Our members list new acquisitions and recently cataloged items almost every day of the year. Below, you'll find a few highlights from these recent additions...
My Further Disillusionment with Russia
by Goldman, Emma, 1869-1940
Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1924. 1st ed. Hardcover. Very Good/Good. xv, 178p. Original cloth. dj. 19 cm. Jacket has spots and chipping, including good-sized chips around both ends of backstrip and at another at the upper right corner on front panel, The cover has some edge bumps and a some other wear. Spine lettering all there but not bright. This book was published a year after Doubleday published Goldman's "My Disiluusionment in Russia." "My Further Disillusionment" contains the last twelve chapters of Goldman's manuscript for "My Disillusionment in Russia" that had not been turned over by the newspaper syndicate from whom Doubleday bought the rights to the book. Goldman, a committed anarchist rather than a statist Communist, was appalled by Bolshevik Russia. "It is not so much the Bolsheviki who killed the Russian Revolution as the Bolshevik idea. It was Marxism, however modified; in short, fanatical governmentalism." [pp. 157-158].
Offered by McBlain Books.
Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy
by Schumpeter, Joseph A.
New York: Harper & Brothers, 1942. First Edition. Near Fine/Near Fine. First edition, first printing. Bound in publisher's original black cloth with spine lettered in gilt. An unusually sharp copy, Near Fine, with light wear to cloth and gilt stamping, contents tanned. In a Near Fine unclipped dust jacket with light wear mostly along the extremities, light fading to the spine, light soiling to the rear panel. The author's best-known, important and perhaps most controversial work. Scarce in the original dust jacket and uncommon in such lovely condition.
Offered by Burnside Rare Books.
Original concept illustration for the cover of Broad Stripes and Bright Stars
by Grover, Beatrice Beard
No place, 1941. Original concept illustration for the cover of Broad Stripes and Bright Stars, Beatrice Grover’s patriotic children’s book published in New York by the Greystone Press in 1941. Aimed at elementary school children during World War II, the book focuses on the American revolution, personifying the thirteen original colonies as plucky, independent children of Mother England. This watercolor cover design, rendered in red, white and blue, depicts a large children’s chorus (including a number of immigrants, and one girl who appears to be Native American) singing the national anthem, accompanied by a small original band of colonial children on piano, flute, recorder, horn, violin, harp and xylophone. The published image would include a version of the colonial musicians, but replace the diverse chorus with the American flag. Beatrice B. Grover (1901-1994), a New York City native, was a skilled painter, lithographer, and illustrator. A graduate of the Spence School and the Art Students League, she continued her studies in Paris, and became a member of the National Association of Women Artists. Represented by the Betty Parsons Gallery, she enjoyed many one-woman art shows in New York City and lived to see her work enter the collection of the Museum of Modern Art. A lively original process painting. Watercolor on illustration board, measuring 13 x 11.75 inches. Signed “Beatrice B. Grover” and dated in lower right image; captioned and initialed in pencil to verso: “He called this song The Star Spangled Banner. When the various states heard it etc.” A few printer’s measurement marks in outer margins, brown artist’s tape to edges of verso.
Offered by Honey & Wax Booksellers.
by HEPWORTH, George H[ughes]
New York: Harper and Brothers, 1881. First American Edition. Octavo. 17.5cm. Publisher's slate grey cloth titled and decorated in maroon and gilt to spine and front board. 196pp. Scuffing and abrasion to corners and spine ends with some thumbing of the cloth there and there and a little group of cosmetic pinholes to the cloth of the rear spine hinge, strong and handsome, a very good copy with some minor wear. Internally clean. Coated brown endpapers.
A rather peculiar little weird novel involving reincarnation, soul mates, some kind of unbreakable linkage between people that defies death, and an early grasp of what Steiner, Cayce et al referred to as the Akashic Records, although the concept was introduced in a complete form by Madame Blavatsky a little in advance of the publication of this novel. The idea is essentially that records of everything humanity has ever experienced are stored in a kind of collective archive that we can all have access to if we simply learn how ("This handy correspondence course will have you walking the Boughs of Agartha within 10 simple lessons!"), although in the case of this novel it is more concerned with there being a mysterious framework for steering two lovers back together again after death and time have separated them.
A distinct oddity from a man who joined the Union Army as a Chaplain during the US Civil War, found the duties of battlefield chaplain too tedious for his tastes, and had himself transferred to the 4th Louisiana Native Guards or the Corps D'Afrique, an African American regiment of freed slaves and free men of color which later became the 76th United States Colored Infantry, and who took part in the Mutiny of Fort Jackson in 1863 after the regiment was stationed with white Union troops. Hepworth was a strong voice for the better treatment of veterans of color, and his unimpeachable depictions of the lives of people of color in Louisiana and during the Civil War made some mainstream contribution to the gradual changing of attitudes and responsibilities. Chaplain Hepworth was clearly not a man to shy away from asking the big questions.
Offered by Lorne Bair Rare Books.
Package Design: The Forces of Visual Selling
by SUTNAR, Ladislav
New York: Arts Inc, 1953. A fine and tight copy in an about very good plus price clipped dust jacket with some small chips from the base of the front panel at the spine, chips to the spine ends and some small edge tears and some scratches as well. Still, a very bright and pleasing copy of an uncommon book in any jacket.. Oblong 4to. Original cloth; dust jacket. First edition. Another tour de force on the importance of design elements in the marketing of products.
Offered by Riverrun Books.
