826), Moby-Dick (1851), Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), Little Women (1868), Tom Sawyer (1876), Portrait of a Lady (1881), Huckleberry Finn (1885), The Red Badge of Courage (1895), and The Wizard of Oz (1900), and just concede that after these 10, there's a gap of acceptance before whatever heads the next group, and beyond outright theft, in one of its myriad forms, all of the 10 listed above in fine condition have long proved as solid as book investments get, but buy them or not, heroes never say "I told you so."

exquisite condition

Heller, Joseph

Catch-22

(NY, 1961).

1st edition. Fine (small name on endpaper) in a fine, flawless dustjacket.

6,500

Want legs? Combining the major lists of the 20th century's greatest books finds Catch-22 number 1 in the last 50 years, and ranked 5th overall after Ulysses, Gatsby, Grapes of Wrath and Nineteen Eighty-Four.

his first real book

in miraculous condition

Hemingway, Ernest

In Our Time

(NY, 1925).

1st edition of his first American book, the most influential volume of American short stories published in the 20th century. Fine in fine dustjacket, lustrous despite pinpoints of wear to corners. The book bears the same title as the 1924 Paris edition, but they should not be confused. The Paris is a 20 page whisper of a book without a single short story, and a total of less than 50 paragraphs! These 50 or so paragraphs are called by the bibliography "inter-chapters" in this NY edition, which is a real book adding to the 20 pages of the Paris edition 14 titanic stories (161 pages).

50,000

Ernest Hemingway was, and is, the most well known American author and the single most imitated writer of English prose in the 20th century. This is his first substantial book, an immortal collection of connected short stories that are, in their simple pithiness, his best written and may yet prove to be his most important. Counter to prevailing opinion, let me say it directly. In Our Time will ultimately stand as a better (longer lived) book than either Sun Also Rises or Farewell to Arms. It is the book that initiated Hemingway's inquiry into the authentic, and (more exactly) the authenticating moment, and does it with precision. He fathoms the wound, that affliction through which humans become aware of their mortality, of their finite limitations, and it is this definitive encounter with reality upon which the book is closely focused. Its cogent, connected stories are written for the active mind in quest of its own essence, excited by knowledge of the truth and a willingness to abide it. They are for rational creatures, concerned with feeling clear and steady inside themselves, at least as much as is possible within the necessary human limitations.

Joyce's Dubliners (stories unified by place) and Hemingway's In Our Time (stories unified by time) are the two most consequential collections of short fiction published in the 20th century, and short stories are not inferior to novels, in fact a case can be made that novels are their sloppy cousins. As for its rarity, just 1,335 copies were printed, one fifth the number of copies of Sun Also Rises and one twentieth the number of Farewell to Arms, and considering the fragility of the jacket, this copy is the actualization of a collector's dream, in our time or any other. So here they are, rarity, quality, significance and beauty, the cosmic quartet for any antique. And if you're a chronic prioritizer, the first virtue in 1st editions is significance because that's the one that sets up all the others, meaning that your imperfect and defective fragment of Caxton's King Arthur is a better book than your mint presentation copy of B is For Burglar. The faint of heart will look at our price like a dog looks at an answering machine, but this copy is so cool you can feel your fingers go numb the minute you pick it up.

Hemingway, Ernest

For Whom the Bell Tolls

(NY, 1940).

1st edition. Fine in a clean and unfaded dustjacket, (even on the fade prone spine), with a bump and rub to one corner and two 1/4" edgetears, otherwise fine, dramatically finer than the $1,000 copies that are just above termite food, or those for $2,000 in condition that would gag a sword swallower.

3,750

damaged people are dangerous

because they know they can survive

Irving, John

The World According to Garp

(NY, 1978).

1st edition. Signed and inscribed, "For Walt Sobzak from John Irving." Fine in fine jacket. Presentation copies of Garp have always been hard to find and are now very elusive in fine condition. Winner of the National Book Award, but more significantly, this is a 25 year old novel that’s already long established as a classic, and here’s why. It’s a dark, domestic comedy rooted in the traditional novel but deftly written in a postmodern style. Characteristically contrarian, Irving tries the largest scale at a time when minimalist fiction was being temporarily celebrated as the truest voice of the age, a mistake that might have ranked with Sammy Hagar, but Irving pulls it off. His humane exploration of the human condition features Jenny, a goddess protector of feminism, Helen, a professor of literature, Duncan, a damaged painter, John, a literary agent and editor, Roberta, a transsexual athlete and Garp himself, a fusing of the action taking hero of Ernest Hemingway with the cerebral protagonist of Saul Bellow or J. D. Salinger. Garp’s mission is protecting his family from what he perceives as a lethal universe. Together they try to develop survival strategies in a world of random violence, vicious and psychotic behavior, social chaos and private uncertainty. They stay bonded by spiritual affinity, a tolerance for singularity, and a shared recognition that individual idiosyncrasy and personal desire can be reconciled with communal cooperation. For balance, Irving's sprawling structure is orthodox, hearkening Theodore Dreiser or Frank Norris. It links the destiny of the extended family with the dynamics of social change across several generations, and Irving innovatively fashions a modern sensibility, in which the concept of the absurd is no longer relevant because everything that happens seems to be an expression of random, entropic forces. The narration is striking, the invention is manic, the wit is bizarre, and the reading is easy, this last not to be discounted in the face of 437 pages of what might otherwise be some serious heavy lifting.

2,250

Joyce, James

Finnegan's Wake

(London, 1939).

1st edition. Fine in perfect dustjacket, a gift from the self-esteem fairy and most copies would embarrass a shockproof watch. The unfathomable, all influencing masterpiece of industrial strength literature, written in some language twins teach each other.

6,000

death as a long overdue liberation

Kafka, Franz

Die Verwandlung [The Metamorphosis] (Leipzig, 1915).

1st edition. The novella of the century and a nice copy of it. Nice clean copy in gray boards (strip of fading to back cover), white spine repaired at the bottom. This is the scarce, deluxe, publisher's hardcover binding, and copies in the usual binding of tan wrappers have a 1916 date on the cover so look later (though they’re not), and those in black wrappers are certainly a later, remainder binding.

4,500

the dedication copy

Kern, Jerome

Good Morning Dearie

(NY, 1922).

