Rare books from ReadInk

Boston: Little, Brown and Company. Near Fine in Near Fine dj. 1934. First Edition. Hardcover. [very nice copy, light shelfwear, a trace of foxing on fore-edge, bookplate on front pastedown; the jacket is remarkably clean and well-preserved, with some minor wear along the top and bottom edges, slight browning to spine, and one tiny nick mid-spine]. A beautiful copy of the author's first book, SIGNED by him directly beneath his printed signature on the title page, and just above one of illustrator Robert Lawson's drawings of the title character. Haines began working as a telephone lineman during summer vacations while in college (University of Pennsylvania), and took on the work full-time upon his graduation in 1931. His experiences on that job provided fodder for his literary efforts, including his first published short stories and two novels, this one and the subsequent "High Tension" in 1937. Time Magazine said of this novel that "in celebrating his craft and the… Read More

New York/Newark: Barse & Co.. Near Fine in Very Good+ dj. (c.1931). First Edition. Hardcover. (price-clipped) [a lightly-worn book, with a minor bump to the top rear corner and some slight dust-soiling to the top edge; jacket is bright and colorful, with some very minor paper loss at spine ends (no loss of text), some internal dampstaining to the rear panel with only negligible effect to the exterior]. (frontispiece photo of Gertrude Berg) "The Rise of the Goldbergs" (the title was eventually shortened to simply "The Goldbergs") debuted as a 15-minute weekly program on NBC radio in November of 1929, and was an immediate hit. The show became a daily broadcast in 1931, the same year this book appeared, and by which time (per the book's introduction) NBC had received "so many requests .... for copies of the episodes that it has been found advisable to publish the first volume with subsequent volumes to follow." (Essentially, then, these are radio… Read More

New York: Simon and Schuster, in collaboration with Marc Barraud - Geneva. Near Fine. [1956]. First Edition. Hardcover. 23456 . (laminated pictorial boards; no dust jacket, but now protected by a custom-fitted mylar wrapper) [a very nice copy, the covers a little bit rubbed and with one tiny surface nick to the front cover and a short scrape to the rear cover, in both instances exposing a little bit of white beneath the otherwise black surface; there is also a neatly-inked gift inscription (dated April 1957) on the ffep]. (color photographs) Beautifully-produced companion volume to the 1955 Disney "True-Life Adventure Film" THE AFRICAN LION. Per the statement on the copyright page, the book was "designed by Armand A. Bigle and produced by Marc Barraud from the original French language edition 'Walt Disney Lions d'Afrique' [published in 1955]," and was printed in Switzerland. The text, in this edition at least, was credited to James Algar, who began at the… Read More

New York: Brentano's. Very Good+. 1928. 2nd printing. Hardcover. (yellow decorated cloth; no dust jacket) [spine very slightly turned, minor shelfwear to bottom edges, a bit of dust-soiling to top edges of covers and text block, a little darkening to spine cloth]. INSCRIBED and SIGNED by the author on the ffep: "To Harold Swanson -- / You don't have to / read this but / honestly you ought to / have it around if / only to throw at / contributors. / Sincerely / Dawn Powell / March 30, 1928." The great American author's "first" novel. (At least that's what she called it herself, preferring not to mention her ACTUAL first novel, "Whither," published three years earlier. Hey, even the great ones are entitled to a mulligan, right?) Inscribed copies of Powell's novels are uncommon, and this is also a terrific association copy: the inscribee, later to set up shop as "H.N. Swanson" in Hollywood, where he was the most successful… Read More

New York: Ives Washburn, Inc.. Very Good+ in Very Good dj. 1957. First American Edition. Hardcover. [spine slightly turned, a little wear to top and bottom edges of covers, age-toning and minor soiling to edges of text block; jacket slightly chipped (with old small internal tape repairs) at spine ends (no impact on text), faint (almost invisible) vertical crease in spine, light soiling to rear panel, a couple of tiny nicks in bottom edge of rear panel]. Yep, it's the book from which Alfred Hitchcock's VERTIGO -- anointed The Greatest Film of All Time by the British Film Institute's "Sight and Sound" panelists' poll -- was (rather freely) adapted. It's a must-have if you're a "books into film" collector, and considerably scarcer for some reason in the American edition than in the British, which preceded it by a year -- although if you're into that "true first edition" business, you really ought to be on the lookout for the French… Read More

