Rare books from Peter Harrington

1918. Nevinson's large scale original lithograph of the British supply route to the Western Front, signed by the artist Edition unknown but not exceeding 75 copies. Signed and dated lower right in pencil by Nevinson. "Nevinson first learned lithography in 1912... All Nevinson's lithographs were made on stone, not zinc or transfer paper. 'I got back (to London in 1918) to find that a bomb had fallen on the printing works where my lithographs were kept and my stones were damaged. The reason for the extra ridge on my lithograph of the Arras-Bapaume Road is because I had to put it in to cover the injury done to my original stone'" (Carey & Griffiths, p. 53). The lithograph is redrawn after the original oil painted in 1917, now in the Imperial War Museum; the work was first exhibited at the Leicester Galleries, London, March 1918. Nevinson's portrayal of the British supply route between Arras and Bapaume, with its soft contours, is a conscious echo of the traditions of English landscape painting,… Read More

[Asheville, NC: Grove Park Inn, summer, 1936]. The first and last draft manuscripts for a published short story, given by Fitzgerald as a gift to his obliging young typist Two original drafts, the first draft and the second and final draft, for Fitzgerald's short story "I Didn't Get Over", written in summer 1936 and published in Esquire magazine that October. The most noticeable differences between the two drafts are at the beginning and end of the piece. The title is slightly changed: in the first draft, it is "I Never Got Over"; in the second, that is amended in manuscript to "I Didn't Get Over". In the story, a former army captain who failed to make it to the front in the First World War confesses his responsibility for a training-camp accident that claimed the lives of several soldiers. At the end, the second draft, Fitzgerald adds in pencil the coda that makes the identity of the army captain clear: "I was that captain, and when I rode up to join my company he acted as if he'd never seen me… Read More

London: printed for Cadell and Davies by Richard Taylor and Co. (part I); for Cadell and Davies, and Murray by Richard and Arthur Taylor (part II); printed by Richard and Arthur Taylor … Not Published (parts III & IV),, 1813-14. One of 40 specially bound presentation sets, inscribed "From the Author" First edition, inscribed "From the Author" on the first blank, one of 40 specially bound presentation copies printed on thick paper, with parts III & IV "Not published". Owen had the copies bound for presentation to leading members of the state and church across Europe, seeking to win over influential figures to his ideas (Dolléans, p. 146). A New View of Society is "Owen's first and most important published work, containing the principles upon which he based his educational and social reforms at New Lanark, an account of their application there, and an outline of the means by which his theories might be applied to the nation as a whole" (Goldsmiths' Owen Exhibition). It is considered "the first… Read More

Paris: Éditions Albert Lévy,, [1923-26]. Original gouache designs for an art deco masterpiece The original, highly finished artwork for the complete suite of pochoirs for the Verneuils' Kaléidoscope, "a masterwork of Art Deco design" (V&A website "The Kaleidoscopic Wonder of Art Deco Prints"). A visually spectacular document of what is widely recognized as one of the most brilliant of the art deco pattern books - a genre which Ray considered displayed art deco "in its purest form" (The Art Deco Book in France, p. 28) - a group remarkable for its artistry and almost equally for having survived close to a century complete. We have been unable to find records for any comparable archives on the market. The 20 sheets of Kaléidoscope contain 87 textile designs composed of "colourful, abstract motifs, which evoke, with their fragmented vocabulary, the dynamism of modern culture" (The Met web site) which were to exert a strong influence on the spread of art deco, becoming something of a toy box for… Read More

Washington, DC: , 1942-45. FDR's official White House portfolio, containing official signed stationery and autograph notes A superbly evocative memento of the wartime FDR White House, a handsome commercial leather portfolio personalized for Roosevelt's use and containing some 20 leaves of various White House stationery and printed appointment documents all signed by Roosevelt in preparation for use. Such personal artefacts relating to FDR rarely appear on the open market. Roosevelt has made autograph notes on three of the folders: "Robert Ford to come Wed or Thurs" (on cover of "To Sign"); "John F(?) - How handle insurance on production?" (on front of "The President / For Reading"); and "support of me - / tie in inflation - / Cash surrender - 4% compound int. from date armistice / $1,200,000,000" (inside "Miscellaneous Correspondence"). Other documents and stationery are retained within one of the five manila folders, each of which is titled holographically in pencil by a number of unidentifiable… Read More

