Search Results: Titles starting with A from 19th Century Rare Book and Photograph Shop

Gelatin silver print. 14 x 14 in. image on 16 x 20 in. sheet. Light wear. Signed by Barboza and titled "Imamu Baraka – poet – 76" by the photographer.
This is a splendid Anthony Barboza portrait of Amiri Baraka. Baraka's illustrious and controversial 50-year career, in which he first achieved fame as Leroi Jones, encompassed poetry, drama, fiction, criticism, and activism.
Critic Arnold Rampersad counted Baraka with Phillis Wheatley, Frederick Douglass, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright, and Ralph Ellison "as one of the eight figures … who have significantly affected the course of African-American literary culture."
Anthony Barboza (b. 1944) is perhaps most famous for his portraits of musicians, dancers, and writers and for his photojournalist, fashion, and editorial spreads in countless magazines. His work has been exhibited in many solo and group shows and is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, Cornell University, the Brooklyn… Read More

Mammoth albumen print (17 ½ x 22 in), mounted, oval gilt-rule mat. Retouched vignetted enlargement. A few spots, some toning. Very good condition.
This famous "Gettysburg portrait," with Lincoln looking directly into the camera, was made just days before he delivered the Gettysburg Address on November 19, 1863.
A giant of American photography, Alexander Gardner is credited with introducing the large-format Imperial portrait to the United States while working as a staff photographer for Mathew Brady. Gardner left Brady's employ in early 1863, and his studio quickly rivaled Brady's for the quality and extent of its war and portrait photography. Gardner first photographed Lincoln as president-elect while working for Brady, and he went on to take Lincoln's portrait more than any other photographer.
Lincoln sat for Gardner on several occasions, usually visiting his studio on Sunday to avoid crowds. Lincoln sat for this splendid portrait on Sunday, November 8, 1863. His private secretaries John Hay and… Read More

Original half dark brown morocco gilt. Portrait frontispiece with sculptor's name on the shoulder, State 3 of title but no priority acknowledged, State 1 of p. [13], p. 57 and p. 155, without 11 signature on p. 161, and the original first state of the illustration on p. 283. Light wear. Near fine.

First American edition, in publisher's morocco with the rare first state of the illustration on p. 283.
While gathering advance subscriptions to Huckleberry Finn, traveling salesmen offered not only copies in cloth bindings but also deluxe leather bound copies such as the present example. The first copies printed were sent off to be put in those time-consuming bindings.
Soon thereafter, as printing progressed, an unknown individual defaced the plate on p. 283 with an engraving of a penis at Uncle Silas's crotch. Thousands of copies were printed before the altered plate was discovered. Each of those offending leaves was cut out and replaced with leaf featuring the re-engraved illustration. This new… Read More

Original red cloth. Two gatherings a little loose. Minor wear. A very good copy. Half morocco case.
First edition of the iconic American "Boy's Book." Twain's first novel written without a co-author, Tom Sawyer "proved to be one of the most durable works in American literature. By the time of Twain's death, it was his top-selling book. It had been in print continuously since 1876, and has outsold all other Mark Twain works" (Rasmussen).
"Tom Sawyer was the first printed story of a boy in which the hero was recognizable as a boy throughout the whole narrative … until Tom Sawyer was written, nearly all the boys of fiction were adults with a lisp, or saintly infants, or mischievous eccentrics … in the work of Dickens there were hints of boys that were boys; but Tom was the first full blown boy in all fiction … the book is a landmark" (Booth Tarkington).
This novel of a boy growing up along the Mississippi River is set in a town called St. Petersburg, inspired by Samuel Clemens's hometown of… Read More

FIRST EDITION. Presentation copy inscribed by Einstein's longtime assistant Helen Dukas: "For Lisa Ben Samuel with kindest regards and Shalom Helen Dukas Princeton N.J. March 1980."
Helen Dukas became Einstein's secretary in 1928 and, after his death in 1955, served as a trustee of his literary estate and archivist of his papers. This volume prints letters and documents selected by Dukas over the years to shed light on Einstein's character and personality.Original cloth and dust jacket. Some rubbing to jacket, else very good.

