Search Results: Authors' First Books from Sumner & Stillman

1895. New York: Macmillan and Co., 1895. 3 pp undated ads. Original black cloth. First American Edition of Conrad's first book, with a text that varies considerably from the English edition (because it was typeset from uncorrected proofs). We find the American edition to be somewhat scarcer than the English one (as well it should be, since only about half as many were issued: according to Keating "only 650 copies of this edition were printed, and it is a rare book"). This copy is in Supino's binding "B" (Cagle's binding "b"), black cloth with a double blind­stamped border rule on the covers and with "The Macmillan Company" at the foot of the spine. Since 2022, when Supino cited an "A" copy bearing the date 30 April 1895, plus he had an "A" copy bearing an advance review slip, it is considered likely that "A" is the earlier binding state; until then, it was considered a toss-up. This is a very good-plus copy (light edge-wear, a little faint soil). Supino A1.11.0; Cagle A1b.2. Provenance: discreet… Read More

1895. [the leaves still unopened] London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1895. Original dark green cloth. First Edition of Joseph Conrad's first book. "In the absence of publisher's records, the number of copies printed has been estimated to be between 600 and 3000, with approximately 1100 being the most likely number" [Supino]. Conrad, after meeting the real "Olmeijer" in East Borneo in 1887, gradually produced the manuscript of this book over the six years 1889-1895. He submitted it to Unwin for consideration in their "Pseudonym Library", using the pseudonym "Kamudi" (Malayan for "rudder") -- enclosing the return postage, so sure was he of its rejection. However, Unwin's reader Edward Garnett saw the manuscript's promise and accepted it for non-pseudonymous publication. This copy is in the first state (as are most copies), with the letters missing from the last two lines of page 110. The leaves of this copy, though untrimmed on the fore- and bottom edges as issued, are still unopened (i.e. un-read). Condition… Read More

1895. [a handsome copy] London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1895. Original dark green cloth. First Edition of Joseph Conrad's first book, an edition believed to have consisted of 1000-1250 copies. Conrad, after meeting the real "Olmeijer" in East Borneo in 1887, gradually produced the manuscript of this book over the six years 1889-1895. He submitted it to Unwin for consideration in their "Pseudonym Library", using the pseudonym "Kamudi" (Malayan for "rudder") -- enclosing the return postage, so sure was he of its rejection. However, Unwin's reader Edward Garnett saw the manuscript's promise and accepted it for non-pseudonymous publication. This copy is in the first state (as are most copies), with the letters missing from the last two lines of page 110. Condition is unusually fine, with virtually no wear at all (there are no nicks or chips in the spine ends, and only hair-line cracking of the original endpapers); about the only flaw we can come up with is the almost-unavoidable slight browning of the olive… Read More

1895. New York: Macmillan and Co., 1895. 3 pp undated ads. Original very dark blue cloth. First American Edition of Conrad's first book, with a text that varies considerably from the English edition (because it was typeset from uncorrected proofs). We find the American edition to be scarcer than the English one (as well it should be, since only about half as many were issued: according to Keating "only 650 copies of this edition were printed, and it is a rare book"). This copy is in Supino's binding "A" (Cagle's binding "a") -- very dark blue cloth with double blind rules framing each cover, and with "Macmillan & Co" at the foot of the spine. It is a bright, near-fine copy (front endpaper repaired at the gutter, but very little other wear). Supino A1.11.0 (this copy -- see Provenance note); Cagle A1b.2, binding (a). Provenance: The title page bears the ink-stamp of Wilson's [lending] Library of Philadelphia -- dated April 30, 1895: according to Cagle, the American publication of this book followed… Read More

1895. New York: Macmillan and Co., 1895. 3 pp undated ads. Original black cloth. First American Edition of Conrad's first book, with a text that varies considerably from the English edition (because it was typeset from uncorrected proofs). We find the American edition to be somewhat scarcer than the English one (as well it should be, since only about half as many were issued: according to Keating "only 650 copies of this edition were printed, and it is a rare book"). This copy is in Supino's binding "B" (Cagle's binding "b"), black cloth with a double blind­stamped border rule on the covers and with "The Macmillan Company" at the foot of the spine. Since 1922, when Supino had an "A" copy bearing the date 30 April 1895, plus an "A" copy bearing an advance review slip, it is considered likely that "A" is the earlier binding state; until then, it was considered a toss-up. This is a close-to-fine copy (a touch of rubbing at the extremities). Supino A1.11.0; Cagle A1b.2. Provenance: discreet bookplates… Read More

