Search Results: MODERN FIRSTS from Fine Editions Ltd

London: Chatto & Windus, 1924. Hardcover. Near Fine+. Part Two (complete in two volumes) of this masterpiece of modernity, "a milestone in the study of human consciousness and a revolution in the history of prose writing." (Literary Encyclopedia) Translated from the original French by C. K. Scott Moncrieff. Crown 8vos (188 x 128mm): viii,396; vi,356pp. Publisher's slate blue cloth, spines lettered in gilt, top edges stained blue, fore- and bottom edges rough-trimmed; book plates to paste-downs. Awarded the Prix Goncourt in 1919. Spines a shade darkened, first volume a little knocked at corners, but excellent examples, tightly bound and clean throughout. Scarce (especially volume one) in the first printing. Modern Movement 23. First Printings in English (not to be confused with the more common Phoenix Library edition published by Chatto & Windus in 1929). "Written over more than a decade and considerably altered by the outbreak of World War I and its author's tragic experience of love and loss, [À… Read More

London: Faber and Faber, 1965. First Printing. Hardcover. Fine-/Fine-. First Printing, one of 4000 copies. Tall, slim 8vo: 94pp. with errata slip tipped in facing page 7. Publisher's pale blue linen cloth, spine stamped in gold; price-clipped typographic dust jacket printed in black, olive green and purple. About Fine (owner's name to fly-leaf) and apparently unread; about Fine jacket (trivial nicks to spine panel ends, very lightly dust-soiled back panel). Bloomfield & Mendelson A49b. Late collection of 28 poems, many about the rooms of Auden's Vienna house, preceded by the American edition published six months earlier. N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition, with dust jackets carefully preserved in archival, removable polypropylene sleeves. All orders are packaged with care and posted promptly. Satisfaction guaranteed. (Fine Editions Ltd is a member of the Independent Online Booksellers Association, and we subscribe to its codes of ethics.).

London: Andre Deutsch, 1954. First UK Edition. Hardcover. Fine-/Near Fine+. First Impression of the Canadian author's first book. 8vo; 204pp. Publisher's green cloth, the spine stamped gilt; in a pictorial dust jacket priced 10s/6d. Just about Fine, square, tight and, bright, the top edge dust-speckled, the end papers with offsetting from the jacket flaps; Near Fine or better jacket, bright and unfaded, very lightly rubbed to spine panel ends, front and back panels lightly dust-soiled with two short closed tears to front and light pink streak to back. Overall, a sharp copy of an elusive title (only 2000 copies were printed). "I am looking," [Richler] declared in one interview, "for the values with which in this time a man can live with honour." The Acrobats, which was [first] published in England, conveys such ideals: the protagonist, André Bennett, is a young Canadian painter who visits Spain in search of values by which he can live. The novel explores moral disillusionment, personal… Read More

n.p. [but Australia]: Bonnington's Carrageen or Irish Moss, 1895. Near Fine+. Suite of Frith's views of London landmarks, including St. Paul's Cathedral, London Bridge, Houses of Parliament, and Piccadilly Circus. Sixteen tissue-guarded original carbon prints after Frith mounted onto heavy card (recto only) and bound into original red pebbled faux leather album (230 x 305 mm) stamped in gilt, each mount with pasted text extolling the virtues of Bonnington's Carrageen Irish Moss. Images (147 x 201mm) titled in the negative, and most numbered and initialed F.F. & Co. End papers, tissue guards, and mount margins spotted, but photographs fresh and free of foxing. An unusual and scarce repurposing of Francis Frith's images, intended as medical advertising for the Australasian market. Founded in 1856 in Reigate, Surrey, Francis Frith & Co. was the world's first specialist photography publisher. Frith began photographing Britain and its monuments in 1864, and became the first mass-producer and distributor… Read More

London: Faber and Faber Limited, 1970. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. First Impression of Lowell's "free, rather politicized translation of Aeschylus's Prometheus Bound." (Literary Encyclopedia) Slim crown 8vo (200 x 117mm): vi,[2],67,[1]pp. Publisher's rose cloth, spine lettered in gilt; white typographic dust jacket printed in French blue. A splendid example, virtually pristine (apparently unread), very tightly bound and clean and bright throughout. Not in Mazzaro. "In 1965 Lowell protested the Vietnam War by publicly refusing President Johnson's invitation to a White House Festival of the Arts, just as he had declined the draft twenty-two years before. [Lowell served five months in West Street jail, in New York, and federal prison at Danbury, Connecticut, after refusing to serve in the army when he was inducted in 1943.] Again there was a brouhaha, and again Lowell briefly became a public figure, admired by war protesters and reviled by war supporters. He spent the next years actively… Read More

