Search Results: Authors starting with M from Ian Brabner, Rare Americana (ABAA)

Pittsburg, Pa.: The No-Tobacco Army, 1923. First edition. 184pp. One illus. Sm. 8vo. Publisher's cloth. Brief binding wear; light creases to front endpaper; some thumbed pages; Good. Uncommon title with the goal of stamping out tobacco use by explaining its deleterious effects on health ("poison of nerve cells" being but one) as well as on spirit ("evidence of spiritual loss"). The reader is instructed by the "The No-Tobacco Army" on how to become and activist and steps to take to oppose tobacco. The power of the church, as a unified front, to oppose tobacco companies is also a theme. Much of the book's scientific and medical "evidence" to demonstrate tobacco's ill-effects are now known to be wrong, but a number of the author's points (e.g., peer pressure to use tobacco) would be used today. Reasonably scarce in OCLC.

Milwaukee: Pro-Form, Inc., Sport Program Division, [1974]. 48pp. 4to. Pictorial wrappers. Color and half tone illustrations from photographs; ads. Light signs of handing; a near fine copy. Promotional item for the famous 1974 "Rumble in the Jungle" championship boxing match that pitted Muhammad Ali against George Foreman in Zaire. The fight was marketed by John Daly, Henry A. Schwartz, and Don King and reportedly almost one billion viewers tuned in to watch the epic battle.

[Bristol, England]: Arrowsmith, (1934). First Edition. Frontispiece, 224pp. + 4 plates. Sm. 8vo. Publisher's red cloth, w/o dust jacket; map on endpaper. Spine sunned; mottling to boards; very good. History of the English slave trade by historian Charles Malcolm Macinnes (1891-1971), drawn largely from "...hitherto unpublished material and books and pamphlets of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries which are now rare..."  Chapters include "The Purchase of Slaves," "The Middle Passage," "Plantation Slavery," "The Abolition of the Slave Trade," and "The Anti-Slavery Movement in British Foreign Policy since 1807."  A Map appearing on both endpapers depicts "Sketch Plan of the Guinea Coast, showing principal Slave Centres."

Evanston: Row, Peterson (1941). 8vo., 64 pages. Publisher's pictorial cloth. Illustrated. Neat ink notation to front free endpaper; a very good copy. "One of a series of short books by various authors, this one deals mostly with law-enforcement officers from marshals to sheriffs to the Texas Rangers and the Northwest Mounted Police." (Adams, Burs, #319; Six Guns #1785) From the library of Raymond L.J. Riling with his illustrated bookplate and, also, from the library of E.F. Van Buskirk with his bookplate as well.

New York: Random House, 1939. Slim 8vo. Publisher's dark blue cloth, without dustwrapper. Spine lettering dulled; illustrated bookplate of William and Elsa Strauss. First American edition, published in the same year in London.

Philadelphia: John C. Campbell, Bookseller [...], 1862. 8vo, 38pp. Printed wrappers, dbd, rmvd., lacks lower wrap, else clean and very good. Jenkins 223:118 catalogued a similarly-titled edition of this pamphlet: "A series of nine lengthy letters (dated Aug.-Oct 1860) by a prominent Alabamian to Charles O'Conor, the well-known New York lawyer. Macon demands strict adherence to slavery as a social and legal necessity, although a moral injustice. The issue of slavery in the territories receives full constitutional and legal commentary. Very scarce." Further, of Macon: "Macon became one of the first southerners to realize that the expansion of federal power posed a lethal threat to slavery, claiming... During the Missouri controversy of 1819-1820, Macon openly defended slavery on the floor of Congress. Anticipating the proslavery argument of the antebellum era, he argued that slaves were more kindly treated and better cared for than any poor people in the world. He was the only southerner to vote… Read More

[Havana, Cuba?, c. 1920s]. Commercial Real Photo Postcard. 3½ x 5½ inches. Black and white image with five inset photo vignettes; "Noko" postcard stamp box on verso, upside down. Not postally used. Some edge toning; light soiling on verso; very good with clear images. Commercially produced c.1920s real photo postcard advertising Chateau Madrid, a Havana, Cuba restaurant and nightclub managed by F. Campuzano. The card contains five photographic inset views showing Chateau Madrid's outdoor dining space and views of the garden including a fountain within a grove. The postcard's "Noko" stamp box on the verso was imprinted up to 1929.¹ Note. 1. MetroPostcard Real Photo Postcard Guide [Metropolitan Postcard Club of New York City] accessed online.

