Type Punch Matrix

New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc. New York, 1972. First printing. Very good plus in very good jacket.. First edition of this first entry in Blume's Fudge series, told from the point of view of a young boy with a menace for a brother - and one of her earliest classics. Along with FOREVER, ARE YOU THERE GOD? IT'S ME, MARGARET, BLUBBER, and many others, Blume's beloved novels have "provided a crash course in change, uncertainty, loneliness and countless other scourges of adolescence" (Elisabeth Egan) for generations of readers. TALES is an ode to the woes of sibling-hood, featuring one of the most indelible (and hilarious) scenes in all of young adult writing: Fudge's infamous turtle-swallowing incident. Increasingly scarce in the first edition, a foundational work of the Gen X psyche. 8.25'' x 5.5''. Original orange cloth blind stamped turtle to front board, lettered in black to spine. In original unclipped ($4.95) color pictorial jacket by Roy Doty. Illustrated in black and white by Doty. [8], 120 pages. Jac…Read more

Boston: Manning and Loring for E. Larkin, 1805. Very good plus.. First edition of this landmark history of the Revolutionary War, by the most prominent woman historian of the fledgling United States. As a playwright, poet, political agitator, prolific letter-writer, and Jeffersonian anti-federalist, Mercy Otis Warren was deeply ensconced in the political and literary circles of pre- and post-Revolutionary Boston, lauded by several future Founders for her polemical and satirical talents and a firsthand observer of many of the people and events she would go on to chronicle and criticize. At one time Warren counted Abigail Adams and John Adams among her friends; her relationship with both would grow increasingly less friendly due to political differences, culminating in John Adams's private declaration, after reading this book, that history was "not the Province of the Ladies." Adams had once admired her "masterly pen," but hell hath no fury like the man who searches a book for references to himself and is not…Read more

New York: The Vanguard Press, 1944. First printing. Very good plus in a very good plus jacket.. First edition of Bellow's acclaimed first book, the beginning of an auspicious career that culminated in the National Book Award, Pulitzer and Nobel Prizes, among numerous other accolades. Fellow Nobel winner J.M. Coetzee wrote of THE DANGLING MAN: "[in it] can be discerned the lonely, humiliated clerks of Gogol and Dostoevsky, brooding upon revenge; the Roquentin of Sartre's NAUSEA, the scholar who undergoes a strange metaphysical experience that estranges him from the world; and the lonely young poet of Rilke's NOTEBOOKS OF MALTE LAURIDS BRIGGE." A nice copy of an important debut. 8'' x 4.75''. Original beige full cloth with red titles. In original unclipped ($2.50) jacket. 192 pages. Spine moderately sunned; minor edgewear and rubbing. Book has slight lean. Some offsetting to endpapers. Else clean and sound.

New York: Everest House, 1981. First printing. Near fine in near fine jacket.. Inscribed first edition, association copy, of King's influential discussion of horror - presented to Robert E. Howard's agent, bibliographer, and literary executor, Glenn Lord. King's analysis of the purposes, effects, and methods of the horror genre focuses on the twentieth century, with consideration of film, radio, television, and literature. This copy is inscribed to Glenn Lord, longtime champion of Robert E. Howard, whose "Pigeons from Hell," King calls (in this book) "one of the finest horror stories of our century" (291). Still later in the book he would describe Howard as "a peculiar genius, whose "imagination [...] was powerful beyond his hero Conan's wildest dreams of power. In his best work, Howard's writing seems so highly charged with energy that it nearly gives off sparks. Stories such as 'The People of the Black Circle' glow with the fierce and eldritch light of his frenzied intensity. At his best, Howard was the T…Read more

New York: Viking, 1964. First edition. Near fine in near fine jacket.. Signed first printing of one of Bellow's best-known and most acclaimed works, in excellent condition. A semi-autobiographical novel that won the National Book Award for Fiction, HERZOG was named as one of the 100 best English language novels by TIME in 2010. Decidedly uncommon in this condition. 8.25'' x 5.5''. Original dark blue speckled cloth. In original unclipped ($5.75) pictorial jacket designed by Mel Williamson. 344 pages. Signed by Bellow on front free endpaper. Faint toning to spine. Minor chip to lower corner front flap. A few tiny spots soil to fore-edge. Touches of offsetting to endpapers. Else bright, clean, and sharp.

