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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Dublin: Hieroglyph Editions Ltd, 1991. First edition. From an edition of 100 copies, this is one of 60 that were offered for sale. Illustrated with four lithographs by Felim Egan, who designed the book. Signed by Heaney and Egan. This is the first separate appearance of twelve poems from the... More about Squarings
Dublin: Andrew Carpenter, 1979. First edition. From an edition of 125, this is one of 30 copies issued in black morocco and offered for sale. Illustrated with two lithographs by Louis Le Brocquy. Signed by Heaney, Le Brocquy, Liam Miller the designer, and the publisher, Andrew Carpenter. The book was... More about Ugolino
Hicksville, NY: Gnome Press, 1959. First edition. Inscription of publisher, Martin Greenberg, on front paste-down identifies this as the publisher’s file copy. Gnome Press, though short-lived, was responsible for the publication of many significant works in the Golden Age of science fiction. Their output included Arthur C. Clarke’s The Sands..... More about The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag
NY: House of Books, 1933. First edition, limited to 300 copies. This rather grim tale appeared again later the same year, slightly revised and censored, in Hemingway's collection "Winner Take Nothing." Light fading to spine of red cloth boards, else near fine. (Grissom A.11.1.A). More about God Rest You, Merry Gentlemen
NY: Scribner's, 1935. First edition. Decorations by Edward Shenton. The green cloth covers are faded, as usual, else a fine copy in a price-clipped dust jacket which shows light wrinkling along extremities. Housed in a cloth slipcase. (Grissom A.13.1.a). More about Green Hills of Africa
Paris: Three Mountains Press, 1924. 30pp. First edition. One of 170 copies. Illustrated with a frontispiece author portrait by Henry Strater, an American painter and fellow expatriate who became friends with Hemingway in Paris. This is the author’s second book, published in a smaller edition than his first, a pamphlet... More about In Our Time
Woodside, CA: Heyeck Press, 1983. Octavo. 48pp. First edition, limited to 300 copies signed by the author. Poetry which "moves between past and present, New England and the South, the Europe of the Holocaust and the Palestine of early Zionism." Near imperceptible rubbing, else fine in boards marbled by Robin... More about Sources
Cornwall: Houyhnhnm, 2010. Quarto. 492, (3)pp. One of 176 copies. Edited by Danis Rose and John O'Hanlon. A weighty and noble printing of Joyce's enigmatic text. Bound in full black calfskin with gilt-stamped square to upper cover and titling to spine. Accompanied by bound booklet containing a note by Seamus... More about Finnegans Wake
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Boston: Bromer Booksellers, 2011. Octavo. 408pp. First trade edition. Aun Aprendo: A Comprehensive Bibliography of the Writings of Aldous Leonard Huxley is the culmination of over twenty years of research, fact-finding, and detective work undertaken by David J. Bromer. With over 2,000 entries, Aun Aprendo is the most current and... More about Aun Aprendo: A Comprehensive Bibliography of the Writings of Aldous Leonard Huxley [TRADE
![DELUXE]. Aun Aprendo: A Comprehensive Bibliography of the Writings of Aldous Leonard Huxley....](/pictures/thumb/23630.jpg?v=1434431961)
Boston: Bromer Booksellers, 2011. Octavo. 408pp. One of 50 deluxe copies signed by the bibliographer, of which 40 are available for sale. The deluxe edition includes a previously unpublished poem by Huxley dedicated to his first wife Maria. Aun Aprendo: A Comprehensive Bibliography of the Writings of Aldous Leonard Huxley... More about DELUXE]. Aun Aprendo: A Comprehensive Bibliography of the Writings of Aldous Leonard Huxley
(1932). 1ff. Signed letter to the poet and children's author Eleanor Farjeon, saying, "The publishers are, as far as I know, sending copies to all of the contributors: but they mislaid some addresses. I am writing to them today. So you ought to have the book very soon." Huxley is... More about Autograph Letter, Signed