New York: Stonehill Publishing Co., (1977). Unpaginated. Quarto softcover. 12 x 9 inches. Light wear along edges and light rear cover soil; near fine. First edition, first printing [so stated]. Praised by Andy Warhol, collection of candid photographs from punk, new wave, and underground America. Photographs and portraits, some as fold-outs, of Grace Jones, David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Alice Cooper, Divine, Many Ray, Patti Smith, Marilyn Chambers, Debbie Harry, William S. Burroughs, etc.

[Bridgeton, N.J.] : Women's Board of Managers, 1957. 126pp. Spiral bound; stiff covers. Covers very stained; contents sound; Good. One copy recorded in OCLC for this regional southern New Jersey cook book. Modestly illustrated and with local adverts.

Boston: Published by Wm. B. Fowle, [1849]. First edition. [14]pp., in double-columns. A fresh as-issued copy, unopened and uncut; Fine. "Opposes bill proposing abolition, not of slavery, but of the slave trade, in the District of Columbia; 'slavery ought not to exist in fact and does not exist in law' in this district; stresses the moral as well as the economic harm of slavery." -Selective and Critical Bibliography of Horace Mann Horace Mann (1796-1854), attorney, state senator, reformer of education. Mann served as an anti-slavery Whig in Congress from 1848-1853. Slavery persisted as legal in the District of Columbia until it was abolished in April 16, 1862, when President Abraham Lincoln signed into law an act abolishing it. (12 Stat. 376)

New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, (2001). 210pp. 8vo. Hardbound. Fine in a dustwrapper in like condition. First edition, first printing and boldly signed by Ray Manzarek on the title page.

[Taunton {Massachusetts}, August 12, 1851]. [1¼]pp. ALS. 4to. Bifolium with integral address leaf; remnant of wax seal. Folds; small loss at seal not afecting text; Very Good. Exasperated letter from Marcus Morton (1784-1864), former Democratic Massachusetts governor and Supreme Court judge, decrying the state of the Democratic party. Morton opposed the extension of slavery in the Western territories and eventually split from his party to join the Free Soil party. Morton writes: "I feel inexplicable regret that the only truly Democratic Paper in Massachusetts is merged in an Hermaphrodite Free Soil semi Whig organ.... There are a great many genuine Democrats in the Old Bay State, but they have no organ, no consent of action, and of course no efficiency of action. What shall be done?" Morton here writes to Massachusetts State Representative, newspaperman, and labor reformer James M. Stone (1817-1880) of Charlestown. In 1848 U.S. presidential election, Morton declined the nomination of vice president… Read More

London: Elkin Mathews, (1909). First Edition. 93, [3 (publisher's adverts.)]pp. Sm. Square 8vo. Publisher's green cloth with sunning to spine, boards. Illustrations. Very good. Children's poems by Margaret Arndt written for her two daughters, here collected and illustrated with line drawings by Edith Calvert. As an introduction, the book reprints a letter that British writer, journalist, and poet, G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936), wrote to Arndt's daughter Barbara: "A great many of these little poems ought to have tunes to them. Perhaps (as you were born in Germany) you will become a monstrously great musician and set them yourself to music of the most excruciatingly subtle sort." (pp10-11) Some of noted folk tale author Arndt's poems first appeared in such periodicals as Father Tuck's Annual, The Girls' Realm, and The Irish Homestead. Margaret Arndt was also the author of such fairy story books as Fairy Tales From the German Forests (1913) and My Fairy Friends (1931).

