At Bromer Booksellers, we focus on the visual book, with fine images that both enhance narrative and stand alone as independent creations. Among our holdings in this area are costume books, emblem books, examples from the Art Nouveau and Art Deco periods, the fantasy illustrators in the tradition of Arthur Rackham, and modern books with original graphics. We look for the successful fusion of picture with text from any century, any country, and across a variety of artistic movements and media. We are especially fascinated with books of other cultures, and you will occasionally find items such as Japanese illustrated woodblock books and Eskimo tales without words ...
Read more about Illustrated Books
(Cambridge): Rampant Lions Press, 1989. Octavo. (18)ff. From an edition of 500 copies, this is one of twenty signed by the author. Illustrated with four charming three-color linocuts, plus a single-color vignette, by Clare Melinsky. This essay, at turns both humorous and earnest, meanders through the various pleasures and vexations... More
(Vienna: c. 1810). Single folio sheet, on which is printed twenty rebus cards, to be cut out. Each card has a very fine hand-colored stipple engraving. A few examples are: a man bowing before a statue of Cupid, a sunset, three children sledding, and Napoleon sitting on an upper-case “B.”... More
Boston: 1888. (5)ff. Hand-written rebus with cut-out illustrations pasted on the letterhead of "Howard Gannett, Publisher and Bookseller." Provides humorous prescriptions for obtaining and retaining good health, which include "Sleep without boots near an open (window)" and "Rise before you wake up-- early before the (stars) have gone." The result... More
(Bremen, ME & NY): Red Angel Press, 2002. Octavo. (18)ff. One of 100 copies signed by the printer/illustrator, Ronald Keller, and by Betty Keller, who edited the text. It explores the notion of a correspondence between Hawthorne's and Dickinson's work by presenting these two texts in a single book. Keller's... More
NY: Red Ozier Press, 1981. Broadside measuring 14 by 29 inches. One of 75 copies. Illustrated with a black & white collage by John Digby. Text printed in burgundy and black on gray paper. Fine. (Peich 28). More
San Francisco: Pomegranate, 2003. First edition. One of twenty-six lettered copies, signed by Kevin McDermott, who is responsible for the text and photographs, and John Updike, who wrote the Foreword. A visually stunning tour of Gorey's home, with McDermott's writing describing each room and its function, along with anecdotes about... More
NY: Abrams, 1996. First edition. One of 300 copies, signed by Edward Gorey, Karen Wilkin, and Clifford Ross. Contains an interview with Gorey, conducted by Ross, with analysis by art critic Wilkin and 200 illustrations of Gorey's work. Fine in an illustrated dust wrapper. Housed in a black cloth slipcase. (Toledano, p. 164). More
San Francisco: Word Play Publications, 1996. First edition. One of 226 copies signed by Gorey and by the authors. This illustrated reference work includes ephemera and collectibles, dramatic productions, a list of pseudonyms, and more. The first true Gorey bibliography. Annotated in pencil throughout, front endpaper creased. Bound in cloth-covered... More
Munich/Berlin: Rixdorfer Drucke, 1970. Quarto. 55pp., frenchfold. One of 300 copies signed by the four artist-printers of the press. A wild "adventure" illustrated with eight four-color, full-page woodcuts and 66 smaller black and white woodcuts. The front cover has a compass mounted in the center to "guide" the reader through... More
Oxford: Oxford Polytechnic Press, 1984. Revised first edition. Robinson's classic introduction to the craft of bookbinding, with step-by-step visual aids. The revised edition provides instruction not only for standard case-bound and library-style bindings, but also techniques for finishing in foil and gold leaf, advice on equipment and materials, and commentary... More
NY: Funk and Wagnalls, (1969). Octavo. 42pp. First edition. Signed by both Norman and Molly Rockwell. A story about a bird who composes his own music after hearing a symphony at the Tanglewood Music Festival in Lenox, Massachusetts. Lavishly illustrated in color and black & white. Fine in gilt-stamped cloth... More
