Search Results: Authors starting with C from Sumner & Stillman

1906. London: Methuen & Co., (1906). 40 pp ads dated July 1906 (plus two loosely-inserted Methuen ad slips). Original bright red cloth stamped in gilt. First Edition by this prolific (and at the time very popular) author of many novels, often with elements of the supernatural and mystery -- such as OUR LADY OF DARKNESS, THE SECRET IN THE HILL, THE GREEN PARROT and THE SKELETON KEY. At age 62 his writing career was cut short by the 1918 flu epidemic. This is a remarkably fine, bright copy -- of a curiously uncommon book. Hubin p. 64.

1889. [inscribed by Lewis Carroll] With Forty-six Illustrations [each] by Harry Furniss. [Together, two volumes.] London: Macmillan and Co., 1889/1893. 3 pp / 5 pp undated ads. Original red cloth pictorially decorated in gilt, all page edges gilt. First Editions of Carroll's rather serious fairy tales. SYLVIE AND BRUNO, with its conclusion in 1893, was the last considerable work by Dodgson. Though he fully explains in the Preface... the principles on which he introduces many solemn pages into his fairy tale, the serious subjects of life and science cannot be thus inserted without marring the effect of the whole... Somehow the light and airy touch of ALICE is wanting, but there is plenty of amusing incident and entertaining verse. There is hardly any plot: Sylvie and Bruno, after living with a Warden, Sub-Warden, Professor, Beggar, Gardener, Uggug (the young artist) and others, are conducted by the Gardener into Elfland, ride on a lion, visit Dogland, and so on... [The illustrations] are rightly… Read More

1876. With Nine Illustrations by Henry Holiday. London: Macmillan and Co., 1876. 1 page undated ads. Original deep red cloth pictorially decorated in black, all page edges gilt. First Edition, special dark-red binding, which consisted of 100 copies. This is a poetical nonsense tale, both funny and subtle, that "describes with infinite humour the impossible voyage of an improbable crew to find an inconceivable creature" [WM&G]. The crew consists of a Bellman, a Bonnet-Maker, a Barrister, a Broker, a Billiard-Maker, a Banker, a Butcher, a Baker, a Beaver and (the only one not illustrated) "a Boots." In his dedicatory verse to Gertrude Chataway, Carroll hid the child's name twice. Standard copies were issued in buff-colored cloth (with the same elaborate pictorial decoration, but in black). According to WM&G, "It is doubtful whether any variant coloured bindings were for sale, other than buff or red; the other colours seem to have been bound specially for Dodgson, who wrote to Macmillan on 21 Mar. 1876… Read More

1918. With Illustrations by W.T. Benda. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1918. Original brown linen-grain cloth lettered in light orange. First Edition, first printing (with the date on the FRONT of the title leaf), first state (with the illustrations on coated paper, rather than on text paper). This was Cather's second great novel of immigrant life on the Nebraska frontier, following O PIONEERS! (1913) -- and the third and last of her great "prairie novels," after O PIONEERS! and THE SONG OF THE LARK (1915). It tells of a Bohemian immigrant girl's life there, and of the pioneer strength that carries her through numerous adversities. Cather took a major role in the production of this book, choosing the illustrator and negotiating with Houghton Mifflin regarding many aspects of the book (especially the advertising budget, which HMC would not increase above $300.00!). She was particularly upset when she learned that HMC had ordered the illustrations printed on coated plate paper; she… Read More

1915. With Many Illustrations. New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, [1915]. Original maroon cloth lettered in gilt with pictorial panel on the front cover, with dust jacket. First Edition, second printing (the first to have a dust jacket) -- of the autobiography of the Irish-American investigative publisher Samuel Sidney McClure -- ghost-written by his managing editor, Willa Cather. McClure (1857-1949) emigrated with his widowed mother from County Antrim to a farm in Indiana when he was nine; after attending Valparaiso schools, between 1874 and 1882 he gradually worked his way through Knox College in Galesburg Illinois. In 1897 McClure teamed up with F.N. Doubleday to create Doubleday & McClure publishers, and upon its dissolution in 1900, McClure created McClure, Phillips & Co. (which in turn would sell its assets back to Doubleday in 1908). When in 1905 McClure's cousin brought to his attention the writings of one Willa Cather, MP&Co published her first work of fiction, THE TROLL GARDEN. A year… Read More

