Search Results: Authors starting with B from Ian Brabner, Rare Americana (ABAA)

Evanston: Northwestern University Press, (1999). 233pp. 8vo. Hardcover in dustwrapper. Cornertip of one page previously turned down. A near fine copy. First printing of this collection of unfinished novels begun in the late 1960s. Translated from the German and with an introduction by Peter Filkins.

London: Lithographed by Bacon & Co., Map Publishers and Importers of American Maps and Books, [1864]. 27½ x 19 inches. Vibrantly hand-colored. Two closed tear expertly mended on verso with tissue. Housed in archival Mylar sleeve. Very good. An unusual 1864 Civil War map distinguishing territory controlled by the Federal Union from that remaining in possession of the Confederacy. Together, areas tinted purple, green, and yellow show the claimed territory of the Confederate States at the beginning of the war (basically all the slave states except Delaware), most of it under Confederate military control. A closer reading of the map's color key, however, reveals a shrinking Confederacy. Green areas emphasize territory reclaimed by the Union, leaving the yellow portion to show the narrowing Rebel remains. Importantly, the reclaimed Union territory includes areas of high slave concentrations, now oases of Black emancipation. These comprise the Virginia Tidewater, the Sea Island coast of South Carolina and… Read More

[iii]-xv, [1], 335, [1]pp. Engraved frontispiece. 8vo. Boston: Hilliard, Gray and Co, 1835. Publisher's green patterned cloth, spine lettered direct in gilt. Minor spotting to the spine, else very good. bcj 322791. Bacon's Essays, originally published in 1597, is his most enduringly popular work; two more editions were published in his lifetime and there were more than twenty editions in the 17th century alone. (ODNB) First separately published in America in 1807, in Boston, this "New Edition" of Essays, Moral, Economical, and Political, according to the title page, translates Bacon's quotations from the Latin and adds his "Apothegms, Select Sentences, Christian Paradoxes, Confession of Faith, and Essay on Death." Scarce to commerce.

New York: Viking, 1996, xi, 306pp. First Edition. Illustrated. Octavo, publisher's binding; near fine in a dust jacket in like condition. Inscribed and autographed in 1996, the date of publication, by both John Guinther and Edmund N. Bacon to an individual. Direction of Cities explains how cities are formed, how they grow, whom they serve. The history and growth of American cities, modern concepts of urban planning, and Bacon's philosophy to "counter the city's natural drift toward chaos" are key subjects within this book.

[Np, c.1920s-1930s]. Sepia-tone photograph. 5 x 3½ inches. Ink manuscript caption on verso. Lower corners slightly bumped; trimmed at bottom edge; very good. Snapshot photograph of Native American Bacon Rind (c.1860-1932), Osage tribal leader and keeper of traditional customs and costume. The photo depicts Bacon Rind in native dress and wearing the traditional otter-skin cap he always wore. He appears to be accompanied by two other Native Americans in non-native attire. A caption on the back of the photo references the oil and natural gas wealth of the Oklahoma-based tribe; in full: "Osages. richest Indians in the world, all of them have an oil well. The one with his Indian Dress is Chief Bacon Rind." Bacon Rind-also known as Wah-she-hah, "Star-That-Travels"-was born in Kansas. In the 1870s, during the Osage removal from Kansas, he moved to the Osage Nation, Indian Territory located in what is today Osage County, Oklahoma. He led several tribal leadership positions and in 1912 was elected principal… Read More

New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., (1968). 206pp. Sm. 8vo. Hardcover. Very good in a worn good-only dustwrapper. First edition, first printing. With a lengthy inscription by Bailey: "To Maria, All love and devotion to a darling friend and sister - We have much to live for - One of my rare pleasures was to know Nathaniel. We all love him so much. Pearlie Mae."

London: W.H. Allen, 1969. 248 pages. Hardcover in red cloth. Small bookseller's label to front pastedown and touch of foxing to fore-edge. Very good in a very good price-clipped dustwrapper with a former crease line along the length of its front flap. First English edition. The scarce autobiography of this Brooklyn native and beautiful actress, written before her relatively early death. During World War Two, Lake became a popular pin-up girl and starred in several hit films, including This Gun for Hire (1942), The Glass Key (1942), and The Blue Dahlia (1946). She frequently portrayed the femme fatale and remains a Hollywood icon known for her captivating screen presence.

