Rare books from Johnson Rare Books & Archives

Los Angeles: Dawson's Book Shop, 1966. First Edition. Hardcover. Near fine. Foreword by Kim Chewon, Director, National Museum of Korea. Los Angeles: Dawson's Book Shop, 1966. First edition, a limited edition of 300 copies, 95 of which (copies I-XCV) are the Primary Edition, the remaining are numbered 96 through 300. This is copy #167. It contains eleven original tipped-in specimens printed from movable type, dating from 1604 to 1858, and eleven facsimile specimen pages of movable type dating between 1420 and 1858. Regarded as tour de force of cultural and printing history. It not only portrays the development of movable type in Korea before Gutenberg but also serves as a catalog of movable type technology on the Korean peninsula over a period of over 400 years. Folio. The patterned yellow paper covering the boards was made by Kim Dong-kyu, the only man in the Republic of Korea who still worked at the craft at the time of publication. The traditional blocks used to create the paper are now… Read More

An archive of hundreds of letters, bills, receipts, and other legal documents from the family of Academy Award-winning actress Jane Fonda dating from 1786 to 1880. This branch of the Fonda family traces its roots back to New York in 1651 when Jellis Fonda migrated from the Netherlands with his wife and four children. His grandson, Douw Jellis Fonda (1700-1780), is considered the founder of the Dutch village now named Fonda about 30 miles west of Albany. He lived a long and prosperous life as a farmer and merchant but was killed at age 79 during a raid by the British Army, aided by the Mohawk Indians. This collection includes two early hand-drawn property maps of some of the Fonda-owned lands. One of the undated maps, completed for John Fonda, shows part of Mayfield with lots drawn and numbered. The second map, also undated, shows acreage for the heirs of A. Fonda, except 150 acres sold to John C. Smith and 100 acres sold to David and Samuel Loomis. The earliest material in this collection is… Read More

English-language manuscript document rendered in brown gall ink on a light blue sheet (15 1/8" x 12 5/8") with a period embossed stamp along the bottom edge. Folded variously in sixths or eighths. Minor oxidation, with a few ink smudges; otherwise very good. An unrecorded and historically important last will and testament of the Nahnken of Pohnpei to his son Henry Nanpei in 1863 granting him lands and islands in what is now the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM). This document represents an unprecedented act which introduced the people of Pohnpei to a Western system of private land ownership, forever altering their traditions, according to David Hanlon, Professor Emeritus of Pacific Islands, Micronesia, Ethnographic History and author of the book Upon a Stone Altar: A History of the Island of Pohnpei to 1890 (University of Hawai'i Press, 1988). "Deeds, treaties, contracts, and wills are all Western legal conventions that caused a great deal of confusion and misunderstanding in the early and… Read More

Norfolk, Connecticut: New Directions, 1944. Hardcover. Near fine/Very good. First edition, later issue. The fifth volume in The Makers of Modern Literature series. Octavo: 172 p. with a frontispiece portrait and one additional plate. Original tan cloth binding, with blue titles. A near fine copy in the second state dust jacket designed by Alvin Lustig, with some mild toning and edgewear Signed by the author on the front flyleaf: Vladimir Nabokov 12 - VII - 1949 Salt Lake City Nabokov (1899-1977) had the beginnings of Lolita knocking around in his head when he drove to Salt Lake City for the second Writers' Conference at the University of Utah (July 5-16, 1949). In attendance were Oscar Williams, Wallace Stegner, Martha Foley, and John Crowe Ransom - all formidable figures in the literary world, but none caught the attention of Nabokov quite like former political cartoonist and two-time author Ted Geisel, better known today as Dr. Seuss, with whom the Russian-American novelist shared a friendship… Read More

A pair of typescript poems with holographic corrections, each signed and dated by Charles Bukowski. Both appeared in Love Is a Dog from Hell (1977), a classic in the Bukowski canon, in which the Dirty Old Man of American Letters explored the myriad facets of love - its selfishness and its narcissism, its randomness, its mystery and its misery, and ultimately, its true joyfulness, endurance, and redemptive power. Faint folds from mailing, with a bit of mild toning along the extremities. Matted and framed alongside a signed photograph of Bukowski. Not inspected outside the frame. Provenance: Steven L. Isoardi, the Los Angeles jazz scholar, who acquired the material from Red Stodolsky's Baroque Bookstore in Hollywood.

