There is a deceptively simple goal for the collector of first editions: to obtain the earliest printed form of a work of literature, in as close to the condition it was in when it first appeared in bookstores as a new book. Dig deeper, though, and you find that the first edition collector also has an interest in ...
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NY: Ballantine Books, (1953). First edition. One of Clarke’s most famous novels, and considered by many to be one of his best. A Golden Age tale about the evolution of the human race and its joining the other advanced races of the galaxy. Recipient of the 2004 Retro Hugo Award... More
NY: Ballantine Books, (1953). First edition. One of Clarke's most famous novels, and considered by many to be one of his best. A Golden Age tale about the evolution of the human race and its joining the other advanced races of the galaxy. Recipient of the 2004 Retro Hugo Award... More
NY: Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc., (1961). First edition. Inscribed by Clarke to legendary editor, agent, and collector Forrest Ackerman, who is often referred to as “Mr. Science Fiction.” Tourists crash on the Moon and are buried in fifty feet of moon dust. The rescue completes the picture. A fine... More
NY: Ballantine Books, 1957. First edition. A sort of interstellar Robinson Crusoe, Cycle of Fire follows the survival of human castaway Nils Kruger and his shipwrecked extraterrestrial companion Dar. As they travel across an unfamiliar planet, they learn to communicate and trust one another, eventually sharing critical knowledge that ensures... More
Garden City: Doubleday & Co., 1954. First edition. Signed by Clement on the title page, under which he has also signed his real name, Harry Stubbs, in parentheses. Clement is one of the premier practioners of hard science fiction. His best novels concern the lives of aliens in their own... More
Florence: Felice Paggi, 1883. Small octavo. 236pp., + iipp. of advertisements. First edition. The enduring children’s classic about a mischievous marionette whose nose grows every time he tells a lie, in the original Italian and wonderfully illustrated with a full-page frontispiece of the titular character, as well as sixty-one additional... More
Canterbury (England): Printed for the Author by H. J. Goulden, Ltd, 1921. Quarto. iii, 69pp. First edition. One of 52 or 53 copies. Written in 1920, this is Conrad’s own adaptation for the stage of the novel published in 1907. This edition in wrappers was followed in 1923 by an... More
Boston: Copeland and Day, 1895. 12mo. (iv), 76 pp. First edition. One of 50 copies printed in green ink on Japan vellum. Crane's second book, his first collection of poetry, and the first to be published under his name, is the subject of some bibliographical debate. Stallman cites broken type... More
London: J. F. Dexter, 1883. Octavo. 60pp. Reprints Thackeray's text as it first appeared in The Westminster Review in 1840. This is an extra-illustrated copy with 79 plates taken from books illustrated by Cruikshank, of which twenty-three are in color. An etched portrait of Cruikshank by F. W. Pailthorpe appears... More
Dublin: Cuala Press, 1941. Octavo. (xvi), (88)pp., unopened. First edition, limited to 500 copies. Title-page device of a hawk attacking a small bird by T. Sturge Moore, and colophon printed in red. A collection of letters, edited by Clifford Bax, between actress Florence Farr, playwright Bernard Shaw, and author W.... More
Dublin: Cuala Press, 1940. Octavo. (viii), (72)pp. First edition, limited to 450 copies. Illustrated with a unicorn device by Edmund Dulac on the title page. An essay which first appeared in "The Irish Statesman" in 1919, along with a second essay, "Swedenborg, Mediums, and the Desolate Places," written in 1914... More
London: Henry Rhodes, 1687. Octavo, (viii), 140, (iv), 206, (ii). Engraved frontispiece by F. H. van Hove. First complete edition in English, translated by Archibald Lovell. Cyrano was influenced by the revolutionary ideas of Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. He created utopian societies to illustrate the satirical points of his political... More
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1932. Octavo. 16pp. One of 300 copies. First edition of Bridges' poem, written to honor Emily Daniel, "In memory of the War-work done in the Provost's Lodgings at Worcester College, Oxford." In 1917, Mrs. Daniel invited members of the Oxford community to use the Provost's Lodgings at... More
Garden City: Doubleday & Co., 1970. First edition. This bleak novel, the plot of which is structured like a twisted anti-Genesis, was among the last books published during a high period of productivity for Dick, and is regarded as one of his best works. Very fine in cloth, and a.... More
Garden City: Doubleday, 1966. First edition. A novel that combines various signature Dick devices: a world in decay ruled by an immortal authoritarian figure, a protagonist who possesses the ability to travel to alternate worlds, and the trauma of drug addiction. A fine copy in cloth, lightly worn at the... More
Garden City: Doubleday & Co., 1977. First edition. A dark novel of drug use and resultant paranoia, set in 1986, likely derived from Dick’s own personal tribulations. Because much of Dick’s experience appears on the page, whether abstractly through the involuntary goodbyes of drug-ridden characters or concretely through the inclusion... More
Philadelphia: Lippincott, (1959). First edition of the author’s first hardcover book. What at first glance appears to be a story about a man living in late 1950s America opens up to reveal that the protagonist is actually living in the late 1990s and performing crucial intelligence work in a war... More
Garden City: Doubleday, 1969. First edition. A novel published toward the end of Dick’s extraordinary period of productivity, Ubik presents a world of parallel time periods composed of a reality so tenuous and subjective that it remains highly dubious even at the story’s close. In a striking jacket designed by... More
NY: Bantam Books, 1981. Uncorrected page proofs of the first of Dick’s incomplete VALIS trilogy. The title is an acronym for Vast Active Living Intelligence System, a gnostic vision of one aspect of God. The novel itself establishes the possibility of a rational, gnostic “deity” that provided humans with a.... More
(Surrey): Kerosina Books, 1987. First hardcover edition. One of 250 copies signed by Kim Stanley Robinson, who contributes an Afterword. This is the text of the first of Dick’s incomplete VALIS trilogy, which, Robinson notes, was to consist of the present title as the centerpiece, with the additions of The... More
London: John Macrone, 1836, 1837. Three small octavo volumes. viii, 348 pp.; (iv), 342pp.; viii, 377pp., + (19)pp. of advertisements. First edition, first issues in book form of Dickens's first work. Illustrated throughout with engravings by George Cruikshank, volumes I and II each with a frontispiece and seven subsequent illustrations... More
Paris: A. Mesnier, 1828. 229 pp. One of 100 copies, according to Holden. A stunning copy of Horace's works, in original wrappers. Printed by Didot the Younger, this is the second book using the remarkable 2 1/2 point type cut by Henri Didot the Elder, using the polyamatype method he... More
NY: Simon and Schuster, (1966). First edition of the author’s scarce second book. This copy is inscribed by Doctorow on the front endpaper, and even the inscription, “A rare edition,” attests to the scarcity of this title. Although not set in the future, Doctorow employs the science fiction device of... More
Guy Oliver Duncan, (n.d.). Broadside measuring 21 7/16 by 13 3/4 inches. One of twenty-five numbered copies, signed by the author and printer, Guy Oliver Duncan. Contains six poems by Duncan: "Feelings of a Lost Conviction," "(I see nothing)," "The Rising Sun," "The Spires," "Vanda," and "The Call of the... More
Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1903-04; 1909-14. Twelve octavo volumes. Autograph Centenary Edition. One of 600 copies signed by the publisher, and with an autograph manuscript leaf by Emerson bound in to the first volume. The original leaf, which has been expertly and invisibly repaired along the crease, is from "Man The... More
