Catalogue
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CONTENTS LITERATURE 4 AMERICANA 38 HISTORY 62 TRAVEL 74 GIFTS 80 cover, no. 98 left, no. 161 above, no. 142
LITERATURE 4 “The One Great Christmas Myth Of Modern Literature”: Beautiful Unrestored First Issue Of A Christmas Carol, Together With Exceptional Copies Of The Other Four Christmas Books, All In Original Gilt-Decorated Cloth First editions of all five of Charles Dickens’ Christmas Books—chief among them a first issue of his immortal Christmas Carol, the veritable “Bible of Christmas”— illustrated with 63 engravings, four in color, by Leech, Maclise, Stanfield, Doyle and Landseer, all books in the original gilt-decorated cloth, including a particularly beautiful Christmas Carol. A Christmas Carol “may readily be called the Bible of Christmas… It was issued about ten days before Christmas, 1843, and 6000 copies were sold on the first day… the number of reprintings have been so many that all attempts at the figures have been futile. Altogether 24 editions were issued in the original format” (Eckel, 110). “It was a work written at the height of Dickens’ great powers, which would add to his considerable fame, bring a new work to the English language, increase the festivities at Christmastime, and contain his most eloquent protest at the condition of the poor” (John Mortimer). “Suddenly conceived and written within a few weeks, [A Christmas Carol] was the LITERATURE❦ 01DICKENS, Charles. The Christmas Books. London, 1843-48. Together, five volumes. 12mo, original cloth, custom box. $65,000
5 first of Dickens’ Christmas books (a new literary genre thus created incidentally)… it was an extraordinary achievement—the one great Christmas myth of modern literature.” A Christmas Carol is from the first issue, with all first issue points. Binding matches Todd’s first impression, first issue (Smith II:4). Dickens followed A Christmas Carol’s tremendous success with four more Christmas books. In each book, he deftly develops the themes of the first, ideals that have consequently become inseparable from the holiday itself: love and redemption, charity and mercy. Eckel, 110-125. Smith II: 4-6, 8-9. Contemporary owner inscription in Christmas Carol dated January 1, 1843. A Christmas Carol with plates and text fine, original cloth fresh and fine with gilt wonderfully bright, spine somewhat cocked. Other volumes in nearfine to fine condition, with minimal wear to cloth, spine of Battle of Life toned. A beautiful unrestored set.
LITERATURE 6 “Please, Sir, I Want Some More”: Dickens’ Friend Lord Denman’s First Edition Of Oliver Twist 02DICKENS, Charles. Oliver Twist; Or, the Parish Boy’s Progress. By “Boz.” London, 1838. Three volumes. Octavo, contemporary threequarter calf, custom slipcase. $15,000 First edition, with the first-issue “Boz” title pages and second-issue “Church” plate. This copy from the collection of Dickens’ good friend Lord Denman. “When Bentley decided to publish Oliver in book form before its completion in his periodical, Cruikshank had to complete the last few plates in haste. Dickens did not review them until the eve of publication and… had Cruikshank design a new plate. This Church plate was not completed in time for incorporation into the early copies of the book, but it replaced the Fireside plate in later copies. Dickens... also disliked having ‘Boz’ on the title page.... The plate and title page were changed between November 9 and 16”—i.e., in the first week of publication (Smith, 35). Mixed issue, with first-issue “Boz” on the title pages, and secondissue “Church” plate. Bound without half titles or publisher’s advertisements. Bookplates of Thomas Denman (1799-1854), Lord Chief Justice of England from 1832 to 1850. Interiors remarkably clean, inner hinges expertly reinforced. Near-fine in contemporary calf, with exceptional provenance. “It Was The Best Of Times, It Was The Worst Of Times”: Handsomely Bound First Edition Of Dickens’ Tale Of Two Cities 03DICKENS, Charles. A Tale of Two Cities. London, 1859. Octavo, contemporary full green polished calf gilt. $13,500 First edition, first issue of Dickens’ second historical novel—a powerful tale of self-sacrifice and rebirth amid the turmoil of the French Revolution. “So great was [Dickens’] enthusiasm for the story that it had indeed ‘taken in possession’ of him… The force of the novel springs from its exploration of darkness and death but its beauty derives from Dickens’ real sense of transcendence, from his ability to see the sweep of destiny” (Ackroyd, 858). A Tale of Two Cities is the last of Dickens’ books to be illustrated by H.K. Browne (“Phiz”), with 16 engraved plates by him. “Browne, for 23 years responsible for all the etchings which had so successfully embellished these [Dickens] books, produced his last drawings for the present work” (Hatton & Cleaver, 333). First issue, with page 213 misnumbered as 113 and other first-issue points as called for. Originally published as a serial in Dickens’ weekly journal All the Year Round, issued in eight parts from June to December 1859. Slight darkening to covers, front board slightly creased. A near-fine and desirable copy in attractive contemporary calf-gilt.
