The Beans of Egypt, Maine [Signed] by CHUTE, Carolyn - 1985

New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1955. First Printing. Hardcover. Fine-/Fine-. First Edition (so stated), first state binding (vivid green cloth spine), second issue (title / copyright leaf a cancellans, with multiple dates [1949-1955]). Signed by Welty in her tiny scrawl on title page. 8vo: [8],207,[1]pp. Publisher's blue and green mottled paper-covered boards, vivid green fine bead cloth spine stamped in silver, pictorial dust jacket priced $3.50. About Fine (spine ends bumped, shelf-worn bottom board edge); about Fine jacket (very brief expert restoration, involving neither lettering nor design, to head and tail of spine panel, which is lightly toned). Not the concealed second printing (Polk 11.1.2, as are many copies advertised as first printings), in which the title / copyright leaf is integral). Welty's important seventh book, nominated for the National Book Award. Polk A11.1b. According to Polk, "Heavily revised versions of stories originally published in magazines." N. B. With few exceptions… Read More

New York: Harper & Row, 1968. First Edition, as stated. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. First Edition (so stated) of the author's first book published in English translation, a novella and eight short stories. 8vo: [4],170pp. Publisher's quarter-bound brick-red cloth stamped in burgundy, mustard paper-covered boards, fore-edge untrimmed, boldly patterned end papers, illustrated dust jacket priced $5.95. Virtually pristine, an exemplary example, apparently unread, showing all first-issue points ('H-S' code on copyright page, without number line on terminal leaf), in a bright, nearly flawless first-issue jacket (Jerry Bauer credited for photograph of the author on the back panel, date code 0968 on front flap), with just mild toning to top of back panel and minute, nearly unnoticeable rub at the front spine-panel fold. Truly a collector's copy. Written between 1956 and 1957 and first published in 1961, the title novella (the book also includes a second, longer novella, Big Mama's Funeral) tells the story of an… Read More

London: Jonathan Cape, 1978. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. First Impression of McEwan's first novel (preceded by two short story collections: First Love, Last Rites and In Between the Sheets). 8vo: 138pp. Publisher's forest green cloth, spine lettered in gilt, grey end papers, illustrated dust jacket priced £3.50. Signed by the author without inscription on the title page. A superlative copy (apparently unread), virtually pristine. Filmed by Andrew Birkin in 1993, with Charlotte Gainsbourg and Andrew Robertson. The story "concerns a family of abandoned children coming to terms with life without their parents. It is about their simultaneous growth into adults and regression as children . . . [and] brings to mind many other novels concerned with children isolated from adults, most notably The Lord of the Flies. But where Golding's children run wild, and the reader is reminded of how the adult world provides checks on their natural aggression, McEwan's grow closer, and the reader is reminded of… Read More

London: HarperCollins [Harper Collins], 1999. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine-. First Impression (no further printings noted), in first state dust jacket, with 'earing' misspelled on back panel. Small 8vo: [6],248,[2]pp. Publisher's French blue cloth, spine stamped in gilt (still brilliant); pictorial dust jacket, priced £9.99. Signed by Chevalier on title page. Laid in is a ticket from the literature festival in Derby where the book was autographed. Fine (small decorative book plate to front fly-leaf) in about Fine jacket (tiny nick to base of spine panel). The author's second novel, which sold more than five million copies worldwide and was translated into 36 languages. Supposedly, a poster of Vermeer's "Girl with a Pearl Earring," hanging on Chevalier's bedroom wall for some 15 years, inspired this novel set in 17th century Delft. Chevalier was lying in bed gazing absent-mindedly at the poster when she fixed on the mysterious girl's expression (her half open mouth and expectant gaze) and… Read More

London: Jonathan Cape, 1982. First Edition. Hardcover. Near Fine+/Fine-. First Impression. 8vo: 248,[2]pp. Publisher's slate grey cloth, spine stamped in gilt, wraparound pictorial dust jacket, by Mon Mohan, unclipped and unpriced (one of the export copies Jonathan Cape issued; priced copies include the exception, "UK only"). Signed by Chatwin (without dedication) on title page. Presented the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for 1982 and the Whitbread First Novel of the Year Award (there is debate as to whether Chatwin's The Viceroy of Ouidah, a fictionalized account of an actual eighteenth-century Brazilian slave trader, published two year before On the Black Hill, should be considered fiction or nonfiction). Near Fine or better (spine tips bumped, stray spot or two to top and fore-edges, short, thin ink line to bottom edge of front cover); About Fine jacket (lightly nicked to one flap fold). Chatwin's first novel (and third book), "written in the tradition of Thomas Hardy and D. H. Lawrence,… Read More

