Rare books from Riverrun Books & Manuscripts

Paris: Editions Pierre Belfond, 1974. Professionally conserved freeing tissue guards from some of the gilding, overall in well preserved condition. Folio (15 x 11 inches). Ten erotic drypoint etchings with gilding, on vellum Arches paper, each signed "Dali" and numbered in pencil, lower right. Loose as issued in printed wrapper; red cloth clamshell case. Limited edition, number CLXXVII of CC (200) copies on japon nacre from an edition of 300. With a certificate of authenticity from the publisher attesting to the genuineness of the 10 engravings. Micheler Lopsinger notes that the original plan was to illustrate a more erotic text, but this was rejected in favor of the present one. The etchings were reworked and amplified in drypoint by Dali, and all impressions were gilded by Atelier Jacomet. Tristan Corbiére's Les Amours Jaunes (The Yellow Loves, or Wry Loves, 1873), drew the attention of Paul Verlaine, who included him in his "Les poètes maudits". He is acknowledged as both a Symbolist of note… Read More

Paris: Centre Culturel de Paris, 1978. Light scuffing to the evenly toned spine, generally in fine, well-preserved condition. Folio (380x280 mm; 15x11 inches, sheets). 7 wood engravings, one collage hand painted with gouache on gold paper, and one etching with color. Publisher's gilt- and blind-stamped burgundy calf. Extra-suite of plates in folding portfolio. Slipcase. INSCRIBED WITH A FULL-PAGE DRAWING BY DALI TO HIS ATTORNEY, the drawing depicting St. George: "A mon amie Michael Stout Dali 979." Limited edition, number 13 of 90 copies on Rives paper from a total edition of 395. With an extra suite of three progressive plates, comprising one woodcut signed Dali 1976 in the plate, and two trial proofs for the same work depicting the brain, the brain and a bed with a woman jumping rope, and a black form with woman fleeing (together loose in separate portfolio). Dali had conceived of the surrealist film Babaouo in 1932. The present work revives the original conceit of the unmade film following the… Read More

Pen-and-ink drawing, 11 3/4 x 10 3/4 inches, on verso of printed sheet (possibly a printer's proof), inscribed at head to his attorney "Pour Miguel Angelo St[star]," undated but circa 1970s. Dali made a number of drawings of Saint George and the dragon, with the present executed in his characteristic loose and fluid style. A fine drawing with impeccable provenance.

San Francisco: W. E. Wood, 1903. From the Bart Auerbach Collection. Stains on seven pages from clippings once laid in, a marginal tear on a leaf from rough opening, slightly soiled on rear cover, front inner hinge tender. 8vo. Frontispiece portrait of Bierce. Original dark green cloth, gilt pictorial stamping and lettering, top edges gilt, others uncut; black cloth folding case. First edition, state 1 (BAL). This is the dedication copy to the designer of the binding, inscribed by Bierce in pencil on the front free endpaper: "To Herman Scheffauer. Bierce within and Scheff without, / This book is foreordained, no doubt, / To fame whene'er (all other books / Being lost) the last man living looks / For something great in art and rhyme / To help him pass away the time. / Ambrose Bierce / Oct. 30, 1903." The printed dedication reads: "With pride in their work, faith in their future and affection for themselves, an old writer dedicates this book to his young friends and pupils, George Sterling and Herman… Read More

From the Bart Auerbach Collection. 14 pages, all but one quarto in size and all but one single-spaced; written from Paris and Toulon, 23 February 1931 to 27 January 1932, the correspondence relating to the book and its publication, etc.; one letter with marginal fraying, another a bit wrinkled, and another with a marginal tear. The letter of 8 November 1931 is published -- from a carbon copy in the Ford archive - in Letters of Ford Madox Ford, ed. R. M. Ludwig, Princeton University Press, 1965, pp. 202-3. A portion of another letter (of 10 May 1931) is printed in David Dow Harvey, Ford Madox Ford ... a Bibliography, New York, 1972, p. 75; Harvey also prints a total of three sentences from two other letters on pp. 75 and 77. WITH: (1) The contract for Return to Yesterday, 4 pp., folio, signed by Ford and a Gollancz representative, 30 March 1931; (2) A handwritten sheet by someone at Gollancz, 1 p., 4to, listing publication date, sales numbers and royalty payments for the book (apparently through… Read More

