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baumanrarebooks.com | 1-800-97-BAUMAN (1-800-972-2862) | [email protected] @baumanrarebooks facebook.com/baumanrarebooks @baumanrarebooks cover, no. 23 left, no. 24 NEW YORK 485 Madison Avenue New York, NY 10022 212-751-0011 Monday - Saturday: 10am-6pm LAS VEGAS Grand Canal Shoppes The Venetian | The Palazzo 3327 Las Vegas Boulevard South Suite 2856 Las Vegas, NV 89109 702-948-1617 Daily: 10am-8pm PHILADELPHIA 1608 Walnut Street Philadelphia, PA 19103 215-546-6466 Open by appointment All books are shipped on approval and are fully guaranteed. Any items may be returned within ten days for any reason (please notify us before returning). All reimbursements are limited to original purchase price. We accept all major credit cards. Shipping and insurance charges are additional. Packages will be shipped by UPS or Federal Express unless another carrier is requested. Next-day or second-day air service is available upon request.
FEATURING No. 1 Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salilnger No. 23 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll No. 25 Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry No. 39 Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
• 1 • 01SALINGER, J.D. Franny and Zooey. Boston, 1961. Octavo, original gray cloth, dust jacket. Housed in a custom chemise and clamshell box. $150,000 First edition of Salinger’s third book, presentation/association copy, inscribed by him to his close friend Lillian Ross, staff writer at the New Yorker, “To Lillian, with love and great and special pleasure. Jerry Cornish, N.H. 7/29/61.” Inscribed copies of Salinger’s books are notoriously rare, and the close association this copy has with Salinger makes it particularly desirable. Salinger planned a series of stories on Franny, Zooey and the Glass family. “I’ve been waiting for them most of my life,” he wrote, “and I think I have fairly decent, monomaniacal plans to finish them with due care and all-available skill.” “Franny” originally appeared in The New Yorker in 1955; “Zooey” followed two years later. To John Updike, “Salinger’s conviction that our inner lives greatly matter peculiarly qualifies him to sing of an America where, for most of us, there seems little to do but to feel” (New York Times). Stated “First Edition” on copyright page. Salinger met Lillian Ross through New Yorker editor William Shawn, to whom Salinger dedicated Franny and Zooey. The two traded fan letters— her letter on “Zooey” led to Salinger’s on her Hemingway profile—inaugurating a friendship that lasted through many publications by each author, occasional dinners and family visits, and many epistolary exchanges for decades on topics literary, professional and personal. In her memoir Here But Not Here, Ross writes of her working life and love life with Shawn: “When it comes to writing, along with what Bill taught me, I’ve learned the most from Salinger. He’s one of the best we’ve ever had.” She noted that “Of all the scores of writers Bill dealt with over the years, including some that were old friends, only Salinger would go out of his way to be helpful to Bill without asking for anything in return. Ross wrote to Salinger to thank him for this inscribed copy: “I’ve been carrying the book all over town with me since it arrived this morning. It’s perfect, naturally, inside and out… The jacket looks terrific—there’s no way of talking about it; it’s too good. What you say on it should hold a lot of people up for a long time, even if ‘distinguished’ fellows here and there try to put a little carbon monoxide back into the fresh air. I cherish the inscription. In fact, things are looking up all over, it makes it seem, now that the book is here. I’m going to read it backwards. Thank you and bless you and Love, Lillian.” Stated “First Edition” on copyright page. Bixby A4a. Starosciak A40. Bruccoli & Clark I:315. Book and jacket with very mild toning to extremities, jacket with a bit of soiling to rear panel. Near-fine condition. "TO LILLIAN, WITH LOVE AND GREAT AND SPECIAL PLEASURE": FIRST EDITION OF SALINGER'S FRANNY AND ZOOEY, RARE PRESENTATION COPY INSCRIBED TO LILLIAN ROSS, NEW YORKER STAFF WRITER
• 2 • 02TOLKIEN, J.R.R. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. The Two Towers. The Return of the King. London, 1954-55. Three volumes. Octavo, original red cloth, original dust jackets, custom clamshell box. $70,000 First editions, in original dust jackets, of all three volumes of Tolkien’s stirring tour de force: his richly imagined, elegantly crafted and wildly popular vision of the battle for the fate of Middle-Earth. “The most influential fantasy novel ever written” (Clute & Grant, 951). Although immediately occasioned by his publisher’s request for a sequel to The Hobbit (1937), Tolkien’s incomparable epic draws on lore, legends and languages of Middle-Earth that he had been creating since the First World War. He wrote The Lord of the Rings during World War II in letters to his son, “and finally, having polished it to his own satisfaction, published it as a trilogy from 1954 to 1955, a volume at a time, impatiently awaited by a growing audience… [It is considered] one of this century’s lasting contributions to that borderland of literature between youth and age… [It] seems destined to become this century’s contribution to that select list of books which continue through the ages to be read by children and adults with almost equal pleasure” (Eyre, 134-35). “Many critics, including W.H. Auden, praised it as an extraordinary achievement” (DNB). “Of all popular bestsellers, The Lord of the Rings is the one most likely to be read over and over again” (Shippey, 306). Large folding maps, printed in black and red, at rear of each book. Return of the King in Hammond’s revised first state, with no mark “4” and straight type on page 49. Hammond & Anderson A5a. Fantasy and Horror 5-289. Pringle, Modern Fantasy, 60-61. Fantasy 100Best, 161-62. Dust jacket on Return of the King price-clipped. Books with only light wear to cloth, inner paper hinge split on Fellowship of the Ring, closed tear to bottom edge of pages 93-94; dust jackets with uniform toning to spines, mild soiling, dust jacket on Fellowship of the Ring with foxing, a bit of color offset from cloth. A very good unrestored set. “THE MOST INFLUENTIAL FANTASY NOVEL EVER WRITTEN”: EXCEPTIONAL FIRST EDITIONS OF ALL THREE VOLUMES OF THE LORD OF THE RINGS, IN ORIGINAL DUST JACKETS
• 3 • “THE MOST INFLUENTIAL WORK OF MODERN TIMES”: FIRST EDITION OF ULYSSES, IN ORIGINAL WRAPPERS 03JOYCE, 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.