New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1955. First Printing. Hardcover. Fine-/Fine-. First Edition (so stated), first state binding (vivid green cloth spine), second issue (title / copyright leaf a cancellans, with multiple dates [1949-1955]). Signed by Welty in her tiny scrawl on title page. 8vo: [8],207,[1]pp. Publisher's blue and green mottled paper-covered boards, vivid green fine bead cloth spine stamped in silver, pictorial dust jacket priced $3.50. About Fine (spine ends bumped, shelf-worn bottom board edge); about Fine jacket (very brief expert restoration, involving neither lettering nor design, to head and tail of spine panel, which is lightly toned). Not the concealed second printing (Polk 11.1.2, as are many copies advertised as first printings), in which the title / copyright leaf is integral). Welty's important seventh book, nominated for the National Book Award. Polk A11.1b. According to Polk, "Heavily revised versions of stories originally published in magazines." N. B. With few exceptions… Read More

New York: Harper & Row, 1968. First Edition, as stated. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. First Edition (so stated) of the author's first book published in English translation, a novella and eight short stories. 8vo: [4],170pp. Publisher's quarter-bound brick-red cloth stamped in burgundy, mustard paper-covered boards, fore-edge untrimmed, boldly patterned end papers, illustrated dust jacket priced $5.95. Virtually pristine, an exemplary example, apparently unread, showing all first-issue points ('H-S' code on copyright page, without number line on terminal leaf), in a bright, nearly flawless first-issue jacket (Jerry Bauer credited for photograph of the author on the back panel, date code 0968 on front flap), with just mild toning to top of back panel and minute, nearly unnoticeable rub at the front spine-panel fold. Truly a collector's copy. Written between 1956 and 1957 and first published in 1961, the title novella (the book also includes a second, longer novella, Big Mama's Funeral) tells the story of an… Read More

London: John Murray, 1991. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine-. First Printing, with drawings and illustrated dust jacket by John Craxton. 8vo: [10],118pp, with four black and white illustrations and a map of Peru. Publisher's blue cloth, spine stamped in gold, jacket priced £10.95. Signed by the author to front fly-leaf. Fine, tight and unread; about Fine jacket (faint smudge to back panel). In 1971, Leigh Fermor accompanied five friends on a sojourn into the high Andes of Peru, from Cuzco to Urubamba, on to Puno and Juli on Lake Titicaca, down to Arequipa, and finally back to Lima. The expedition, led by a writer and poet, included a Swiss international skier and jeweler, a social anthropologist from Provence, and a Nottinghamshire farming squire—all seasoned mountaineers. The other two participants—Leigh Fermor and a botany-loving duke—were novices. As the group traveled into increasingly remote regions, Leigh Fermor recorded his experiences in this series of letters to his wife, Joan. N.… Read More

London: Jonathan Cape, 1978. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. First Impression of McEwan's first novel (preceded by two short story collections: First Love, Last Rites and In Between the Sheets). 8vo: 138pp. Publisher's forest green cloth, spine lettered in gilt, grey end papers, illustrated dust jacket priced £3.50. Signed by the author without inscription on the title page. A superlative copy (apparently unread), virtually pristine. Filmed by Andrew Birkin in 1993, with Charlotte Gainsbourg and Andrew Robertson. The story "concerns a family of abandoned children coming to terms with life without their parents. It is about their simultaneous growth into adults and regression as children . . . [and] brings to mind many other novels concerned with children isolated from adults, most notably The Lord of the Flies. But where Golding's children run wild, and the reader is reminded of how the adult world provides checks on their natural aggression, McEwan's grow closer, and the reader is reminded of… Read More

London: HarperCollins [Harper Collins], 1999. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine-. First Impression (no further printings noted), in first state dust jacket, with 'earing' misspelled on back panel. Small 8vo: [6],248,[2]pp. Publisher's French blue cloth, spine stamped in gilt (still brilliant); pictorial dust jacket, priced £9.99. Signed by Chevalier on title page. Laid in is a ticket from the literature festival in Derby where the book was autographed. Fine (small decorative book plate to front fly-leaf) in about Fine jacket (tiny nick to base of spine panel). The author's second novel, which sold more than five million copies worldwide and was translated into 36 languages. Supposedly, a poster of Vermeer's "Girl with a Pearl Earring," hanging on Chevalier's bedroom wall for some 15 years, inspired this novel set in 17th century Delft. Chevalier was lying in bed gazing absent-mindedly at the poster when she fixed on the mysterious girl's expression (her half open mouth and expectant gaze) and… Read More