Paris: Fernand Mourlot, 1972. One of only 200 suites of full-color, 25 by 19 3/4-inch lithographs based on the artist's illustrations for the 1940 Heritage Press edition of the Twain classic. When he was commissioned in 1935 to illustrate the Press's new editions of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, Rockwell... More
NY: Random House, 1944. Octavo. (xvi), xlviiipp. One of 500 copies printed at the Press of A. Colish. In designing this book, Bruce Rogers, at the age of 74, completed a plan made twenty-five years before. Inspired by the famous Pickering Euclid of 1847, he made sixty colored woodcut diagrams... More
Stamford, CT: Overbrook Press, (1936). Folio. Six color engravings illustrating Oscar Wilde's text, each signed by the artist and mounted on a 13 by 10-inch off-white matte. This suite of prints, one of only twenty sets, comprises the full set of the engravings that appeared in the edition of the... More
(NY: n.d.). Portrait measures 7 3/4 by 6 inches, printed on a 11 by 7 1/4 inch sheet. The etching shows Clemens with his head resting on the the backs of both hands, and is printed in brown. It has an unfinished quality to it, as though it were a.... More
1942. Original painting, measuring 29 3/4 by 21 1/2 inches, matted and framed. The subject of the painting is the text of the Atlantic Charter, a joint declaration made by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill on August 14, 1941 that provided a framework for U.S.... More
(NY: 1958). 16mo. 20ff. First edition, limited to 60 copies signed by the artist. This copy bears a presentation inscription on the colophon page to Ben Shahn and his wife, Bernarda Bryson Shahn. Illustrated with eighteen compact etchings of babies sleeping, crying, smiling, or being held by their mothers, which... More
NY: Ballantine Books, (1953). First Edition, first hardbound trade issue. Laid in to this copy is Joseph Mugnaini’s original preliminary cover art for the novel, which Bradbury personally owned. The watercolor and sketch work features the same elongated human figure dressed in newspapers and surrounded by flames. Mugnaini collaborated with... More
Sea Pen Press & Paper Mill: Seattle, 1989. Broadside measuring 14 1/8 by 28 5/16 inches. One of 60 copies, signed by the author. A poem by Thomas Brush printed on black, white, and turquoise-patterned paper created using various techniques for manipulating the paper pulp. Fine. More
NY: Esquire Magazine, c. 1966. 16mo. First edition. Accordion-fold booklet with three illustrations by Gorey. Esquire's pitch to prospective advertisers is framed around a Sherlock Holmes vignette in which Watson uses Holmes's deductive reasoning to conclude that if one wants access to the heaviest periodical readers, one should advertise with... More
Cambridge, MA: Advocate House, 1950. Quarto. 24pp. Volume 134, number one. This is identified as the "Registration Issue" on the front cover, published September, 1950. Features a cover illustration by Edward Gorey, known as "Two Professors," showing two Mr. Earbrass-style characters throwing sticks at two hooded heads on pikes. This... More
NY: Gotham Book Mart, 1988. First edition. One of 300 copies, signed by Beckett and Gorey. This title is the second and final collaboration between the author and the artist. Design and typography by Ronald Gordon and Dean Bornstein, and illustrated throughout with vignettes by Gorey. A fine copy in... More
NY: Harcourt, Inc., 2002. Small quarto. (71)pp. One of twenty-six lettered copies of a special issue to the first Gorey edition of Belloc's Tales, which were originally published in London in 1907. Gorey's 61 illustrations frame the verses in perfect macabre humor. Belloc's Tales may well have influenced Gorey's own... More
NY: Gotham Book Mart, 1971. One of 300 copies, signed by Edward Gorey. A suspenseful, nonsensical tale told in verse and intended “to make all serious men mad, mad, mad, and to amuse children little, little, little.” Faint toning to spine, else fine in illustrated wrappers. (Toledano B49b). More
(N.p.): Scholastic Magazines, 1973. (11)ff. Signed by Gorey. Volume 4 in the "Lucky Mini-book" series. A tiny, 3 1/2-inch high, folding panorama, with Gorey's illustrations printed in two colors. Single half-inch tear to page seven, else near fine. (Toledano B55). More