7 First Issue Of Dickens’ Joseph Grimaldi Superbly Bound With Pictorial Morocco Inlays, With 12 Cruikshank Plates And 37 Additional Hand-Colored Plates 04DICKENS, Charles. Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi. London, 1838. Two volumes. Octavo, later full red morocco gilt, front covers decorated with multi-color inlaid designs. $6700 First edition, first issue, beautifully bound by Bayntun in the Kelliegram style with pictorial multicolored morocco inlays on the front covers, with hand-colored frontispiece portrait and the 12 original Cruikshank plates, and extra-illustrated with 50 additional plates by Cruikshank and others. The front covers are decorated with multi-color pictorial inlaid designs of two characters. While Cruikshank’s illustrations “make those by ‘Phiz,’ the commonly acknowledged illustrator of Dickens, seem tame in conception and feeble in drawing… Cruikshank etched as Dickens wrote. Both were townsmen to the core and cockneys to their fingertips. London leaps to life through their art” (James, 29). First issue with the frontispiece portrait of Grimaldi by Greatbatch (handcolored) and the first state of the final plate, “The Last Song,” which appears without the border. Without the “Embellishments” page in Volume I and the 36-page publisher’s catalogue. Exceptionally clean and bright. Expert reinforcement to joints. A beautiful copy. “Never Was A Book Received With More Rapturous Enthusiasm Than That Which Greeted The Pickwick Papers” 05DICKENS, Charles. The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. London, 1837. Thick octavo, contemporary three-quarter purple polished calf gilt. $6500 First edition, bound from the original parts (mixed first and later issues), of one of Dickens’ greatest works, with 43 illustrations by Seymour, Phiz, and Buss. “From a literary standpoint the supremacy of this book has been… firmly established… It was written by Dickens when he was 24 and its publication placed the author on a solid foundation from which he never was removed…. It is quite probable that only Shakespeare’s Works, the Bible and perhaps the English Prayer Book exceed Pickwick Papers in circulation” (Eckel, 17). “Never was a book received with more rapturous enthusiasm than that which greeted the Pickwick Papers!” (Allibone I:500). Mixed issue, with six of the seven first-issue points elaborated by Smith after Hatton & Cleaver. Smith I:3. Eckel 17-58. Gimbel A15. Bookplate; old bookseller ticket. Some foxing to plates; text generally clean. Contemporary calf-gilt sound and attractive.
LITERATURE 8 06SHAKESPEARE, William. The Works of Shakespeare. Edited by Israel Gollancz. London, 1899. Twelve volumes. Octavo, publisher’s full vellum gilt. $8800 “Shakespeare Is The Canon. He Sets The Standard And The Limits Of Literature” Fine set of the “Larger Temple Shakespeare,” number 93 of only 175 sets printed on handmade paper, beautifully illustrated with 40 full-page plates (30 hand-tinted), and copious in-text line cuts. In beautiful original vellum-gilt bindings. “Shakespeare is the Canon. He sets the standard and the limits of literature” (Harold Bloom). This splendid edition of Shakespeare’s Works “aims at the elucidation of the text by means of illustrative drawings from old books, broadsides, antiquarian objects, [and] maps, belonging for the most part, to the poet’s own times.” With a biography of Shakespeare, “newly discovered” frontispiece portrait published for the first time, a folding view of London during Shakespeare’s day, facsimile title and preliminary pages from the First Folio, and glossaries of Shakespearian English. Chapter headings printed in red. Presentation bookplate in Volume I. A beautiful set in very nearly fine condition.
9 07AUSTEN, Jane. Sense and Sensibility: A Novel. Philadelphia, 1833. Two volumes bound in one. 12mo, period-style full red morocco gilt. $18,000 “Relatively Few Copies Of The 1832-33 Philadelphia Editions Are Known To Survive” First American edition—an edition of only 1250 copies—of Jane Austen’s first novel, on “the twin themes of prudence and benevolence, reason and passion, head and heart, or sense and sensibility,” sumptuously bound. Only Emma (1816) was published in the United States in Austen’s lifetime. “The first English editions of Austen’s novels may be supposed to have been available in the United States at an early date… Chief Justice John Marshall in a letter of 1826 mentioned that he had just finished reading Austen’s novels… It has been shown too that James Fenimore Cooper’s first novel Precaution was an imitation of Persuasion (of which no American edition was published before 1832). No other American edition is known before the issue of all six titles, each in two volumes, by Carey & Lea of Philadelphia in 1832-33... Relatively few copies of the 1832-33 Philadelphia editions are known to survive” (Gilson, 97-98). Bound without publisher’s ads. Gilson B6. Keynes 14. Some light foxing to text; title page of Volume I toned. Beautifully bound.
LITERATURE 10 “The Dog Her Order Understood, Or Seem’d To Understand, It Was His Glory To Make Good Affection’s Kind Command” 08(BLAKE, William) HAYLEY, William. Ballads, founded on Anecdotes Relating to Animals, with Prints, Designed and Engraved by William Blake. London, 1805. Octavo, early 20th-century full blue morocco gilt. $6000 Expanded second edition—the only obtainable edition—of this poetry collection, with five engravings by William Blake, handsomely bound by Bedford. “These Ballads were originally intended to have been issued separately in fifteen quarto parts with numerous illustrations by Blake, and for the benefit of the artist. Four parts were issued in 1802, but the series did not meet with success and was discontinued. Later it was arranged to issue them in the present, again for Blake’s benefit” (Keynes). This 1805 edition is an expanded version, with additional poems, of the extremely rare 1802 first edition (which last appeared at auction 70 years ago). Blake reengraved the first three plates and added two more to illustrated the additional poems. The first three plates are in first state. Easson & Essick, 41-44. Bookplates. Fine condition. With Plates By William Blake For Mary Wollstonecraft—The Rosenbach Copy 09(BLAKE, William) WOLLSTONECRAFT, Mary. Original Stories from Real Life. London, 1791. 12mo, early 20th-century full tan polished calf gilt. $7500 First Blake-illustrated edition, with six plates designed and engraved by William Blake, handsomely bound in full calf-gilt by Bedford. The Rosenbach copy, with the bookplate of the Rosenbach Foundation Museum (properly stamped “Released 1973.”). First published in 1788, Original Stories was Wollstonecraft’s third published work. This 1791 edition is the first with Blake’s plates. Commissioned by his friend, the publisher Joseph Johnson, ten of Blake’s sketches for the work survive, five of which were engraved for the book. No drawing survives for one of the plates (“Trying to trace the sound…”). All plates are first state. Bookplates, including that of the Rosenbach Foundation Museum, properly inkstamped “Released 1973.” The Rosenbach Foundation Museum grew out of the immense personal collection assembled by renowned bookseller A.S.W. Rosenbach and his brother Philip. Text and plates clean. Front joint skillfully repaired; rear joint cracked, cords holding firm, calf-gilt binding quite handsome. A lovely copy, with distinguished provenance.
