Modern Firsts

FIRST EDITION, FIRST PRINTING of what is considered to be Dick’s finest work and winner of the 1963 Hugo Award. A beautiful copy in the original dust jacket.First printing with D36 of page 239. Pringle, Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels, 37. Octavo, original black cloth, original dust jacket. Book with slight bump at heel of spine and a hint of edgewear to dust jacket. A beautiful, bright copy. 

FIRST EDITION. Octavo. Original cloth, dust jacket. A fine copy. Custom box.

FIRST EDITION of Celine's highly influential first novel.  
"'Journey,' published in 1932, burst like a bombshell on the Parisian literary scene, garnering huge sales and almost winning the Prix Goncourt... [The] novel is a furious attempt to place one man’s consciousness at the epicenter of a world that is exploding under the centripetal influences of capitalism, imperialism, consumerism and licentiousness. In this, Céline anticipates the essentially apolitical rodomontades of the American Beats, quite as much as he belongs with the excruciating Marxian posturing of the interwar French existentialists and Surrealists...   

"If Ulysses is the great modernist novel most inspired by a desire for humanistic inclusion, then Voyage is its antithesis: a stream of misanthropic consciousness, almost unrelieved by any warmth or fellow-feeling” (Will Self, “Céline’s Dark Journey”).   Octavo, original wrappers; custom cloth box. With ads in rear. A few creases to spine and a few spots of soiling. A beautiful copy of a fragile book.

FIRST U.S. EDITION; the first book to be published by Nabokov in the United States and the first appearance of Nabokov's English translation (from the Russian). The first English-language edition of Laughter in the Dark appeared in England under the title Camera Obscura in 1936 but Nabokov so disliked the translation (by Winifred Roy) that he decided to produce his own translation for the U.S. edition.  "Laughter in the Dark is one of the finest works of Vladimir Nabokov's early Russian-language period, a dazzling, cinematic masterpiece, beautiful, cruel and horribly funny. Written in 1932, it displays the thirty-three-year-old genius in the full enjoyment of his powers. It is the least self-consciously 'literary' of his novels--never again would he write with such meticulous delicacy and dash--and perhaps the most directly enjoyable" (John Banville). The story of a middle-age man falling in love with a young girl would later be revisited (to much greater notoriety) in Nabokov’s Lolita.Octavo, original green cloth, original dust jacket; custom half-morocco box. Book fine, dust jacket with creasing at edges and chips to spine ends and corners. With none of the usual fading that typically affects this dust jacket.

DEDICATION COPY OF SNYDER'S FIRST BOOK, SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY SNYDER: "For Jim Baxtor / from Gary". Baxtor is one of 12 dedicatees.  Octavo, original wrappers, japanese string tied binding. One of only 500 copies. Fine. 

FIRST EDITION of Woolf's most experimental novel. With original dust jacket designed by Vanessa Bell.  p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Times; color: #424242; -webkit-text-stroke: #424242} span.s1 {font-kerning: none} “Part of Virginia Woolf's greatness lay in her continuation of Henry James's aim to define the novel as a form of art. She fulfills its inherent flexibility when she blends the novel with other genres to create new forms...  Her most formally inventive fiction, The Waves appears to owe its inspiration more to poetry and drama than the novel… Woolf freely manipulated conventional elements of fiction… in a concerted attempt to take the novel beyond its customary compass” (Dictionary of National Biography; Eric Warner, Virginia Woolf, The Waves). Octavo, original purple cloth, original dust jacket. Book fine, dust jacket with a hint of toning to spine and a slight bit of edgewear. A beautiful copy, rare in such fine condition. 