From the Bart Auerbach Collection. Fine, chatty letters to a good friend, in very good to fine condition. A total of 6 pages, 4to, half are single-spaced, at least 2600 words, with three envelopes. 20 September 1962: "... I guessed you were in Hollywood... because I've seen you in TV plays coming out of there... I had a letter a couple of years ago... from Hedy Lamarr. It was business, and I disappointed her in the end... she thought she had to let me know or to remind me that there are as many nice and reasonable people in Hollywood as anywhere else... I'm very glad if my stories meant something to you... I hope to hell I see you one of these months, Gerry..." 20 May 1964: Salinger devotes about half of the first page (of two single-spaced) to an amusing account of a "really nutty, unblanaced" so-called Hollywood producer showing up to talk about a movie sale. He then praises her TV acting career and warns her about her upcoming marriage to Budd Schulberg (she became his third wife that July):… Read More

From the Bart Auerbach Collection. Consisting of 188 autograph letters signed, and one autograph postcard signed (336 pages, 12mo and 8vo), plus 25 related items. As below:. Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836-1912). 38 autograph letters signed, 52 pages, nearly all 12mo, about half in French, most signed "L Alma-Tadema" (a few signed just with initials), one letter with small ink sketch of Deschamps, another letter with a fore-edge a bit chipped; docketed by Deschamps and a few with his penciled notes on versos. Written from London, Naples, and Menton, 1872-1888. With six related items: three letters to Alma-Tadema from others regarding his paintings; two letters (1883 & 1910) from his wife and daughter (also painters) to Deschamps; and a pictorial invitation to an Alma-Tadema exhibition. Alma-Tadema writes about: sales of his paintings (with some prices) - payments for paintings - paintings mentioned are "Sappho," "The Audition," "La Cleopatra" - arranging meetings - portraits - arranging for paintings… Read More

From the Bart Auerbach Collection. 20 pages, 4to, the ribbon copy, double-spaced, with revisions (some extensive) in ink by Woolrich. There are about 65 words in his hand on 8 pages (2 and 14 have the majority) and about 30 crossouts/deletions on 7 pages (2 having about half). In very good condition. "The Number's Up," a horrific story of a young couple taken for a ride by gangsters, was first published in Beyond the Night (Avon Books, 1959). It was reprinted in Nightwebs in 1971 (also by Avon). Woolrich mate rial of this nature is very rare on the market (with no typescript or manuscript material appearing at auction in the past century according to records). [BA]. "After that there was silence for a while, only the sound of the shovel biting into the earth, and the hissing splatter of the loose dirt as it sailed off it. "They stood him up, his back to the well. "In the dark, desperate sky, just above the scalloped line some treetops made, three stars formed a pleading little constellation. No… Read More

From the Bart Auerbach Collection. 15 pages, folio (13 x 8 inches), in ink on rectos only, heavy tan paper (slightly toned), tied at extreme upper left corner (first and least leaves loose); in a tan half-morocco slipcase (a bit scuffed). The manuscript in very good condition. From the Beerbohm collection of the actor and director Robert Montgomery. On the verso of the first leaf Beerbohm has made three pencil sketches of James Pethel which he has crossed out. (A drawing of Pethel from a Beerbohm sketch-book is reproduced in the New York Review of Books edition of 'Seven Men'.) The three sketches include one of Pethel with a cigar and one of him wearing a hat. He is described with both when he is introduced in the story and pictured in the NYRB illustration. "James Pethel" was written in 1912 and first published in the 'English Review' in December 1914. The 21-page manuscript of that was lot 327 in Sotheby's sale 'Catalogue of the Library and Literary Manuscripts of the Late Sir Max Beerbohm',… Read More

From the Bart Auerbach Collection. Ends of spine and corners worn, sections of sides with dampstains, inner hinges reinforced, gutter margins of leaves with dampstains. Approximately 110 pages, folio, in ink in an "Excelsior Journal for 1890"; original binding of dark brown and mauve pebbled cloth, brown roan corners. A fascinating record by the owner of one of the teams in the Players' League, formed by the Brotherhood of Professional Base Ball Players in November 1889, after a dispute over pay with the National League (NL) and American Association (AA). The Brotherhood, which had 107 players in 1886, announced its intention to leave the NL on November 4, 1889. After being advised by Brotherhood lawyers not to incorporate before each individual team incorporated, the Players' League was launched on December 16, 1889, with clubs from Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Brooklyn, Buffalo, Chicago, Cleveland and Pittsburgh. Salary for the players for the 1890 season was set to the salary they had received… Read More

