Selections in Literature January 2025
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 5 1 * * * "A LEADING FIGURE IN THE CHICAGO LITERARY RENAISSANCE": FIRST EDITION OF SHERWOOD ANDERSON'S WINESBURG, OHIO, INSCRIBED BY HIM 1. ANDERSON, Sherwood. Winesburg, Ohio. New York, 1919. Octavo, original yellow cloth, custom box. $17,500 First edition, scarce first issue of “Anderson’s first important work, and possibly his finest” (Sheehy & Lohf), inscribed by Anderson “To Florence D. Briscoe, Sherwood Anderson.” Although he had already published two novels and a book of poetry, Anderson did not receive widespread attention until he produced this book, “establishing him as a leading figure in the Chicago literary renaissance” (Stringer, 20). “These stories of small-town people voice the philosophy of life expressed in all his later works. Adopting a naturalistic interpretation of American life, he believed that the primal forces of human behavior are instinctive and not to be denied, as he supposed they are, by the standardization of a machine age” (Hart, 31). Approaching his characters in these stories, Anderson aims to peel away “other people’s attitudes to reveal the complexity and potential of the man beneath” (Parker & Kermode, 79). The book was a major influence on Hemingway, Faulkner and Wolfe, and led critic Carl Van Doren to note, “Anderson, who is a poet at heart, is profoundly devoted to the idea that life to be truly good must be mobile and creative, not fixed and obedient.” First issue, with unbroken right frame line of title page; “lay” at page 86, line five; broken type in “the” at page 251, line three. Without very rare original dust jacket. Sheehy & Lohf 9. Bruccoli & Clark II:14. Dickinson, 14. Text generally fine, bright cloth with only mild soiling, toning and a bit of wear to paper spine label. Very desirable inscribed.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 5 2 * * * "THE BOOK IS A GEM": FIRST EDITION OF GATHER TOGETHER IN MY NAME, BOLDLY INSCRIBED BY MAYA ANGELOU 2. ANGELOU, Maya. Gather Together in My Name. New York, 1974. Octavo, original orange cloth, dust jacket. $1600 First edition of the eloquent second book in Angelou’s autobiographical series begun with I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, a lovely copy inscribed by her, “Joy! Maya Angelou 11/10/2000.” With this important second book in her autobiographical series, “Angelou’s original goal—to tell the truth about the lives of Black women”—broadened and evolved. To critic Selwyn Cudjoe, the book took a major new step to the course laid by I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969): “Angelou is still concerned with questions of what it means to be Black and female in America… but her development is reflective of a particular type of Black woman, located at a particular moment of history.” Here Angelou’s writing “exhibits a new self-consciousness” (New Yorker). Her poignant memoir won swift praise as “engrossing and vital, rich and funny and wise… Angelou writes like a song and like the truth” (New York Times). “The book is a gem” (Chicago Tribune). First edition, first printing: with “First Edition” on copyright page. Dust jacket price-clipped. Fine condition.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 5 3 * * * "FOR WHAT DO WE LIVE, BUT TO MAKE SPORT FOR OUR NEIGHBORS, AND LAUGH AT THEM IN OUR TURN?": AUSTEN'S PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, ONE OF THE MOST SOUGHT-AFTER OF ALL ENGLISH NOVELS 3. AUSTEN, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. A Novel. In Three Volumes. By the Author of “Sense and Sensibility” London, 1813. Three volumes. 12mo, period-style full red straight-grain morocco gilt, marbled endpapers. $38,000 Second edition—published only months after the first—of Jane Austen’s second and most popular novel, one of the most sought-after titles in English literature. “Elizabeth’s own energy and defiance of character respond to Rousseau’s and the popular notion of the pliant, submissive female… None of her novels delighted Jane Austen more than Pride and Prejudice… She had given a rare example of fiction as a highly intelligent form… This remains her most popular and widely translated novel” (Honan, 313-20). Written between October 1796 and August 1797, Pride and Prejudice was originally an epistolary novel; Austen revised it in 1812. “Her father offered Pride and Prejudice to [publisher] Cadell on 1 Nov. 1797; but the proposal was rejected by return of post, without an inspection of the manuscript” (DNB).”The size of the [first] edition is not known… perhaps 1500 copies… The first edition was sold off very rapidly and a second one was printed in the same year” (Keynes, 8). Cassandra Austen’s records indicate that the first edition of her sister’s novel was issued in January 1813, and the second edition in October 1813. (“J. Spottiswoode”) dated August 1813. Without scarce half titles, often discarded in the binding process. Keynes 4. Gilson A4. Grolier 100, English 100 69. Pencil annotations to final leaves of Volume I. Occasional scattered foxing, mostly in Volume II. Beautifully bound.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 5 4 * * * "MONEY CAN ONLY GIVE HAPPINESS WHERE THERE IS NOTHING ELSE TO GIVE IT": FIRST ILLUSTRATED EDITION OF AUSTEN'S FIRST NOVEL, SENSE AND SENSIBILITY, 1833 4. AUSTEN, Jane. Sense and Sensibility. London, 1833. 