Invisible Cities First Edition - Italo Calvino - Bauman Rare Books

Invisible Cities

Italo CALVINO

Item#: 112769 We're sorry, this item has been sold

Invisible Cities

"KUBLAI KHAN DOES NOT NECESSARILY BELIEVE EVERYTHING MARCO POLO SAYS…": CALVINO'S INVISIBLE CITIES

CALVINO, Italo. Invisible Cities. London: Secker & Warburg, (1974). Octavo, original half gray cloth, original dust jacket.

First English edition of William Weaver's translation of the Italian fantasist's remarkable novel, a dialogue between Kublai Khan and Marco Polo describing cities real and imagined.

"In this novel, which established his international reputation, Marco Polo describes to Kublai Khan 55 cities he has visited in his travels—all of them, as the title suggests, imaginary. Through this device Calvino meditates on ontological, cosmological, and ethical questions, a common feature of much of his work, but the imaginative detail of the descriptions of the cities is enjoyable for its own sake" (Barron). "His novels and stories and fables were both classically modernist and giddily postmodern, embracing both experiment and tradition, at once conceptual and humane, intimate and mythic… His prose was ambassadorial, his work a living bridge between Pliny the Elder, Franz Kafka and Italian neorealist cinema" (Jonathan Lethem, in The New York Times). Translator William Weaver "translated dozens of books, a dozen by Calvino alone, including Invisible Cities, which posits descriptive and philosophical conversations between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan, and a collection of short stories, Cosmicomics, for which Mr. Weaver won a National Book Award for translation in 1969" (The New York Times). The first edition was published in Italy as Le Città Invisibili in 1972; Weaver's English translation first published in New York by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich in 1974. Barron, Fantasy and Horror 7-63.

Book near-fine, dust jacket with some creasing to front flap, markings to rear panel, and faint sticker remnants to front panel, extremely good.

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Aquatint Copperplate process by which the plate is “bitten” by exposure to acid. By changing the areas of the plate that are exposed and the length of time the plate is submerged in the acid bath, the engraver can obtain fine and varying shades of gray that closely resemble watercolor washes. Although the name contains the word “tint”, this is a black-and-white printing process; aquatint plates can often be hand colored, however.
Armorial Used to describe a binding bearing the coat of arms of the original owner, or with bookplates incorporating the owner’s arms.
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Boards Hard front and rear covers of a bound book which are covered in cloth, leather or paper. “Original boards” refers to cardboard-like front and back boards, from about 1700 to 1840, used as temporary protection for books before their purchasers would have them bound. Of particular value to collectors as evidence of a very early form of the book.
Book-Plate Label, generally affixed to the front pastedown, identifying a book’s owner.
Broadside Sheet printed on one side, typically for public display, usually larger than folio size (a folio being a broadside-size sheet printed on both sides and folded once, to make four pages).
Calf Binding material made from cowhide—versatile, durable, usually tan or brown in color, of smooth texture with no or little apparent grain. Readily marbled (“tree calf”), mottled, diced, colored, polished, tooled in gilt or blind, even scented (known as “russia”). Reverse calf, with a distinctive suede-like texture, is occasionally used.
Chromolithograph Lithograph printed in colors, typically three or more.
Collation Process by which the contents of a book are inspected for completeness, checking against internal evidence, the table of contents and/or plate list, and reference works. Also a shorthand bibliographical description of a book’s composition by its leaves and signatures, rather than its pages. A-C, for example, would indicate a quarto volume composed of three signatures or gatherings of eight pages each for a total of 24 pages.
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Doublure Pastedowns made not of paper but of leather, for decorative purposes.
Duodecimo (12MO) Smaller than an octavo, typically less than six inches tall; smaller formats, such as 24mo and 32mo, are uncommon.
Edition Print-run from a single setting of type without substantial change. Depending on demand, any number of printings can be made from a setting of type For example, a first printing might consist of 1000 copies, followed by a second printing of 2500 copies; in which case the book would have a first edition, first printing of 1000 copies, and a first edition, second printing of 2500 copies.
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Half Title Leaf preceding the title page that bears the book’s title, originally used to identify the unbound text block. The book’s binder would often remove and discard the half title at the time of binding. Remaining half-titles are therefore of interest to collectors.
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Wood-Engraving Engraving made with the graver or burin on the cross-section of a piece of boxwood; the harder wood and finer tools allow for more delicate, finely detailed images, while the block can still be set in the page alongside text and printed on the same stock as the text. While much older, wood engravings enjoyed an important renaissance in the late eighteenth century through Thomas Bewick and continued in popularity thorugh the nineteenth century.
Wormhole Tiny pinhole-sized trails left by bookworms as they eat through a text block. Much more common in older books printed on handmade papers with a high rag content than in books printed on manufactured papers made from wood pulp with a higher acidic content.
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