Modern Firsts

FIRST EDITION, AN IMPORTANT ASSOCIATION COPY INSCRIBED BY NABOKOV TO MORRIS BISHOP, one of Nabokov's closest friends and mentors: "To THE [drawing of two chess bishops] / FROM THE author of S. [drawing of a chess knight] / Sept. 1948 / Cornell". With Morris Bishop's bookplate on front pastedown. Morris Bishop was a prolific author, poet, and literary scholar, who had a lifelong affiliation with Cornell. "Among Professor Bishop's other distinctions was his perception of the literary talent of Vladimir Nabokov whom he brought to Cornell in 1948 as a teacher at a time when the Russian-born novelist was just making his mark in this country. Mr. Nabokov considered Professor Bishop as one of his closest friends in the United States and as a sort of spiritual father. They shared a fondness for exactitude in language and for japery as well as a common commitment to literature" (New York Times, Nov 22, 1973). "Bend Sinister, the first novel Nabokov wrote after coming to America, can be seen as his most direct fictional response to both the new Russian government and the new Soviet realism. The most self-consciously artificial of his novels in English, Bend Sinister is an indictment of the common impulse Nabokov saw behind both political totalitarianism and the misguided tendency of writers or readers to inflict 'general ideas' on works of art." (Lucy Maddox, Nabokov's Novels in English). Octavo, original cloth, original dust jacket; custom cloth box. Book fine, dust jacket with crease in center and "VOLGA" written neatly in pencil alongside the bolt of lightning on front panel.

AN EXCEPTIONAL INSCRIBED COPY: FIRST EDITION, one of only 1000 copies, SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY GINSBERG (with additional amusing commentary) and fellow Beat poet GREGORY CORSO.First inscribed by Corso on title "For Gergory, love Allen Ginsberg / S.F. -1956"; with Ginsberg's inscription beneath "This is Gregory Corso's Natural hand - A. Ginsberg 1977". Signed also by Ginsberg on title: "Allen Ginsberg Cambridge 1977 / This is Allen Ginsberg's Hand - Allen Ginsberg / 1977/ Dec 4". All surrounded with Ginsberg's characteristic flower and sun drawing (with "AH" in the "O" in "Howl"). On the verso of the title page Corso has written "Gregory. Here's one to harm [?] yr eyes / Allen Ginsberg / 1956"; with Ginsberg writing beneath "This is Gregory Corso's fake hand / Allen Ginsberg / Cambridge Dec 4, 77"."In October 1955 Ginsberg read the first part of his new poem ['Howl'] in public for the first time to tumultuous applause at the Six Gallery reading in San Francisco with the local poets Kenneth Rexroth, Gary Snyder, Michael McClure, Philip Whalen, and Philip LaMantia. Journalists were quick to herald the reading as a landmark event in American poetry, the birth of what they labeled the San Francisco Poetry Renaissance. Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who ran the City Lights Book Store and the City Lights publishing house in North Beach, sent Ginsberg a telegram echoing Ralph Waldo Emerson's response to Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass: 'I greet you at the beginning of a great career. When do I get the manuscript?' Later Ginsberg wrote that 'in publishing 'Howl,' I was curious to leave behind after my generation an emotional time bomb that would continue exploding in U.S. consciousness in case our military-industrial-nationalist complex solidified into a repressive police bureaucracy' (Original Draft Facsimile Howl, p. xii). "Early in the following year Howl and Other Poems was published with an introduction by William Carlos Williams as number four in the City Lights Pocket Poets Series. In May 1956 copies of the small black-and-white stapled paperback were seized by the San Francisco police, who arrested Ferlinghetti and Shigeyoshi Murao, his shop manager, and charged them with publishing and selling an obscene and indecent book. The American Civil Liberties Union took up the defense of Ginsberg's poem in a highly publicized obscenity trial in San Francisco, which concluded in October 1957 when Judge Clayton Horn ruled that Howl had redeeming social value" (American National Biography). Introduction by William Carlos Williams. The Pocket Poets Series: Number Four. Small quarto, original printed wrappers; custom half-morocco box. Front wrapper spotted and toned, small damp stain to top last leaf. An outstanding signed and inscribed association copy.

