Search Results: Authors starting with T from The Manhattan Rare Book Company

Seattle: Edward Curtis, 1913. First edition. nb. Very Good. STUNNING GOLD-TONED SILVER PRINT OF RABINDRANATH TAGORE BY EDWARD CURTIS, SIGNED BY BOTH TAGORE AND CURTIS. An outstanding union of photographer and subject: Edward Curtis, one of America's most sensitive and accomplished portrait photographers, and Rabindranath Tagore, the great Bengali poet, composer, playwright, and painter, "generally regarded as the outstanding creative artist of early 20th-century India." Edward Curtis, known primarily for his lifelong project to document and preserve the traditions of Native Americans through photography, became a master at representing people who were unlike himself. Striving for more than a just a flat visual record, he tried (in his own words), to take "a picture that will show the soul of the people". Through his creative composition and innovative photographic techniques, Curtis helped his subjects come alive in the images. In fact, "frequently Curtis's human subjects are so powerfully… Read More

Venice: Venturino Ruffinelli, 1546. First edition. vellum. Very Good. FIRST EDITION OF TARTAGLIA'S MOST IMPORTANT CONTRIBUTION TO MATHEMATICS, INCLUDING HIS RULE FOR SOLVING CUBIC EQUATIONS. "The 'mathematical practitioners' of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries seem to be acquiring an important role in histories which deal with the origins of the Scientific Revolution... Those who are fascinated by questions of origins in the history of science and technology find themselves driven more and more to investigate the sudden appearance, as it still seems, of this relatively large and active group. Among the first generation of these practitioners, few made a greater mark than Niccoló Tartaglia, whose works were translated into all the major European tongues, and whose influence in applied mathematics continued perceptibly for more than a century" (A.G. Keller, "Mathematics at Work: Niccoló Tartaglia, Quesiti et Inventioni Diverse"). Tartaglia's Quesiti, includes, without exaggeration, what… Read More

New York: n.p., 1896. First edition. Fine. STUNNING LARGE HISTORIC PHOTOGRAPH OF TESLA, SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY TESLA TO EDWARD EVERETT BARLETT. Albumen print, signed and inscribed by Tesla on the original gray mount: "To my friend E. E. Bartlett, New York, June 9, 1896, Nikola Tesla." The photograph shows Tesla in profile seated before the spiral coil of his high-voltage transformer at his East Houston St., New York, laboratory. The photograph, in addition to being arguably the most famous and dramatic portrait of Tesla, is scientifically significant, for it served as a demonstration of the power of his new technique of providing illumination with vacuum tubes. A reproduction of the photograph appeared in the May 20, 1896 issue of Electrical Review, alongside an article where a reporter interviewed Tesla about the novel circumstances of the creation of this photo: "As to his continuous efforts to improve his system of lighting by vacuum tubes, with which he has been identified during a number… Read More

San Francisco, 1966. First edition. Very Good. One-of-a-Kind Beatles Images Portend the End of an Era. This original contact sheet of rare 1966 images of The Beatles was discovered by artist, photographer, musician, and Beatles enthusiast Dave Seabury at a garage sale near San Francisco in the late 1980s. These photos, which we have on offer, were taken at the Fab Four's final concert at Candlestick Park on August 29, 1966. The story of how these images were discovered is almost as fascinating as the images themselves. Seabury frequented garage sales for years inquiring about Grateful Dead or Beatles photos and never had any luck. On one fateful day the seller said, "Yeah, there are some Beatles pictures in that box over there." (Marks) In the box Seabury found a contact sheet with 73 black-and-white images of The Beatles taken by someone who clearly had privileged access to the band. The photos were close-up and deeply moving, however there was no date on the photos and no photographer stamp.… Read More

Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin and Company, 1906. First edition, manuscript edition. Very Good. COMPLETE EDITION OF THOREAU'S WORKS WITH TWO-PAGE MANUSCRIPT LEAF IN THOREAU'S HAND. IN ORIGINAL LEATHER BINDINGS. In 1906, Thoreau's complete writings were published by Houghton Mifflin in a unique "Manuscript Edition". The first volume in each set contains an original leaf from Thoreau's autograph manuscript mounted and tipped-in before the title page and frontispiece. What also sets this edition apart from previous collections of Thoreau's writings is that it contains his entire Journal in fourteen volumes which had recently been edited and published by Bradford Torrey. The present manuscript leaf appears to be a draft from his Journal entries of October 1858 at Walden, for a section titled "The Colors of the Oaks". Thoreau describes the autumnal changes in foliage, noting how the leaves of various white and black oaks are fading or deepening in hue. "Many leaves of the small white oaks have… Read More

Boston; Boston and New York: Ticknor & Fields; Houghton Mifflin and Company, 1906. First edition. Original cloth. Very Good. FIRST EDITION OF A SEMINAL WORK OF AMERICAN LITERATURE WITH MANUSCRIPT LEAF FROM THOREAU'S MEMOIRS. First published in a run of two-thousand copies in Thoreau's native Massachusetts, Walden; Or, Life in the Woods (1854) synthesises the thematic core of the Transcendentalist movement: a simple life with immediate connection to the natural world. During the second quarter of the nineteenth century, Thoreau cloistered himself in a cabin built by himself within the acreage of Ralph Waldo Emerson's woodland in Concord, Massachusetts. From this isolated sojourn emerged Thoreau's most prolific work, which encapsulates his ideas on self-reliance and humankind's relationship with nature. "If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer," writes Thoreau, continuing, "Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far… Read More

