Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman - 1860

New York / London: John Lane / Bodley Head, 1915. First edition, American issue. One of his most famous and most scarce works, a novel set before World War I chronicling the tragic lives of two couples using intricate flashbacks. Provenance, R. P Blackmur, poet, critic and teacher, with his blind-stamps to heads of front free endpaper and half-title pages. Light wear to corners and spine tips, spine lettering a bit dulled but readable otherwise very good lacking dust jacket. 1972 TLS on Cornell University Department of English letterhead to "Dearest Bibsy" from "Daddy" with family and departmental gossip and explanation of the book's value, "Maybe you can sell it some day at Parke-Benet and buy one of your grandchildren a sailboat" (but not all of them, alas). ALS from "Mother" on verso witih a bit more family and departmental gossip. ONE OF HIS MOST FAMOUS & MOST SCARCE WORKS

Philadelphia: George Barrie (Printed for subscribers), 1896-1900. Illustrated by Remarque (double) frontispieces (except Vols. 50 & 51) and etchings. Nationale edition. "Memorial Edition of which there have been printed 100 copies; lettered A to Z and 1 to 74, issued in the interest of La Societe des Gens de Lettres for the Prix Barrie-Balzac", this set numbered "47" (red stamp each volume). Note: spine labels say "Edition Definitive". 53 volumes. Grey/green Shot-silk, paper spine titles printed black and red, Japanese vellum, uncut and unopened. Signed by "C te de Larmandie" (M. le Comte de Larmandie, Secretary of La Societe des Gens de Lettres de France) in Volume One. Demy 8vo. Near Fine/No jackets, as issued. Foxed and faded spine labels (fading to red print), o/w mostly unopened, traces of wear to caps. A rare set in magnificent condition. Parisian Life (1-11); Private Life (12-22); Provincial Life (23-32); Military & Political (33-40);… Read More

Edinburgh: W. Sutherland, 1823. First edition. Includes the "Dramatis Personae," presumably from the Caledonian Theatre perfomance, and the play itself but not any music. Illustrated with twelve unattributed hand-colored plates, including the frontis. Cruikshank bibliographer Albert M. Cohn's copy with his bookplate on front pastedown, above which he's penciled, "of the greatest rarity/ have seen no other copy/ AMC." (OCLC locates a handful of copies in libraries). Gilt-stamped brown leather-backed brown cloth boards. Hinges starting, spine ends and tips worn, scattered foxing and staining but still relatively clean and tight and, altogether, about very good. Housed in marbled paper lined silk moire chemise and gilt-stamped leather-backed red cloth slipcase which are both fine.

New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1943. First Edition. Hardcover. -/Fine. First Printing ("First American Edition" on copyright page) of the first single-volume edition of Eliot's wartime masterpiece (preceding the British edition by more than a year), in the first-issue dust jacket (with nine titles to back panel). Tall, slim 8vo: [8],39,[1]pp. Original black cloth, spine titled in gold; jacket printed in gray and black, priced $2. About Fine (lettering to spine occasionally rubbed); slight toning to jacket's spine panel, crown of spine nicked, else exceptionally well-preserved. Gallup A43. A total of 4,165 copies were printed, but 3,777 destroyed because the margins were incorrectly set, because of unskilled wartime labor. The remaining 788 copies, of which this is one, were issued as review copies and to preserve copyright. Collects four interrelated poems published separately over the previous three years. East Coker is the village in Somerset from which Eliot's ancestors departed for the New World, in… Read More

London: Henry Baldwin for Charles Dilly, 1791. First edition, the so-called second state with "give" reading on p. 135 in vol. I, 2 volumes, 4to, pp. xii, [16], 516; [2], 588; engraved portrait frontispiece by Heath after Joshua Reynolds, and with the Round Robin plate, and the plate showing facsimile signatures of Johnson; nice copy in contemporary full calf neatly and pleasingly rebacked sometime in the 20th century, preserving the old red and black morocco labels on spine; all the standard cancels are present, per Pottle. Regarding the "give" (versus "gve") reading, Pottle notes that the "booksellers have given this rather uninteresting 'point' more attention than it deserves." Celebrated for its intimacy and vividness, Boswell's Life of Johnson "is one of the best books in the world. It is assuredly a great, very great work. Homer is not more decidedly the first of the heroic poets, Shakespeare is not more decidedly the first of the dramatists, Demosthenes is not more decidedly the first of the… Read More