• 4 • “ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL, BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS”: RARE FIRST EDITION OF ORWELL’S ANIMAL FARM 04ORWELL, 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.
• 5 • “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 05STEINBECK, John. The Grapes of Wrath. New York, 1939. Octavo, original pictorial beige cloth, dust jacket. Housed in a custom clamshell box. $28,500 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. Salinas Public Library, 29. Bruccoli & Clark I:354. Slight discoloration to cloth along spine joints, much less than typical; jacket bright and beautiful with only faintest toning along top margin. A stunning copy, most rare in this condition.
• 6 • “THE MOST LITERARY HUNTING TRIP ON RECORD”: INSCRIBED FIRST EDITION OF HEMINGWAY’S GREEN HILLS OF AFRICA 06HEMINGWAY, Ernest. Green Hills of Africa. New York, 1935. Octavo, original light green cloth, dust jacket, custom box. $25,000 First edition of Hemingway’s gripping account of big game hunting, inscribed to the president of the American Museum of Natural History, “For F. Trubee Davison / hoping (I won’t bore him too much and) it will remind him a little of Africa / Ernest Hemingway.” Between the publication of Winner Take Nothing (1933) and To Have and Have Not (1937), “Hemingway went to Africa to shoot the bounding kudu and the ungainly rhinoceros and to reply to his critics. The result is Green Hills of Africa… It is the most literary hunting trip on record” (New York Times). Here Hemingway “attempted to write an absolutely true book to see whether the shape of a country and the pattern of a month’s action can, if truly presented, compete with a work of the imagination” (Foreword). With Scribner “A” on copyright page, indicating first printing (10,550 copies). Serialized in Scribner’s Magazine in seven installments, May-November, 1935. Decorations by Edward Shenton. Dust jacket Grissom’s “B” (both A and B were from the first printing), with green band on rear panel extending through nine inlines of the 18-line blurb. Hanneman A13a. Grissom A.13.1.a. Bruccoli & Clark I:179. The recipient of this copy, F. Trubee Davison (1896–1974) was the United States Assistant Secretary of War and President of the American Museum of Natural History. During World War I, he formed the “First Yale Unit,” the first naval air reserve unit. After the war, Davison served as Assistant Secretary of War for Air from 1926-1933, when he was asked to head the American Museum of Natural History in New York. He quickly set off to Africa in 1934 to enhance the collection at the Natural History Museum, begun by Theodore Roosevelt and Carl Akeley, with four additional elephants. While in Africa, in the company of Martin and Osa Johnson, Davison met Hemingway before an elephant hunt. Hemingway sent this copy of Green Hills to Davison in November of 1935, with Davison writing to thank Hemingway on November 15, 1935. (Ernest Hemingway Collection–JFK Library–EHPP-IC06-018). With a copy of Davison’s letter and related provenance material laid in. Cloth with sunning to the fugitive green ink on the spine and board edges, as is common, cloth clean and fresh; dust jacket, supplied from another copy, with edge-wear and toning, a few stains. A very good inscribed copy with an excellent association.