New-York: Harper & Brothers, 1841. 12mo. First edition. xi, 275, [1], 29pp. and 297, [1]pp. Publisher's gilt and blind stamped cloth bindings. First volume with short split to lower joint; head of spines lightly-frayed; bindings with overall light sunning and slight rubbing. First U.S. edition. Volume I: BAL's state 'B' with terminal catalogue "printing a." Volume II is an unknown printing with no ads following. Presentation inscription inside each volume: "G.W. Burnap to Susan Williams, August 1841." George W. Burnap (1802-1859) was an author from Baltimore known for his work titled Lectures on the Sphere and Duties of Woman and Other Subjects, which was published in Baltimore in 1841. Catharine Maria Sedgwick was born in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. "Throughout her life she was closely identified with this region; her novels dealing with the natural beauty and local customs of the Berkshires are among the first attempts to use American material in fiction [...] Her Letters from Abroad to Kindred at… Read More

[Np., nd.] Oblong paper slip; darkly engrossed; Near Fine. Written up watermarked paper with a 1923 date, an autograph quotation signed by this exceedingly popular Shakespearian thespian. Marlowe retired in 1924. Marlowe was distinguished for her role as Juliet. Her "Romeo" (in real life and on the stage) was husband and fellow actor E.H. Sothern. Here, Marlowe pens two famous lines from her starring roles in As You Like It ("...nay you must call me Rosalind") and Romeo and Juliet ("Parting is such sweet sorrow that I shall say goodnight till it be morrow").

LSU Press, Baton Rouge, 1976. First edition. Large octavo. Publisher's cloth. Photographs. Fine in a good only dustwrapper, now in a new protective mylar cover. Surprisingly scarce study of Angelo Herndon (1913-1997), Black labor organizer and Communist Party activist. Herndon was convicted and imprisoned in Georgia in 1933 for attempting to incite insurrection in the wake of his organizing a successful-and unusual for the time-interracial demonstration for relief to the unemployed during the Great Depression.

[New York, 1902-1904]. [158]ff. 12½ x 9½ inches. Album filled with tipped on or pasted in letters, ephemera, calling cards. Disbound, lacking covers, secured with recent cord tie; original black bordered leaves reinforced on left edge with cloth lining. Overall, Very Good. A useful and packed album providing fine insight into the life of the German-American homeopathic physician Martin Deschere (1848-1902) of New York City. Deschere's widow, Olga Deschere, assembled this archive after Martin Deschere's passing. It reveals a constellation of physicians and medical institutions who were in his orbit. The bulk of the matter comprises: 200 pages of handwritten letters of condolences and tributes -from New York City medical organizations, leading homeopaths, and other physicians; 70 obituaries from newspapers and medical journals; and over 150 mourning calling cards, almost all with a brief autograph sentiment. Some letters refer to Deschere's homeopathic practice, to Dr. Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843),… Read More

[Newbern: Martin & Ogden, [1806?].  Paginated as [227]-272, i.e. 46-pages. Minor bio-predation to contemporary wraps; Very Good. Bound into contemporary drab gray-blue wrappers, the Appendix found in some copies at the end of the second volume of the The Public Acts of the General Assembly of North-Carolina, published in 1804 at Newbern (now New Bern) by Martin & Ogden. The Appendix records additional laws enacted between 1804 to 1805. As a sample, Acts concern the early years of the University of North Carolina, Presidential Electors, a lighthouse for Cape Look-out, and so forth. Signed in type at its conclusion are the names of Alexander Martin and S. Cabarrus. The supplement was deemed scarce enough to be printed in facsimile, in an edition of 50 copies, by the Statute Law Book Co., of Washington, D.C., in 1913. It is the first of three Appendixes reproduced inside (See OCLC 65113392). We believe it was printed separately from the original two volumes of The Public Acts and that extant copies of… Read More

Santa Rosa: Black Sparrow Press, 2001. 380 pages. Illustrated. Fine copy. First edition in pictorial wrappers, preceded by a limited edition.

[San Diego, Calif.:] Dept. of Reference and Instructional Services, Malcolm A. Love Library, San Diego State University, 1974. iii, 16pp. 8½ x 5½ inches. Pictorial wrappers. Name on front cover. Publisher's, partly-printed transmittal slip laid in. Very Good. A 1970s bibliography of Chicano publications of note issued by the Malcolm A. Love Library at San Diego State University in California.