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1958. First Printing. Hardcover. Fine-/Fine. First Edition (so stated) of the author's first novel. Publisher's slate-gray linen, spine and upper cover stamped in red and gilt, top edge stained yellow, fore-edge untrimmed; illustrated dust jacket, priced $3.75. An about Fine, unread copy (lower corners bruised), in a Fine jacket. N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition, with dust jackets carefully preserved in archival, removable mylar sleeves. All orders are packaged with care and posted promptly. Satisfaction guaranteed. (Fine Editions Ltd is a member of the Independent Online Booksellers Association, and we subscribe to its codes of ethics.).

Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1958. First Edition. Hardcover. Near Fine+/Very Good+. First Printing (so stated) of the Harvard economist's celebrated examination of America's post-World War II consumer economy and political culture. Demy 8vo: xii,[2],368pp. Publisher's bronze-colored cloth stamped in silver and black, fore-edge untrimmed, bottom edge rough-cut; yellow typographic jacket lettered in black and silver and priced $5.00, with author's photo on back panel. Near Fine or better (spine ends a touch frayed); better than Very Good jacket (spine lettering lightly faded, flap folds and spine ends professionally restored, though not affecting lettering or design). Modern Library 100 Best Nonfiction, 46. NYPL Books of the Century, p.145. Galbraith "saw as perilous the modern economy's focus on ever-increasing production. Such a focus increased the violence of boom-bust cycles and inflation, Galbraith argued, and masked growing social imbalance." (NYPL) N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we… Read More

Hamilton, Ontario: Duncan Lith., Co, 1898. Pictorial Wrappers. Near Fine+. Scarce souvenir songbook of "plantation lullabies," with sheet music for 13 songs and lyrics for 54 more, for the Canadian group's extended tours of Great Britain and the United States. Cover title: Canadian Colored Concert Co., Plantation lullabies, what we have we'll hold. Half title: Plantation lullabies. Foolscap 8vo (162 x 123mm): [15],5-51,[2]pp. Stapled cream chromolithographed wrappers printed in red, blue, brown, and black. Near Fine or better (light toning and wear to wrappers, slim stain to foot of spine). N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition, carefully preserved in archival, removable mylar sleeves. All orders are packaged with care and posted promptly. Satisfaction guaranteed. (Fine Editions Ltd is a member of the Independent Online Booksellers Association, and we subscribe to its codes of ethics.).

Boston and New York / Cambridge: Houghton Mifflin / The Riverside Press, 1899. First Trade Edition. Pictorial Cloth. Near Fine+. First Printing of the author's first book, seven interrelated folk tales set in antebellum North Carolina and told "in Negro dialect" by an old gardener. Crown 8vo (175 x 110mm): [4],229,[3]pp. Publisher's finely woven brown pictorial cloth, front cover lettered in gilt, with trio of vignettes stamped in orange, black, and off-white; spine lettered in gilt, title-page vignette. Contemporary calligraphic gift inscription to front fly leaf. An excellent example, securely bound (spine darkened, lettering legible but dulled) and clean throughout (page margins lightly toned). Wright 1017. Powell 91 (One of the first books by a Negro author to receive critical approval."). Blockson (101 Influential Books) 49. First Printings of American Authors III, p. 47. Blockson (Damn Rare), p. 79 (calling The Conjure Woman "rare" and Chesnutt's "first great literary success"). Whiteman,… Read More

London: Faber & Faber, 1971. First Edition. Stiff Card Covers. Fine/Near Fine+. First Impression of the playwright's one-act farce inspired by a surrealist painting. Crown 8vo (199 x 113mm): 47,[1]pp. Publisher's wrappers with French flaps over cream-colored stiff card (no case bound issue published) printed in yellow and black. Wrappers a bit dust-soiled and lightened at top edge, but internally our copy is crisp, clean, and tightly bound. First performed by the Ambiance Lunch-Hour Theatre Club at Green Banana Restaurant, in London, on April 9, 1970. Stoppard got the idea for "After Magritte" while writing the radio play Artist Descending a Staircase, which was based on Marcel Duchamp's painting Nude Descending a Staircase. The setting of the one-act is an unidentified René Magritte painting that suggests the artist's L'assassin menacé, a crime scene in which a nude female corpse with blood around the mouth lies on a red chaise lounge, while a man (the assassin?) listens to a gramophone. Two… Read More

