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

[San Francisco]: [The Greenwood Press, Jack Werner Stauffacher], 1992. Limited Edition. Wraps. Fine/fine. Odes" no. 121 of 250 copies, "Continuity" one of 500 unnumbered copies, the two volumes in a slipcase, folio size, 96 pp. and 32 pp., "Odes" signed by Jack Stauffacher. Quintus Horatius Flaccus (known simply as "Horace", 65-8 BCE), is acknowledged as "the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus", whose "Odes", a collection of four books of poetry, have been studied through the centuries. Covering a wide range of subjects, Alfred Lord Tennyson spoke of the Odes as "jewels five-words long, that on the stretched forefinger of all Time / Sparkle for ever" (n.b., quotes from Wiki). This publication of the "Odes" was displayed in the member exhibition of the Pacific Center for the Book Arts in 1992. In his comments regarding the publication, Jack recalls that it was in 1979 that Michael Taylor sent him (Jack) his (Michael's) translation of Book One of the "Odes"; Michael wrote to Jack:… Read More

[Newtown, Powys]: Gwasg Gregynog, 2008. Limited Edition. Hardcover. Fine. See-Paynton, Colin. One of 150 copies in a custom binding by Patricia Chupa, folio size, 171 pp., with prospectus and other related ephemera. Colin See-Paynton (b. 1946) spent more than four years extensively researching and writing the text, and creating the sixty-one new wood engravings for this illustrated lexicon of avian collective nouns: an unprecedented achievement. "The work of Colin See-Paynton is truly remarkable in its detail and beauty. His Wood Engravings, held in many major collections, display a love and understanding of nature as well as the skill of a master engraver" (n.b., quote from the web site of the artist). The entire work written, compiled, designed and illustrated by See-Paynton "In a critical essay David Alston, Arts Director of the Arts Council Wales, wrote: 'not since Thomas Bewick, who both wrote and engraved in the late eighteenth century, have both literary and pictorial aspects been found… Read More

[Newtown, Powys]: Gwasg Gregynog, 2008. Limited Edition. Hardcover. Fine. See-Paynton, Colin. One of 135 standard edition copies, folio size, 171 pp., with correspondence from the Press. Colin See-Paynton (b. 1946) spent more than four years extensively researching and writing the text, and creating the sixty-one new wood engravings for this illustrated lexicon of avian collective nouns: an unprecedented achievement. "The work of Colin See-Paynton is truly remarkable in its detail and beauty. His Wood Engravings, held in many major collections, display a love and understanding of nature as well as the skill of a master engraver" (n.b., quote from the web site of the artist). The entire work written, compiled, designed and illustrated by See-Paynton "In a critical essay David Alston, Arts Director of the Arts Council Wales, wrote: 'not since Thomas Bewick, who both wrote and engraved in the late eighteenth century, have both literary and pictorial aspects been found conjoined in the one talent as… Read More

Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc, 1936. First and Limited Edition. Hardcover. Near fine. Schwabe, Randolph. The first illustrated edition, one of 751 copies, quarto size, 698 pp., signed by both Maugham and Schwabe, with publisher's slipcase. William Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) became a renowned author and playwright; this work, "Of Human Bondage", is now regarded as his masterpiece. The novel was made into a film on three separate occasions: in 1934 starring Bette Davis; in 1946; and again in 1964 starring Kim Novak. First published in 1915, this the first illustrated edition, issued as a limited edition (this no. 578 of 751 copies) signed by both the author and illustrator. The illustrations by Randolph Schwabe (1885-1948), a recognized British painter and etcher who, among many other achievements, was the Slade Professor of Fine Art at University College, London, for eighteen years. Schwabe also worked as a draughtsman, and his attention to detail and lines are apparent… Read More

[Octon, France]: Verdigris, 2009. Limited Edition. Stiff wraps. Fine. Rothchild, Judith. Number 7 of 15, quarto size, unpaginated [40] pp., signed by Judith Rothchild. The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci were compiled, edited and translated by Jean Paul Richter in 1883, they include hundreds of pages of notes written by the mysterious Renaissance master, including sketches, lists of books he read, and financial records. Much of his notes are detailed studies and astute observations of the natural world, including the flight of birds, mechanics, the flow of rivers, architecture, astronomy, anatomy et al. His notes on light and shadow are both scientific and philosophic in nature, beautifully complimented Judith Rothchild's six shadow studies, both the text and prints imply evidence of a curious and vigilant eye. ___DESCRIPTION: Original brown paper portfolio with embossed geometric shapes and inlaid printed title to upper wrapper, lettering in blind to backstrip, housed in an illustrated blue paper… Read More