FIRST EDITION, with slip (with printed header "Mexico City Blues by Jack Kerouac") signed and inscribed by Kerouac laid-in: "To Robert Wilson / from / Jack Kerouac".  Robert Wilson was an influential literary critic, publisher, bookseller, and champion of Beat Literature.The collection of poetry (or "choruses") was written over the span of three weeks, and the subjects vary widely, based on what Kerouac saw and heard as he was writing the volume. In fact, the only truly consistent element to the choruses is their style, their poetic sound, reflecting the stream of consciousness manner in which they were written and the attempt to reproduce jazz styles and rhythms. The poems, in spite of their vast array of content, overall described “Kerouac’s melancholy… his blues, his feeling down and out, lonely and alone in Mexico City" (Charters, Kerouac: A Biography).Octavo, original cloth, original dust jacket; custom half-morocco box. Book fine, dust jacket with a few smudges and a little wear to top of spine. 

FIRST EDITION OF JAMES LEE BURKE'S FIRST BOOK, WITH A LENGTHY INSRIPTION TO HIS FRIEND AND FELLOW WRITER, JAMES CRUMLEY.  "To the Crum and Charlie with best wishes from Jim Burke. Notice that the pages are bound loosely if you ever need anything to wrap your coffee grinds in or if needed for other purposes while reading in the bath" –– Your friend, J.B. 8/27/66" "In this era of 'awakening' for the hard-boiled genre, many post-Vietnam works confronted the traumatizing effects of the Vietnam War head-on by employing detectives openly characterized as Vietnam veterans in order to reveal the disillustionment and frustrations concerning the legality of the war and the subsequent treatment of American veterans. James Crumley, James Lee Burke and, to some extent Newton Thornburg, employ characters who are private investigators or characters attempting to unravel mysteries. These writers in particular expose a society ignorant of individual trauma and direct their anger toward a government that abandoned its soldiers upon their return from combat." – Sarah Trott, The Detective as Veteran Octavo, original cloth, orignal dust jacket. A near-fine copy in an excellent example of the original dust jacket. Lengthy inscription from Burke to Crumley on front free endpaper. Additionally signed and dated (8/8/96) by Burke on the title page. A superb association. Custom cloth box.

FIRST EDITION of Hemingway's most comprehesive collection of short stories, published with The Fifth Column, Hemingway's only full-length play."Five years after publishing Winner Take Nothing (1933), he collected the three separate volumes of stories and added to them a handful of other pieces-- four stories written after 1933: "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" (1936), "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber (1936), "The Capital of the World" (1936), and "Old Man at the Bridge" (1937); one early story previously bypassed for commercial publication, "Up in Michigan" (1923, Three Stories and Ten Poems); and The Fifth Column, a play set in Civil-War Spain- to make up The Fifth Column and The First Forty-Nine Stories (1938), the only collective gathering of his stories to appear during his lifetime" (Bendixen, A Companion to the American Short Story).Octavo, original cloth, original dust jacket; custom box. Book near fine, dust jacket bright and clean with only trivial wear. An excellent copy.

FIRST EDITION of Hemingway's Pulitzer-Prize winning classic; a magnificent copy.Hemingway was awarded the 1954 Nobel Prize in Literature on the strength of The Old Man and the Sea, being cited "for his mastery of the art of narrative, most recently demonstrated in The Old Man and the Sea, and for the influence that he has exerted on contemporary style".Octavo, original cloth, original dust jacket; custom cloth box. A fine, exceptionally bright copy.

First authorized American edition, INSCRIBED BY ILLUSTRATOR ERNST REICHL IN THE YEAR OF PUBLICATION. "Not only designed, but signed, for a good old friend. Ernst Reichl / 1.23.34" Octavo, original oatmeal cloth, presumed first issue dust jacket (with 'Reichl' on lower front wrapper). Book near fine with few marks on covers, dust jacket very good with tape reinforcement at spine head verso, crease and small chips to jacket spine. 

FIRST EDITION, INSCRIBED on the front endpaper. "For Miss Fowler, who taught me all about radio, –– with all good luck / John Fante" Octavo, original cloth, dust jacket. An excellent copy in a superb dust jacket with only minor toning to rear panel. 