• 7 • 1609-10 FIRST EDITION OF THE FIRST ROMAN CATHOLIC OLD TESTAMENT IN ENGLISH 07BIBLE. The Holie Bible Faithfully Translated into English, out of the Authentical Latin… Douai, 160910. Two volumes. Quarto, contemporary vellum rebacked in vellum at an early date, ink writing on spines and front boards, custom slipcase, box. $25,000 Scarce first edition of the first Roman Catholic translation of the Old Testament into English, from the Latin Vulgate. “The Douai Bible is, as it professes to be, a literal translation of the Vulgate, and in some places more accurately hands down the very words of the [biblical] writers than any English translation then existing” (Dore, 316-17). “This version of the Old Testament… came from the same hands as the Rheims New Testament of 1582” (Darlow & Moule, 129), translated by “religious refugees who carried their faith and work abroad. Since the English Protestants used their vernacular translations, not only as the foundation of their own faith but as siege artillery in the assault on Rome, a Catholic translation became more and more necessary in order that the faithful could answer, text for text, against the ‘intolerable ignorance and importunity of the heretics of this time.’ The chief translator was Gregory Martin… Technical words were transliterated rather than translated. Thus many new words came to birth… Not only was [Martin] steeped in the Vulgate, he was, every day, involved in the immortal liturgical Latin of his church. The resulting Latinisms added a majesty to his English prose, and many a dignified or felicitous phrase was silently lifted by the editors of the King James Version, and thus passed into the language” (Great Books and Book Collectors, 108). Lack of funds and “our poore estate in banishment” prevented the publication of this twovolume Old Testament until 1609-1610. With ornamental woodcut title borders, woodcut initials, and ornamental head- and tail-pieces. The Bible 100 Landmarks 65, 66. The Bible in the Lilly Library 39, 40. Dore, 291-98. Herbert 177, 300. Darlow & Moule 231. Pierpont Morgan Library, The Bible 112. Rumball-Petre, 15. Rylands, 95, 96. STC 2884. Herbert 300. STC 2207. Pierpont Morgan Library, The Bible 115. An early ink annotations to front endpapers of Volume II. Text just occasionally embrowned, with infrequent light foxing; last 1-3 letters of bottom 19 lines supplied in an early pencil on page 1079 of the first volume; last 20 leaves of Volume II with expert cleaning, later pastedowns with free endpapers restored and preserved. Expected light soiling to contemporary vellum.
• 8 • CHURCHILL’S BRILLIANT HISTORY OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR, INSCRIBED BY HIM IN THE FIRST VOLUME 08CHURCHILL, Winston. The Second World War: The Gathering Storm; Their Finest Hour; The Grand Alliance; The Hinge of Fate; Closing the Ring; Triumph and Tragedy. London, 1948-54. Six volumes. Octavo, original black cloth, dust jackets. $22,000 First English editions of Churchill’s WWII masterpiece, part history and part memoir, written after he lost reelection as Prime Minister, inscribed by him on the title page of the first volume in the year of publication, “Inscribed by Winston S. Churchill 1948.” The six volumes of Churchill’s masterpiece were published separately between 1948 and 1954. With the Second World War, Churchill “pulled himself back from humiliating [electoral] defeat in 1945, using all his skills as a writer and politician to make his fortune, secure his reputation, and win a second term in Downing Street” (Reynolds, xxiii). “Winston himself affirmed that ‘this is not history: this is my case’” (Holmes, 285). Churchill was re-elected to the post of Prime Minister in 1951. “The Second World War is a great work of literature, combining narrative, historical imagination and moral precept in a form that bears comparison with that of the original master chronicler, Thucydides. It was wholly appropriate that in 1953 Churchill was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature” (Keegan, 175). Although preceded by the American editions, the English editions are generally preferred for their profusion of diagrams, maps, and facsimile documents. With tipped-in errata slip (I). Cohen A240.4. Woods A123b. Langworth, 254. Contemporary owner signatures in first three volumes. Contemporary review tipped to rear pastedowns of Volumes II and III. Small bookseller ticket in Volume V. Volume VI dust jacket price-clipped. Interiors fine, cloth of Volumes II and III faintly rubbed; dust jackets with shallow chipping and sticker residue to spines of first four volumes, spines mildly toned. Near-fine condition.
• 9 • “THE WAR AND PEACE OF ENGLISH POETRY”: BYRON’S MASTERPIECE, DON JUAN, 1819-24, HANDSOME FIRST EDITION SET 09BYRON. Don Juan. London, 1819-21; 1823-24. Six volumes bound in three. Quarto and octavo, contemporary (quarto) and modern (octavo) three-quarter polished tan calf gilt. $17,000 Scarce first editions of Byron’s great work—Cantos I-XVI complete in six volumes, with Volume I the scarce first issue, in quarto format—very handsomely bound. “The War and Peace of English poetry, Don Juan contains… an epic sweep that moves from Spain, to the East, and to Russia before ending in England… At the same time that Byron’s broad canvas foretells the scope of the great 19th-century novels, the poet’s own sensibilities echo the picaresque 18thcentury novels of his early reading, Smollett and Fielding, with their bawdy humor and sly inversions of vice and virtue. Unlike these prose narratives, however, Don Juan has no beginning, middle, or end. It draws us in, not to learn ‘what happens next’ but to hear what this seductive, confidential, teasing voice is going to tell us” (Eisler, 610). Byron planned to have his hero Juan tour Europe “with a proper mixture of siege, battle, and adventure, and make him finish… in the French Revolution… I meant to have made him a Cavalier Servente in Italy, and a cause for divorce in England, and a Sentimental ‘Werther-faced man’ in Germany, so as to show the different ridicules of the society in each of those countries, and to have displayed him gradually gâté and blasé as he grew older, as is natural. But I had not quite fixed whether to make him end in Hell, or in an unhappy marriage, not knowing which would be the severest. The Spanish tradition says Hell: but it is probably only an Allegory of the other state” (letter to John Murray, February 1821). When Cantos I through V appeared, they did so without the name of either author or publisher on the title page. Publisher John Murray refused to print Byron’s dedicatory poem, which ridiculed English poet laureate Robert Southey, and Byron refused to put his name on a censored publication. Because of Byron’s change from his long-standing publisher Murray to John Hunt (brother of writer Leigh Hunt) midway through Don Juan, complete first-edition copies with all cantos are scarce. “The first editions of the four volumes of the last 11 Cantos of Don Juan were… issued in three sizes: ‘Large Paper’ or demy octavo, ‘Small Paper’ or foolscap octavo, and the ‘Common Edition’ or 18mo” (Randolph). Volume I was published in an edition of 1500 copies, 150 of which were destroyed by the publisher after this volume was reprinted in octavo format; the ‘largepaper’ octavos were issued in editions of 1500 copies, with ‘small-paper’ octavos in editions of 2500-3000 and 15,000 or so in the common edition (Randolph). This set consists of the quarto first editions of Cantos I and II with ‘Large Paper’ first editions of Cantos III-XVI; the scarce half titles and all advertisements are present as called for, as well as the erratum slip for Canto XVI. Randolph, 69, 74, 82-83, 86-87, 91. Wise II:3-8. Armorial bookplate in quarto volume. Quarto volume with light to moderate foxing, extremities slightly rubbed; octavo volumes bright and fresh. A desirable set.
