Search Results: Titles starting with C from Sumner & Stillman

1890. Translated from the French by A. Estoclet. Illustrated by George Roux. New York: Cassell Publishing Company, n.d. [1890]. Original light blue cloth pictorially decorated in black. First American Edition (also the first edition in English). Quoting from a contemporary review (cited in T&M) -- Like most of M. Jules Verne's books, it is the story of a journey. Some acrobats wish to travel from California to their native France, and having no money they determine to go in their caravan northward to Bering's Straits, crossing on the ice, and make their way through Siberia into Europe. M. Jules Verne's travellers are generally successful: in spite of robbers, icebergs, and the Russian police, the bold Frenchmen triumphantly reach their goal. Pictured on the front cover is the troupe with their horse-drawn wagon climbing into the Sierras, while the spine shows one of them fleeing a grizzly bear. This undated American edition (CAESAR) was published sometime in the autumn of 1890, probably late… Read More

1870. With Illustrations. London: Macmillan and Co., 1870. 44 pp ads dated January 1870. Original green cloth decorated in gilt. First Edition of this historical novel, loosely based upon King Henry V of England and his "caged lion," James I of Scotland. This is a very good copy, perhaps near-fine, slightly rubbed at the binding extremities. Not in Wolff, but #9 in his original collection donated to Harvard.

1930. London: William Heinemann, (1930). Original blue cloth, with dust jacket. First Edition of perhaps his best novel, a witty and delicious comedy of literary England in the early decades of the 20th century, told in the first person by a novelist, Ashenden. The pushing and self-advertising novelist Alroy Kear wants to get at the details of the early life of Edward Driffield, an eminent novelist whose biography Kear has been commissioned to write. Ashenden had known Driffield and his first wife Rosie, a barmaid; Rosie, the skeleton in the cupboard of Driffield's life, is Kear's stumbling block -- he is not honest enough to be given the facts that Ashenden gives the reader. Rosie is a wonderful character -- affectionate, amoral, and generous. The narrator is obviously Maugham but he denied what so many readers were quick to conclude: that Alroy Kear was founded on Hugh Walpole and Edward Driffield on Thomas Hardy. [CGEL] This copy lacks the "t" of "won't" on line 14 of p. 147, which is often… Read More

1889. May 31, 1889. Notes, Addresses, Letters, Telegrams. Edited by Horace L. Traubel. Philadelphia: David McKay, 1889. Original maroon cloth. First Edition of this group of writings, by Whitman and others, upon the occasion of the "Complimentary Dinner" held in his honor in Camden on May 31, 1889 -- his 70th birthday (he would have only two more). The three Whitman pieces making their first appearance here are his own lengthy "Autobiographic Note" (page 4), his brief response at the dinner (page 5), and Whitman's own advertisement for his books (complete with mailing address for sending funds "to W.W.'s order" (page 74). Quoting about half of his response: My friends, though announc'd to give an address, there is no such intention... I have obeyed the command to come and look at you, for a minute, and show myself; which is probably the best I can do... All I have felt the imperative conviction to say I have already printed in my books of poems or prose... And so, hail and farewell. Deeply… Read More

1889. [a Henty rarity] By Archibald Forbes, George Henty and Charles Williams. New York: Ward, Lock and Co., 1889. Printed light brown wrappers. First Edition (American issue) of "probably the rarest of all Henty items" (quote from Sotheby's, February 1972, when the last copy appeared at auction -- it sold for 380 pounds, or about $1,000). When Farmer did his account of Henty books decades ago, he noted that "We have been unable to secure a copy of this book, nor personally to inspect one. The British Museum copy was destroyed in the bombing of London." (Farmer ultimately gleaned information from a rebound copy in Scotland.) According to Henty's own copy (now at the Lilly Library), Henty wrote the Introduction plus four of the ten tales: "A Passing Face," "Faithful to the Death," "Turning the Tables" and "Out with the Redshirts." (Henty is also believed to have written the brief interludes that connect the ten tales.) One reason CAMPS AND QUARTERS is so sought-after, in addition to its inherent… Read More

1865. [the E.R. Hoar / Doheny copy] Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1865. 24 pp ads dated Dec 1864. Original blind-stamped purple cloth with gilt-decorated spine. First Edition, first printing, which consisted of only 2,000 or 2,040 copies (of which some were sent to England to be issued with a cancel title page) -- printed in December 1864, but not actually published until late March 1865. Edited by the younger William Ellery Channing and by Thoreau's sister Sophia, this was the fifth Thoreau book, preceded by A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS, WALDEN, and the posthumous EXCURSIONS and THE MAINE WOODS. There were four different bindings used (differing in blind-stamping and in "author of" spine verbiage), and in seven different colors and grains of cloth -- without known priority; this copy is in Blanck's "binding A," and is in purple "Z" (triangular-grain) cloth. This is a bright, near-fine copy (a trace of wear at the spine ends); the spine has generally browned -- as is typical for this… Read More