Oxford: np, 1953. First edition. custom folder. Very Good. EIGHT MONTHS BEFORE PUBLICATION, TOLKIEN ANXIOUSLY INTRODUCES HIS MASTERPIECE, THE LORD OF THE RINGS, TO A FAN OF THE HOBBIT. Tolkien had begun work on The Lord of the Rings in December of 1937 and by early 1950, after over twelve years of labor, the writing was essentially complete. The road to publication, however, was not an easy one, for Tolkien feared his book would have difficulty finding an audience. In February, 1950, he wrote about his concerns to his publisher (Allen & Unwin): "My work has escaped from my control and I have produced a monster: an immensely long, complex, rather bitter, and rather terrifying romance, quite unfit for children (if fit for anybody)." (Carpenter, 213). Tolkien's admission that he had produced a "monster" turned out to be prescient, for seeing the book through publication proved to be a challenge for both him and his publisher and three years after completion, the first volume (The Fellowship of the… Read More

Oxford: n.p., 1964. First edition. Very Good. - A MAJOR TOLKIEN AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT ON THE CENTRAL THEMES OF HIS WORK AND CONTAINING A VARIANT HISTORY OF THE FIRST AGE; LIKELY THE MOST SIGNIFICANT MANUSCRIPT IN PRIVATE HANDS - A VISUALLY STUNNING HAND-DRAWN CHART, "KINSHIP OF THE HALF-ELVEN," TRACING THE GENEALOGY FROM FËANOR TO ELROND, ARWEN, AND ARAGORN - A LONG, REVEALING LETTER TO EILEEN ELGAR PRESENTING THE MANUSCRIPTS, REFLECTING ON THE RECENT DEATH OF C.S. LEWIS AND DISCUSSING LITERATURE AND WRITING, INCLUDING A DETAILED ANALYSIS OF HIS MIDDLE-EARTH POEM "FASTITOCALON". "Concerning 'The Hoard'" Manuscript: Responding to Eileen Elgar's letter about the meaning of Tolkien's poem "The Hoard," Tolkien here pens what he calls "a long screed" discussing the poem's themes and its relationship to his writing. Only recently published in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Other Verses from the Red Book (1962), "The Hoard" was a bardic poem telling of an ancient elven hoard successively claimed… Read More

Oxford: np, 1954. First edition. custom folder. Very Good. A REMARKABLY REVEALING LETTER: TOLKIEN DISCUSSES HIS SPECIFIC FEARS ABOUT THE TWO TOWERS AND DEFINES "THE FOUNDATION" OF THE LORD OF THE RINGS AND CONNECTS IT TO HIS LIFE'S WORK. The Fellowship of the Ring (the first volume of The Lord of the Rings trilogy) was published on July 29, 1954. There were a number of rave reviews (mostly notably from Tolkien's friend C.S. Lewis) but there were also enough harsh or critical assessments (particularly the reviews in the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Times) to concern Tolkien and make him anxious about the reception of the second volume, The Two Towers. Professional reviews were one worry, but Tolkien always seemed even more eager to discover if his works connected with "regular" readers as well. One such reader whose opinion he held in high regards, was one of his early supporters, Miss F.L. Perry, whom he had corresponded with earlier about The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring. The present letter… Read More

Paris: Chaix. Very Good. ONE OF TOULOUSE-LAUTREC'S MOST FAMOUS LITHOGRAPHS. "This famous poster advertising Le Jardin de Paris shows the high-kicking performance of the dynamic Jane Avril in the quadrille naturaliste, framed by the staff of the orchestra's bass fiddle. Vaucaire described the dance in the August 1, 1886, Paris Illustré as 'that wonderful, insolent joke in which two women advanced side by side, each balancing on one foot while keeping the other at the level of the spectators' eyes. They wore silk stockings and cambric and lace drawers, with much swishing of pretty petticoats'" (Donson and Griepp, Great Lithographs by Toulouse-Lautrec). From the Les Maitres de L'Affiche (Masters of the Poster) series, plate 110. "The Masters of the Poster, first published in Paris from 1895 to 1900, is the most famous compilation ever made of the art of the great age of the poster-an art whose new graphic sophistication captured the ebullience of Paris… Read More

Vancouver, CA: np, 1895. First edition. Matted and framed. Very Good. LONG HISTORICALLY IMPORTANT SIGNED LETTER WRITTEN BY S.L. CLEMENS (A.K.A. MARK TWAIN). The impact of the Paige typesetting machine on Mark Twain's life cannot be overstated. Awed by the prospect of the biggest revolution in textual history since the Gutenburg Press, Twain held faith in the machine's potential despite many warning signs, notably persistent breakdowns of Paige's machine and the advent of Linotype. Why did Twain refuse to let go of this dream? "[P]erhaps, in the end, the Paige typesetting machine was simply the best tall tale he'd ever heard," writes critic Ron Powers, arguing that the financial decline in Twain's life resulting from his misjudged investment of his own wealth and his wife Olivia's inheritance (along with a series of personal tragedies including the loss of his wife and two of his daughters in the decade following 1895) correspond directly with a diminution in his characteristic wit and levity… Read More