Paris: Contact Editions"a.i, 1926. First printing. Near fine.. Inscribed first edition, in beautiful condition, of one the Modernist poet's greatest works, published by one of the movement's most important presses. The first book in H.D.'s semi-autobiographical Magna Graeca cycle, PALIMPSEST in many ways finds Doolittle turning away from the fragmentation of Imagism in the wake of WWI and toward a more cohesive narrative - if still experimental - style. She would later write: "[PALIMPSEST] is not intended as a work of art [...] It is a means to an end. I want to clear up an old tangle. [...] You must remember that writing poetry requires a clarity, a clairvoyance almost. I have been too weak to dare to be clairvoyant. I have tried instead to be merely sensible." Interestingly, several contemporary clippings are loosely laid in, including one with the headline: "H.D.'s 'Palimpsest' [...] Is Decipherable Only by a Few Clairvoyant Readers." Robert McAlmon's Contact was one of the original loci of the burgeonin…Read more

New York: Random House, 1972. First printing. Fine in a fine jacket.. Signed first edition, association copy, of this classic 1970s satirical thriller of suburban unease - inscribed by Levin to his Random House editor, James Silberman. Levin's best-known book after ROSEMARY'S BABY, THE STEPFORD WIVES was, like its predecessor, a huge bestseller that went on to be successfully adapted to film. Its title has entered the cultural lexicon, "a convenient shorthand for compliant women who puts the needs of men above their own desires and ambitions" (THE GUARDIAN). This copy is inscribed to "revered book editor" (THE NEW YORK TIME) Jim Silberman, who worked with Levin on this book, as well as ROSEMARY'S BABY and (just before Silberman departed for Simon & Schuster) THE BOYS FROM BRAZIL. An exceptional copy of a landmark book, one whose themes of male anxiety and women's liberation continue to resonate. 8'' x 5.25''. Original quarter beige cloth over brown boards. In original price-clipped (as always and as issued,…Read more

Boston and New York: Bulfinch Press / Little, Brown and Company, 1997. First printing. Near fine.. Signed first edition from the noted photographer - inscribed to the mother of musician Jeff Buckley, who Weber featured in this book. Buckley, best known for his indelible cover of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" (as well as his majestic debut album GRACE), tragically drowned the same year BRANDED YOUTH was released. Weber photographed the singer a number of times throughout the early to mid 1990s, and Weber includes two images of Buckley on pages 70 and 71 of this book. Weber would later say of Buckley and others he photographed who died young (like River Phoenix, also included here): "I had amazing encounters with these people [...] They were so alive for me. I believed so much in what they thought, what they were doing, how much they loved doing things. They had that romance, that kind of honesty" (APERTURE). A tender and moving association from this major photographer. 10.5'' x 8.25''. Original black-and-whit…Read more

(Fayetteville, AR): Lost Roads, 1977. First printing. Fine.. Exceptionally beautiful copy of the first edition of Stanford's cult magnum opus. Stanford's final book before his 1978 suicide, BATTLEFIELD is a nearly 16,000-line poem that has gained an almost mythical status in the more than forty years since its publication. A significant portion of this original 1977 edition was destroyed in a basement flood and the book remained out of print for years until Lost Roads reissued the title in 2000. The finest copy we've encountered, examples are often in poor condition due both to its bulk and the frequency and fervency with which it is read and passed along. A remarkably well-preserved example of this beloved contemporary verse epic. 8.5'' x 7''. Original color photographic wrappers. Mill Mountain numbers 7-12. [8], 242, [2] pages. Trace rubbing. Else bright, sharp, and tight. Appears unread. Housed in a custom full black cloth clamshell with leather spine label.