Original brown cloth, top edge gilt, publisher's slipcase. Very fine, with the fragile slipcase in excellent condition. A superb copy.
FIRST EDITION. One of 760 numbered copies signed and dated by Einstein.
This important volume contains Einstein's autobiography, specially written for the book, a bibliography of his works, twenty-five scientists' discussions of Einstein's work and achievements, with Einstein's replies. Contributors of essays include Niels Bohr, Max Born, Wolfgang Pauli, and Kurt Godel.
I. I. Rabi's review in Science hailed this as a "most important and significant volume. It is most difficult to get scientists to write simply and clearly about the fundamentals of their science and the leading philosophical ideas that guide them. … In this book there is played out a great scientific drama of the last two decades. … The book starts with an intellectual autobiography by Einstein himself. He satirically calls it his obituary. I know of no other to compare with it. Neither… Read More

80 tintypes, one fully painted, a few others with painted highlights. 19th-century brown leather album with diecut sheets housing the photographs. Color lithograph title page stating "album." Very good condition overall.

This fascinating album contains 80 tintype portraits of women and girls, young and old. Some are dressed plainly, while others are in fine dresses, and at least one is in mourning attire. The photographs include head and shoulders, seated, and full-length standing portraits.

The album opens with a fine half plate tintype of a woman seated with her presumed husband, their two daughters standing behind them. The second photograph is an horizontal half plate tintype of two women seated in front of a large painted studio backdrop of a bridge or pier. Studio furniture, props, curtains, and backdrops may facilitate identification of photographers.

The collection comprises 80 portraits as follows:

3 whole plate tintypes (one hand painted), trimmed at left and right to fit the album
5… Read More

Brown buckram. Library markings.
FIRST EDITION of Einstein's fifth published paper, "On the General Molecular Theory of Heat" (pp. 354-362).

First edition of the second book by Asher Benjamin, America's first great writer on architecture. In the introduction, Benjamin notes that "the style of building in this country differs very considerably from that of Great Britain" and that architects who rely on European publications are wasting their money. He concludes, "we feel confident that this publication will be found to contain more useful information for the American workman than all the European works which have appeared in this country."

"Through his books 'late colonial' details and designs were broadcast throughout New England … and there is scarcely a village which in moulding profiles, cornice details, church spire, or farm-house does not reflect his influence" (DAB). The plates in this work inspired countless builders, and they have been used to identify Benjamin as the architect of a number of important buildings in Massachusetts and Connecticut. "Benjamin's plates formed a collection harmonious and almost always in perfect… Read More

A splendid view of Angkor Wat with deep, rich tones. Émile Gsell accompanied de Lagrée on his expedition to Angkor, where he made a series of dramatic photographs only a few months after John Thomson's expedition. The French photographer Gsell became the first commercial photographer based in Saigon in 1866. He returned to Angkor in 1873 with the famous expedition led by Louis Delaporte.
"Reports of an abandoned city in the jungle had reached Europeans in 1850, and in 1863 de Lagrée conducted the first archaeological exploration of the ruins. The finest and most extensive of all Khmer monuments, Angkor Wat was built early in the twelfth century as a temple symbolizing Mount Meru, the cosmic mountain at the center of the Buddhist and Hindu universe. It had been abandoned in the eighteenth century, and by the time this photograph was made many of its buildings had been overtaken by the forest" (Metropolitan Museum of Art).
"One of these temples, a rival to that of Solomon, and erected by… Read More

Oval albumen print (8 x 6 in.), original printed mount, trimmed at bottom removing caption, signed "BRADY & CO. PHOTOGRAPHERS." Browning and offsetting to mount, light toning to image. Very good. Matted and framed.
The classic Brady $5 bill photograph. This celebrated portrait, the basis for the five-dollar bill engraving used for most of the 20th century, is one of seven poses taken by Anthony Berger at Mathew Brady's Washington, D. C. studio on February 9, 1864. The most prolific photographer of Lincoln, Brady himself did not actually operate his cameras during the war years, instead training and employing men like Alexander Gardner and his successor Anthony Berger, who took this picture, to operate the camera.
Lincoln's son Robert Todd Lincoln declared this famous portrait to be "the most satisfactory likeness" of Abraham Lincoln.