ARTHUR MIZENER'S REVIEW COPY OF PHILIP ROTH'S MASTERFUL FIRST BOOK. WITH ANNOTATIONS BY MIZENER.  "The real novelty of Roth's view of American Jewish Life, circa 1959, was its absence of any sense of tragedy or oppression... Hurling themselves into the American Dream, the Patimkins live a continuous daily round of sports... and of eating–gargantuan meals, served by Carlota, the maid, that smother conversation in active digestion and extra helpings." –Claudia Roth Pierpoint, Roth Unbound: A Writer and His Books "Professor Mizener's best-selling biography of Fitzgerald, ''The Far Side of Paradise,'' was published in 1951 by Houghton Mifflin, a decade after a heart attack ended the downward-spiraling career of the canonizer of the Jazz Age of the 1920's."–NY Times obituary, Feb. 15, 1988. Octavo. Original cloth, original dust jacket. Review slip laid in. Bookplate of Arthur Mizener. Neat pencil annotations by Mizener throughout. Spine toned with small chip at head and light edgewear. Custom leather box. An impressive copy. RARE.

FIRST EDITION of Mailer's masterpiece, SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY MAILER TO PAUL BARTEL: "To Paul, with the best / recollections of / how he came forward / with the best / advice for Chapter Five / Salutations / Norman Mailer / Feb '92." Written when Mailer was just twenty-five, The Naked and the Dead is one of the classic novels of World War II. Both a critical and commercial success (it remained at the top of The New York Times best-seller list for eleven weeks), it launched Mailer's career and remains one of the most influential American novels of the century. Paul Bartel was a writer, actor, and director best known for his 1982 film, Eating Raoul.  Octavo, original cloth, original dust jacket; custom box. An outstanding, fine copy, extremely rare in such good condition.

FIRST EDITION, SIGNED AND INSCRIBED on front free endpaper: "To John / Love, gratitude - all of that. / Toni / 11.5.70". Inscribed to and from the library of John A. Williams, with his signed card laid-in. The recipient, John Alfred Williams, is a noted African-American writer and academic. Octavo, original half-cloth over boards, original dust jacket.; custom half-morocco box. Book fine, some toning to edges and spine of dust jacket. An outstanding inscribed association copy of the rare first edition.

FIRST EDITION of arguably Hemingway's greatest work."A Farewell to Arms made Hemingway a famous author. Published just as he passed his thirtieth birthday, it brought him the kind of public and critical acclaim he had been seeking since he had decided, in the aftermath of his wounding in 1918, to become a writer. During the ten-year interim, he had worked effectively as a foreign correspondent and then abandoned that career to devote all his energy to fashioning the understated and pared-away prose style that was his most important legacy to twentieth-century literature" (Donaldson, New Essays on A Farewell to Arms).First issue, with no disclaimer and 'Katherine' instead of 'Catherine'. Bookplate on front pastedown of Daniel Henry Holmes Ingalls, noted translator and Wales Professor of Sanskrit at Harvard.Octavo, original cloth, original dust jacket; custom half-morocco box. Book near-fine with foxing to text block edges (as often); dust jacket with very minor toning to spine, slight wear at head of spine, a few spots of light superficial rubbing. An exceptional copy of the first trade edition.

“The tone of the ‘beat’ world, as Burroughs first perceived it, chimed with the world of Jack Black.” –James Campbell, This is the Beat GenerationFIRST EDITION of Black's influential autobiography; with the extremely rare original dust jacket. This book is often hailed as the first "Beat " book.The memoir of a notorious thief, vagabond, and ‘honorable’ outlaw, You Can’t Win was a bestseller upon its publication in 1926. It would become a favorite book of William S. Burroughs (whose "Junkie" is modeled after it) and with its depiction of a free, loose, nomadic lifestyle, become one of the most influential works for the Beat movement.   Burroughs claimed that, in his representation of the dying days of the Wild West, Jack Black “has recorded a chapter of specifically American life that is now gone forever,” a way of life that Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and others would try to adapt and re-create for their own generation. Octavo, original cloth, original dust jacket; custom box. Early owner signature on front endpaper. Book fine, dust jacket shows wear at spine, with large chip at tail. Scarce in dust jacket.

