Search Results: Authors starting with S from Sumner & Stillman

1930. [complete in 7 magazine issues] A Novel. Illustrated by F.R. Gruger. In: The American Magazine. Springfield Ohio: The Crowell Publishing Company, April-October 1930 [together, seven issues]. Original color pictorial wrappers. First American Appearance of this historical romance, complete in these seven consecutive issues of The American Magazine, where the novel is illustrated by F.R. Gruger -- some full-page, some even double-page. It was in 1930 that the tale was also published in book form -- by Houghton Mifflin in the US and by Hutchinson (as THE MINION) in the UK. Condition is remarkably very good-plus (minor edge-wear, especially at the ends of the spines). The lower corner of all seven front covers bears the original mailing label -- which, amazingly, went to six different people! -- two in Illinois, plus one each in Maine, Massachusetts, North Dakota and Wisconsin. Quite a survival.

1832. Collected and Arranged by Jedediah Cleishbotham... Edinburgh: Printed for Robert Cadell / London: Whittaker and Co., 1832. Original drab paper-covered boards with purple spine cloth, with printed spine labels. First Edition of the last of the Waverley Novels -- actually consisting of "Count Robert of Paris (2½ volumes) and "Castle Dangerous" (1½ volumes), told as if narrated by a "landlord," Jedediah Cleishbotham. Scott wrote these two tales simultaneously in 1830-1831, in declining health that included two strokes. "Count Robert" is set in Byzantium at the time of the arrival of the First Crusaders (1096). "Despite his rapidly deteriorating health, Scott sought a challenge. He believed that there was great potential in describing the declining Byzantine Empire as it confronted both Western Christendom and the advancing Ottoman Empire." "Castle Dangerous," is set in 1306 during the time of Robert the Bruce and the Scottish Wars of Independence. As he worked on the [latter] novel, Scott… Read More

1805. [inscribed by Scott] The Second Edition. London: printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, and A. Constable and Co., Edinburgh, by James Ballantyne, Edinburgh, 1805. Original blue paper-covered boards, with later (but period-style) white cloth or vellum, with printed spine label. "The Second Edition," which consisted of 1500 copies, issued later in the same year as the 750-copy first printing. This narrative poem in six cantos, with the action taking place in mid-16th-Century Scotland, is quite "early Scott": in the exhaustive Todd & Bowden bibliography, this is the 14th of 259 titles, and it would be 1814 before Scott would venture into prose fiction -- first with WAVERLEY, followed by such titles as ROB ROY, IVANHOE, KENILWORTH and QUENTIN DURWARD. Remarkably, this copy is still in the original blue paper-covered boards, the endpapers are original, and the leaves are still uncut; however the spine and label -- though period-style -- are later (but not at all recent). Condition is… Read More

1822. By the Author of "Waverley, Kenilworth," &c. Edinburgh: printed for Archibald Constable and Co.; and Hurst, Robinson, and Co., London, 1822. Original drab paper-covered boards and spines, with printed labels. First Edition, published actually in December 1821. Scott had visited the Orkney and Shetland Islands in 1814, as a Northern Lighthouse Commissioner -- and there heard the tale of the "Orkney Pirate" John Gow of about a century earlier: pursued by authorities, Gow had returned to his native Orkneys and laid low for awhile, in the process courting a local lass who did not know who he really was. "THE PIRATE was an immediate success and remained one of Scott's most popular and most reprinted works throughout the nineteenth century" [Scott site]. As Todd & Bowden note, some copies were printed in Edinburgh and some in London (though the London printers are not noted as such in the volumes), due to the large numbers of advance orders for this romance; since the book was "an immediate… Read More

1877. [the tale of a horse, BY a horse] London: Jarrold and Sons, n.d.[1877]. 8 pp undated ads. Original green cloth decorated in black and gilt. First Edition of this classic tale, told in the first person by Black Beauty himself. He encounters masters both kind and cruel, and as a result the book came to be seen as the UNCLE TOM'S CABIN for animals' rights -- in fact, the first American edition, which came out thirteen years later, was published by the American Humane Society. The tale has been filmed numerous times, beginning in 1910 and continuing in 1946, 1971 and 1994. Anna Sewell (1820-1878)... had been crippled by a leg-injury since she was fourteen years of age [resulting in her constant need for horse-drawn carriages], and by the time she came to write BLACK BEAUTY [from 1871 until 1877], her one and only book, she was bedridden [and in declining health: she dictated most of the tale to her mother and, at the end too weak of voice for that, wrote on little slips of paper which her mother… Read More