London: Edward Arnold and Co, 1934. First printing. Very good plus in very good plus jacket.. Inscribed first edition of this biography of the Bloomsbury Group writer and philosopher who helped shape Forster's work - signed and dated by Forster two days before publication. Dickinson, whose ideas influenced the formation of The League of Nation, was close with Froster. The two had traveled extensively together, and Forster ultimately became Dickinson's literary executor. This biographical memoir of his friend "Goldie" was undertaken at the request of the estate and reflects in part the deep and lasting impact Dickinson's writings and ideas exerted on Forster. Uncommon in jacket and very scarce signed, as are most Forster titles - he was not a frequent signer. 8.5'' x 5.25''. Original full blue cloth with gilt-stamped spine titles. In original unclipped (10s. 6d. net)photographic jacket. With portrait frontispiece. [4], xii, 280 pages. Inscribed by Forster on the front free endpaper: "With thanks from E.M. Fo…Read more

London: J.M. Dent and Company, 1894. About fine.. Fresh and beautiful late Victorian set from one of the most celebrated and widely read writers in English. Austen combines a profound artistic confidence with entertaining popular love stories. Audiences have been buoyed along for centuries by Austen's subtly bold and witty authorial voice, her novels burrowing into our collective literary consciousness. This set includes introductory notes by R. Brimley Johnson, a Cambridge professor specializing in 19th-century novels. He is best known in Austen studies for his important edition of THE LETTERS OF JANE AUSTEN (published the same year as this set), which Deirdre Le Faye considers the first "selected edition [...] expressly designed to reveal character and personality, as apart from the writer's genius" (Le Faye, xi). An uncommonly charming set, in exceptional condition, preserved in an early custom-made cloth box. Ten volumes, 6.75'' x 4.25'' each. Original tea green stamped boards with gilt title frames and…Read more

New York: Bartlett & Welford, 1844. Very good.. Inscribed first edition of this collection of Moore's verse, the first with "The Night Before Christmas," then still known by its original title, "A Visit from St. Nicholas." With this poem, Clement Moore created the modern Santa Claus. Christian legends and European folktales of St. Nicholas had existed before, but Moore's imagery - helped along in the 1860s by Thomas Nast's iconic illustrations - gave us the Santa Claus that children recognize today: jolly and plump, wearing a red suit with white fur trim. First published in 1823 in the TROY SENTINEL in New York, the poem became a popular inclusion in newspapers throughout the 1820s. However, these publications were anonymous; it was not until the poem's publication in 1837 anthology (THE NEW-YORK BOOK OF POETRY) that it was attributed to Clement Moore. Clement himself did not claim it directly in print until this 1844 collection: "his first public acknowledgment of authorship" of the poem (Marshall, 10). …Read more

Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc, 1957. First printing. Near fine in a near fine jacket.. Signed first edition, with an original color drawing of a dandelion, of Bradbury's deeply nostalgic novel, set in a 1920s fictional town heightened into myth by the sheer force of the author's rhapsodic love for his lost childhood. Parts of DANDELION WINE originated as short stories, published in COSMOPOLITAN and other magazines, and the work was also later adapted for the stage, retaining its strong emotional pull in all forms. In interviews throughout his long career, Bradbury frequently stressed the autobiographical element of both setting and characters. Green Town - also the setting for SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES (1962) - is a barely disguised Waukegan, Illinois where Bradbury grew up and first began to write: "It's my hometown, the town I grew up in, my grandfather's house - I helped him make dandelion wine there when I was 3 years old. The house is still there. It's one of my most important books, …Read more

Urbana: The University of Illinois Press, 1949. First printing. Very good.. First edition of the first book from "the father of the information age" (The New Yorker), a landmark of computer science and the first appearance of the word "bit" in book form. Originally published in 1948 in the BELL SYSTEM TECHNICAL JOURNAL, THE MATHEMATICAL THEORY OF COMMUNICATION conveys ideas "even more profound and more fundamental" than the invention of the transistor (James Gleick, 4). Most famous for its coinage of the word bit (the smallest unit of information), this book laid the groundwork for computers to successfully communicate with each other, and hence was central to the development of the internet. The birth of modern information theory, uncommon in its first edition. 9'' x 5.75''. Original full red cloth. Lacking jacket. 117, [1] pages. Moderate shelfwear at extremities with some minor bumping and rubbing. Ink owner name (dated 1951) on front free endpaper, one or two pencil marks internally. Some toning. Else s…Read more