FIRST EDITION of Ellison's first book, winner of the 1953 National Book Award for Fiction. A fine copy.Ellison’s “importance as a writer was established by his first novel, Invisible Man, published in April 1952. Immediately acclaimed by critics, it was recognized not merely as an excellent novel by a black author, but as a great literary achievement. In The Negro Novel in America, Robert Bone called Invisible Man ‘quite possibly the best American novel since World War II.’ Also well received by general readers, the novel spent sixteen weeks on the New York Times bestseller list” (American National Biography). Octavo, original beige cloth, original dust jacket; custom half-morocco box. A fine copy.

FIRST EDITION, SIGNED BY KEN KESEY. Octavo, original cloth, original dust jacket. First issue dust jacket (with Kerouac's blurb on front flap). Owner signature at front pastedown. A nearly fine copy in very lightly toned jacket with trivial wear at spine ends and small waterstain at inside front flap. An excellent copy signed by Kesey on the front free endpaper. 

FIRST EDITION of Kerouac's first novel SIGNED AND INSCRIBED by Kerouac to Judge Vincent Lupiano who performed the wedding service for Kerouac's marriage to Joan: "A thousand thanks for tying my marital knot--Best luck in all the world to you & yours--Sincerely, Jack Kerouac and his new missus, Joan". With letter of provenance from Lupiano's son. “For too many readers, and critics as well, Kerouac begins and ends with On the Road, yet he had already been writing and publishing for years when he produced the seminal Beat text… Readers who are interested in understanding Kerouac’s themes and methods, as well as his place in American literature, owe it to themselves to start with Kerouac’s first book” (Michael J. Dittman, Jack Kerouac: A Biography). With "Compliments of the Author" card laid-in. Inscribed on the front free endpaper. Octavo, original red cloth, original dust jacket; custom box. Book very good, dust jacket with mild edgewear and some foxing to rear panel.

FIRST EDITION, in the rare first-issue binding ("binding A"), of Robert Frost's first book of poetry. "By 1911 Frost was fighting against discouragement. Poetry had always been considered a young person's game, but Frost, who was nearly 40 years old, had not published a single book of poems and had seen just a handful appear in magazines. In 1911 ownership of the Derry farm passed to Frost. A momentous decision was made: to sell the farm and use the proceeds to make a radical new start in London, where publishers were perceived to be more receptive to new talent. Accordingly, in August 1912 the Frost family sailed across the Atlantic to England. Frost carried with him sheaves of verses he had written but not gotten into print. English publishers in London did indeed prove more receptive to innovative verse, and, through his own vigorous efforts and those of the expatriate American poet Ezra Pound, Frost within a year had published A Boy's Will (1913). From this first book, such poems as 'Storm Fear,' 'Mowing,' and 'The Tuft of Flowers' have remained standard anthology pieces" (Britannica).Octavo, original bronzed brown cloth with upper cover title in gilt. A fine copy. RARE. 

