Search Results: Titles starting with N from Swan's Fine Books

[Winona]: [Sutton Hoo Press], 2004. Limited Edition. Hardcover. Fine. Jacobsen, Cheryl. One of 13 copies of the deluxe edition, duodecimo size, 64 pp., signed by Philip Levine. Philip Levine (1928-2015) won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1995, the Ruth Lillly Poetry Prize in 1987, and was named the Poet Laureate of the United States for 2011-2012; this publication by the Sutton Hoo Press features a long poem by Levine with calligraphic marks by Cheryl Jacobsen running through each page. This volume is the deluxe edition and comes in a clamshell box. ___DESCRIPTION: This copy one of the special edition of 13 copies lettered in Greek, with a special binding and housed in a black clamshell box made by Judi Conant (out of a total print run of 200 plus artist's proofs). These copies are bound in a lap-component binding with blue leather on the spine and fore-edge and Fabriano Roma, a hand-made cover paper over the boards, decorated endpapers, printed on Johannot, a French mouldmade paper, calligraphic… Read More

St. Helena, California: (James E. Beard), 1965. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. Dean, Mallette. Duodecimo size, 22 pp. A chapter from the "Silverado Squatters" first published in 1883, this version with relief-cut illustrations and initials by Mallette Dean (1907-1975), and a frontis portrait of R.L.S. at the office of the St. Helena Star, 1880, from the collection of Norman H. Strouse. A brief recollection of the fine varieties of Napa wine, written by Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) after he'd moved to the south of France for health reasons. The brief text is ripe with yearning for the wines of Napa Valley and their "inimitable fragrance and soft fire." With a brief historical background in the form of an introduction by American food writer and founder of the Napa Valley Wine Library, M.F.K. Fisher (1908-1992). ___DESCRIPTION: Original quarter olive-green cloth and patterned green and white paper covered boards, title-page spreads over two pages in black and green with frotis portrait and grape-vine… Read More

San Francisco: The Grabhorn Press, 1933. Limited Edition. Hardcover. Near fine. Parker, Arvilla. One of 500 copies, quarto size, 107 pp. Nicholas Dawson (1819-1903), the partly self-educated schoolteacher infected with wanderlust, spent much of his life travelling on foot across America. His wanderings brought him through Missouri, Louisiana, and Arkansas to Mexico, then back to New Orleans; he returned to the West infected with Gold Fever, and then eventually settled in Texas. The original publication of his memoirs is incredibly scarce; this edition was published by the Grabhorn Press, one of the most highly renowned private presses in America during the twentieth century, run by brothers Edwin and Robert Grabhorn. ___DESCRIPTION: Quarter natural linen with brown paper boards, coloured vignette illustration on the front board, black lettering running vertically on the front and back boards, brown paper spine label with black lettering, title page and caption titles printed in red and black, nine… Read More

London: Viking, 1989. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Near Fine. No. 102 of 150, octavo size, 319 pp., signed by Margaret Drabble. English novelist Margaret Drabble (b. 1939) wrote "A Natural Curiosity" as an unintended sequel to her earlier novel "The Radiant Way"; the story continues to follow the lives of three women featured in the earlier book, and examines middle-class life within the context of a post-industrial, post-Thatcher England. This volume is the first edition of Drabble's novel, bound in cloth and marbled paper, and signed by Margaret Drabble. ___DESCRIPTION: Quarter green cloth with marbled paper boards, vertical gilt line on the outer edges of the cloth, gilt lettering and ruled borders on the spine; octavo size (9.5" by 6.25"), pagination: [i-x] 1-308 [309], one of 150 copies, this number 102, signed by Margaret Drabble on the colophon (following the half-title page). In a glassine wrapper. ___CONDITION: Volume is fine; the covers clean, the corners straight and unrubbed, the… Read More

Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/fine. First printing, octavo size, 351 pp. From the jacket flap: "Employing different understandings of the concept of truth as investigative tools, the author depicts varying theological responses to the growth of natural science in the nineteenth century..." ___DESCRIPTION: Bound in full grey cloth over boards, silver lettering stamped onto the spine; octavo size (9 1/4" by 6 1/8"), pagination: [i-vii] viii [1, Contents] 1, blank] [1-3] 4-341. In publisher's dust jacket which is unclipped (although unpriced), summary of book on both flaps with short author bio on back flap, review blurb on back panel. ___CONDITION: Volume fine, with clean boards, straight corners without rubbing, a strong, square text block with solid hinges, the interior is clean and bright, and entirely free of prior owner markings; clean, crisp, and as new. The jacket fine overall, clean and not sunned, with a modicum of edgewear; overall a fine, crisp… Read More