1st edition. Inscribed enclosing the printed title, "To Alexander Woollcott, who said he liked [Good Morning Dearie] from his Sincerely, Jerome D. Kern, March 15, 1922." Unique publisher's presentation binding of full morocco, commissioned specifically for this copy. "Dedicated to Alexander Woollcott" on the dedication page and repeated in gilt on the cover, the fragile binding esthetically restored. To the mainstream collectors of 20th century 1st editions, this one's like unscented perfume, an unanticipated paragon that's passed through a membrane from another reality, but it's a heavyweight copy, the best imaginable, associating Anne Caldwell, the most successful woman playwright and lyricist of her time, Kern, the leading composer (at least until Gershwin arrived) and Woollcott, the foremost literary critic.

6,000

Kesey, Ken

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

(NY, 1962).

1st edition of his first book, doing for psychiatric hospitals what The Boston Strangler did for door to door salesmen. Fine in a sparkley near fine jacket, unfaded on the spine and really crisp despite 2 tiny edgetears on the back. The film was the second in the history of the Academy Awards to win all 5 major Oscars, best picture, director, screenplay, actress and actor.

12,500

Keynes, John Maynard

The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money

(London, 1936).

1st edition. The defining book of the 20th century's foremost economist, making publication of Keynes General Theory the second greatest literary moment in 1936 (the greatest literary moment of 1936 was that while Trout fishing in May, Ernest Hemingway caught a Carp and decided not to write about it). Fine in near fine jacket, a beauty, and most jackets on this book (when in jacket at all) are beneath collectible crying out, flip me in the wood chipper as they've always proved harder to turn into cash than a 3rd party check drawn on the organ bank. Reference: Printing and the Mind of Man number 423, the entry for which ends with the quotation, "We are all Keynesians today."

6,000

greatest of all 14th century English poems

Langland, William

Vision of Piers Plowman

(London, 1550).

1st edition (written and revised 1367-1386). [8], 117 leaves foliated (small quarto). One of 3 issues published by Crowley in 1550, this one the 2nd, preceded by one with the date misprinted "1505," now unobtainable though Bradley Martin had a mold stained and imperfect copy, lacking quire I4, and with the misprinted 1505 date scraped off and replaced with the correct 1550 date in pen ($34,100 Sotheby's, 1990). Our issue does however precede another one dated 1550 ("MDL"), which also characterizes itself as the "seconde" in the title, but with a more corrupt text and easily identified by the word "tyme" in the title instead of "time" as in our issue. A complete copy save for the final blank leaf. Very attractive (fine) 19th century full morocco, gilt, by Clark. Title page a bit dusty, 4 tiny holes in blank margin filled, upper corner of M1 repaired taking the shoulder note on recto and just touching the first letter of the first 8 lines on verso, small chip repaired at the blank edge of the last leaf and the lower blank margin is extended 1/2" at the bottom (not the lower half of the leaf as noted in the auction record). An evidently rare, and more evidently important book, and regardless of the minor faults articulated, a superior copy of the first book to transit from the medieval to the modern mind and the only book treating fully the social life of all classes in the 14th century, or any adjacent century for that matter. As a by the way, it also contains the first mention anywhere of Robin Hood. Ex-Henry Francis Lyte (armorial bookplate), J [ames]. O. Edwards, W. A. Foyle (Christie's, London, $7,097 in 2000). STC, 19907a. Hayward, 11. Grolier English, 5

16,000

dated 1960 presentation copy

Lee, Harper

To Kill a Mockingbird

(Philadelphia, 1960).

1st edition, 1st printing of her first book. An all you could want, contemporary presentation copy, signed and inscribed to two of her earliest supporters, "For Christine and Pat: You've been my champions from the beginning! With my love, Nelle Harper Lee November 1, 1960." Light offset to endpaper from a clipping, else fine in a near fine 1st state dustjacket with a little rubbing mostly to the folds and edges, but this is clearly a superior jacket, well preserved without nicks or chips, unfaded, unsoiled and it's never been touched by the restorer.

45,000

Speaking directly to the rarity of contemporaneously, inscribed 1st printings, it's pertinent that the book was reprinted before publication (Sept. 1) and copies of the 2nd printing were already in Lee's hands on publication day, and there are presentation copies known of the 2nd printing inscribed by her in the first week of September. Our copy of the 1st printing was an author's copy, sent to her by the publisher and intentionally set aside and held by Harper Lee then given to her friends when she was able to present it to them in person, 2 months later.

Still the most valuable novel published in the 1960s, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and real presentation copies, inscribed and authentically dated in the year of publication, are seldom seen and are quite rare in nice condition, a combination that seems now to be unbuyable. And beyond the book and the inscription, this dustjacket is exceptional, and most jackets offered these days are either worn out or restored with more paint and touch-up than a Kabuki actress.

Lee, Harper

To Kill a Mockingbird

(Philadelphia, 1960).

1st edition, 1st printing. Signed. Fine in a new looking 1st state jacket with undetectable restoration, mostly at the top and bottom of the spine. The most valuable 1st edition published in the 1960s, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the reigning masterpiece of modern domestic realism. A poignant tale about a just man, his influence on his children and community, and (eclipsing the limitations of time and region) of the universal need for compassion and understanding. Ironically, a book about truth that was faithfully filmed in Hollywood, a place where lying is just good manners.

14,000

signed presentation copy in dustjacket

Lewis, Sinclair

Babbitt

(NY, 1922).

1st edition, inventing a new American archetype, George Babbitt, middle aged, middle class, middle-management and with an always middling mind. The book became so famous that "Babbitt" is now found in many dictionaries as meaning an unthinking conformist rigidly attached to middle class standards. J. R. R. Tolkien said he liked the sound of the word and the character it described so much it inspired his own word "hobbit." Inscribed to Harry Korner, a close friend and Lewis' companion for a portion of the "Free Air" motor car trip. The book's fine. The fragile dustjacket (printed on unusually thin paper) has a small chip at one corner and a few edgetears but is otherwise near fine with no repair, and more satisfying than a secret admirer. 4 years after declining a 1926 Pulitzer, Lewis became the first American to win a Nobel Prize for Literature, pocketing the big bucks, relieving a national unscratched itch and breaching the Swedish citadel for 4 generations of authors that followed.

8,500

the only recorded copy

in dustjacket

London, Jack

The Sea Wolf

(NY, 1904).

1st edition. Here’s a nice book. Fine in the rare dustjacket, offsetting to endpapers from the jacket’s flaps (a physical witness of authenticity), jacket with small chips and several tears invisibly strengthened and restored, but clean, fresh and pretty beautiful.