11 10JOHNSON, Samuel. A Dictionary of the English Language: In Which The Words are deduced from their Originals, And Illustrated in their Different Significations By Examples from the best Writers. London, 1755. Two volumes. Tall thick folio, expertly recased using 18th-century paneled calf sides, rebacked to style. $32,000 “The Most Amazing, Enduring And Endearing One-Man Feat”: 1755 First Edition Of Johnson’s Landmark Dictionary First edition of the first great dictionary of the English language, Johnson’s “audacious attempt to tame his unruly native tongue… combining huge erudition with a steely wit and remarkable clarity of thought” (Hitchings, 3)—”Johnson’s writings had, in philology, the effect which Newton’s discoveries had in mathematics.” “Johnson’s Dictionary made him a superstar. To be sure, there had been dictionaries before his. The difference is that, while these were compiled, Johnson’s was written… The glory of the book is that it is also a compendium of English literature, reprinting fine examples of words from the masters ... Johnson sought to ‘intersperse with verdure and flowers the dusty desarts of barren philology” (Smithsonian Book of Books). “Dr. Johnson performed with his Dictionary the most amazing, enduring and endearing one-man feat in the field of lexicography… It is the dictionary itself which justifies Noah Webster’s statement that Johnson’s writings had, in philology, the effect which Newton’s discoveries had in mathematics” (PMM 201). Carlyle paid this tribute: “Had Johnson left nothing but his Dictionary, one might have traced there a great intellect, a genuine man” (Baugh, et al., 992). Early institutional stamp to title pages. Occasional marginal repairs. Title page of second volume strengthened at gutter, early paper reinforcement to bottom of first title page. Light wear to calf. A handsome copy of this rare and important landmark.
LITERATURE 12 “How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count The Ways” Important and preferred second edition of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Poems, containing the first appearance of her famous love poems to her husband, Sonnets from the Portuguese, which did not appear in the 1844 first edition of Poems. This enlarged edition of Browning’s Poems is rightly considered an entirely separate work from the 1844 first edition. It includes, in addition to the Sonnets from the Portuguese, a number of poems printed or collected for the first time. “The strange courtship of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett, morally chained to a monstrous father, and their subsequent elopement, is one of the most romantic stories in 19th-century literature. What Browning did not know is that while Elizabeth was lying on that famous sofa in her father’s house on Wimpole Street she was pouring out her heart in some of the most remarkable love poetry ever written” (Great Books and Book Collectors, 239). Second state, as usual, with publisher’s address of “193, Piccadilly” on title pages (only four copies are known in the first state). Interiors generally fine, expert restoration to inner hinges and cloth. A very attractive copy, scarce in original cloth. 11BROWNING, Elizabeth Barrett. Poems. New Edition. London, 1850. Two volumes. Small octavo, original blue cloth, custom chemise and clamshell box. $16,500
13 12CONAN DOYLE, Sir Arthur. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. WITH: The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. London, 1892, 1894. Two volumes. Octavo, original light blue and dark blue cloth, custom slipcase. $16,000 First editions in book form of these classic stories starring literature’s most famous detective, illustrated by Sidney Paget. Although Sherlock Holmes first appeared in the novel A Study in Scarlet (1887), his adventures in the Strand Magazine brought both him and his creator, Arthur Conan Doyle, lasting fame. “The initial 12 tales were collected between covers as The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, published in England and America in 1892; and 11 of the second 12… as The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, published in 1894. If any reader be prepared to name two other books that have given more innocent but solid pleasure, let him speak now— or hold his peace!” (Haycraft, 50). These volumes contain such famous and memorable tales as “A Scandal in Bohemia” and “The Adventure of the Speckled Band.” Of special note is the last case in the Memoirs, “The Final Problem,” in which Holmes apparently meets his death in a struggle with “the Napoleon of crime,” Professor Moriarty. “At one point, tiring of the detective, Doyle attempted to exterminate him… but the clamor of his admirers forced him to resurrect Holmes for several further volumes, and his popularity has waned little since” (Benet, 273). Adventures in first-issue binding, with blank street sign on front cover illustration. Green & Gibson A10a, A14a. Adventures with ink gift inscription on half title, dated January 1893. Adventures with faint vertical crease to half title and title page. Light foxing to text of both volumes, though less than often seen. Expert unobtrusive reinforcement to inner paper hinges; cloth generally clean and only lightly rubbed at extremities, gilt bright. A bright set in the original cloth. “It Is My Business To Know What Other People Don’t Know”
