Gift Ideas

FIRST EDITION, SIGNED BY ANNIE LEIBOVITZ."I hate the word 'celebrity.' I've always been more interested in what people do than who they are, and I hope that my photographs reflect that. I have the opportunity to work with people who are the best actors, and writers, and athletes, and dancers--a broad spectrum. I feel like I'm photographing people who matter, in one way or another. I'm photographing my time."–Annie Leibovitz, in an interview with Literal MagazineFolio, original photo-pictorial boards, original glassine. Minor tears at extremities of rear glassine wrapper. A lovely copy.

"Painting relates to both art and life. Neither can be made. (I try to act in that gap between the two.)" –Robert RauschenbergFIRST EDITION, BOLDLY SIGNED BY ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG. Original orange cloth, original dust jacket. With 200 illustrations including 92 color plates. 

American Heritage Publishing Co., New York, 1966. First edition. Folio. Two volumes. With an introduction by Marshall B. Davidson. Reproduced in color for the first time from the collection at the New York Historical Society. Both volumes fine in publisher's slipcase.

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

FIRST EDITION, SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY JULIA CHILD. Octavo, original cloth, original jacket. An exceptional copy. Rare signed. 

"A global environmental crisis threatens to overwhelm our children's generation. Mitigating the crisis will require a planetary perspective, long-term thinking, political courage and savvy, eloquence and leadership––all of which are in evidence in Al Gore's landmark book."–Carl SaganFIRST EDITION, SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY AL GORE: "For the grandchildren of Sally and Paul Robinson". A fine copy in the original dust jacket. 

FIRST EDITION OF SENDAK'S THIRD BOOK, SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY SENDAK. Gilt lettered red cloth, original dust jacket ($12.95 on front flap). Outside Over There is Sendak's story of Ida, a pre-adolescent girl who must contend with sibling jealousy, new responsibilities and goblins who kidnap her young sister. A splendid copy, with Sendak's enchanting illustrations. 

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. 

“All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake up in the day to find it was vanity, but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.” –T.E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of WisdomFIRST TRADE EDITION, FIRST IMPRESSION. 54 illustrations and 4 fold-out maps. Near fine or better in brown buckram; original dust jacket with small tears and few small chips; spine lightly toned and with some soiling, light creasing to front panel. A very attractive copy of Lawrence's masterpiece. 

"...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. 

"Aunt Annie's alligator. . . . . . . A . . a . . A"FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE. Near fine or better in an exceptionally bright, unclipped dust jacket. A superb copy.

LIMITED EDITION, 1/1000 COPIES. Folio. Two volumes. Original paper wrappers printed in red and black. Original glassine. Complete with 14 plates by Alastair. An outstanding set with light wear to glassine wrappers. 

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. 

"The Design which forms the Frontispiece to this book, and which is therefore presumed to be somewhat typical of the intention of Fable, represents Man tried at the Court of the Lion for the ill-treatment of a Horse. It will be seen that Man has the worst of it..." Quarto. Hand-colored wood-engraved frontispiece, title and 22 plates by Swain after Charles Bennett. Finely bound in near-contemporary maroon calf. Light wear to spine and extremities; internally clean and nearly fine. A handsome and very appealing copy.

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. 

"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 of Lawrence's account of his journey on foot through northern Syria. Illustrated with 129 photographs taken by the author.  Octavo. Original cloth, original brown paper dust jacket. First issue with page 16 mis-numbered. Fine in a superb dust jacket with only very minor occasional rubbing.

LIMITED EDITION, one of 750 copies. 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} All I can say is that most modern books weary me, but Burton never does...His writing is like talk, learned but earthy, and once he starts, he is hard to stop...That he was a humorist in our sense of the word we need no biographical facts to attest: The Anatomy of Melancholy is, by a magnificent and somehow very English irony, one of the great comic works of the world.— Anthony Burgess   Two volumes. Quarto. Original vellum-backed decorative
boards. Printed on Dutch paper. An excellent set, clean throughout. 

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, 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 AMERICAN TRADE EDITION. Octavo. Original pictorial cloth lettered in gilt. Introduction by Theodore Roosevelt, foreword by Gilbert H.Grosvenor. With 8 full page illustrations, 100 illustrations in black and white, and color map bound in at rear. An excellent copy.

"Avedon gravitates to those moments in which the oscillation between pretense and revelation is most intense. The subject of any of his photographs is likely to show in part isolation or grotesquerie, courage to the point of madness, isolation-and-defiance or sly amusement, desolation and wit, pride and sterility, pride and triumph. Victories, defeats mingle in the same moment sometimes or on adjoining pages..." –Harold Brodkey (from the Introductory Essay)FIRST EDITION. A spectacular production illustrated with Avedon's  photographs of Lauren Bacall, Joan Baez, Bridget Bardot, Audrey Hepburn, Anjelica Houston, Janis Joplin, Sophia Loren, Marilyn Monroe, Yves Saint Laurent, Elizabeth Taylor, Diana Vreeland and many more. A near fine copy with the original acetate jacket in very good condition with wear and chip at the top of the spine. An excellent copy signed and inscribed by Avedon. SOLD.

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. 

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.

RACKHAM, ARTHUR; SWINBURNE, ALGERNON CHARLES.The Springtide of Life. Poems of Childhood by Algernon Charles Swinburne.SIGNED LIMITED FIRST EDITION, number 354 of only 765 copies signed by illustrator Arthur Rackham. Beautifully illustrated collection of Swinburne's children's poems, with nine mounted colored plates and 52 black and white drawings. One reason why Swinburne never brought out such a collection was his failure to find an artist who could interpret to his satisfaction the simplicity and freshness of his verses. We are fortunate in having secured, in Mr. Arthur Rackham, one whose delicate and romantic fancy is in sensitive harmony with Swinburne's, and who understands, no less than he did, ho 'Heaven lies about us in our infancy.'" –Edmund Gosse, Preface Quarto, original half vellum over parchment boards with gilt designs. Some soiling to endpapers, binding with only the slightest soiling; an exceptionally clean 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, FIRST PRINTING of Miller's fourth novel in the original wrappers. With the scarce errata slip tipped-in; 60 Francs on the spine and front flap.  Moderate expert restoration at spine head and joints. Overall a very handsome copy. 

FIRST HARDCOVER EDITION, SIGNED BY LARRY CLARK, fully illustrated with reproductions of Clark's raw photographs. "I was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1943. When I was sixteen I started shooting amphetamine. I shot with my friends everyday for three years and then left town but I've gone back through the years. Once the needle goes in it never comes out."“The initial shock of Tulsa was that it was photographed from inside the story, and this changed everything.” –Andrew Roth, The Book of 101 PhotobooksClark's groundbreaking first book was originally issued as a paperback in 1971. Quarto, original cloth, original dust jacket. Fine condition.

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

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

"The grandfather of pictorial histories, this mammoth work is a necessary part of any Civil War library. The work contains 3,389 images that constitute an important source on the war's appearance—its battlefields, common soldiers, officers, forts, diseases, camp scenes, army movements, and materiel." Eicher, The Civil War in Books 771."The greatest single collection of Brady illustrations" (Allan Nevins). The Mathew Brady photographs represent the first instance of a comprehensive photo-documentation of a war. New York: The Review of Reviews, 1911. Quarto, original blue cloth gilt. Ten volumes. An exceptional set, gilt uncommonly bright. Only occasional trivial wear to bindings. Very rare in this condition.

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.