1899. London: Grant Richards, 1899. 2 pp undated ads plus 12 pp ads dated 1899. Original purple cloth. First Edition of this largely autobiographical novel, documenting the tension between the protagonist's poetic self and his bourgeois parents. Sharp had grown up in the Scottish Highlands, where at an early stage he acquired a vein of mystic pantheism. His family kept trying to guide him along conventional paths, such as that of an attorney's clerk in Glasgow and a bank clerk in London, but he kept seeking to write poetry and to roam about the mystical forests. Ultimately (beginning a few years before SILENCE FARM was published), Sharp began writing his more poetic or romantic works under the pseudonym "Fiona Macleod"; it is widely surmised that after the turn of the century "Fiona" was no longer simply a pseudonym but rather had become a separate personality, a sexual alter-ego, within Sharp. SILENCE FARM is sought as the book that best conveys Sharp's own telling of the boyhood that resulted in… Read More

1901. Text on one side of a post card imprinted with the address "10, Adelphi Terrace, W.C." Dated by hand "11th January 1901". Address on other side also written by Shaw (The Anglo-Saxon Review | 35 Great Cumberland Place W., altered by someone else to 127, Cambridge St. | Warwick Sq. S.W.) The text of this card reads as follows: I am afraid I shall not be able to manage it this quarter. There is a forest of belated work to be cut through just now. Don't depend on me. [signed] G. Bernard Shaw. This correspondence has to do with The Anglo-Saxon Review -- a short-lived "quarterly miscellany," created and edited by Lady Randolph Churchill (her son Winston served as an advisor), published by John Lane in handsome leather-bound volumes with elaborate gilt tooling. The new periodical sent out an appeal for original material to many prominent British and American authors; contributors included Henry James, Winston Churchill, George Gissing, Stephen Crane -- and George Bernard Shaw. The subscription list… Read More

1921. A Metabiological Pentateuch. London: Constable and Company, 1921. Original olive green cloth, with dust jacket. First English Edition of one of Shaw's best-known plays, beginning in the Garden of Eden and culminating in A.D. 31,920 ("as far as thought can reach"). Brentano's edition in New York was issued about three weeks earlier. This is a fine copy in an unsoiled, near-fine jacket (a couple of short tears at the end of folds). Laurence A161b.

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.

1822. [in original boards] London: Printed and Published by R. Carlile, 1822. Original drab paper-covered boards. First Published Edition, second issue -- which is to say, the sheets of William Clark's 1821 pirated edition, with the 1822 cancel title leaf of radical publisher Richard Carlile. "Queen Mab, a Philosophical Poem [in Nine Cantos] with [Seventeen] Notes" -- Shelley's first major poetic work -- was first privately-printed in 1813. Since it was a radical and revolutionary vision of a utopian world (from an atheistic viewpoint), Shelley never intended it to go beyond his friends. But in 1821 a stash of the undistributed sheets was discovered by London bookseller William Clark, and the result was an 1821 pirated edition (with the help of the infamous book pirate Thomas Moses, whose monogram also appears here on the final page of text). Shelley tried to suppress this Clark/Moses edition, but was unsuccessful because the courts ruled that "books liable to conviction for blasphemy or sedition… Read More

New York: The Macmillan Company, 1934. Original black cloth lettered in gilt, with dust jacket. First Edition of this book-length ballad for which (per the preliminary "Acknowledgement") "The author's thanks and acknowledgements are gratefully tendered to John Steinbeck, author of "Cup of Gold," for his generous permission to use certain incidents from that novel." Berton goes on to quote in full a brief letter from Steinbeck giving that permission, saying "Please feel free to use what you wish of my work, subconsciously or consciously...". In this copy Berton Braley added to Steinbeck's printed letter, in ink, "With the further and personal thanks of [signed] Berton Braley." The front paste-down of this copy bears the ink-stamp "THIS BOOK BELONGS | TO CAROL AND | JOHN STEINBECK". Thus this copy must have been the one Braley sent to Steinbeck, with his "further and personal thanks" for permission to borrow from CUP OF GOLD. This volume's condition is very good-plus, with some wear at the head of the… Read More

1893. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1893. Original tan cloth decorated in brown and black. First Edition, published five days before the English one. This collection consists of "The Beach at Falesa," "The Bottle Imp" and "The Isle of Voices"; the middle one is one of Stevenson's weirdest tales -- a supernatural blend of Aladdin's lamp, the monkey's paw, and a game of hot potato. Included are 26 illustrations. This is a very good-plus copy of this busily-decorated volume, with scarcely any wear but (as usual for this cloth) the spine is sunned. This American edition is not at all common: we see at least five English copies for every American one. Beinecke 575; Princeton 53. Provenance: armorial bookplate of Gilbert Burgess, who was a literary and dramatic critic for London Sketch, perhaps best-known for his interviews with Oscar Wilde.

1890. An Open Letter to the Reverend Doctor Hyde of Honolulu. London: Chatto and Windus, 1890. Original brown wrappers. First Trade Edition, consisting of 1,000 copies (preceded only by 25 copies issued in Sydney and 30 issued in Edinburgh). On the Stevensons' voyage to the South Pacific they had visited the leper colony on Molokai, founded by Dr. Damien (who had himself died of leprosy the year before they arrived). A missionary named Hyde wrote a letter denouncing Damien; this piece is Stevenson's open (and irate) reply to Hyde. It was first published (25 copies) when the Stevenson party arrived in Sydney; Stevenson boasted of it as being blatantly libellous. This is a very good copy of this fragile piece (a few wrapper corners chipped away, some wear to the fragile spine). Beinecke 510; Princeton 44B.