New York: Mason Publishing Co.. Very Good+ in Very Good+ dj. 1932 (c.1929). Reprint. Hardcover. [spine turned, light wear to base of spine and bottom corners; jacket slighty faded at spine, with tiny tears at several corners, one-inch closed tear and associated creasing at top of front panel]. An early reprint of the prolific Ms. Mitchell's first novel (first published in the U.S. by Dial Press in 1929), in which a famous arctic explorer is found dead in a bathtub at an English country house -- and is discovered to have been a woman! (Much, I suppose, like a purchaser of this book by "G.M. Mitchell," as she is called in the front jacket panel, might have been surprised to have learned the author's gender only upon turning to the title page.) As Michele Slung wrote of Mitchell, she's "a special taste" whose work "has been little published in the United States since the beginning of her career [yet] to mystery readers in England who have followed the… Read More

(n.p.): Editions for the Armed Services, Inc.. Very Good. [1944] (c.1934). First Edition Thus. Stapled wraps. [moderately worn copy, slght fading along spine, short diagonal crease at bottom corner of front cover; internally quite clean, with typical signs of aging to cheap paper]. An outstanding association copy of Cain's most famous novel, INSCRIBED and SIGNED by the author on the title page -- an amusing inscription to film producer and fellow screenwriter Carey Wilson which reads: "To Cary [sic] Wilson / The best edition / of all / Jim." Wilson was the producer of the long-delayed MGM film version of the book, released in 1946, and in fact had been the first writer assigned to the property when MGM resuscitated it in 1944 (having owned the rights for several years but been put off by the censorship challenges), although the screenplay credit on the finished film was shared by Harry Ruskin and Niven Busch. The inscription is undated, but almost certainly dates from the… Read More

New York: Albert and Charles Boni. Very Good+. 1924. First Edition. Hardcover. (no dust jacket) [good sound copy, with modest wear to spine extremities, spine a little turned, a bit of age-toning to edges of text block; bookplate of noted M-G-M writer-producer Carey Wilson on front pastedown, old department store label/price sticker on rear pastedown ("From the Books of J.W. Robinson Co., Seventh & Grand, Los Angeles")] The rare first book (and only novel) by the radical pacifist and co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement. It follows the protagonist, June Henreddy, through adolescence and college and on to her first job, on the staff of a socialist newspaper. She and the book's other characters are embroiled in the issues of the day (pacifism, birth control, free love, etc.), and at one point her involvement with the women's suffrage movement lands her in jail -- and her involvement with a man results in an unexpected pregnancy, which leads her to seek out an… Read More

London: International Publishers / Martin Lawrence Ltd. (see notes). Very Good in Very Good- dj. 1934. 1st American Edition(?) [see notes]. Hardcover. [modest wear to extremities, spine slightly turned, top edge a bit dust-soiled; jacket spine darkened, one-inch triangular chip at top of spine (losing part of the title), a bit of paper loss at lower spine extremities]. (pen and ink drawings) The writing of this "Robin Hood for Boys and Girls" was inspired by the author's discovery of a translated Russian children's book which dramatized the Soviets' first Five-Year Plan; this led him to conceive this "left-wing update of Robin Hood that showcased a radical approach to historical literature for young people" (per Wikipedia). The jacket blurb declares that Robin Hood "was not just an outlaw [but also] the leader of the dispossessed and disinherited of Merrie England, the sturdy Anglo-Saxon peasantry who were bounded off their common lands, harried and… Read More

London: Selwyn & Blount (1928) Ltd.. Very Good in Very Good- dj. 1929 (c.1925). 11th printing. Hardcover. [modest wear to extremities, pages tanned with age, but generally a good sound copy of a cheaply-manufactured book; former owner's initials plus date & place of purchase written along edge of rear pastedown (concealed by rear jacket flap); the jacket is a bit soiled on the rear panel, with a handful of tiny nicks and edge-tears, minor paper loss at a couple of corners, and a vertical crease along the left edge of the front panel]. ("Not at Night" series, No. 1) Series A very presentable copy of the first entry in the long-running "Not at Night" horror-fiction anthology series. The series was a publishing hit, as evidenced not only by the fact that this title had gone through eleven printings by November 1929 (the daet of this printing, four years after the first edition), but also that it had already spawned four more entries in the series, all blurbed… Read More