Venezia (Venice): Carlo Pecora, 1744. Two volumes (3 & 4 of 6) bound as one. Large 4to. Early full vellum binding with a brown leather title patch; all edges gilt; marbled pastedown endpapers. Parallel texts in Italian and French for seventy-two fables, each illustrated with a beautiful full-page color etching by Fossati. Each etching is printed in one of various shades of red, orange, brown, green, blue and black. In addition to the 72 plates, there are engraved vignettes on the 4 title pages, a red engraved headpiece for volume 3, and an engraved tailpiece following the text for each of the fables. Fossati (1706-1778) was an Italian architect who also was a very good printmaker and book illustrator. For the fables he portrayed animals realistically and used his architectural training for accurate renderings of baroque buildings. A rare title: OCLC locates only 13 libraries with any of the volumes. Ours is a very nice (vg+) copy with text and plates on clean and supple laid paper; very… Read More

New York: Oxford University Press, 1978. Boldly Signed by Rem Koolhaas on a large sheet (6" x 8") of archival Arches paper, laid into the book First edition / First printing. Pink paper-covered boards. Fine in very near fine dust jacket with light wear to the edges, an outstanding copy of a scarce title. Rem Koolhaas is the Pritzker Prize Winner for 2000.

Yale University Press, 1959. First Edition. Hard Cover. Good-/Fair. Inscribed by author to Sir John Gielgud with admiration. Bookplate in book denoting book was given by the Gielgud Estate to The Globe Library. Interior is unmarked otherwise with light toning. Brownish red cloth with gilt to spine edge. Corners and spine cloth moderately worn with some bent corners. DJ has many chips and tears, unclipped

Berkeley, CA: Editions Koch, 2003. First edition, and only edition. Bringhurst's translations from the Ancient Greek of surviving fragments of the circa 475 BC poem generally titled "On Nature" written by the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, Parmenides of Elea. ONE OF 26 COPIES in the "Deluxe" issue SIGNED BY BRINGHURST, WAGENER & KOCH, bound in full leather, and with a separate suite of 10 signed engravings. From an edition of ONLY 146 COPIES TOTAL. This copy ADDITIONALLY INSCRIBED BY BRINGHURST on the colophon,"for Allen Mears, the kind of reader / Parmenides has waited for / 17.1.2004." Folio, blind-stamped full black leather; approximately 50 unnumbered pages with original Greek and English translations on opposing pages; illustrated with black-and-white frontis engraving and 4 full-page color engravings. With separate SUITE OF TEN WOOD ENGRAVINGS, EACH SIGNED BY WAGENER, laid in an orange silk-covered chemise; and 2 broadside type specimens for the typefaces specially made for this edition by Dan… Read More

[Austin, TX]: Privately printed by John S. Mayfield, 1928. First edition. One of a stated 96 copies of this fragile, privately printed production. The first appearance of Jeffers' poem, "An Artist," preceding its appearance in a revised version in CAWDOR the same year. Also includes "Robinson Jeffers: The Man" by Benjamin DeCasseres; brief letter from Havelock Ellis; brief note by Jeffers; facsimile portion of the original manuscript; and bibliography compiled by R. H. Griffith. Small 4to (approximately 7.5 x 10.75") stapled paperwraps printed on "Buckeye" watermark paper; heavier Buckeye paper covers with label tipped to front; and tipped-in frontispiece on coated paper (reproduction of an inscribed copy of a photo of Jeffers by Johan Hagemeyer), as called for [Broomfield A8]. Alberts reported 200 copies printed but colophon states, "...strictly limited to an edition of ninety-six copies." Mayfield himself confirmed there were only 96 copies in total to George M. "Marty" Barringer, a family friend… Read More