FIRST EDITION, one of only 100 copies, SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY GINSBERG. Signed and inscribed on title: "for Michael Rumaker / Allen Ginsberg / this historic particular copy of Howl which his eyes read for / Black Mt Review #7 / Signed White Plains N.Y. / March 12, 1976". Ginsberg also added 20 "ah"'s along the bottom of the page. With large flower and sun drawing by Ginsberg across title. Rumaker's ownership signature at top of page. WITH: The original issue of The Black Mountain Review #7 in which Rumaker's review of "Howl" appears. "In October 1955 Ginsberg read the first part of his new poem ['Howl'] in public for the first time to tumultuous applause at the Six Gallery reading in San Francisco with the local poets Kenneth Rexroth, Gary Snyder, Michael McClure, Philip Whalen, and Philip LaMantia. Journalists were quick to herald the reading as a landmark event in American poetry, the birth of what they labeled the San Francisco Poetry Renaissance. Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who ran the City Lights Book Store and the City Lights publishing house in North Beach, sent Ginsberg a telegram echoing Ralph Waldo Emerson's response to Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass: 'I greet you at the beginning of a great career. When do I get the manuscript?' Later Ginsberg wrote that 'in publishing 'Howl,' I was curious to leave behind after my generation an emotional time bomb that would continue exploding in U.S. consciousness in case our military-industrial-nationalist complex solidified into a repressive police bureaucracy' (Original Draft Facsimile Howl, p. xii). "Early in the following year Howl and Other Poems was published with an introduction by William Carlos Williams as number four in the City Lights Pocket Poets Series. In May 1956 copies of the small black-and-white stapled paperback were seized by the San Francisco police, who arrested Ferlinghetti and Shigeyoshi Murao, his shop manager, and charged them with publishing and selling an obscene and indecent book. The American Civil Liberties Union took up the defense of Ginsberg's poem in a highly publicized obscenity trial in San Francisco, which concluded in October 1957 when Judge Clayton Horn ruled that Howl had redeeming social value" (American National Biography). Introduction by William Carlos Williams. The Pocket Poets Series: Number Four. Small quarto, original printed wrappers; custom cloth box. Small quarto, original wrappers; custom box housing both Howl and The Black Mountain Review. A little toning to spine (as usual) and a small abrasion to rear cover. Overall an exceptionally fresh, clean beautiful copy.

FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE, INSCRIBED BY NABOKOV TO HIS WIFE, VERA. The inscription translates as "My beloved, here's a little book for you, my life, here's another little book for you, my love, there will be more little books". With small notations highlighting text throughout. Nikolai Gogol is one of Nabokov's earliest works in English.  12mo. Original cloth, first issue dust jacket. A fine copy. 

FIRST AMERICAN EDITION. Octavo. Original cloth, original dust jacket. An excellent copy.

FIRST EDITION, FIRST PRINTING. Octavo, original cloth, original dust jacket. A fine copy in a lightly soiled dustjacket.

"When you read this book, from page one you feel a threat following you, some animistic urging that keeps you going by the way McCarthy manipulates your demonic love of the sounds of speech. It’s seductive, the way shots of tequila offer the promise of danger, the way Shakespeare convinces you that even though Macbeth is up on the stage and you’re in the audience you’re thinking and feeling along with him, his bravado, his self-convincing, his descent, his death..." –Harold AugenbraumFIRST EDITION of the first novel of McCarthy's Border Trilogy. "Winner of the 1992 National Book Award and the 1992 National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction, Cormac McCarthy's sixth novel, All The Pretty Horses, simultaneously recapitulates and transcends many of the themes, situations, structures, and characters of his earlier work..." (Arnold and Luce, Perspectives on Cormac McCarthy). New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992. Octavo, original cloth, original dust jacket. A fine copy.