• 10 • “BEWARE THE IDES OF MARCH”: SHAKESPEARE’S HISTORICAL TRAGEDY JULIUS CAESAR, EXTRACTED FROM THE THIRD FOLIO, 1664, SPLENDIDLY BOUND 10SHAKESPEARE. 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 folios are incomparably the most important work in the English language” (W.A. Jackson, Pforzheimer Catalogue). Leaves [Mmm5]-Ooo3 contain the play Julius Caesar. “The Shakespearean exuberance or gusto is part of what breaks through linguistic and cultural barriers… Shakespeare is to the world’s literature what Hamlet is to the imaginary domain of literary character: a spirit that permeates everywhere, that simply cannot be confined” (Bloom, The Western Canon, 52). Shakespeare is believed to have written Julius Caesar in 1599, drawing heavily from Thomas North’s English translation of Plutarch’s Lives. “Something extraordinary was beginning to happen as Shakespeare wrote Julius Caesar in the spring of 1599… as if all his energies were self-consciously focused on a new and different kind of invention… The result was a significant breakthrough,” richly expressed in “the extraordinary lines of Brutus, deep in thought, as he sets in motion one of the most consequential events in Western history. It’s one of Shakespeare’s first great soliloquies and conveys a sense of inwardness new to the stage” (Shapiro, Year in the Life, 134-35). The play also marked the first time the Bard drew on Sir Thomas North’s translation of Plutarch’s Lives (1579; reprinted 1595): “Shakespeare used portions of the lives of Caesar, Antony and Brutus and followed Plutarch very closely” (Bartlett, Mr. William Shakespeare, 47). 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.
• 11 • “IT IS A TRUTH UNIVERSALLY ACKNOWLEDGED, THAT A SINGLE MAN IN POSSESSION OF A GOOD FORTUNE, MUST BE IN WANT OF A WIFE” 11AUSTEN, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. London, 1833. 12mo, contemporary threequarter tan calf, gilt spine. Housed in a custom clamshell box. $15,000 Fourth edition of Austen’s most popular novel and the author’s favorite of all her works, the first to list Austen as the author by name and the first illustrated edition, with engraved frontispiece illustration and engraved vignette title page. “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). “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). First published in 1813, with a second edition within the same year and a third in 1817. This is the fourth overall edition, and first illustrated edition with engraved frontispiece illustration and engraved vignette title page, both done by Greatbatch after Pickering. Without half title. Gilson D5. Text generally quite clean, with occasional foxing; offsetting from frontispiece. Final leaf of text with expert repair along inner margin. Light wear to contemporary calf. A handsome copy.
• 12 • “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 12AUSTEN, Jane. Sense and Sensibility. London, 1833. 12mo, contemporary three-quarter tan calf gilt. Housed in a custom clamshell box. $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). With series title page noting that this is No. XXIII in Bentley’s Standard Novels series. Gilson D1. Early ink notation to last leaf of text. Infrequent faint foxing and soiling to text, rear inner paper hinge split; contemporary calf binding with a bit of expert restoration. A handsome copy.
• 13 • “LIGHT OF MY LIFE, FIRE OF MY LOINS”: FIRST EDITION OF LOLITA, 1955 13NABOKOV, Vladimir. Lolita. Paris, 1955. Two volumes. Small octavo, original green paper wrappers. Housed in a custom clamshell box. $10,800 First edition, first issue of one of the most famous and controversial novels of the 20th century. “Brilliant… One of the funniest and one of the saddest books that will be published this year” (New York Times). The saga of Lolita began well before its publication in 1955. A number of American publishers rejected it for fear of negative repercussions if they published such a “pornographic” work. When the Olympia Press in Paris finally issued the book, its first edition sold out quickly in Europe. It was not as warmly received abroad: The British government pressured the French to ban the novel, and no American edition saw print until 1958. First issue, with the price of “Francs: 900” on the rear wrappers (brisk sales spurred the publisher to raise the price later to 1200 francs). Field 0793. Juliar 428.1.1. Volume I wrappers showing light edge rubbing and a few small spots of soiling. A lovely copy in near-fine condition.
