Ulysses

New York: Random House, 1934

First authorized American edition, INSCRIBED BY ILLUSTRATOR ERNST REICHL IN THE YEAR OF PUBLICATION. "Not only designed, but signed, for a good old friend. Ernst Reichl / 1.23.34"

Octavo, original oatmeal cloth, presumed first issue dust jacket (with 'Reichl' on lower front wrapper). Book near fine with few marks on covers, dust jacket very good with tape reinforcement at spine head verso, crease and small chips to jacket spine.

$5,000

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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

Jerusalem Windows

FIRST EDITION in English, beautifully illustrated with 104 plates (64 in full color), and TWO ORIGINAL COLOR LITHOGRAPHS done expressly for this edition. "All the time I was working, I felt my father and my mother were looking over my shoulder, and behind them were Jews, millions of other vanished Jews of yesterday and a thousand years ago." –Chagall, on the creation of The Jerusalem Windows Chagall's Jerusalem Windows illustrates and chronicles the creation of the famous twelve stained glass windows, one for each of the twelve tribes of Israel, designed by Chagall for the Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center Synagogue in Jerusalem. Text and Notes by Jean Leymarie. Original red cloth, original pictorial dust jacket. Without the rarely seen publisher's slipcase. Book fine, dust jacket near-fine with only a little edgewear.

$1,500

Blackface

LIMITED EDITION, 1/100 COPIES SIGNED AND NUMBERED BY LEVINTHAL, ISSUED WITH A PHOTOGRAPH. Essay by Manthia Diawara."Levinthal's work is important because it confronts us with the Blackface stereotype, makes it speak to us directly, without an intermediary, and demands a response from us regardless of our race, age, or gender."–Manthia DiawaraQuarto, stamped black cloth; in a stamped red cloth box. Cibachrome print, 10x8 inches, with Levinthal's signature on verso; framed. 1999.

$1,000

Les Liaisons Dangereuses

LIMITED EDITION, 1/1000 COPIES. Folio. Two volumes. Original paper wrappers printed in red and black. Original glassine. Complete with 14 plates by Alastair. An outstanding set with light wear to glassine wrappers.

$400

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

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

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

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

Joyce, James