1935. London...: Cassell and Company, (1935). Original dark blue cloth with spine lettered in gilt, with dust jacket. First Edition of this collection of eight cases solved by Father Brown, the diminutive Roman Catholic priest / amateur detective. This was the fifth and last collection of Father Brown cases, preceded by THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN (1911), THE WISDOM... (1914), THE INCREDULITY... (1926), and THE SECRET... (1927); Chesterton died the year after this one was published. ...It was in his series of Father Brown stories that Chesterton gave life to one of the most famous and best-loved of fictional detectives... The little Roman Catholic priest's main preoccupation is with the moral and religious aspects of the crimes he is solving, rather than the apprehension of the criminal and the administration of legal punishment. With his psychological approach to the problems of human frailty, and his endowment of the guilty with good as well as bad qualities, Chesterton's works of detective… Read More

1888. or, Vladimir the Monk. New York: Robert Bonner's Sons, 1888. Original buff wrappers. First Edition in book form, published in the year following the death of this prodigious New England writer (born in Maine). This tale had first appeared in the New York Ledger in 1856, the year in which Cobb began his lifelong association with that periodical. To it [the Ledger], in thirty-one years, he contributed 130 novelettes, 834 short stories, and 2,305 brief sketches! (There already lay behind him 36 published novelettes and 200 short stories.)... As a literary figure Cobb hardly exists; but he is of interest as the first American to apply "mass production" methods to writing. His stories were immensely popular, since they were nicely fitted to the viewpoints and opinions of the semi-literate public at which they were aimed; they were at once moral and sensational, romantic and naive, pious and sentimental. He had real dramatic skill and a certain knack for rough-and-ready characterization, but his… Read More

1868. With Many Illustrations. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1868. 2 pp preliminary undated ads. Original purple-brown cloth. First American (and first illustrated) Edition of this classic of detective fiction, issued in the same year as the London three-decker. THE MOONSTONE marked the end of Collins's peak period as a novelist: it was preceded by THE WOMAN IN WHITE (1860), NO NAME (1862) and ARMADALE (1866), and was followed by a transition into sensation or propaganda fiction -- especially regarding marriage and inheritance laws. Commenting on T.S. Eliot's opinion of this book ("the first, the longest, and the best of detective novels"), John Carter wrote Mr. Eliot is inaccurate in his first adjective, a little rash perhaps in his second, but unlikely to meet with much disagreement over his third. If Poe created the short detective story, Wilkie Collins is the undisputed father of the full-length variety... The American edition includes 66 wood engravings interspersed throughout the text. This is… Read More

1870. With Illustrations. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1870. 4 pp ads dated July 1870. Original violet straight-grain-morocco cloth. First American (and first illustrated) Edition -- and possibly the first edition overall. The English three­decker -- considered to be the scarcest of all of Collins's UK firsts -- was published in 1870 by F.S. Ellis during the fortnight June 15-30 (priority between the UK edition and this US one is uncertain: first serialization was in Harper's Weekly, December 1869 - August 1870, followed by Cassell's Magazine in the UK a month later). This was a popular novel, praised for the excitement and cleverness of its plot, but it is particularly noteworthy for Collins's preoccupation with marriage law and its injustices. MAN AND WIFE was "Collins's first propaganda novel, in which he draws attention not only to such injustice in both Scottish and Irish marriage law, but also presses for the 'right of a married woman, in England, to possess her own property and keep her own… Read More

1879. London: Chatto & Windus, 1879. Bound in three-quarter red morocco with gilt-paneled spines, red cloth boards, marbled endpapers. First Edition of this novel about "fallen leaves... the people who have drawn blanks in the lottery of life... the friendless and the lonely, the wounded and the lost." The novel follows the fortunes of four women, all in one way or another 'fallen leaves', who are linked by their relationship with the hero, Amelius Goldenheart, and also by secrets from the past. Their histories are looked at from two perspectives: that of the ruthless capitalist society of England in which they live, and that of the Christian Socialism of the hero who has been brought up in a Utopian community in America. Collins modeled his description on the Oneida communities of New England, in which sexual relationships were not restricted to marriage but had to be sanctioned by the elders [Gasson]. Perhaps appropriately, Collins dedicated this book "To Caroline [Graves]", the woman with whom he… Read More