Vest-Pocket Shakespeare. The Allied Press Newspaper Miniature Shakespeare Series - 40 volumes
by [Miniature Books] Shakespeare, William
London: Allied Newspapers Ltd, 1934. 5 x 3.5 cm. Black thin leatherette wraps with the titles and ornamental stamping in gray ink on the spines. Decorative endpapers. Frontispiece illustrations. All displayed on a miniature wooden bookshelf [8 3/4" tall by 7 1/2" wide]. The titles and designs on the spines are a bit faint. The upper extremities of the text block edges are darkened. The text blocks of "Pericles" and "Cymbeline" have come away from the spine, and roughly a half a dozen of the volumes have cracks to the text block (often just a single crack). Complete. Overall very good. At the beginning of each volume is a brief summary of the play, a list of its characters, and the date on which it was probably written. A delightful collection of forty miniature volumes containing Shakespeare's complete works.
Offered by Ken Sanders Rare Books.
by Haviland, Mary S. and Fanny L. Warren
New York: National Child Welfare Association, 1923 First edition. The National Child Welfare Association published the present posters during the height of the Progressive Movement in America. They illustrate the importance of health eating for children, based on recent innovations in nutrition science, and would have been used as teaching tools . Printed card stock richly illustrated in color. . Three posters, 11 in. by 16 in. . Includes posters one, two, and five of a larger set, though we were unable to determine how many posters were originally included in the series. With lovely half-page color illustrations by Fanny L. Warren and verse by Mary S. Haviland. Some light creasing at corners and small holes from removed tacks. A very good, bright example of these rare posters. The Progressive Movement focused on federal welfare programs and was responsible for mother's pension laws, forerunners of the Social Security Act; and the founding of the National Child Labor Committee. The Children's Bureau, a federal agency that focuses exclusively on children's welfare, was also a result of the movement; its first chief, Julia Lathrop (1858 – 1932), was the first woman selected by a President to head a federal agency (Children's Bureau website).
Offered by Michael R. Thompson Rare Books.
by COHEN, Leonard.
NY:: Viking Press,. Very Good in Very Good dust jacket. 1965. Hardcover. The author's second book and first collection of poems. First American edition. Appears to be inscribed by the author to a previous owner but not signed. Some light wear at the spine ends and corners and on the front board, else very good in a very good (minor shelf wear, two short closed edge tears) dust jacket. ; 88 pages.
Offered by Grendel Books.
LA SCIENCE DU BONHOMME RICHARD
by Franklin, Benjamin
Paris: Imprime par C.L.F. Panckoucke, 1827.. [6],xvi,16pp., plus a [1]p. prospectus on a folio sheet laid in. Large folio. Original printed wrappers. Wrappers worn, torn along the spine. A few instances of foxing. Very good. From a printing of 200 copies. An elaborate oversized printing of a part of Franklin's WAY TO WEALTH, by a reverent French printer. The preface extracts Franklin's recollections of his work as a printer from his AUTOBIOGRAPHY. Scarce.
Offered by William Reese Company.
by Houdini, Harry
London: George Routledge & Sons, LTD, 1910. 109, [3] pp. Good condition with soiling to the covers and a 2" split along spine. A guide to escaping handcuffs written by this famous magician.
Offered by DeWolfe & Wood.
North American Herpetology; or, a Description of the Reptiles Inhabiting the United States
by HOLBROOK, John Edward
Philadelphia: E.G. Dorsey for J. Dobson, Robert Baldwin, et al., 1842. 5 volumes, 4to. 11 1/8 x 9 inches. 147 hand-colored lithographic plates, errata slips tipped in before tables of contents in volumes I, II, IV, and VI, errata leaf at end of Volume V. 19th-century brown morocco and pebbled grain cloth, spines decorated and titled in gilt, top edges gilt
Provenance: Ostrom Enders (American diplomat, 1931-1996, bookplates). Holbrook's great work, the first comprehensive study of the reptiles of North America.
The first edition of this work was issued in 1836-38 and is a notoriously difficult work to find, and the fourth volume of that edition is virtually unobtainable. Bennett remarks that this expanded second edition, with thirty-six additional plates and their descriptions of new specimens, "was not a mere extension of the first, but an entirely revised classification made necessary by new information and new specimens." He also states that the second edition is "the first anybody is likely to complete in fine condition." The great Philadelphia lithographer, Peter S. Duval, executed the plates for both editions, entirely redrawing the lithographic stones for the second edition. Several of the plates are what Duval dubbed "lithotints," plates with several tones of printed color which were then finished by hand. Born in South Carolina, Holbrook spent four years in Europe after gaining a degree in medicine from the University of Pennsylvania. He formed particular friendships with a group of eminent French zoologists, including Valenciennes, Duméril and Bibron. Their major area of study was reptiles, and Holbrook decided to follow their lead, returning to America in 1822 and settling in Charleston. While practicing medicine and filling the post of professor of anatomy at the newly constituted University of South Carolina, he undertook the preparation of the present work. According to the DAB, the second edition "at once took its place as one of the most valuable works upon reptiles published ruing the nineteenth century, receiving notable recognition in Europe, where Holbrook was regarded as the leading American zoologist of his day" The work includes thirty plates of turtles and terrapins, an alligator, thirteen lizards, forty-seven snakes, twenty-four frogs and toads, and thirty-two salamanders and others. The text about each species generally includes a detailed description (color, dimensions, etc)., geographial distribution, habits, and general remarks. Holbrook intended the work to include "with a few exceptions...descriptions of such Reptiles only as inhabit the United States, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Rocky Mountains, and from Canada to the confines of Texas."
Offered by Donald A. Heald Rare Books.
by (VELLUM PRINTING). (RICCARDI PRESS). SWINBURNE, ALGERNON CHARLES
London: Printed in the Riccardi Press fount by the Chiswick Press for the Medici Society Ltd, 1923. No. 9 OF 12 COPIES ON VELLUM, of which 10 were for sale (and 1,025 copies on paper, 1,000 of them for sale). 236 x 164 mm. (9 1/4 x 6 1/2"). xix, [1], 79, [5] pp.