12mo, 19th-Century three-quarter tan calf gilt. $14,000 Third edition, the first to identify Austen as the author and the first illustrated edition of Jane Austen’s extraordinarily rare first novel, on “the twin themes of prudence and benevolence, reason and passion, head and heart, or sense and sensibility,” with engraved frontispiece and vignette title page. Sense and Sensibility was Austen’s first published novel— Austen had sold Susan (the first version of Northanger Abbey) first, to the publishers Richard Crosby & Son, but they failed to publish it. Sense and Sensibility “does brightly respond to an interesting religious and ethical debate over the philosophy of sentiment… [The popular view held that morality] depends on the ‘heart’ and not on the ‘head’… Rational moralists opposed the tendency, and a debate was in full swing by the 1790s when novel after novel took up the twin themes of prudence and benevolence, reason and passion, head and heart, or sense and sensibility” (Honan, Jane Austen, 275-77). “The size of the [first] edition has not been recorded. It was undoubtedly a small one… Probably it consisted of only 1000 copies or even less… and this would account for the fact that Sense and Sensibility is so much the rarest of the novels at the present day” (Keynes 1). The second edition, with the text significantly revised by Austen and the substitution of “By the author of Pride and Prejudice” for “By a Lady” on the title page, appeared in October 1813. “No English reissue of Austen’s novels is known after 1818 until in 1832 Richard Bentley decided to include them in his series of Standard Novels… Bentley’s reprinting of the novels, each complete in one volume, was presumably intended for the private buyer; there is evidence that some circulating libraries were still well supplied with copies of the original editions” (Gilson, 211). Gilson D1. Interior generally very clean, light rubbing to handsome early calf binding.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 5 5 * * * THE NOVELS OF THE BRONTE SISTERS, WITH COLOR FRONTISPIECES BY EDMUND DULAC 5. BRONTE, Charlotte, Emily and Anne. The Novels. London, circa 1930. Six volumes. Small octavo, contemporary three-quarter red calf gilt, custom slipcase. $3500 Lovely collection of the novels of the Bronte sisters, with six color frontispieces by Edmund Dulac, beautifully bound by Bayntun-Rivière. “They had neither wealth nor power… what they did have was the vicarious experience of books and an irrepressible creativity… More than anything else, however, they had each other… Without this intense family relationship, some of the greatest novels in the English language would never have been written” (Barker, 830). This set includes Jane Eyre, Shirley, Villette, The Professor, Wuthering Heights, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and Agnes Grey. Hughey 5-10. Spines very gently toned. A beautiful set.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 5 6 * * * A CORNERSTONE OF THE WESTERN CANON: THE FIRST COMPLETE EDITION IN ENGLISH OF DON QUIXOTE, 1620, THE FIRST AND GREATEST TRANSLATION OF CERVANTES’ MASTERPIECE 6. CERVANTES SAAVEDRA, Miguel de. (SHELTON, Thomas, translator). The History of Don-Quichote. The first parte. Printed for Ed: Blount [1620]. WITH: The Second Part of the History of the Valorous and witty Knight-Errant, Don Quixote of the Mancha. Written in Spanish by Michael Cervantes: And now Translated into English [By Thomas Shelton]. London, 1620. Two volumes. 12mo, 19th-century full reddish-brown morocco gilt; custom clamshell box. $125,000 The rare first appearance of both parts of Don-Quixote in English, the earliest obtainable edition in English of the entire work: the second edition in English of the First Part and the first edition in English of the Second Part. From the Regiate Priory, home of Lady Isabella Caroline, Lady Henry Somerset, notable 19th-century temperance advocate. A splendid copy of a cornerstone of the Western canon. “A universal classic and arguably the greatest book ever written in Spanish… the first modern novel was composed by a sick, aged and impoverished man, who believed that a satirical tale might produce more revenue than the poems and plays that he regarded as his more serious mission. Under the guise of a parody on romances of chivalry, Cervantes created a study of reality and illusion, madness and sanity, that links him with such acute 16th-century students of psychology as Erasmus, Rabelais, Montaigne and Shakespeare” (Folger’s Choice 30). Although the First Part of Don-Quixote was originally published in 1612, only a handful of copies survive. In 1607 Thomas Shelton, “acquiring a knowledge of Spanish, at the request of ‘a very deere friend that was desirous to understand the subject,’ translated the first part of the Historie of Don-Quixote. The first part of Cervantes’ novel originally appeared at Madrid early in 1605. Shelton used a reprint of the original Spanish [for his translation]… But after his friend had glanced at his rendering Shelton cast it aside, where it lay ‘for a long time neglected in a corner.’ At the end of four or five years, ‘at the entreaty of friends, Shelton was content to let it come to light.’ The book immediately achieved the popularity that Cervantes’ work has always retained in [England]. References to episodes in Don Quixote’s story were soon frequent in English literature… Very few copies of the original edition of Shelton’s translation of the first part survive; a 1943 census recorded only 17 copies.” In 1615 Cervantes published in Madrid his second part of Don-Quixote and this appeared in English in 1620 for the first time, also translated by Shelton. Bound without the additional engraved title to the second part, as usual. Bookplates of Isabel Somerset, Regiate Priory. Contemporary owner signatures. A few instances of contemporary ink marginalia. Light marginal dampstaining to last few leaves of Volume II. Only a few leaves cropped close, affecting gathering markings, printed marginalia and catchwords; main text unaffected. A splendid copy, very nearly fine, extraordinarily scarce and important.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 5 7 * * * "ONE OF THE WORLD'S LITERARY MASTERPIECES": FIRST EDITION OF JOSEPH CONRAD'S LORD JIM 7. CONRAD, Joseph. Lord Jim, A Tale. Edinburgh and London, 1900. Octavo, original green cloth. Housed in a custom clamshell box. $5500 First edition, first issue, of Conrad’s brilliant exploration of morality and the torment of guilt, “second only to Heart of Darkness in renown,” in the original cloth. To critic Cedric Watts, Conrad’s Lord Jim is “one of the world’s literary masterpieces… Conrad, like Britannia, rules the waves… a book of the rare literary quality of Lord Jim is something to receive with gratitude and joy.” Though he began working on it in 1898, with the intent of a short story, the novel ultimately “took itself into its own hands, and swept its writer with it into a profound study of a psychic phenomenon” (New York Times Book Review). “Second only to Heart of Darkness in renown” (Joseph Conrad Companion), Lord Jim is “the first full-length work of Conrad’s artistic maturity… the novel is, moreover, deeply personal, with roots in