37,500

A multi-layered classic, written with gusto and fervor, likely London’s magnum opus. On the surface it’s a romantic, action adventure, and a great one. Look deeper and you’ll find an allegory spun on turn of the century hopes and fears. The hope was that humankind would become more spiritual, its moral fiber stronger, its institutions enlightened and its tastes ennobled. The fear was that humanity’s animal nature might frustrate these aspirations, and that the species might slip backwards into a bestial state marked by violence, greed and lust, making a shambles of civilization, though we now know that the only difference between humans and animals is that humans aren’t afraid of vacuum cleaners. Text references to Darwin suggest a culmination of the era’s preoccupation with his theories and the tension between man’s upward and downward possibilities. Wolf Larson (called The Sea Wolf), Captain of the ship Ghost, represents the feral and primitive, Maud Brewster (survivor of a shipwreck) the evolved and spiritual. Both tug at Hump (Humphrey Van Weyden). Larson’s view of life as a meaningless struggle toughens Hump. Maud’s idealism fills him with love, tenderness and chivalric courage. In the end he unites with the ethereal Maud, hinting that London was hopeful for humanity’s future, rejecting the cruel and brutish for that which is redeeming and civilized.

1st edition in English of Machiavelli

Machiavel, Nicolas

Works

(London, 1675).

1st edition in English. A comprehensive collection of his most important writings. Contemporary (or very nearly contemporary) full calf, joints reinforced long ago (prettier if rebacked), spine tips chipped, minor faults and repairs, very good, tall (12 3/4"), clean, and complete (save for blanks) with the 5 page catalog at the end. Ex-Thomas Poyander, John Bonyer (with both their armorial bookplates).

8,000

A surprisingly easy read, containing The Prince (the original theoretical discourse on modern political science), The Art of War (precedes Von Clausewitz's On War by 390 years), Discourses on Livy, etc.

Reference: Wing M128. Printing and the Mind of Man, number 63 (The Prince), noting, [Before Machiavelli] "political speculation had tended to be a rhetorical exercise based on the implicit assumption of Church or Empire. [He] founded the science of modern politics on the study of mankind — it should be remembered that a parallel work to 'The Prince' was his historical essay on the first 10 books of Livy. Politics was a science to be divorced entirely from ethics (a divorce well embraced these days), and nothing must stand in the way of its machinery ... What Machiavelli forgot is that man is not only a political animal, and that any attempt to govern without reconciling the other side of his nature is bound to fail. Nevertheless, he wrote as a patriot and a political scientist, and he better deserves to be remembered as such than as the Borgia-like figure his name now connotes ... Shakespeare ironically acknowledges the fact when Hamlet says, 'I'll put the murderous Machiavelli to school.'" The appendix of this edition prints (for the first time) a spurious Machiavelli letter anticipating such misinterpretations and defending the morality of his writings.

she would have been a nymphomaniac

if only they could have calmed her down a bit

Maguire, Gregory

Wicked.

The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

(NY, 1995).

1st edition of an ingeniously conceived novel (Wizard of Oz from the Witch’s point of view). Basis for the famous broadway play. Fine in fine jacket (as new).

90

inscribed

Milne, A. A.

When We Were Very Young

(London, 1924).

1st edition, 1st binding (plain endpapers), the first and rarest title in the series. Presentation copy signed by Milne. Near fine (faint spots) in a near fine jacket (tiny tears). Authentic, pretty, and I know the value of such books by heart, but there's always a guy on the web (the home of drive-by bookselling) with a forgery for cheap, and the only thing he knows by heart are his Miranda rights.

25,000

Milne, A. A.

Set of Poohs in dustjacket

(London, 1924-1928).

4 vols. 1st editions. When We Were Very Young 1924, Winnie the Pooh 1926, Now We Are Six 1927, The House at Pooh Corner 1928. Fine in nearly fine 1st state dustjackets (only minute faults), and these are children's books, mostly seen with more soiling than a rock star's sheets, more nicks than a Greek phone book and more dog ears than a North Korean buffet.

25,000

Milne, A. A.

Now We Are Six

(London, 1927).

1st edition. Signed by Milne. Fine in lightly worn jacket. I'm not taken by kittens playing with yarn or children's poetry, but that's not to patronize or denigrate those of you who are. And for you who love children's poetry, "patronize" means "talk down to" and "denigrate" means "insult."

4,000

get your tongue out of my mouth,

I'm trying to kiss you goodbye

Nabokov, Vladimir

Lolita

(Paris, 1955).

2 vols. 1st edition. Farce, pathos, parody and surrender, united in the tormentingly complex nature of romantic love. Fine. A splendid set, greener than a Tree frog's butt, and whiter than a New England yacht club. 1st issue (900 francs price, no shadow from a removed sticker), and though all sets were printed concurrently, those with the price converted to new francs, or canceled, were sold (issued) later, certainly not within a month of publication.

11,000

Nabokov, Vladimir

Lolita

(Paris, 1955).

2 vols. 1st edition. An unprecedented balancing of obsession against the warning that forbidden fruit tastes sweeter but spoils faster. 1st issue with the price “Francs : 900” on the back cover neither canceled, or raised, or converted to new francs. A little natural toning to the white lines on the spines, but otherwise a fine set.

7,750

Nietzsche, Friedrich

Thus Spake Zarathustra

(NY, 1896).

1st edition in English, a stirring glorification of man as superman. Original cloth, inner hinges and a short tear to the front free endpaper neatly strengthened, otherwise a near fine copy, nice for this book. Reference: Printing and the Mind of Man, 370.

2,000

Nietzsche is from the philosophical school that tells men how they should live (the first problem). His injunction is to be an individual and follow your own desires—if necessary (and here's the second problem) through the subversion of others. So he remains widely misunderstood, a direct consequence of the insanity that plagued him during the last years of his life (1889-1900) and (to an even greater degree) of entrusting his papers to the custody of his sister Elisabeth, herself a genius but an evil and corrupt one. She was a frenetic German nationalist and raked with delusions. Friedrich was, in his way, anti-Christian, upset that virtues of pity and meekness destroy man's will, and he believed in the here and now as opposed to the hereafter, and he was certainly anti-nationalist, but Elisabeth edited his archive and churned out writings on him that forwarded her own infected beliefs while attributing them to her brother.

Orwell, George

Nineteen Eighty-Four

(London, 1949).

