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First edition. Trade issue. 4to, 155pp; gray boards stamped in black and green with red cloth spine stamped in gold. A few tissue-guards lacking; rear endpapers age-toned; a touch of foxing to fore-edge.; minor scratch to front cover very fresh, near fine copy of this title with the original tissue-guards for the illustrations generally present. Printed by D.B. Updike at The Merrymount Press. Title page and other decorations by Rudolph Ruzicka. Preface by Edith Wharton. Introduction by Theodore Roosevelt. Contributions by Sarah Bernhardt, Joseph Conrad, Thomas Hardy, Henry James, et al. Plates, both black and white and color, of works by Charles Dana Gibson, Monet, Renoir, and others. The charcoal sketch Renoir drew of his son, wounded at the front, "the most moving image in the collection", may have been the origin of Wharton's only World War I novel, THE SON AT THE FRONT. Garrison D.I.I.a.
THE BOOK OF THE HOMELESS Le Livre des Sans-Foyer
(Wharton, Edith [ed]).
New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1916.
Price: $500.00
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First edition. 8vo, 379pp; + index; smooth blue cloth stamped with blind rules and gold lettering; printed grayish-green dust jacket. Touch of dampstaining along fore-edge of p. 385 and rear endpaper (approx. 2-1/2" long by 1/4" deep); light dampstain in same area at back cover and jacket's rear panel. Mild overall dustiness and age-toning to jacket, particularly at spine; shallow chips at upper edge with a closed 1" tear at jacket's rear cover (upper edge). The book is fresh and crisp, with the gilt bright. Very good. Illustrated with photographs. Mrs. Wharton's graceful, if selective memoir. A fairly scarce title: publisher's records suggest the first printing may have been only 5,000 copies. Garrison A47.I.a.
A BACKWARD GLANCE Reminiscences by Edith Wharton
Wharton, Edith.
New York: D. Appleton-Century Company, 1934.
Price: $350.00
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First edition. First printing with top edge gilt. 12mo, 195pp; vertically-ribbed red cloth stamped in gilt front and spine. Minute wear to tips and ends; tiny bubble at front; covers a trifle darkened. A crisp, firm, bright copy. Near fine. In a custom cloth case, with gilt-stamped leather shelfback. Edith Wharton's masterpiece of vibrant emotional need and bleak emotional deprivation, harrowing yet wrought with a spareness that intensifies the novella. It is worth noting that while writing ETHAN FROME, Edith Wharton forever changed her life: divorced Teddy, sold The Mount and made her residence in France permanent. She had chosen, in fact, to take full responsibility for her life and defy the bonds to which Ethan, Mattie and Zeena submit. ETHAN FROME, the critic Cynthia Woolf suggests, "is a statement of Edith Wharton's coming of age as a novelist". It also marks her coming of age as an individual. ETHAN FROME is a true, uniquely American classic. Garrison A19.I.a. Johnson, HIGHSPOTS, pp.76-77.
ETHAN FROME
Wharton, Edith.
New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1911.
Price: $1,250.00
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First edition. First printing, American issue; Garrison's Binding A. 4to, 250pp; + endmatter (List of Books Mentioned; Architects and Landscape-Gardeners Mentioned; and, Index); decorated trade binding designed by Decorative Designers: at the front cover, gold-stamped lion and shield design above a pale blue-stamped picture of a garden, gold-stamped pedestal design, with shield and scroll at bottom, and surrounding seven lines stamped in dark grayish-green. Top edge gilded. Contemporary ink inscription (Christmas, 1904) to upper margin of front pastedown; small owner's library ticket front pastedown. Touch of fraying to tips; spine a trifle dimmed; shallow bump to top edge of rear cover; two shallow pin scratches to front cover. A firm, fresh copy. Near fine. Illustrated by Maxfield Parrish with 15 color and 11 black and white plates. Also illustrated with photographs and additional drawings by E. Denison, Malcolm Fraser and C.A. Vanderhoof. The design at the front cover is inspired by Maxfield Parrish's illustration of the "Villa Pia: In the Gardens of the Vatican". A lush, handsome production that reflects the golden age of American publishing. Each detail of the book has been carefully designed: a large, elegant typeface; generous margins; illustration captions, running heads and page numbers printed in a delicate shade of umber. As a trade publication ITALIAN VILLAS AND THEIR GARDENS would be hard to surpass. Mrs. Wharton's text is equal to its beautiful setting. She prepared herself to write the book by first reading relevant texts in French, German and Italian, studying old plans and examining prints and drawings from Peter Paul Rubens' depictions of Genoese villas to Gianfresco Costa's etchings of villas [Dwight, EDITH WHARTON An Extraordinary Life]. She and Teddy traveled to Italy and visited some 70 villas and her account still is invaluable as a guide for the traveler as well as the gardener. For Mrs. Wharton a successful garden possessed "garden-magic", an ineffable quality that suggested 'it was born, not built'. In conveying such garden-magic, Mrs. Wharton created her own. Garrison A10.I.a. Dwight, EDITH WHARTON An Extraordinary Life, pp. 102-111.
ITALIAN VILLAS AND THEIR GARDENS
Wharton, Edith.
New York: The Century Co., 1904.
Price: $2,500.00
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