London: Paul Breman, 1970. First printing. Very good plus.. First edition of Lorde's second book, including "Martha," the poet's "first overtly lesbian poem to be published" (Ann E. Reuman). Audre Lorde published her first poem while in high school and recalled that, as a child, she "literally communicated through poetry" (Poetry Foundation). A leading light of the Black Arts Movement, as well as a pioneering LGBTQ+ voice, Lorde closely tied her writing and and activism together. Published in London by Paul Breman (who a decade earlier had included Lorde's poems in his anthology BLACK ALL DAY), CABLES TO RAGE established the style that would go on to define Lorde's career: "While many African American poets of her time focused on black nationalism and urban realism, Lorde placed relationships amid global concerns and gave voice to what many had rejected, hidden, or ignored" (Reuman). The iconic cover of CABLES was in many ways as daring as its verse; featuring "an imposing head shot of the poet, with gray t…Read more

England / New York: Penguin, 1940. Very good.. Inscribed first edition of this WWII-era thesis on creating a new world federation to bring about lasting peace - presented to American journalist Dorothy Thompson, who "had gone into battle almost single-handedly against the Nazis" (Kurth). During the 1930s, celebrity journalist Thompson became one of the most vocal critics of Nazism in America. As an American foreign correspondent in Berlin, Thompson had been the first American to interview Hitler, turning the session into an exposé titled I SAW HITLER (1932). The book so enraged Hitler (she noted, "He is the very prototype of the Little Man") that he personally sent the Gestapo to remove her from the country. Back home, "she had her explusion order framed and hung it on her wall" (Lepore). Throughout the war and after, Thompson was "among the most insistent voices urging American awareness of the threats implied in fascist militarism and aggression. On that topic, Thompson's effectiveness and celebrity - so…Read more

Antwerp: ex officina Plantiniana Balthasaris Moreti [Plantin Press Balthasar Moretus], 1684. Near fine.. Beautifully bound Plantin edition of this fundamental collection of liturgies for the week leading up to Easter. An important and commonly reprinted liturgical collection in a finely printed Plantin edition in black and red ink. This copy was rebound in the Victorian era with traits typically found on more deluxe productions of religious texts in that era: goatskin leather, brass clasps, gilt and gauffered edges. USTC locates nine copies, with FirstSearch adding a few more, but none recorded at American institutions. A striking artifact of Victorian aesthetic transformation. 12mo, 6'' x 3.5''. 19th-century full brown goatskin with multiple rules in blind, raised bands, gilt-lettered spine, two brass clasps at fore-edge. Marbled endpapers, gauffered edges, multiple ribbon markets. Illustrated with engraved title-page vignette, 5 engraved plates, and woodcut initials. Printed in red and black. 655, [1] pag…Read more

New York: Walker and Company, 1970. First printing. Near fine in near fine jacket.. First hardcover edition of Matheson's classic horror novel of the post-apocalyptic new vampire world order. I AM LEGEND was first published in paperback in 1954 and set in the grim future of 1976, when a nation of a new kind of vampire struggles into being just in time for the bicentennial. Matheson's hero spends his nights and days drinking, listening to classical music, and hunting vampires. I AM LEGEND's semi-scientific explanation of an evolving vampire virus and its pessimistic vision of humanity's coming obsolescence were hugely influential on horror films as well as literature; in particular, nearly all dystopian zombie stories from the latter half of the 20th century have drawn heavily on Matheson's vision of a doomed and outnumbered remnant of humanity fighting a losing battle for survival, not victory. In his introduction to a later edition, Stephen King acknowledged his own debt: "When people talk about genre, I g…Read more

(Bogotá): Editorial Oveja Negra, 1985. First printing. Near fine in very good plus jacket.. Signed limited first Colombian edition of the Nobel Prize-winner's acclaimed novel, a "love story with a difference" (Bell-Villada), whose consummation is deferred but whose passion survives for the better part of a century. García Márquez's theme - romantic love that never fades, vows never broken; or, seen another way, the nightmare impossibility of permanently dismissing a determined suitor - struck Pynchon as "revolutionary," though his judgment that working in "love's vernacular" is a "daring step for any writer" may raise eyebrows among those familiar with genres and modes of writing in which these themes and treatments have never fallen out of fashion. García Márquez himself once said, with perhaps greater perception, that the revolutionary part of writing consists simply of doing it well: and he did. 9'' x 6.5''. Original white cloth. In original unclipped (no price) glossy white dust jacket. 335, [1] pa…Read more

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1931. Fine.. Exceptional copy of the signed limited edition for this Civil War-set novel, one of 500 numbered copies signed by Wyeth, retaining both the original box and glassine. 11'' x 8.5''. Quarter vellum, blue cloth boards. Top edge gilt, other edges uncut; partially unopened. In original glassine and publisher's blue box. Illustrated by Wyeth with 16 mounted, tissue-guarded color illustrations, including frontispiece and title page, surrounded by boxed borders in gold. 324 pages. Bookplate to verso of box lid. Light rubbing to box (no repairs), slightest bit of toning to glassine and vellum; overall exceptionally bright and fresh.

