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: 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
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
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
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
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
(c. 1946). Octavo. (8)ff. A manuscript poetry chapbook handmade by Robert Frost and inscribed by the poet with the dedication, "A Preview / for Nita and Doc / from / R. F. / After a good Bread Loaf / 1946." "Doc" refers to Frost's friend Reginald Cook, a Middlebury professor... More
London: Macmillan and Co. 1889, 1893. Two octavo volumes. xxiii, 400pp., + 3pp. advertisements; xxxi, 423 pp., + 5 pp. advertisements. First editions. Each volume inscribed to "Mrs. Morgan" by the author on the half-title, the first volume bearing Carroll's handwritten date of December 12. Apparently, this is the same... More
NY: Henry Holt, 1914. Octavo. (144) pp. First edition, second issue, binding "B" of Frost's second regularly published book. One of 150 copies bound from sets of sheets from David Nutt, Frost's English publisher with Holt title page on a cancel stub. This was published on 20 February, 1915, and... More
Boston: Impressions Workshop Inc./Cricket Press, 1965. Square quarto. (16)ff. One of 150 copies, signed on the colophon page by the poet, Bernard Bockes, and the illustrator, George Lockwood. Illustrated with fifteen fanciful woodcuts by Lockwood depicting insects, bats, dragons, and mythical beasts. Some are monochromatic prints, but others incorporate many... 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
NY: Harper & Brothers, 1849. Two octavo volumes. 365; 387pp., + 8pp. ads. First American edition. Mardi was Melville's third book, and his third on the theme of South Pacific exploration. In the novel, an American sailor deserts his whaling ship in order to pursue his own adventures. At the... More
Worcester: Stanbrook Abbey Press, 1965. Small quarto. 81pp. One of 500 copies beautifully printed in red, black, and green on handmade paper. Title-page decorations by Margaret Adams. Lithographed portrait of the author tipped in. With an English translation on each page facing the original French text by Raissa Maritain, who... More
Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1960. First edition. Winner of the 1960 Hugo Award. Miller’s quirky, significant novel was among the first in the modern science fiction canon to develop futuristic themes around religion: here, a monastic order in whose charge were a number of books saved from “the first Atomic Deluge”... More
London: Methuen, (1926). First edition. One of 200 copies printed on hand-made paper, signed by Milne and Shepard. Milne's whimsical and beloved poems of his son, Christophe Robin and his bear, Pooh, accompanied by Shepard's familiar illustrations. Bound in quarter cloth with orange paper over boards and paper label. Second... More
London: Methuen, 1926. First edition. Limited to 350 copies printed on handmade paper and signed by Milne and Shepard. With all of the well-known and well-loved illustrations and a fold-out map of Pooh's and Christopher Robin's territory, which appeared in the ordinary edition as endpapers. Bound in quarter dark-blue cloth... More
London: Methuen, (1927). First edition. This famous collection of children’s verses, featuring Milne’s son, Christopher Robin, and his bear, is illustrated throughout with Ernest H. Shepard’s whimsical drawings. Signed at a later date on the title page by Shepard. Handsomely bound by Bayntun-Rivière in deep red morocco, with gilt ruled... More
(Minneapolis): Minnesota Center for Book Arts, 2005. Tall quarto. (48)pp. From an edition of 226, this is one of 26 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
(Verona: Riva, Franco, 1976). Folio. 37pp., + (6)ff. plates. One of 75 copies, signed by the poet. Six poems by the Italian poet and Nobel Laureate Eugenio Montale, accompanied by six full-page etchings in sanguine of drawings by the poet. Several of the illustrations depict seaside scenes from the poet’s... More
Portland, Maine: Mosher, Thomas B. 1904. Octavo. 41pp. From an edition of fifty numbered copies, this is one of forty offered for sale. Printed on Japan vellum in red and black from the plates of The Bibelot, Vol. 10, June 1904. Illustrated with a frontispiece portrait of the author, with... More
Soho: Nonesuch Press, 1923. Small quarto. xxiii, 91, (7)pp. From an edition of 1,200 copies, this is one of twenty ad personam copies, specially bound. This is the first book of Francis Meynall’s Nonesuch Press. Meynall, along with his wife, Vera, who selected and edited Donne’s text for this production... More
Cleveland: (Jos. Leon Gobeille), 1902. Small quarto. (30)pp. One of 93 copies printed on Imperial Japan paper. With illustrations from pen-and-ink drawings by Robert H. Perdue. This is a reproduction in smaller format of a folio version issued by Perdue in 1900 in an edition of five copies. According to... More
London: Frederick Warne, 1913. 12mo. 94pp. First edition. First or second printing (they were identical), with date on title-page. Contains fourteen color plates, among Potter's most endearing. The story concerns two real pigs at her own Hill Top Farm, which is the setting for several of the illustrations. At the... More
Boston: Small, Maynard, (1910). Octavo. First edition, second binding. Head of spine bumped and paper starting to split along upper hinge, else a near fine copy of Pound's first book printed in America. In dust wrapper with a few small chips to extremities. (Gallup A6). More
(Hammersmith: Kelmscott Press, 1895). Three octavo volumes. 399; 412; 421pp. One of 250 copies. Ornate wood-engraved double-page opening in Volume I and initials and borders throughout the three volumes by William Morris. In a letter to a friend in 1855, William Morris wrote that he had just been reading Shelley's... More
Hamburg: Raamin-Presse, 1976. Quarto. (40)pp. From an edition of 170, this is one of twenty copies with an additional two plates signed and numbered by the printer and illustrator, Roswitha Quadflieg. Translated into German from the original French by Elmar Tophoven, the short story "L'Expulsé" ("The Expelled") first appeared in... More