8-cent Apollo 8 "In the Beginning God …" postage stamp, uncanceled. Mission emblem cachet. Fine condition. Encapsulated by CAG, which authenticated the Armstrong Family Collection.
Signed by the crew of Apollo 11, the first manned mission to the Moon: Neil Armstrong (commander), Buzz Aldrin (lunar module pilot), and Michael Collins (command module pilot).
This is one of the famous "insurance covers" signed by the Apollo 11 crew to provide some financial security for their families in case the otherwise practically uninsurable astronauts failed to return from their mission.
Michael Collins and the other crew members personally designed the mission emblem, which shows an eagle descending to the lunar surface while holding an olive branch of peace. The design initially showed the olive branch in the eagle's beak, but when officials worried that the eagle was too menacing, the astronauts moved the branch to its extended talons.
Provenance: Neil Armstrong.

First edition of Aristotle's Masterpiece, "the most popular book about women's bodies, sex, pregnancy, and childbirth in Britain and America from its first appearance in 1684 up to at least the 1870s" (Treasures, Library Company of Philadelphia).
Aristotle's Masterpiece—neither by Aristotle nor a masterpiece—is "the first sex manual written in English" (Norman). The work documents theories and practices of human reproduction during the early modern period. This first edition was assembled in part from excerpts of existing midwifery books, primarily Levinus Lemnius's The Secret Miracles of Nature (1658) and Jacob Rueff's The Expert Midwife (1658). The book's pseudo-Aristotle attribution both lent it an aura of credibility and hinted at the sexual nature of its contents. After the publication of a book called Aristotle's Problems in 1595, which included a few explicit discussions of sex, the name 'Aristotle' came to euphemistically indicate sexual knowledge to an early modern audience.
Unlike… Read More

Folio (348 x 224 mm). 58 leaves (116 unnumbered pages) on paper with the watermark of the Sacred Monogram, Briquet 9467, i.e. Vicenza 1527-38. 812 armorial shields in watercolor, seven per page. Late 18th-century calf, black letter spine label. Rubbed, some soiling. Very good condition.
This is a lovely Renaissance manuscript representing the great families of Florence at the height of the Renaissance.
This beautiful manuscript contains 812 hand-colored armorial shields arranged alphabetically from Aldrobradi to Zucharini, with a leaf of additions at the end.
This Renaissance manuscript contains the arms of Florence's great families including its patrons of the arts, financiers, businessmen, philosophers, and political leaders. The influential names represented here include Medici, Alberti, Da Vinci, Albizzi, Pazzi, Lippi, Strozzi, and hundreds of others. The manuscript contains the arms of the families of Galileo Galilei and of Niccolo Machiavelli, whose history of Florence was written about the time… Read More

Signed by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, the first two men on the Moon.
This image was taken by the Maurer Data Acquisition Camera (DAC, pronounced "dak"). The DAC made films through the Lunar Module Pilot's window during the approach and landing of the LM and took stop motion photographs during the EVA at the rate of one frame per second.
The photograph shows Armstrong and Aldrin raising the American flag on the Moon about 27 feet from the centerline of Eagle. Aldrin reported that the Apollo 11 flag was blown over by the blast of the rocket exhaust during takeoff.
Congress subsequently passed a bill declaring that the placement of the flag on the Moon "is intended as a symbolic gesture of national pride in achievement and is not to be construed as a declaration of national appropriation by claim of sovereignty."
Signed photographs of Armstrong and Aldrin on the lunar surface are scarce.
Armstrong operated the handheld camera on the Moon's surface. Thus in signed Apollo 11 lunar surface… Read More

Whitman writes to his good friend and benefactor John H. Johnston, the New York jeweler, evidently congratulating him on the birth of his child: "Bless the dear baby, & all babies – Love to you & wife, Walt Whitman."