LITERATURE 14 13TWAIN, Mark. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Tom Sawyer’s Comrade). New York, 1885. Octavo, original pictorial green cloth. $32,000 First edition, first issue, of “the most praised and most condemned 19th-century American work of fiction” (Legacies of Genius, 47), with 174 illustrations by Edward Kemble. A beautiful copy. Written over an eight-year period, Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn endured critical attacks from the moment of publication, accused of “blood-curdling humor,” immorality, coarseness and profanity. The book nevertheless emerged as one of the defining novels of American literature, prompting Hemingway to declare: “All modern literature comes from one book by Mark Twain. It’s the best book we’ve had. All American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing since.” This copy has all of the commonly identified first-issue points (the printer assembled copies haphazardly; bibliographers do not yet agree as to the priority of many points). First-issue points: page [9] with “Decided” remaining uncorrected (to “Decides”); page [13], illustration captioned “Him and another Man” listed as on page 88; page 57, 11th line from bottom reads “with the was.” Debate continues over the priority of other points of issue and state. This copy contains the following points of bibliographical interest: frontispiece portrait without cloth table cover under the bust, bearing the Heliotype Printing Co. imprint and with Karl Gerhardt’s name on the bust’s side; copyright page dated 1884; page 143 with “l” missing from “Col.” at top of illustration and with broken “b” in “body” on line seven; page 155 without final “5”; page 161, no signature mark “11”; pages 283-84 is a cancel (illustration with straight pant-fly) as described by Johnson (p. 48) and MacDonnell (p. 32-33). BAL 3415. Johnson, 43-50. MacDonnell, 29-35. McBride, 93. Grolier American 87. Interior fine, cloth beautiful, gilt bright, with only most minor rubbing to spine. A stunning copy. “All Modern Literature Comes From One Book By Mark Twain. It’s The Best Book We’ve Had”: First Issue Of Huckleberry Finn
15 14HEMINGWAY, Ernest. The Old Man and the Sea. New York, 1952. Octavo, original blue cloth, original dust jacket supplied from a later edition. $18,500 First edition, later printing of Hemingway’s classic story of Santiago and his epic battle with the marlin and the sharks, inscribed by him, “To E— S— with all good wishes, always, from her friend, and her friend’s friend Ernest Hemingway. La Habana 1953.” William Faulkner, who reviewed The Old Man and the Sea for the magazine Shenandoah, called the novel Hemingway’s best: “Time may show it to be the best single piece of any of us. I mean his and my contemporaries” (Baker, 593-94). “Here is the master technician once more at the top of his form”(New York Times). In this short novel Hemingway perfected the minimalist style that he had been refining throughout his career. While working on it he wrote to Scribner, “This is the prose that I have been working for all my life that should read easily and simply and seem short and yet have all the dimensions of the visible world and the world of a man’s spirit. It is as good prose as I can write as of now” (Letters, 738). Without Scribner’s “A” beneath copyright notice. Later dust jacket supplied from another copy, with mention of the Nobel Prize. Cloth with mild discoloration, dust jacket with very shallow chipping and a few closed tears. Desirable inscribed. “With All Good Wishes, Always, From Her Friend, And Her Friend’s Friend”: Hemingway’s The Old Man And The Sea, Warmly Inscribed By Him
LITERATURE 16 “Not Such A Hound As Mortal Eyes Have Ever Seen” 15CONAN DOYLE, Arthur. The Hound of the Baskervilles. London, 1902. Octavo, original pictorial red cloth, custom chemise and slipcase. $11,000 First edition, first issue, of the third Sherlock Holmes novel, widely regarded as the best of the series, with 16 illustrations by Sidney Paget. Although Conan Doyle had killed off his most famous character by sending him over the Reichenbach Falls while grappling with Professor Moriarty in “The Final Problem” (December 1893), his readership demanded the sleuth’s return. The author obliged with this, the third—and still considered by many the best— Sherlock Holmes novel, carefully positioned on the title page as “another adventure” of Holmes. “But,” as Howard Haycraft notes, “the seed of doubt was planted”; and while the novel proved an immediate success, readers continued to press for more. Conan Doyle finally relented and engineered Holmes’ “resurrection” in 1903. The Hound of the Baskervilles remains “one of the most gripping books in the language” (Crime & Mystery 100 Best 6). Without extremely scarce dust jacket. Green & Gibson A26. Text exceptionally clean, with none of the usual foxing. Just a bit of foxing to endpapers, front inner hinge expertly reinforced, cloth fresh and gilt bright. A near-fine copy. “Among The Very Great Novelists In The Language”: Conrad’s Works, Handsomely Bound 16CONRAD, Joseph. The Works. London, 1925-28. Twenty-three volumes. Octavo, contemporary three-quarter navy morocco gilt. $8200 “Medallion” edition,” with frontispiece plate in each volume, handsomely bound. Conrad did not publish his first novel until the age of 38, but his work earned him a place with the great modernists of the 20th-century, “among the very great novelists in the language” (Drabble, 225). “Conrad’s work at its best achieved a synthesis of theme, treatment, and language of a kind without precedent in English literature… Novelty of theme and the piquancy of a non-English origin established him as a romantic, almost as a legendary figure. His stories had excitement of a new kind, and his style, by its very queerness, could allure… powerfully… achieving a perfect equilibrium of pictorial and narrative style” (DNB). Fine condition.