Conrad’s past… [and] has retained its place as one of Conrad’s most widely enjoyed and studied books. It has remained so for the brilliance of its technical innovations as well.” Lord Jim would prove a major influence on Fitzgerald’s Great Gatsby and on the works of Faulkner, Hemingway and Robert Penn Warren, who have each “acknowledged the importance of Conrad’s fiction” (Cambridge Companion). First edition, with all first issue points, including: “any rate” printed as one word (77:5); “keep” missing after “can” and “cure” should be “cured” (226:7 lines from bottom); “his” out of alignment (319:last line). Serialized in Blackwood’s Magazine, beginning in late 1899. As issued without dust jacket. Cagle A5.a. Keating 25. Smith 5. Wise 7. Bookplate of Efrem Zimbalist, Russian-American concert violinist, composer, conductor and director of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia; Zimbalist was also a noted book collector. Scattered light foxing, mostly to first and last few leaves; cloth with mild soiling to spine and rear panel, spine a bit toned. A very nice copy.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 5 8 * * * "HUMAN LIFE TOUCHED BY MAJESTY AND PURPOSE": FIRST EDITION OF DICKENS'S DOMBEY AND SON, IN THE ORIGINAL PARTS, WITH ALL ADVERTISEMENTS PRESENT 8. DICKENS, Charles. Dealings with the Firm of Dombey and Son, Wholesale, Retail, and for Exportation. With Illustrations by H.K. Browne. London, 1846-48. Twenty parts in nineteen. Octavo, original green printed paper wrappers; custom slipcase. $5500 First edition, first issue in scarce original parts of Dickens’s novel of “Pride,” with 40 etchings by Hablôt Knight Browne (“Phiz”), including the famous first “dark plate.” An excellent copy in the original parts, with all of the advertisements called for. For its inclusion of fairy-tale themes and the much discussed demise of Paul Dombey, Dombey and Son “has a sense of the numinous, is more profoundly touched by the sense of last things, than any of Dickens’s previous novels. It is larger in conception, so that human life is seen in terms of its beginning and its end, so that grief and forgiveness become more powerful forces within it… Dickens is aware of its status as art and provides here a simulacrum of human life touched by majesty and purpose” (Ackroyd, 526). Dombey and Son “was well received by its readers, and is considered to be the first novel that reflects Dickens’s artistic maturity… Dickens told his first biographer, ‘It was to do with Pride what its predecessor [Martin Chuzzlewit] has done with Selfishness’” (Schlicke, 280). Dombey and Son contains the first of Browne’s so-called “dark plates” (“On the dark Road,” in part 18), created by the engraver’s lining machine and roulettes that tint the etched plate so as to heighten the contrast between black and white (Johannsen, Phiz, 309). First-issue text, with the following first-issue points: page 284 with “Toot’s Delight” mentioned twice instead of “Toot’s Joy”; page 324 with “Capatin” on the last line; page 426 with blank space at the beginning of line 9; and two-line errata slip in the preliminary pages at the rear of Part 19/20, rather than eight. Text, preliminaries, and illustrations are all present, as are all wrappers. All advertisements called for are present. Hatton and Cleaver, 227250. Only mild foxing to several plates, text generally clean. Some neat and unobtrusive repairs to several spines, light edge-wear and creasing to fragile paper wrappers, less than often seen. An exceptional copy in parts in the original wrappers, quite scarce and desirable with all advertisements.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 5 9 * * * "THE OPENING OF A BRILLIANT LITERARY CAREER" 9. (DOSTOEVSKY, Fyodor) DOSTOIEVSKY, Fedor. Poor Folk. London / Boston, 1894. Small octavo, original yellow pictorial cloth. $2800 First edition in English, English issue preceding the American issue by one month, of Dostoevsky’s critically acclaimed first novel, one of only 1100 copies, in original cloth pictorial binding with an illustration by Aubrey Beardsley. Dostoevsky’s “psychological penetration into the darkest recesses of the human heart had a profound and universal influence on the 20th-century novel” (Encyclopedia of Literature, 340). “Dostoevsky’s life as a writer began auspiciously. His first publication, the short epistolary novel Poor Folk, was extremely well received and heralded by Vissarion Belinskii, the most important critic of the day, as the opening of a brilliant literary career… Poor Folk is a clear continuation of the theme of the downtrodden low-level clerk as represented by Pushkin’s ‘The Station Master’ and Gogol’s ‘The Overcoat’” (Stone, Historical Dictionary of Russian Literature, 50). In his preface to this edition, Irish novelist George Moore notes that “Poor Folk is written in letters, the most artificial of all forms of narrative, but so easily are the difficulties of the form overcome that no trace of composition appears on the page, and in each succeeding letter is distilled some further addition to our knowledge of the poor old copying clerk, the harshness and rigor of his life, and the pure, idolatrous affection he bears for his cousin, who lives over the way, in as poor circumstances as himself” (page xiii). Translated from the Russian by Lena Milman; Introduction by George Moore. Originally published in 1846 in the almanac St. Petersburg Collection. Published in England in June 1894, one of only 1100 copies (Lasner 27), and in the United States in July of the same year (Line et al., 18). Issued as part of Mathews and Lane’s Keynotes Series, the book includes cover and title page design by Beardsley, as well as Beardsley’s “key monogram” that appears on the spine, rear cover, and page [v] (Lasner). The book is bound in yellow pictorial cloth similar to that of the quarterly Yellow Book, for which Beardsley served as art director; Yellow Book was also published by Mathews and Lane and began publication in April 1894. With 16 pages of publisher’s advertisements at rear dated March 1894. As issued without dust jacket. LEG, 18. Bookplate of renowned historian and bibliophile Christopher Clark Geest. Interior fine, lightest soiling to cloth. A near-fine copy.