New York: Viking Press, 1964. First Printing. Hardcover. Fine-/Fine-. First Trade Edition of the final stage version. Tall 8vo: [8],129,[3]pp. Publisher's patterned paper-covered boards with maroon cloth spine lettered in gilt; typographic dust jacket priced at $3.95. Just about Fine (gilt slightly dulled, top edge a bit dusty), about Fine, very lightly age-toned jacket. Directed on Broadway by Elia Kazan and featuring Jason Robards. N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition, with dust jackets carefully preserved in archival, removable mylar sleeves. All orders are packaged with care and posted promptly. Satisfaction guaranteed. (Fine Editions Ltd is a member of the Independent Online Booksellers Association, and we subscribe to its codes of ethics.).

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1931. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine-. First Printing of this important debut, copies of which in a dust jacket this fine are seldom seen. 8vo: x,314pp. Publisher's tan cloth, lettering and decor stamped in forest green on spine and front cover, illustrated dust jacket priced $2.50. Trivial offsetting from jacket design onto spine cloth, else a Fine, fresh copy in an about Fine jacket with a few tiny nicks at crown. Hanna 563. Flora and Bain, pp. 89, 94. Caldwell's first commercially published book (his third overall). The legendary Maxwell Perkins (Fitzgerald's editor at Scribner's) helped to edit this collection of new and previously published stories of rural life, in the deep South and in Maine, with a third section made up of a long, modernist, autobiographical prose poem called The Sacrilege of Allen Kent. The book was well-received critically (according to Flora and Bain, "Although all of Caldwell's story collections contain interesting pieces, nowhere… Read More

London: Methuen, 1941. First Edition. Hardcover. Near Fine+/Near Fine. First Impressions of Graves's two novels of the American War of Independence, based on the actual Roger Lamb's autobiographical works. Crown 8vo (185 x 120mm): xi,[1],376; vii,[3],,314,[2]pp, with frontispieces and folding map tipped in at rear of each volume. Publisher's plum and sea-green cloth (respectively), spines lettered in white; illustrated dust jackets, priced 8s/ 6d, illustrated by John Aldridge and printed in red, black, brown, green, and blue. 10,000 copies of each title were printed. Sergeant Lamb: top edge a bit dusty and lightly spotted but an unusually attractive copy. Proceed: trace of foxing to preliminaries and slightly dusty page edges, degree of lightening to spine, minor wear to head of spine panel. Excellent examples, tightly bound and generally clean throughout, rarely encountered as a set in such collectible condition. Higginson & Williams A51a & A53a. In the autumn of 1939, Graves, short of money and… Read More

London: Duckworth, 1916. First Edition. Original Cloth. Near Fine+. First Issue (with 16-page publisher's catalog at the end) of Lawrence's second collection of poems. Crown 8vo: viii,140,16pp. Publisher's dark blue cloth, spine lettered and ruled in gilt, fore- and bottom edges untrimmed (variant 1. Roberts speculates that advance copies were not trimmed on all edges). Near Fine or better (end sheets offset, few faint splash marks to cloth), square, tight, and clean throughout. Roberts A9a. MacDonald 9. Fabes & Foyle (second series), p. 49. According to Macdonald, "Copies with the catalogue would seem to be rare. . . . Copies without the catalogue are 'easy' . . . " "Because of its position in Lawrence's oeuvre, Amores (1916) has not received as much critical attention as the volume that followed, Look! We Have Come Through (1917). Grouped with the 'Rhyming Poems,' Amores predates the more experimental, Whitmanesque free verse through which Lawrence has exerted his enduring influence. But while… Read More

London: Empire Printing & Publishing Co, 1888. Pictorial Boards. Near Fine+. Second Edition of this angling title. Crown 8vo (184 x 118mm): [6],58,[6]pp, with fascinating illustrated angling advertisements bound front and backs. Original olive green pictorial cloth, covers paneled in blind, upper cover lettered in gilt with gilt trout vignette. An excellent example, securely bound and general clean throughout. Hampton, p. 91. Taylor was secretary of the Gresham Angling Society, founded in 1881. The title refers to a style of wet trout fly created in England more than 350 years ago. Thomas Barker described the first Palmer fly in The Art of Angling, in 1651. Over the centuries, materials have evolved, but the basic profile of a Palmer fly remains true to Barker's original: widely spaced spirals of hackle wrapped along the length of a hook shank. N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition, carefully preserved in archival, removable mylar sleeves. All… Read More

