A first edition of a favorite author is a sure-fire great gift. Even better would be one signed by the author! You'll find a great many first editions and signed books in our literature category, from award-winning classics to contemporary authors. Here are a few examples to what your appetite. Men Without Women (First Edition) by Ernest Hemingway New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1927 First edit... [more]

Although created almost a century ago, the art and writing of the Roaring 20's still captivates us today. Writer F. Scott Fitzgerald left behind some of the most iconic stories of this fascinating time period. The radical social change he wrote about was also evident in the art that adorned his dust jackets, as the artists who designed them had an uncanny ability to capture the zeitgeist of the er... [more]

To mark the 75th Anniversary of 1939, we've asked some ABAA members to discuss publications from that momentous year. Garrett Scott, a prominent Ann Arbor bookseller, offers a divagation upon At Swim-Two-Birds, Flann O'Brien's proto-post-modern first book– published in 1939. Biographical reminiscence, part the first: Sometime in 1991, I had taken up temporary residence in a storage closet in a u... [more]

To mark the 75th Anniversary of 1939, we've asked some ABAA members to discuss publications from that momentous year. Jim Dourgarian, a specialist in Steinbeck (among other authors), recounts his experiences reading and selling The Grapes of Wrath. The 1930s were a turbulent and momentous decade for John Steinbeck. He published such diverse and quality books as The Pastures of Heaven, Tortilla Fla... [more]

Willa Cather was a famously private writer. She destroyed many literary manuscripts, personal papers, and letters, and her will forbade the adaptation of her works into plays or movies and the publication of her personal letters. Cather's will expired two years ago, however, after the death of her nephew and the will's executor. This left her remaining personal letters up for grabs, so to speak, a... [more]

A friend clued us in to this blog post on Flavorwire. The giggly, gleeful Ginsberg at age 16 is especially charming. Photos [more]

If you've been trying to read your little one Pride and Prejudice, Moby Dick or some other literary tome before bed, I'm sure you've reached the conundrum that yes, it does help put them to sleep, but it's not doing much more for them in terms of education. A new book series by twin brothers Jack and Holman Wang called Cozy Classics provides a wonderful solution to this problem. Cozy Classics is a... [more]

A Columbia graduate student discovered and authenticated a previously unknown manuscript by Claude McKay, a poet and intergal figure in the Harlem Renaissance. (McKay is best known for his poetry and his novel The Negroes in America.) The manuscript, a satirical novel set in 1936 entitled Amiable With Big Teeth: A Novel of the Love Affair Between the Communists and the Poor Black Sheep of Harlem, ... [more]

Early findings in an interdisciplinary study at Stanford University provide biological evidence that supports the value of literature. Neurobiological experts, radiologists, and literary scholars have joined forces to examine the relationship between reading, attention, and distraction, specifically the "cognitive dynamics of the different kinds of focus we bring to reading." Participants in the s... [more]

As a lifelong student of literature, there has always been one question about symbolism that has persistently nagged me, especially when reading critical theory: Did the author really mean that? In some texts, symbolism is so intricate and seamless that it seems hard to believe its use could not have been a conscious decision by the author. In other instances, I've found that some claims made in c... [more]

The Morgan Library & Museum is celebrating Dickens's upcoming 200th birthday with a wonderful exhibit entitled Dickens at 200. Drawing from their Dickens holdings, which are the largest in the United States, the exhibition is comprised of manuscripts of his novels and stories, letters, books, photographs, original illustrations, and caricatures. The exhibit was curated by Declan Kiely, the Robert ... [more]

An unpublished manuscript written by a fourteen-year-old Charlotte Brontë will go up for auction at Sotheby's London next month. The manuscript is of a mini-magazine entitled The Young Man's Magazine, Number 2, and tells a story of murder and madness. Gabriel Heaton, Sotheby's specialist on Books and Manuscripts, said that the piece "provides a rare and intimate insight into one of history's gre... [more]

In commemoration of what would be William Golding's centennial birthday, the Bodleian Library at Oxford will be displaying the original manuscript of The Lord of the Flies. The exhibit was curated by the author's daughter, Judy Carver, and will also include several first editions of the author's works, family photographs, and the Nobel Prize he received in 1983 for The Lord of the Flies. According... [more]

In anticipation of the 75th anniversary of the publication of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, Harper Collins has announced that it will be releasing 110 of Tolkien's original illustrations for the book, twenty of which are previously unpublished. The illustrations were compiled into a book entitled The Art of The Hobbit, which will be released on October 27. The drawings have been in Tolkien's archiv... [more]