1st edition. Number 4 on the unified cumulative lists of the 20th century's greatest books. Fine in fine green dustjacket (minuscule rubs at corners). There's no priority between the green and red jackets and one isn't scarcer or fades more quickly than the other, and statements to the contrary are all newspeak.

5,500

Very few novels change history (Uncle Tom's Cabin comes to mind), but Nineteen Eighty-Four deflated a world wide surging tide, stripped communism (and all other forms of totalitarianism) naked, ridiculed its leadership, mocked its intellectual appeal, scorned its possibilities, and dismissed the romance supporting its inevitability, and did it all so adroitly that, as has been said before, it wasn't the beginning of the end but it was the end of the beginning. 1984 is the year in which it's set. The world is divided into 3 great powers, Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia, each perpetually at war with the other. Britain is part of Oceania and is known as Airstrip One. Throughout Oceania, "The Party" rules by the agencies of 4 ministries whose power is absolute—The Ministry of Peace which deals with war, The Ministry of Love (headquarters of the dreaded Thought Police) which deals with law and order, The Ministry of Plenty, which deals in scarcities, and The Ministry of Truth which deals with propaganda. Played out against this nightmare background is the drama of Winston Smith, possibly the last man alive to rebel against the Party's rule and doctrines, and to cling to a belief in the individual. And there's an unintended moral here because, in the end, Winston Smith forgets that the first and foremost duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it.

Newspeak, thoughtcrime, plusgood, hateweek and doublethink. Maybe it all happened right on schedule and we just missed it in sleepthrough.

[Playboy]

The First Issue of Playboy

(Chicago, 1953).

Volume I, number 1. Short, faint crease to the extreme lower corner of the back cover, still fine (astounding), rare in this condition, a copy that will satisfy a collector who’s fussier than Goldilocks. Contains the legendary color centerfold of Marilyn Monroe, a gritty excerpt from Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, a bawdy tale from Boccaccio’s Decameron and the first collection of Hefner’s playful cartoons. A quintessential piece of printing that cleverly mated sex and upward mobility to relentlessly push its way through 4 decades of legal obstacles, and ultimately, secure more rights than Captain Ahab’s sock drawer. 50 years later upward mobility for the single man has crystalized into the law of the 4 Fs. If it flies, floats, fucks, or faces the ocean, rent it, don’t buy it.

5,000

Braveheart

Porter, Jane

The Scottish Chiefs

(London, 1810).

5 vols. 1st edition. An account of revolution, reminding us that even in times past, men loved war precisely because it was the one thing that stopped women from laughing at them. Contemporary 1/2 calf (rebacked, original spines preserved). A very good, complete set with all half-titles and the errata. Ex-Edward, Lord Suffield (armorial bookplates). Ref: Sadleir, 1971. Summers, p. 497.

1,800

Jane Porter's second novel. Based on the life of Scottish patriot William Wallace, a favorite read of (among others contemporaneously) Scott, Mitford, Thomas Campbell (dedicatee of the 3rd edition), Joanna Baillieand and Napoleon, and Scottish Chiefs was the source for the faithful, 1995, Mel Gibson film, winner of the Academy Award for best picture. Sir Walter Scott is recognized as the inventor of the historical novel (see: Printing and the Mind of Man, no. 273, Scott's Waverley, 1814, under the running head "fiction teaches history" and anointed in that literary lap dance as "the progenitor") but Scottish Chiefs precedes Waverley by 4 years and articulates the formula just as precisely. Even earlier, Maria Edgeworth's Castle Rackrant, 1800, Sophie Lee's The Recess, 1785, and Thomas Leland's Longsword, 1762, are models that come close, but they are more about the process, and the perfected invention was Porter's, though the credit goes to Scott, probably because he established the historical novel as long fiction's dominant form in the first half of the 19th century, and also because literary inventions of this magnitude are seldom attributed to women by apathetic male academics who lie down like the French army when faced with confronting their predecessors. But all such is not unprecedented in a literary world where the supply of new ideas is scarce enough, but always in excess of the demand.

the first "Greenback"

(American Printed Currency)

U. S. Treasury Demand Note

(1861).

Rare, transitional, hand signed, $1O demand note, the original U. S. paper currency, preceding the first legal tender by a year (see next item for the first completely printed U. S. dollar). Portrait of Lincoln. Serial No. 46,213. Ref: Friedberg number 8 (issued in Boston). 1/16" tear in blank margin but that’s the only fault, lightly circulated (CAA’s "fine-very fine"). Financing the Civil War required the heretofore unthinkable, a government backed paper currency. Congress responded on July 17, 1861 by authorizing the Treasury to design, print and circulate, personalized, hand signed, $5, $10 and $20 notes that would be redeemable upon demand but they were not to carry the Treasury Seal. Nervous about credibility, the legislation stopped short of legal tender status (compulsory acceptance) and required that each of these notes be an individually hand signed promise to pay, slightly closer to a check from the Treasury Department. The cumbersome autograph requirement may have spurred acceptance but it slowed production beyond reason and on March 10 1862, new legislation from Congress retired the demand note and removed the autograph provision, by legislating the first completely printed paper currency and dictated its status as "legal tender", with mandatory acceptance for all debts. One feature making its first appearance on this demand note was the now famous green back, carried forward to future U. S. currency and instigating the nickname. This is one of the rare initial American originals of which the current census for Freidberg number 8 records just 32 survivors, with most now in institutions or in collections that are destined for institutions. The last at auction in this condition brought $5225.

5,000

1st state book and dustjacket

and a presentation dated on publication day

Rand, Ayn

The Fountainhead

(Indianapolis, 1943).

1st edition, 1st printing, 1st binding and 1st jacket. Rare. Honest design as a superior justification for selfishness. Fine in a dustjacket with some creases and edgetears (the longest 1" at the upper front fold), else nearly fine, the color on the spine unfaded. Contemporary, signed presentation copy for 2 of her close associates, "To Mildred and Joe Kamp—Affectionately—Ayn Rand. May 8, 1943." This is the unfindable, unbuyable, nexus of contemporary, dated presentation, bright 1st state cloth (always had a jacket covering it) and unabused, correct dustjacket.

65,000

inscribed to an early reviewer of the book

Rand, Ayn

Atlas Shrugged

(NY, 1957).