• 14 • SIGNED BY SYLVIA BEACH: FIRST EDITION OF HER MEMOIR, SHAKESPEARE AND COMPANY, CHRONICLING HER LEGENDARY PARIS BOOKSHOP AND PUBLICATION OF JOYCE’S ULYSSES 14BEACH, Sylvia. Shakespeare and Company. New York, 1959. Octavo, original ivory cloth, original dust jacket. Housed in a custom clamshell box. $8000 First edition of Sylvia Beach’s memoir, “particularly valuable for the many insights into Joyce’s work and the authentic personal views it provides of the man himself” (New York Times), signed on the half title by Sylvia Beach, in original dust jacket. It was in Sylvia Beach’s legendary Paris bookshop, Shakespeare and Company, that “James Joyce’s Ulysses was born.” In her memoir, Shakespeare and Company, Beach tells her story “with simplicity, freshness and modesty. And in doing so she succeeds in bringing back that whole small—but intensely creative—world around her bookshop and that of her friend, Adrienne Monnier… which was the center of so much French literary activity.” Her book “is particularly valuable for the many critical insights into Joyce’s work and the authentic personal views it provides of the man himself.” After her publication of Ulysses “on Joyce’s birthday, Feb. 2, 1922, Shakespeare and Company was known to writers the world over. No one failed to call… but it is finally Joyce whose portrait remains—a shy, quiet, infinitely curious, kindly, generous man… She shows us the artist whose complex existence was given to his work… As Beach says, ‘He treated people invariably as his equals’” (New York Times). An excerpt, Ulysses in Paris, was printed in 1956 for private distribution to friends of the author and publisher. Contemporary owner gift inscription. Book with interior fine and only slightest toning and couple spots of foxing to spine, dust jacket with only light wear to extremities. A near-fine signed copy.
• 15 • “AS I WAS, OR MIGHT HAVE BEEN”: FIRST EDITION OF THE MAP OF LOVE, SIGNED AND TWICE INSCRIBED BY DYLAN THOMAS 15THOMAS, Dylan. The Map of Love. Verse and Prose. London, 1939. Octavo, original purple cloth, dust jacket, custom slipcase. $8800 First edition in book form, twice inscribed by Thomas, once beneath the frontispiece portrait by Augustus John: “As I was, or might have been, to Norman Unger from [line pointing at name beneath portrait],” and a second time on the front free endpaper: “ Norman Unger. Dylan Thomas 1950.” Among the works included in this collection of poems and lyrical prose, which had all appeared in periodicals and which here make up Thomas’s third book, are “When all my Five and Country Senses see,” “After the Funeral,” “Not from this Anger,” and “The Mouse and the Woman.” First issue, in fine-grained purple cloth with “Dent” blind-stamped on spine. Maud, 5. Norman Unger, the inscribee of this copy, was one of the great collectors of modern first editions in the mid-20th century; Thomas inscribed a copy of his Twenty-Five Poems “To Norman Unger, my only collector.” Minor soiling to spine of price-clipped dust jacket, otherwise fine. A wonderful inscribed copy.
• 16 • “A MAJOR EVENT IN THEATRE”: RARE SIGNED FIRST EDITION OF T.S. ELIOT’S THE COCKTAIL PARTY 16ELIOT, T.S. The Cocktail Party. London, 1950. Octavo, original green cloth, dust jacket. $6000 First edition, uncommon first state, signed by Eliot and with an additional text correction bearing his initials. Partially inspired by Euripides’ Alcestis, Eliot’s comedy premiered at the Edinburgh Festival in August 1949 and opened in New York the following January, featuring Alec Guinness in his Broadway debut, reprising his role as the Unidentified Guest. Followed by a London premiere the same year, The Cocktail Party won the 1950 Tony Award for Best Play and was hailed as “a major event in theater… No recent play combines so much polish with so much wit” (Time). Issued with a scant number of first state copies (“a few hundred at most”) containing the misprint “here” for “her” on page 29, line 1 (Sackton A55a). “Copies with and without the error were bound up and issued simultaneously. The first copy delivered to the publishers did not contain the error” (Gallup A55a). Sackton A55a. Gallup A55a. The title page is neatly signed by Eliot, who also made the here/her correction at page 29 and added his initials in the margin. Book very nearly fine with traces of wear to spine; dust jacket very good with tiny chip to front panel and short tear at spine head.
• 17 • “MAN IS NOT MADE FOR DEFEAT”: LOVELY FIRST EDITION OF HEMINGWAY’S THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA 17HEMINGWAY, Ernest. The Old Man and The Sea. New York, 1952. Octavo, original blue cloth, original dust jacket. $6000 First edition of Hemingway’s classic story of Santiago and his epic battle with the marlin and the sharks, winning him the Pulitzer Prize in 1953 and contributing to his award of the 1954 Nobel Prize for Literature. 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, doing superbly what he can do better than anyone else” (New York Times). In this short novel Hemingway perfected the minimalist style that he had been honing and 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). With Scribner’s “A” beneath copyright notice; with no mention of the Nobel Prize on dust jacket. Hanneman A24a. Book with tape residue to front endpapers, otherwise fine; near-fine dust jacket with a few tiny rubs to front panel, slight toning to spine, with a bit of wear to spine head. A lovely copy.
