Website | Search | Browse | Catalogs | New Arrivals | Events | About | Contact

New Arrivals Mostly Literature Dickens, Eliot, Hawthorne, Hemingway, James, Joyce, Kafka, Remarque, Shakespeare, Shelley

TO ORDER CLICK LINK BELOW:  To Order Click to Website;

1. Beckett, Samuel, Marcel Brion, Frank Budgen, Stuart Gilbert, Eugene Jolas, Victor Llona, Robert McAlmon, Thomas McGreevy, Elliot Paul, John Rodker, Robert Sage, William Carlos Williams. Our Exagmination Round His Facification For Incamination Of Work In Progress with Letters Of Protest By G.V.L. Slingby and Vladimir Dixon. London: Faber And Faber, (1929). First English language edition. 191 (2) pages. 19 x 14.5 cm. Published from the original French sheets. Critical essays on Joyce's "Finnegans Wake. Beckett, in Joyce's company at the time, and his essay (the first of the essays here published, by virtue of the alphabet) is his first publication notes, "It takes few intellectual prisoners: " . . . if you don’t understand it, Ladies and Gentlemen, it is because you are too decadent to receive it." Clean copy, pencil notations front free endpaper. Orig. azure blue cloth spine lettered in gilt. Near fine in very good dust wrapper with slightly faded spine. $350.00

1A. Benedictus. Relais 1930. Paris: Editions Vincent, Freal et Cie, 1930. First edition. 4 pages text. Folio, 47.5 x 37.5 cm. 15 vivid pochoir plates printed by Jean Saude, featuring 42 graphic designs, 14 3/4 x 18 3/4 inches, sheets, full margins. Includes title and preliminary text by Yvanhoe Rambosson, a classic suite of Art Deco plates rendered in a stencil color heightened with gold and silver. Plates and text brilliant. Loose as issued housed in modern binder. Fine. $1,400.00 

Franz Masereel: one of 350 2. Bodoni, Giambattista. [Masereel, Frans (Illustrator)]. Die Officina Bodoni Das Werkbuch einer Handpresse in den ersten sechs Jahren ihres Wirkens. Paris: Pegasusverlag, 1929. First edition. 80 pages. 30 x 21.5 cm. Limited edition, copy 180 of 350 of the German edition on Lafuma Rag Paper in the original types of Giambattista Bodoni. Host of tipped-in specimen pages, plus twelve full page woodcuts by Franz Masereel printed recto only which illustrate the operations of the press, two pages of Officina Bodoni printer's marks printed in red black and blue and a five page list of Officina Bodoni book printed in the first six years of its existence. Laid-in, a German language prospectus for this edition, a prospectus in Italian for Dante's Vita Nuova, plus a priced listing and inventory of the first ten titles printed by Bodoni. Bookplate of Reinhold Scholem, offsetting of dust wrapper flap to free endpaper. Orig. cream cloth with Bodoni gilt logo front cover. Very good in nicked dust wrapper. $750.00

Political Satire: Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford

3. Burnet, Thomas & George Duckett. A Second Tale Of A Tub: or, The History of Robert Powell the Puppet-Show-Man. London: Printed for J. Roberts, 1715. First edition. [4] xlii [43] 219 [5] pages. 19.5 x 12 cm. The second edition appeared the same year. A political satire on the statesman Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford (1661-1724). It takes the form of an account of Martin Powell (fl.1709-29), the somewhat physically deformed, and noted Irish showman who ran a celebrated puppet-show in Covent Garden. It also, of course, adopts the title of Swift's celebrated Tale of a Tub (but is not recorded by Teerink-Scouten in the list of this work's spurious sequels etc). Powell is presented in the frontispiece as a hunchback, which appears to be true. The author's substitution of "Robert" for Powell's real name, Martin, made to render the obvious satire more effective. Burnet was an English wit; barrister and judge. He wrote this work at age 21 with his friend and colleague George Duckett. The allusion of puppet strings controlled by a higher power was a popular analogy of political machinations of the period. Engrave bookplate of John Collins, Devises. Contemporary owner inscription notes the satire's intent, some old scribbling on blank endpapers, moderate text toning. Contemporary full Cambridge style brown calf, tooled panels with tulip florets at each corner. Very good. $750.00