Publisher's limp vellum, gilt lettering to upper cover and flat spine, four original green silk ties. Printer's device on final leaf. Front free endpaper with ex-libris of L. W. Jordan Jr. Tomkinson, p. 153; Ransom, p. 397. ◆Half a dozen pages with naturally occurring darker grain on the hair side of the vellum, otherwise A PRISTINE COPY inside and out.
Looking much as it did the day it left the press, this is one of the especially sought-after luxury editions printed on vellum by the Riccardi Press of the Medici Society between 1909-24. First published in 1865 to great acclaim, this dramatic work of verse by Swinburne (1837-1909) is based on the Greek myth of the Calydonian boar hunt. In it, Meleager, the huntress Atalanta, and other heroes from across Greece battle a monstrous boar sent by Artemis to punish the city of Calydon, whose king had neglected to pay the goddess her proper tribute. Meleager's decision to award Atalanta the boar's pelt sparks outrage among the male hunters, and the ensuing fallout eventually leads to the tragic death of Meleager at the hands of his own mother. Britannica tells us that, in this piece, Swinburne "attempted to re-create in English the spirit and form of Greek tragedy" in "Atalanta," and that "his lyric powers are at their finest in this work." Founded by Herbert Horne, the Riccardi Press was adopted as the imprint of the Medici Society in 1909 and issued books until 1933. According to Tomkinson, "the books have nearly all been printed at the Chiswick Press (under the supervision of Charles T. Jacobi until his retirement in 1922) and published by Philip Lee Warner, who was Publisher to the Medici Society until his death in 1925. . . . The aim of the Press has been to produce finely printed books at reasonable prices and for sale through the ordinary channels of trade. . . . All editions are strictly limited, and the type is distributed after the edition has been printed." This copy is close to pristine, with no signs of wear, and it features beautiful, buttery soft vellum leaves that offer a very pleasurable tactile experience.
Offered by Phillip J. Pirages Fine Books.
by BEMELMANS, Ludwig
New York, 1939. BEMELMANS, Ludwig. Original Sketch of "Madeline". [n.d.n.p. New York: circa 1939].
Original ink and gouache sketch, of Ludwig Bemelman's most beloved and famous character, Madeline. On off-white wove paper with the repeating J. Annonay watermark. Signed "Bemelmans" at an angle below the image. With the number "18" in Bemelmans' hand in upper right corner in black ink. Sketch is in black ink, heightened in blue and red gouache on her hair, face, tie and hat. Unframed. Full sheet size (12 3/4 x 9 7/8 inches; 325 x 250 mm). Large individual portraits of Madeline are rare on the market. A beautiful image of this endearing character, about fine.
Offered by Heritage Book Shop.
Protect Your Family. Register and Vote!
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
[Albany: NAACP Northeastern Region, 1965. Very good plus.. Four-color broadside, 14 x 11 inches. Soft central horizontal crease, minor adhesive remnants on verso from former mounting. A striking four-color broadside produced by the New York State Conference of the NAACP in Albany to encourage African American men and women to exercise their voting rights in the mid-to-late 1960s, likely in the aftermath of the Civil Rights Act of 1965. The poster is illustrated with three pairs of African American men and women - an elderly couple, a middle-aged couple, and a pair of young people, to highlight the importance of voting for the future of the African American people. The bottom margin of the broadside carries a purple stamp from the NAACP's Northeastern Region, New York State Conference in Albany. The trade union printer's slug at bottom right indicates the poster was printed in Washington, D.C., so the NAACP may have used these posters in numerous locations. No copies of this broadside are reported in OCLC. A stunning artifact from the height of the successes achieved by the Civil Rights Movement.
Offered by McBride Rare Books.
Jack-O-Lantern Pumpkin Head with Straw Hat--Halloween Decoration
1950 · Made in U.S.A. [Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania].
Made in U.S.A. [Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania]: [The Beistle Company], 1950. Ephemera no binding. Very good +. [EPHEMERA] [HOLIDAY: HALLOWEEN]. 9” x 6 ½”; color printed stiff die-cut shaped paper pumpkin head with hat and scarf marked “Made in U.S.A.;” unpunched hole for hanging, printed in yellow, black and orange; small crease to wheat and one scarf corner; very good plus. Schneider 113. Unmarked Halloween decoration made by the prolific American party decoration company, The Beistle Company, during the Luhrs ownership. The Beistle Company was founded by Martin Luther Beistle in 1900 and started manufacturing paper Halloween party goods in the 1920s. Henry E. Luhrs, Beistle’s son-in-law, took over the company in 1935 after Beistle’s death.
Offered by Sandra L. Hoekstra.
THE GHOST OF OPALINA OR NINE LIVES
by Bacon, Peggy
Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1967. First edition (stated). Fine in very good jacket.. Inscribed first printing of the book about a ghost cat and a haunted house, notoriously scarce in this edition and even moreso signed. 8'' x 5.5''. Original cloth green cloth stamped in magenta including vignette of a sleeping cat. In original unclipped ($4.95) color pictorial dust jacket. Illustrated by Bacon with 16 full-page, 20 half-page and numerous smaller black-and-white illustrations throughout. [8], 243, [1] pages. Inscribed by Bacon on front endpaper. Jacket with shallow chipping at spine ends and rubbing alone edges and folds, some sunning to spine and rear panel.
Offered by Type Punch Matrix.
by Downing, Tod
Garden City, NY: The Crime Club - Doubleday & Co, 1934. 1st Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Near Fine. 8vo., 311pp. Beautiful Stated First Edition of this uncommon mystery. Bound in black cloth with titles in red on spine. Gorgeous blind-stamped skull on front board. Square, tight and clean throughout with little or no wear. Perhaps a hint of softness to spine ends and faint off-setting to the end-papers from the jacket flaps. Both quite minor. Unfaded red top-stain. Remarkably well-preserved. Incredibly fresh and bright clipped dust-jacket. has a tiny nick at the top rear fold and mild rubbing to the heel. Front panel has an almost invisible 1" closed tear at the top edge. A few areas of professional color touch-ups. A simply gorgeous collectable copy of an uncommon title in any condition and scarce in this high grade
Offered by Brenner's Collectable Books.