• 18 • “IN OUR FAMILY, THERE WAS NO CLEAR LINE BETWEEN RELIGION AND FLY FISHING” 18MACLEAN, Norman. A River Runs Through It, and Other Stories. Chicago and London, (1976). Octavo, original blue cloth, dust jacket. $3600 First edition of Maclean’s first book, one of only 1577 copies printed. Maclean’s largely autobiographical title novella is drawn from his early years spent mostly in the Rocky Mountain region. Though critically acclaimed, the work received little attention until its adaptation as a major film, after which it achieved tremendous popular success. In addition to the title story, this collection includes “Logging and Pimping and ‘Your Pal, Jim’” and “USFS 1919: The Ranger, the Cook, and A Hole in the Sky.” First printing, with “adways” instead of “always” on page 27 and different ISBN numbers on the copyright page and the rear dust jacket flap. In first-issue dust jacket, without edition statement. Owner inkstamp. Faint foxing to top edge of text block; dust jacket with a bit of wear to spine ends, very mild toning to spine. A nearly fine copy.
• 19 • “A TAUT, REAL, STRENUOUS BOOK” 19WOOLF, Virginia. The Years. London, 1937. Octavo, original green cloth, dust jacket. $4200 First edition of the most ambitious and successful of Woolf’s later novels. Woolf struggled for four years with this novel, hoping to incorporate into a fictional form deep and meaningful commentary on the politics of the English middle class. Her efforts to revise, rewrite, and edit what would become her longest work led her to compare The Years to “a long childbirth.” When The Years was finally published audiences responded eagerly, making her truly wealthy for the first time in her life. As is usual with Woolf’s books, the jacket design is by her sister, Vanessa Bell. Kirkpatrick A22. Bell, 440. Interior fine; light rubbing to extremities of publisher’s cloth. Sunning to spine and light edge wear to extremities of extremely good dust jacket. An extremely good copy.
• 20 • “A SCREAMING COMES ACROSS THE SKY”: FIRST EDITION OF GRAVITY’S RAINBOW 20PYNCHON, Thomas. Gravity’s Rainbow. New York, 1973. Octavo, original red cloth, dust jacket. $3500 First edition of Pynchon’s National Book Award-winning 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. A beautiful copy in fine condition.
• 21 • “WALLACE’S ACHIEVEMENT WAS TO MAKE THINKING ABOUT THE FACTS OF POSTMODERN LIFE… ONE OF THE KEENEST PLEASURES OF BEING ALIVE” 21WALLACE, David Foster. Infinite Jest. Boston, 1996. Thick octavo, original blue paper boards, dust jacket. $4000 First edition of Wallace’s epic postmodern satire—”jubilantly anecdotal, winkingly sardonic” (New York Times)—inscribed on the title page by him with his printed name crossed over: “For ASA w/ BEST WISHES David Foster Wallace,” with an original sketch of a smiling face, in scarce first-issue dust jacket. The “buzzing, claustrophobic energy” of Wallace’s “mammoth 1079-page satire of America” immediately placed him in the company of Pynchon and DeLillo (Wall Street Journal). Here, as in all his work, “Wallace’s achievement was to make thinking about the effects of postmodern life, and thinking about thinking about them, one of the keenest pleasures of being alive” (Slate). One year after publication of this acclaimed novel, a work hailed as “jubilantly anecdotal, windingly sardonic and selfconsciously literary… Wallace received a MacArthur Foundation grant, the so-called genius award” (New York Times). He died tragically in 2008 at age 46. First-issue dust jacket, with uncorrected “Vollman” on rear panel. Book with slight soiling to text block edge; dust jacket with one short closed tear, a bit of faint soiling to rear panel. A near-fine copy.
• 22 • “THE BEST WE HAVE”: FAULKNER’S GO DOWN, MOSES, INCLUDING THE FIRST BOOK APPEARANCE OF “THE BEAR” 22FAULKNER, William. Go Down, Moses. New York, 1942. Octavo, original midnight blue cloth, dust jacket. $2500 First trade edition, first issue, of Faulkner’s masterpiece of interrelated short stories, with the first book appearance of “The Bear.” Go Down, Moses “was a landmark volume for Faulkner… Here we have the Southern dilemma, and Faulkner has transformed it into the American” (Karl, 665-67). “So committed was Faulkner to the expansive possibilities of the short story form that in Go Down, Moses he created what he always insisted was a novel composed entirely of interrelated stories previously published separately” (Gelfant, 252). One of the most acclaimed stories, “The Bear,” had appeared, in abbreviated form, in the Saturday Evening Post the same year (Brodsky 229); the coming-of-age tale remains one of Faulkner’s most anthologized. A contemporary review in the Boston Globe said of all the stories that they “represent William Faulkner at his best. Which is equivalent to saying the best we have.” First issue, in secondary midnight blue binding with top edge unstained. According to Peterson, “Wartime cloth shortages and a slow sale combined to force Random House to bind to order with materials at hand”; he describes this binding as “extremely scarce.” Stated “First Printing.” Both the trade and rare signed limited copies of this book are from the same printing. Brodsky 232-234. Petersen A23.2g. Book fine, dust jacket with light creasing, one short closed tear. A very attractive copy in near-fine condition.
