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

Broadside (25 x 19 ½ in.). Trimmed with loss of border, closed tear extending from bottom edge, browning, mounted. A spectacular display piece.
Whitman designed this rare broadside to promote his works in bookstores. The broadside advertises four of the author's most recent publications, together with a biography of Whitman by his friend John Burroughs. Leaves of Grass was in its fifth edition by this date. Although the broadside was designed for bookstore displays, Whitman referred to it as a "show bill" in a note to W. D. O'Connor.
"Throughout his literary life, Walt Whitman (1819–1892) never forgot his roots in the printing trade and the years he spent as an apprentice with newspaper printers in Long Island and New York city. This broadside, which uses eight different type faces, was apparently designed by Whitman himself to help booksellers promote the five titles listed." (Grolier Club, Lasting Impressions, 2004).
A spectacular Whitman display piece.
Provenance: Walt Whitman Collection of Dr… Read More

FIRST EDITION, first British issue, comprising the American sheets (1883) plus a new section (pp. 237-255), Dowden's work on the English critics of Whitman.
"An unconventional book, as much anthology of documents about the poet as a biography. It was also a collaboration; Whitman advised throughout, revised Bucke's text, and wrote significant portions of the book himself" (LeMaster, Walt Whitman, An Encylopedia). Bucke was one of Whitman's three literary executors.
Photo intaglio frontispiece portrait of Whitman by Gilchrist. Original olive-brown cloth. Short separation to cloth at bottom of rear joint. Very good.

10 original mounted salt print photographs (2 more than the 8 called for on the title and listed in the contents). Original green cloth, a.e.g. Fading to photographs. Very good.
First edition. Presentation copy inscribed by the publisher to S. Austin Allibone, who contributed the sketch of Irving's life and works. Allibone was a leading American editor, author, and bibliographer who is best known for his Critical Dictionary of English Literature and British and American Authors. Other contributors include Longfellow, Bryant, Everett, and Bancroft.
This presentation copy contains 10 mounted salt print photographs, two of which ("Sunnyside – from a large photograph" and "The burial place of Washington Irving") are not listed in the Contents. Putnam spared no expense in the production of this memorial volume in honor of Irving, who died in late 1859. Irving had generated tremendous sales for the publisher, and they remained among the firm's most profitable works for years to come.
Very… Read More

Three volumes. Half titles, colophon leaf in vol. 3 (a little spotting, damp staining in vol 3). Contemporary quarter green morocco gilt and marbled boards (rubbed at extremities). A very good, unrestored set.
Rare true first edition of Cooper's pirate romance. This nautical novel set in 17th-century New York was first published in a small edition in Dresden, where the author had settled in 1826. London and Philadelphia editions soon followed.
Cooper had attempted to have the work printed in Rome. The tale of the abduction of a woman by the mysterious pirate captain of the Water-Witch, who is actually a woman in disguise, was deemed "wholly unfit" by the Papal censors. The Water Witch was "the only genuine continental first" of all his novels (Spiller and Blackburn). This book, in both its content and its publication history, demonstrates the truly international scope of Cooper's career.
Provenance: Christie's New York, 21 September 1994, lot 56.
BAL 3845; Spiller and Blackburn pp. 6-7 and 62.

This remarkable photograph shows "one of twelve white elephants belonging to King Mongkut. The 'white' elephants are really reddish-brown with pale eyelashes and toenails. Male white elephants were regarded with high esteem and were adorned with elaborate costumes. The photograph shows the mahout, wearing a distinctive conical hat, training the elephant to kneel; he is using an elephant control stick with a hook (an ankusa). A boy stands by the head of the elephant, several other elephant carers sit on the right with ropes and a parasol, and a large group of onlookers sit on the left. The walls of the Grand Palace are seen behind" (Wellcome Institute Library).
Thomson recalled of the white elephants, "We passed a place called Bang-Sang, where a royal palace had been erected for the reception of a scared white elephant, which died, it was reported, of a champagne dinner, on its progress to the capital. The untimely end of this brute was esteemed a national calamity, and was a cause of deep… Read More

Original wrappers. Near fine.
First edition in English, one of 2000 numbered copies. Translated from the German by Stuart Gilbert.
Einstein initiated this correspondence with Freud as part of the International Institute of Intellectual Co-operation's effort to promote dialogue among leading thinkers to promote peace. At the time Einstein and Freud were perhaps the most famous thinkers in the world.
Laid in is a 2pp leaflet advertising this publication and noting the various formats and their prices.

12mo. Two volumes. Contemporary calf, spines gilt.This handsome edition includes The Ambitious Step-Mother, Tamerlane, The Fair Penitent, Ulysses, The Royal Convert, Jane Shore, Jane Gray, and various poems.

30 volumes. Reddish-brown 3/4 morocco, spines gilt. Some foxing. Minor spotting to a few spines, minor wear. An excellent set. A handsome set of the famous "Illustrated Library Edition," here in an early printing. The dedication at the front of the first volume (Pickwick Papers) states, "This the best edition of my books is, of right, inscribed to my dear friend John Forster, biographer of Oliver Goldsmith, in affectionate acknowledgment of his counsel, sympathy, and faithful friendship during my whole literary life." "The Library Edition came about largely because of the suggestion of Forster that while Dickens's works were available in volumes in the Cheap Edition and in reprints of the serial parts, there was no high-quality edition that would appeal to the wealthy. Dickens eventually came round to the idea that an elegant edition could raise the stature of his writings. He faced a complication, in that the rights to the works were divided between Chapman and Hall and Bradbury and Evans.… Read More

9 volumes. Contemporary mottled calf calf, spines gilt, morocco labels. Light wear to binding, two joints tender. A very good set in a very handsome binding.
Gifford's edition of Jonson's works played an important role in the Jonson revival.

9 volumes. Contemporary polished red calf, spines gilt, morocco labels. Light wear to binding, slight separation at top of one joint. A very good set in a handsome red calf Victorian binding.
Gifford's edition of Jonson's works played an important role in the Jonson revival.

Original yellow cloth. Near fine dust jacket supplied from another copy. Early typed slip stating "Professor Albert Einstein / Princeton, New Jersey 1950" mounted to top of front free endpaper. Light soiling. Very good Signed and dated 1950 by Albert Einstein on the front free endpaper.
This is the English translation of Einstein's Mein Weltbild, first published in German in 1934 and then in English as The World As I See It
in the same year. This abridged edition of 1949 omits the scientific essays, preserving the extensive essays concerning philosophy, religion, Judaism, economics, current events, government, politics, war, and peace.