New York: National Military Publishing Co, 1917. Hardcover. Near Fine. Twenty-fourmo size, 77 pp. Seemingly scarce in the trade, with no copies currently online that we can find; per an OCLC search conducted as of this writing this volume is held by eighteen institutions. Noted as the "Latest Edition" on the title page, as well as "Illustrated", the original edition is bound in at the back. A WWI-era manual on hand-to-hand combat using the bayonet, complete with six diagrams as well as four vintage black and white photographs showing various combat stances. ___DESCRIPTION: Black cloth binding with yellow embossed printing on the front board, light green lettering on the spine, 1917 date on both the title and copyright pages, the volume appears to be two books bound into one (although pagination is continuous), about half-way through the book is a sectional title page for "Manual of Practical Bayonet Fighting With Service Rifle and Bayonet" with its own Foreword (p. 51 of this volume); it is in this… Read More

Berlin: de Gruyter, 2015. Hardcover. Fine. Ten volumes, 3 octavo and 7 elephant folio volumes, approx. 2700 total pages, all text in German. Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900) was a German philosopher, cultural critic, poet, philologist, and Latin and Greek scholar whose work has exerted a profound influence on Western philosophy and modern intellectual history (n.b., info from Wikipedia). This work the "Critical Complete Edition" published in Berlin by deGruyter. Per the publisher, "The publication of Section IX signifies the completion of the Critical Edition of Friedrich Nietzsche's Complete Works." This set is comprised of the first ten volumes: three octavo-size volumes (the third with a CD in a pocket at the rear pastedown), and seven elephant folio-size volumes (these also with a CD) numbered "IX 1" through "IX 10". The publishers has issued subsequent volumes, as of this writing the set encompasses fourteen volumes. ___DESCRIPTION: Bound in full gold cloth over boards, debossed blue… Read More

n.p.: Joseph J. D'Ambrosio, 1989. 1st Edition. Hardcover. Near Fine/Near Fine. Ocatvo size, 137 pp., signed by Joe D'Ambrosio, one of 10 AP copies. A work of art itself, this, his second bibliography, sets forth books produced over a period of almost twenty years. First/Limited edition of 10 artist proofs and 75 numbered copies. Joseph J. D'Ambrosio (1934-2009) was an exceptional book artist who wrote, set type, printed designs, did the artwork, and bound his books. He tells the story of how he came to the book arts in the Preface of this Bibliography. His editions are signed, numbered and issued, as a limited edition of fine art prints. Mr. D'Ambrosio exhibited in many one-man and group exhibitions, and his works are in both private and institutional collections, including the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. ___DESCRIPTION: From the colophon page: "printed with hand-set Della Robbia type on Johannot paper with a Vandercook No. 4 proof press, (with) hand-marbled endpapers". The same marbled… Read More

Norwalk, Connecticut: The Easton Press, 1992. Leather bound. Fine. Freas, Frank Kelly. Octavo size, 328 pp. George Orwell (born Eric Arthur Blair, 1903-1950) is renowned for his works "Animal Farm" and "1984" and his outspoken criticism of totalitarianism and authoritarian social practices. Many of the words and expressions used in his work, including "Big Brother", "Thought Police", "doublethink", and "thoughtcrime" have entered the popular culture and are routinely used today. This work, "Nineteen Eighty-Four", was published shortly before Orwell's death of tuberculosis. Made into films at least twice, it is, along with Huxley's "Brave New World", one of "the century's most famous English-language Dystopia....It is a book of hectic, devilish, claustrophobic intensity..." (n.b., quote from "The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction" by John Clute and Peter Nicholls, p. 896). ___DESCRIPTION: Bound in full leather by The Easton Press, this noted on the title page as the "Collector's Edition", with gilt… Read More

New Castle [and] London: Oak Knoll Press & The British Library, 2004. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. Two volumes (complete), first printing, quarto size, approx. 1050 total pp. "This remarkable book represents over twenty years of research and scholarship by one of the most celebrated fine press printers of the twentieth-century. With almost five hundred rare and scarce woodcuts, engravings and photographs, and the most comprehensive annotated bibliography on the subject ever printed, this monumental, two-volume work stands alone in the annals of printing history. 'Nineteenth-Century Printing Practices and the Iron Handpress' is a worthy companion to Rummonds's 1998 classic, 'Printing on the Iron Handpress' " (n.b., from jacket flaps). ___DESCRIPTION: Both volumes bound in green cloth over boards, gilt lettering stamped on spines, patterned endpapers, numerous reproductions of scarce woodcuts, engravings and photographs; quarto size (8 1/4" x 11 1/4"), pagination: Vol 1, [1 page author… Read More

London: Constable & Company Limited, 1923. First and Limited Edition. Hardcover. Near fine. First printing, one of 500 copies (unnumbered), octavo size, 205 pp. Anthony Trollope (1815-1882) has delighted generations with his depictions of 19th-century British life; no one can describe his characters with such precision, allowing us to not only visualize the physical attributes of the various characters but also giving us glimpses of their thoughts, desires, fears, and ambitions. Many of us met Trollope through his "Chronicles of Barsetshire", a "series of books set in the imaginary English county of Barsetshire [which] remains his best loved and most famous work, but he also wrote convincing novels of political life as well as studies that show great psychological penetration. One of his greatest strengths was a steady, consistent vision of the social structures of Victorian England, which he re-created in his books with unusual solidity" (n.b., from the website of Britannica). This work, "The… Read More