• 23 • 23CARROLL, Lewis. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. WITH: Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There. WITH: The Hunting of the Snark. London, 1866, 1872, 1876. Three volumes. Octavo, twentieth-century full red calf gilt, raised bands, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. $26,000 First editions of “the greatest of all English stories for children” (Muir, 139), together with Carroll’s delightful “Odyssey of the Nonsensical,” handsomely bound in matching full calf by Zaehnsdorf. With the original cloth for Looking-Glass and Snark bound in. “Historians of children’s literature universally agree that the publication of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland marks the liberation of children’s books from the restraining hand of the moralists… The two Alice books… completed the reinstatement of the imagination, so long disapproved of by the opponents of fairy stories, to its proper place. Alice is, in a word, a book of that extremely rare kind which will belong to all the generations to come until the language becomes obsolete” (Carpenter & Prichard, 102). The Hunting of the Snark was originally intended for inclusion in Sylvie and Bruno, but it’s continually expanding scope justified its separate publication in 1876. “The poem describes with infinite humor the impossible voyage of an improbable crew to find an inconceivable creature. It has been called the ‘Odyssey of the Nonsensical,’ ‘a masterpiece with more nonsense to the foot than could be found in an acre of lesser stuff… The illustrations are noteworthy as a triumph of art over almost intractable material” (Williams & Madan). First published and authorized English edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, preceded only by the extraordinarily rare suppressed 1865 London edition, of which only about 20 copies are known to exist, and the scarce New York edition of 1866. First edition, first issue, of Through the Looking-Glass, with “wade” on page 21. Lewis Carroll Handbook 46 and 84. Williams 46. Bookplates. Faint owner signatures in last two volumes. Interiors quite clean, repaired tear to one leaf (13940) in Alice; uniform bindings lovely, with mild toning to spines and top edge of front boards of first two volumes, small rub to spine of Snark. A beautiful set. “CURIOUSER AND CURIOUSER!”: FIRST EDITIONS OF ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND AND THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS, WITH A FIRST EDITION OF THE HUNTING OF THE SNARK, UNIFORMLY BOUND
• 24 • “GREAT SPENSER’S NOBLE RHYME HAVE I ESSAYED TO PICTURE”: THE MAGNIFICENT CHISWICK PRESS FAERIE QUEENE, LAVISHLY ILLUSTRATED BY WALTER CRANE 24(CRANE, Walter, illustrator) SPENSER, Edmund. Spenser’s Faerie Queene. London, 1897. Six volumes. Quarto, contemporary threequarter vellum gilt, uncut. $5200 Limited first book-form edition of Walter Crane’s “most ambitious project of book illustration” (Lacy, 103), one of 1000 large-paper copies, with 88 splendid fullpage pen-and-ink line-cuts (two double-page), 135 illustrative head- and tailpieces by Crane, and six facsimile title pages from earlier editions. Handsomely bound by J. Adams of Manchester. “The noblest allegorical poem in our language—indeed the noblest allegorical poem in the world” (James Montgomery). Originally published in the late 16th century (the first three books in 1590 and the next three in 1596, with the “Mutabilitie Cantos” added in 1609), Spenser’s ambitious Arthurian allegory was the first epic that “both incorporated countless mythological and folkloric traditions and exemplified the careful design and poetic quality of written literature” (Clute & Grant, 890). Finely printed on handmade paper, the Chiswick Press edition, with notes and commentary by Thomas Wise, was originally issued in 19 parts (1894-96) and stands at the pinnacle of famous illustrator Walter Crane’s career. All front wrappers and rear wrappers bound in. Massé, 47. A splendid set of this delightful illustrated edition in fine condition.
• 25 • “IT IS ONLY WITH THE HEART THAT ONE CAN SEE RIGHTLY; WHAT IS ESSENTIAL IS INVISIBLE TO THE EYE”: FIRST EDITION OF SAINT-EXUPERY’S LE PETIT PRINCE 25SAINT-EXUPERY, Antoine de. Le Petit Prince. New York, 1943. Small quarto, original salmon cloth, dust jacket. $12,500 First edition in French of Saint-Exupery’s masterpiece, published the same year as the first in English. “Figuratively speaking, the tale has something of Hans Christian Andersen in it, something of Lewis Carroll, and even, it may be perhaps said, a bit of John Bunyan. It is often lyrical… sometimes profound… However it is classified, The Little Prince has entered children’s literature, in the manner of quite a few other such hard-to-define works in preceding centuries” (Pierpont Morgan 224). Le Petit Prince is “[a] gentle duet, [an] engaging exchange between two very different personalities who were, of course, both sides of Saint-Exupery: the disillusioned, skeptical and lonely pilot, and the innocent, otherworldly Little Prince” (Pearlman, 29). Published in salmon cloth and with no colophon on the final page. In first issue dust jacket, with publisher’s Fourth Avenue address on front flap. See Pearlman, Firsts 13:8, 22-29. Book with faint offsetting to endpapers, one small rub to front panel; scarce dust jacket with minor soiling, mostly to spine, and light wear to spine ends. A near-fine copy.
