The Dancing Bears

Ralph 124C 41+

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. 

$9,500

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

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. 

$8,000

Poems Chosen out of the Works

FIRST KELMSCOTT PRESS EDITION, ONE OF ONLY 250 COPIES ON PAPER (from an edition of 258). The Kelmscott Press "was far and away the most splendid of all private presses... quite without a peer." -Colin Franklin, The Private Presses Beautifully printed in red and black in Golden type. Exquisitely illustrated by William Morris with woodcut title page, first page (borders), and decorated initials throughout. Hammersmith: Kelmscott Press, 1895 [issued 1896]. Small quarto, original limp vellum, yapp edges, gilt spine title, green silk ties; uncut. One tie loose, else fine.

$3,500

A Pale View of the Hills

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. 

$1,500

An Examination of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Chapters of Mr. Gibbon's History, BOUND WITH: Gibbon's A Vindication Bound w/Davis' "Reply"

FIRST EDITION. With 'Advertisement' after the title page. BOUND WITH: Davis, Henry Edwards.  A Reply to Mr. Gibbon's Vindication of Some Passages in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Chapters of "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." London: J.Dodsley, 1779. First edition. Octavo, bound in recent 3/4 calf over marbled boards preserving early spine. Internally clean and sound throughout; a very attractive volume of this rare edition. In 1778 three people, including Henry Edwards Davis, a tutor of Balliol College, Oxford, wrote treatises publicly attacking Gibbon in hysterical terms for the anti-Christian remarks in the fifteenth and sixteenth chapters of his 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire', which contain remarks condemning the rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire. The philosopher David Hume had warned Gibbon that this might happen. It gave Gibbon the opportunity to overmatch Davis with a public reply (here included) which was quite devastating in its superior learning, and its contrasting coolness. Gibbon had it printed in octavo so that it could not be bound with his (quarto) 'History'. Davis' further reply is also included here.

$3,500

Howl

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.

Price On Request

The Town and the City

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.

$9,000

The Golden Notebook

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.

$1,900

Ultramarine

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).

$13,500

Tropic of Capricorn

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. 

$950

Orlando

SIGNED LIMITED FIRST EDITION, one of 800 copies signed by Woolf.
“Virginia Woolf’s novel about Vita Sackville-West represented a turn from the kind of experimentation in life in which she could not wholly let herself go to the kind of venture in art where she could be wholeheartedly involved” (Ralph Freedman, Virginia Woolf: Revaluation and Continuity, A Collection of Essays). Orlando came as a great departure from Woolf’s other novels—less carefully written, and “in some ways foolish—a novelist’s holiday rather than a novel” (ibid.). It was, indeed, less of a novel, than “the longest and most charming love letter in literature” (Nigel Nicholson).
Precedes the first UK edition. Krikpatrick A11a. Signed on verso of half-title. Octavo, original elaborately gilt-decorated cloth; custom cloth box. Fading to cloth (about an inch in from the edges on the front board, less on rear) and fraying to edges. A very good copy.

$2,400

Poor White

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. 

$750