Rare books from D. Anthem, Bookseller

New York: A & C Boni, 1932. First edition. Twelvemo. Light grey cloth stamped in black and silver; dark topstain; green & black-printed title page; xii, 306 pp.; illus.; dust jacket. A Near Fine copy with some sunning to board edges. The unclipped ($2.50) dust jacket is a trifle rubbed with a small chunk missing from the bottom of the front panel; spine browned. [John Joseph] Sherry Mangan (1904-1961) was a Trotskyist writer and poet whose first published novel, Cinderella Married, lampooned the social conventions of the rich and was based on his experiences tutoring the prominent Garland family. We find no other copies available in commerce with just over a dozen institutional copies found via OCLC.

New York: Harrison Smith and Robert Haas, 1934. First trade edition. Twelvemo. Blue, gilt-stamped cloth; yellow topstain; 371 pp.; dust jacket. A Fine copy with tiny bookseller's ticket to rear pastedown. In a Very Good+, slightly rubbed and browning dust jacket, which is unclipped ($2.50); some very light chipping to spine ends. A well-preserved copy of Faulkner's second collection of short stories.

New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1931. First American edition. Although the Czech writer Karel Capek (1890-1938) was best known for his early science fiction stories, in The Gardener's Year he writes with wit about his passion of gardening, With illustrations by his brother, Josef. 12mo. Green pictorial paper boards, 159 p., illus.; dust jacket. A VG+ copy with toning to board edges in a VG, unclipped ($1.75), dust jacket, which is also toned and has one mark of soiling.

New York and London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1894. First edition. Twelvemo. Brown pictorial cloth stamped in gilt; v, 437, [1] pp.; illustrations. The scarce first edition of Twilight Land, a collection of fairy tales written and illustrated by Howard Pyle and the result of Pyle's "untrammelled imagination, an inexhaustible vocabulary, and a long-practised pencil." Illustrated with black & white illustrations profusely throughout. A Very Good copy with some rubbing to cloth; gilt to spine rubbed and dulled; corners bumped; owner's penciled name to front endpaper, bookseller's ticket to rear pastedown, else clean throughout. We find no other copies of this first edition in commerce (2015).

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1923. Octavo. Pastel-striped paper over blue cloth with paper spine label; 140 pp.; dust jacket. First edition, second state binding limited to 215 copies. This was the smallest print run of the 1500 first edition copies spread across three binding states. With the exceedingly scarce, unsophisticated dust jacket. A Near Fine copy with scant rubbing to board edges and one small stain to top of spine label; page edges a trifle browning along the top and small bookseller's ticket to rear endpaper, else Fine internally. The unclipped ($2.00) dust jacket is Very Good with some surface soiling and a small chunk missing to crown (not affecting title); 1" hairline crack along joint fold. We find zero copies of either the first or state binding with the dust jacket currently in the trade (June, 2015).

Union, N.J.: Christian Educational Association, 1972. A substantial, but far from complete, run of Common Sense, one of the most enduring and important far right newspapers of the 20th century. Founded in 1947 by Conde McGinley, the paper began a year earlier as Think (also The Think and Think Weekly), and described itself as "the nation's anti-Communist newspaper." However, early on the paper became shrill in its denunciation of Jews and Zionism and by 1954 McGinley and Common Sense came under the scrutiny of the Velde Committee, Committee on Un-American Activities, in their Preliminary Report on Neo-Fascist and Hate Groups, which determined that the paper's "patriotic claims provide poor disguise, however, for some of the most vitriolic hate propaganda ever to come to the attention of the committee" (p. 10). Many prominent anti-Semites contributed to the paper including Eustace Mullins, Fred Weiss, Elizabeth Dilling, Revilo P. Oliver, Eugene Sanctuary, Charles B. Hudson, Lyrl Clark van Hyning,… Read More

Atlanta: LaHatte Printing Co, 1897. A scarce - virtually unrecorded - firsthand account of the Cuban War of Independence by James Laurens Nicholes (1867-1953), an Atlanta cigar manufacturer operating as a self-described war correspondent. In the author's note, Laurens claims that the book was partially compiled from his letters published as a special correspondent to the New York Times, although a search of the Times archives finds no letters or articles by him. His account begins in early 1897 aboard the steamer Mascotte, which is boarded by Spanish officials searching for "insurrectionists." Nicholes mentions last having been in Cuba in December 1896 (supported by his passport application issued November 13, 1896, and the source for his occupation as a cigar manufacturer) and laments on the "business lethargy" unlikely to change. After passing through customs he reports to secretary-general Fitzhugh Lee, the Confederate general, ex-Virginia governor, and nephew to Robert E. Lee, who Nicholes… Read More