New York: Horace Liveright, 1930. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Near fine. Perelman's exceedingly scarce second book, a comic novel co-authored with New York journalist Quentin Reynolds. Octavo. Original orange cloth binding, with black stamping. Tiny period bookseller's label to the front flyleaf. A fine copy, tight and square, in a near fine dust jacket with some occasional minor edgewear.

The papers and photographs of The Popcorn Theatre, a popular marionette show operated in Southern California for three decades by John D.K. Brunner (1925-93) and his wife Vivian (1926 -2005) along with their son Paris. This collection contains hundreds of original photographs, negatives, sketches for puppets, story concepts, and flyers for promoting shows. Also included is the iconic Popcorn Theatre wooden sign that was used at countless shows and two marionettes. The Brunner's, who were both raised in Southern California, married in 1947 and moved to Paris to study at the Sorbonne, where they often enjoyed watching puppet shows in the city's parks. When they returned to the Unites States, Vivian worked as a dress designer and John as an art director. Neither was happy, so they quit their jobs in 1962 and founded their touring marionette show The Popcorn Theatre. Their son Paris is seen in photographs assisting with puppets from an early age. The Popcorn Theatre was a staple at Southern California… Read More

An archive of research and writing materials gathered for a biography of Ormer Locklear, the daredevil aerial stuntman who was the first to change planes mid-air and died while filming the silent movie The Skywayman (1920). It took more than a decade for author Art Ronnie to research Locklear's life and find a publisher for his book, Locklear: The Man Who Walked on Wings (1973). Born in Greenville, Texas, Locklear (1891-1920) became fascinated with flying when aviation pioneer Calbraith Perry Rodgers landed in a Fort Worth field to unclog a fuel line. With his brothers, Locklear built gliders and later, learned to fly after joining the U.S. Army Air Force in 1917, eventually becoming a flight instructor. He left the Army in 1919 and with two colleagues, joined show promoter and manager William Pickens to form an aerial circus before he was recruited for the silver screen. In his personal life, Locklear married Ruby Graves in 1915, but they separated in 1919 and thereafter she refused to grant him a… Read More

The Roger Gozdecki Collection of E.E. Cummings includes fine first editions of the poet's primary works, many of them signed, as well as letters, original drawings, and a striking self-portrait. The compete catalogue can be downloaded here: https://mcusercontent.com/90ec68132b3c021c2e6819f62/files/efb04ecd-6b48-f2e4-c217-69ef266902c2/EECUMMINGS.pdf.See this collection at the Rare Books LAX live book fair, October 14-16 at The Proud, just minutes from LAX. For more details and tickets, visit: www.RareBooksLA.com

A collection of more than 100 promotional pieces, including movie posters, lobby cards, photographs, sound and video recordings, and other various ephemera in several languages for the cult classic Palm Springs Weekend (1963), a campy view of Palm Springs as a spring break destination. Starring Troy Donahue, Stefanie Powers, Robert Conrad, Ty Hardin, and Connie Stevens, the film centers on a group of college students who travel to Palm Springs for Easter weekend. The film was released by Warner Brothers and featured actors who were under full contract with the studio. Troy Donahue told Palm Springs Life that the best thing about the film was that it was being made in Palm Springs: "And I was there to drink and get laid. I remember that a friend of mine and I started at opposite ends of town. Halfway through the movie, we crossed paths. I got everything he got going in his direction, and he got everything I got coming in mine. I mean, the picture was tame compared to the reality." Slightly in… Read More