1st edition of a symptom disguised as a system. Thin broken line of jacket protector residue along the extreme bottom edge of the cloth, else fine and unworn in sharp, near fine dustjacket. Inscribed, "To Robert Hessen— —with my thanks for the most properly philosophical review of this book—and with my best wishes for your future—Ayn Rand. 11 / 16 / 57." Hessen received a prepublication copy, and reviewed it, pleasing Rand immensely. Quickly invited to meet her, he did so on Nov. 16th when she inscribed his copy for him. He joined her circle, became her private secretary (she always called him her "personal lieutenant") and they remained fast friends thereafter.

20,000

A world wide bestseller, ranked second only to the Bible in a 1991 Library of Congress poll asking readers what was the single most influential book in their lives, but the times have changed and these days Atlas Shrugged is second in popularity only to Let Yourself Go Week.

seldom seen as a presentation copy

Rhys, Jean

Wide Sargasso Sea

(London, 1966).

1st edition of her last novel, a weighty, feminist prequel to Jane Eyre, ably dragging Charlotte Bronte into the 20th century. The orange cloth is bright as a streetworker’s safety vest but has 1/4” of fading along an edge and a faint ghost from the jacket illustration (both trifles) but it’s otherwise fine, in a truly fine dustjacket, Inscribed, "To Oliver with love from Jean" (a recipient unknown to me but presumedly someone quite close to the author). The elusive combination of joy (presentation copy and beautiful). The inscription is in black ink, in the wavering hand of the aging Rhys, typical of the period, if and when her writing is seen at all

950

Rhys, who was half Creole, was born in Dominica and spent her childhood there. The book is set in Jamaica and Dominica, and Rhys supplemented her personal knowledge of the West Indies by tediously researching the islands’ history. Well armed, she set out to write a study of the mad Creole heiress (Antoinette Cosway) who becomes the first Mrs. Rochester, the mad wife in Jane Eyre. Written, in contrast to her other works, with immediacy and objectivity, it begins with a depiction of Antoinette's early life, her mother's marriage to a rich man, numerous deaths and her inheritance. The middle part of the novel follows Mr. Rochester who "acquires" Antoinette (and her fortune) from her stepbrother. Rochester is hard, stupid and greedy, and though marginally enchanted with Antoinette, he soon finds reason to fear and despise her. Here the novel picks up the plotline of Jane Eyre and quickens its pace. Once Antoinette's isolation is complete, Rochester and the stepbrother conspire to have her committed and get her money. They succeed in locking her in the attic of Thornfield Hall and in a frantic dream she imagines that she can return to happier times by lighting the hall on fire. Globally acclaimed and winner of The Royal Society of Literature Award and the W. H. Smith Award, to which Rhys only comment was, "It has come too late."

Robbins, Tom

Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

(Boston, 1976).

1st edition. A review copy with slip. Fine in fine jacket (looks new). Inscribed, "For Steve Let 'er buck! Tom Robbins." Faultless condition, coy inscription and a review copy too, and yes it's expensive but one of you will buy it and 2 years from now a dozen of you will wish you had.

2,750

Sand, George

The Marquis de Villemer

(Boston, 1871).

1st American edition (1st in English?). Apparently the primary binding in green cloth, though it was also issued in purple. A fine copy, razor sharp. Seems the best of her later novels.

650

Early on, Sand's English translations were erratic and her more complex ideas often read like some literary wind talker. But throughout her fiction she questioned sexual identity and gender destinies, and played a significant, if long underestimated, role in the evolution of the novel. Her books were popular, but also awoke controversy, and the French Senate formally declared its opposition to the presence of her works in public libraries, assuring her fame, and eventually, better translations. So the need to censure is an old one and its justifications no truer today. I mean just because there's more comedy on television does that guarantee more comedy in the streets?

Sewell, Anna

Black Beauty

(Boston, 1890).

1st American edition, 1st binding of printed boards with 90,000 on cover (copies in wrappers or cloth were later). Fine (superb). Contemporary pencil presentation from the Connecticut Humane Society. A heavy little book second only to Uncle Tom as a successful instrument of propaganda, and scarcer in this condition than a pro football player blaming God for a defeat.

2,500

the earliest known copy of any Shakespeare play

surviving in the publisher’s wrappers

Shakespeare, William

Hamlet

(London, 1683).

8th edition of Hamlet, 4to. 221 mm. X 176 mm. A2 B-M4. All early editions preceding the 1685 4th folio are rare, but this is a copy of transcendent singularity, the only 17th century Shakespeare play (or 16th century for that matter) that I could locate, on any census, still surviving in its original wrappers (this copy actually in a special publisher’s binding of marbled wrappers for an acting company’s use in their production of the play). Not the most valuable of Hamlets (two 1st editions are recorded, each worth 3 or 4 million dollars), but it is the finest of Hamlets, and also the finest copy of any early Shakespeare play. Title neatly inked on upper cover by the original owner (more likely the prompter John Downes or less likely the actor Thomas Betterton) whose manuscript prompt notes and marginalia in a contemporary hand identify him as he who played or prompted Hamlet himself. Marbling on wraps rubbed (good game use) else fine, unworn and untrimmed, an unanticipated and unique heirloom, right from the house of shock. Ref: Bartlett 86, Greg 197k, Jaggard p.306, Wing S-2952

95,000

A romantic tragedy which owes its long life to Hamlet’s character, a Prince with a nature more inclined to thought rather than action, a philosophical, introspective hero who is swept along by events instead of controlling them. In a plotline of somewhat conventional revenge, Shakespeare uses his poetic mastery for a profound exploration of one man’s universal struggle with duty, morality and ethics, mirrored against the hopes, fears and despair of all mankind. The full title reads, The Tragedy of Hamlet Prince of Denmark. As it is now Acted at his Highness The Duke of York’s Theatre, published in London by H. Heringman and R. Bentley. 22 copies survive, 21 recorded by Bartlett plus this one, but those other copies are all rebound (even when deceptively described as in original calf), and our amazing book stands distinct from the others, sort of like having 22 Hemingway's, only one of which is in its dustjacket.

Shakespeare, William

Comedies, Histories and Tragedies

(London, 1685).