From the Bart Auerbach Collection. In fine condition. Comprising: 29 typed letters signed, 5 typed postcards signed, and 2 autograph postcards signed, all from McGuane to Oppenheimer, and one typed letter signed (carbon copy, with holograph note) from McGuane to William B. Decker (senior editor at Dial Press); written from Palo Alto (and elsewhere in California) and Grosse Ile, Michigan, 10 June 1966 to 4 December 1967. A total of 30 letters and 7 cards, 41 pages (the letters all 4to, and all but one single-spaced). WITH: Carbon copies of 33 letters from Dorothea Oppenheimer to McGuane (her side of the correspondence); carbon copies of 7 letters from Oppenmheimer to various editors and publishers; and 6 typed letters signed, 4 carbon copies, and 2 photocopies of letters from editors and publishers to Oppenheimer (mostly) or McGuane. McGuane's letters and cards are primarily on the writing, the revising, and the efforts to get 'The Bushwacked Piano' published. (Although the first written, it was… Read More

From the Bart Auerbach Collection. A total of 12 pages, 8vo, in ink, both letters with a few minor horizontal fold separations, but in very good condition. With an apparently unrecorded photographic portrait of Lanier. ALS of 24 August 1878: 7 pages, blue ink on white paper, with numerous revisions. The letter is a lengthy proposal to Kirk for writing an introduction for the use of colleges and universities to a book of worthy English sonnet writers through Shakespeare. This would include many minor Elizabethans and would introduce Bartholomew Griffin, "a poet to our public of whom probably not a hundred persons in the United States have ever heard... though beyond question worthy of any man's acquaintance." This project plus a paper on "Old Sonnet-Makers" for the magazine were turned down by Lippincott's. ALS of 15 June 1880: 5 pages, dark brown ink on gray-tan paper, with revisions. Lanier begins: "With inexpressible delight I've got a signing-pen [for the writing of poetry] in my hand. [He… Read More

London: Sampson Low, Marston, Low, and Searle, 1873. Skilful repairs to spines and corners, some uneven toning to vol. 1; some intermittent pale spotting (mainly to prelims), one leaf in vol. 2 with upper corner irregularly trimmed by binder, upper outer corners lightly bumped. Four volumes, folio (472 x 345 mm; 18.5 x 13.5 inches). 222 photographs on 96 plates, produced by the Autotype Mechanical Printing Process of Spencer, Sawyer, Bird and Co., London; with guards. Letterpress titles and descriptions. Original black cloth, gilt-lettered and decorated on covers, each front cover with central gilt block of the Confucian Temple, Peking, all edges gilt. First edition of volumes 2-4, second edition of volume 1, of this important photographic record of China, made by the pioneering Scottish photographer John Thomson (1837-1921), one of the first photographers to travel to the Far East. Thomson documented the people, landscapes, art, and artifacts of the Chinese culture. He established a studio in the… Read More

London: J. Robinson, 1744. Marginal stain on R3, generally a fine copy. 4to (278 x 215 mm). Large engraved folding map "New Map of Part of North America" (some minor offsetting). 20th-century brown half morocco, marbled boards, top edges gilt. Provenance: Edward Everett Ayer, presented to the Newberry Library (bookplate, with Newberry removal label). First edition of this important - and scarce - work advocating continued search for a Northwest Passage. "Even if Dobbs used exaggeration as his main literary device, the core of his sermon was perfectly accurate -- that if the Company did not drastically alter its tactics, the French would occupy the new continent's central plains... Its most valuable historical contribution was the description of the extraordinary exploits of a 'French Canadese Indian' named Joseph La France" (Peter C. Newman, Empire of the Sun, 2000, p. 213). Dobbs attacked the Hudson's Bay Company, claiming that their mismanagement of Indian trade had ceded the fur trade to the… Read More

London: Printed for the Author, and sold by J. Millan, 1765. A fine copy in original condition. 8vo (206 x 125 mm). viii, 236 pages, [4, advertisement and list of books]. Contemporary English speckled calf, red morocco lettering-piece on spine, spine compartments gilt-ruled. Provenance: unidentified early inkstamp and armorial bookplate; Everett D. Graff (1885-1964), Chicago Western Americana collector (bookplate, sold at auction May 1966). First edition. A cornerstone account of the French and Indian War. Rogers gained fame as the commander of "Roger's Rangers," and his account is enhanced by his in-depth knowledge of the western country. The journal opens on24 September 1755 with an account of a scouting expedition on Lake George and concludes 14 February 1761 when the French surrendered to Rogers at Detroit. Field 1315; Graff 3555; Howes R-419; Sabin 72725; Streeter sale II:1029; Vail Frontier 563. A fine copy with a distinguished provenance.