New York: Harcourt Brace, 1946. First Printing. Hardcover. Fine-/Fine. Uncommonly well-preserved First American Edition (so stated) of the world's most famous modern animal fable and political allegory. Slim crown 8vo (186 x 121mm): [4],118pp. Publisher's black calico textured cloth, spine lettered in gilt, cream end papers; original first issue black dust jacket printed in red and white (designed by Art Brenner) and priced $1.75 and without "Printed in the USA" statement to rear flap. Green ink Christmas gift stamp to blank following front fly-leaf, else an excellent example, with crisp gilt lettering and unfaded jacket spine panel. Fenwick A.10d. Grolier (Orwell) 19.b (noting Christopher Morley's assessment of the book as "one of the great political satires" and Edmond Wilson likening Orwell to Voltaire and Swift). First published the previous year, in London, by Secker & Warburg. The author's most successful book at the time of publication, selling some 25,000 copies within a year; it has been… Read More

Lexington, KY: Anvil Press, 1971. Limited Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. One of 150 unnumbered copies, collecting these sixteen previously unpublished (save one) poems. Tall, slim 8vo: [8],27,[3]pp, printed in red and black in Hammer New Uncial type on handmade Hosho paper. Publisher's mustard boards, printed paper spine label, limitation slip laid; scarce original matching mustard dust jacket printed in black. A pristine copy, the jacket spine panel barely rubbed to the top edge. Provenance: Handsome book plate of bibliophile Arthur A. Goldsmith, Jr., to front paste-down. "One may question with suspicion an edition of the early unpublished poems of a well-known author and look upon them as one might the voyeur seeking forbidden fruits of curiosity, finding only weak work. Yet beyond generalization, a particular author's early works show forth his beginnings, the seeds of what is to come." (from the Foreword) N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional… Read More

New York: Robert M. McBride, 1932. First Printing. Hardcover. Fine-/Near Fine+. First American Edition (First published, February, 1932, on copyright page) of Lewis's satire of the postwar bohemian elite. 8vo: [4],625,[3]pp. Publisher's grey cloth, the spine and upper cover titled and trimmed in red, with a red top stain and untrimmed fore- and bottom edges; in the original dust jacket lettered in red and decorated in green by Lewis with vorticist figures, priced at $3.00. About Fine, square, tight and bright; Near Fine or better jacket that has benefitted from very skillful restoration to spine panel (not involving lettering or design). A superb survival. By the mid-Twenties, having established himself as an avant-garde painter and writer, Lewis launched (with Ezra Pound) the abstract-art movement Vorticism. In the Apes of God, he argued that art had been betrayed into the hands of moneyed amateurs who debased its high calling by writing for coteries, thus destroying cultural standards. Particular… Read More

London: Hutchinson, 1970. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine-. First Impression of the author's scarce tenth novel. 8vo: 227,[1]pp. Publisher's navy blue cloth-effect paper-covered boards, spine stamped in gold; pictorial dust jacket by Colin Andrews, priced £1.50. Fine and apparently unread; about Fine jacket (small, nearly imperceptible repair to head of spine panel, not involving lettering or design). A desirable copy. "Stanley Middleton is resolutely unfashionable. . . . He is an unspectacular writer about unspectacular landscapes and people to whom retirement to a bungalow called Mon Abri represents the fulfillment of hopes cherished in a life-time of shopkeeping, teaching, printing or quantity surveying. . . . Nevertheless, there is nothing flat or insignificant about his novels. . . . Middleton seems to believe that life is too important to be muddied by the exaggerations and embellishments of fiction." (TLS 10/17/1975) N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in… Read More

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1909. First Printing. Hardcover. Fine. First (and only) Edition of Wharton's scarce second book of poetry, although the most obtainable. (Only a dozen copies are known of her first book of poems, Verses, privately printed and published anonymously in 1878, and only 130 copies of the third, Twelve Poems.) Crown 8vo (190 x 127mm): [6],90pp. Publisher's dark grayish green (almost black) T cloth, spine ruled and lettered in gilt, front cover with elaborately framed gilt vignette of cherubs, top edge gilt, others untrimmed. Wanting the scarce dust jacket. Touch of shelf wear along bottom edge, else a superb survival, very tightly bound and virtually pristine throughout, apparently unread. Garrison A17.I.a. Brenni 126. Davis, p.13. Also published by Macmillan in London the same year, which Garrison (A17.I.b) designates the second printing. In Paris, in January, 1907, Wharton met for the first time the American journalist William Morton Fullerton, who had been the Paris… Read More