Search Results: Titles starting with B from Fine Editions Ltd

London: Secker & Warburg, 1957. First UK Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. First Impression of the script for Williams's first original screenplay. Small 8vo: 140pp, with black-and-white stills from the film. Publisher's scarlet V cloth, spine lettered in silver, illustrated dust jacket priced 12s/6d. A Very Fine copy. Crandell A17.I.c. "For a number of years Elia Kazan, the director of several of Tennessee Williams's play on Broadway as well as films, had been urging Mr. Williams to weld into an original film story two of his early one-act plays which were, roughly, concerned with the same characters and situation. And in the summer of 1955, while he was traveling in Europe, Mr. Williams wrote and dispatched to Mr. Kazan a proposed script, quite different from the two short plays. With some changes this was filmed the following winter mainly in the Mississippi rural area which had been the original setting of the two short plays." (from the Publisher's Note). The film, Baby Doll, is the story of a… Read More

New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1933. First Edition. Pictorial Cloth. Fine. First Printing of this scarce cocktail manual, with chapters describing manners and behavior around drinking, as well as chapter descriptions of cocktails, whisky, gin, brandy, Champagne, beer, etc. 8vo (206 x 136mm): [8],140pp. Publisher's art-deco style salmon-pink and glossy blue pictorial boards, fore-edge rough-cut, top edge stained pink, matching pink end papers. Laid in is a charming bookmark ("Nice girls don't swear") cut in the silhouette of a primly dressed debutante. Virtually pristine example (apparently unread), tightly bound, clean and bright throughout, with no visible flaws. Gabler G41270. Whitaker was the Liz Smith of her day (though she may have demurred), a Los Angeles Times gossip columnist with entrée into Holywood society. This witty guide (Whitaker scorns the home bar,"one of the most deplorable customs that won favor during the Prohibition") was was written to reintroduce post-Prohibition Americans to… Read More

London: The Bodley Head, 1972. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. First Impression of the Irish author's second collection, including "A Choice of Butchers" and "O Fat White Woman." 8vo: 269,[1]pp. Publisher's olive-brown boards, spine lettered in gilt, price-clipped illustrated dust jacket. An excellent example (apparently unread) in a virtually pristine jacket. William Trevor was one of the most acclaimed writers in English of the twentieth century, above all in the short story form (he published eleven volumes). "The Ballroom of Romance" shows Trevor's art "at its most characteristic and best. It concerns Bridie, a woman in rural Ireland, a feature of whose monotonous life is the regular dances at the ballroom, places that were once a familiar part of the country. The night in question will be the last, as Bridie realises in a moment of epiphany that the man she has been waiting for can never be hers. . . . Resignation is seen through the eyes of someone ordinary and left behind by life,… Read More

Boston / New York: Benj. R. Tucker / Thomas Crowell, 1899. Card Covers. Fine-. First American Edition (later printing) of this translation of Tolstoy's fictional account of imagined infidelity followed by brutal murder "that amounts to a tendentious diatribe against sexual passion of any kind." (Literary Encyclopedia) Offered with the sequel [epilogue], published in 1899. Sonata: Foolscap 8vo (168 x 116mm): 143,[1,advertisement for The Rag-Picker by Felix Pyat] pp. Publisher's orange card covers stamped in black. A rare survival of the less common wrappers issue, about Fine, tightly bound and clean throughout. Sequel: First separate American edition. Crown 8vo (188 x 125mm): 155-160pp. Tan stapled card covers printed in black. Absolutely pristine and quite scarce. Line 72. After the Russian censors forbade publication of this novella in 1889, at least three mimeographed versions circulated. The New York Times reported from Russia, "The Kreutzer Sonata is copied and recopied from manuscript by… Read More

London: Jonathan Cape, 1952. First Impression. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. A virtually flawless example of the first UK edition of the author's second book, in the stunning red, white, and black wraparound dust jacket, illustrated by Laterka and priced 12s/6d. Fine (and apparently unread) publisher's blue cloth stamped in silver on the spine and upper cover; Fine (hint of rubbing to one end of spine and front flap corners) pictorial jacket. Yet another example of the value to be found in the graphically superior designs of most UK editions of American authors' works (our specialty). N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition, with dust jackets carefully preserved in archival, removable mylar sleeves. All orders are packaged with care and posted promptly. Satisfaction guaranteed. (Fine Editions Ltd is a member of the Independent Online Booksellers Association, and we subscribe to its codes of ethics.).