Three (3) 1950's Glow-In-The Dark Children's Halloween Masks
United States: Masklite, 1950. Very good. Light toning, spotting. Three cut-out pieces lacking (an eye, a nose, a mouth).. Three (3) delightful children's Halloween masks, each printed in black and orange, and with added ink that glows in the dark. Includes a Native American mask (complete with of-the-era stereotyping), an owl mask, and an old crone smoking a pipe. They each can be held up to a source of light for a few seconds to then glow-in-the-dark, and one has its original printed slip promoting the "Masklite" brand of "Luminous" glowing technology. Each measures approx. 6" by 7" by 2", and is held together with metal grommets on either side, which also serve as places for a string to be tied to keep it on the face.
Offered by Eclectibles.
The Theory of the Leisure Class
by Veblen, Thorstein
Norwalk: Easton Press, 1994. Hardcover. Near Fine. Introduction by John Kenneth Galbraith. Near Fine. Green leather, scuffed at the raised bands on the spine, with gilt lettering and designs on the spine and boards. Square and firmly bound with gilt edges and a sewn-in bookmark, with the unused and laid-in bookplate and original receipt, clean internally.
Offered by Carpetbagger Books.
by GYSIN, Brion
NY: The Grove Press, 1986. Very scarce first edition, first printing. Brion Gysin [1916–1986] was a British-Canadian painter, writer, sound poet, performance artist and inventor of experimental devices. “The Last Museum” is a fantastical and nearly inaccessible last novel from Gysin, who was a friend of and collaborator with William S. Burroughs, and who here appears to be re-writing Naked Lunch. Derivative, obscure, and filled with in-jokes from another era, Burroughs said that Gysin “was the only man I ever respected." A very scarce book!. 8vo., black boards in dust jacket; 186 pages. Introduction by William S. Burroughs. A fine copy in an equally fine d/j.
Offered by Antic Hay Books.
Original Cartoon Drawing Signed of Wednesday and a cat
Charles Addams
Addams has drawn Wednesday of the Addams Family who stands full length with her arm around a cat almost as tall as she is, about three inches. Sketched in black ink and wash and signed, "Chas. Addams." The drawing is rendered on an 8 5/8 x 5 inch card stock. Addams created the characters that became known as The Addams Family, the basis for two live-action television series, two cartoon series, several motion pictures and a musical comedy. Addams also created a syndicated comic strip, "Out of This World," which ran in 1956.
Offered by Schulson Autographs.
Bill Mauldin Says..."Shut up, kid. You got no business discussin' serious matters." New York: The Writers' Board. 1945. Staple bound wrappers. 8 pages including front and back covers. Measures 5.5" x 7.5". Black and white illustrations by Mauldin throughout.
The original speech was made by famous W.W.II era liberal cartoonist, Bill Mauldin when he delivered it at the New York Herald Tribune Forum in 1945, and reprinted from the November issue of the New York Herald Tribune. The front opens with a smiling portrait of the cartoonist with the following speech headlined "Mauldin Says Bigotry at Home Mocks Sacrifices of Soldiers." His speech touches on the racial misconduct of Black Americans and Japanese Americans, and states that we "may have won only battles, not the war to crush hate," and encourages remembrance of "what heroes died for." The cartoons laid within satirize blue collar American biases with one showing an unkempt man in conversation with two car repairmen; "Musta been purty awful, havin' to mix with them there iggerant, uneddicated furriners." Signed by the original owners on the first page "Horace + Ann Fong -- 1943." Overall very good condition.
Offered by Max Rambod, Inc.
Old Greenbottom Inn and Other Stories
by McClellan, George Marion, 1860-1934
Louisville, 1906. 1st ed. Hardcover. Good. frontis, 210p. Original red cloth. 20 cm. Cover heavily soiled with some discoloration. Good-sized piece which includes some bottom half of last line of text torn from bottom of one text leaf and re-attached with archival quality tranparent adhesive paper tape. No Jacket. A scarce book containing five short stories, the first three of which, including "Old Greenbottom Inn," are set in Alabama, by this African American writer from Kentucky. Book dedicated on what is usually the copyright page to Professor W. H. Councill.
Offered by McBlain Books.
by PINDER, Ulrich
1506. Title flanked by 3 woodcut stars & a small man-in-the-moon (each hand-colored); on title verso a full-page circular woodcut of a physician demonstrating uroscopic analysis to a student, surrounded by a border of 20 urine glasses with xylographic abbreviated captions of different diagnoses (each hand-colored in different shades); table on Aii with the same urine glasses with full (unabbreviated) typographic captions, each hand-colored; smaller woodcut at beginning of each of three parts depicting a physician attending a patient in bed & performing the diagnostic procedure described in that section (the first finely hand-colored); and numerous woodcuts in the text including many illus. of urine glasses. 2 p.l., ccv leaves (lacking the final leaf - a blank). 4to (214 x 152 mm.), cont. blindstamped calf over wooden beveled boards (a few unimportant wormholes), two (of four) catches, clasps lacking. [Nuremberg: F. Peypus? for the Author, 1506].
First edition, and a very fine copy in a handsome contemporary blindstamped binding of this well-illustrated book, privately printed at the author's own press. The coloring of the woodcuts is strictly contemporary. This is one of earliest books printed from a physician's private press, which was set up in Pinder's home in Nuremberg, where he was city physician.
The three Epiphaniae treat the colors of the urine and their significance, the movement of the heart and pulse, and the various fevers and feverish states caused by emotions and diseases.
This work also includes Gilles de Corbeil's Carmina de Urinarum Judiciis, but omits the epilogue found in Choulant's edition of that text. "Pinder's edition is not listed in Choulant's bibliography of printed editions of Gilles, and contains a number of variant readings not recorded by him."-Durling 3652.