Whitman lived with Johnston and his family for several extended stays in the late 1870s. During the first visit, Johnston's first wife died in childbirth. His relationship with Johnston was close and his children called the poet "Uncle Walt." He called them "model children lively & free & children" who "form a great part of my comfort here."
In 1888, Whitman wrote to his friend Horace Traubel, "Johnston is bright, quick, demonstrative, enthusiastic, unswerving: loyal to the last degree: a money-maker but a generous sample of the breed. I count him as in our inner circle, among the chosen few. Johnston has a transcendental side strongly marked and that's where he spiritually connects with our crowd: he is free, progressive, alert. Johnston has had several wives—they… Read More

Two pages. Traces of mounting and toning on blank last page, else very good.
Whittier poignantly writes, "Thy word of sympathy in view of the death of dear Longfellow was very welcome. It is a mighty loss to us all. It leaves me with a feeling of loneliness, as if I had outlived the world. …. All English-speaking people have a common interest in the great world-singer. I am very truly thy friend John G. Whittier."
A wonderful letter linking two leading New England poets.

Five pages (17 x 11 cm). Headed "Let me see proofs" in Lowell's hand. Ink smudge to first leaf.
[With:]
LOWELL, JAMES RUSSELL. Autograph letter signed. Westminster, [1888]. Two pages. Lowell's letter of enclosure for his "Apology": "I send back the Ms. as you wish. I have corrected a clip[?] or two here & there, for I was so hurried in order to keep my word with you that I did not read it over after writing it."
Lowell's original revised manuscript for "An Apology for a Preface," which appeared as a preface in his volume of collected lectures, The English Poets, The Camelot Series in 1888.
Lowell observes in part, "all prefaces may be said to have one valid excuse for being—namely, that the judicious reader can, and generally does, skip them, thus securing one pleasurable emotion at least from his book—a success beyond the average, if I may trust my own experience. And yet, feeling as I do my incompetence for this species of literature, in which I have no more practice than one has in dying,… Read More

In this fine, warm letter to his sister, Whitman writes, "Love to you sister dear. The day has got along & I have just time to hurry this off to catch this evng's mail. Much the same with me— hot wave here again. Am anchor'd here at my window as usual. 2 enc'd." The latter comment may refer to Whitman's enclosure of the accompanying broadside (see next item). Several well-known photographs capture Whitman in his final years seated at his window at a table overflowing with his papers.
Whitman wrote this letter on a wonderful sheet of personal stationery he prepared very late in life. The aging Whitman delighted in the lines he printed at the side of this orange-yellow letter sheet:
"The Epictetus saying, as given by Walt Whitman in his own quite utterly dilapidated physical case, is, a 'little spark of soul dragging a great lummox of corpse-body clumsily to and fro around'" (from the Boston Evening Transcript, 7 May 1891).
This poignant letter is finely bound with the proof sheet described below.… Read More

One page. Stockholm Grand Hotel stationery. Fine.
In this outstanding financial manuscript, Merton writes the celebrated Black-Scholes (or Black-Scholes-Merton) formula for derivatives pricing, the basis for many of the great fortunes in finance.
Merton's collaborator Myron Scholes characterized the formula as "an equation that prices options on common stock and provides a methodology to value options on securities generally. It can be used to measure risk and transfer risk."
Merton and Scholes shared the 1997 Nobel Prize in Economics "for a new method to determine the value of derivatives" (Black was not eligible, having died in 1995). "Such rapid and widespread application of a theoretical result was new to economics," the prize committee wrote. "Nowadays, thousands of traders and investors use the formula every day," allowing businesses and individuals to hedge risks in an unprecedented way. Merton wrote this manuscript while he was in Stockholm for the Nobel Prize ceremony.
The insights of this… Read More