A Boy's Will

London: David Nutt, 1913

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.

$9,500

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Aeschyli tragoediae VII

FIRST COMPLETE EDITION OF AESCHYLUS. With the editio princeps of the Agamemnon. “An excellent and beautiful edition... It is a much more valuable impression than either of its precursors.. what enhances the value of the edition is, that the Agamemnon is published in it, for the first time, complete.” -Dibdin, An introduction to the knowledge of rare and valuable editions of the Greek and Latin Classics Quarto. Early full tree-calf skillfully rebacked, spine in six compartments, red leather label. Gilt dentelles, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. Text generallly clean throughout; repaired tear to the lower portion of title page. A handsome copy of an important and distinguished edition.

$7,500

All the Pretty Horses

"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.

$250

Bend Sinister

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.

Price On Request

The Spy Who Loved Me

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.

$850

Invisible Man

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.

$8,000

Tulsa

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.

$950

Love in the Time of Cholera

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

$125

Oriental Assembly

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.

$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

The Man in the High Castle

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.

$2,600

Half of Paradise

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.

$4,500

Laughter in the Dark

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.