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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New Orleans: Pelican Bookshop Press, 1926. First edition. From an edition of 400 copies, this is one of 250 numbered copies. With illustrations of Sherwood Anderson and other famous Creoles, by William Spratling. Bound in green boards. This copy bears the white label, one of three variants, to the front..... More
Oxford, MS: 1950. First edition. An original copy of Faulkner's famous "Beer Broadside" containing four arguments for legalizing the sale of beer in Oxford, Mississippi. This was Faulkner's direct challenge to an earlier broadside distributed by a group of clergy calling for the sale of beer to remain illegal. Contains..... More
Middletown, CT: Price, Robin, 1998. Quarto. (36)pp. One of 150 copies. Signed by the illustrator, Keiji Shinohara, below the colophon. Decorated throughout with woodcuts in soft grays, greens, browns, and reds. The woodcuts interplay with the text itself, recreating in a visual way the experience of sitting in person for..... More
London: Florence Press, 1915. Two octavo volumes. xviii, 338; viii, 371pp. One of 250 copies. Keats' entire corpus, including an appendix for "Verses jocular or trivial" extracted from letters and notes. All are lovingly printed on hand-made paper, with sharp black ink and two-line initials to start each poem. With..... More
Montagnola: Officina Bodoni, 1924. Quarto. 151pp. One of 224 copies. Shakespeare's late, iconic comedy, printed in Catania, an original Bodoni type, on Fabriano handmade paper. Book designed by G. Mardersteig. Bound in green-dyed vellum over boards, with the Press's device stamped in gilt on the front cover. Upper board slightly..... More
(N.p.): Kallistos Press, 1985. Octavo. (viii), 13pp. One of 150 copies printed at the Firefly Press. Signed by the printer, John Kristensen. Engraved frontispiece by "Phiz," from the first edition of The Pickwick Papers, depicting a sexton caught off guard by an imposing goblin. Fine in green printed wrappers, which..... More
Boston: Small, Maynard, (1910). Octavo. First edition, second binding. Head of spine bumped and paper starting to split along upper hinge, else a near fine copy of Pound's first book printed in America. In dust wrapper with a few small chips to extremities. (Gallup A6). More
(Nutley, N.J.): Gianettino & Meredith, Inc., 1977. 12mo. (24)pp. From an edition of 275, this is one of fifty lettered copies in a cloth binding, signed by the artist, Jill Karla Schwarz. This humorous holiday list of thirteen "recipes" for turkey was appropriately filed by the author under the heading..... More
NY: Vincent FitzGerald & Co., 1987. Quarto. (17)ff. One of 75 copies, signed by the translator, Michael Feingold, and the artist, Neil Welliver, whose five color etchings and double-page fold-out lithograph were printed by Shigemitsu Tsukaguchi. The translator served as the lead drama critic for the Village Voice until it..... More
Northridge, CA: Lord John Press, 1981. 29 pp. From an edition of 400, this is one of 100 copies specially bound by Bela Blau. Signed by President Gerald R. Ford. The text of a September 1980 address given to the Visa International Convention in Quebec encouraging world peace for economic..... More
London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1822. Octavo. (iv), 397pp. Eleventh edition. Here, Moore's wildly popular, and subtly pro-Irish nationalism, poem receives an impressive fore-edge painting. The poem's titular heroine stands before her poet suitor, and behind them are Arabesque archways framing an imaginative city in Bukhara. The base..... More
London: Saunders and Otley, 1836-38. Three octavo vols. 304; 304; 304pp. Engraved titles with vignettes, as well as nearly 150 engravings throughout the set. A testament to British literature and artistry, with the poetic pillars of Chaucer, Spenser, Donne, Shakespeare, Dryden, Burns, Wordsworth, Shelley, Coleridge, and myriad other writers comprising..... More
Amherst College: 1953. Single sheet folded into fourths, measuring 4 1/2 by 6 inches. Printed in black and green. With woodcut illustration on first page showing a view of Johnson Chapel through trees. The greeting on the inside contains a quotation from Frost: "Amherst's wish of the year is/that she..... More
London: Ernest Benn, (1932). 16ff. First edition of this selection. Binding A, in wrappers with the title page as the front cover. Together with a copy in the second binding, in which a simulated red linen paper is pasted over the wrappers, with a rectangular cut-out in the front which..... More
November 1952. Holograph manuscript on two leaves of white wove, three-holed, loose-leaf paper measuring 9 1/2 by 6 inches. At the bottom of the second leaf, in Frost’s hand, the work is inscribed “Robert to Fred” (i.e. Frederick B. Adams, Jr.). A life-long bibliophile, Adams was the director of the..... More
NY: Random House, 1930. First edition. One of 1000 copies printed at the Spiral Press and signed by Frost. This is the first collected edition of Frost's poems and marks the first appearance of "The Last Words of a Bluebird" and "What Fifty Said". Previous owner's signature on front paste-down..... More
NY: Holt, (1936). First edition. One of 4,000 copies printed. This copy is inscribed by Frost with the final quatrain of "Desert Places". The inscription is dated "June 1936", which is shortly after the book's May 30th publication date. Frost received the Pulitzer Prize for this collection, and was the..... More
Philadelphia: Colonial Press, February, 1917. Square octavo. 52, (2)pp. Contains the first appearance of "Locked Out," which had only previously seen print in The Bouquet, a magazine compiled by Frost's children in 1914. This poem was not included in the first edition of Mountain Interval but was added to its..... More
NY: Henry Holt, (1947). First edition. One of 751 copies signed by the author. Frost's second long verse drama is set in a bookstore after closing. Printed at The Spiral Press. A fine copy in cloth-backed boards with original glassine dust wrapper, slightly chipped, housed in original slipcase. (Crane A31)..... More
London: David Nutt, (1914). First edition. From an edition of 1,000 copies, this is one of 200 in the sixth binding state. This was one of two binding states that were done by the Dunster House Bookshop in 1923 in Cambridge, MA when the remaining first edition sheets were sold..... More
NY: Henry Holt, 1914. Octavo. (144) pp. First edition, second issue, binding "B" of Frost's second regularly published book. One of 150 copies bound from sets of sheets from David Nutt, Frost's English publisher with Holt title page on a cancel stub. This was published on 20 February, 1915, and..... More
(N.p. c. 1915). Single page. Signed by Frost. The typescript has been copied in blue ink, with two manuscript corrections in Frost's hand. The first, a change from "need" to "wish" in the second line, appears in subsequent editions of the poem, which was first published in Frost's Mountain Interval..... More
NY: Henry Holt, 1947. First edition. One of 751 copies signed by Frost. Title page decoration by Loren MacIver. In a review in the June 1, 1947 issue of the New York Times, Randall Jarrell singles out “Directive,” an early poem in Frost’s penultimate collection, for possessing “so much longing..... More
NY: Henry Holt, 1947. First edition. One of 751 copies, signed by Frost. Title-page decoration by Loren MacIver. In a review in the June 1, 1947 issue of the New York Times, Randall Jarrell singles out “Directive,” an early poem in Frost’s penultimate collection, for possessing “so much longing, tenderness..... More
(1950). 13pp. Signed typescript with Frost's manuscript correction to the title, changing "Hard Not to be King" to "Hard to Keep from Being King," and noting "As read at the American Academy." Additionally inscribed by the author "For Reginald Cook" on the final page. Cook was a close friend of..... More