1850. [first fiction, in original cloth] A Romance of the Fifth Century. London: Richard Bentley, 1850. 2 pp undated ads in Vols II and III, as well as printed endpaper ads in all three volumes. Original cream embossed cloth with blind-stamping on the covers and gilt stamping on the spines. First Edition of Wilkie Collins's first fiction, preceded only by his two-volume "memoir" of his father, the renowned landscape painter. Actually Collins began ANTONINA in 1846, then (after his father died in early 1847) he paused to write the biography, after which he resumed and completed the novel. ANTONINA sold well, with a "revised" edition coming out three months later (in May 1850), followed by another three-volume printing in 1853; it "was reprinted throughout Collins's lifetime and into the twentieth century." Drawing upon Collins's own 1837 visit to Rome, ANTONINA is modeled after Bulwer-Lytton's 1834 novel THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII... The plot is absurd, and many passages read like a cross between a… Read More

1863. [a handsome set] London: Sampson, Low, Son, & Co., 1863. 16 pp ads dated Nov 1863 in each volume. Original green cloth with spines stamped in gilt. First Edition of this collection of twenty-five essays, sketches and other pieces (including some fiction). All of them had initially appeared between 1856 and 1861 either in "Household Words" or in "All The Year Round," the two periodicals founded and edited by Collins's brother's father-in-law, Charles Dickens. (Collins's most famous works, THE WOMAN IN WHITE and THE MOONSTONE, also first appeared in "All The Year Round.") Most of the pieces are categorized by Collins as "Sketches of Character," "Nooks and Corners of History," "Social Grievances," "Curiosities of Literature," "Fragments of Personal Experience" and "Cases Worth Looking At." Andrew Gasson in his bibliography provides a one-clause recap of each piece, enough to get across that many demonstrate Collins's wit and his disdain for Victorian sensibilities -- for example "Talk Stoppers"… Read More

1862. London: Sampson Low, Son, & Co., 1862. Original blind-stamped pebbled orange cloth with gilt-decorated spines. First Edition of "the most unjustly neglected of all Wilkie Collins's novels" [Robinson]. Written at the peak of Collins's career just after THE WOMAN IN WHITE, Sampson Low paid Collins 3,000 for NO NAME, and then produced 4,000 copies -- all but 400 of which were sold by the afternoon of the first day [Gasson]. The novel centers about the theme of illegitimacy, and Collins's condemnation of the laws that govern it. It is the story of 18-year-old Magdalen Vanstone's attempt to regain control of her father's fortune (she and her sister are the children of a common-law marriage; just when their parents finally are able to marry, the father suddenly dies before writing a new will -- leaving the two girls with "no name" and thus with no claim upon his fortune). Though her elder (and quieter) sister Norah resigns herself to her impoverished fate, Magdalen enlists the aid of the "delightful… Read More

1914. Garden City NY: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1914. Original navy blue cloth decorated in gilt. First American Edition, fifth and last 1914 impression (NOT so identified -- but per Supino and per Cagle, the fifth has no border around the title page, and its half-title does bear the ship device). This was the work that revived Conrad's fortunes, hitting it big after almost a decade of underwhelming reception by the public. The volume's condition is just about fine (a trace of rubbing at the corner tips). See Supino A17.14.0 note, and Cagle 17b(2). Provenance: the front free endpaper and half-title bear the personal blind-stamp of American author Zane Grey -- indicating a volume that came from his estate.

1921. London & Toronto: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1921. Original olive-green cloth, with dust jacket. First Edition (preceded by a 35-copy privately-printed issue). This is a collection of pieces that had appeared, over the prior two years, as 25-copy pamphlets produced by Clement Shorter and by T.J. Wise. This copy is in the third and usual state, with a cancel leaf for pages xi-xii, to correct the "S" and "A" of "SEA" lacking in the Table of Contents. The first state lacks these two letters entirely; the second state retains the original leaf but with those two letters hand-stamped in. Supino, drawing from a statement from a Dent official, says that the 9,450-copy first edition consisted of 100, 900 and 8,450 copies in the three states respectively. This is a fine, bright copy; the notoriously brittle dust jacket is very good (minor edge-wear that includes a few small chips, spine slightly faded). Supino A23.4.0 (this copy); Cagle A51a(2). Provenance: discreet bookplate of the Conrad bibliographer David… Read More