Los Angeles: American Eugenics Party, 1960. The American Eugenics Party (AEP) was an obscure, pseudo-scientific white supremacist group based in California during the 1960s. Samuel Andrisani was the group's primary spokesman, although John S. Vanders is listed as the group's Public Relations Manager on one of the items. In 1967, Andrisani, whose title was Education Manager, ran for Los Angeles Board of Education #2 and his bizarre campaign platform is included. One of the group's most notorious pieces of propaganda was a pamphlet titled "The Ugliest Race," (included here) in which black physiognomy is described in detail. The AEP states, "The negro is shown to be THE UGLIEST RACE because negroes do not approach the hereditarily based universal beauty and function standards. The negro appearance violates the Universal Beauty Law." Decades later, the pamphlet was included in a court case exhibition charging the Duluth Public Schools Academy in Duluth, MN with racism against its black students. The 14… Read More

Various cities: Various Publishers, 1990. This assortment of publications covers various aspects of the gay liberation and gay advocacy/civil rights movements, primarily during the 1980s. It includes both mainstream and underground newspapers (including a massive run of 152 issues of Gay Community News), organizational newsletters and resource guides, and a handful of homoerotic magazines. Included alphabetically are: Act Up Los Angeles: Newsletter of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power/Los Angeles, Vol. 2, No. 1, February-March 1989. Los Angeles: ACT UP/LA, 1989. 4-Front, Vol. 1, No. 019. West Hollywood: METRO-90069, Inc., 1996. Advocate, The, Nos. 244, 246 (lacking section two), 258, 264 (lacking section one), 267, 268, 275 (plus section two of No. 264. San Mateo, California: Liberation Publications, Inc., 1978-1979. Continuing Our Journey... St.Louis: Pride St. Louis, Inc., 1998. Gay Community News: The Weekly for Lesbians and Gay Males (152 issues), Vol. 10, Nos. 2-12, 14, 16, 20, 27, and… Read More

New York City: Friends of the American Lincoln Brigade, 1938. The second (and final) issue of this short-lived quarterly magazine issued by the Friends of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, which was edited by Friends chairman David McKelvy White who was a teacher at Brooklyn College before going to fight with the Republicans in Spain. This issue notable for Ernest Hemingway's short tribute to Spanish artist Luis Quintanilla. Hemingway was a journalist in Spain during the war where he wrote his only play, The Fifth Column. Other content includes Dorothy Parker's article, "Soldiers of the Republic," as well as articles by David McKelvy White, Louis Fischer, Francis J. Gorman, Grace Freed, Lini Fuhr, Herb Hunter, & Milly Bennett; poetry by Sam Kornblatt & Michael Quin; a Friends financial statement; and letters from Spain. Also included is an incomplete copy of Vol. 1, No. 1, which is unfortunately lacking pages 9-16. Stapled wrappers (11" x 8 ½") with a cover drawing by Fred Ellis; 24 p., illus. A near… Read More

Boston: J. M. Hewes, 1859. A significant and early tribute to abolitionist John Brown in the form of a sermon preached two days after his execution by the sympathetic Methodist Episcopal preacher Fales Henry Newhall (1827-1883) in Roxbury, MA. Newhall recounts Brown's life leading up to the insurrection at Harper's Ferry and compares him throughout with the Biblical figure Samson (Newhall referes to Brown as "Samson of Ossawattomie [sic]). As detailed in Jeremy Schipper and Nyasha Junior's book, Black Samson: The Untold Story of an American Icon, by the 1850s abolitionists were frequently being compared with Samson and his battle against the Philistines and Brown himself used the analogy in letters before his death. Newhall's sermon was one of a number preached in the days and weeks following Brown's execution, an execution Newhall believed symbolized the "mortal conflict between Christianity and American Slavery" (p. [3]). One scholar called it a "fusion of martyrdom and apocalyptic millennialism"… Read More