1879. Crane, Walter. [inscribed by Stevenson's mother] London: C. Kegan Paul & Co., 1879. 1 page preliminary undated ads. Original green-blue cloth pictorially decorated in gilt, beveled. First Edition, first printing, which consisted of only 750 copies. This was Stevenson's third book, following AN INLAND VOYAGE and EDINBURGH PICTURESQUE NOTES; like the former two, this is something of a travelogue, describing his 1878 walking tour in the Cévennes region of southern France. Stevenson took this trip just after the woman he loved (and eventually would marry) left the Continent with her two children to rejoin her husband in San Francisco. For this trip the forlorn Stevenson found solace with another female -- Modestine the donkey. As with AN INLAND VOYAGE, included is a frontispiece by Walter Crane. This volume is in very good condition, with minor wear at the extremities, and (as usual) with some cracking of the original delicate brown-coated endpapers; the volume does remain tight, even though it… Read More

1896. London: Chatto and Windus, 1896. 32 pp ads dated Mar 1896. Original very dark blue cloth, beveled. First Edition of Stevenson's last fiction, left unfinished at his death. Stevenson began writing this book in 1892 (he called it THE JUSTICE-CLERK), but kept putting it aside to write others -- notably THE EBB-TIDE. "'He wrote [WEIR OF HERMISTON] hard all that morning of the last day,' Lloyd Osbourne wrote of the day Stevenson died, 3 December 1894" [Swearingen]. This is a just-about-fine copy, with scarcely any wear. Beinecke 629; Princeton 62A.

1885. [a handsome copy] London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1885. Original blue cloth, beveled. First Edition, first printing (which consisted of 1000 copies). Stevenson began writing these verses as early as 1881: supposedly after perusing through Kate Greenaway's BIRTHDAY BOOK FOR CHILDREN, he observed "These are rather nice rhymes, and I don't think they will be difficult to do," and then proceeded to try his hand at them. It is hard to believe that the author of DR JEKYLL AND MR HYDE and THE BODY-SNATCHER also wrote these sprightly juvenile rhymes, voiced as if by a child. The book is dedicated to Alison Cunningham, "Cummy," his childhood nurse-maid. The spine lettering of this copy is the less-encountered variant (no known precedence): the apostrophe is NOT shaped like the digit "7", and the word "OF" is in a smaller font than the word "A". The top edge of the pages is gilded, with the other edges uncut, which is the usual primary state. Inside, this copy does NOT have the ink-stamp "Printed in… Read More

1879. Crane, Walter. Second Edition. London: C. Kegan Paul & Co., 1879. 1 page preliminary undated ads. Original green-blue cloth pictorially decorated in gilt, beveled. First Edition, second printing, of Stevenson's third book, following AN INLAND VOYAGE and EDINBURGH PICTURESQUE NOTES; like the former two, this is something of a travelogue, describing his 1878 walking tour in the Cevennes region of southern France. Stevenson took this trip just after the woman he loved (and eventually would marry) left the Continent with her two children to rejoin her husband in San Francisco. For this trip the forlorn Stevenson collaborated with another female, named Modestine -- a donkey. As with AN INLAND VOYAGE, included is a frontispiece by Walter Crane. This second printing reads "Second Edition" both at the foot of the spine and on the title page; otherwise it is essentially the same as the first (which consisted of only 750 copies). There was also a third printing, still reading "Second Edition" on its… Read More

1895. A Melodramatic Farce in Three Acts. In: [two issues of] The Chap-Book Semi-Monthly. Chicago: Stone and Kimball, June 1 & June 15, 1895. Original cream wrappers printed in red and black.. First Trade Appearance (? -- a London appearance came out the same month). The play "Robert Macaire" had been performed in England since 1835, and before that had been performed in France as early as 1823. Stevenson and Henley adapted it in late 1884, and the true first edition of their adaptation was an 1885 London publication "for private circulation only," that requested copies be returned to Henley. On May 27, 1895, S&K filed two copies (as required) at the Library of Congress, and in June it appeared serially both in The New Review (London, published by Heinemann and edited by Henley), and in these "Chap Book"s of Stone & Kimball (these publications appear to have been coordinated between the two publishers, as Heinemann's publication refers to the Library of Congress filing). Soon thereafter, Heinemann… Read More

1887. London: Chatto and Windus, 1887. Original very dark blue cloth, beveled. First Edition of these "memories of childhood and youth, portraits of those who have gone before us in the battle." The edition is believed to have consisted of 2000 copies. A near-fine copy (cloth worn at the top of the front joint). Beinecke 454; Princeton 36.

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