4. Dickens, Charles. Hard Times. For These Times. London: Bradbury & Evans, 1854. First edition. 352 pages. 19.5 x 13 cm. First edition in book form in the first binding. With Smith's points on pp.60 and 265 but lacking the others. Dickens's tenth novel, serialized in Household Words in 1854, and one of two by him without illustrations, the other being Great Expectations. ECKEL P.131, GIMBEL A136. SADLEIR 689. SMITH 1:11. Half title, later printed paper backstrip label, hinges reinforced, bookplate front cover pastedown. Orig. publisher's green moire sides over later boards with decorations in blind. Very good. $875.00

5. _____. The Posthumous Papers Of The Pickwick Club Forty-Three Illustrations, By R. Seymor And Phiz. London: Chapman & Hall, 1837. First edition. 669 pages. 21.5 x 14 cm. Charles Dickens's first novel was published by Chapman & Hall in monthly installments from March of 1836 until November 1837. The publisher had just started a series of amusing stories dealing with “Cockney sporting scenes”. The series was built around the illustrations of Robert Seymour. Publication began on March 30th. Less than a month later, on April 20th, Robert Seymour committed suicide. Minor browning to a few leaves, some spotting, spine rebacked and rubbing to board covers. Bookplate of Thomas C. Ogden. GIMBEL A16. GROLIER ENGLISH 78. SMITH I:3. Contemporary half green morocco, raised bands, spine panels decorated in gilt and marbled boards. Very good. $995.00

Second Edition 7. Eliot, George (Mary Ann Evans). Scenes Of Clerical Life. Edinburgh & London: William Blackwood And Sons, 1859. Second edition. 309, 324 pages. 18 x 11.5 cm. Second edition in the "A" binding with the Edmonds & Remnants binding ticket. This second edition published one year after the first edition which is considered the author's rarest book. Armorial engraved bookplates [Hepworth] front cover pastdown of both volumes. Half titles, 16 pps. of adverts end of volume two, spines lightly sunned, interior contents clean and fresh. Publisher's brown maroon cloth decorated in blind, gilt florets and lettering on spines bright. Very good. 2 vols. $775.00

Gunter Grass dj Drawing 8. Grass, Gunter. The Tin Drum Translated from the German by Ralph Manheim. New York: Pantheon Books, 1962. First American edition. 592 pages. 22 x 15 cm. This work, his first novel has been translated into all major European languages, and its meaning implies we are all moral hunchbacks. Book jacket drawing by Gunter Grass. Glossary. Slightest of nicks at spine head and foot. Orig. red cloth front cover illustrated in black, lettered in gilt. Fine in near fine dust wrapper. $200.00

First American Edition 9. Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Blithdale Romance. Boston: Ticknor, Reed & Field, 1852. First edition. 288 pages. 16.5 x 12 cm. BAL binding A. Ahearn notes the first American edition, which this is as having "4 pages of ads at end," but here, the advertisements are positioned at the front of the volume between the paste-down endpaper and the free endpaper with date of July, 1852. This novel set in a utopian farming commune dramatizes the conflict between the commune's ideals and the members' private desires and romantic rivalries. Early inked signature front cover paste-down. First few leaves with minor spotting, text balance bright and fresh. Orig. brown publisher's cloth sharp, with front and back cover decorations in blind, backstrip lettered in gilt. Near Fine. $450.00

10. _____. The Snow Image, And Other Twice-Told Tales. Boston: Ticknor, Reed & Field, 1852. First American edition. 273 pages. 16.5 x 12 cm. Four pages of publisher adverts at front of book with ads dated January 1852. This, the final collection of short stories written by Hawthorne was reputed to be his least popular book, commercially. BAL 7607. Rubbing to spine head and foot. Orig. brown publisher's cloth sharp, with front and back cover decorations in blind, backstrip lettered in gilt. Very good. $295.00