1895. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1895. Original dark olive-green cloth. First Edition of Joseph Conrad's first book, an edition believed to have consisted of 1000-1250 copies. Conrad, after meeting the real "Olmeijer" in East Borneo in 1887, gradually produced the manuscript of this book over the six years 1889-1895. He submitted it to Unwin for consideration in their "Pseudonym Library", using the pseudonym "Kamudi" (Malayan for "rudder") -- enclosing the return postage, so sure was he of its rejection. However, Unwin's reader Edward Garnett saw the manuscript's promise and accepted it for non-pseudonymous publication. This copy is in the first state (as are most copies), with the letters missing from the last two lines of page 110. Condition is fine, with virtually no wear at all: there are no nicks or chips in the spine ends, just minor cracking of the original endpapers. Atypically, the spine cloth is NOT browned. ALMAYER'S FOLLY has become quite scarce in this condition. Supino A1.1.0 (this copy… Read More

1896. A Story of an Eastern River. Second Edition. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1896. Original dark green cloth. First Edition, early printing -- of Conrad's first book. Though labeled "Second Edition" on the title page, this is actually a reprint of the first edition; all copies of this printing seem to have half-title verso ads that are colonial. The volume is printed on laid paper (forming a thicker volume than the first printing), and has the p. 110 misprints corrected. (There were two printings effected in 1895, and then two in 1896 -- this one on laid paper for the domestic market, and another on wove paper for the colonial market.) Actually it was not until 1930, for Benn's "Essex Library," that ALMAYER'S FOLLY was reset for a true "second edition." The primary binding for this "Second Edition" is the same as for the first -- dark green cloth lettered in gilt. Condition is very good-plus (very light edge-wear, fading at the top of the rear cover). Cagle A1a (notes).

1895. [advance review copy] New York: Macmillan and Co., 1895. 3 pp undated ads. Original very dark blue cloth. First American Edition of Conrad's first book, with a text that varies considerably from the English edition (because it was typeset from uncorrected proofs). We find the American edition to be scarcer than the English one (as well it should be, since only about half as many were issued: according to Keating "only 650 copies of this edition were printed, and it is a rare book"). This copy is in Supino's binding "A" (Cagle's binding "a") -- very dark blue cloth with double blind rules framing each cover, and with "Macmillan & Co" at the foot of the spine. It is a bright copy that would be fine except that there is some speckling of the spine cloth, and the volume is slightly aslant. Supino A1.11.0, binding (A); Cagle A1b.2, binding (a). Onto the front free endpaper is tipped a publisher's advance review slip ("This book is furnished for editorial purposes... and it is respectfully… Read More

1850. [first fiction, in original cloth] A Romance of the Fifth Century. London: Richard Bentley, 1850. 2 pp undated ads in Vols II and III, as well as printed endpaper ads in all three volumes. Original cream embossed cloth with blind-stamping on the covers and gilt stamping on the spines. First Edition of Wilkie Collins's first fiction, preceded only by his two-volume "memoir" of his father, the renowned landscape painter. Actually Collins began ANTONINA in 1846, then (after his father died in early 1847) he paused to write the biography, after which he resumed and completed the novel. ANTONINA sold well, with a "revised" edition coming out three months later (in May 1850), followed by another three-volume printing in 1853; it "was reprinted throughout Collins's lifetime and into the twentieth century." Drawing upon Collins's own 1837 visit to Rome, ANTONINA is modeled after Bulwer-Lytton's 1834 novel THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII... The plot is absurd, and many passages read like a cross between a… Read More

1901. Newly Revised with several prefaces and an essay on prizefighting. Also The Admirable Bashville. Or, Constancy Unrewarded. Being the novel of Cashel Byron's Profession done into a stage play in three acts and in blank verse. Chicago: Herbert S. Stone and Company, 1901. Original mottled brown cloth with pugilist in white. First Authorized American Edition of Shaw's first book, a prizefighting tale. It was first published in London in 1886, in wrappers, preceded only by a couple of Fabian tracts. Later that year, both Munro and Harper came out with American pirated editions, also in wrappers. This 1901 edition was issued simultaneously with the third English edition, so as to protect the American copyright of the dramatic version, "The Admirable Bashville" (hence its separate title page and copyright notice herein). This copy is in the primary binding, with the publisher's spine imprint all in capitals. This is an unusually clean, fine copy. Laurence A3f.

