Search Results: FALL 2024 from Reginald C. Williams Rare Books

Octavo [388, [2, ads] pp. (200 x 121 mm). Contemporary mottled sheep rebacked to style, gilt spine with burgundy morocco label. Some light foxing & browning to text, due to paper quality. Old ink signature on front free endpaper, marginal chip in a preliminary blank. Overall an unusually nice, attractive copy now Housed in a custom clamshell box with a red leather label. First American edition, originally published in the UK in 1732. Berkeley (1685-1753) wrote the Alciphron during the years 1729 to 1731 while relaxing in Newport, Rhode Island, where he was awaiting funds (which never came) for his projected college in the Bermudas. This this is the first major philosophical work to be written in America, though published in London first. The book attracted more attention than any of his previous works. The dialogues it contains constitute a defense of Christianity from the point of view of an Anglican divine. Alciphron is regarded as an outstanding example of English literature among works on… Read More

Octavo, original blue cloth, original dust jacket. First edition, first printing: with "First Edition" on the copyright page. Containing frontispiece showing Gertrude Stein at her desk and Toklas in the doorway, after a photograph by Man Ray, along with 14 full-page photographic illustrations and a facsimile page. Bookplates to front paste-down and verso of front free end-paper. Bits of soil to heads of half-title and verso of front free end-paper and one spot on title-page. spine lightly faded and original price abraded on the front flap. Binding is firm. A Fine copy in a very good wrapper which is in better condition than it usually surfaces. First edition of Stein's mischievous "memoir of that exciting period when Cubism was being invented in paint and a new manner of writing was being patented in words" (Janet Flanner), with frontispiece after a photograph by Man Ray and 14 full-page illustrations, in scarce original dust jacket.

8vo. [iv], xvi, 378 pages of text. FIRST EDITION. Full contemporary calf raised bands with gilt-stamped compartments and red calf label. Avery good copy. In March 1755 Young published The Centaur not Fabulous in five letters addressed to a friend , that is, [Samuel] Richardson, who helped with its revision. Divided into six letters in the first of two revised editions that year, this prose satire and homily was directed at licentious and irreligious contemporaries who, misguided by infidel philosophers like Lord Bolingbroke, resembled the fabled beasts. Here as elsewhere Young stressed human dignity as a bulwark against hedonism and atheism." Young died at Welwyn in Hertfordshire on April 5th, 1765. Samuel Johnson noted that with all his defects he was a man of genius and a poet. He is particularly remembered for his gift of epigram.

Tall 8vo., A near fine copy in a very good dust jacket with few spots of foxing. Internally fine, clean and tight. Small, closed edge tear to rear panel of dj. xiv, 320 pages, including Bibliographical footnotes; illustrations, maps; 23 cm. First Edition First Printing. This work was a collaborative effort between several distinguished physicists led by Edward Teller (1908-2003), the "father of the hydrogen bomb". Suitable as a text for senior and graduate courses in the phenomenology and uses of nuclear explosives, this book is also invaluable to the practicing mechanical, civil, chemical, and petroleum engineers and scientists interested in applying peaceful nuclear explosive technology in their disciplines. This is the first technical monograph on nuclear explosive engineering and summarized the basis for industrial, excavating, and scientific applications of nuclear explosives. More than 200 underground detonations have provided the data presented in this work. The correlation of calculated values… Read More

Weston, VT: Countryman Press, The, 1937. Publisher's red cloth, title and author stamped in black and gilt on front cover, original glassine wrapper, publisher's paper covered board slipcase. 8vo. cloth, 61 pages, five full page illustrations. Illustrated by Harold Denison. Limited to 700 copies signed by the author and artist. Bookplate of Schubert on front pastedown. Spine slightly faded, slipcase cracked. Else a fine copy. Benet's story was filmed 4 years later by RKO studios and starred Walter Huston, James Craig, Edward Arnold, Anne Shirley and Simone Simon. The film was directed by William Dieterle, Edited by Rober Wise and scored by Bernard Herrmann. It was released under the title "All that money can buy" to avoid confusion with another studio film (The Devil and Miss Jones) released the same year. The film underwent a long awaited restoration which premiered at the UCLA Film & Television Archive in 2022.

