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Results for: First Editions


First edition. 8vo, 221pp; orange paper over boards; title, author and publisher stamped in gold at the spine; pictorial dust jacket designed by Christopher Cornford. Bookplate of noted collector Rolland Comstock at the front pastedown (under the jacket’s front flap). Minute touch of use to head of jacket's spine. Near fine. The two plays, set in very different places and times, focus on issues of political power. Not surprisingly, love and the springs of affection, lust, and the other aspects of romantic yearnings complicate both.
THE THREE ARROWS AND THE SERVANTS AND THE SNOW Plays by Iris Murdoch
Murdoch, Iris.
London: Chatto & Windus, 1973.
Price: $150.00
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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. (1/551 copies). Signed at the title page by the poet. Small 8vo, 85pp; pinkish paper over boards stamped in brown at the front cover; matching dust jacket. A touch of fading to jacket's spine. Fine. Adrienne Cecile Rich (1929 - ) graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Radcliffe in 1951 and also won the annual competition by Yale University Press for books by beginning poets. For Rich it was a remarkable year. For American poetry it was a remarkable debut. A CHANGE OF WORLD is preceded by two childhood productions. The poet's first collection of verse and her first title as a mature writer. A lovely copy. CONTEMPORARY POETS, pp. 1270-1271. THE FEMINIST COMPANION, pp. 898-899. [Auden] Bloomfield and Mendelson B43.
A CHANGE OF WORLD with a foreword by W.H. Auden
Rich, Adrienne Cecile.
New Haven: Yale University Press, 1951.
Price: $600.00
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First edition. 1/500 hand-numbered copies, this being copy no. 381, with a special frontispiece drawing. Signed by both the writer and the artist. Small 4to, 34pp; green cloth stamped in gold on the spine; decorated endpapers; with publisher's matching green cloth slipcase with gilt lute after Shahn drawing stamped on front. A touch of overall fading. Near fine. Ms. Porter's family Christmas stories have a poignant afterward: her niece, the beneficiary of the nativity story, died at age 5-1/2. This memorial to her, illustrated by Ben Shahn, is touching. *When the book first issued, booksellers discovered that Ms. Porter's signature was, in fact, auto-pen. According to her bibliographer a "majority of the copies were returned to the publisher for a true signature which the author provided". Katherine Anne Porter's signature appears twice at the colophon. Bixby A16c.
A CHRISTMAS STORY. Drawings by Ben Shahn
Porter, Katherine Anne.
New York: Delacorte Press, (1967).
Price: $150.00
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First edition. 8vo, 273pp; (including end matter); pale peach boards stamped in black at the spine; pictorial gold dust jacket. Fine. With an introduction by the editor. Twenty-seven pieces, "a sumptuous gathering of stories, essays and excerpts that expound upon the art of eating", by V.S. Pritchett, James Joyce, Tobias Wolff, Hortense Calisher, M.F.K. Fisher, Elizabeth Bowen, et al.
A LITERARY FEAST An Anthology
(Fisher, M.F.K.) Golden, Lilly (ed).
New York: The Atlantic Monthly Press, (1993).
Price: $25.00
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Advanced reading copy. 8vo, 205pp; glossy wrappers printed in white, blue, turquoise, yellow and red with photograph of the author at the front panel. The writer's second book, 12 short stories. One page creased; tips lightly rubbed. Near fine.
A MODEL WORLD and Other Stories
Chabon, Michael.
New York: William Morrow and Company, (1991).
Price: $35.00
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First American edition. One of Macmillan’s “Iris Series”. 16mo, 92pp; + pp. 6-10, publisher’s catalog; pale green cloth stamped in dark green at front and spine (vignette of a woman gazing at a lush iris at the front cover; decorative motif of stylized rain drops at the spine); decorated endpapers, with repeated irises. Lower foretips slightly bumped; very slight cocking. Near fine. Irish writer Ella MacMahon was the daughter of a chaplain to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Born in Dublin, MacMahon appears never to have married. She pursued a career in the civil service while also publishing short stories and novels as well as writings on Dublin history. Among her books: HEATHCOTE (1889); A NEW NOTE (1894); A PITIFUL PASSION (1896); THE TOUCHSTONE OF LIFE (1897); FORTUNE’S YELLOW (1900); and, THE OTHER SON (1904). At the half title appears a vignette of a windmill on the shore, a banner for the "Iris Series" at the fore with verse reading "Rain, rain, & sun a rainbow on the lea / And truth is this to me, & that to three. / And truth or clothed or naked let it be". The sentiment is the source, it appears, of the rain drops which appear in the vignette at the front cover and also at the spine. The decorated endpapers, the "Iris Series" logo and its motto, the delicate rendering of the binding suggest the importance of book design to publishers during this period and their sense of its appeal to the reading public. As an English publisher, Macmillan’s designs, as reflected by A MODERN MAN, reflect a different sensibility from American bindings of the period. OCLC shows two locations only.