FIRST EDITION, SIGNED BY FRANZEN on front free endpaper. Jonathan Franzen’s first novel has been compared to Richard Powers, David Foster Wallace, and Don DeLillo “for its labyrinthine plot, its manipulation of multiple viewpoints, and its use of systems theory” (ibid.). Octavo, original half-cloth over boards. original dust jacket. Book near-fine with slight lean, dust jacket fine.

FIRST EDITION, SIGNED BY TONI MORRISON. Original gilt stamped cloth, original dust jacket. A fine copy signed by Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison. 

"Hope faded as his radius of vision grew and the screen remained empty. Again and again he called into the lonely silence, while grief and helplessness strove for the mastery of his soul."FIRST EDITION, review copy. In a departure from Arthur C. Clarke's usual medium of outer space, The Deep Range is a novel of the sea, and shows off Clarke's "impressive talents as astronomer, deep-sea naturalist, and novelist" (from the dust jacket). Octavo, original green boards, original dust jacket. With review slip tabbed in. Book fine, light edgewear to dust jacket.

FIRST EDITION, SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY RAY BRADBURY. Octavo, original cloth, original dust jacket. A fine copy. 

"...And all this because of a man called Bond, Commander James Bond, who had turned up at ten thirty that morning in a taxi from Kingston."FIRST EDITION. Original cloth, first state dust jacket with the price intact on the front flap. Near fine copy in a very good or better example of the original dust jacket. A very desirable copy.

FIRST EDITIONS of The Hunger Games Trilogy. A fine set in the original dust jackets. 

FIRST EDITION. "Two years have gone by since I finished writing the long story of how I, Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus, the cripple, the stammerer, the fool of the family, whom none of his ambitious and bloody-minded relatives considered worth the trouble of executing, poisoning, forcing to suicide, banishing to a desert island or starving to death – which was how they one by one got rid of each other – how I survived them all, even my insane nephew Gaius Caligula, and was one day unexpectedly acclaimed Emporer by the corporals and sergeants of the Palace Guard." Octavo. Original cloth, original dust jacket.

FIRST EDITION of Graves' remarkable work of historical fiction. "In the present work, I swear by the Gods, I am my own mere secretary, and my own official annalist: I am writing with my own hand, and what favour can I hope to win from myself by flattery?" –I, ClaudiusOctavo, original cloth, original dust jacket.

FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE of one of Clarke's earliest works. A near fine copy in the original dust jacket; moderate wear at spine ends, lightly soiled, rubbed. Overall a very appealing copy. 

First edition, first state with "T.E.L." at p. 495 and "Baltic" at p. 182.  With16 photographs and illustrations including 4 maps of which two are folding. Octavo. Original fawn polished buckram in publishers original dust jacket. A fine copy.

"What you have lost will not be returned to you; it always be lost. You’re left with only your scars to mark the void. All you can choose to do is go on, or not. But if you go on, it’s knowing you carry your scars with you."FIRST EDITION, SIGNED BY CHARLES FRAZIER. A superb copy. 

FIRST EDITION, INITIALED BY WARHOL ON HALF-TITLE. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975. Octavo, original cloth, original dust jacket. A fine copy in a very good dust jacket (slight blistering to jacket). 

FIRST EDITION of Lodge's first novel. “it is a fine beginning, a serious book on serious themes, and impressive work for a writer who was only twenty-five when it was published and some years younger when he wrote it” (Merritt Moseley and Dale Salwak, David Lodge: How Far Can You Go?) Octavo, original cloth, original dust jacket. Book fine, dust jacket with fading to spine and mild soiling to rear panel.

FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE. Original cloth, original dust jacket. First issue dust jacket with "1/66" code on the front flap; "Publishers of the American College Dictionary and the Modern Library" on rear flap. A superb copy. 