Cambridge: Rampant Lions Press for The Enitharmon Press, 1972. Limited First Edition. Folio. Fine. Arikha, Avigdor. Number XIII of XV copies, folio size, [24] pp., with an extra suite of three etchings, all of which are signed by the artist, signed by Samuel Beckett on the limitation page. "The North" is a paragraph extracted from the short prose work "The Lost Ones" originally published as "Le Depeupleur" Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1971, by Samuel Beckett (1906-1989). The story has no plot, but is rather a metaphorical exploration of the landscape of the unconscious mind, evoked through the image of a flattened cylinder and its crowded inhabitants. Avigdor Arikha (1929-2010) was a close friend of Samuel Beckett, who he met in Paris, where he settled after escaping a Nazi concentration camp. He is regarded among Israel's greatest postwar artists, and was named a Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur in 2005. His images of "the woman vanquished" are chillingly somber, and darkly chaotic. A… Read More

[Columbia, Missouri]: Sutton Hoo Press, 1997. Limited Edition. Hardcover. Fine. One of "between 65 and 80 copies", unnumbered, folio size, [32] pp. A collection of twenty-one poems by Lynne McMahon, Professor Emerita at the University of Missouri; her work has appeared in multiple highly regarded periodicals, including "The New Yorker", "Rolling Stone", and "The Atlantic Monthly", among numerous others. This work explores the wide arena of human experience; as the publisher of one of her works stated, she "has a genius for making sense, and poetry, of the ordinary, for 'transforming the least promising dross into aspects for intricate contemplation' ". McMahon's work has won her awards such as grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Ingram Merrill Foundation, and the Missouri Arts Council. ___DESCRIPTION: Bound in terra cotta coloured cloth ornamented only with one small gold dot on the lower end of the shelfback, title page in black and terra cotta, text is in black with terra cotta… Read More

Near Hughenden, Buckinghamshire: Sheed & Ward, 1931. No binding. Fine. Gill, Eric. Prospectus only, octavo size, [4] pp. "TYPOGRAPHY" was the first book printed at Pigotts, the partnership between renowned printer and artist Eric Gill (1882-1940) and Rene Hague, his daughter Joanna's husband; this prospectus includes a reproduction of pp. 8-9, and a short essay on typography in the arts-and-crafts mode. ___DESCRIPTION: Off-white sheet folded twice to make four pages, printed in black; duodecimo size (7.5" by 5"). ___CONDITION: Fine, clean and without wear. ___CITATION: Gill no. 21. ___POSTAGE: International customers, please note that additional postage may apply as the standard shipping charge does not always cover costs; please inquire for details. ___Swan's Fine Books is pleased to be a member of the ABAA, ILAB, and IOBA and we stand behind book we sell. Please contact us with any questions you may have, we are here to help.

[Near Hughenden, Buckinghamshire]: Sheed & Ward, Publishers, 1931. No binding. Near fine. Gill, Eric. Prospectus only, duodecimo size, [4] pp. "TYPOGRAPHY" was the first book printed at Pigotts, the partnership between renowned printer and artist Eric Gill (1882-1940) and Rene Hague, his daughter Joanna's husband. The prospectus includes a reproduction of p. 37 and a short essay on typography in the arts-and-crafts mode. ___DESCRIPTION: Cream-coloured sheet folded once to make four pages, printed in black, with wood engraving by Gill, "Tree and Dog" (P734) on the front page; duodecimo size (7.5" by 5"). ___CONDITION: Near fine, clean, with only very slight wear to the edges. ___CITATION: Gill no. 21. ___POSTAGE: International customers, please note that additional postage may apply as the standard shipping charge does not always cover costs; please inquire for details. ___Swan's Fine Books is pleased to be a member of the ABAA, ILAB, and IOBA and we stand behind book we sell. Please… Read More

New York: Doubleday, A Foundation Book, 1989. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/fine. First printing, octavo size, 239 pp., signed by John Crowley. John Crowley (b. 1942) had "The Deep" as his first novel, but is best known for his seminal SF novel "Little, Big" - this work had such an impact on late 20th century fantasy literature that Clute & Grant used the phrase in their "Encyclopedia of Fantasy" as short-hand "to describe a relationship between an outer world and an inner world in which the latter is larger than the former" (ibid, pg. 238). This volume gathers together four of Crowley's short novels, one of which, "Great Work of Time", won the 1990 World Fantasy Award for best novella. ___DESCRIPTION: Quarter blue cloth over paper-covered boards, the front board with a depiction of a bird sitting on a wire stamped in metallic blue, silver lettering on the spine, grey endpapers, double-spread title page, signed by John Crowley in black felt-tip on the title page, first printing (per Zempel)… Read More