A MODERN MAN With Illustrations by Ida Lovering
MacMahon, Ella.
New York: Macmillan and Co., 1895.
Price: $125.00
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First trade edition. Signed by Anne Tyler at a tipped-in leaf. 8vo, 288pp; pale gold boards with black spine lettered in gold; pictorial dust jacket. A touch of rumpling to back panel of dust jacket (lower foretip), but fine. Signed by Anne Tyler at a tipped-in leaf. The writer's 14th novel; its main character is less than heroic. 29-year old Barnaby Gaitlin—divorced, sometime father, compulsive voyeur, seeker of virtue— becomes in Tyler's hands a kind of wayward every man. Awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
A PATCHWORK PLANET
Tyler, Anne.
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998.
Price: $50.00
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First edition. Revised and with a new introduction. Inscribed by the author at the half title page: "For [Sir] Jerry Sloane / who needn't (but / really should) read it. / Edna Ferber / New York May / 1960". 8vo, 383pp; smooth black cloth stamped in turquoise and gold and front and spine; black, orange and green dust jacket with photograph of the writer at the front panel. Illustrated. Offsetting at front endpapers from a newspaper clipping; spine of jacket and book bear a 1/2" cut from a knife or other sharp implement; mild overall wear to jacket. About very good. Sir Jerry Sloane was only 18 when he met the formidable American author Edna Ferber. Though she had sufficient success and self-confidence to render herself difficult more often than not, she and the young Scots aristocrat became friends. When he confessed he had not read her autobiography, this inscribed copy of A PECULIAR TREASURE appeared. She had published the first version of her autobiography in 1939, in the shadow of the coming world war. The revised version reflects the enormous events and changes in attitude which occurred during the two intervening decades. She emphasizes that, even with the revisions, "The book is what it originally was, the autobiography f an American Jewish child, girl and woman, born in the Middle West in the middle eighties".
A PECULIAR TREASURE
Ferber, Edna.
Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1960.
Price: $225.00
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First American edition. 12mo, 403pp; smooth blue cloth stamped in black and silver at the spine; pictorial '30s dust jacket. Trace of wear to tip; top edge stamped "S.D. Office Copy". 1/2" closed tear to the top edge rear panel; trace of wear to heel of jacket's spine. Fine. F. Tennyson Jesse (1888-1958), novelist, journalist, playwright and crime writer, was the great-niece of Lord Alfred Tennyson. She began a career in journalism in 1911 and also started writing short stories. With the advent of World War I, she joined a small corps of women war-correspondents whose presence at the front "was not considered decent" according to THE FEMINIST COMPANION. After the war, she produced more short stories, wrote seven plays (some with her husband H.M. Harwood), and contributed to the Notable British Trial Series. Undoubtedly her most memorable and powerful novel is A PIN TO SEE THE PEEPSHOW which she based on a famous 1922 murder. The book, after being out of print for 35 years was reprinted by the Virago Press as part of its distinguished Modern Classics series and was hauntingly dramatized by Masterpiece Theater. THE FEMINIST COMPANION, pp. 575-576. A beautiful copy.
A PIN TO SEE THE PEEPSHOW
Jesse, F. Tennyson.
Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Doran, (1934).
Price: $200.00
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A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN
Woolf, Virginia.
London: The Hogarth Press, 1929.
Price: $17,500.00
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First edition. (1/3040 copies). Small crown 8vo, 172pp; cinnamon cloth boards, lettered in gold on the spine; pale pink dust jacket designed by Vanessa Bell printed in navy blue. Small bookseller's ticket (Gotham Mart) at rear pastedown; touch of offsetting to front endpapers. Spine darkened with shallow edgewear to the head of the spine and a 1/2 x 3/8" triangular piece lacking at the foot; tiny nicks at tips. The book is in exemplary condition and the dust jacket generally attractive. Fine in very good jacket. A key feminist text. Kirkpatrick A12b (preceded by the limited edition). Woolmer 215b.
A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN
Woolf, Virginia.
London: The Hogarth Press, 1929.
Price: $5,000.00
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First edition. 8vo, 321pp; gold wove cloth stamped in copper on the spine; pictorial dust jacket. The dust jacket has a touch of sunning to the spine; small crinkle to the head of the spine and shows mild overall use. Very good. The publication of the writer's memoirs caused critics and public alike to reconsider the subtlety and deftness of her work. This novel which, as the dust jacket suggests, "is simple on the surface but full of depth and richness" reflects the writer's mastery of her craft.