17 17CERVANTES SAAVEDRA, Miguel de. The History Of the most Renowned Don Quixote of Mancha: And his Trusty Squire Sancho Pancha. Now made English... And Adorned with several Copper Plates. By J[ohn] P[hillips]. London, 1687. Folio (8 by 12-1/2 inches), period-style full paneled speckled calf gilt. $16,500 First illustrated edition in English of Cervantes’ “great, ironical, romantic story” (Powys 27), the first edition of Phillips’ translation, with a handsome full-page engraved frontispiece, 16 fine copper engravings (on eight plates). First published 1605-15, Don Quixote stands as “one of those universal works which are read by all ages at all times, and there are very few who have not at one time or another felt themselves to be Don Quixote confronting the windmills or Sancho Panza at the inn” (PMM 111). John Phillips, who prepared this edition, was the nephew and godson of John Milton, with whom he lived and from whom he received his education. With engraved frontispiece and 16 copper-plate engravings on eight plates. Phillips’ rendering is the second English translation of Don Quixote; Thomas Shelton’s, published in 1612 (part I) and 1620 (part II), was the first, but it was not illustrated. With three pages of poems and errata at rear, often not present. Early owner ink signatures, including two on title page (one inked over); page 236 with marginal pen trials. Lower corner of leaf Bbb2 torn, not touching letterpress, text and plates generally clean and fine; period-style binding very attractive. “Read By All Ages At All Times”: First Illustrated Edition In English Of Don Quixote, 1687
LITERATURE 18 “They Have Much Literary And Biographical Importance” 18DONNE, John. Letters to Severall Persons of Honour. London, 1651. Small quarto, contemporary full dark brown calf gilt rebacked, custom box. $13,500 First edition, first issue, with engraved frontispiece portrait of Donne by Pieter Lombart, and woodcut initials, in contemporary calf boards. “The great majority of those of Donne’s letters that have survived have been preserved through the energy of his son… In 1651, the younger Donne issued a volume containing 129 Letters to Severall Persons of Honour; these letters were not ‘edited’ by him according to the standards of the present day, as, although printed with reasonable care, their arrangement is irregular and they are for the most part without dates. Nevertheless, they have much literary and biographical importance” (Keynes, 133). Among the recipients are Lord Herbert of Cherbury, the Countess of Bedford, and, most numerously, Sir Henry Goodere. Bound without front and rear blanks. Keynes 55. Wing D1864. Wither to Prior 296. Pforzheimer 295. Engraved bookplate. Pages with a bit of marginal wormholing near the end not affecting text, otherwise fine, inner hinges neatly reinforced; contemporary calf boards very handsome. An excellent copy. “Vulgar, Licentious, And Blasphemous” And Yet “Very Pure And Fine” (Coleridge) 19(COLERIDGE, Samuel Taylor, translator) GOETHE, Johann Wolfgang von. Faustus: from the German. London, 1821. Quarto, contemporary full tan polished calf gilt. $14,500 First edition in English of Goethe’s Faust, translated by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, in a handsome contemporary polished calf binding by London bookbinder Charles Murton, covers stamped in gilt with a large vignette of Faust, in the style of the 27 lovely engravings within. When Faust, Part I first appeared in a finished form (1808), Coleridge expressed concern for the apparent immorality. Despite this, he briefly entertained a proposal in 1814 to translate the work, a task which he returned to and completed in 1820-21. Coleridge only translated about a quarter of the play into verse, with the rest summarized in prose passages. He never attempted to translate Faust Part II, published in 1832 following Goethe’s death. Bound without half title. Some copies are found with a frontispiece portrait of Goethe; others, as the present copy, with an additional illustration by Moses not in the list of 26 plates at the rear, titled “Frontispiece,” for a total of 27 illustrations. Some foxing and faint offsetting to a few leaves of text and several plates. Minor expert restoration to front joint and board extremities, gilt bright. A handsome copy.
19 “Beware The Ides Of March” 20SHAKESPEARE. The Tragedie of Julius Caesar. London, 1664. Folio, period-style full black morocco, elaborately gilt-decorated spine and covers. $14,500 The complete text of Shakespeare’s great historical tragedy, Julius Caesar, from the rare and important Third Folio, on 11 original leaves (one leaf supplied from another copy of this edition). Splendidly bound in elaborately gilt-decorated period-style morocco. The four folios of Shakespeare are the first four editions of Shakespeare’s collected plays. These were the only collected editions printed in the 17th century (a 1619 attempt at a collected edition in quarto form was never completed). The 1664 second issue of the Third Folio (from which this play was taken), is the first to include Pericles (along with six other spurious plays) and is therefore the first complete edition of Shakespeare’s plays. The Third Folio is believed to be the scarcest of the four great 17th-century folio editions, a large part of the edition presumed destroyed in the Great London Fire of 1666. The facsimile title page and frontispiece reproduces the title page of the second issue of the Third Folio, bearing the date 1664 in the imprint rather than 1663. One leaf, [Nnn6], supplied from another copy of this edition and slightly shorter. A clean, wide-margined and splendidly bound copy in fine condition. “If We Shadows Have Offended” 21SHAKESPEARE. A Midsommer Nights Dreame. London, 1664. Folio, period-style full red morocco, elaborately gilt-decorated spine and covers. $19,500 Nine original leaves from the rare and important Third Folio, containing the complete text of Shakespeare’s festive, fantasy-filled comedy, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Splendidly bound in elaborately gilt-decorated period-style morocco. Likely written in 1595-96, A Midsummer Night’s Dream “is a labyrinth, in which we are delighted to be lost… The Dream remains an unique literary work, with a highly individual place within the Shakespeare canon… Whose dream is it? Partly Bottom’s, partly ours… Nothing in literature is so exquisitely sustained as this is. Had Shakespeare written only this superb marriage-song, his greatness would have been established forever after” (Bloom, xixii). With facsimile title page and frontispiece portrait, the facsimile title page reproduces the title page and frontispiece of the second issue of the Third Folio, bearing the date 1664 in the imprint rather than 1663. A splendidly bound volume in fine condition.