4th folio. pp.[12], 96, 99-160, 163-254, [253]-[273], [1], 328, 303, [1] with usual mispaginations. The preeminent work of English literature. A fine copy, truly spectacular in its contemporary binding of full plain calf, expertly rebacked. Armorial bookplate, blank margins of frontispiece portrait restored, small tears and margin faults repaired on 13 other leaves, a repaired tear to Uu6 (into though not taking any text), a few rust spots or stains, but don't be distracted. This is a very clean and tall (13 3/4"), widely and evenly margined, exemplary folio, unassembled and unsophisticated, with every single letter of text genuine, and the binding is just what you'd want, a particularly appropriate and mellow antique, satisfyingly contemporary with the book. Ref: Wing S2915. Greg III 1119. Bartlett 123

190,000

Most folios being offered these days are more fake than a hooker being paid by the moan. Pedestrian copies presented with unwarranted praise, disguised, assembled, enhanced, augmented or resurrected under the hand of the restorer, and covered in 19th, or worse yet 20th, century bindings, glittering like the bright shiny objects known to raise the pulse of the feeble minded, sell for half our price when draped in their new clothes. But Hamlet said you should know a hawk from a handsaw, and I say, a donkey sent traveling does not come home a horse, and our copy is a real book in its 300 year old covers, a fine and stalwart folio that will bring lasting pride of ownership in the most sophisticated library, and there's one timeless reality that has always proved true about Shakespeare folios in this condition. On those unpredictable occasions when they're offered for sale, the best time to buy them is always last year.

Steinbeck, John

Tortilla Flat

(NY, 1935).

1st edition. His fourth book and first triumph, a slick argument that the chief cause of unhappiness is the search for happiness, and that the salient problem with poverty is that it takes up all your time. Fine in wrappers in fine, fresh jacket (not faded or darkened). Surely the 1st binding although the extrapolated facts and bibliographical references are unconvincing as to whether this was a published issue sold to the public or an advance issue of 1st edition sheets exclusively for review. What is sure is that there were only 500 in this binding and jacket from a total 1st printing of 4,500 and that this particular copy was issued prepublication with the publisher's compliments (small stamp on endpaper). Irritatingly scarce in fine condition, deflating careless collectors for 50 years (you with your 15% tolerance policy who celebrate doubling the value of a book by putting on a bro-dart). So avoid copies with a faded or darkened spine, for half our price, to say nothing of worn $2,000 copies that would scare the bark out of a dog, rhyme with bugly uook, and will pollute your entire collection. And it's your responsibility alone to sidestep them, as such books are themselves, as innocent as a blind leper who has lost his bell, bumping into people but meaning no harm. Full morocco case.

7,000

the dream, the shadow, the kiss,

the hunters and the chase

Stoker, Bram

Dracula

(Westminster, 1897).

1st edition, 1st printing having the last integral page (2C4) blank with no ad printed on it for The Shoulder of Shasta. Original yellow cloth, very faint fading to spine, but a fine copy, in all ways superior, and here’s my little prayer. Show me a copy that’s grubby, or worn, or chipped or torn so that I can be content with mine that has a little fading.

50,000

Issue points on Dracula are all bogus. The 1st edition was published in June and all 3,000 copies of the 1st printing, and all known presentation copies dated in June, look exactly like this one with the last integral leaf blank. The 2nd printing adds an advertisement for The Shoulder of Shasta on the back of this last page and it stayed there for the 3rd printing which adds a catalog at the end. The 4th printing replaces the 3rd printing catalog with an even later one but it’s not until the 5th printing that "fifth impression" is added to the back of the title page. Somewhere along the way the thicker paper was replaced with thinner, coated paper and there are some nearly indiscernible differences in the cover’s stamping, but the pivotal point of identification is that last integral leaf, which is blank only in the 1st printing. Cloudy bibliography surrounds this book and where there's smoke there's mirrors. That means copies with the Shasta ad that are sold as "2nd issue" are actually 2nd (or later) printings despite the relatively fantastic prices attached to them. Can the leaf with the ad be removed and then replaced with a blank leaf of similar paper? It can be done and it is done, so examine every 1st edition with cynical care. And no rebound copy, unless inscribed and dated by Stoker himself, can claim to be any more than one of the first 4 printings. The only known copy in dustjacket is just where you might expect it to be, in the Rosenbach collection (Philadelphia). You think this Dracula is expensive? Well tell me, my children of the night, is there any other novel of such renown you can think of where the asking price for the 1st printing is only 3 times that asked for a reprint?

passion filled love letter

to his wife Caitlin

Thomas, Dylan

Autograph letter, signed

(Gryphon Guild House, Thur[sday, September, 1945]).

2 pages, recto and verso, 54 lines in pencil, on plain stationary, 8 1/2" X 11", to Caitlin Thomas, signed at the end, Dylan." 4 folds, pinpoints of wear at the intersections, a one sixth section dustsoiled as Caitlin carried this around in her purse (folded), and it is in this portion (mostly blank margin) where a few words are faint or lost, the same portion also with a pink kissprint at the edge from Caitlin's lipstick.

5,000

Just what you'd want (and expect), nonetheless, here's the entire letter:

"My darling dear, my own, my poor, beautiful Caitlin, this is only a little note because I want you to have this money straightaway. I have been writing every day for money to come from the BBC; it still hasn't come; this was a cheque from my agents for poems in anthologies. I will send the BBC money as soon as it comes. I love you forever, &, though I thought last time, & the time before that, that I never in all our lonely life together missed you [?so very] desperately. [?& loved] you more dearly, this is the worst time of all, I love you & need you; dear my dear & think of you in that grave & look around me at mine. I am terribly sorry not to have sent you money sooner, I had none. I hope this will help, & there shall be more. The Electricity Summons, supposed to be paid by Fred months ago, I [?telephoned] Fred about this afternoon & [?will get] the money at once from him & send it off to the electric buggering people. There are 2 chances of a house, & I have had a message from Miss Griffiths we met in Llanstephan asking me to ring her at home this evening. Perhaps she will have something definite, please our Lord & preserve our sanity. Do not be too depressed, my sweetheart, though you've every right to be. I shall be back on Monday, arriving in Carmarthen at six. I should love you & love you & love you to meet me. I hope to God I shall be able to say, we can go up to town almost at once. Donald is going on holiday — not to N. Quay — & I needn't return anyway for a fortnight. But I told him, quite definitely, I wouldn't return at all unless there is a house but would live in Majoda again. I love you. I am so glad you liked the two broadcasts. Do listen on Sunday at 11 p.m. & less than a day after I shall be with you, my true love until death & forever afterwards. I want to hold you & kiss you. Kiss Aeronwy for me. Say that you love me. Wait for me. I love you & though I am wild unhappy think of you every second. You are everything that is good. I love you. Dylan."

You think he liked her?

Reference: The Collected Letters of Dylan Thomas, pages 567-568.

poet to poet presentation copy

Thomas, Dylan

In Country Sleep

(NY, 1952).