A SERVANT'S TALE
Fox, Paula.
San Francisco: North Point Press, 1994.
Price: $35.00
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Advance Reading Copy for the American edition. Thick 8vo, 136pp; stiff pictorial wrappers. With publisher's letter laid in. Fine.
A SUITABLE BOY
Seth, Vikram.
New York: HarperCollins, (1993).
Price: $50.00
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Only edition. Miss Welty has signed this copy below her photograph at the part-title page. Quarto, 11-26pp; photographic brown wrappers (perfect bound). Minor wear to spine ends. Near fine. The appendix prints a selected bibliography for Eudora Welty and for Walker Evans. Bill Ferris grew up on a farm just outside of Jackson, Mississippi which the Weltys occasionally visited. As an interviewer, he possessed an uncommon familiarity with Welty’s world. The juxtaposition with the work of Walker Evans is suggestive. Striking compositions inform Evans work; the people his camera captures are almost always incidental. In Welty, they are the photograph. The 18 photographs are drawn from Welty's article “Literature and the Lens” which appeared in the August 1, 1944 issue of VOGUE and from ONE TIME, ONE PLACE. Text of the Ferris interview reprinted in CONVERSATIONS WITH EUDORA WELTY (Polk AA4), omitting the photographs, however. The photographs are eloquent and masterly. As of yet, no exhaustive compilation of Miss Welty's photographs has been published; and, while the VOGUE article is accessible, not readily so. Polk I26.
A VISIT WITH EUDORA WELTY, Images of the South Visits with Eudora Welty and Walker Evans. Southern Folklore Reports. No. 1
(Welty, Eudora) Ferris, Bill.
Memphis, Tenn: Center for Southern Folklore, 1988.
Price: $250.00
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First edition. Signed by the poet at the title page. 8vo, viii, 61pp; blue-green wove cloth lettered in gold at the spine; printed light beige dust jacket. Fine. Following her earlier OF WOMAN BORN (1976) and THE DREAM OF A COMMON LANGUAGE (1978), Rich in A WILD PATIENCE continues to explore the selves of women and to give voice to those who have been silent. In "Heroines" she portrays the 19th century woman: "You belong first to your father / then to him who / chooses you / if you fail to marry / you are without recourse / unable to earn / a workingman's salary / forbidden to vote / forbidden to speak ... how can I give you / all your due / take courage from your courage ..." A lovely copy.
A WILD PATIENCE HAS TAKEN ME THIS FAR Poems 1978-1981
Rich, Adrienne.
New York: W.W. Norton & Company, (1981).
Price: $100.00
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First edition. 8vo, [391]pp; orange paper over boards; title, author and publisher stamped in gold at the spine; pictorial dust jacket designed by Christopher Cornford. Bookplate of collector Rolland Comstock at the front pastedown (under the jacket's front flap); Lower foretip at front cover a trifle bumped. Slight touches of use along jacket’s upper edge. Near fine. The writer, in her seventeenth novel, focuses on human nature and its capacity for change and redemption.
A WORD CHILD
Murdoch, Iris.
London: Chatto & Windus, 1975.
Price: $100.00
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First trade edition. Signed by Annie Proulx at the title page. 8vo, 381pp; buff boards with brown cloth spine stamped in copper; ivory dust jacket. Lightly sunned at the spine. Near fine.
ACCORDION CRIMES
Proulx, E. Annie.
(New York): Scribner, 1996.
Price: $75.00
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First American edition. (First edition in Engish). Signed by the writer at the title page. 8vo, 315pp; + Art Credits; black boards with black spine lettered in silver; pictorial dust jacket. Fine. Color illustrations. The writer on "the sensual arts of food and love".
APHRODITE A Memoir of the Senses Drawings Robert Shekter Recipes Panchita Llona Translated from the Spanish by Margaret Sayers Peden
Allende, Isabel.
(New York): HarperFlamingo, (1998).
Price: $65.00
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First edition. 8vo, 164pp; (including index); decorated blue paper over boards with red cloth spine stamped in gold; beige dust jacket decorated in dark red. Tips a trifle worn; neat ink inscription at front pastedown; front flap of dust jacket price-clipped. Near fine. With Introduction and Comments by Poppy Cannon. The introduction is something of a culinary biography of Alice B. Toklas, longtime friend and companion of Gertrude Stein. The recipes, from soups to ratafias, range from the sophisticated (sweetbread salad) to the homey (apple pie).
AROMAS AND FLAVORS of past and present
Toklas, Alice B.
New York: Harper & Brothers, 1958.
Price: $65.00
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