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 5 10 * * * RARE FIRST EDITIONS IN ENGLISH OF DOSTOEVSKY'S THE FRIEND OF THE FAMILY AND THE GAMBLER, 1887 10. (DOSTOEVSKY, Fyodor) DOSTOIEFFSKY, Fedor. The Friend of the Family; and The Gambler. London, 1887. Octavo, original green cloth. Housed in a custom clamshell box. $6200 First editions in English of Dostoevsky’s Friend of the Family and The Gambler, two of his finest and most influential early novellas, with The Friend begun while imprisoned in Siberia and The Gambler written against a desperate three-week deadline, an electrifying tale of obsession that “rings true in part because it was true.” Together as issued in Volume XXII of Vizetelly’s One-Volume Novels with the translation of Frederick Whishaw. This rare volume contains the first editions in English of two major early novellas, The Friend of the Family (Selo Stepanchikovo, 1859) and The Gambler (Igrok, 1866). In Friend of the Family, we find Dostoevsky “poised to write the great fiction of his maturity… a striking, accomplished and highly entertaining story” (Avery, Preface in Village of Stepanchikovo). The Gambler is viewed by Robert Louis Jackson as one of the “most brilliant and rewarding” of Dostoevsky’s shorter works (Frank in Freedom and Responsibility, 73-4). Begun while imprisoned in Siberia, Friend is “unique among Dostoevsky’s works in that it is a sustained exercise in comedy… He attached great importance to this work, and hoped it would enable him to return to the literary scene after his enforced absence.” In May 1859 he wrote of Friend as a turning point: “’I have put my soul, my flesh, my blood into it… It contains two colossal and typical characters that I’ve spent five years conceiving and recording… characters wholly Russian and poorly represented in Russian literature’… Gogol himself is the real-life model for its chief character, the despotic humbug Foma Fomich Opiskin… Dostoevsky injected all his pent-up gall against the artist turned false prophet and erring philosopher, parodying Gogol’s ‘revisionist’ view of Russian despotism.” Written under a deadline of only three weeks to pay off gambling debts against the threat of losing the rights to many of his works, The Gambler is itself a “story of cliffhangers.” Nearly destroyed by that deadline, he finally agreed to the assistance of a stenographer, Anna Grigoryevna Snitkina. He met the deadline with only hours to spare, and the two soon married. The novel was truly “Dostoevsky’s biggest gamble, and one that, unlike his attempt to win at roulette, paid off… The psychology of obsession and intoxicating humiliation described in this novel rings true in part because it was true” (Morson, Writing Like Roulette). With the translation of Russian-born British novelist Frederick Whishaw. Volume XXII in Vizetelly’s One-Volume Novels. Rear leaf of publisher’s advertisements; page of advertisements to half title verso. Friend of the Family issued serially in the November and December 1859 issues of the journal Otechestvennyye zapiski. LEG, 17. Small owner inkstamps to title page and lower margins of several leaves not affecting text. Text fresh with light scattered foxing mainly to preliminaries, light expert reinforcement to text block, faint rubbing to bright cloth.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 5 11 * * * ONE OF ONLY 300 COPIES SIGNED BY FAULKNER 11. FAULKNER, William. Absalom, Absalom! New York, 1936. Octavo, original half green cloth. $6000 Signed limited first edition, number 172 of only 300 copies signed by Faulkner—“the greatest American novel since the turn of the century”—with folding map of Faulkner’s fictional Yoknapatawpha County. “Absalom is the peak of Faulkner’s fictional achievement. It is unquestionably the greatest American novel since the turn of the century… Its sole competitors among contemporary American novels are Dreiser’s American Tragedy and Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, neither of which approaches Faulkner’s innovative daring” (Karl, 582). As issued without dust jacket or slipcase. Petersen A18.2a. Hamblin & Brodsky 186. Very lightest edge-wear, tiny bit of dampstaining to upper edge of front board. A scarce about-fine signed copy.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 5 12 * * * "THE PAST IS NOT A DIMINISHING ROAD BUT, INSTEAD, A HUGE MEADOW WHICH NO WINTER EVER QUITE TOUCHES…" 12. FAULKNER, William. These 13. New York, 1931. Octavo, original half gray cloth, dust jacket. $4200 First trade edition, first issue, of the first published collection of Faulkner’s stories. This remarkable collection, published two years after The Sound and the Fury, contains several of Faulkner’s best known and most admired short stories, including “A Rose for Emily,” “That Evening Sun,” and “Dry September.” Published simultaneously with the signed limited edition. First issue, with error on contents page (“280” for “208”). Book very nearly fine, dust jacket near-fine with only minor wear and toning to extremities. A handsome, near-fine copy.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 5 13 * * * "ONE OF THE FIRST AND MOST INFLUENTIAL OF ENGLISH NOVELS" 13. FIELDING, Henry. The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling. London, 1792. Three volumes. 12mo (measuring 4 by 7 inches), contemporary full brown tree calf gilt rebacked and recornered. $1750 Handsomely bound edition of Fielding’s Tom Jones, “a milestone in the development of the English novel.” First published in 1749, Tom Jones “is generally regarded as Fielding’s greatest, and as one of the first and most influential of English novels” (Drabble, 988). “A milestone in the development of the English novel… It would be nearly another 150 years before a major novel could deal as frankly with the sexuality of its central character” (An English Library, 21). Bookplates of American poet, translator and scholar Mitchell S. Buck. Volume III with pages 318-19 printed poorly at bottom of page, affecting readability; rubbing to handsome contemporary calf boards. An attractive copy.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 5 14 * * * "SO WE BEAT ON, BOATS AGAINST THE CURRENT, BORNE BACK CEASELESSLY INTO THE PAST" 14. FITZGERALD, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York, 1925. Octavo, original blue-green cloth, custom box. $11,500 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. Text fine, rear inner hinge with expert reinforcement, cloth crisp and lovely with one tiny split to foot of spine. A beautiful copy.