1919. London: Printed for Private Circulation (for Thomas J. Wise), 1919. Original blue wrappers. First Edition, being one of only 25 copies (so stated). This was the fourth of Thomas J. Wise's twenty very-limited-issue Conrad pamphlets produced during the twelve months between February 1919 and January 1920; being one of Wise's first ten, the copy is not numbered (for the second group of ten, Wise numbered the copies). This piece on the Titanic had appeared in the May 1912 issue of the English Review (just a month after the sinking), and would later be collected in NOTES ON LIFE & LETTERS (1921). Incidentally, Conrad had a curious connection with the Titanic: to raise cash he often sold the manuscripts of his stories to the American collector John Quinn, and it so happened that the manuscript of his tale "Karain" (one of his TALES OF UNREST), en route to Quinn, went down with the Titanic. This is a near-fine copy (just a trace of wear and toning of the blue wrappers); the leaves remain unopened.… Read More

1919. Garden City NY: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1919. Original blue cloth decorated in gilt, with dust jacket. First Edition, first impression. Because no American periodical would serialize it, THE ARROW OF GOLD was published there about four months before (and lacking many of Conrad's last-minute changes made in time for) the London edition. This copy is from the first impression, with only 20 books listed opposite the title page -- THE SHADOW LINE having been omitted; the second impression is the same but is on thinner paper in the "Deep Sea" limp-leather binding. (There were then third and fourth impressions in 1919, in cloth and in limp leather respectively, listing all 21 books and with several minor alterations in the text.) The volume is in fine, bright condition. Included is the very scarce dust jacket (scarcer, in our opinion, than the jackets for several earlier American Conrad titles such as VICTORY and WITHIN THE TIDES). The jacket is unusual on two counts: first, it is pictorial (well...… Read More

1912. London: Eveleigh Nash, 1912. 2 pp undated ads. Original dark blue cloth. First Edition of this autobiographical work, which initially appeared serially in Ford Madox Ford's newly-founded "English Review." What is remarkable about Conrad's reminiscences is how clearly he employed fictional techniques worked out with Ford,... wherein the narrative intensity increases as the story develops. To achieve that, Conrad used a constantly interrupted narrative as a way of unsettling conventional sequences and, thereby, established anticipation of the next episode. Conrad needed a method that permitted intimacy, up to a certain point, and then withdrawal, when he had revealed enough... so his reminiscences would be matters of attack and retreat. [Karl] SOME REMINISCENCES is generally believed to have slightly preceded the American edition -- which, as with subsequent English editions, was titled A PERSONAL RECORD. Wise claimed that only 1,000 copies were printed (apparently including some bound by Bell… Read More

1903. New York: McClure, Phillips and Company, 1903. 10 pp undated ads. Original blind-stamped dark blue cloth. First American Edition, first printing. These are the three "other stories" that had appeared earlier in 1903 in the UK volume TYPHOON AND OTHER STORIES; "Typhoon" itself had already been published separately the year before in America, where Putnam owned the serial and book rights -- which is why it does not appear here. The story "Falk" is noteworthy as Conrad's most concentrated treatment of his recurrent theme of cannibalism. This is an attractive, near-fine copy (very minor rubbing at the corners). Supino A8.7.0 (this copy); Cagle A8c. Provenance: Sept. 1905 signature of Morris Moskowitz "A Conradian"; discreet bookplate of Conrad bibliographer David J. Supino.

1907. New York and London: Harper & Brothers, 1907. Original light blue-grey cloth decorated in orange, white and black. First American Edition of Conrad's great novel of espionage (filmed by Alfred Hitchcock as "Sabotage"). The American edition has over a hundred variations in text from the English edition, since Methuen sent early uncorrected proofs to Harper as copytext. Harper printed 4,000 copies of the book, but initially sold only about two-thirds of them. Most of the others did not sell until after 1914 (when CHANCE reawakened interest in Conrad); these later copies have "Printed in the U. S. of America" ink-stamped onto the title verso (not present in this copy). This American edition also has one of the most unusual bindings among his works -- portraying Atropos about to cut the thread of life. This is a fine, clean copy (just a touch of rubbing at the extremities). We find this to be the very toughest American edition of Conrad to find in truly collectible condition -- due to the fact… Read More