Chambersburg, Pa: Published by the Class, Printed at the office of publication of the German Reformed Church, 1845. 18 pages.  8 x 5 inches. Pamphlet; removed, without wrappers; Very Good. A rare Chambersburg, Pennsylvania imprint of which OCLC returns just one copy. Published by the students of Marshall College, their commencement address by the school's president.

Indian Territory or Oklahoma Territory, now present-day State of Oklahoma. 1892-1904. 13 ALsS, approx. [18] manuscript pages in all. See individual descriptions below. Folds; some scattered minor losses, stains, or tears; overall good to very good. Collection of letters relating to business transactions and the selling or administering of real estate in the 1890s and early 1900s. All the letters are addressed to two men in Mineral Wells, Texas, Judge R.E. Hendry and Ed C. Baker, all of whose correspondents write from Indian or Oklahoma Territory. Judge R.E. Hendry is seen in the record as a county judge and ex-officio Superintendent of Education in Palo Pinto County. In 1886, one Robert E. Hendry (1847-1910) was a schoolteacher in Mineral Wells and the prime instigator of building the town's first public school.¹ Ed C. Baker (1862-?) worked in the real estate and abstract business in Mineral Wells, establishing his business there in 1885: "He established a real estate office at Mineral Wells,… Read More

Washington: Henry Polkinhorn, Printer, 1859. 28 pages. 8vo, original printed wrappers. 1859 presentation inked to top of front wrapper. Soft vertical crease; rear wrapper with several old former crease lines. A Very Good copy. Romantic antebellum homage to Georgetown; its history told in flowery prose by local native and Presbyterian pastor Thomas Bloomer Balch (1793-1878). Georgetown's sibling rivalry with nearby Washington, D.C. shows within this text passage as Balch's gently admonishes the local citizenry: "We have now become more practical and less social in our habits. Hospitality is below par, and business has become the order of the day, and even of the night; and then we have gained nothing by the change. We must try to raise the former heat of sociability from zero to at least a well-tempered fervor, or else snow will bury the settlement, and icicles may be suspended on all our dwellings. Because we cannot keep pace with the expensive fashions of Washington, there is no reason that the… Read More

Havertown Printing Co., West Chester, PA, 1980. Quarto. Hardcover. One of 1500 copies: #1282. Illustrated with color and black & white images of Chester County, Pennsylvania. A near fine copy. Signed by the authors: Paul A. Rodebaugh, the dean of Chester County history, and William C. Baldwin. Excellent copy of this authoritative study of the vibrant postcards of Chester County, Pennsylvania. Well-illustrated.

London: Macmillan and Co., 1878. Octavo. Large multi-paneled fold-out frontis., xvi, 499, 39pp + [7] plates + folding map. Publisher's gilt-decorated pictorial cloth with binder's ticket to rear pastedown. Light wear at head and tail of spine; front cover with discolored area and one gently-bumped corner; expert tissue repairs and strengthening to hinges and map. First edition, first printing. This travelogue documents the scientific expedition of Joseph Dalton Hooker and John Ball to Morocco and the Great Atlas region. The expedition focused on the collection of botanical specimens and the study of the local flora and geology. The book also provides a thorough narrative of the places they visited and the people they met along their journey. With an Appendix including "A Sketch of the Geology of Marocco" by George Maw and a fold-out "Geological Section of the Plain of Marocco and the Great Atlas." Plus a fold-out map entitled "A New Map of South Marocco" by John Ball.  This copy has the heraldic… Read More

Memphis, Tn.: Wimmer Brothers Books, 1985. First Printing. 190, [1]pp. 9 x 6 inches. Illustrated cardboard covers; plastic comb binding with spine titling. Faint vertical creasing to covers; Very Good. Charity cookbook by women of Vermont, published for the benefit of the American Cancer Society. "We hope that this book will make you stop and wonder about the warp and weft of your lives, your childhood, your ancestors' contribution to the way you live; and, above all, the fact that modern medicine has allowed us to live longer and easier lives." (p3) Some recipes with autobiographical notes.