Boulogne: L'Architecture d'Aujourd'hui, 1938. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good. Presentation copy, inscribed by Le Corbusier to M. Villey, Prefect of the Seine Department, on the half-title, with a typed letter signed on headed paper by Corbusier to Villey accompanying the gift of the book. Dated 6 Octobre 1938, the letter has been fully translated and opens: "For a long time, I've been trying to spread the idea that a new civilization has been born and that this civilization must invent its vital infrastructure." Oblong quarto. Numerous illustrations, many photographic, some colored. Original pictorial paper-covered boards over a cloth spine. The extremities are slightly rubbed; otherwise very good. Le Corbusier's book was based on his "Pavillion des temps nouveaux" at the Paris exhibition "Art et Technique" held in 1937. It contained his ideas for new methods of urban planning and housing, including "immeuble-villa" complexes with communal areas for eating and recreation, yet retaining… Read More

West Hatfield, Massachusetts: Printed by Harold McGrath at Pennyroyal Press, 1982. Hardcover. Near fine. Issued separately, each folio volume is limited to 350 numbered copies signed by the illustrator and accompanied by an additional suite of wood engravings, with each print signed by Barry Moser, in a linen-covered chemise. A matching set, both volumes in this pairing are number 270. Printed in five colors on a paper specially made for the Press by Strathmore Mills, with calligraphy by G.G. Laurens. The type is Bembo, in blue, black, and red. Bound by Gray Parrot in quarter purple morocco and crimson morocco, respectively, over marbled paper-covered boards. Each is housed with the chemise of prints in its own morocco-backed linen clamshell box, which are a little discolored along the extremities (as usual). Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel, Through the Looking-Glass, were the first two in a series of four folio editions of classic texts printed at the Pennyroyal Press. Both sold… Read More

Los Angeles: Atwood & Ferguson, 1883. Hardcover. Good. A rare survivor, not in Quebedeaux, this early directory was published just two years after the Los Angeles Times began publication and a year prior to the arrival of cultural crusader Charles F. Lummis following his famous tramp across the continent. It also precedes the mid-1880s boom that initiated the transformation of the small town of just over 11,000 people (or about 33,000 countywide) into a thriving metropolis. Numerous notable residents are listed, including Horace Bell, author of Reminiscences of a Ranger (1881), and Elizabeth A. Follansbee, Southern California's first female physican. Aspects of the city's cultural diversity are evident as well, either overtly with individuals identified as "colored" or in the case of the Asian American population, by omission. Notably, the directory includes an advertisement for F.H. Rogers' Solar Art Gallery at 624 San Fernando Street which features an original albumen photograph. Octavo: [352] p.… Read More

New York: The Century Co, 1907. Hardcover. Very good. Presentation copy, inscribed by John Muir to Alice Spencer Jones on the front flyleaf. Jones (1868-1938) was the niece of hardware millionaire John Daggett Hooker, a friend and patron of Muir's in his later years. Most of his best writing from the period around 1910 was accomplished in the garret of Hooker's home on West Adams Street in Los Angeles. It was during this time that Muir struck up a friendship with Alice Spencer Jones, who he referred to as "Hark-the-Lark". Letters from Jones to Muir are included in the John Muir Papers at the University of Pacific. Muir's first book, consisting of fifteen previously published articles, some dating from as early as 1875, which aside from some very brief detours to the Coast Range and the southern San Gabriels, concern the flora, fauna, and geology of the Sierra Nevada. As recorded here, Muir (1883-1914) theorized that the granite face of the Sierra had been shaped and scoured by glaciers, an idea… Read More

Zurich: Edition Gallery Bruno Bischofberger, 1985. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. Limited to 1,000 copies signed by Jean-Michel Basquiat, this is Number 994. Magnificent catalogue of the iconic artist's paintings and collages, issued in conjunction with an exhibition at the Gallery Bruno Bischofberger in Zurich from January 19 to February 16, 1985. Features 12 full-color reproductions, with a folding plate for the Zydeko triptych, as well as a frontispiece portrait of Basquiat by Jeannette Montgomery. Quarto. Original red cloth binding, with black titles. A fine copy in a fine dust jacket with some very light rubbing.