A fine copy. Printed bookplate of Anton Jonas Kilianstein (d. 1638), who studied medicine at Ingolstadt. He became professor of anatomy and surgery there and also served as rector of the University (see Hirsch, III, p. 524). Engraved armorial bookplate of Fr. Xav. de Hieber, dated 1773.
Offered by Jonathan A. HIll, Bookseller.
Take Me to the Dance Marathon (Original sheet music for the 1932 song)
Washington, DC: Capitol Music, 1932. Original sheet music for the song "Take Me to the Dance Marathon," played by impressario Zeke Youngblood at the beginning of each of his marathons, and dedicated to him. Interestingly, this copy is signed by seven couples on the front wrapper, each also accompanied by a number, indicating that they were likely participants in one such contest.
Although they had existed in one form or another for centuries, dance marathons, where partners needed to continually dance or move in order to avoid elimination, achieved their cultural zenith during the Great Depression, where couples would go to sometimes extreme lengths to compete for prize money, as dramatized in the classic 1935 proletarian novel "They Shoot Horses Don't They" by Horace McCoy. Concern for the health of the participants, as well as pressure from churches and women's groups, led to the gradual dying out of the phenomena, although they are still staged by colleges as charity events today.
9.25 x 12 inches. Two pages in illustrated self wrappers. Very Good
Offered by Royal Books.
by Torre, Vincent
[Norfolk, VA]: The Ink-Well Press, 1954. Book. Near Fine. Printed Wrappers. First Canadian Edition. 12mo - over 6¾ - 7¾" tall. Limited Edition of 100 unnumbered copies.Nineteen woodcuts printed in black on tan and gray paper, laid in to gray illustrated fold over wrappers with small flaps. Torre originally intended 26 woodcuts, but published with 19, with twenty-six lined out and 19 inked in at colophon page. Near Fine, slight corner bends. OCLC locates five institutions with holdings; the Univ. of Minnesota copy also noted with 19 woodcuts. SCARCE.
Offered by Dale Steffey Books.
Contempo [Vol. 1, No. 13 (Dec 1 1931)]
by [Huges, Langston]
Chapel Hill, North Carolina: Contempo, Ltd, 1931. Fair. About 17" x 12½" (issued). Newsprint. Pp. 4. Fair: bottom tattered, with about 3" of loss and susceptible to more; moderate foxing to lower quarter; some small stains and spotting.
This is an issue of Contempo, a fairly well-known North Carolina periodical, invaluable for its distinction of holding the first printed appearance of Langston Hughes' controversial poem "Christ in Alabama."
Hughes wrote the poem in 1931 in response to the infamous Scottsboro case, in which two white women falsely accused nine young Black men of rape. He sent it to Contempo that October, and the paper printed it a few days before his scheduled speech at UNC Chapel Hill. Each of the first three stanzas places a member of the Christian holy family in a southern racial context: "Christ is a N****r," mother Mary "Mammy of the South," and "God's His Father - /White Master above." The fourth and final stanza evokes a tortured, Black Christ "On the cross of the South."
In this issue, Hughes' poem appears front and center, underneath a provocative block-print image by African American artist Zell Ingram. The image shows a silhouetted figure, completely Black, save for a stigmata on each hand and the lips, which are white. The two leading articles surrounding it (one also by Hughes) both address the Scottsboro case. In his editorial, Hughes deemed the white female accusers "prostitutes," described the Alabama court proceedings as "absurd farces" and articulated that "the South ought to be ashamed of itself."
The authors of a scholarly article entitled "'Mammy of the South / Silence Your Mouth': The Silencing of Race Radicalism in Contempo Magazine" (https://doi.org/10.26597/mod.0000) argued that the issue was a "bold, courageous, and perhaps even foolhardy effort by young, liberal-minded, white editors to condemn racial injustice and protest the Scottsboro Trials before a national audience." They posited that "Contempo defied southern racial codes not only by publishing such blunt rebukes, but even more flagrantly by inviting an African American writer to voice them." What happened next was even more startling, however; after the backlash this issue received,
"coverage of Scottsboro all but vanished from the magazine, and near silence ensued on the subject of racism . . . Contempo continued to publish inflammatory articles by white writers on topics such as censorship, pornography, and communism, and to champion experimental writers such as Faulkner and Joyce. These loud radical discourses distract from the silencing of race in Contempo, a silence that extends from the pages of the magazine through to the annals of literary history."
Though the physical condition of this copy's lower half leaves something to be desired, the leading articles, poem and artwork have managed to escape mostly unscathed, save a few small spots only barely affecting a couple characters of text.
Contempo is reasonably well-represented in OCLC, and exact holdings are difficult to ascertain.
Offered by Langdon Manor Books.
Chez Panisse Pasta Pizza & Calzone
by WATERS, Alice, Patricia Curtan, & Martine Labro
New York: Random House, 1984. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. First edition. Small quarto. 196pp. Illustrated. Fine with erratum slip laid in in an about fine price-clipped dust jacket with some toning.
Offered by Between the Covers Rare Books.
by Virgilius Maro, Publius (70-19 B.C.E.)