Chicago: Forbes & Co, 1912. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine-. First Printing of this charming paean to America's pastime, featuring 24 lighthearted and impertinent poems. Small, slim 8vo: 88pp, with baseball-themed spot illustrations from drawings in lower margin of each page. Publisher's pictorial paper-covered boards (showing two hands gripping a baseball bat), mid-brown end papers, pages printed in lime green and black; without the scarce dust jacket. Very minor wear and soiling, but a sound, firmly bound example and clean and bright throughout. From an early review in Baseball Magazine (vol. 9, issue 3, July 1912): "The book contains upward of twenty-five [sic] breezy ballads of the diamond which embrace a widespread field, including many of the leading characters and most stirring events in the recent annals of the game. The book is carefully edited and very artistically illustrated. . . . Whoever spends the price of a seat on the bleachers for this little volume will find himself well rewarded… Read More

Philadelphia: [Theodore Holland], 1888. Pictorial Wrappers. Near Fine+. First edition of this manual, including playing instructions, rules interpretations, and history. (Cover title: Chadwick's baseball manual). Foolscap 8vo (160 x 113mm): 64pp. Original publisher's pictorial wrappers with wraparound color image of a player attempting to steal second base as the catcher attempts to throw him out. Near Fine or better, with slight waviness to wrappers, thin vertical crease to text block, and mild wear at the corners, else a bright copy of this elusive baseball text. Not in Walker or Smith. Grobani 2-6. A revised edition, retitled The American game—Base-ball, according to the national playing rules of 1889 : how it is played, appeared in 1889. Chadwick has been called the "father of baseball," and his guides were aimed at both players and fans. They included lists of players averages, detailed explanations of the rules of the game, and advice for athletes on how best to prepare for the sport. He… Read More

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons [from 1880], 1887. First Edition. Pictorial Cloth. Fine-. Seldom seen Second Printing (no copy appears in auction records) of this cornerstone of baseball literature. Binding and text duplicate the first printing, excepting date on title page and advertisements (eight pages vs. six in first printing). Crown 8vo (178 x 112mm): viii,[2],188,[8]pp, with tissue-guarded wood-engraved frontispiece. Publisher's pictorial green cloth, front cover stamped in gilt and black with gilt vignette of pitcher framed by baseball diamond, spine lettered and decorated with crossed bats in black and gilt vignette of hitter at bat. An excellent example, securely bound (lightly shelf-rubbed) and clean throughout. Grobani 12-2A and McCue, p. 24 (for first edition and 1889 revised edition only). Not in Smith. Originally serialized in St. Nicholas Magazine, from May to October, 1880, then published in book form that same year. Sometimes credited as the first baseball novel, but according to… Read More

New York: Penguin Books, 1977. Stiff Wrappers. Fine. Rare unrevised proof, signed by Burroughs on title-page, of the "first complete and unexpurgated edition" (cover) of this classic novel of addiction. Laid in is the original printed invitation to the publication party at Gotham Book Mart to meet the author. With an Introduction by Allen Ginsberg, recounting his role in the original paperback publication. Small 8vo: xvi,166pp (final published edition was xviii,158pp). Publisher's original printed buff textured wrappers perfectly bound ("Galley: no. 38, Pub. date: 3/77, Price: 1.95t"). A pristine copy, bright, tight, and square copy. From the Donald Kaufmann Collection of Modern Literature, sold at Heritage Auctions, Lot 45345, March 8, 2017. The first complete and unexpurgated edition, originally published as Junkie: Confessions of an Unredeemed Drug Addict (1953) under the pen name William Lee. Publication of Junkie, Burroughs's first book, marked one of the opening salvos of the Beat Generation's… Read More

New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1947. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Near Fine. First Printing of the poet's first book, collecting 42 poems. Demy 8vo (207 x 146mm): vi,[2],55,[1]pp. Publisher's finely woven beige cloth, spine stamped in green, green dust jacket lettered in white, priced $3.50 to bottom corner of back flap, fore-edge untrimmed. Inscribed by Wilbur to front fly-leaf: "To the fine Hines / with love / Dick Wilbur / North Caldwell June 1948." Wilbur won two Pulitzer Prizes as well as the National Book Award. A collectible copy (somewhat shelf-worn jacket with skillful restoration to head and tail of spine panel, not involving lettering or design), tightly bound and clean throughout. The poems in The Beautiful Changes, are often "noted for their exquisite formal grace and technical excellence in rhyme and meter; the poems praise the peculiar kind of beauty that emerges out of wartime ruin, for example in "Potato" and "First Snow in Alsace", and hint at mysteries beyond logic as in… Read More