New York: Print of William Van Norden [1832]. half-title, 1-3, 17, [3, tables], [1, blank]pp. 6 x 4 inches. Removed pamphlet, without wrappers. Very good, thus. Sole edition, scarce. Provenance: "T.C. Perkins Agent. Hartford, Conn."  Only a few titles concerning New York Life & Trust's early history emerge before Bard's Letter (1832). William Bard's text serves as an advertisement for The New-York Life Insurance and Trust Company. He was granted a charter in 1830 and raised $1 million in capital before establishing a network of salesmen to sell policies throughout New York State. Bard's Letter explains to a New York state insurance agent why the newly-born life insurance market will continue to grow and why individuals would benefit from purchasing a policy. Three tables follow the text to further explain the mechanics of a life insurance policy. New York Life & Trust was "the most important life insurance company in the country, prior to the rise of mutuals in 1840s... The driving force behind NYL… Read More

Philadelphia: Published by C. and A. Conrad and Co. Philadelphia; Conrad, Lucas and Co. Baltimore, 1809. Third Edition. Two 12mo vols. xiv, 258; 218pp. Full tree calf, leather spine labels. Ex-library with usual marks; bindings worn, dry, joints weak, one board separating; fair. An important association copy, given by Robert Fulton to his Quaker friend, patron, and portrait sitter, Joseph Bringhurst, Jr. Joel Barlow's The Columbiad is an epic poem of the history of America. An amplification of the author's poem "Vision of Columbus," it was first published in 1807 (see BAL 906). Barlow dedicated the book to his close friend, engineer and inventor, Robert Fulton. Fulton financed the book's publication, one of the costliest for its time. Fulton's portrait painting of Barlow served as the basis of the frontispiece of the first edition of The Columbiad. Further, Fulton's sketches and designs for that edition were the inspiration for its eleven engravings. At the head of both title pages of this third… Read More

See description. Two items. The first item is the original 2-page partly-printed and manuscript patent assignment given to John Barnes of W.H. + John Barnes Company. The assignment is notarized by A.O. Behel, Solicitor of Patents. The second item are two printed and illustrated sheets printed by the The Norris Peters Company of Washington, D.C. describing Barnes' patent in full. "Today, Walter Sheaffer remains widely credited as the inventor of the lever-filler fountain pen, but that legacy is not accurate.  The first to patent a lever-filled fountain pen in the United States was John Barnes of Rockford, Illinois, who applied for his patent on June 3, 1903 and received patent number 738,876 with lightning speed (by patent standards) on September 15, 1903." (The Leadhead's Pencil Blog) Significant and early 20th century material specific to American fountain pen history is very scarce to commerce.

[Washington, D.C.?: np, 1840]. 15, [1 (blank)]pp. 8vo. Self wrappers; untrimmed, as-issued. Foxing, small loss in margin of first leaf; very good. Speech by South Carolina Robert Barnwell Rhett (1800-1876) of South Carolina, later a Confederate Congressman and "first, last, and always a nullifier, secessionist, and revolutionist, the stormy petrel of southern politics." (Warner and Yearns)

New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1911. First edition. 439pp. + 4 plates. Publisher's cloth with pasted down label.  Binding and endpapers foxed; tiny loss to one page from old adhesion. Good in a fair dust jacket with loss to lower portion of spine and front panel. Popular American novel, scarce in publisher's original dust jacket. The front panel emulates the binding's design. The front flaps advertise this title and others by McCutcheon; the rear panel has additional publisher's ads. The dust jacket for the Grosset & Dunlap edition provides a similar, but not identical design.

[Likely Washington, D.C.: np, c.1829]. 23, [1 (blank)]pp., untrimmed, as issued. 12mo. Removed and pamphlet without wrappers; foxing; Very Good. "Bartlett also became known as a loyal defender of John Quincy Adams's administration, especially in February 1828 when the Jacksonians accused the president of spending money recklessly for the White House, diplomatic missions, and other projects." (ANB) Rare. For this undated edition and a dated 1829 edition OCLC returns six holdings only.

[Upper Darby, Pennsylvania: np, c.1985?]. [1]p. Illustrated Poster. 14 x 10 inches. Yellow paper; printed in red. Near fine. Advertising poster for an appearance of the Count Basie Orchestra, likely from 1985, less than a year after the death of the legendary jazz pianist, composer, and bandleader, William James "Count" Basie (1904-1984). The concert was held at Upper Darby High School in Delaware County, Pennsylvania.