11. Hemingway, Ernest. To Have And Have Not. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1937. First edition. 262 pages. 21 x 14 cm. With first edition confirmed by letter A on verso of title. This novel served as the basis for Howard Hawk's film co-scripted by Faulkner that starred Humphrey Bogart as Harry Morgan and co-starred Lauren Becall. This effort was Hemingway's first long work of fiction since "A Farewell ti Arms," published eight years earlier. Original unclipped dust wrapper with $2.50 price. Interior contents and covers clean and fresh, with slight chipping at spine ends and corners of the dust wrapper. Publisher's black cloth lettered in gilt. backstrip with two green labels lettered and decorated in gilt. Very good/Near fine. $2,900.00

12. James, Henry. The Golden Bowl. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1904. First edition. 412, 377 pages. 19.5 x 12.5 cm. Set in England, this complex study of marriage and adultery completes what some critics have called the "major phase" of James's career. Bright, fresh copy. BAL 10659. Pencil signature of Katherine Griffin, Boston, Mass. free front endpapers of both volumes. Orig. brown cloth backstrip lettered in gilt. Very good. 2 vols. $350.00

13. _____. Wings of the Dove. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1902. First edition. 329, 435 pages. 19.5 x 12.5 cm. The novel explores one of James’s favorite themes: the cultural clash between naive Americans and sophisticated, often decadent Europeans. Bright, fresh copy. BAL 10647. Orig. brown cloth backstrip lettered in gilt. Very good. 2 vols. $425.00

ONE OF 50 signed by Mundy 14. Jeffers, Robinson. Apology For Bad Dreams. San Francisco: James Linden, 1986. Folio, 36 x 36 cm. Limited edition, copy 38 of 50 with four photographs titled and signed by Michael Mundy, taken during a trip along the Big Sur River. All negatives were made using roll film. The prints are enlargements made on Ilford Galerie paper, tone in selenium. Each print mounted on Light Impressions Westminster, a four ply archival board, using the drymount technique. This is the first separate edition of "Aplogy for Bad Dreams," since Ward Ritchie's famous 1930 Paris edition of only 30 copies. List of Subscribers. Designed and printed by Peter Rutledge Koch in Janson and Van Dijck types on Arches paper. Box made by Klaus-Ullrich Roetzscher. As new copy with publisher announcement and reservation request laid-in. Orig. preliminaries and plates loose issued. Fine in fine blue clamshell box with front cover paper label. $650.00

15. Jones, James. From Here To Eternity. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1951. First edition. 861 pages. 21.5 x 15 cm. This novel, his first won the 1952 National Book Award. With first issue dust wrapper, and with an additional later issue dust wrapper. Gilt spine lettering with minor loss. Orig. black cloth in slightly nicked dust wrapper at upper corners and backstrip head. Very good. $290.00

Signed by James Joyce 16. Joyce, James. Finnegans Wake. London & New York: Faber & Faber Limited & The Viking Press, 1939. First edition. 628 pages. 26 x 17 cm. Limited edition, copy 22 of 425 signed by James Joyce in green ink. Joyce wished to puzzle critics with his novel's plot which is not nearly as complex as the linguistic tactics he employed, and he did both. Finnegans Wake met with mixed review: some said it was unreadable, others praised Joyce for ingenuity. Joyce combined use of a number of languages with complex ironic implications to create wordplay and hidden meaning throughout this work. His polyglot idiom of puns and portmanteau words was intended to convey the relationship between the conscious and the unconscious. The density and layers of meaning have induced scholars to dedicate a good portion of their lives studying it. The critic and scholar Richard Ellman was best known for his literary biography of Joyce noted, "In his earlier books Joyce forced modern literature to accept new styles, new subject matter, new kinds of plot and characterization. In his last book (Finnegans Wake) he forced it to accept a new area of being and a new language." Connolly: The Modern Movement 87. Slocum & Cahoon A49. Slight spine fading, some minor soiling to slipcase. Orig. publisher's orange/red buckram, backstrip lettered in gilt. Fine in the original yellow cloth slipcase as issued. Teg. $17,500.00

