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: Hodder and Stoughton, (1912). Quarto. (184)pp. One of 750 copies numbered and signed by Dulac. Illustrated with twenty-eight tipped-in color plates, as well as several headpieces printed in black & yellow, depicting beautifully chilling scenes from Poe's Gothic poems. In his biography of Dulac, Colin White describes the artist's..... More
NY: Frederick A. Stokes Company, (1924). First American edition. One of only 250 copies designated for the United States from a total edition of 2,000. The handsomely produced and lavishly illustrated tale of an old man who builds a square-rigged ship with the help of fairy artisans, and sails through..... More
Frankfurt, Berlin and Vienna: Propyläen, 1973. Folio. (30)ff., + 26 plates laid in. One of sixty copies. Each plate is signed and numbered by the artist. The twenty-six color etchings each depict a letter of the alphabet in a bizarre, fantastic, and sometimes grotesque manner fitting the excerpt from Joyce's..... More
(Poestenkill, NY: Kaldewey Press, 1993). Small circular folio. 14ff. From an edition of fifty-two copies, this is one of twelve hand-colored by the artist and specially bound. Signed by Heaney and Felim Egan, who has contributed twelve aquatint etchings. This publication marks the first appearance of two short poems by..... More
Poestenkill, NY: Kaldewey Press, 1989. Oblong folio. 106pp. One of twenty deluxe copies printed on papier de Chine and bound in flexible blue textured leather by Christian Zwang. With twenty-five linoleum cuts in several colors by Kim Keever. Signed by the artist. Keever's linocuts draw directly from the theme of..... More
Poestenkill, NY: Kaldewey Press, 2009. Quarto. (14)ff. One of 35 copies. Illustrated with ten folded watercolor paintings by Gunnar Kaldewey. The text is taken from its first appearance in the 1860 Boston edition of Leaves of Grass, and is printed in silver on gray-blue pastepaper that resembles early denim. Together..... More
NY: Simon and Schuster, 1971. First edition, first printing. Inscribed by the author and signed by the illustrator at the front flyleaf. A young-adult retelling of two fugitive slaves in the mid-19th century. The dedicatory statements after the title page elucidate the historical threads binding the author to the Crafts'..... More
Adelaide, Australia; Westport, CT: 1948, 1952. Two typed letters, (3)ff., (2)ff., signed by Helen Keller, plus (1)ff. autograph note, signed, from Keller's assistant and companion, Polly Thompson., and a typed transcript of that note. As a world-famous speaker, author, and advocate for persons with disabilities, Keller traveled to more than..... More
(Hammersmith: Kelmscott Press, 1893). Octavo. (vi), 216pp. One of 500 copies. Borders and initials by William Morris. Printed in Golden type in two colors. Peterson cites Sidney Cockerell's observation that this title was "one of the rarest books issued from the Press because of its popularity"; despite its relatively large..... More
(Hammersmith: Kelmscott Press, 1893). Octavo. 72pp. One of 500 copies, printed by William Morris at the Kelmscott Press. This is the second issue, with four cancellans leaves replacing pp. 15-16, 19-20, 25-26, and 69-70. With wide leaf and blossom borders to the opening page and to the title-page, which is..... More
NY: Random House, 1930. First edition thus. A trade edition of the "magnum opus" first enfranchised by the Lakeside Press. With almost 300 of Kent's finest wood engravings. Kent put in many weeks of intensive research on whaling lore before starting the drawings. "In June of 1927, he sent the..... More
NY: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1966. First edition. Author’s signature laid in. First appearing as a short story in 1959, this first expanded edition of Flowers for Algernon earned immediate acclaim, becoming a joint winner of the 1966 Nebula Award for Best Novel. Written as a series of journal..... More
NY: Equinox Cooperative Press, 1935. Thirty lithographs by Ward illustrate Hicks’ biography of Reed, the author of Ten Days that Shook the World and the first American ambassador to the Soviet Union. Reed witnessed firsthand the Bolshevik Revolution, and through his articles in The Masses, transmitted his impressions to an..... More
Austin: W. Thomas Taylor, 1995. Quarto. lxxxiv, 242pp., leaf tipped in at rear. One of 100 copies of the special first edition distributed for the Friends of the Brigham Young University Library by W. Thomas Taylor. Specially bound in quarter goatskin, with an original leaf from the 1524 Colines edition..... More
Austin: W. Thomas Taylor, 1995. Quarto. lxxxiv, 242pp., leaf tipped in at rear. One of 100 copies of the special first edition distributed for the Friends of the Brigham Young University Library by W. Thomas Taylor. Specially bound in quarter goatskin, with an original leaf from the 1524 Colines edition..... More
London: Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1932. First edition, first issue. A work of considerable depth, Stapledon’s novel describes the history of humanity from the present onwards across two billion years. Through a conceit that a member of a future human species has channeled the text through him, the narrator relates..... More
Edinburgh & London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1925; 1926. Two octavo volumes. First edition of the Scottish poet Hugh M'Diarmid's first collection of poetry, in the second binding, together with a first edition of his second book. Hugh M'Diarmid, or MacDiarmid, as it is more commonly written, was the pen..... More
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976. First edition, third printing. Presentation copy, inscribed by Maclean on front endpaper to Robert Williams, whose essay on the making of this book accompanies this copy. For its vision of the West and of the unknowns of love and family, A River Runs Through..... More
Prague: Státní nakladatelství krásne literatury a umení, 1964. Five illustrations by Zdenek Chotenovský depict a Matisse-like woman in various positions of repose. Her placidity underscores Neruda's twenty love poems, and put into starker light the volume's twenty-first poem, which eulogizes the grief and pain of loving. 76, (4)pp. Bound in..... More
(Minneapolis): Minnesota Center for Book Arts, 2005. Tall quarto. (48)pp. From an edition of 226, this is one of twenty-six lettered copies, specially bound and with tipped-in editioned prints by five Minnesota artists. An anthology of original poetry from twelve Minnesota writers, including Robert Bly, Adrian Louis, Susan Steger Welsh..... More
Fullerton, CA: Lorson's Books, 1986. (20)pp., frenchfold. One of 50 copies, numbered, dated and signed by Murray, the designer, artist and printer. Four poems by Housman are illustrated with two full-page watercolor illustrations by Murray and a decoration to the title-page. Bound in olive cloth, with cross-stitched design. Black slipcase..... More
Mt. Horeb, WI: Perishable Press, (1970). Octavo. (11) ff. One of 183 copies. With an inscription by James Laughlin. A short collection of poems by the poet and legendary founder of New Directions, which published some of the most important writers of the twentieth century, including Ezra Pound, William Carlos..... More
London: G. Pickering, 1828. 512pp. Engraved frontispiece reproducing da Vinci's "The Last Supper." A sharp miniature printing of the New Testament in Greek, faithful to the language even in headers and frontis caption, and rendering in Latin the title page and dedicatory statements. Bound in brown calf over boards with..... More
London: William Pickering, 1825. Nine 64mo vols. 306; 279; 294; 326; 321; 348; 320; 315; 270, liv pp. Frontispiece, title-page vignette, and thirty-eight engraved plates depicting memorables scenes across Shakespeare's oeuvre: the death of Julius Caesar, Macbeth with his knife on his way to murder Duncan, pastoral tableaux from Love's..... More
London: G. Pickering, 1822. 2 vols. 374pp, paginated continuously. Engraved double-page title in first volume, including frontis portrait of Dante, whose masterwork is here dutifully printed entirely in Italian. As he was wont to do, Pickering also prints the parerga in the text's original language. Both volumes bound in brown..... More