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 5 15 * * * "A MAGNIFICENT PIECE OF STORY-TELLING": FIRST ENGLISH EDITION OF THE MAGUS, SIGNED BY JOHN FOWLES 15. FOWLES, John. The Magus. London, (1966). Octavo, original half purple cloth, dust jacket. $3500 First English edition of Fowles’ second, highly acclaimed novel, signed by him on the title page. “One of the most engrossing reading experiences in modern fiction, a psychological mystery which is also a magnificent piece of story-telling” (Pringle 29). “Regarded by many as the English-speaking world’s greatest contemporary writer and its first postmodern novelist” (New York Times), John Fowles tells “a modernized, worldly-wise version of The Tempest…bathed in an atmosphere of mystery, eroticism and paranoia” (Parker, 426-27). Fowles set his story “on a vividly evoked Greek island. In an atmosphere of mystery, fantasy, and obsession, the novel concerns an Englishman, Nicholas Urfe, who obtains a teaching post on the island, and his involvement with an enigmatic Greek millionaire and his entourage; with its mythological dimension the suggests magic realism, and in the agnostic fatalism of its ending point, Greek tragedy” (Stringer, 228). First English edition, preceded by the Boston first, which has a copyright notice dated 1965 but was not released until January 1966. Pringle, Modern Fantasy: The Hundred Best Novels 29. Only lightest wear to edges of book and dust jacket. An about-fine copy, scarce signed.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 5 16 * * * FIRST EDITION OF GADDIS' FIRST BOOK, THE RECOGNITIONS, INSCRIBED AND SIGNED BY HIM 16. GADDIS, William. The Recognitions. New York, 1955. Octavo, original black cloth, dust jacket. Housed in a custom chemise and slipcase. $3200 First edition of Gaddis’ important first novel, inscribed and signed by Gaddis on the half title: “For Don Kaufmann (all problems understood), William Gaddis. Sarasota, June 1977.” “The Recognitions is an astonishing first novel… the subsequent course of post-war American fiction has confirmed Gaddis’s achievement: his erudite and sophisticated satire on the mechanisation of human emotion and commercialisation of religious and artistic experience provides the model for many later (and better-known) writers” (Parker, 319-20). Book fine, dust jacket very nearly so. A lovely copy, quite scarce and desirable inscribed.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 5 17 * * * "A NEW AND EXHILERATING PHASE IN… MODERN WRITING": FIRST EDITION OF GRENDEL, INSCRIBED BY JOHN GARDNER 17. GARDNER, John. Grendel. New York, 1971. Octavo, original purple cloth, dust jacket. $4500 First edition of Gardner’s third novel, his “violent, inspiring, awesome, terrifying” reimagining of the legendary tale, inscribed on the title page by him, “To R—, Best wishes, John Gardner,” a beautiful copy. “Grendel, which daringly retells the Beowulf legend from the viewpoint of the monster whom Beowulf kills, is a complex and brilliantly styled parable of consciousness, the consciousness of death and the compensatory urge to create lasting monuments of the mind” (Vinson, 493). “The world, Gardner seems to be suggesting in his violent, inspiring, awesome, terrifying narrative, has to defeat its Grendels, yet somehow, he hints… that world is a poorer place when men and their monsters cannot coexist” (Christian Science Monitor). The novels of John Gardner, who died in 1982, represent, “in the eyes of many critics and reviewers, a new and exhilarating phase in the enterprise of modern writing, a consolidation of the resources of the contemporary novel and a leap forward—or backward—into a reestablished humanism” (Paris Review). “First Edition” on copyright page. With illustrations from line drawings by Emil Antonucci. A fine copy.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 5 18 * * * "THE MOST SIGNIFICANT WORK OF FICTION ABOUT THE BUSINESS OF WRITING FICTION" 18. GISSING, George. New Grub Street. A Novel. London, 1891. Three volumes. Octavo, original green cloth, custom box. $5200 First edition of the most famous and “best work” by Gissing, whose singular perspective on the work of writing and “the sterling originality of his art, have secured his place in the history of the English novel,” in original cloth. New Grub Street, Gissing’s “finest novel,” is widely seen as the “most significant work of fiction about the business of writing fiction. Q.D. Leavis… singled out New Grub Street as his ‘best work’… [and] in an unpublished piece written in 1948, Orwell called it ‘Gissing’s masterpiece’” (Matz, George Gissing’s Ambivalent Realism). “The continued relevance of Gissing’s work… is undoubted, and his finest interpreters now tend to view him as an intellectual who rose to be the conscience of his time… his lucid, if pessimistic, judgments on human affairs, as well as the sterling originality of his art, have secured his place in the history of the English novel” (ODNB). The novel’s title “refers to London’s Grub Street, which, Gissing noted, became known in the 18th century as the ‘abode, not merely of poor, but of insignificant, writers.’” Gissing was “fully awake to the conflicts and illusions of his own age… New Grub Street acts as a mirror that distorts and simultaneously reveals… the features of a writer—of anyone—struggling to maintain integrity” in his work and life (New York Times). The novel “remains to this day the most devastating fictive portrayal of the conflict between materialism and idealism in the literary and journalistic worlds” (Washington Post). First edition, first printing. With half titles; rear leaf of publisher’s ads (I). As issued without dust jackets. One of reportedly only 500-750 copies printed. Sadleir 971. Wolff 2552. Collie IXa. Owner signatures to title page in each volume. Text very fresh with mild rubbing, light edge-wear to cloth. A desirable near-fine copy.