17. _____. Tales Told of Shem and Shaun Three Fragments from Work in Progress. Paris: Black Sun Press, 1929. First edition. 55 pages. 21 x 17 cm. Limited edition, copy 325 of 500 on Holland Van Gelder Zonen. Preface by C.K. Ogden. Portrait of the author by C. Brancusi. Title printed in red and black: The three fragments are entitled; "The Mookse and the Gripes. The Muddest Thick That Was Ever Heard Dump. The Ondt and the Gracehoper." Binding by Andrea Kohler. The three fragments comprise pp. 152-159, 282-304 and 414-419 respectively of "Finnegans Wake." The image by Brancusi is a graphic work. THE ARTIST & THE BOOK 1860-1960," notes: "A portrait as abstract as the author's text." This was one of the last books printed at the Black Sun Press. Crosby committed suicide in December, 1929. Slocum and Cahoon A36. Kohler binding in fine red velvet and gold framed slipcase housed in fine black leather spine folding box lettered in red and black. Orig. printed stiff wrappers. Fine in original glassine nicked with some minor loss. $3,250.00

18. Kafka, Franz. Beim Bau der Chinesischen Mauer Ungedruckte Erzahlungen und Prosa aus dem Nachlass. Munich: Gustav Kiepenheuer Verlag, 1931. First edition. 266 pages. 19.5 x 11.5 cm. Max Brod, Kafka's friend and literary executor was instructed by Kafka to destroy his unpublished work. Fortunately, Brod ignored the request, published the novels and collected works between 1925 and 1935. Brod edited a collection of prose and unpublished stories as "Beim Bau der Chinesischen Mauer" (The Great Wall of China), including the story of the same name, as he did with "Amerika," and "Das Schloss." All three are now considered to be the Definitive Editions. Text in German. Epilogue by Max Brod and Hans Joachim Schoeps. Owner inscription second free endpaper dated 1934, three leaves of adverts at rear, clean and fresh copy, spine sunned. Orig. blue cloth, gold spine label printed in red. Very good. $650.00

19. Legrain, Pierre. Pierre Legrain Relieur Repertoire Descriptif Et Bibliographique De Mille Deux Cent Trente-Six Reliures. Paris: Librairie Auguste Blaizot, 1965. First edition. 204 pages. 33 x 27 cm. Limited edition, copy 315 of 600 printed on Velin de Rives. Introduction by Professeur Jacques Millot. 243 reproductions of bindings in heliogravure, and seven tipped-in plates in full-color. Handsomely produced retrospective, spectacular Art Deco bindings of Pierre Legrain. Fresh, clean copy, partly unopened, front cover of wrappers very slightly bumped. Orig. printed stiff wrappers. Fine in fine in near fine brown cloth chemise in very good, slightly worn matching cloth slipcase. $650.00

20. Mardersteig, Giovanni. The Officina Bodoni An Account of the Work of a Hand Press 1923-1977. Verona: Edizioni Valdonega, 1980. First edition. 286 & 90 pages. Folio, 30.5 x 21 cm. Limited edition, copy 95 of 99 accompanied by a second volume containing ten original leaves from hand-printed books of the Officina Bodoni, including a rare vellum leaf from Ovid's Nasonis Amores, with a note from the publisher that the second volume housing "The ten four-page leaves may differ in each copy." The latter were "made up of spare sheets of books printed in its archives." Edited by Hans Schmoller. Orig. half brown morocco and tan basket weave cloth, backstrips lettered or decorated in gilt. Fine in fine matching slipcase. 2 vols.. (#21066) $1,100.00

Signed by Gooden & Marsh 21. Marsh, Edward (Translator). The Fables Of Jean De La Fontaine. London: William Heinemann, 1931. 235 & 336 pages. 26 x 17 cm. Limited edition, copy 98 of 525 signed by Edward Marsh and Stephen Gooden. 26 copper engravings with tissue guards set in Monotype Garamond, and printed on hand-made wove paper. Very bright, fresh set. Orig. full vellum, beveled edges. Very good. 2 vols. $295.00

One of 250 signed by Milosz 22. Milosz, Czeslaw. Swait/The World. San Francisco: Arion Press, 1989. First edition thus. 57 pages. 36 x 26 cm. Limited edition, one of 250 copies, and a portrait of the poet, an original dry-point engraving by Jim Dine signed by Dine on the "Artist's Statement" describing his meeting with the author. Also, signed in pencil by Milosz on half title. A sequence of twenty poems in Polish, translated into English by the poet, with an introduction by Helen Vendler. Laid-in, the original announcement of this publication, plus a publication list of Arion Press books for the Fall 1989, most are french-leaved. A few marks to boards. Orig. illustrated cream boards and brown cloth spine. Near fine. $750.00