[San Francisco]: Designed and printed by Lemoncheese Press, 2019. Limited Edition. No binding. Fine. No. 20 of 50 copies, folio size. Printed in celebration of the 200th anniversary of Herman Melville's birth in 1819 in edition of 50 copies, this no. 20. The Lemoncheese Press is owned and operated by Li Jiang, a Berkeley-based letterpress printer, graphic designer, bookbinder and print maker. The letterpress printing for this broadside was done by Li on a Columbian iron hand-press owned by The Book Club of California. ___DESCRIPTION: A broadside printed on white textured cardstock paper in black, large vingette in blue at the top of a three-masted sailing ship, ornamental border at the bottom in the form of ocean waves; folio size (12 15/16" by 8.5"). Loosely laid in is a small sheet of paper with a reproduction of a black-and-white photograph of a young Herman Melville with a short biography below, reprinted from "Town and County of Nantucket, MA". ___CONDITION: The broadside fine overall,… Read More

Fairfax, California: Feathered Serpent Press, 1951. Limited Edition. Hardcover. Near Fine/good. One of 375 copies, octavo size, 92 pp., signed by printer Don Kelley, with a press business card. This is the first book printed by Susan Acker, Don & Marion Kelley at the Feathered Serpent Press, a sweet little book of poems. Don Kelly was the editor of "Pacific Discovery" a magazine published by the Academy of Sciences. He began printing "in his spare time" with the assistance of his wife, Marion, publishing mostly poetry. ___DESCRIPTION: Original quarter brown cloth and decorative paper covered boards, plain endpapers, title vignette printed in brown, press device at colophon; Centaur and Libra types, pagination: [i-x] 1-81 [1 colophon], octavo size (7 7/8" x 5 1/4"), limited edition of 375 copies; signed by printer Don Kelley, in the original glassine dust-jacket, with the press business card slipped in. ___CONDITION: A near fine copy, with clean boards, straight corners without rubbing, a strong,… Read More

Monmouthshire: The Old Stile Press, 2000. Limited First Edition. Hardcover. Fine. 'Archives' Edition, number IX of XV, of a total edition of 1000, quarto size, 136 pp., with a large portfolio containing numerous specimens from the press, "jeu d'esprit" loosely inserted. The special edition of this Bibliography from The Old Stile Press, presented in a grand box, with a fine assortment of press ephemera, including pages or sections of thirty-eight books printed during 1979-1999, fifteen Christmas cards for the years 1979-1999, handmade papers, early advertisements and experiments, and many other small bits of unique press ephemera. A stunning selection of work from this period, accompanying an illustrated bibliography. Special binding was done by Nesta Rendall Davies, a bookbinder with over 25 years' experience running her own bookbinding and conservation business, as well as teaching. ____DESCRIPTION: Wrap-around pictorial paper over boards in black and white, gilt lettering on the spine,… Read More

Lausanne: La Guilde du Livre, 1955. Softcover. Near fine. Roiter, Fulvio. One of 10,000 copies, quarto size, 130 pp., in French. Fulvio Roiter (1926-2016) was an Italian photographer; beginning as a chemist, he committed himself to photography in 1947, documenting various cities in stunning series of black-and-white photographs. During his career, Roiter published about one hundred photography books, including "Ombrie, Terre de saint Francois", which won the second edition of the Prix Nadar, a prestigious annual prize awarded for photography books in France. Roiter's photographs have a gentle poignancy that captures the essence of the people and places he visited. ___DESCRIPTION: Pictorial paper wraps with two black-and-white photographs by Fulvio Roiter on the front and back covers, black lettering on the front cover, black and white lettering on the spine, frontispiece a colour photograph of a painting of Saint Francis, black-and-white photographs by Roiter throughout, colophon with… Read More

San Francisco: Industrial Indemnity Company, 1955. First Edition. Wraps. Fine. Adams, Ansel. Octavo size, 26 pp. The fascinating history of the land and building at 155 Sansome, commissioned by the Industrial Indemnity Company. Written by noted San Francisco historian Oscar Lewis (1893-1992, not to be confused with the New York anthropologist of the same name). With a photographic frontispiece by Ansel Adams, designed and printed by the noted San Francisco printing firm of Taylor & Taylor. ___DESCRIPTION: Original stapled green paper wrappers with title printed in yellow to upper wrapper, yapped edges, title-page printed in black and green, photographic frontis by Ansel Adams, illustrations in text; octavo size (8.25" by 5 1/8"), [1-4] 5-26 pp. ___CONDITION: Fine overall: the wraps clean, the stapled binding strong, internally bright and clean, and entirely free of prior owner markings; a miniscule amount of wear to the yapped edges, still a fine copy. ___POSTAGE: International customers, please… Read More

