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: 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 about A Green Bough
(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 about Mirrors of Chartres Street
NY: Random House, (1951). First edition. One of 750 copies signed by Faulkner. This novel was written as a sequel to Sanctuary, and Faulkner structured it as a three-part play. This treatment allowed it to be adapted for the stage by Ruth Ford, though its run on Broadway in 1959... More about Requiem for a Nun
New Orleans: Pelican Bookshop Press, 1926. From a total edition of 400 copies, this is one of 250 numbered copies. First edition, first issue. 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... More about Sherwood Anderson & Other Famous Creoles: A Gallery of Contemporary New Orleans
Oxford, Miss. 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 about To the Voters of Oxford
(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 about Turkey Remains and How to Inter Them with Numerous Scarce Recipes
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 about Poems
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 about The Poems of John Keats. Arranged in Chronological Order
London: Folio Society, 2016. Folio, plus accompanying octavo volume. 153; 32pp. The folio is a full-sized facsimile, true in printing and binding, of one of the extremely rare signed first printings of the edition produced by Grant Richards in 1915 in London. The facsimile includes reproductions of Coburn's forty photographs... More about The Door in the Wall
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 about Global Stability
Mount Vernon, NY: William Edwin Rudge, 1925. Octavo. 51pp. One of 500 copies. A one-act play, set in Medieval Spain, by the English poet and dramatist T. Sturge Moore. Designed by Bruce Rogers and bound in full golden morocco by Peter Franck, who at one time executed tooled leather bindings... More about Roderigo of Bivar
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 about The Augustan Books of Poetry
Amherst: 1934. Single sheet measuring 6 1/8 by 8 inches. Addressed to Mr. Cutler, who was the principal of Athol High School in Massachusetts. Dated November 14, 1934, Frost appears to be responding to Cutler's request for a lecture, which he declines due to "being sent south for my health,"... More about Autograph letter, signed
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 about Autograph Manuscript, Signed: "Does No One but Me at All Ever Feel This Way in the Least?"
Middlebury, VT: Bread Loaf School, (c. 1929). Single sheet folded twice to form an eight-page booklet. First separate edition. Bread Loaf Folder No. 3. This is the second printing of this small pamphlet, distinguishable by its being printed on pale green laid paper. This is a fine copy of a.... More about Birches
(Salem: Colonial Society, 1939). First separate edition, which consisted of fewer than 100 copies. A single folded sheet with one page of type, printed by Dard Hunter II at the MIT Paper Museum Press. Inscribed by Frost to Martin K. Howes at foot of poem. Frost read this delightful piece... More about A Considerable Speck
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 about A Further Range
NY: Holt, (1936). First edition. One of 4,000 copies printed. For this collection, Frost received the Pulitzer Prize, the third of four that he would receive in his lifetime. A fine copy in cloth, gilt on cover and spine fine and unoxidized; with a remarkably fine, bright dust wrapper that... More about A Further Range
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 about Locked Out, in The Forge, Number Two
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 about North of Boston
South Freeport, ME: Ascensius Press, 2015. Small quarto. 44ff. From an edition of forty-one, this is one of twenty-six lettered copies, bound in full calf. Frost's second book of poetry is here published in a centenary edition by Scott Vile of the Ascensius Press. In homage to Joseph Blumenthal, Frost's... More about North of Boston
(NY: Spiral Press), 1953. First edition. One of 587 copies with Frost's imprint. Decorations by Philip Grushkin. This copy bears an inscription by Frost on the title page to William Sloane and his wife, Julie. Sloane was Frost's editor at Holt and headed up the trade department from 1938 to... More about One More Brevity
(Vermont: c. 1950). Black and white photograph, unmounted. Image measures 3 1/4 by 4 1/2 inches. On the verso it is noted that this image was taken by a photographer working for Black Star, the noted photo agency. It is an outdoor portrait of the elder Frost, likely taken in... More about Original photograph
(N.p. c. 1915). Signed by the author. Frost's poem typewritten on card backed with board. "The Pasture" first appeared in print in 1915, in Henry Holt and Co.'s North of Boston. Between the now-canon version and this, there are no differences aside from some minor additions of punctuation in the... More about The Pasture
(NY: Henry Holt, 1924). Single sheet folded once to make a four-page pamphlet. First edition. One of 2000 copies printed for distribution at Frost lectures at East Coast colleges. With two woodcut vignettes by J.J. Lankes. Signed by Frost below "The Pasture," which appears on the first page. Paper evenly... More about Several Short Poems