"Elegant criticism" 23. Montagu, Mrs. Elizabeth. An Essay On The Writings And Genius Of Shakespear, Compared With The Greek and French Dramatic Poets With Some Remarks Upon the Misrepresentations of Mons. de Voltaire. London: J. Dodsley, Mess. Baker and Leigh, J. Walter, T. Cadell and J. Wilkie, 1769. First edition. 288 pages. 21 x 13.2 cm. Armorial bookplate of Sir John Mordant. In London her home on Hill Street had become the premiere salon in London. Samuel Johnson, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Edmund Burke, David Garrick, and Horace Walpole were all in the circle. She also patronized a number of women authors, including Elizabeth Carter, Hannah More, Frances Burney, Anna Barbauld, Sarah Fielding, and Hester Chapone. Described by Thomas Warton as the most elegant and judicious piece of criticism of the age. Warton, English literary historian, critic, and poet, and from 1785 to 1790 the Poet Laureate of England. ROTHSCHILD 1449. Raised bands, spine label lettered in gilt, joints rubbed, contents generally clean. Contemporary full polished calf. Very good. $625.00

First American Edition 24.Remarque Erich Maria. All Quiet On The Western Front Translated from the German by A.W. Wheen. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1929. First American edition. 291 pages. 19.5 x 13.5 cm. Remarque, conscripted as an eighteen year old in the German army in 1917 he served with the 5th Reserve Infantry Regiment, 2nd Company, Engineer Platoon Bethe, A shrapnel wound sent him to hospital where he remained to the end of the war. The original German edition was an immediate success selling 100,000 copies in the first two weeks after publication. Bright, fresh copy in unclipped ($2.50) dust wrapper with minor nicks. Orig. gray pebbled buckram lettered in black and red. Fine in very good dust wrapper. $575.00

25. Shakespeare, William [Sidney Lee, Editor]. Venus And Adonis, Passionate Pilgrim, Lucrece, Sonnets, Pericles Being reproductions in facsimile of the first editions, dating respectively as per the above titles: 1593, 1594, 1609, 1609, 1599 from the unique copy in the Malone collection in the Bodleian library and the Christie Miller Library in Britwell. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1905. Uniformly 26 x 21 cm. Limited edition, copy 118 of 1000 signed by Sidney Lee in the Venus And Adonis volume. Pagination's respectively reflect Lee's Introduction and Bibliography as per titles noted: 75, 57, 55, 71, 48 with 6 page list of Subscribers. The collotype facsimile leaves of the first editions "which found no place in the first folio" [JAGGARD] of the original Shakespeare text appear following the pagination's noted previously. With half-titles, all five volumes the provenance of William Andrews Clark, Jr. together with his red leather gilt decorated and lettered bookplates on the inside front covers. The Library at UCLA bears his name. Lacks original ties, boards are splayed, endpapers toned, but all covers are bright and clean. Orig. full vellum, gilt front cover panel with arabesques at the corners. Very good. 5 vols. $2,150.00

26. Shelley, Percy Bysshe. Queen Mab, Prometheus Unbound, Hellas. A Lyrical Drama. London: John Brooks, C and J Ollier, Charles And James Ollier, 22 x 14 cm. All are First Editions. In printed order are "Queen Mab "(1829). 89 pages. NOTES to Queen Mab in French, Latin and Greek are printed verbatim. 92 pages. "Prometheus Unbound." With "Other Poems," 1820. 220 pages. Prometheus Unbound with some old and neat corrections in ink to some margins, titles of Queen Mab and Prometheus lightly toned, Hellas, 60 pages, with final leaf containing "Written on Hearing the News of the Death of Napoleon." Hellas clean throughout and appearing to have been rarely (and/or carefully) handled. Hellas was the last work that he would publish before he drowned in the Bay of Spezia just three months later in the same year that celebrates the Greek Proclamation of Independence from the Ottoman Empire, a cause that was strongly championed by the Romantic poets. TINKER 1902. Armorial bookplate of George Merryweather, raised bands, spine lettered in gilt. Period half brown morocco and marbled boards housed in matching brown modern slipcase. Very good. $4,100.00