Strasbourg: Johann Grüninger, 28 August, 1502. FIRST ILLUSTRATED EDITION OF VIRGIL'S WORKS. Edited by Sebastian Brant (1457-1521). Illustrated with 214 large woodcut illustrations, including one double-page; 5 in contemporary color. Hardcover. Fine. Bound in an unusual binding of 17th c. Dutch vellum, dyed brown, the boards paneled in gold, with attractive gold-tooled ornaments at the interior angles and a large central arabesque, also gilt, at the center of both boards (Corners bumped, upper hinge starting, slim 3-inch split to vellum of upper board, remains of original green silk ties.) Internally a very fine copy with minor cosmetic faults: title and one prelim. leaf strengthened in the gutter, a few headlines cut close in the prelims, small marginal repair to corner of leaf A6, shine-through from colored woodcut on folio leaf N4 recto, leaf x10 with light ink stain in the woodcut, scattered minor marginal damp-stains, leaf aa1 with repaired tear (no loss), final gathering lightly browned. Five of the woodcuts (on leaves C4, K1, N4, aa8, and bb5) have contemporary (i.e. 16th c.) coloring. A few others are partially colored. The 1502 Virgil, the first to be illustrated, was edited by the imperial councilor, poet, and satirist Sebastian Brant, author of the "Ship of Fools"( Das Narrenshiff, 1494). The book was printed by Brant's frequent collaborator, Johann Grüninger, who was renowned for his illustrated books. The book is extraordinary in the number and variety of its illustrations. There are 143 illustrations in the "Aeneid", 10 in the "Eclogues", 39 in the "Georgics", and 21 for the shorter and spurious poems. Another full-page woodcut graces the title page.
There is still debate over the identity of the artist who created the woodcuts. That Brant himself was involved in the creation -or at least the design- of the images, is strongly suggested by Brant himself in the book.
"n the introductory promotional poem, Brant stresses the importance of visual art as a medium. He makes the argument that visual art should hold a valued place in the humanities, just as it did in ancient times, when important public figures were painters, and when important painters were publicly honored. He also speaks of expanding the audience for the poem beyond the highly learned scholars who were the audience for 'Aeneid' editions hitherto. Aeneas himself, he points out, is nowhere said to have been learned, yet he fed his soul on images, such as the reliefs on the temple of Juno at Carthage."(Francese)
"A poem at the end of the volume... reveals that Brant envisioned the widest audience possible for this book, and that he added the pictures to make the poem accessible to the unlearned:
Virgilium exponant alii sermone diserto.
Et calamo pueris: tradere et ore iuvent.
Pictura agresti voluit Brant: atque tabellis:
Edere eum indoctis: rusticolisque viris.
Nee tamen abiectus labor hie: nee prorsus inanis.
Nam memori servat mente figura librum.
(Let others explain Vergil in eloquent speech and be pleased to hand him down to boys in written and spoken form; Brant wished to publish him for unlearned and peasant folk in rustic pictures and drawings. Nevertheless, this task is neither lowly nor wholly useless, for the picture preserves the book in the remembering mind.)"(Kallendorf, The Aeneid Transformed, p. 139)
"The subtle detail of the woodcuts would certainly escape the spectator who could not read the text and seem, rather, calculated to appeal to one whose familiarity with the poems would allow him to appreciate precise visual allusions. In several cases, Brant's work incorporates details drawn from the commentators' interpretations. As a humanistic scholar, he is said to have placed the stamp of his own thorough knowledge of Virgil upon the book by providing master sketches for the illustrators."(Eleanor Winsor Leach).
Offered by Liber Antiquus.
The Pueblo Imagination: Landscape and Memory in the Photography of Lee Marmon
by Silko, Leslie Marmon; Joy Harjo and Simon Ortiz
Boston: Beacon Press, 2003. First edition. Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. SIGNED. 159pp. Square quarto [26 cm] 1/4 brown cloth with ivory white paper over boards. The spine is slightly rolled. In the dust jacket with fading to the spine (title still bold). This book comprises the jewels of Lee Marmon's award-winning life's work, celebrating the Laguna Pueblo people and their distinctive landscapes, traditions, and history. The images are paired with equally evocative prose and poetry by three of our most celebrated Native American writers: Marmon's daughter, novelist Leslie Marmon Silko, and poets Joy Harjo and Simon Ortiz.
Signed by Lee Marmon on the title page.
Offered by Ken Sanders Rare Books.
WELCH, James
Riding the Earthboy 40
NY, World, (1971). The first book by this author of Blackfoot-Gros Ventre heritage, who was one of the most important and accomplished Native American writers of the post-1968 generation. Welch was a respected poet and an award-winning novelist, and wrote, with great power and sensitivity, fiction focused on both contemporary Indian life (e.g., Winter in the Blood) and historical material (the award-winning Fools Crow). Riding the Earthboy 40, a collection of poems, was never properly distributed as the publisher folded at the time of publication. It was re-published five years later in a revised and expanded form by Harper & Row. This is the first edition. Inscribed by the author to poets Sandra McPherson and Henry Carlile "with best wishes and hopes for another fishing trip soon. Love, Jim." Carlile's ownership signature and stamp; a fine copy in a very near fine dust jacket with slight wear at the spine extremities. A nice association copy.
Offered by Ken Lopez - Bookseller.
by ETTEILLA [ALLIETTE, Jean-Baptiste]
Paris: Grimaud, 1890. Deck of 78 chromolithographed playing cards, each with a central vignette with text above and below, a black line border around the vignette and outer edge, and the card number in the upper left and lower right corners. Versos are alike with a repeating blue floral field. In excellent condition. Later printing of the first 78-card tarot deck specifically designed for cartomancy. Designed by Jean-Baptiste Alliette, who went by the anagram Etteilla, this deck first appeared in 1788 and remains the tarot standard today. Prior to its production, tarot decks varied widely, had fewer cards, and were not used to tell fortunes. Etteilla claimed that he learned about the 78-card method by reading the so-called "Book of Thoth," a book of magic purportedly belonging to the Thoth, the Egyptian god of wisdom and later known as Hermes Trismegistus.
Offered by Rootenberg Rare Books.
by Rithcie, G. W. H. and Riordan, Roger.
New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1886. Folio. Green beveled cloth, stamped in black and gilt. Boards with some wear, rubbing, and staining, plates near fine. Library labels on front and rear pastedowns, shelf mark at foot of backstrip, closed tear in front free endpaper. A good ex-library copy, properly released. § Ten finely-printed etchings by masters of the art form, each with a tissue guard and a page of descriptive text by G. W. H. Ritchie and Roger Riordan.
