LO! by Fort, Charles - (1931)

[New York]: Limited Editions Club, (1991). Yuri Kuper. First of this edition. One of 250 numbered copies Illustrated with six original etchings by Yuri Kuper SIGNED by the illustrator on the colophon page, and this copy with each etching signed in pencil by Yuri Kuper -- though not issued as such. One of the smallest limitations of the club. Translated by Mark Rudman. "In Russian poetry, Boris Pasternak's My Sister-Life is the equivalent of The Waste Land, Spring and All, and Harmonium. But it is also accessible to the general reader, and belongs on a slender shelf of great love poems . . . Pasternak is an uncompromisingly complex poetic stylist, and his meticulous attention to structure, etymology, and the phonetic qualities of words makes his poetry a formidable challenge for the translator. Mark Rudman renders Pasternak's poetic masterpiece with verve and intelligence" (from cover of recent Northwestern University edition). Large folio (16 x 23") with gray goatskin spine and treated handmade paper… Read More

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

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: George H. Doran Company, (1925). First edition. Full-page illustrations preceding each chapter and dust jacket illustration by Theodore Nadejen. Adapted by Heyward with wife Dorothy, a playwright, in 1927 for the play of the same name. They later worked with composer George Gershwin on the 1935 light opera, "Porgy and Bess." Basis also for the 1959 Otto Preminger film starring Sidney Poitier, Dorothy Dandridge, and Sammy Davis Jr. 8vo gilt-stamped black cloth; top edge trimmed, rest untrimmed. Ownership signature on front endpaper of Mary Saunders Virginia White "Virginia S. White/ The Borough House/ Stateburgh [sic]" who at the time of publication was owner of the historic South Carolina Borough House Plantation. Endpapers darkened due to binding offset, boards a bit shelfworn on edges, corners lightly bumped; still very good in good, generally complete but age-worn dust jacket with old internal and external tape repair. Scarce in any jacket.

Sherman Oaks: Mixolydian Editions, 2006. First edition. Number 27 of 65 SIGNED numbered copies, this one additionally INSCRIBED BY WAGENER to collector Allen K. Mears, "For Allen / With Best Regards / Richard Wagener / 1/15/07" and - though not called for -- with separate suite of 4 loose SIGNED WOOD ENGRAVINGS housed in stiff deep-purple paper folding case fashioned by Wagener. The book is a "series of short impressionistic prose vignettes" about growing up in Southern California illustrated with four wood engravings (Pantages Theatre, Palomar Observatory, and 2 vintage automobiles from the 1950s) as well as a title-page vignette of a cracked sidewalk which is repeated in blind on the front cover. Slender, small-4to, quarter tan cloth with printed spine label and charcoal paper-covered boards; deep purple endpapers; 59 unnumbered pages. Very fine. ALSO INCLUDES printouts of Mears email correspondence with Wagener in which he discusses making fresh prints of 2 of the engravings for Mears, the lack of… Read More

[New York]: Limited Editions Club, (1991). Yuri Kuper. First of this edition. One of 250 numbered copies Illustrated with six original etchings by Yuri Kuper SIGNED by the illustrator on the colophon page, and this copy with each etching signed in pencil by Yuri Kuper -- though not issued as such. One of the smallest limitations of the club. Translated by Mark Rudman. "In Russian poetry, Boris Pasternak's My Sister-Life is the equivalent of The Waste Land, Spring and All, and Harmonium. But it is also accessible to the general reader, and belongs on a slender shelf of great love poems . . . Pasternak is an uncompromisingly complex poetic stylist, and his meticulous attention to structure, etymology, and the phonetic qualities of words makes his poetry a formidable challenge for the translator. Mark Rudman renders Pasternak's poetic masterpiece with verve and intelligence" (from cover of recent Northwestern University edition). Large folio (16 x 23") with gray goatskin spine and treated handmade paper… Read More

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

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: George H. Doran Company, (1925). First edition. Full-page illustrations preceding each chapter and dust jacket illustration by Theodore Nadejen. Adapted by Heyward with wife Dorothy, a playwright, in 1927 for the play of the same name. They later worked with composer George Gershwin on the 1935 light opera, "Porgy and Bess." Basis also for the 1959 Otto Preminger film starring Sidney Poitier, Dorothy Dandridge, and Sammy Davis Jr. 8vo gilt-stamped black cloth; top edge trimmed, rest untrimmed. Ownership signature on front endpaper of Mary Saunders Virginia White "Virginia S. White/ The Borough House/ Stateburgh [sic]" who at the time of publication was owner of the historic South Carolina Borough House Plantation. Endpapers darkened due to binding offset, boards a bit shelfworn on edges, corners lightly bumped; still very good in good, generally complete but age-worn dust jacket with old internal and external tape repair. Scarce in any jacket.

Sherman Oaks: Mixolydian Editions, 2006. First edition. Number 27 of 65 SIGNED numbered copies, this one additionally INSCRIBED BY WAGENER to collector Allen K. Mears, "For Allen / With Best Regards / Richard Wagener / 1/15/07" and - though not called for -- with separate suite of 4 loose SIGNED WOOD ENGRAVINGS housed in stiff deep-purple paper folding case fashioned by Wagener. The book is a "series of short impressionistic prose vignettes" about growing up in Southern California illustrated with four wood engravings (Pantages Theatre, Palomar Observatory, and 2 vintage automobiles from the 1950s) as well as a title-page vignette of a cracked sidewalk which is repeated in blind on the front cover. Slender, small-4to, quarter tan cloth with printed spine label and charcoal paper-covered boards; deep purple endpapers; 59 unnumbered pages. Very fine. ALSO INCLUDES printouts of Mears email correspondence with Wagener in which he discusses making fresh prints of 2 of the engravings for Mears, the lack of… Read More