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 5 19 * * * "HER VERY OWN REAL AND TERRIBLE AND LONELY AND DARK MEMORY": FIRST EDITION OF GAYL JONES' CORREGIDORA, 1975 19. JONES, Gayl. Corregidora. New York, 1975. Octavo, original half brown cloth, dust jacket. $4800 First edition of this Black literary classic about oppression and abuse, “a short, baroque novel about love and history in Truman-era Kentucky” (New Yorker). “Gayl Jones’s first novel, Corregidora (1975), was both shocking and ground-breaking in its probing of the psychological legacy of slavery and sexual ownership through the life of a Kentucky blues singer. Published when Jones was 26, it predated Alice Walker’s The Color Purple and Toni Morrison’s Beloved, revealing an unfinished emancipation and the power of historical memory to shape lives. It also marked a shift in African-American literature that made women, and relationships between black people, central” (Guardian). Book about-fine, dust jacket near-fine with only mild rubbing and toning to extremities and a couple tiny marks along bottom edge. A lovely copy.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 5 20 * * * 20. JOYCE, James. Ulysses. Paris, 1922. Quarto, original blue paper wrappers. $52,000 First edition of the novel that changed the path of modern literature, number 456 of only 750 numbered copies on handmade paper, in the now-iconic original paper wrappers. “The novel is universally hailed as the most influential work of modern times” (Grolier Joyce 69). After working seven years on Ulysses, Joyce, desperate to find a publisher, turned to Sylvia Beach of Shakespeare and Company in Paris. “Within a month of the publication, the first printing of Ulysses was practically sold out, and within a year Joyce had become a well-known literary figure. Ulysses was explosive in its impact on the literary world of 1922… Then began the great game of smuggling the edition into countries where it was forbidden, especially England and the United States. The contraband article was transported across the seas and national borders in all sorts of cunning ways” (de Grazia, 27). Of the 1000 copies of the first edition, 100 copies were printed on Holland paper and were signed by Joyce, 150 copies were printed on vergé d’Arches paper, and the other 750 copies, numbered 251 to 1000, were printed on slightly less costly handmade paper, as here. Slocum A17. Interior fine, notoriously fragile original wrappers with minor restoration at spine ends, a few creases. An exceptionally attractive copy. "THE MOST INFLUENTIAL WORK OF MODERN TIMES": FIRST EDITION OF ULYSSES, IN ORIGINAL WRAPPERS
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 5 21 * * * "BECAUSE THE ONLY PEOPLE FOR ME ARE THE MAD ONES": LOVELY FIRST EDITION OF KEROUAC'S ON THE ROAD 21. KEROUAC, Jack. On the Road. New York, 1957. Octavo, original black cloth, dust jacket. Housed in a custom clamshell box. $7200 First edition of Kerouac’s second and most important novel, “a physical and metaphysical journey across America,” in colorful original dust jacket. “Between 1947 and 1950, Neal Cassady and Jack Kerouac took off on a freewheeling journey through the USA and Mexico in search of something outside their domestic experience. Ten years later their adventures were related in On the Road… The novel’s composition has become a well-known anecdote in its own right. Returning home from his wanderings, Kerouac spent almost a year pondering how (specifically, in what form) he might convey the life he had been living. Several false starts were made, but in April 1951 he fed a 120-foot roll of teletype into his typewriter, typed for three weeks and the result, largely unrevised, was On the Road” (Parker, 339). “Just before Jack Kerouac died in 1969, he told Neal Cassady that he feared he would die like Melville, unknown and unappreciated in his own time… On the Road has become a classic of the Beat Movement with its stream-of-consciousness depiction of the rejection of mainstream American values set in a physical and metaphysical journey across America” (Book in America, 136). Bruccoli & Clark I:217. Book fine. Dust jacket with minor edgewear and a few shorts tears and creasing; spine toned just a bit, with a bit of loss to spine ends. An extremely good copy.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 5 22 * * * "WHAT IS PORNOGRAPHY TO ONE MAN IS THE LAUGHTER OF GENIUS TO ANOTHER": FIRST EDITION OF LADY CHATTERLEY'S LOVER, SIGNED BY LAWRENCE 22. LAWRENCE, D.H. Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Florence, 1928. Octavo, original pictorial mulberry paper boards expertly respined, custom cloth chemise and half morocco slipcase. $8500 First edition of this controversial and oft-banned novel, number 45 of only 1000 copies signed by Lawrence. Available by subscription only in this private Florence printing and banned in England and America for obscenity, Lady Chatterley’s Lover was Lawrence’s most ambitious attempt to present his vision of the mystery and wonder of sex. Lawrence described the book as “beautiful and tender and frail as the naked self,” but in England and the United States police and customs officials routinely confiscated and destroyed any copies they could find and prosecuted the booksellers. Lady Chatterley’s Lover was not available in the U.S. until Grove Press brought the matter to court in 1959, over 30 years after the publication of the first edition. Without rare original dust jacket. Roberts 42a. Pencil owner signature. Occasional soiling to interior, very faint soiling to boards. Near-fine condition.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 5 23 * * * INSCRIBED BY HARPER LEE 23. LEE, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. New York, 1995. Octavo, original half black cloth, dust jacket. $2200 Thirty-fifth Anniversary edition, later printing, inscribed by Harper Lee on the half title in blue ink, “Best wishes, Harper Lee.” First published in 1960, Harper Lee’s portrayal of life in a small Alabama town captured the essence of the South at one of its most pivotal times. To Kill a Mockingbird became an immediate bestseller and won the 1961 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. A fine copy.