The Fifth Column and The First Forty-Nine Stories

New York: Charles Scribner's and Sons, 1938

FIRST EDITION of Hemingway's most comprehesive collection of short stories, published with The Fifth Column, Hemingway's only full-length play.

"Five years after publishing Winner Take Nothing (1933), he collected the three separate volumes of stories and added to them a handful of other pieces-- four stories written after 1933: "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" (1936), "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber (1936), "The Capital of the World" (1936), and "Old Man at the Bridge" (1937); one early story previously bypassed for commercial publication, "Up in Michigan" (1923, Three Stories and Ten Poems); and The Fifth Column, a play set in Civil-War Spain- to make up The Fifth Column and The First Forty-Nine Stories (1938), the only collective gathering of his stories to appear during his lifetime" (Bendixen, A Companion to the American Short Story).

Octavo, original cloth, original dust jacket; custom box. Book near fine, dust jacket bright and clean with only trivial wear. An excellent copy.

$4,600

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American Buffalo

FIRST EDITION, hardcover issue, SIGNED BY MAMET on dedication page. Winner of the 1976 Obie Award and the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best American Play of 1977; made into a 1996 film starring Dustin Hoffman. Octavo, original yellow cloth, original dust jacket; custom half-morocco box. A FINE COPY.

$1,400

Springtide of Life

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.

$850

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

Pansies

“So I should wish these Pansies to be taken as thoughts rather than anything else; casual thoughts that are true while they are true and irrelevant when the mood and circumstances changes. I should like them to be as fleeting as pansies, which wilt so soon, and are fascinating with their varied faces, while they last. And flowers, to my thinking, are not merely pretty-pretty. They have in their fragrance an earthiness of the humus and corruptive earth from which they spring. And pansies, in their streaked faces, have a look of many things besides hearts-ease.” - D.H. Lawrence “Lawrence himself never took Pansies as seriously as his hostile critics, as his two introductions make clear: he called them ‘rag poems’” (Keith Sagar, The Art of D.H. Lawrence). Nevertheless, this unexpurgated edition, considered by Lawrence to be complete with the full introduction and fourteen additional poems, was published privately due to concerns about pornography. The manuscript had recently been seized by the English police for suspicions of obscenity, which Lawrence took as an insult and perhaps prompted the publication of this and another edition of 500 copies. PRIVATELY PRINTED FIRST EDITION, number 48 of only 50 copies SIGNED BY LAWRENCE. Octavo, with frontispiece portait of Lawerence printed in brown. Title designed by W.G. West, printed in brown and blue, on Japanese vellum. Original soft grey/blue leather decorated in blue and gold, top edges gilt, others uncut. Bookplate of John Kobler (biographer of Al Capone) on frton pastesown. Spine faded, a little soiling to boards; original slipcase with a little fading and wear at edges; custom half-morocco box with gilt decoration on front board. A very nice copy. RARE.

$1,800

Call it Sleep

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.

$750

The Deep Range

"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.

$300

The Picturegoers

FIRST EDITION of Lodge's first novel. “it is a fine beginning, a serious book on serious themes, and impressive work for a writer who was only twenty-five when it was published and some years younger when he wrote it” (Merritt Moseley and Dale Salwak, David Lodge: How Far Can You Go?) Octavo, original cloth, original dust jacket. Book fine, dust jacket with fading to spine and mild soiling to rear panel.

$500

Nikolai Gogol

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.

Price On Request

Riprap

DEDICATION COPY OF SNYDER'S FIRST BOOK, SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY SNYDER: "For Jim Baxtor / from Gary". Baxtor is one of 12 dedicatees. Octavo, original wrappers, japanese string tied binding. One of only 500 copies. Fine.

$3,500

On the Road

FIRST EDITION of the defining work of the Beat generation. ADVANCE COPY, with extremely rare additional printed white dust jacket announcing the publication over regular dust jacket: "This is a copy of the first edition of ON THE ROAD by Jack Kerouac. It will be published in September 1957 by The Viking Press and is certain to cause violently conflicting reactions among readers and critics. We believe that readers will find truth in the book; to some this truth may be beautiful, to others it may be ugly, but no one can fail to be impressed by what this books says and the way it says it." Octavo, original cloth, original dust jacket together with review copy white dust jacket; custom cloth box. Book fine, extremely vibrant original dust jacket with light edgewear including closed tear at top right corner of front panel. Exceedingly rare advance jacket with toning to spine, some soiling, and matching closed tear at top right corner.

$35,000

The Fables of Aesop and Others Translated into Human Nature

"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.

$450

Cold Mountain

"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.