FIRST EDITION. "It is ... arguable that [The White Goddess] marked the end of Modernism as the dominant mode in British and Irish poetry. Those stirred by its enchantments, from Hughes and Heaney to Simon Armitage, as well as those who turned away in distaste (Philip Larkin among them), have learned from Modernism but have no longer cared for its formal and emotional stringencies... The White Goddess has remained in tune with the times, reprinted time after time and quietly gathering new readers and enthusiasts iwth every generation." –Ian Firla and Grevel Lindop, Graves and the Goddess: Essays on Robert Graves's The White GoddessOctavo. Original cloth, original dust jacket.

FIRST EDITION. Octavo, original red cloth, original dust jacket. Book fine, with light browning to pages (as usual), dust jacket with toning to spine, and rear panel with a little soiling an crease at top edge. A lovely copy.

FIRST EDITION, INSCRIBED AND SIGNED BY SHERWOOD ANDERSON. "Dear David... One incident about the writing of this book will amuse you. The murder of Jim Gibson was written at the back of a little boat-laying place in Mobile Alabama while some sailors at a nearby table discussed the divinity of Christ. Sherwood Anderson."Octavo, original blue cloth. Dust jacket lacking. Spine sunned, light wear at spine head. A handsome copy with a superb inscription. 

James Bond drank down the rest of his beer and got slowly to his feet. He walked towards Scaramanga and was about to pass him when the man reached out a languid left arm and caught him at the biceps. He held the snout of his gun to his nose, sniffing delicately. The expression in the dead brown eyes was far-away. He said, 'Mister, there's something quite extra about the smell of death. Care to try it?' He held out the glittering gun as if he was offering James Bond a rose...FIRST EDITION, second state (as usual), without the rare gilt golden gun on the front board. Octavo, original black cloth, original dust jacket. A FINE COPY.

FIRST EDITION of the tenth book in the James Bond series.Octavo. Original cloth, original dust jacket. Book near-fine, leaning very slightly; with elegant bookplate on front pastedown. Dust jacket unusually bright with very light toning; very trivial traces of wear. A lovely copy. 

First French edition, SIGNED BY BECKETT on title page; one of only 112 copies printed on "bouffant select marques" and reserved for the publishers. A collection of six short plays, translated from English by Beckett.  Octavo, original printed wrappers; glassine. Unopened. A FINE COPY.

FIRST EDITION of the ninth book in the James Bond series, in colorful "skeleton" dust jacket designed by Richard Chopping. Octavo, original black cloth with blind-stamped skeletal hand, original dust jacket. Book fine, small bookseller sticker at lower front paste down, dust jacket light toning at spine, small closed tear at spine head, small residue on back cover. A very good copy. 

FIRST EDITION of Jarrell's first book, SIGNED and INSCRIBED BY JARRELL.Octavo. Original red cloth, original dust jacket. Cloth clean, dust jacket very good with minor wear at spine heel and slight toning at spine. Signed and inscribed by Jarrell on the front free endpaper. Custom cloth clamshell box.

First edition of Hemingway's finest novel. Original cloth, original dust jacket. An excellent copy.

First edition. Original cloth, original dust jacket. An excellent copy. 

FIRST EDITION, hardcover issue, SIGNED BY MAMET on dedication page. Winner of the 1976 Obie Award and the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best American Play of 1977; made into a 1996 film starring Dustin Hoffman. Octavo, original yellow cloth, original dust jacket; custom half-morocco box. A FINE COPY.

FIRST EDITION of Arthur Miller's masterpiece. A very good copy in the original cloth and the original dust jacket. Jacket with light wear at spine, extremities. Overall a very attractive copy of this landmark work. 

FIRST EDITION of Ishiguro's highly acclaimed first novel. Winner of the 1982 Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize. LONDON: FABER & FABER, 1982. Octavo, original cloth, original dust jacket; custom half-morocco box. Book fine, a touch of fading to dust jacket spine, otherwise fine. A beautiful copy. 

SIGNED LIMITED FIRST EDITION of Yeats's autobiographical work; one of only 1000 copies signed by Yeats. "Looking back from 1922, [Yeats] titled his autobiographical account of the decade of the 1890s The Trembling of the Veil. He recalled that Mallarme has said that 'his epoch was troubled by the trembling of the veil of the Temple,' and that 'as those words were still true, during the years of my life described in this book,' he had named it accordingly" (The Cambridge Companion to W.B. Yeats).Octavo, original half parchment over light green boards; original dust jacket. Dust jacket spine with light wear at the spine (slightly affecting label) and minor toning. An excellent copy. 