1908. Original artwork Published within Rackham's edition of A Midsummer Night's Dream in 1908. The watercolour depicts Puck leading Lysander away from Demetrius in Act 3, scene 2. The piece appears opposite page 86 and is one of the 40 colour plates. The board has the title added in the artist's hand, together with identification of the book and the artist's signature. This powerful illustration shows Rackham's thorough knowledge of the text of the play. Although simply entitled "Up and down, up and down", Rackham adds the "damned spirits all" to his composition and therefore depicts a passage from Puck's previous speech. In his biography of the artist, James Hamilton notes that Rackham's "interpretations of A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Wind in the Willows... have become definitive, and continue to challenge later illustrators to find new approaches". Writing about "Rackham's Best Book Illustrations", Fred Gettings states that in the artist's illustrations for A Midsummer Night's Dream "he… Read More

London: Chapman and Hall,, 1861. Original cloth, with all the points of first issue First edition, first impression, published on 6 July 1861; both the rarest and most valuable of Dickens's works, and, arguably, his greatest. Copies in the original cloth are particularly desirable. Five impressions of the first edition were printed, each of the latter four with a new edition statement on the title page. The modern bibliographical authority is the table given in Appendix D to the Clarendon edition, 1993, in which Margaret Cardwell agrees with the traditional conclusion that the same setting of type was used for all five impressions: "there is no warrant for treating the five impressions as distinct editions" (p. 491). However, she deduces the impressions were sequential and that minor corrections and gradual deterioration of type can be shown across the five impressions, allowing the first impression to be identified even when the title page is tampered with or absent. Patten states that 1,000 copies… Read More

Glasgow: 10 March , 1760. Smith nurses his student One of very few remaining Adam Smith autograph letters in private hands, written to the Earl of Shelburne to detail the sickness of his son Thomas Petty-Fitzmaurice, Smith's student and lodger. Mossner & Ross's census counts 232 letters written by Smith, 53 of which could not be traced (p. vii). Virtually all are in public collections. While serving as professor of logic and moral philosophy at Glasgow University, Smith shared his residence with his more prominent students, giving direct tutoring and scholastic supervision. Smith's renown was such that he attracted members of notable and aristocratic families to Glasgow: the 1st Earl of Shelburne sent his son there, rather than Oxford, on Lord Minto's recommendation. Thomas Petty-Fitzmaurice (1742–1793), the earl's youngest son, lodged and studied with Smith from 1759 to 1761. Petty-Fitzmaurice later served as MP from 1762 to 1780; his brother William served as prime minister from 1782 to 1783. "In… Read More

Lujiang, China: , [1614]. 2,000 years of Chinese learning First edition of this visual and textual guide to the Five Confucian Classics - one of the world's oldest and most enduring textual canons - through the lenses of philosophy, geography, and science. We have traced a single copy at Kyoto University, with none traced at auction. Until the early 20th century, the Five Confucian Classics - the Book of Changes (Yijing), Book of Documents (Shujing), Book of Odes (Shijing), Spring and Autumn Annals (Chunqiu), and Book of Rites (Liji) - were the cornerstone of Chinese understandings of politics, society, and the self. As some texts were long thought to have been written by Confucius himself, the canon formed the basis of all scholarly learning and the imperial examinations system from the second century BCE through to 1905. "Thus the more cultured members of society in premodern China, even those who had failed the examinations or had passed but never held office, enjoyed a familiarity with the… Read More

Augsburg: Erhard Ratdolt, 2 Jan., 1490 & 27 Nov. (or 6 Oct.?) 1488. Two scarce astronomical texts in an attractive contemporary binding First editions of both works, each printed by Erhard Ratdolt, bound together in a contemporary vellum wrapper. Ratdolt was the greatest scientific printer of the incunable period, producing elegant and accurate texts of the most important astronomers and mathematicians of his time. The first text here is by Regiomontanus, an early practitioner of modern observational astronomy and an influence on Copernicus, who owned a copy of this book. It is a series of tables for calculating the positions of celestial bodies, a major advance in accuracy over earlier attempts such as the Alfonsine Tables. The Regiomontanus was edited by his former pupil Johannes Angelus (Johann Engel), who had studied under him in Vienna. He is also the author of the second work here, a profusely illustrated guide to the composition of horoscopes which functions as a visual dictionary of… Read More