Leipzig: Karl Baedeker, Publisher, 1905. Cloth. Fine. Fourteenth Edition, revised and augmented. lxx, 474pp, with 15 maps and 30 plans. A superb copy with bright gilt lettering and 2 ribbon page-makers (one loose and laid in); the red flexible cloth covers clean, unfaded, square and tight, the maps properly folded and free of tears. Hinrichsen E193. "The Romantic movement in Germany had given a new impetus to travel . . . In 1828 Baedeker bought the rights to J. A. Klein's Rheinreise von Mainz bis Köln and, after the death of the author, Baedeker himself revised and updated the work, recreating it for a new market. Using his own travel experiences he guided the tourist to the principal attractions in each place, saving travellers the expense of hiring their own guide. He thus created a new type of guidebook, which was widely copied throughout Europe and opened up tourism to a new class of visitor. The reliability of the information was ensured by annual journeys by Baedeker himself and by reference… Read More

Leipzig: Karl Baedeker, Publisher, 1894. Cloth. Fine+. Eleventh Edition, Revised and Augmented. lxii, 423pp, with 13 maps and 21 plans. An exceptionally Fine, virtually pristine, copy, with brilliant gilt lettering, one (of two) woven silk page-makers, and unfaded, richly marbled edges; the red flexible cloth covers unmarked, bright, square and tight, the maps properly folded and free of tears. Hinrichsen E190. "The Romantic movement in Germany had given a new impetus to travel . . . In 1828 Baedeker bought the rights to J. A. Klein's Rheinreise von Mainz bis Köln and, after the death of the author, Baedeker himself revised and updated the work, recreating it for a new market. Using his own travel experiences he guided the tourist to the principal attractions in each place, saving travellers the expense of hiring their own guide. He thus created a new type of guidebook, which was widely copied throughout Europe and opened up tourism to a new class of visitor. The reliability of the information was… Read More

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001. Advance Reader's Copy. Fine. Advance Reader's Copy, boldly signed by the Nobel prize-winning author on the title page. Tall, thick 8vo: [8],421,[1]pp. Identified on front cover as "Advance Reader's Edition" and on back panel as "Uncorrected Proof." Notably, the cover art for this proof was changed for the dust jacket of the hardcover book, making the Advance Reader's Copy especially collectible. Fine and unread. ¶ First published in Turkey, in 1998, as Benim Adim Kirmizi. In sixteenth-century Istanbul, a Sultan commissions a great book and assembles a cadre of miniaturists to illuminate it. The novel interweaves a murder mystery, a love story, and a discourse on painting. Istanbul straddles Europe and Asia, and throughout Pamuk compares and contrasts Turkey with its western and eastern neighbors, staging a conflict between Western individualism and Eastern traditionalism. In presenting the Nobel prize to Pamuk, in 2006, the prize committee paid special attention to… Read More

London: Chapman & Hall, 1860. Decorative Cloth. Near Fine+. Fourth Edition (in format identical to the first) of this chronicle of Trollope's travels through Barbados, the Bermudas, Cuba, Jamaica, New Granada, St. Thomas, and Trinidad, written while he was on post office business in the West Indies. Crown 8vo (196 x 118mm): iv,5-371,[1],32[publishers' catalogue dated February, 1860]pp, with colored folding map frontispiece. Original grained maroon cloth, covers and spine blocked in blind, spine lettered in gold, edges uncut, pale yellow end papers. Binding lightly rubbed, but tightly bound and clean throughout, a collectible copy. Sadleir 9 (incorrectly dating this edition 1861). Terry, pp. 582-84. The first of Trollope's travel books, originally published the previous year. "Trollope sailed for the West Indies on 17 November 1858, his second postal mission . . . He checked postal routes meticulously . . . prescribed economies, and initiated changes. . . . Henceforth travel would become more… Read More

Milano: Published by Electa Editrice, 1955. Fine. Limited Edition, No. 48 of 1000 copies, of Berenson's bibliography of books and articles on the history of art, notably Renaissance Italian painting. Royal 8vo (249 x 174mm): 74 French-folded leaves (printed on one side of the leaf), with four tipped-in facsimiles of holograph letters and other documents. Publisher's melon-colored paper over limp covers, paper title labels printed in black to spine and in red and black to upper cover, title page printed in red and black. Inscribed "affectionately" by Berenson ("B. B.") on front fly-leaf and dated July '55. A superb presentation copy, virtually pristine. Besterman (Art and Architecture), p.180. Besterman (World Bibliographies) I, 740. Lists Berenson's works chronologically through 1955, beginning with The Venetian Painters of the Renaissance, first published in 1894. "Among Berenson's greatest contributions to the field of art were his Italian Renaissance scholarship and his impact on American public… Read More

