Nikolai Gogol

Norfolk: New Directions , [1944]

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.

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The Dancing Bears

FIRST EDITION OF MERWIN'S SECOND BOOK. Octavo. Original cloth, original dust jacket. A fine copy.

$550

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

King Jesus

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

$150

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

Antlitz der Zeit

FIRST EDITION of Sander’s classic, one of the most influential photobooks of the early twentieth-century. SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY SANDER.August Sander “was part of a coterie of photographers who established the photographic book as an aesthetically and commercially viable art form in the 1920s. Though Sander had published one such book in 1924, Unsere Heimat, Hannover, it was the 1929 publication of Antlitz der Zeit (The Face of Our Time) that propelled him into enduring fame” (Warren, Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century Photography). “Many of his classic images are included in this seminal photobook, and the essential qualities of Sander’s vision can be seen. He took typical examples of professions, trades and social classes in Weimar Germany, and photographed them in their familiar environments in order to build up, piece by piece, a dispassionate image of the ‘face’ of society… One of his work’s miracles is how, despite his nominal objectivity, his political view shines through… His work is not neutral. It is not just penetrating, but was seen as positively dangerous, a little too acute in its analysis of society and class, by those with certain vested interests. This is made clear by the fact that when the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, publisher’s copies of Antlitz der Zeit were seized, the plates destroyed, and the negatives confiscated by Hitler’s Ministry of Culture” (The Photobook, I.124). Roth 52. Quarto. Original yellow cloth, original dust jacket. Signed and inscribed by Sander. Scarce original dust jacket with small chips at spine ends and extremities, and significant tears with loss at bottom portion of spine and front cover and at top of dust jacket rear (1"x4").

Price On Request

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

Octopussy and The Living Daylights

"...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.

$375

Tropic of Cancer

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.

$2,000

A Boy's Will

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

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

Le Neo-Plasticisme

FIRST EDITION, SIGNED BY MONDRIAN IN ORIGINAL WRAPPERS. 14 pp. Octavo. Original wrappers. Signed and incribed in pencil by Mondrian on title. Small chip at head of spine, small stain on front wrapper. VERY RARE SIGNED.

$7,500

Nabokov, Vladimir