1st edition. Contains the 6 poems Thomas wrote from 1946 to 1952 including his most famous, Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night. Inscribed to poet Isabella Gardner, one time associate editor of Poetry Magazine which published Thomas' poems and awarded him the Levinson Poetry Prize in 1945, "Isabella Gardner from Dylan Thomas 1952." Fine in clean, unfaded, near fine dustjacket

4,000

Thomas, Dylan

Collected Poems

(London, 1952).

1st edition, deluxe issue. Number 9 of 65 numbered copies signed by Thomas and bound in original full blue morocco. Fine (new). The limitation alone makes it rare, and not all 65 copies survive, and of those that do very few are in this condition. Contains 89 poems, plus a prologue in verse, almost all he wrote and certainly all he wanted preserved in the year before his death.

7,500

By 1952 Thomas was exceptionally popular and despite an obvious unity of vision, his poetry was also exceptionally obscure. For a 20th century poet to be both popular and obscure is an anomaly. He wrote in no recognized poetic convention nor was he part of any particular school of verse. Further, he was neither politically nor socially committed. His poetry was simply an affirmation of life, concerned with mankind and with a wide human interest.

Tolstoy, Leo

Anna Karenina

(NY, 1886).

1st edition in English, 1st binding (4 pages of ads from 3 Dostoyevsky titles to The Marquis of Penalta). Original brown cloth (one of 4 colors with no priority). Fine and crisp.

2,500

In the wake of War and Peace, Tolstoy spent 5 years with Anna, a serious attempt to write a flawless novel. His dual plotline juxtaposes the initially contented but ultimately tragic story of Anna and Alexei against the initially tenuous but ultimately satisfying marriage of Kitty and Konstantine the pivotal figure in each being the young officer Vronsky. The style is carefully crafted to suit the characters and events, and each scene possesses its distinctive rhythm, syntax and imagery. Tolstoy polished and refined the structure, style and content until he had a perfectly symmetrical pair of relationships, places and events. He announced his theme and predicted this symmetry in the opening sentence, "All happy families resemble one another, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Kitty and Konstantine find meaning, not because their life together is without sorrow but because they sacrifice for each other, pardon each other and desire each other's happiness. Anna's story is one of fatal attraction. For what appears to be love, but on a deeper level is for ego, Anna and Vronsky renounce family, reputation, health and finally life. Her last chance for recovery passes because her husband will not risk the consequences of a public divorce on his career, and threatens her with the loss of her son which she refuses to consider, so Anna not only gets her arrow to the neck, but finds an inflated cell phone bill attached to it. These days she'd just insist on an early divorce, at any price, forsaking everything, because time passes and even the most bruised move on. And speaking of moving on, I've now been divorced so long that I'm starting to forget what's wrong with me.

Trumbo, Dalton

The Devil in the Book

(Los Angeles, 1956).

1st edition. Fine in wraps. One of 750 signed. A rousing, literate assault on witch hunting in general and the Smith Act in particular but there’s far too much blind praise of Russian Communism and too much distinction between dictators of the right and left for anyone awake to care today, even if Smith himself was an imbecile, which he was. And anyway, let this be the gentlest of reminders that free speech is just a cheap compensation for free thought.

75

Twain, Mark

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

(NY, 1885).

1st American edition. Green cloth. All the usual 1st state points are present but whether you have some or most or all of the points has little to do with priority (the trouble with facts is that there are so many of them), but it’s also the 1st binding in cloth (and in this case priority is assured) with page 283 on a stub. Fine, no flaws, no repair, and not fine copies may be cheap but when you want to sell them they always prove harder to get out of than a pair of skin tight jeans underwater.

12,500

Von Harbou, Thea

Metropolis

(London, 1926).

1st edition in English (The Readers Library) preceding the 1927 Hutchinson edition. 1st printing (front ads run from Tower of London to Cleopatra). Fine in near fine 1st state dustjacket (rear flap ads from Swiss Family Robinson to Cleopatra). Rare in this condition and particularly fragile too, so even when it’s seen in jacket the book underneath is usually ruined. A slickly conceived and charismatic book, an early and chilling dystopia, and a best selling novel in both England and America, made into a sensational and revered film by the author’s husband Fritz Lang.

5,500

in dustjacket

Wells, H. G.

The First Men in the Moon

(NY, 1901).

1st edition, preceding the London edition by a month. Fine (radiant) in a pictorial jacket with a 3/8” deep chip at the top edge and other slight wear at the edges, but listen to me closely. Books find room on their covers for all their previous owners, and this copy had a long run of them who fastidiously preserved it and never abused, mishandled, or repaired it. And this is a rare item, the only copy of the true 1st edition in dustjacket I’ve had, and pointedly, I’ve sold the later London edition in jacket twice, but hey, when a finger points at the moon, the imbecile looks at the finger.

40,000

an immaculate copy

Wilde, Oscar

The Picture of Dorian Gray

(London, 1891).

1st English edition of a self-evident morality tale centered on a portrait painting with supernatural powers. A Victorian classic, unique in the delicacy of its grim and haunting metaphor, holding it's appeal even in our 21st century when millions of people long for immortality who don't know what to do on a rainy Sunday afternoon. 1st printing with "nd" for "and" beginning the 8th line from the bottom on page 208. This is not a dropped letter but a mis-setting, and the error was corrected for the 2nd printing, and it is the 2nd printing which included the 250 copies of the limited signed edition, a fact you won't be told by booksellers trying to sell you a copy of this now very expensive limited edition (ok, flirting with integrity, I'll admit I would keep my description brief and not mention it either). Original vellum backed boards, fox spots to first few leaves, an exceptionally fragile book, our copy in fine condition, never repaired, the boards unworn, the vellum spine faintly foxed at edge, but unsoiled and unfaded. 8 pages of ads at the end (probably defining the 1st binding, and consequently the 1st issue) and many (most) copies lack the ads.

11,000

A modern gothic and a 1st edition that's not frequently offered for sale, and when a copy does make it to a catalog, book fair, or auction it's usually in condition that would make Quentin Tarantino throw-up. Copies this fine and fresh have been rare since the 1960s and will soon enough sail off over the horizon to reside forevermore in the land of the unobtainable.

"Lying on the floor was a dead man. in evening dress, with a knife in his heart. He was withered, wrinkled and loathsome of visage. It was not till they had examined the rings that they recognized who it was."

the first modern Western novel

in 1902 dustjacket

Wister, Owen

The Virginian

(NY, 1902).