2 vols. VIII,614; XI,407 pp. Orig. hardcovers [brown h.cloth, gilt title, marbled boards]. - Spine-ends sl. worn. Corners bumped. Some slight discoloration to boards. Large water stain on first end-paper vol. I. Sporadic foxing throughout text in both volumes. Teil I: Die Religion des Buddha und ihre Entstehung. Teil II: Die Lamaische Hierarchie und Kirche. First edition of the first comprehensive description of Buddhism in German, including a history of Lamaism. Now Mylar protected and housed in a custom black slipcase.

8vo, pp [8], 565, [3], bound in contemporary paneled calf with refreshed red calf label, lightly cracked to joints, endpapers foxed and browned, but an excellent clean tight copy in the original state. FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH, from the original French of 1681, and a classic of historical literature which never progressed further than the Roman Empire; apparently the only printing of this anonymous translation. Jacques-Benigne Bossuet (1627-1704) theologian and orator, was appointed tutor to "le grand Dauphin," the only son of Louis XIV and Maria Theresa, in 1670. He remained tutor to the Dauphin for ten years, during which he wrote the Discours sur L'Histoire Universelle as a textbook for his pupil. The book consists of "a chronological abstract of world history, with a commentary on the evolution of religion and the providential causes of the rise and fall of empires" (Reid, 68). The English translation is very scarce in a contemporary binding.

London (John Murray), 1853. xxiii, (1), 686pp., 5 folding maps. 11 plates hors texte (partly tinted lithographs). Prof. illus. (woodcut figs.). Sm. stout 4to. Orig. cloth. First edition of this authoritative study on the Assyrian cities of Nineveh and Babylon based on Layard's second expedition to the region, richly illustrated with five folding maps, 11 lithographic plates (two folding, eight tinted), and numerous in-text wood engravings a very nice copy in the original cloth. Chief among Layard's groundbreaking achievements was the discovery of thousands of cuneiform tablets that comprised the great library at Ashurbanipal. These finds, of unparalleled importance in the study of the Assyrian Empire, at once propelled him to the first rank of 19th-century English archaeologists. "Between October 1849 and April 1851 Layard conducted major excavations at Kuyunjik [Nineveh], funded by the British Museum and described in a second book, Nineveh and Babylon (1853). These yielded further important trophies… Read More

First printed edition Preceded by the very rare lithoprint edition. Octavo. 182 pp. Publisher's printed beige cardboard wrappers. Previous owner's name and address at top margin of front wrapper (neat and legible). A very good copy. Published on August 12, 1945, only six days after Hiroshima, the remarkably full and candid account of the development work carried out between 1940 and 1945 by the American-directed but internationally recruited team of physicists, under the code name of 'Manhattan District,' which culminated in the production of the first atomic bomb. Professor Henry DeWolf Smyth of Princeton, a consultant to the 'Manhattan District' project at Los Alamos, whose commandant General L.R. Groves provided the foreword, 'The Smyth Report,' as it is familiarly known, was published at one dollar by the U.S. Superintendent of Documents. [It was preceded by a preliminary mimeographed version prepared for press use.] Earle E. Coleman, "The Smyth Report: A Descriptive Check List," Princeton… Read More

London, William Pickering, 1833. 8vo, pp xv, [1], 288, wood engravings in text, finely bound in contemporary half tan calf, spine richly gilt with raised bands and olive label, minor rubbing, and minor light foxing to first and last leaves, but a fine and attractive copy, FIRST EDITION, a great and highly respected physiological study, detailing the mechanism of the human hand in a way never before attempted. The first edition was almost immediately replaced with a much enlarged second, with several further expansions following, this first printing being very scarce and desirable, especially in this fine state.