Offered by John Windle Bookseller.
Typed Letter Signed [TLS] introducing The Lord of the Rings
by TOLKIEN, J.R.R.
Oxford: np, 1953. First edition. custom folder. Very Good. EIGHT MONTHS BEFORE PUBLICATION, TOLKIEN ANXIOUSLY INTRODUCES HIS MASTERPIECE, THE LORD OF THE RINGS, TO A FAN OF THE HOBBIT. Tolkien had begun work on The Lord of the Rings in December of 1937 and by early 1950, after over twelve years of labor, the writing was essentially complete. The road to publication, however, was not an easy one, for Tolkien feared his book would have difficulty finding an audience. In February, 1950, he wrote about his concerns to his publisher (Allen & Unwin): "My work has escaped from my control and I have produced a monster: an immensely long, complex, rather bitter, and rather terrifying romance, quite unfit for children (if fit for anybody)." (Carpenter, 213).
Tolkien's admission that he had produced a "monster" turned out to be prescient, for seeing the book through publication proved to be a challenge for both him and his publisher and three years after completion, the first volume (The Fellowship of the Rings) was still not in print.
At the time of the present letter - December 2, 1953 - publication finally seemed imminent, and Tolkien was understandably nervous. Writing to Mrs. F.L. Perry, a fan of The Hobbit, he explains the delays in publication (it was supposed to be published by Christmas, 1953), worries that the book will be too long and expensive to reach a wide audience, introduces the world of The Lord of the Rings and expresses his hopes that she will like the book despite humbly worrying that it is filled with too much history, geography, and genealogy.
His was right to be concerned about further delays in publication - the first edition of The Fellowship of the Ring wouldn't actually appear until July 29, 1954 - but of course his other major concern - that the book would not find an audience - was wildly misguided.
Offered by Manhattan Rare Books.
OUR BODIES OURSELVES. A Book by and for Women
by Boston Women's Health Book Collective
New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, 1973. Book. Very Good+ condition. Paperback. First thus edition. Quarto (4to). xii, 276 pages of text. Paperback binding has minor creasing and handling wear to the front cover, and a few pages have creases to the corners. Illustrated. First Thus Edition. Stated on copyright page: First printing. This work is revised and expanded from the 1971 First Edition. The text is clean and unmarked..
Offered by Kurt Gippert, Bookseller.
ARMED SERVICES EDITION PAPERBACK BOOKS (LOT OF 80 BOOKS)
Council on Books in Wartime, 1943. Armed Services Edition paperback books ( lot of 80 books with 42 small & 29 large). Measurements: ~5.2 in x 6.5 in and 3.8 in x 4.5 in. Condition: Good. Age toning. Mild to moderate wear to spines, edges and corners.
We added nine more books to the lot (not pictured in primary group photograph but shown in last two photos). These books measure ~6.5 in. x 4.5 in. (4 books) and ~5.5 in. x 3.8 in. (5 books).
Offered by Second Story Books.
by Nin, Anaïs
New York: The Macmillan Company, 1968. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. Inscribed by Anaïs Nin on the front flyleaf. In this provocative work, Nin explores the act of creation - in film, art, and dance as well as literature - to chart a new direction for the young artist struggling against what she perceived as the sterility, formlessness, and spiritual bankruptcy afflicting much of mid-twentieth-century fiction. Nin offers, instead, an argument for and synthesis of the poetic novel and discusses her own efforts in this genre as well as its influence on the development of such writers as D.H. Lawrence, Henry Miller, Lawrence Durrell, Marguerite Young, and Djuna Barnes. Octavo: 214 p. Original burgundy cloth binding, with gilt titles. A fine copy in a fine dust jacket.
Offered by johnson rare books & archives.
by Gerald Durrell; Ralph Thompson [illus.]
New York: The Viking Press, 1956. Very Good +/Very Good +. New York: The Viking Press, 1956. First Edition. Octavo (22 cm); [6], 238pp. Publisher's illustrated dust jacket with price intact ($3.75). Boards full bound in mint green cloth with dark green stamping. Dust jacket generally scuffed and rubbed at margins with sunning to spine. Board margins lightly soiled with corners and spine ends bumped. Page edges toned and lightly soiled. Small sticker to back paste down. A Very Good or better copy in like dust jacket.
A recounting of British naturalist Gerald Durrell's trip to Argentina and Uruguay with his new wife to gather zoological data on the animals of the area and potentially the animals themselves.
Offered by Capitol Hill Books.
by ROOSEVELT, Eleanor
1954. unbound. very good. T.L.S. to her UNESCO and Institute of International Education colleague, by the First Lady, author, and diplomat. 1 page on personal stationery, 6" x 7" (staple holes in upper left; pencil check mark through recipient's name; receipt stamp in upper right). Val-Kill Cottage, Hyde Park, New York. Dec. 27, 1954. "...I was indeed interested to see the material you sent him and appreciate your sending me copies. I do hope my numerous requests of you are not too troublesome!..."
Offered by Argosy Book Store.
by Thoreau, Henry David
.jpg)
Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1854. First edition. Near Fine. Original publisher's cloth binding embossed in blind. Yellow endpapers. Includes adverts at the rear dated May 1854 (The earliest date of adverts is April 1854, but the book was not published until July of that year. BAL states that advert dates are of "no known bibliographical significance"). A Near Fine copy, with slight discoloration to the front board and minor rubbing to the base of the spine. Darkening to the upper corner of the first fifty pages. But a copy that appears unused and unread, extremely clean and fresh. Housed in a custom slipcase with chemise. One of just 2,000 copies of the first edition, the importance of which cannot be overstated.