"Love is all the dirty little tricks you taught me that you probably got out of some book."FIRST EDITION. Original cloth, original dust jacket. A very good copy; jacket bright and well preserved with light rubbing, edgewear and a patch of discoloration on verso only. A very handsome copy. 

“So I should wish these Pansies to be taken as thoughts rather than anything else; casual thoughts that are true while they are true and irrelevant when the mood and circumstances changes. I should like them to be as fleeting as pansies, which wilt so soon, and are fascinating with their varied faces, while they last. And flowers, to my thinking, are not merely pretty-pretty. They have in their fragrance an earthiness of the humus and corruptive earth from which they spring. And pansies, in their streaked faces, have a look of many things besides hearts-ease.” - D.H. Lawrence “Lawrence himself never took Pansies as seriously as his hostile critics, as his two introductions make clear: he called them ‘rag poems’” (Keith Sagar, The Art of D.H. Lawrence). Nevertheless, this unexpurgated edition, considered by Lawrence to be complete with the full introduction and fourteen additional poems, was published privately due to concerns about pornography.  The manuscript had recently been seized by the English police for suspicions of obscenity, which Lawrence took as an insult and perhaps prompted the publication of this and another edition of 500 copies.  PRIVATELY PRINTED FIRST EDITION, number 48 of only 50 copies SIGNED BY LAWRENCE. Octavo, with frontispiece portait of Lawerence printed in brown. Title designed by W.G. West, printed in brown and blue, on Japanese vellum. Original soft grey/blue leather decorated in blue and gold, top edges gilt, others uncut. Bookplate of John Kobler (biographer of Al Capone) on frton pastesown. Spine faded, a little soiling to boards; original slipcase with a little fading and wear at edges; custom half-morocco box with gilt decoration on front board. A very nice copy. RARE.

FIRST EDITION of Lessing's masterpiece. With review slip from publisher Michael Joseph laid in. "The Golden Notebook became an epiphany for an entire generation of women. In this, Lessing's most experimental novel, battle is joined between the will to create and the desire to love. Obstacles are mapped for a woman seeking both independence and intimacy, since her freedom is paradoxically incomplete without the love that in turn undermines it. Lessing shows how conventions and other pitfalls along the way impede sensitive and passionate women from living authentically and fully..." (2007 Nobel Prize Presentation Speech). Lessing won the 2007 Nobel Prize in Literature, with The Golden Notebook specifically cited in the Presentation Speech. Octavo, original cloth, original dust jacket; custom half-leather box. Book near-fine with a little toning to endpapers; dust jacket in excellent condition with only some light scattered soiling.

FIRST AMERICAN EDITION OF HENRY MILLER'S TROPIC OF CANCER, 1/100 COPIES SIGNED BY MILLER. Tropic of Cancer was banned from publication in the United States until the appearance of the present edition; it was first published in 1934 in Paris by the Obelisk Press. Octavo, original publisher's quarter morocco and marbled boards. Occasional trivial rubbing at extremities, generally a fine copy.

FIRST EDITION, SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY GADDIS on front free endpaper: "Martin / Cove ab homine (ut?) / unius libri (The Recognitions) / (and with every best wish.) / (ergo / (I mean, a child among / you taking notes / W. Gaddis".“As the most important precursor of many postmodernist novels about travel or movement, The Recognitions signals a change in the function of travel in fiction that is echoed in later nonfiction about travel... Since its appearance in 1955, Gaddis’ first novel has been in and out of print, initially ignored or misunderstood but subsequently praised as a central work of contemporary American fiction" (Alison Russell, Crossing Boundaries: Postmodern Travel Literature).Original cloth, original dust jacket; custom half-morocco box. Book fine, dust jacket near-fine with very minor edgewear.