• 26 • 26SILVERSTEIN, Shel. Where the Sidewalk Ends: The Poems & Drawings of Shel Silverstein. New York, 1974. Small quarto, original brown cloth, dust jacket. $16,500 Rare first edition, presentation copy, of Silverstein’s first collection of witty and whimsical poetry, warmly inscribed by him on the front free endpapers with eleven lines of humorous verse “Nothing Rhymes,” signed by him with, with a drawing of a hand holding a pen finishing the signature. “The poems, ranging from serious to silly, from philosophical to ridiculous, allow the reader or listener—the rhyme and rhythm… make them perfect for reading aloud—to discover Silverstein’s greatest gift: his ability to understand the fears and wishes and silliness of children” (Silvey, 602). This collection’s colorful cast of characters includes, among others, Dirty Dan, “the dirtiest man in the world”; Jimmy Jet and his TV set—”He watched till his eyes were frozen wide, and his bottom grew into his chair…”; and “The Glurpy Slurpy Skakagrall—who’s standing right behind you.” The lengthy, warm inscription reads (in Silverstein’s characteristic all-caps lettering): “Nothing Rhymes. Nothing rhymes with Mercier / If you pronounce it Frenchly / If you’d pronounce it ‘Merican / You’d help me most immensely / ‘Cause then I’d write some versier / That would be terse or tersier / Cursory or cursier / Or maybe worse or worsier / So ‘Fol-de-rool, Fol-de-ray.’ / What the hell do you expect— / Nothing rhymes with Mercier / Love, Shel.” Book first edition, with “First edition” stated and nine-digit SBNs on copyright page (vs ten digit ISBNs). Dust jacket first issue, with price of $7.95 (rather than $8.95) and no mention of The Missing Piece on rear flap. Cotsen 10243. The “Mercier” of the inscription perhaps refers to Jean Mercier, the children’s book editor of Publisher’s Weekly, which printed Mercier’s interview with Silverstein in 1975, shortly after this book’s publication. Mild toning to cloth edges; dust jacket crisp but toned with a bit of soiling to rear panel. Rare and desirable with an original autograph poem signed by Silverstein. “WHAT THE HELL DO YOU EXPECT— NOTHING RHYMES WITH MERCIER”: FIRST EDITION OF WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS, WARMLY INSCRIBED WITH ELEVEN LINES OF HUMOROUS VERSE BY SHEL SILVERSTEIN
• 27 • 27BROWN, Margaret Wise; HURD, Clement, illustrator. The Runaway Bunny. New York and London, 1942. Oblong octavo, original green cloth, dust jacke, custom clamshell box. $32,000 First edition of Brown and Hurd’s perennial favorite about a little bunny who wanted to run away, a lovely copy in the scarce original dust jacket. “Brown’s books are still read by children—many of her books remain in print. Her goal, which she certainly achieved, was ‘to make a child laugh or feel clear and happy headed… to lift him for a few moments from his own problems of shoe laces that won’t tie and busy parents and mysterious clock time into the world of a bug or a bear or a bee or a boy living in the timeless world of a story” (DAB). “In a many-faceted, brief, but remarkable career, Brown pioneered in the writing of books for the nursery school ages; authored more than 100 volumes including the classic Runaway Bunny (1942) and Goodnight Moon (1947); served as a bridge between the worlds of publishing, progressive education, and the experimental arts of the 1930s and 1940s; and did much to make children’s literature a vital creative enterprise in her own time and afterward” (Silvey, 95). “Brown and Clement Hurd teamed up for a second time with The Runaway Bunny, in 1942. The hide-and-seek tale of a mother rabbit and her baby bunny was based on a medieval Provençal ballad. (Brown had spent two years at a Swiss boarding school, and her French was excellent.) The original included the lines: ‘If you pursue me I shall become a fish in the water and I shall escape you./ If you become a fish I shall become an eel./ If you become an eel I shall become a fox and I shall escape you.’ Brown’s fresh interpretation, which has since sold four million copies, gave readers ‘a little bunny who wanted to run away.’ ‘If you run after me,’ said the little bunny, ‘I will become a fish in a trout stream and I will swim away from you.’ ‘If you become a fish in a trout stream,’ said his mother, ‘I will become a fisherman and I will fish for you’… ‘If you become… I will become’ is the book’s gentle, reassuring refrain” (Vanity Fair, December 2000, pp. 17678). In the spring of 1941 Brown turned in her manuscript, and her editor loved it—except for the ending. After giving it some thought, Brown sent an additional line via telegraph, the final line of the finished book, “a simple addition that summed up the gentle current of love and humor throughout the book” (VF, 178): “’Have a carrot,’ said the mother bunny.” With publisher’s code “M-Q” on copyright page, indicating a printing date of December, 1941. Book beautiful and aboutfine, with one small bunny colored in; rare unrestored dust jacket with wear to spine, including loss of most of title lettering, toning to rear panel, front panel particularly bright and fresh. An excellent and desirable copy of this children’s classic. “ONCE THERE WAS A LITTLE BUNNY WHO WANTED TO RUN AWAY”: MARGARET WISE BROWN’S THE RUNAWAY BUNNY, SCARCE 1942 FIRST EDITION
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