Full contemporary Havana sheepskin, garnet and green title and volume numbers, spine with five bands and decorated with gilt fillets, a medallion portrait engraved by RAVENET after DONALDSON. gilt marked board edges and gilt lined turn-ins. a few worn corners, 2 worm spikes on a spine, worm work on the first half-guard, on the half-title and title, on the portrait and on the first pages of volume 1, else a handsome set. New edition of this history of England, the first having appeared in 1770. His massive History of England is a neglected masterpiece, which remained a best seller for more than a century" (Cannon, 497). Possessing "a distinct place in the literature of England, Hume's History was the first attempt at a comprehensive treatment of historic facts, the first to introduce the social and literary aspects of a nation's life as only second in importance to its political fortunes, and the first historical writing in an animated yet refined and polished style" (Britannica). Hume decided not to… Read More

FIRST EDITION. Halle, Max Niemeyer, 1913, OBrosch., 323 p., Publisher s original printed wrappers. cover dusty, slightly donkey-eared, minor signs of use, otherwise a very good well preserved with some minor sporadic underlining in the text. The scarce first edition, off-print, of Husserl's second main work, his seminal "Ideas", which constitutes the founding text of Constitutive Phenomenology and the work, in which Husserl introduces his groundbreaking notion of "epoch. Husserl is now famous as the father of phenomenology, and he decisively influenced the likes of Heidegger, Sartre, Carnap, Merleau-Ponty, Levinas, Ricoeur, Derrida etc. Housed in a custom Japanese teal clamshell box with leather label.

Publisher's original photographic boards. No marks. Light shelfwear. Light bumping at corners. This is the French edition of the book. It preceded the English translation version by several months. Filled with hundreds of black and white pictures from Hitchcocks films. First published by Éditions Robert Laffont, it is based on a 1962 dialogue between Hitchcock and Truffaut, in which the two directors spent a week in a room at Universal Studios talking about movies. The book walks through all of Hitchcock's films, from his early British period to Torn Curtain. First published in 1966 as a transcription from a series of interviews, Truffaut (then 30, and having finished his third film, Jules and Jim, held with Hitchcock (having finished his 40th film, The Birds) in 1962, with Helen Scott as translator, discussing his films title by title, from production histories to aesthetics. As a work of cinematic analysis, nothing like it had been done before. Film culture was still defined by Hollywood studios… Read More

8vo., 325pp., Publisher's Oatmeal cloth titled in black and blue. Stated first edition. Signed by Teller to the half title page. Damp stain spot to the text block edge, minor foxing to edge of end pages. Sound binding, square. The DJ in mylar with $4.95 flap price intact has mild edgewear, few closed tears, small damp stain to rear flap edge and mild foxing to flaps and verso. 8" - 9" tall & Signed by the Author. Edward Teller (1908-2003) was a Hungarian-born American theoretical physicist. He is considered one of the fathers of the hydrogen bomb. Teller, along with Leo Szilard and Eugene Wigner, helped urge President Roosevelt to develop an atomic bomb program in the United States. Teller joined the Los Alamos Laboratory in 1943 as group leader in the Theoretical Physics Division. Teller became interested in the possibility of developing a hydrogen bomb after Enrico Fermi suggested that a weapon based on nuclear fission could be used to set off an even larger nuclear fusion reaction. Teller continued… Read More

First Edition (same date on title and verso). 3/4 Morocco with gilt lettering and raised bands on spine. Marbled boards. Some rubbing to leather corners, slight scuffing to boards. Edges dyed red, textblock VG. Fold-out map at back is clean and intact. Pages/boards clean and vibrant, NO foxing or markings. Overall a very nice near-fine copy. First edition of this "early classic on the Southern hero," published shortly after Lee's death, with steel-engraved frontispiece portrait, 14 full-page illustrations and engraved portraits, and ten maps (one folding), scarce in publisher's morocco. This important contemporary biography of Lee is by historian and novelist John Cooke who, at the outbreak of war, "became an ardent secessionist and joined Confederate forces after Virginia's secession. Throughout the war he served as a staff officer in the Army of Northern Virginia, coming into close contact with Lee" (Encyclopedia of the American Civil War, 495).