1st edition. All you could ever want in a great 20th century 1st edition. Near fine in a jacket with a few tears, a small chip from the bottom of the spine and a tiny one from the top, but clean, unrestored, never abused, and rarer than feel good performance art.

22,500

Among other original innovations found herein is the Western hero of mythic primal humanity, the classic line "When you call me that, smile," and cooler still, the first Main Street, walkdown, fast draw, pistol duel in any American novel. The Western stands tall as a conception of colossal importance, and The Virginian is the acknowledged prototype with an influence that's almost beyond measure, and it's in a beautiful dustjacket that's still fresh after 101 years, and obviously of the utmost rarity.

Woolf, Virginia

To the Lighthouse

(London, 1927).

1st edition. Her magnum opus, the best modernist novel written by a woman. Date on endpaper else a fine copy, in a sharp and clean dustjacket with some light and invisible restoration (not touching the design or lettering). And this jacket and book have always been together and still go together as surely as jumbo fries and an elastic waistband, and pride in a To the Lighthouse jacket that's either browned or mismatched, is as woeful as a business executive who's proud of his Smurf collection or a Civil War buff who's proud of his Franklin Mint pewter chess set.

15,000

Cited on Cyril Connolly's list of 100 Key Books in the Modern Movement. Stephen Spender said of To the Lighthouse, "She was trying to do something different, especially with time...a new way of writing a book was simply a new way of looking at life." He compared the quality of her writing with that achieved by musicians in exploring varying harmonies of a primary melody, the initial strain sometimes seeming lost while "...depths far beyond the character of the original theme" are explored.

Woolf wrote this legacy in a lyrical stream of consciousness during which she was inspired by James Joyce and T. S. Eliot, and she patterned the central couple on her parents, a collection of sources that were still feasible possibilities in 1927. That's no longer the case as, alive in our time, Joyce would be interminably occupied figuring out how to write a novel in the PDA alphabet, Eliot would be absorbed learning how to make his cell phone ring to the Harvard fight song, and Virginia's parents would be in rooms of their own, her father frustrated by repeatedly failing to transfer basketball statistics from his Wizard to his handheld without having to retype everything, and her mother gripped in a frenzied core meltdown over how to instant-message tech support so she could reprogram the bedroom coffee maker.

the ambiguity of language

Woolf, Virginia

The Waves

(London, 1931).

1st edition. Near fine in a very good jacket, the worst faults a neatly repaired 3/8” chip and a strengthened fold.

1,400

A towering work of psychological realism, the culminating novel in a long line of descent from Marie de La Fayette’s Princess of Cleves (1687), but The Waves owes nothing to any novel’s traditional form. Woolf draws a series of interlocking dramatic monologues in which the central figure is Percival, symbol of natural man and emotional certainty, but the reader sees him exclusively through the eyes of 6 androgynous characters who reveal the essence of being during successive stages of their lives. Bernard is the unifier, Jinny an extrovert, Rhoda an introvert, Neville a poet, Louis wants to succeed, and Susan loves the country life. The action (if anything so fleeting and inward can be called action) is of time passing and the characters’ memories and sensations from birth to death. Woolf’s aim was to give fiction the subtle insights, perceptions and revealing moments that had been the sole domain of poetry, but there is nothing irrelevant here. Like Joyce, she uses symbols in the external world which correspond to inner reality, for example, each section of the book is prefaced by a descriptive passage in which the movement of the sun and waves through a day, stands for time and eternity. Only the narration is in the present tense and when the characters speak they do not do so aloud or to each other (though they sometimes seem to communicate telepathically), and they speak to the reader by verbalizing their thoughts and inner feelings. All these soliloquies are paralleled by sunrises and sunsets, descriptions of nature, of the sun, the sea, birds and plants, but it is the waves that are the dominant image. The crucial event is Bernard’s renewal, symbolized by the shining ring he imagined as a boy. Woolf’s theme is the oneness of life and art that she has established by the end of the book, but the theme that strikes me, throughout, is that loneliness is now so widespread that it has become, paradoxically, a shared experience.

Woolf, Virginia

Three Guineas

(London, 1938).

1st edition. Near fine in a nice, clean dustjacket with slight wear to the corners.

300

Woolf carries forth ideas first articulated in The Years but more directly, this book is a fictional sequel to her A Room of Ones Own, and in it she gives the clearest voice to her ardent feminism. The story traces 3 requests, each for a guinea, compares and relates them, traces their connection and explores the terms upon which the money should be given. Deeper, the book scrutinizes tyranny, linking it in the patriarchal home to tyranny abroad, a heavy concept in Britain on the eve of WW II. But ultimately she chases the elusive principles of justice, equality and liberty and how they apply to all men and women particularly to respect of their persons. And women demanding equal rights was a hallmark of the 20th century, so men had their chance, but that's over. Today's empowered women admit they are superior and demand that their subjects acknowledge it.

The intensity of her work contributed to annoying symptoms of mental illness. Elegiac and hard pressed for peace and quiet she drowned herself, proclaiming to God, "You can't persecute me, I'm outta here." Contrast today, when the intensity of work still contributes to annoying symptoms of mental illness but now it's on the corporate level. So hard pressed for cash and addicted to litigation as the mechanical solution of choice for all of their problems, a recent news item reports that The Walt Disney Company has sued themselves for copyright violation.

65 years later, Three Guineas continues to have a long reach and still influences readers and writers of both genders. And speaking of today, harassment in the workplace seems the key feminist battleground. Mrs. Woolf never addressed the issue but I'll wonder for her. Is this a problem for the self employed?

coming soon

Catalog 35

The Tao of the Octopus

∞

still available

Classic Book Cards

series III (Cards 153 - 228)

The Third Installment of a Defiant Catalog

in the Format of a Set of Baseball Cards,

widely acknowledged as the most

bawdy and scandalous book catalog ever put to print

issued occasionally in complicity with

Between the Covers (the good guy in all this)

$20 (cash or check only)

sets of series I (cards 1-76)

and series II (cards 77-152)

are still available,

$20 each (3 sets for $50)

∞

now filming

Book Collectors Gone Wild

Produced by Pretty Pictures

an apathetic division of Biblioctopus

call us in Beverly Hills to participate

(the usual Hollywood contract, percentage of profits)

∞

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New York Antiquarian Book Fair

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