1926. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1926. Original green-blue cloth with spine label, with dust jacket. First American Edition of the author's first book, published fifteen years after the 500-copy English edition (and three years after her death). In 1909, Kathleen Beauchamp's mother traveled to London from their native New Zealand to check on her daughter -- and discovered 20-year-old Kathleen pregnant by one man, married to but quickly separated from (the same day!) another man, and living with a woman. Her mother sent Kathleen off to spend 1909-1910 in a German pension -- which specialized in "hosing down" its guests with ice water! Kathleen quickly moved to a cheaper (and presumably less-invigorating) pension; during these months she suffered a miscarriage. As pointed out by John Middleton Murry (her subsequent second husband), in the Introduction that he wrote for this (and the second English) edition, "Katherine" would not allow this book to be reprinted. In 1920 she had written to Murry, "I… Read More

1878. [RLS's first book] London: C. Kegan Paul & Co., 1878. Original light blue cloth decorated in black and gilt, beveled boards. First Edition of Stevenson's first book, which consisted of just 750 copies. It was preceded only by several tracts such as THE PENTLAND RISING and ON THE THERMAL INFLUENCE OF FORESTS. Included is a frontispiece by Walter Crane. In September 1876, Stevenson and Walter Simpson had taken a canoe trip in Belgium and France together; during the trip RLS had maintained a journal. Back in Edinburgh over a year later, Stevenson rewrote his journal into this book. It did not sell well; to quote from Calder: Louis and Simpson made a complementary pair. They began their trip on the Scheldt in Antwerp, paddled along canals and navigated the Oise, returning to the Loing. It was a gentle pastime but, unfortunately for the book, remarkably uneventful. Although many people have enjoyed it, the book is about very little. Not very much happened. There is a lack of distinct individuality… Read More

1859. [in an unrecorded binding] London: Chapman and Hall, 1859. Original blind-stamped rose-brown cloth. First Edition of George Meredith's first full-length novel (preceded only by a volume of verse and two single-volume burlesques). FEVEREL is the tough tale of a father's "system" of raising his son, developed not so much out of concern for his son as out of revenge for the wife who had left him. Meredith wrote FEVEREL during the stressful years of the disintegration of his own marriage to Mary Ellen Peacock (daughter of Thomas Love Peacock). In 1858, in fact, she had left him for another man, whose child she bore while still Meredith's legal wife (she died of renal dropsy in 1861). FEVEREL was a complete failure upon publication. Periodical reviewers made such comments as "This 'Ordeal' is about as painful a book as any reader ever felt himself compelled to read through...", and suggested that proper matrons would be well-advised to avoid it. Complaints about the novel's "low ethical tone"… Read More

1875. Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1875. Original terra-cotta cloth, beveled. First Edition of Henry James's first book, which consisted of only 1,500 copies. This is a collection of six tales that had appeared in American periodicals (mostly the Atlantic Monthly) over the preceding years. In 1873 James's father wrote him to say that he had had discussions with Osgood about publication of some of the son's tales, but Henry Jr. replied (to his mother, not his father), "I value none of my early tales enough to bring them forth again, and if I did, should absolutely need to give them an amount of verbal retouching...". He added that he wished to issue instead a volume "of tales on the theme of American adventurers in Europe, leading off with the Passionate Pilgrim." [E&L] There was no equivalent English edition, though half of these tales would appear in the 1879 two-volume London collection titled THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. This copy is in the first of the four American binding states, with… Read More

1787. [original boards, leaves uncut] London: Printed for A. Strahan; T. Cadell in The Strand; and W. Creech, Edinburgh, 1787. Original blue-grey paper-covered boards with cream paper spine and printed label, page edges uncut. "The London edition," which is to say the third edition overall (so stated, unlike the prior two) -- following the rare Kilmarnock edition of 1786 and Wm. Creech's Edinburgh edition of earlier in 1787. Egerer goes to great length to explain why this edition, though promoted as coming out in mid-1787, did not in fact meet the public until November of that year (later than pirated editions in Belfast and in Dublin) -- it had a lot to do with Creech still having many copies on hand from his Edinburgh edition. This is a remarkably fine copy, still in the original boards and label, and with the leaves uncut as issued; the spine remains atypically intact, including the printed label. The only real flaw is that the endpapers are cracked (also, leaf O3 has a two-inch tear). One could… Read More

