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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London: Bookman's Journal, 1921. Octavo. 212pp. Very good in black cloth, gilt-titled to spine. birttle pages chipping to edges, wear to cover. Bookplate and former ownership inscriptions. More
NY: G. P. Putnam's, 1899. First edition, first issue. A collection of 243 "updates" of many classic fables, including a section titled "Aesopus Emendatus." Inscribed in pencil by Bierce to Dr. J. W. Robertson, noted bibliographer of Edgar Allan Poe, in the year of publication. Robertson was a prominent physician... More
San Francisco: W. E. Wood, 1903. First edition, second issue. A collection of Bierce's later poems. Inscribed in pencil by Bierce to Dr. J. W. Robertson in the month of publication. Robertson was a bibliographer of Edgar Allan Poe and a prominent physician in Livermore, California, whose daughter married Edwin... More
(NY): Center for the Book Arts, (2007). Octavo, 18ff. One of thirty-nine copies. A collection of thirteen poems from Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience, beautifully printed by nine compositor-printers at the Center for the Book Arts. Each printer’s work occupies a single bifolium sheet, forming nine loose signatures. All... More
(Munich): Bremer Presse, (1923-1924). Two folio volumes. 486; 372pp. One of 615 copies printed in Greek with titles by Anna Simons. These beautiful volumes are printed on Zanders handmade paper in a 16-point Greek type designed for the Press. Colin Franklin describes these books as “magnificent examples of controlled printing.”... More
Soho Square, London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1964. Octavo. Fine in red buckram, top edge dyed red. With fine dust jacket, price-clipped with minor soiling. More
West Kingston, Rhode Island: Grant, Donald M. 1964. Small quarto. 418pp. Complete edition, revised. Fine in red cloth, gilt-titled to spine, showing minor edgewear and dust. Very good dust jacket, with some darkening, soiling, chipping to edges, and with one-inch closed tear at joint. More
Oxford: University Press, 1959. Octavo. Printed for the Honnold Library of the Associated Colleges, Claremont, California. Very fine in blue buckram, gilt-titled to spine. In fine glassine dust wrapper. More
London: Office of "The Bookman's Journal" (1925). Octavo. 184pp. One of 500 copies. Fine in brown cloth, gilt-titled to spine. Top edge dyed, other edges left untrimmed. Occasional spot of foxing, and expected browning to page edges. Some darkening to spine, with one miniscule closed tear to head of spine... More
Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1967. Octavo. University of New Mexico Publications, Library Series Number 2. Edges slightly darkened and wrappers very lightly soiled, else near fine in printed wrappers. More
Philadelphia: Centaur Book Shop, 1924. Small octavo. One of 500 copies. Waterstain to front board and light shelfwear, else near fine in cloth-backed paper-covered boards. More
Boston: Godine, David, 1972. Quarto. 12 ff. First separate edition. One of 1000 copies printed. Reproduces the setting copy typescript of the final chapter of Caldwell's novel, which was extensively corrected by the author. With an Introduction by Edward Connery Lathem. This is the first of a series of manuscript... More
New York: D. Appleton and Co. 1866. Octavo. (v)ff., 192pp. First edition, second issue. With forty-two illustrations by John Tenniel. Carroll’s enduring tale of a child’s dreamworld was first issued in 1865 by Macmillan and Company of London, but Carroll and Tenniel were unhappy with the print quality of the... More
Winston-Salem, NC: Lovett & Lovett Booksellers, n.d. Octavo. Spine faded, else fine in printed wrappers. More
NY: McClure, Phillips, 1905. First edition, first binding. This copy belonged to Louise Pound and bears her signature on the front endpaper. Pound was an intimate friend of Cather's during their time at the University of Nebraska, where they were co-editors of "Lasso," a campus magazine. Their relationship only lasted... More
Boston: Richard G. Badger/Gorham Press, 1903. First edition. Cather's first book, a self-published collection of verse, and the only verse Cather published during her career. She reportedly bought remaining copies of this edition in 1908 and destroyed them. It was re-issued by Knopf as a limited edition in 1923 but... More
Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1968. Octavo. Edges slightly faded, else fine in brown cloth. More
London: Gay and Bird, 1901. 24mo. xv, (iii), 134pp. One of sixty copies on Japanese vellum, signed by the publisher. Illustrated with a frontispiece engraving of Chaucer, as well as head- and tailpieces for each section of the text. Bound in full vellum with yapp edges and two ribbon ties... More
(Easthampton, MA: Cheloniidae Press, 1980). Folio. (13)ff. One of 125 copies signed by the artist. The haunted tone of Poe's poetry is echoed in the five full-page etchings of The Raven by Alan James Robinson, who has titled and signed each one in pencil. This is Robinson's first interpretation of... More
(Indianapolis): Bobbs Merrill, (1911). Small quarto. First edition. Illustrated with reproductions of drawings by Howard Chandler Christy, an American illustrator best known for his patriotic portraits of military men and romantic depictions of society women. The illustrations accompany a story in verse by the American poet James Whitcomb Riley. The... More
London: Nicholas Vane, 1963. Octavo. Fine in black cloth, with near fine jacket that is faded at spine and lightly worn at edges. More
London: Bibliographical Society, 1967. Small quarto. Very fine in dark blue cloth, with fine plain brown paper dust wrapper with small closed tear to upper front. More
Geneva: Librairie Quentin, 1997. Quarto. Text in French. Catalogue of 238 items by Jean Cocteau. Illustrated throughout in black & white. Spine faintly toned and upper corner bumped, else near fine in white wrappers. 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
