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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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
NY: Benjamin Blom, Inc., 1972. Folio. 202, (5)pp. Publisher's facsimile of the famed edition of Hamlet issued by the Cranach Press in 1929. With reprints of Edward Johnston's typography, Edward Gordon Craig's 74 woodcuts, and Eric Gill's contributions of two initials, the title over the first woodcut, and spine titling... 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
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
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
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
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
Hammersmith: Doves Press, 1914. Octavo. (168)pp. One of 200 copies printed on paper. Following the Doves Press's style, the two initials are a red five-line "C" on the half-title, and a black four-line "B" on page 7. Stage directions, names, and scene indicators printed in red, while lines from The... More
Hammersmith: Doves Press, 1914. Octavo. (168)pp. One of 200 copies printed on paper. Two initials in typical Doves Press style: a red five-line "C" on the half title, and a black four-line "B" on page 7. Stage directions, names, and scene indicators from The Tragedy of Coriolanus printed in red... 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
(Leipzig: Ernst Ludwig Presse, 1925-1931). Seven volumes, a complete set as published. One of 250 copies. Only 200 copies of the seventh volume were printed. The dedication notes that this edition was produced as an homage to T.J. Cobden-Sanderson and the German editions of Goëthe printed at the Doves Press... More
(Stuttgart): Manus Presse, 1968. Quarto. (104)pp. One of 130 copies, signed by the artist. Illustrated with nineteen full-page lithographs from etchings by the surrealist Max Ernst. There are also three small vignettes. This is a bilingual edition of Carroll's nonsensical epic poem about a crew of ten men in pursuit... More
Petersham, Massachusetts: Lone Oak Press, 2005. Oblong quarto. 89pp. From an edition of fourteen deluxe copies and 70 standard copies, this is one of five deluxe copies chosen to be specially bound for the international traveling exhibit "InsideOUT: Contemporary Bindings of Private Press Books," and as such, it does not... More
Stockholm: July 12, 1950. Single 8 1/2 by 11-inch sheet, folded in six. In this letter, addressed to "Blijestra," the American novelist states his plans to visit Amsterdam, bringing with him an American trade union official whom he plans to introduce to one De Kadt. Fine. More
(Minneapolis: Faulkner Studies, 1953). First edition. One of 1000 numbered copies. First issue. Introduction by William Van O'Connor. Interior of wrappers soiled with some bumps to corners, endsheets toned. Near fine in very good wrappers. (Peterson A35.1a). More
Cleveland, Miss. Delta State Teachers College Campus, 1952. First edition. The text of a speech by Faulkner, printed with his permission. According to Petersen, Faulkner agreed to speak to the Delta Council, which was composed of 3000 farmers and businessmen from an eighteen-county area, because he needed the $400 speaker's... More
NY: Smith & Haas, 1933. Octavo. First edition. Faulkner's last poetry collection published during his lifetime has a title-page vignette and dust wrapper illustration by Lynd Ward. In A William Faulkner Encyclopedia, Stephen Hahn writes that "The poems in A Green Bough are remarkable for the degree to which they... More
Rahway, NJ: Smith & Haas, (1932). First printing, first binding of rough tan cloth stamped in orange on front cover and in blue and orange on the spine. Top edge stained orange. Faulkner's seventh novel marks a change from the interior monologue and stream of consciousness narrative modes of previous... More