1878. [the fine Bradley Martin copy] Recited in The Theatre, Oxford, June 26, 1878. Oxford: Thos. Shrimpton and Son, 1878. Original grey printed wrappers. First Edition of Oscar Wilde's first book, the Newdigate Prize-winning poem that he wrote while a student at Magdalen College. To quote from Pearson: He [Wilde] left Oxford in a blaze of glory. The subject for the Newdigate Prize Poem that year was Ravenna, and it so happened that he had visited the place on his way to Greece [the year before], noting it as a theme for poetic treatment. He could therefore put in bits of local colour which the other competitors had to glean from books. He won the prize, as John Ruskin and Matthew Arnold had done before him, and declaimed the poem in the Sheldonian Theatre on June 26, 1878... When the Professor of Poetry, J.C. Shairp, whose duty it was to suggest textual improvements to the winner of the Newdigate, advised certain alterations, Wilde listened with due courtesy, took careful notes of every suggestion,… Read More

1900. [her first novel] New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1900. 2 pp undated ads. Original dark grey-green paper-covered boards with spine decorated in gilt. First Edition of Edith Wharton's first novel (actually a novella). This was her fourth book overall, preceded by VERSES (1878), THE DECORATION OF HOUSES (1897) and THE GREATER INCLINATION (short stories - 1899); about six months later this was published in England as A GIFT FROM THE GRAVE, because the American title had already been used by another English author. THE TOUCHSTONE showed the influence of Henry James both in its form as a novelette and in its occupation with ethical values. It is concerned with a man torn between his desire to obtain money to marry the woman he loves, and his reluctance to sell the love letters written to him by a celebrated woman [OCAL]. This is a fine, bright copy of this handsome book (printed at the Merrymount Press); there is a 1900 signature on the front endpaper. Since these early Wharton books were bound… Read More

1881. [a handsome copy] The Folk­Lore of the Old Plantation. With Illustrations by Frederick S. Church and James H. Moser. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1881. 8 pp undated ads. Original green cloth pictorially decorated in black and gilt. First Edition, first printing, of Joel Chandler Harris's first and most beloved book, featuring Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox and Brer Bear (with occasional appearances by Brer Terrapin). In addition to 34 such "Legends of the Old Plantation" (including "The Tar-Baby"), the volume includes "Plantation Proverbs" plus Uncle Remus's "Songs" and "Sayings." At the time he wrote these, Harris (who was white) was on the staff of the Atlanta Constitution -- in which newspaper the tales had first begun appearing in 1879. Uncle Remus is both typical and strongly individual, and his tales, based on native legends, are told with a simple humor and authentic dialect that is in perfect harmony with the thing said and the way of saying it" [OCAL]. Some of Harris's tales are today… Read More

1916. New York: John Lane Company | London: John Lane, The Bodley Head, 1916. Original orange-brown cloth decorated in black and gilt. First Edition of Sherwood Anderson's first (and most autobiographical) novel -- a rags-to-riches-to-unhappiness tale of an Ohio newsboy, complete with alcoholic father and martyr mother who in trying to feed her children works her way into an early grave. Sam McPherson strives for and achieves fortune, only to realize (after driving his father-in-law to suicide) that there is more to life than money. In 1922, this novel would be re-published with a different ending (less vague, more optimistic -- though many have argued that either ending is too unlikely). In any case, this was Anderson's initiation into the art of writing fiction -- which would come to fruition three years later, with WINESBURG, OHIO (1919). This is a fine copy of this early midwestern novel (complete with ear of corn on front cover and spine). Housed in a (slightly wrinkled) slipcase with leather label.

1851. [his first and scarcest novel] Reprinted, with corrections and additions, from Fraser's Magazine. London: John W. Parker, 1851. 8 pp undated ads. Original blind-stamped rose-brown wavy-grain cloth. First Edition of Charles Kingsley's first-written (and today his scarcest) novel. It first appeared serially in Fraser's Magazine during the latter half of 1848 (the year of the "last great burst" of Chartism), but was not published in book form until 1851, as here -- "with corrections and additions"; in the meantime his second novel, ALTON LOCKE, was published slightly earlier, in 1850. YEAST... is more of a tract than a novel, in which Kingsley described rural England in the time of the Chartist agitation. The plot describes the fate of Lancelot Smith, a wealthy young man, who changes his religious and social views under the inflence of Tregarva, a philosophical game-keeper, who acquaints Smith with the social, economic and moral conditions of the rural poor... Although poorly plotted, YEAST… Read More