London: Kegan Paul, Trench, & Co, 1886. Limited Edition. Hardcover. Very good +. Number 46 of 111 copies, spine stamped "Artists' Proof Edition", folio size, 234 pp. Originally published in 1884 by G.P. Putnam's Sons, "Onnalinda" created a sensation when first released. A contemporary review states "An anonymous romance -- [which] sustains its interest from first to last. Strange to say, the tale is the pleasanter to read for being in metre, and the reader is beguiled past many pitfalls in the shape of 'asides' by the author by the silvery ring of the verse. It is a tale of the forest, of savage chivalry, of mirthful, happy love-making". Published about thirty years after Longfellow's poem "Hiawatha", it continued to feed the fascination of the Victorians for the perceived simplicity of the native American life and culture, while also feeding an interest in their (imagined) history. While "Hiawatha" has, to some degree, survived the past 130+ years, "Onnalinda" has not fared as well. Set during… Read More

[New York]: Harper & Brothers, 1960. First Edition. Hardcover. Near fine/very good. First printing, sixteenmo size, [48] pp. Ruth Ida Krauss (1901-1993), renowned author of children's literature, is perhaps best remembered for "The Carrot Seed" (published 1945, included in Loker, "A Shimmer of Joy", pp. 148-149) and "A Hole is to Dig" (published 1952); the latter title was a collaboration between Krauss and Sendak, as is this volume. Illustrated by Maurice Sendak (1928-2012), a children's book author and illustrator best known for the enduring story "Where the Wild Things Are" (published 1964), among almost countless others. Sendak's illustrations have a charming magic in their depiction of childhood and its joys. ___DESCRIPTION: Bound in illustrated paper over boards, black cloth spine, decorated endpapers, title page in brown and black with a vignette by Sendak, every page with line drawings by Sendak and the corresponding text in brown; sixteenmo size (6 11/16" by 5 3/8"), unpaginated with… Read More

New York: Random House, 1965. First Edition. Hardcover. Near fine/near fine. First printing, octavo size, 251 pp., signed by Cormac McCarthy. Cormac McCarthy (born Charles Joseph McCarthy, Jr., in 1933), is acknowledged by many as one of the greatest contemporary American writers. His first novel, "The Orchard Keeper", won a 1966 William Faulkner Foundation Award for notable first novel; "All the Pretty Horses" would win the National Book Award in 1992, and "No Country for Old Men", conceived as a screen play (and later turned into a novel) won four Academy Awards. He would eventually author twelve novels, three short stories, five screenplays and two plays. This work, "The Orchard Keeper" was McCarthy's first novel; it would receive the 1966 William Faulkner Foundation Award for notable first novel. Initial reviews, although somewhat mixed, praised McCarthy's "flashing visual impact" and his "unusual writing furrowed by a stark, visual imagery while the story itself has a shadowed fascination"… Read More

(London): Andre Deutsch, 1966. First Edition. Hardcover. Near fine/very good +. First UK edition, first printing, octavo size, 250 pp., signed by Cormac McCarthy. Cormac McCarthy (born Charles Joseph McCarthy, Jr., in 1933), is acknowledged by many as one of the greatest contemporary American writers. His first novel, "The Orchard Keeper", won a 1966 William Faulkner Foundation Award for notable first novel; "All the Pretty Horses" would win the National Book Award in 1992, and "No Country for Old Men", conceived as a screen play (and later turned into a novel) won four Academy Awards. He would eventually author twelve novels, three short stories, five screenplays and two plays. This work, "The Orchard Keeper" was McCarthy's first novel; it would receive the 1966 William Faulkner Foundation Award for notable first novel. Initial reviews, although somewhat mixed, praised McCarthy's "flashing visual impact" and his "unusual writing furrowed by a stark, visual imagery while the story itself has a… Read More

London: The Royal Microscopical Society, 1928. Hardcover. Good +. Octavo size, 316 pp. An important book in the history of microscopy; the first part provides an "Historical Introduction" from the "Earliest Times" through 1673, and the second provides descriptive "Catalogues of Instruments and Accessories". Replete with illustrations, with thirty-two in Part I and thirty pages of plates in Part II, many with more than a single illustration or photograph on each plate. ___DESCRIPTION: Bound in full blue cloth over boards, both boards with a single narrow blind ruled border, the spine with lettering and the logo of the Royal Microscopial Society in gilt, highly illustrated as set forth above; octavo size (9.25" by 6.25"), pagination: [i-v] vi-xi [1, Errata] [1] 2-303 [1, printer's statement]. ___CONDITION: A bit better than good, the boards clean with just a few light specks of soil, gently bumped corners with minimal rubbing, a strong, square text block with solid hinges, the interior is clean… Read More