New York: Seven Stories Press, 1998. First printing. Near fine in very good plus jacket.. Inscribed first edition of the future dystopia in which Butler describes the rise of a demagogue who says he will "make American great again." This work is a sequel to one of Butler's most acclaimed novels, PARABLE OF THE SOWER; here, the story of Lauren Olamina continues in the 2030s hellscape of climate change-ravaged California. Dr. Marlene D. Allen notes: "Butler insistently incorporates a readily identifiable African American history in her writings even in those texts that are set in the future or on other planets, using the creative possibilities of science fiction to portrait African American history in new and highly original ways." A nice copy of this now-legendary Nebula Award winner. 9'' x 6''. Original black paper boards, silver-lettered spine. In original unclipped ($24.95) purple photographic dust jacket designed by Annette Flaster. 365, [1] pages. Inscribed by Butler on title page: "To P___ M___ / Best …Read more

New York: Hyperion, 1943. Very good plus in very good plus jacket.. First edition of this brightly illustrated classic - basis (in part) for the 1971 Disney animated live-action hybrid BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS, scarce in such a nice jacket. This WWII-era children's book and its sequel BONFIRES AND BROOMSTICKS are now best remembered for being the inspiration behind the 1971 Angela Lansbury-led Disney film (an attempt by the studio to re-capture the magic of MARY POPPINS). Norton herself is certainly best known for her popular BORROWERS series of fantasy novels, the first of which won the Library Association's Carnegie Medal in 1952. 10.5'' x 7.25''. Original color pictorial paper boards, in original unclipped ($1.75) color pictorial jacket. Color pictorial endpapers. Illustrated throughout in black and white and color, 24 full-page color illustrations (cw: some racist imagery). 48 pages. Jacket with a bit of toning to spine, a few small nicks and spots of soil. Book with a couple spots of rubbing, short cra…Read more

London: Messrs. Crichton Bros, 1898. Very good.. First (and only) edition of this remarkable and entirely photographic catalogue of a single collection. Featuring more than 200 spoons, with the earliest in the collection dating from 1488, EARLY ENGLISH SPOONS documents the famed Staniford English spoon collection. An unintentional artist's book or photobook, this elaborate album was produced in a "very small edition" (Report for the Year 1909-1917 on the Victoria and Albert Museum) and is now quite scarce. It is noteworthy not only for its breadth (including numerous apostle spoons), but for the inclusion of an extremely rare "death's head" spoon (1661). This specific spoon was profiled in Sam O'Brien's 2021 ATLAS OBSCURA article "The Macabre Mystery of a British Family's Skull-Topped Spoons." As he (and scholar David Constable in his book SILVER SPOONS OF BRITAIN: 1200-1710) note, these macabre spoons - though often thought of as memorial or funeral spoons - were in fact "likely a gift for a baby" to mar…Read more

London: Adam Islip, 1598. Very good plus.. First edition in English of one of the most influential political treatises in history. The works of Aristotle, especially his ETHICS and companion POLITICS, were considered foundational reading for any educated person from the Renaissance forward: all modern philosophers working in the Western tradition build upon or react against his work, from Thomas Hobbes and John Locke to Karl Marx. According to Randolph Greenfield Adams, "There are indeed few fields of thought in which it is so true that the would-be contributor finds that his 'contribution' has already been made by someone else, and almost certainly by Aristotle, as it is in the field of politics" (132). His POLITICS has had a direct impact on major historical turning points such as the American Revolution, which was characterized by putting Aristotle's "theories and doctrines into practice" (134). Central to Aristotle's approach in this book is the idea that "man is by nature a political animal" (Rackham…Read more