London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1957. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine-/Near Fine. First Printing, one of only 1,000 copies. Rare Presentation Copy, inscribed by Laurence on front fly-leaf and signed by both Edel and Laurence to the great bibliographer Jacob Blanck, with typed postcard signed from Edel to Blanck laid in and fascinating marginal corrections and comments, presumably in Blanck's hand. 8vo: 411,[1]pp, with frontispiece portrait and 10 photographs and facsimiles. Publisher's deep pink cloth, spine lettered and ruled in gilt, top edge stained matching pink, unclipped typographic dust jacket printed in maroon and black. About Fine (topstain a bit faded); Near Fine jacket with bright front and back panels, tide mark to lower third of spine panel, few nicks and tiny chips to tips and corners, short closed tear to front panel's top edge). An important copy of this limited edition, essential to any James collector, uniquely inscribed. Besterman II 3242. ¶ The inscription, in Laurence's hand, reads:… Read More

New York: Simon & Schuster, 1966. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine-/Fine. First Printing of Doctorow's second novel and scarcest book, never reprinted and later orphaned by the author (his web site makes no mention of this title). 8vo: (6),218pp. Publisher's crimson cloth, spine stamped in gilt, top edge stained crimson, cream-colored typographic jacket printed in red, green, and black and priced $4.95. Signed by Doctorow on title page. About Fine (light soiling to spine and upper cover), square, tight and bright; Fine jacket, quite striking. "[T]wo giant humanoids from another time continuum appear in New York Harbor and, while they pose no immediate threat because of their incredible slowness, the city panics, the social order collapses and a newly formed government agency uses the crisis in ways that hint at totalitarianism. Though of stylistic interest for its vivid evocation of the different language registers of the characters, the novel is weakly structured and its various strands never quite… Read More

Amstelaedami [Amsterdam]: apud H. Westenium, 1692. Early Reprint. Full Calf. Fine. So-called second edition of "by far the most critical edition of Florus that appeared in the seventeenth century." (Dibdin) Edited by the German classical scholar Johann Georg Graevius, with extensive notes by the French classical scholar Claudius Salmasius at the foot of each page. Small, thick 8vo: [22],672,[673-674],561-588,[108],46pp, with engraved title page (by Romeyn de Hooghe) depicting the goddess Roma enthroned and adored by peoples of the world, letterpress title page in red and black with vignette, 29 copper-engraved full-page plates depicting medals and coins, folding table, ornamental borders, and decorative initials. Full contemporary speckled calf, spine richly gilt in five compartments between raised bands, red morocco lettering piece gilt, covers ruled with corner pieces in blind, edges speckled red, plain period end papers with engraved armorial book plate of E[dwarf]. W[iliac]. Steakhouse (Franks… Read More

Paris: The Obelisk Press, 1938. First Printing. Stiff Wrappers. Near Fine+. True First Edition (with error in pagination at pp. 114-118), second issue (with erratum slip tipped onto title page), of Durrell's first significant novel and the first volume in the Villa Seurat Series, founded by Henry Miller, Anaïs Nin, and Lawrence and Nancy Durrell. 8vo (212 x 148mm): [10],11-260,[2]pp. As with all copies, pp. 114-118 were printed out of order (though paginated sequentially), with the correct sequence of text (pp. 114, 117, 115, 116, 118) written in holograph at foot of each affected page). Publisher's pale green heavy wrappers with French flaps (price of 75 Francs neatly blacked out on front flap), front panel with pale pink rectangle and obelisk motif, spine printed in black, bottom edge trimmed, others rough-trimmed. Small bookseller's label to fly-leaf (Librairie Sinfonia, 68, Champs Elysées, Paris). Gentle lightening to spine, light wear to extremities, mild tanning to about a third of page… Read More

London: Victor Gollancz, 1929. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine. First Impression of MacNeice's first book, collecting forty-four poems, written while he was still a student at Oxford. One of 1,000 copies printed. Crown 8vo (185 x 121mm): 80pp. Publisher's black cloth (second-issue binding; first was cream canvas), verdigris green paper spine label printed in black. Neat owner's signature in pencil, dated 1933, to front fly-leaf. Wanting the dust jacket. Fly leaves toned, label rubbed (partially affecting two letters), but an excellent, virtually pristine example. Hayward 342. Armitage & Clark A1 (citing only the black cloth binding). Dedicated to Giovanna Marie Therese Babette Ezra, stepdaughter of an Oxford scholar, who MacNeice married in 1930. "MacNeice's critical reputation has steadily risen in the last two decades. From being regarded as something of a flashy rhetorician, he has come to be seen as one of the major twentieth-century poets writing in English." (Literary Encyclopedia) In the… Read More