American Literature

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 EDITION IN ORIGINAL CLOTH of one of the great classics of American Literature. One of only 2500 copies printed.  In November 1849, "James T. Fields--the junior partner in Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, Boston's most eminent publishing firm--entered Hawthorne's professional and personal life. He called on Hawthorne in Salem, returned to Boston with an unfinished manuscript, and soon began advertising 'a new volume by Hawthorne.' At that point Hawthorne planned to lighten his dark tale of adultery with a group of 'old-time legends' that presumably included 'Ethan Brand,' but Fields soon dissuaded him. Hawthorne then wrote the long autobiographical introduction called 'The Custom-House' and completed his novel. The Scarlet Letter appeared in March 1850, a story of a proud adulteress sentenced by her stern Puritan judges to wear a scarlet A on her breast, the hypocritical minister who was her lover, her beautiful, unruly child, and her revenge-obsessed husband. Despite Salemites' complaints of being maligned in the introduction and some critics' objections to the novel's 'scandalous' subject, it was immediately hailed as a work of genius and America's first major novel" (American National Biography).  Octavo, original cloth; custom half-morocco box. Split at front edge between between front ads and blank; front hinge tender. Recased with original spine laid down. With March 1, 1850 ads.

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

"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. 

SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY ALLEN GINSBERG, WITH SUNFLOWER DRAWING. A later printing of Ginsberg's masterpiece. "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). Very nearly fine with only the most trivial wear to extremities. 

"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, 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. 

BEAUTIFUL SIGNED LIMITED EDITION from the Arion Press. One of 300 numbered copies (out of a total edition of 326), signed by Roth. Illustrated with 48 photographs of New York City in the period of the novel. At the time it was written, "Few publishers expressed interest in Call It Sleep because its moody undertones and true-to-life depictions of social and family conflicts were thought to be unmarketable to the nation's readers, who were struggling with the depression." It took decades until a critic wrote of it favorably enough to bring it to the public's attention again, when in 1964 Irving Howe published a review on the front page of the New York Times Book Review, making it a national bestseller. "For its combination of realistic detail, psychological symbolism, and modernist techniques, [Call It Sleep] marks an important transition in Jewish-American literature from the works of early immigrant writers such as Abraham Cahan and Anzia Yezierska to later modern voices such as Saul Bellow and Philip Roth" (American National Biography). San Francisco: Arion Press, 1995. Quarto, green half morocco, original decorated cloth, original decorated slipcase. A fine 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. 

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. 

"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. 

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.

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 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.

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, first issue of one of the most influential works of American literature.

The Red Badge of Courage, Crane's "most popular work, and the classic American treatment of the Civil War... interprets military experience through the perspective of an untried volunteer who receives his wound-badge while fleeing from a battle but eventually proves himself by fighting bravely. The book was so convincing that a Union colonel said he recalled serving with Crane at Antietam. The epic sweep of the novel arises in part from Crane's ability to convey a common soldier's rite of passage from fear to confidence. It also arises from Crane's ability to blend a variety of literary modes, including irony, the mock-heroic, comedy, and the grotesque. Crane's strikingly original use of colors, partly inspired by Goethe and already on display in Maggie, became a trademark, as did his penchant for offbeat insights and arresting turns of phrase. The autumn 1895 publication of The Red Badge of Courage in the United States and England brought Crane international fame as the book went into fourteen printings within the year" (American National Biography). BAL 4071.

Octavo, original buckram stamped in red, black, and gilt; early custom box. Book with foxing to cloth edges and toning to spine. Text exceptionally clean. With Appleton ads in rear.

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 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.

FIRST EDITION, SIGNED BY WHITMAN. “As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free”, before becoming the final addition to the final edition of Leaves of Grass, was published independently by Whitman in 1872, twenty years before the poet’s death. The title poem was written as a commencement for Dartmouth College as one of the few pieces Whitman recited publicly. With large Whitman signature across title page. Octavo, original dark green cloth; custom half-morocco box. Minor discoloration to pastedowns. a little fraying to spine ends and corners. 

“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 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, 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, 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.