8vo. xx, 651pp. First edition, first printing. Octavo. Original dark orange cloth, spine lettered in gilt and ruled in black. With dust jacket. Numerous charts and diagrams within text. The binding is tight, top corner of the back panel lightly bumped. Text unmarked. Top edge of text block shows some foxing, fore and bottom edges less so. Light spotting on the pastedowns, endpapers and half-title page. The dust jacket shows some edgewear, toning on the spine, unclipped, in a mylar cover. This work by the esteemed military strategist applies game theory to hypothetical nuclear warfare. Kahn (1922-1983) was a vehement opponent of the doctrine of mutually assured destruction (MAD), instead emphasizing proportionality and the measured consideration of how much nuclear damage a state might reasonably accept in the name of defence. This was his most famous book and posited the concept of a "winnable" nuclear exchange, using systems theory to argue that the key to nuclear deterrence was the belief that both… Read More

8vo., 575pp., Publisher's dark blue cloth with gilt-stamped spine. Book shows just the teensiest bit of shelf wear at base of spine, light soiling to top of text block; the jacket seems to have been insect-nibbled just a bit along the top edge, at the base of the spine, and along the rear flap-fold, with various small holes and a couple of small bits of paper loss at top right corner of front panel and top rear hinge; still and all, very presentable]. (B&W photographic plates) A detailed, blow-by-blow history of the formation and early years of Actors Equity, formed in 1913 to advocate on behalf of better working conditions for stage performers -- the "artists, temperamental, unorganized, and without resources -- who attacked and defeated the rich, strongly entrenched organizations of producing managers." This was a review copy, with the original publisher's slip tipped in at the front.

12mo, 127pp. A very good hardback copy in a price-clipped dust jacket with two small, closed tears and minor soil stain on at the bottom of the book and dust wrapper, else an attractive copy of an uncommon book. The six chapters of this book are the Reith Lectures given over the home service of the British Broadcasting Corporation in November and December 1953. They are printed essentially as broadcast. Dr. Oppenheimer added the two appendices. In the first appendix he collected the texts from which brief quotation was made in the lectures. The second appendix is a brief and informal bibliography on atomic theory and its interpretation.

Review copy and Compliments of the author slips laid in. First published in 1970 stated. 5 3/4 x 8 1/2 Book; binding tight, boards straight and clean; black felt 2- to top front paste down with modest fading to top stain and slight soil mark to bottom edge else text fine, as new, unread. Dust jacket ($6.95) with cover art by LeRoy Neiman has minor bumping and chipping to mostly spine ends with slight rubbing to covers, six faint pen point type impressions in a 1/2" row to front cover with subtle fading to spine. Color sharp. Under archival quality mylar cover. Considered one of the greatest boxers of all time, Sugar Ray Robinson held the world welterweight title from 1946 to 1951, and by 1958, he had become the first boxer to win a divisional world championship five times. In a career that spanned 25 years, Robinson amassed 175 wins, 110 knockouts and just 19 losses. Robinson's ability to cross weight classes caused boxing fans and writers to dub him "pound for pound, the best," a sentiment that has… Read More

8vo., 271pp., Publisher s original patterned boards with a gilt-stamped spine. A fine copy in a fine unclipped ($5.00) dustwrapper. Very scarce in hardcover with the jacket. Today Is Tonight is a novel written by Hollywood actress Jean Harlow (1911-1937) in the mid-1930s but not published until 1965. Harlow's friend Ruth Luise Hamp inherited the rights to the unpublished manuscript, Today Is Tonight, when Harlow's mother died, and then published the novel. Film critic Ezra Goodman wrote the introduction. Harlow's agent, Arthur Landau wrote the foreword. According to Landau, in his foreword to the novel, Harlow had expressed interest in writing a novel as early as 1933 1934 and completed a manuscript before her death in 1937. During her life, Harlow's stepfather Marino Bello shopped the unpublished manuscript around to a few studios. Louis B. Mayer had prevented the book from being sold by putting an injunction on it, using a clause in Harlow's contract that her services as an artist can't be used… Read More