1897. New York: The Century Co., 1897. Original light green cloth decorated in black, orange and gilt. First Edition, which according to the Richards bibliography preceded the London edition by about a month. This is Kipling's great novel about the cod fishing fleet of Gloucester Massachusetts, written while the newlywed Kiplings lived in Vermont. Kipling freely acknowledged that the book owed much to Dr. James Conland of Brattleboro, who brought the Kiplings' elder daughter into the world -- for Conland had been a member of the Massachusetts fishing fleet, and it was he who took Kipling to explore the wharves and quays of Boston and Gloucester. (This American edition, in fact, is dedicated to Conland; the English edition bears no dedication.) This is the only book of Kipling's which is set entirely in America. All the characters are American. Not only that, but the heart of the book -- its moral in a single sentence -- is one of Kipling's main beliefs of this period expressed in terms essentially… Read More

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.

1930. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1930. Original green cloth, with dust jacket. First Edition of this tale of mystery and adventure, published a month before the American. As Buchan points out in a brief prefatory note, this tale contains further exploits of Dickson McCunn and several other characters whom he had introduced in HUNTINGTOWER (1922); there would be one more Dickson McCunn novel, THE HOUSE OF THE FOUR WINDS, in 1935. This is a near-fine copy; the attractive pictorial dust jacket is just about near-fine, with quite minor soil and edge-wear. Blanchard A87.

1847. London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1847. 4+32+1 pp Vol I ads dated January 1847. Original drab boards with purple ribbed cloth spines and printed spine labels, title pages printed in black and red. First Edition of this supernatural tale about the goings-on in a haunted castle -- with the opening line (borrowing from a notorious 1830 Bulwer-Lytton novel) "It was an awfully dark and tempestuous night...". James (1800-1860) trained for medicine but became a prolific novelist after meeting Sir Walter Scott; James's 40 three-volume novels, most of them historical, exceeded the number written by Scott himself. In 1845 he and his family made a planned short visit to Germany so that he could do research for a novel, but two of the children's illness detained them there for a year, where he wrote two tales including this one. (In 1850 James and his family moved to Massachusetts; two years later, he was appointed British Consul in Norfolk, where over the next seven years his health suffered from the climate… Read More

1860. [one of Trollope's scarcest] London: Chapman & Hall, 1860. Original blind-stamped dark green cloth. First Edition of this novel sited in Ireland, during the famine of 1846-1847. The author later wrote of it in his autobiography, This novel... is of itself a weak production. The characters do not excite sympathy. The heroine has two lovers, one of whom is a scamp and the other a prig... Trollope had begun writing it when George Smith (of Smith Elder) asked for an English tale to serialize in the new Cornhill Magazine, so the author laid it aside while he wrote FRAMLEY PARSONAGE. When he then returned to finish it, the publisher must have been in a great hurry to get it to press, as evidenced by the sloppy editing. CASTLE RICHMOND has two distinct issues -- a first issue with many misprints (some 43 of which Sadleir identifies), with an ad catalogue dated February 1860, and a second issue with the errors corrected, with an ad catalogue dated May 1860 (the month in which the book was actually… Read More

1955. (New York:) A New Directions Book, (1955). Original light brown cloth lettered in black, with dust jacket. First Edition, first issue, of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play about a dying southern patriarch, Big Daddy Pollitt, and the greed of his would-be heirs -- spiced up by the presence of Maggie the Cat. In March 1955 the play, directed by Elia Kazan, opened starring Barbara Bel Geddes, Ben Gazzara and Burl Ives; three years later came the film (minus the homosexual overtones due to the Hays Code) -- starring Elizabeth Taylor, Paul Newman and Burl Ives (for which the latter won an Oscar). This copy is of the first state, without mention of The New York Times on the copyright page and without mention of Lucinda Ballard and Joseph Mielzinger on p. xii. The volume is in fine, clean condition, and the $3.00-priced jacket is close to fine as well (just a little rubbing at the top of its spine).

1948. Nicoll, Gordon. A Romance. London: William Heinemann, (1948). Original red cloth lettered in silver, with dust jacket. First Edition of Maugham's last novel, published two months before the American one. Set in Spain during the Inquisition, it told of a crippled girl to whom the Blessed Virgin appears in a vision. She will be healed by one of three brothers, the one who has best served God. One brother is a bishop, another is a soldier, and the third is a baker. It comes as no surprise that the humble panadero succeeds in healing the girl... In the slackness of the writing, the descent into cliche, and the contrived plot devices, CATALINA betrayed Maugham's declining powers... [It] was a feeble book with which to end a fifty-year career as a novelist. [Morgan] This copy has its lettering in silver (the publisher started out using silver but finding it unsatisfactory switched to imitation gold -- "both variations were delivered to the bookshops simultaneously"). It is a fine, bright copy; the… Read More

1893. Yeats, Jack B.. With a Frontispiece by Jack B. Yeats. London: Lawrence and Bullen, 1893. 1 page preliminary undated ads. Original pea green cloth. First Edition of this very early work by Yeats (his fifth), a volume of Irish country tales often with supernatural aspects -- Yeats's "most creative attempt to render his folklore materials with precision" [Hirsch]; in a 1902 edition it would be substantially enlarged. On the spine of this copy, the publisher's name is in capital and lower-case letters, where on some copies it is printed all in capitals; it is not certain if either binding was precedent, but it is generally agreed that if either came earlier, it was the all-capitals binding. This is a near-fine copy, with very minor rubbing at the extremities and minor cracking of the endpapers. Wade 8.