Pasadena CA: Spiral Group, Inc.. Fine. 1984-1986. (Nos. 1-9). Softcover. [all issues in as-new condition]. (graphics, photographs) A complete run (9 issues) of this short-lived periodical devoted to avant-garde and experimental filmmaking. Created and edited by Terry Cannon, who had co-founded Pasadena Filmforum (later Los Angeles Filmforum) in 1975 and served as its Executive Director for the organization's first eight years, it was conceived, he said, not as a publication that presented lengthy critical pieces and interviews (in the mold of Millennium Film Journal, for example), but as a type of "creative film journal" which he felt was needed, a place "where filmmakers would be able to have some of their artwork published, some of their drawings, some of their photographs, some of their text pieces and collages." He hoped it would get enough support from the filmmaking community to at least sustain its publication -- "it was going to have to be supported… Read More

[Los Angeles]: "A National Excelsior Publication". Poor. 1962 [1963]. First Edition. Softcover. [externally in pretty bad shape (see images and notes), with part of the front cover torn (or eaten) away, and general overall soiling and discoloration; the binding, however, is intact, and the internals are perfectly OK]. (B&W photographs) Here, my friends, we have that most lamentable and problematic of objects: a unique and highly collectable item that we must honestly acknowledge is in distinctly uncollectable condition -- the very sort of thing that the overworked verbal shrug "it is what it is" was coined to describe. And yet -- and yet -- there's no denying that it IS a thing, and quite a thing at that: an INSCRIBED copy of the FIRST printing of renowned artist Ed Ruscha's iconic first book, published under his own imprint in a numbered edition of just 400 copies (this being No. 87). The work itself is not "rare" -- there was a second edition… Read More

[Norfolk CT]: New Directions. Very Good in Very Good dj. [1950]. First Edition Thus. Hardcover. [a good sound copy, with some shelfwear to the lower edges of the paper-covered boards, and a modest bump to the upper rear corner; the jacket has suffered some very shallow paper loss at and surrounding the top of the spine, and is edgeworn along the spine-folds, with small bit of additional paper loss at the base of the spine and the lower corners; all in all still quite presentable]. (The New Classics Series) Series INSCRIBED and SIGNED by the author/poet on the front endpaper: "Norman Lloyd - / - a man with some / good ideas. Here's / hoping / William Carlos Williams / 11/6/50." (It's to be noted that the inscription is written in WCW's flowing, "pre-stroke" hand, executed as it was just a year or so prior to a debilitating stroke which left him partially paralyzed and made his later signatures exceedingly shaky.) As each new installment of Williams's… Read More

New York: Simon and Schuster. Fine in Near Fine dj. (c.1990). First Edition. Hardcover. [the book itself is flawless; the jacket shows only the tiniest traces of handling wear]. INSCRIBED and SIGNED by the author on the title page: "For Kitaj -- / from his struggling / friend -- / P.R. / London / March 1990." Novel about "a married, middle-aged American named Philip living in London and the married Englishwoman who is his mistress." A very nice association copy; the inscribee was artist R.B. Kitaj, who became a close friend after the two met in London in 1985. Kitaj had positioned himself as an explicitly Jewish artist from the 1970s onward, and it's been noted that much of his thinking, particularly on the question of his Jewish identity, was influenced and inspired by Roth's writings. Kitaj executed a portrait of the writer, in charcoal on handmade paper, around the time they met, which was singled out for praise when it was included in the Tate… Read More

San Francisco: The Arion Press. Fine. 1983. First Edition Thus. Hardcover. (quarter-bound black leather over blue-gray cloth-covered boards, with the Falcon in black leather (with silver trim and red eye) on both front and rear covers; silver lettering on spine; in slipcase, with no dust jacket, as issued) [a beautiful copy, with both book and slipcase utterly unblemished]. (B&W photographs, endpaper maps) The best edition of Hammett's hard-boiled classic, issued in a printing of 400 copies, each signed on the limitation page by the director of the Arion Press (whose 11th book this was), Andrew Hoyem. Beautifully printed and bound, with the red-eyed Black Bird in leather on both covers, the book is illustrated throughout with black-and-white photographs (44 in all, a mixture of vintage and contemporary shots) of the many San Francisco locations that were the setting for the novel, plus a tipped-in frontispiece portrait photo of Hammett and a double fold-out panoramic photo,… Read More