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 5 24 * * * "ONE OF THE TOWERING NOVELS OF THE 20TH CENTURY" 24. LOWRY, Malcolm. Under the Volcano. New York, 1947. Octavo, original cloth, dust jacket. $3800 First edition, first printing, of Lowry’s finest novel, one of the 20th century’s “few authentic masterpieces.” Hailed as “a masterpiece… one of the towering novels of the 20th century,” Lowry’s tour-de-force is the tragic narrative of the final, desperate day of a former British Consul drinking himself to death in Mexico (New York Times). “As with all tragic heroes (and this novel is genuine tragedy) the Consul sums up the flaws which are latent or actual in all of us: like Marlowe’s Faustus, he excites pity and terror… By the end of the century Under the Volcano may be seen as one of its few authentic masterpieces” (Burgess, 99 Novels, 38). Yet the novel was nearly refused publication. After publisher Jonathan Cape rejected a fourth draft in 1945, Lowry wrote a long defense of it, arguing that the book’s seeming incoherence was part of its poetic quality, and that passages of drug-induced narration by the Consul symbolized “the universal drunkenness of mankind during the war, and during the period immediately preceding it.” Impressed, Cape agreed to publish the novel with no changes, to great critical success. “To describe his perennial theme, Lowry once borrowed the words of the critic Edmund Wilson: ‘the forces in man which cause him to be terrified of himself’” (Lacayo, Time: All Time 100 Novels). Basis for the John Huston film with Albert Finney (who was nominated for an Oscar). First edition, first printing with no edition or printings on copyright page. First-issue dust jacket with $3.00 on front flap; “Advance critical acclaim” and four advance reviews from Alfred Kazan, Robert Penn Warren, Conrad Aiken and Stephen Spender on back panel. Published the same year as the English edition, no priority established. Book with just a few instances of marginal ink stains, bright dust jacket with two-inch closed tear to front spine head fold, a bit of shallow chipping to spine head. A near-fine copy, unusual in such condition.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 5 25 * * * “THE MAJOR ESTHETIC ACHIEVEMENT OF ANY LIVING AMERICAN WRITER”: FIRST EDITION OF BLOOD MERIDIAN, INSCRIBED BY CORMAC MCCARTHY 25. MCCARTHY, Cormac. Blood Meridian, or The Evening Redness in the West. New York, 1985. Octavo, original half red cloth, dust jacket. $28,000 First edition of McCarthy’s mythic vision of the American West, inscribed by him, “For Bonnie All the best from your friend Cormac.” Compared 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). Here “landscape and existence assume a mythic, phantasmagoric quality… a total repudiation of the romantic versions of the Old West and a projection in their place of nightmare” (Publisher’s Weekly). Little noticed at the time of publication, most copies of the first edition were remaindered— this copy, however, has no remainder mark on the bottom of the text block. Book with a bit of soiling along front joint; dust jacket with one small closed tear to front panel, minimal wear to spine ends, crease to front flap. A near-fine copy.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 5 26 * * * "MCKAY'S FINEST NOVEL": FIRST EDITION OF BANANA BOTTOM, 1933, CLAUDE MCKAY'S FINAL NOVEL 26. MCKAY, Claude. Banana Bottom. New York, 1933. Octavo, original orange and white floral cloth. $3400 First edition of the final novel by Claude McKay—"one of the most prominent and militant voices for racial equality in the early years of the Harlem Renaissance”—a splendid copy in original cloth. A pivotal figure of the Harlem Renaissance, McKay was “an important pioneer in African American and African Caribbean intellectual, cultural and literary history” (Oxford Companion to African American Literature). “One of the most prominent and militant voices for racial equality in the early years of the Harlem Renaissance… his fierce artistic and political independence earned him the respect of young writers” (Bader, African-American Writers, 2745). Banana Bottom, published the decade before his death, is “often identified as McKay’s finest novel. It tells the story of Bita Plant, who returns to Jamaica after being educated in England and struggles to form an identity that reconciles the aesthetic values imposed upon her with her appreciation for her native roots” (ANB). With this defining work, set in the nation of his birth, McKay offers a complex and “careful analysis of the modern global economy and Jamaica’s place within it” (Nicholls, Folk as Alternative Modernity). In both his life and writings McKay was, as well, “an instrumental role model for the founders of the Negritude movement and a resonant historical reference for the Black Nationalism during the civil rights era” (Oxford Companion). First edition, first printing: copyright page with “First Edition”; code “B-H” indicating publication in February 1933. Without very rare dust jacket; with laid-in printed sections from original front flap and rear panel of dust jacket. Not in Blockson. A fine copy. A fine copy.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 5 27 * * * "MY DEAR, I DON'T GIVE A DAMN" 27. MITCHELL, Margaret. Gone with the Wind. New York, 1936. Thick octavo, modern full grey morocco gilt, raised bands, marbled endpapers. $4500 First edition, first printing, of this American classic. “This is beyond doubt one of the most remarkable first novels produced by an American writer. It is also one of the best… It has been a long while since the American public has been offered such a bounteous feast of excellent storytelling” (New York Times Book Review, 1936). Said to be the fastest selling novel in the history of American publishing (50,000 copies in a single day), Gone with the Wind won Mitchell the Pulitzer Prize. First printing, with “Published May, 1936” on the copyright page and no mention of other printings. Without scarce original dust jacket. Books of the Century, 111. Eicher 730. In Tall Cotton 125. Text fine, beautifully bound.