San Francisco: The Book Club of California [printed by The Grabhorn Press], 1923. Limited Edition. Hardcover. Very Good Plus. Lange, Dorothea; H. Von Schmidt. No. 136 of 400, quarto size, 140 pp. A tribute to Oscar Weil (1839-1921), born in New York and educated as a musician. When the Civil War started he enrolled in the Northern cause as a private and by the end of the war he was a Major; however, injuries received during the war meant he could no longer be a violinist. He therefore turned to composing, and settled in San Francisco where he also served as the music critic for the Argonaut newspaper; he was a man much loved by the community, as attested to by this memoir. Frontispiece a tipped-in photograph by Dorothea Lange from a painting of Oscar Weil by Olga M. Ackerman; when this photograph was taken, Dorothea Lange (1895-1965) was living in Berkeley, having recently married the western painter Maynard Dixon. Printed by the Grabhorn Press, the renowned publishers/printers Edwin and Robert… Read More

Berkeley: Ramparts Press, Inc, 1970. Hardcover. Near fine/good +. Octavo size, 263 pp., inscribed by Dave Meggyesy. Dave Meggyesy (b. 1941), a former American football player and coach, was deeply involved in the National Football League Players Association (NFLPA), a union for football players; he authored the memoir "Out of Their League", a scathing denunciation of professional football and the treatment of sports in society. As Meggyesy recounts his experiences playing professional football for the St. Louis Cardinals, he discusses racism and drug usage prevelant in the sport, as well as debilitating injuries caused to athletes during games; he writes in the foreword: ". . .I've come to see that football is one of the most dehumanizing experiences a person can face, and in this book I'm going to tell you what's really behind the video game glitter of the game -- the racism and fraud, the unbelievable brutality that affects mind as much as body." The topics in this book are still in the… Read More

Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine. Two volumes (complete), quarto size, 1339 total pp. This extensive reference work sets forth, chronologically, the works published in the English language from 1474 to 2000. This work grew out of a prior work of the Press, the "Annals of English Literature" and presents similar information in a more expanded format; the set includes "nearly 30,000 works by more than 4000 authors, covering fiction, poetry, drama, literary scholarship, and non-fiction" (n.b., from the web site of the Press). As is stated in the book's introduction: "[t]he 'Chronology' offers a carefully selected digest of the printed record of English literature from 1474 to the year 2000, enabling readers to view a substantial sampling of printed publications in time and in relation to other contemporaneous works...[i]ts greater value, it is to be hoped, lis not just in the number and range of works selected for inclusion, but in the core bibliographical and… Read More

Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Hardcover. Fine. Five volumes (complete), quarto size, approx. 2800 total pp. From the web site of the OUP: "Covering economic history in all areas of the world and segments of ecnomies from prehistoric times to the present, 'The Oxford Encyclopedia of Economic History' is the ideal resource for students, economists, and general readers, offering a unique glimpse into this integral part of world history." The five volumes are arranged alphabetically by topic and are nicely illustrated with black-and-white reproductions of photographs, maps and charts. Still available new from the OUP at about twice our listed price. ___DESCRIPTION: Bound in full red cloth over boards, lettering and decorations on the front boards and spines in silver and copper, text in double columns; quarto size (11 1/8" by 8 3/4"), pagination: Volume 1, [i-viii] ix-xli [3] 1-538; Volume 2, [i-iv] v [3] 1-550; Volume 3, [i-iv] v [3] 1-550; Volume 4, [i-iv] v [1] 1-553; and Volume 5, [i-iv]… Read More

Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/fine. Two volumes (complete), quarto size, 1617 total pp. From the website of the publisher: "The Encyclopedia's inclusive approach encompasses opera and film, dance and radio, and para-theatrical, non-dramatic performances including circuses and carnivals, and parades and public executions--providing truly extensive coverage from ancient Greek theatre to the latest developments in London, Paris, New York, and around the globe. The Encyclopedia pays special attention to non-Western styles through articles on theatre and performance throughout the many countries and traditions of Asia and Africa. Numerous biographical entries cover the lives and work of major figures: actors, playwrights, directors, designer, company managers, and critics. A unique feature of the Encyclopedia is the series of articles on concepts, theories, and critical approaches, ranging from short definitions of terms like catharsis and monologue to more lengthy… Read More