LITERATURE 20 First Editions Of The Works Of Sterne, With Full First Edition Tristram Shandy Thrice Signed, Uniformly And Beautifully Bound By Riviere First editions of the principal works and letters of Sterne, with three volumes of Tristram Shandy signed by Sterne as is called for in first edition copies. Beautifully bound in full mottled calf gilt by Riviere and Son. A splendid first edition collection. Tristram Shandy’s huge popular success made Sterne, a Yorkshire parson, the toast of the London literary world. When some volumes were pirated, Sterne began signing some genuine editions of his work. This set is signed by Sterne on the first page of Volumes V, VII and IX, as is usual in first editions. “Sterne is generally acknowledged as an innovator of the highest originality, and has been seen as the chief begetter of a long line of writers interested in the ‘stream-of-consciousness” (Drabble, 937). Among these must be numbered Joyce, who wrote regarding Finnegan’s Wake, “I, after all, am trying to tell the story of this Chapelizod family in a new way… Only I am trying to build many planes of narrative with a single esthetic purpose. Did you ever read Laurence Sterne?” (Ellman, 554). “[Sterne] remains, as the author of Tristram Shandy, a delineator of the comedy of human life before whom only three or four humorous writers, in any tongue or of any age, can justly claim precedence… he deserves many of the honours that have been paid to Pope and Swift” (DNB). Lowndes, 2509-10. Allibone, 2242-44. Four volumes with expert repairs to joints. A beautiful set of first editions in fine condition. 22STERNE, Laurence. Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. WITH: The Sermons of Mr. Yorick. WITH: A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy. WITH: Letters of the Late Rev. Mr. Laurence Sterne to His Most Intimate Friends. London, 1760-1775. Twenty-one volumes in all. Small octavo, 20th-century full speckled calf gilt. $28,000
21 “She Wanted To Transform The Novel” 23WOOLF, Virginia. The Voyage Out. London, 1915. Octavo, original green cloth, custom clamshell box. $7500 First edition of Woolf’s first novel, one of only 2000 copies printed—the Bradley Martin copy. “Virginia Woolf emerged as a novelist through writing The Voyage Out. It was begun early in 1908 and not published until 1915. The fact that she rewrote the book so many times (she left evidence of five drafts, burnt several more) suggests her uneasiness. She wanted to transform the novel in ways that now seem quite consistent with contemporary experiments in modern art but which were for her, in 1908, solitary ambitions” (Gordon, Virginia Woolf, 98). E.M. Forster praised her debut work as “a strange tragic inspired novel… her passion for truth is here already” (Virginia Woolf, 11). Without rare dust jacket. From the celebrated library of H. Bradley Martin, with his bookplate in the clamshell box. Martin amassed one of the world’s finest book collections, prominently featuring American, English and French literature. Interior clean, just a touch of rubbing to corners and spine ends, cloth fresh. A superb, about-fine copy, with exceptional provenance. “Life And A Lover”: Signed Limited First Edition Of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando 24WOOLF, Virginia. Orlando: A Biography. New York, 1928. Octavo, original gilt-stamped black cloth, custom slipcase. $9600 Signed limited first edition of Woolf’s fantastical and often whimsical novel, one of 861 copies signed on the verso of the half title by Woolf in her trademark purple ink, with eight plates. The character of Virginia Woolf’s young Elizabethan nobleman who does not age through four centuries and appears in male and female manifestations was based on Woolf’s intimate friend Vita SackvilleWest, to whom the book is dedicated. At the time of Orlando’s publication critics praised Woolf, who “once more… has broken with tradition and convention and has set out to explore still another fourth dimension of writing. Not that she has abandoned the ‘stream of consciousness’ method… but with it she has combined what, for lack of a better term, we might describe as an application to writing of the Einstein theory of relativity” (New York Times). Without extremely scarce glassine dust jacket, rarely found. Kirkpatrick A11. A beautiful signed copy in fine condition.
LITERATURE 22 First edition, first printing, of Harper Lee’s masterpiece, in rare first-issue dust jacket. Harper Lee’s portrayal of life in a small Alabama town captured the essence of the South at one of its most trying times. To Kill a Mockingbird became an immediate bestseller and won the 1961 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. It is “an authentic and nostalgic story which in rare fashion at once puts together the tenderness and the tragedy of the South. They are the inseparable ingredients of a region much reported but seldom so well understood” (Jonathan Daniels). First printing, without listing of subsequent impressions, in first-issue dust jacket with photo of Lee by Truman Capote on back panel. Book fine; dust jacket with minor wear to spine corners, a bit of rubbing along folds. A near-fine copy. First Edition Of One Of The Rarest Of American Classics, Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird 25LEE, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. Philadelphia and New York, 1960. Octavo, original half green cloth, dust jacket, custom clamshell box. $35,000
23 “So We Beat On, Boats Against The Current, Borne Back Ceaselessly Into The Past” 27FITZGERALD, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York, 1925. Octavo, original blue-green cloth, custom clamshell box. $12,800 First edition of this landmark of 20th-century fiction. Noted critic Cyril Connolly called Gatsby one of the half dozen best American novels: “Gatsby remains a prose poem of delight and sadness which has by now introduced two generations to the romance of America, as Huckleberry Finn and Leaves of Grass introduced those before it” (48). First printing, with “sick in tired” on page 205 and all other first issue points. Without extremely rare original dust jacket. Bruccoli A11.1.a. A fine copy, scarce in this condition. “It Is Very Beautiful To Have A Book Like This Last One Come Out Because Then You Can See Who Really Likes What You Write” 26HEMINGWAY, Ernest. Unfinished, unsigned autograph draft of a letter. Piggott, Arkansas, December 25, [1930, 1932, or 1934]. One leaf of gray wove paper, 6-1/4 by 8-1/4 inches, penned on both sides for two pages. Housed in a custom clamshell box. $12,500 Unfinished, unpublished autograph two-page draft of an unsent and unsigned letter from Hemingway to Fanny Butcher, referencing the famous lost manuscripts that his first wife Hadley had left in a suitcase stolen after boarding a train to visit him in the early 1920s and discusses writing, criticism and critics. The letter reads, in part: “Dear Miss Butcher... I wrote a long one that was lost when all my mss was stolen in a suitcase my wife was bringing down to Lausanne... There is an entirely new school of criticism (with new reasons for disliking the same things) but if you can write and will write they can prove you are no good by any system of criticism they invent and it will not hurt your stuff if it is worth anything...” Fanny Butcher, was a writer and critic for the Chicago Tribune for 40 years, and first met Hemingway in 1929 in Paris. Faint horizontal fold line. Fine condition.