1914. Garden City NY: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1914. Original navy blue cloth decorated in gilt. First American Edition, fifth and last 1914 impression (NOT so identified -- but per Supino and per Cagle, the fifth has no border around the title page, and its half-title does bear the ship device). This was the work that revived Conrad's fortunes, hitting it big after almost a decade of underwhelming reception by the public. The volume's condition is just about fine (a trace of rubbing at the corner tips). See Supino A17.14.0 note, and Cagle 17b(2). Provenance: the front free endpaper and half-title bear the personal blind-stamp of American author Zane Grey -- indicating a volume that came from his estate.

1913. Concluding with The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid. New York and London: Harper & Brothers, (1913). Original dark green cloth with monogram device in gilt. First (American) Edition, published simultaneously with the English one. To quote from Hardy's prefatory note, this is a collection of "for what they may be worth, a dozen minor novels" that had previously appeared only in periodicals -- between 1881 and 1900, before Hardy had forsaken fiction for verse. It constitutes Hardy's last major volume of prose. The American edition, which in our experience is scarcer than the English one, has as a frontispiece a Reinhart illustration from "The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid," where the English edition has a photogravure of Maiden Castle. This is a fine, bright copy (very faint discoloration on the rear cover). Purdy pp 156-7.

1898. London: Blackie & Son, 1898. 1 preliminary page undated ads. Original deep red cloth. First Edition, being a volume in the publisher's "Victorian Era Series." In late 1896 Gissing was invited, by his old college friend John Holland Rose, to contribute a monograph on Dickens for a new series of volumes to be published by the Glasgow publisher Blackie & Son (Rose was to be general editor of the series). Gissing readily accepted, and spent much of the first half of 1897 re-reading Dickens novels; in July Blackie announced the series, and shortly thereafter Gissing left his second wife for good, fleeing to Italy where he actually wrote CHARLES DICKENS (published in February 1898). This copy is in the primary state, with the publisher's name at the foot of the spine and with the preliminary ad leaf listing on the recto four titles (including this one) as "Ready", and on the verso eight titles "In preparation." (Later states have no publisher's imprint on the spine, and have either of two later… Read More

1908. Private Correspondence. Edited by George Pierce Baker. Boston: The Bibliophile Society, 1908. Original grey paper boards with parchment spine and corners, in original two-piece slipcase with spine label. First Edition, limited to 493 copies for Bibliophile Society members only (preceding the so-called "Bixby Edition" of the same year). Maria Beadnell, the first love of the young Charles Dickens during the years 1830-1833 (her father prevented the match), became the model for Dora in DAVID COPPERFIELD; in 1855 she contacted him and they secretly met without their spouses, but Dickens, surprised at how much she had changed, subsequently based the less-than-flattering Flora Finching of LITTLE DORRIT upon her. This is an as-new copy, in the original two-part slipcase (which has some wear at one corner). Podeschi D164.

1909. Illustrated. London: Grant Richards, (1909). Original dark blue cloth pictorially decorated in ochre, yellow and light blue. First British Edition, and first edition in English. This is a tale of a meteor's close brush with Earth, with the main events taking place in Virginia. The story had first appeared in a French daily journal in March-April 1908 -- three years after Verne's death. Despite the date 1909 on the title verso, this book was actually published in November 1908. Though sited in America, the book was not published in the United States. This is a handsome volume, with one of the 24 Roux plates reproduced upon the decorative front cover. This copy is nearly fine (front endpaper cracked, one tiny nick in the spine head, light foxing throughout on this thick wove paper). Taves & Michaluk V060; Myers 9.

1898. A Tale of the Forecastle. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1898. Original pictorial light blue-grey mottled cloth. First Edition, second issue -- with the date 1898 (rather than 1897) on the front of the title leaf. (Note: ALL copies without a date on the front of the title leaf are merely reprints.) In late 1897, Dodd Mead had a first edition of 1000 copies printed; because the book was scheduled for publication late in the fall season, the printers were instructed to print both 1897 and 1898 title pages. The number printed with each date is not recorded... It was re-introduced in the spring and listed in Publisher's Weekly on March 12th among the spring publications... Copies of the spring issue were supplied with the 1898 title page. [Cagle] This tale was subsequently published as THE NIGGER OF THE "NARCISSUS." Conrad wrote this story with the "Nigger" title, but consented to change the title for the American edition (which preceded the English); the publisher's argument was not that the… Read More