(1931-1935). Quarto. (10)ff. The titles are: "Good Conversation" (August, 1931); "Drugs" (December, 1931); "The Angry Ape" (1931); "On Being the Right Size" (February, 1932); "Forewarned is not Fore-armed" (April 1932); "Love: a Fashion Forecast" (June, 1932); "The Cunning of the Oriental" (1932); "Bull Fights and Democracy" (October, 1932); "The Cult... More about Proofs of Ten Essays for Nash's Pall Mall Magazine
103ff. typed carbon sheets comprising the typescripts for the complete contents of Huxley's 1926 collection, Two or Three Graces. In addition to the title novella, the collection contains three shorter stories: "The Monocle," "Fairy Godmother," and "Half-Holiday." This is likely the setting copy for the book, as some of the... More about Typescripts with Author's Corrections for Two or Three Graces
San Fernando, CA: Junipero Serra Press, 1990. 14pp. One of 200 copies. Field's poem about a little boy called Willie (ca. 1888) introduced by Francis J. Weber. A postage stamp with a child's drawing is tipped in. Very fine in brown leather with gilt titling. A.e.g. (2 7/8 by 1 15/16; 73x49mm). More about Immortal Little Willie
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 about 20 Poemas de Amor y 1 Cancion Desesperada
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 about Typed Letters, signed
London: John Murray, 1836. Octavo. xxii, 530 pp. First edition, extra-illustrated with engraved portraits and landscapes related to Johnson's life. A collection of extracts not included in James Boswell's acclaimed biography of Dr. Samuel Johnson due to space restrictions, but which "are essential to the completion of the intellectual portrait... More about Johnsoniana; or, Supplement to Boswell: Being, Anecdotes and Sayings of Dr. Johnson
NY: Harcourt Brace, 1935. First edition. Illustrated with a double-page map and twenty-two full-page drawings by the author printed in brown. Touchingly inscribed by Kent on the half-title page: "This, my best book, is inscribed for Martin K. Howes by Rockwell Kent 1937". The note evokes Kent's love for Greenland... More about Salamina
(NY: New Directions, 1960). One of 750 numbered copies signed by the author. Selections from Kerouac's lengthy character study of Neal Cassady, who appears here as the title character, Cody Pomeray. It was in On the Road that Kerouac first immortalized Cassady as the frenzied, charismatic Beat firgure Dean Moriarty... More about Excerpts from Visions of Cody
NY: Viking, 1957. Octavo. (iv) 310pp. First edition. Author's second book, which stands quite firmly as the quintessential work of beat literature. The subject of Kerouac's rhapsodic novel is well-known, as are the stories surrounding its composition, and the mixed bag of critical response to its publication. What is less... More about On the Road
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 about Flowers for Algernon
NY: Ursus Books, 2007. 15pp. From an edition of 74 copies, this is one of 50 numbered copies, signed by the artist, Joseph Goldyne, and the designer, Peter Rutledge Koch. Illustrated with a signed etching by Goldyne titled "As the Blind Remember," printed on seventeenth-century paper and tipped in as... More about The Invisible Collection
London: Duckworth, (1914). First edition, first issue. Bound in blue cloth, gilt-stamped to front cover and spine. Lawrence's first book of short stories. A very good copy. Bookplate. (Roberts A6.1). More about The Prussian Officer
NY: Thomas Seltzer, 1922. First edition. Follow-up to Psychoanalysis and the Unconscious, this was the book that was partially responsible for rekindling the friendship between Lawrence and John Middleton Murry. The American edition of this work contains an Epilogue that was omitted from the English edition. Spine gilt a trifle... More about Fantasia of the Unconscious
NY: Society of Foliophiles, (1925). Quarto. One of 200 copies printed for the Society of Foliophiles, containing 20 original leaves from notable books of English literature from the 16th to the 20th centuries. Unbound, as issued, with each leaf in its respective, annotated folder measuring 12 1/2 by 9 1/2... More about Printed Pages from English Literature