"Henry David Thoreau lived for two years, two months, and two days by Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts. His time in Walden Woods became a model of deliberate and ethical living" as he grappled with the environmental and social challenges of his own time (Walden Project). A reformer seeking truth and balance in nature, Thoreau wrote of his experience in the present text; and his words continue inspiring world leaders, climate change activists, and those who simply aim to find their own best version of life.
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion" (Thoreau).
Offered by Whitmore Rare Books.
by Descartes, Rene
Leiden: Jan Maire, 1637. First Edition.. Full contemporary calf; modern drop down box.. Good; binding worn; outer margins of first few and last few leaves with a diminishing brown (the result of offset from the cover "turn-ins" or crude dentelle) stain "framing" the page; free endpapers excised.. 4to, [2], 3 - 78, [2 - divisional title], 1 - 413, [35 - index, privilege] pp. There are illustrations throughout the text.
A fundamental book in the history of science and philosophy. This copy from the Pulleyn [Pullein] family in England with the signature and statement of Octavian Pulleyn jeune on the inside surface of the rear board. The statement is dated in Feb. of 1662 by Pulleyn Jr., it is difficult to decipher but appears to be a pledge for the value of this book. Both Pulleyn Sr. and Jr. were printers for the Royal Society. Pulleyn Sr. was the printer for the first edition of Harvey's Exercitationes de Generatione Animalium. By 1670 John Collins (a mathematician and editor for Newton) remarked in correspondence that Pulleyn Jr. was "insolvent" in trade. The binding is a simple English blind stamped calf of the period; unfortunately the worse for wear.
Offered by Palinurus Antiquarian Books.
by Fisher, Harrison
NY: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1913. 1st Edition. Hardcover. Fine. A fine copy, apparently as a new, in original gift box as issued, inscribed by Fisher "Sincerely Yours" (as was his custom) with his typical flourish. With 32 portrait plates of American female beauty in signature Fisher style. The only defects in the original presentation are: the original glassine, besides incidental wear, is missing its rear flap; and, half of the right side of the top lid of the box, which has incidental surface wear, is missing. The collectible copy.
Offered by Johnnycake Books.
by HOUGHTON, William
London:: William Mackenzie, (1879)., 1879. Large 4to. (374 x 275 mm) xxvi, 204 pp. 41 colored full-page chromolithographs (including frontispiece), 64 engraved vignettes, red and black title-page, top edge gilt. Modern dark brown quarter morocco over original cloth boards, raised bands, gilt-stamped spine title. Bookplate of James Jones. RARE. Fine. MAGNIFICENT CHROMOLITHOGRAPHS OF BRITISH FISH: FIRST EDITION, with all plates present and in fine condition. Sometimes bound as two volumes, but this copy is bound as one, and it is complete. This Victorian book is a gentleman's encyclopedia of the fresh water fish native to Britain. In addition to 41 stunning color full-page plates of each fish described, the book also has a steelcut vignette at the beginning of each description, as well as numerous diagrams and drawings. Reverend William Houghton, a Shropshire clergyman, produced this work with the angler in mind - opposed to the naturalist. Many of the fish are portrayed as game-landed freshwater fish set on the pastoral riverbanks and shorelines of the British Isles. The writing, which accompanies each plate, offers detailed information on the habitat, breeding and capture of the fish. The text page includes a lovely steel-engraved vignette of the natural habitat of the fish, an elegant scene of the river from which the fish was caught.
Offered by Jeff Weber Rare Books.
Cambridge, New York: The Limited Editions Club, 1966-1973. Limited Editions. Hardcover. Quartos, Eight Volumes. In Very Good condition. Housed in publisher's lightly worn black paper slip cases bearing gold labels with black lettering. Bound in quarter leather and cloth boards, both in a variety of colors. Embossed stamp of poet on front board of each volume. Most spines bearing black labels with gold lettering. Minor general shelf wear. Textblocks clean. Enumerated on limitation pages in rear of each volume.
Mild scuffing to spines on "The Poems of William Blake" and "The Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley." Label on spine of "The Poems of William Blake" red. All signed by respective illustrators on limitation in rear except for "The Poems of William Blake."
All Volumes #174/1500 except "The Poems of William Wordsworth," which is #174/2000.
Offered by Second Story Books.
by LEWIS, SINCLAIR
Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc, 1935. First Edition. Hard Cover. Good/Fair. 0x0x0. First edition. Large chip from jacket spine base with associated fading to spine, loss from other jacket corners, jacket edges rubbed with several closed tears, boards lightly soiled, owner bookplate on front endpaper. 1935 Hard Cover. 458 pp. 8vo. Original black cloth, gilt titles. A satirical work of dystopian fiction envisioning an American dictatorship. The causes for the descent into fascism are authentic, making the novel an insightful glimpse of what it looks like to trade one set of evils for another. Lewis wrote the book during the Great Depression, basing the dictatorship on Hitler's, but replacing hateful indoctrination with misleading appeals to American values. Many believe the novel to be a direct reaction to the possible candidacy of Huey Long for president in 1936. It was published five years after Lewis became the first American writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. Lewis also won (and declined) the Pulitzer Prize for his 1925 novel Arrowsmith.
Offered by Yesterday's Muse.
The Works of Joseph Conrad (20 Volumes) -- Signed!
by CONRAD, JOSEPH
London: William Heinemann, 1921. Limited Edition. Hardcover. Good. Produced in an edition of 780 sets, 750 of which were for sale. This is set #429 and is signed by Joseph Conrad (1857-1924) on the colophon. Brown cloth covers with beige buckram spines and printed black titling, Conrad's signature reproduced in black on the cover of each volume. Wear and scuffing to volumes, creasing to head and foot of spine on each volume, slight darkening to endpapers but very clean within.
Offered by Craig Olson Books.
View all new listings on abaa.org...
Browse recent catalogs of rare books and print ephemera from ABAA members...
Please note, all items are unique, so if a link takes you to a blank page, the book has been sold!