14 October 1959 - 14 April 1960. The iconic Bond jacket takes form A series of 22 autograph and typed letters signed between Ian Fleming, his agent at Jonathan Cape Michael Howard, and Fleming's dust-jacket artist of choice Richard Chopping, documenting the conception and creation of Chopping's jacket design for For Your Eyes Only, also containing a number of drafts and colour palettes for the dust jacket, as well as a final sketch. Fleming was introduced to Chopping, then a young artist specializing in trompe-l'oeil paintings, by his wife Ann in 1956. Chopping designed almost all the James Bond jackets from Russia With Love onwards; he afterwards also designed the covers of the Amis and Gardner continuations. Fleming was a great supporter of Chopping's work, his enthusiasm overriding the concern of his editor at Cape over Chopping's escalating fees for the artwork - in this collection, the letters demonstrate Fleming's effusive support for Chopping's design, Howard's tactful rebuttal that the sum… Read More

London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd,, 1937. In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit First edition, first impression, in the first issue jacket, of "the outstanding British work of fantasy for children to appear between the two World Wars, and the first of a series of books which eventually brought Tolkien world-wide fame and created a cult following" (Carpenter & Prichard). Keen to draw similarities with Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, the publishers claimed parallels between Lewis Carroll and J. R. R. Tolkien. Unfortunately, the blurb on the rear inside flap of the first issue of the dust jacket incorrectly cites the author of Alice as "Dodgeson". This required a correction in ink by hand, as in this copy. Tolkien first scribbled the opening lines of The Hobbit in the late 1920s or early 1930s: "in a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit..." The narrative developed into a tale told to the Tolkien children by their father and he continued to work on it without thought of publication. During the… Read More

London: printed for Sam. Smith, and Benj. Walford, Printers to the Royal Society,, 1704. Newton defines colour through mathematics First edition, first issue, without the author's name on the title page. Newton's Opticks expounds his corpuscular theory of light and summarizes his experiments concerning light and colour. It also prints two important mathematical treatises (omitted in later editions) describing his invention of the fluxional calculus, the grounds for his claim of priority over Leibniz. Newton arrived at most of his unconventional ideas on colour by about 1668, and Opticks was largely complete by 1692. However, when he first partially expressed his theories in public, in 1672 and 1675, they provoked hostile criticism, especially on the continent. As a result, Newton delayed the publication of Opticks until his most vociferous critics - especially Robert Hooke - were dead. Unusually for Newton, and in what was probably a further defensive move, the work was first published in English… Read More

London: R. Bishop for William Hils, to be sold by Daniel Pakeman,, 1640. It is better to be feared than loved First edition in English of the defining and best-known manual for leadership, an influence on generations of rulers, the classical expression of the moral justification that the end justifies the means, and a refutation of centuries of Christian mirror-for-prince books which emphasized the primacy of truth, religion, and morality. Composed in Italian, The Prince was first distributed in manuscript in 1513 and first published in Rome in 1532. The Prince appears to have been banned from publication in England during the Elizabethan period, though translations circulated in manuscript. It was so controversial that it had to wait for over a century, and was the last of Machiavelli's great works to be published in English. Even then, the translator Edward Dacres found it politic to frame the book with moral reservations or "animadversions", though he did not allow them to seep into his text as… Read More

The beginning of the Duluoz Legend Three galley proofs for the first edition of Kerouac's fictionalized tale of his childhood, from the estate of Robert Giroux, the father-figure publisher who launched his career. The "Readers first proof" has approximately 12 manuscript corrections by Kerouac; all three - the "Readers First Proof", the "Marked Set", and the "Final Proof" - have manuscript annotations by Giroux. Editorial material relating to the publication of Kerouac's books is rare. We can trace only three galleys for Kerouac publications on the market in the last 50 years, and only one - a first galley proof for Big Sur (1962), also from Giroux's estate - is of comparable importance. The others were galleys for "In the Ring", an article published in The Atlantic (March 1968), and for his non-fiction collection Lonesome Traveller (1960). This trio of proofs shows Farrar, Strauss and Company's creation of Kerouac's "great big old sad book about the life and death of my little brother Gerard back in… Read More