LITERATURE 24 “The Major Esthetic Achievement Of Any Living American Writer”: First Edition Of Blood Meridian, Signed By Cormac McCarthy First edition of McCarthy’s mythic vision of the American West, signed by him. Compared to the works of Dante, Poe, Melville and Faulkner; Harold Bloom called Blood Meridian “clearly the major esthetic achievement of any living American writer.” To fellow novelist Madison Smartt Bell, “McCarthy puts most other American writers to shame… His diction and phrasing come from all over the evolutionary history of English and combine into a prose that seems to invent itself as it unfolds, resembling Elizabethan language in its flux of remarkable possibilities” (New York Times). Little noticed at the time of publication, most copies of the first edition were remaindered—this copy does not have a remainder mark on the text block. Faint offsetting to front endpapers. A fine signed copy. 28MCCARTHY, Cormac. Blood Meridian, or The Evening Redness in the West. New York, 1985. Octavo, original half red cloth, dust jacket, custom clamshell box. $25,000
25 “A Screaming Comes Across The Sky”: First Edition Of Gravity’s Rainbow 29PYNCHON, Thomas. Gravity’s Rainbow. New York, 1973. Octavo, original red cloth, dust jacket. $3500 First edition of Pynchon’s National Book Awardwinning third novel. “One of the few truly great novels of the century, and at the same time one of the most disappointing, disturbing, maddening…. One of the most original fictive styles to have been developed since Joyce” (Contemporary Novelists, 1136). “Its technical and verbal resources bring to mind Melville, Faulkner and Nabokov” (New York Times Books of the Century, 487). Mead A3a. Bookplate. Book fine, price-clipped dust jacket nearly so. A beautiful copy. “One Of The Four Or Five Funniest Comic Novels Written In This Century” 30AMIS, Kingsley. Lucky Jim. London, 1953. Octavo, original green paper boards, dust jacket, custom clamshell box. $7200 First edition of Amis’ first and most famous novel— ”brilliantly and preposterously funny” (Guardian), in original dust jacket. Hailed as “one of the four or five funniest comic novels written in this century,” Lucky Jim is Kingsley Amis’ first novel, a biting satire that “brought its author fame as one of Britain’s Angry Young Men.” To writer Paul Fussell, Amis stood as one of his generation’s finest satirists “and belonged in ‘the company of Swift, Pope, Twain, Flaubert and Mencken” (New York Times). This “brilliantly and preposterously funny book” remains Amis’ best known novel (Guardian). Gift inscription dated year of publication. Book fine; mild soiling, trace of edge-wear with small bit of expert repair to verso of bright near-fine dust jacket.
LITERATURE 26 “I’ll Be Ever’where—Wherever You Look. Wherever They’s A Fight So Hungry People Can Eat, I’ll Be There”: First Edition Of Steinbeck’s The Grapes Of Wrath, A Beautiful Copy First edition, first issue, of Steinbeck’s most important novel, his searing masterpiece of moral outrage and “intense humanity,” winner of the 1940 Pulitzer Prize. “It is a long novel, the longest that Steinbeck has written, and yet it reads as if it had been composed in a flash, ripped off the typewriter and delivered to the public as an ultimatum… Steinbeck has written a novel from the depths of his heart with a sincerity seldom equaled” (Peter Monro Jack). “The Grapes of Wrath is the kind of art that’s poured out of a crucible in which are mingled pity and indignation… Its power and importance do not lie in its political insight but in its intense humanity… [It] is the American novel of the season, probably the year, possibly the decade” (Clifton Fadiman). First issue, with “First Published in April 1939” on copyright page and first edition notice on front flap of dust jacket. Goldstone & Payne A12a. Book fine, dust jacket very nearly so, with only a tiny, nearly imperceptible scuff and short closed tear to the front panel. A beautiful, crisp copy. 31STEINBECK, John. The Grapes of Wrath. New York, 1939. Octavo, original pictorial beige cloth, dust jacket, custom clamshell box. $22,000
27 “The Greatest Of The Forerunners Of Modern Science Fiction” 32WELLS, H.G. Tales of the Unexpected. London, 1922. Octavo, original red cloth, dust jacket. $6200 First edition of this collection of 15 short stories of the supernatural, science fiction and mystery, in scarce original dust jacket. “Boldly melodramatic and intellectually provocative, Wells’ early scientific romances (as they came to be called) remain unsurpassed for their imagination and visionary power… Where Wells’ contemporaries saw him as adding what Tyndall had called the ‘scientific imagination’ to 19th-century romance, the 20th century regarded him as the greatest of the forerunners of modern science fiction” (ODNB). This collection includes: “The Remarkable Case of Davidson’s Eyes,” “The Moth,” “The Story of the Late Mr. Elvesham,” “Under the Knife,” “The Plattner Story,” “The Crystal Egg,” “The Man Who Could Work Miracles,” “A Dream of Armageddon,” “The New Accelerator,” “The Door in the Wall,” and others. Not in Hammond. Some foxing to text block edges, text and cloth clean, near-fine. Dust jacket with slight soiling and minor rubbing, small tape repair on verso at foot of spine, extremely good. “Her Whole Life Had Been A Long And Easy Dream To Lull Her Helplessly Into This Waking Nightmare” 33KING, Stephen. The Shining. Garden City, 1977. Octavo, original half black cloth, dust jacket, custom clamshell box. $7800 First edition of King’s third novel, a “masterwork, a bold product of an original vision,” inscribed “For Marvin, Best, Stephen King.” Inspired by Poe’s short story “The Masque of the Red Death,” King’s first hardcover bestseller is “his consummate ghostly tale” about “the haunted house to end all haunted houses” (Underwood & Miller, 174, 184). “The fact is that The Shining is a masterwork… a novel of astonishing passion, urgency, tenderness, understanding, and invention… In its uniting of an almost bruising literary power, a deep sensitivity to individual experience, and its operatic convictions, it is a very significant work of art” (Peter Straub). Book with pinpoint foxing to inscription page, price-clipped dust jacket with a few faint stains, tiny closed tears to foot of spine. A near-fine copy. Desirable inscribed.
