Half of Paradise

Boston: Houghton and Mifflin Company, 1965

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

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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

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

Photographs 1947-1977

"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.

$650

Ommateum

FIRST EDITION. Octavo. Original cloth, dust jacket. A fine copy. Custom box.

$2,700

Voyage au Bout de la Nuit

FIRST EDITION of Celine's highly influential first novel.  "'Journey,' published in 1932, burst like a bombshell on the Parisian literary scene, garnering huge sales and almost winning the Prix Goncourt... [The] novel is a furious attempt to place one man’s consciousness at the epicenter of a world that is exploding under the centripetal influences of capitalism, imperialism, consumerism and licentiousness. In this, Céline anticipates the essentially apolitical rodomontades of the American Beats, quite as much as he belongs with the excruciating Marxian posturing of the interwar French existentialists and Surrealists...   "If Ulysses is the great modernist novel most inspired by a desire for humanistic inclusion, then Voyage is its antithesis: a stream of misanthropic consciousness, almost unrelieved by any warmth or fellow-feeling” (Will Self, “Céline’s Dark Journey”). Octavo, original wrappers; custom cloth box. With ads in rear. A few creases to spine and a few spots of soiling. A beautiful copy of a fragile book.

$3,000

Claudius, The God

FIRST EDITION. "Two years have gone by since I finished writing the long story of how I, Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus, the cripple, the stammerer, the fool of the family, whom none of his ambitious and bloody-minded relatives considered worth the trouble of executing, poisoning, forcing to suicide, banishing to a desert island or starving to death – which was how they one by one got rid of each other – how I survived them all, even my insane nephew Gaius Caligula, and was one day unexpectedly acclaimed Emporer by the corporals and sergeants of the Palace Guard." Octavo. Original cloth, original dust jacket.

$450

En attendant Godot [Waiting for Godot]

FIRST EDITION of Beckett’s masterpiece, one of the most influential works of modern drama. WITH: a small photograph of Beckett signed and inscribed by Beckett laid in. “Voted the most significant English language play of the 20th century in a British Royal National Theatre poll of 800 playwrights, actors, directors and journalists… Beckett's naked play about two tramps waiting for Godot has tapped into our 20th-century public consciousness. It seems to express our deepest fears and our deepest knowledge of ourselves and our predicament” (Norman Berlin).Notably, the first edition of the text provided the public with their first experience of the complete play—Les Editions de Minuit published it three months before the play’s debut (in French) in January 1953. Octavo, original wrappers; custom half-morocco box. A little toning to spine. A superb copy.

$4,000

Self-Portrait

First edition, SIGNED and INSCRIBED by Man Ray: "for Arnold and Gus Newman affectionately Man Ray 1963". With an original line drawing by Man Ray and Newman's notations on front endpaper. An important association copy.

$10,000

Burke. James Lee