SCARCE FIRST EDITION, SIGNED BY GERNSBACK, of one of the foundational texts in science fiction."In April 1911 'Modern Electrics' began serializing Gernsback's Ralph 124C 41+, written to exemplify (Gernsback's) contention that fiction could serve to teach science... Thoroughly deficient as fiction, the story nevertheless predicts radar, microfilm and microfiche, tape recorders, television, wireless transmission of power, planet hormones, and weather control" (American National Biography).Ralph 124C 41+ was published when many other magazines were struggling, and it led Gernsback to almost single-handedly establish a place for science fiction stories, as he allowed contemporary writers space in his science magazines. The success of these stories may have induced Gernsback to create the first science fiction magazine, Amazing Stories, which started publication the year after Ralph 124C 41+ was printed in book form. The Hugo Awards, science fiction's most prestigious prize, were named in honor of Hugo Gernsback.Signed on the front free endpaper. Octavo, original blue cloth
with gilt lettering, original dust jacket. Bookplate of Roy V. Hunt, editor and artist for the science fiction magazine The Alchemist on front pastedown. Book fine with cloth exceptionally bright; original dust jacket with some tape reinforcement at verso edges; closed tear at top of front panel and very minor edgewear. Rare signed. 

FIRST EDITION, PRESENTATION COPY, INSCRIBED BY LOWRY TO MONTGOMERY EVANS on the front free endpaper: To Montgomery Evans / from Malcolm Lowry-33 / Inglewood / Caldy Westkirby / Wirral / Cheshire. Provenance: Library of Roger Rechler (lot 203); Montgomery Evans (presentation inscription and bookplate).

FIRST EDITION, MAILER'S OWN COPY.  SIGNED AND INSCRIBED: "from my library / Norman Mailer" on half-title. With letter of provenance from Mailer's nephew Peter Alson.Written when Mailer was just twenty-five, The Naked and the Dead is one of the classic novels of World War II. Both a critical and commercial success (it remained at the top of The New York Times best-seller list for eleven weeks), it launched Mailer's career and remains one of the most influential American novels of the century. Octavo, original cloth, original dust jacket; custom half-morocco box. Book fine, dust jacket a little toned at flaps, some rubbing to extremities.

First edition SIGNED BY SAMUEL BECKETT. Octavo, original wrappers; custom half-leather box. Text in French. Some browning and rubbing to spine. 

FIRST EDITION, of the defining work of Beat literature. Scarce review copy, with stiff review card laid-in.“Kerouac’s literary art bore no resemblance to the undisciplined ‘beatnik’ writing of the late 1950s. His extraordinary attention to detail, astonishing memory, and encyclopedic grasp of European and American literature, popular culture, and world religions enabled him to create densely textured narratives that, when read aloud as they were meant to be, achieved an incantatory dimension rarely experienced in modern literature” (American National Biography). On the Road was Kerouac’s first work—and in fact the first work in American literature—that exemplified this “literary art”.While most critics dismissed the novel as “self-indulgent, irresponsible, or dangerous”, “it created an instant literary sensation” (ibid.).  At the time of its publication, it was one of the few books that perfectly captured the zeitgeist of the post-war years and echoed it back to the rest of the country, amplified and embellished, to create something eternally contemporary. “Now more than ever, it seems, reading Paradise’s tale brings out the questing young wanderer in many a reader, no matter one’s age, gender, nationality, or predilection for all things Beat” (Holiday).Octavo, original cloth, original dust jacket; custom half-morocco box. With advance review slip laid-in. Book fine, dust jacket in outstanding condition with a few flecks of rubbing; also a small patch of dampstaining visible on verso only. A superb copy with the extremely rare review card.

FIRST EDITION of the defining work of the Beat generation. ADVANCE COPY, with extremely rare additional printed white dust jacket announcing the publication over regular dust jacket: "This is a copy of the first edition of ON THE ROAD by Jack Kerouac. It will be published in September 1957 by The Viking Press and is certain to cause violently conflicting reactions among readers and critics. We believe that readers will find truth in the book; to some this truth may be beautiful, to others it may be ugly, but no one can fail to be impressed by what this books says and the way it says it." Octavo, original cloth, original dust jacket together with review copy white dust jacket; custom cloth box. Book fine, extremely vibrant original dust jacket with light edgewear including closed tear at top right corner of front panel. Exceedingly rare advance jacket with toning to spine, some soiling, and matching closed tear at top right corner.