LITERATURE 28 “That Musical Crystal-Clear Style, Blown Like Glass From The White-Heat Of Violence” First trade edition, first issue, of the novel that “placed Hemingway, early, among the American masters,” in scarce unrestored first-issue dust jacket. A beautiful copy. “Probably [Hemingway’s] best… Its success was so enormous… After it one could no more imitate that musical crystal-clear style; blown like glass from the white-heat of violence… the beginning, like all his beginnings, seems effortless and magical” (Connolly, Modern Movement 60). “The novel that placed Hemingway, early, among the American masters… the most satisfying and most sustained, the consummate masterpiece, among Hemingway’s novels. It bears the mark of Hemingway’s best gifts as a writer” (Mellow, 377-79). First edition, first printing, with publisher’s seal on copyright page, no disclaimer on page x; in firstissue Art Deco dust jacket by Cleonike Damianakes, with front flap misspelling of the heroine’s name as “Katharine Barclay” instead of “Catherine Barkley.” Appeared simultaneously with a limited edition of 510 numbered copies. Hanneman 8a. Bruccoli & Clark, 178. Grissom A.8.1.a. Book with mild toning to endpapers; unrestored price-clipped dust jacket bright and beautiful with only most minor wear. An exceptional copy. 34HEMINGWAY, Ernest. A Farewell to Arms. New York, 1929. Octavo, original black cloth, dust jacket, custom clamshell box. $13,500
29 Signed Limited A Christmas Carol, One Of 525 Copies Beautifully Illustrated And Signed By Arthur Rackham Signed limited edition of the “Bible of Christmas,” number 85 of only 525 copies signed by the illustrator, with 12 beautiful mounted color plates and 20 in-text line cuts by Rackham. “The Christmas gift-book proved an excellent market for Rackham. His sensitive and agile line earned him the appreciation of connoisseurs, while his care for the spirit of each text commended him alike to children and adults” (DNB). A Christmas Carol marks the first time Rackham illustrated Dickens’ work. Dickens’ Carol was first published in 1843 and “may readily be called the Bible of Christmas” (Eckel, 110). Latimore & Haskell, 44-45. Riall, 124. A beautiful copy in fine condition. 35(RACKHAM, Arthur) DICKENS, Charles. A Christmas Carol. London and Philadelphia, 1915. Large quarto, original full vellum gilt, custom slipcase. $9200
LITERATURE 30 “L.A. Has Always Been A Humid Jungle Alive With Seething L.A. Projects That I Guess People From Other Places Just Can’t See” First edition of this confessional novel about Los Angeles in the 1970s, with 23 pages of photographic illustrations, inscribed to fine press publishers Stathis Orpanos and Ralph Sylvester, “Dearest Stathis & Ralph, I’m so happy someone wants my books who lives on Cheremoya, my first Hollywood street. from Eve Babitz XOXO [drawing of a heart].” “Sharp and funny throughout, Babitz offers an almost cinematic portrait of Los Angeles: gritty, glamorous, toxic and intoxicatin” (New York Times). “Babitz’s style is cool, conversational, loose, yet weighted with a seemingly effortless poetry. Unlike her contemporary, Joan Didion, Babitz isn’t staring into the abyss and reporting back; but she does want to tell you how good the light is out by the abyss” (Guardian). “Eve Babitz is a little like Madame de Sévigné, that inveterate letterwriter of Louis XIV’s time, transposed to the Chateau Marmont in the late 20th-Century—lunching, chatting, dressing, loving and crying in Hollywood, that latter-day Versailles” (Los Angeles Times). The recipients of this copy, Stathis Orphanos and Ralph Sylvester, were life partners who founded the publishing house Orphanos and Sylvester in Los Angeles in the seventies, beginning with a deluxe edition of Isherwood’s Christopher and his Kind. Orphanos was also a noted photographer, with his works displayed in numerous exhibitions. Book fine, dust jacket with light rubbing, more so to spine. An exceptional copy with a very nice association. 36BABITZ, Eve. Eve’s Hollywood. New York, 1974. Octavo, original black cloth, dust jacket. $5800
31 Beloved, Signed By Toni Morrison 37MORRISON, Toni. Beloved. New York, 1987. Octavo, original white cloth, dust jacket. $1700 First edition of Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize-winning story of escaped slave Sethe and her relationship with a “disturbing, mesmerizing intruder who calls herself Beloved,” signed on the title page by Morrison. “Morrison’s versatility and technical and emotional range appear to know no bounds” (Margaret Atwood). “She recreates the interior life of black slaves with a moving intensity no novelist even approached before” (Walter Clemons). Basis for the 1998 Jonathan Demme film starring Oprah Winfrey. “First Edition” stated on copyright page. Fine condition. “I Have Always Depended On The Kindness Of Strangers” 38WILLIAMS, Tennessee. A Streetcar Named Desire. New York, (1947) [i.e., 1948]. Octavo, original pink paper boards, dust jacket. $5800 First edition of William’s first Pulitzer Prize-winning drama, in scarce original dust jacket. Critically praised as “superb,” “fascinating” and “a terrific adventure,” A Streetcar Named Desire brought Williams his second New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award—and a Pulitzer Prize. Williams himself considered this his best play (Devlin, 50). Elia Kazan directed the original production that opened in New Haven on October 30, 1947 before moving to Broadway on December 3 with a cast starring Marlon Brando and Jessica Tandy. Among Streetcar’s major achievements was a depiction of the working class that set it apart from standard social commentary or documentary drama. “No one dared approach this new thing without caution. They had just witnessed something unprecedented on the stage, a high-pitched, jagged, alarming—and comical!—drama structure” (Sam Staggs). First issue, printed December 1947. Crandell A5.I.a. Book fine, bright dust jacket with one short closed tear to rear panel, split along top of front flap seam, toning to spine. Overall a near-fine copy.
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