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 5 28 * * * "ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL, BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS": RARE FIRST EDITION OF ORWELL'S ANIMAL FARM 28. ORWELL, George. Animal Farm: A Fairy Story. London, 1945. Slim octavo, original green cloth, dust jacket. $28,500 First edition, first printing, of Orwell’s “savagely ironical allegory” (Clute & Grant) on the gap between radical ideals and reality, his most famous and widely read work, an exceptional copy in original dust jacket. “A political fable that partly recounts, in an allegorical mode, the aftermath of the Russian revolution, and partly illustrates a belief in the universal tendency of power to corrupt” (Stringer, 22). “Animal Farm, which owes something to Swift and Defoe, is [Orwell’s] masterpiece” (Connolly 93). Because of wartime paper shortages, the first printing of this book was only 4500 copies and the dust jacket was usually printed on the reverse of Searchlight Books jackets (as here in blue). With “May 1945” imprint. Fenwick A.10a. Fantasy and Horror 5-236. Book with very slight foxing to endpapers only, toning to spine ends; dust jacket bright and crisp with minimal wear. A nearly fine copy.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 5 29 * * * ONE OF THE FIRST PUBLICATIONS OF PUSHKIN IN ENGLISH 29. PUSHKIN, Alexander. The Bakchesarian Fountain. By Alexander Pooshkeen. And Other Poems, by Various Authors. Philadelphia, 1849. 12mo, original tan printed paper wrappers respined and recornered; 72 pp, custom box. $6200 First edition in English of Pushkin’s popular third book. This translation of Bakhchisaraiskii Fontan (Moscow 1824) is one of the poet’s first appearances in English, published 12 years after his death in a duel, preceded by G. Borrow’s translation of The Talisman published in St. Petersburg in 1835. This edition stands as an important early example of American interest in Russian literature, interest which would blossom in the next half-century with the publication of works by Tolstoy, Gogol, Turgenev, Dostoevsky, and others. Translator William Lewis lived and worked in Russia in the early 1820s; during that time he became the friend of Nikolai Ivanovich Grech, editor of the Syn Otechestva (a weekly magazine), who introduced him into the literary group that met at the home of the poet Derzhavin. Twenty-five years after leaving Russia the present work was privately published and received an enthusiastic review from his friend Grech. Contains as well a section of “Amatory and other Poems” by P. Pelsky, Dmeetrief, Melaidinsky, N. M. Shatroff, Merzliakoff and Derzhavin. Translated from the original Russian by William D. Lewis. Kilgour 876 note. Line A12. Only minor marginal foxing and soiling to interior, inch of tape residue along spine edge of wrappers. An extremely good copy. Scarce.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 5 30 * * * V., THOMAS PYNCHON’S FIRST NOVEL 30. PYNCHON, Thomas. V. Philadelphia, (1963). Octavo, original lavender cloth, dust jacket. $4500 First edition, advance review copy, of Pynchon’s first novel, with publisher’s review slip laid in, in first-issue jacket. V.’s far-reaching scope and complexity established Pynchon as one of the most imaginative voices of the postwar era. “Inconclusive, gripping, confusing in outline but convincing in detail, V. is a blackly comic odyssey into the occult corners and bizarre anxieties of 20th-century Europe and America” (Parker, 403). First-issue dust jacket, without reviews on rear panel. Mead A1a. This advance review copy contains a laid-in review slip from J.B. Lippincott, the publisher, on which the publication date has been hand-altered from March 20, 1963 to March, 18, 1963. Book nearfine, with slightest toning and only a couple tiny spots of foxing to top edges. Dust jacket near-fine, with only minor rubbing. A lovely copy.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 5 31 * * * "A DIFFERENT STORY FROM THE ONE YOU LEARNED IN SCHOOL": FIRST EDITION OF SHAARA'S PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING KILLER ANGELS 31. SHAARA, Michael. The Killer Angels. A Novel. New York, 1974. Octavo, original blue paper boards, dust jacket. $4000 First edition of Shaara’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, one of the most popular and acclaimed works of Civil War fiction. “Stephen Crane once said that he wrote The Red Badge of Courage because reading the cold history was not enough; he wanted to know what it was like to be there, what the weather was like, what men’s faces looked like. In order to live it he had to write it. This book was written for much the same reason” (Shaara). “A book that changed my life… I had never visited Gettysburg, knew almost nothing about that battle before I read the book, but here it all came alive” (Ken Burns). Owner ink signature. Book with shallow chip to foot of spine, interior clean; dust jacket with minuscule rubs at spine ends. A bright, near-fine copy.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 5 32 * * * FIRST EDITION OF UNCLE TOM’S CABIN WITH CRUIKSHANK’S ILLUSTRATIONS, VERY RARE FIRST ISSUE IN ORIGINAL WRAPPERS 32. STOWE, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Tom’s Cabin. With Twenty-seven Illustrations on Wood by George Cruikshank. London, 1852. Thirteen parts. Octavo, original pale yellow wrappers, custom chemise, box. $8100 Second English edition (published the same year as the Boston first edition) of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s galvanizing novel of slavery, the first to feature illustrations by celebrated artist George Cruikshank, in the very fragile original thirteen issues. “The social impact of Uncle Tom’s Cabin on the United States was greater than that of any book before or since” (PMM 332). Harriet Beecher Stowe’s controversial novel proved immediately successful upon its publication in book form, and publishers in England, aware of the nation’s large and vocal anti-slavery contingent, quickly issued their own editions (14 English editions appeared in 1852 alone). This edition, with frontispiece, title page vignette and 27 full-page wood engravings after George Cruikshank, is frequently referred to as the first English edition; however, BAL asserts that the C.H. Clarke edition was advertised as being available in April 1852, while the first part of Cassell’s edition was not available until October 1852. As noted in the Cruikshank bibliography, the edition in parts was printed “in yellow paper printed wrappers of very poor quality, and hence difficult to get in a good state” (Cohn, George Cruikshank: A Catalogue Raissoné, 777). See: BAL 19518, Note; Grolier English 100 91; Grolier American 100 61. Cohn 777. Fragile wrappers fresh and clean with virtually no wear. Very rare in such outstanding condition.
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