Search Results: Titles starting with P from Johnson Rare Books & Archives

San Francisco: Ira G. Hoitt, 1883. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good. Small octavo: 230 p. with the large lithographed Bancroft folding map and numerous advertisements. Original green cloth binding, with decorative gilt and black stamping. A bit of wear to the corners and tips; otherwise very good. Cowan p.287; Rocq 9831. In 1883, with the Knights Templar due to assemble in San Francisco for their first triennial conclave to be held west of St. Louis, educator Ira Hoitt (1833-1905) saw an opportunity. Between jobs - his term in the California State Assembly was over, and his election to the San Francisco Board of Education still in the future - Hoitt decided to put together a pocket-sized guidebook aimed specifically at the thousands of Masons due to arrive that summer. Issued in both cloth and paper editions, packed with ads for Bancroft & Co., Bradley & Rulofson, Tabor the Photographer, Ghiradelli & Sons, the Yosemite Stage Co., and other local businesses, the guide was advertised as… Read More

Wellington, New Zealand: The Polynesian Society, 1951. First edition. Hardcover. Very Good. Frontispiece photograph, with a folding map. Original red cloth binding, with gilt stamping. The boards are moderately edgeworn; otherwise very good.

New York: Birch Lane Press, 1992. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. Maps and Charts by Cezanne Wong. New York: Birch Lane Press, 1992. First edition. The catalyst for this novel by the then Hong Kong-based correspondent for the British newspaper the Guardian was the planned return of that city to Chinese control in 1997. Winchester (b.1944) is best known as the author of The Professor and the Madman (1998), a story about the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary. Signed by Winchester on the title page. Octavo. A fine copy in a fine dust jacket.

Santa Barbara, California: Capra Press, 2005. First edition. Hardcover. Near Fine/Near Fine. 233 p. Foreword by Congresswoman Lois Capps. 16 pp. photographs. First edition, limited to 100 hardcover copies. Presentation copy, inscribed by Fr. Virgil Cordano to distinguished Southern California historian Doyce B. Nunis, Jr. on the half-title. Octavo. Original brown cloth binding, with gilt titles. Minor bump to the bottom corners; else near fine in a clean and bright dust jacket. Signed by Author.

Great Neck, New York: Stage, 1937. Hardcover. Quoting the laid in description: "Original designer's mock-up for a short unpublished book by Perelman. Appararently the text was derived from a Stage magazine article by Perelman on the Yiddish playwright Arthur Kober, and his collaboration with Marc Connolly on the play Having Wonderful Time which Connolly directed and produced on Broadway. The text has been clipped from the magazine and pasted into a black cloth blank book, with the title embossed on the cover in gilt. The spine ends are chipped, and some of the clipped pieces have become detached, but all are present. The mock-up is signed on the copyright page by noted book designer Alan Chidsey (whose archive is in the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art). Perhaps meant as a prototype for a pamphlet to promote the play, we can find no record of publication. From the Carter Burdon collection. Unique.

New York: Biblio and Tannen, 1964. Hardcover. Near fine. ...a brief survey of the Neolithic stage and of the Early Minoan phases, followed by an account of the Palace in the Middle Minoan Age." This is the first in a seven volume work (four volumes in six, plus the index). Evans (1851-1941) was a British archaeologist who excavated the ruins of the ancient city of Knossos in Crete and uncovered evidence of a sophisticated Bronze Age civilization, which he named Minoan. His work was one of archaeology's major achievements and greatly advanced the study of European and eastern Mediterranean prehistory. Thick quarto: xxiv, 721 p. with 542 figures in the text, plans, tables, coloured and supplementary plates. Original blue cloth binding, with gilt stamping. Tiny bit of rubbing along the extremities of the boards; else near fine.

Philadelphia and New York: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1971. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. The first American hardcover edition in the first state dust jacket. The ninth novel in the Travis McGee series. The plot revolves around McGee's investigation into the death of his close friend Tush Bannon, who he suspects has been murdered because of his refusal to sell his waterfront property to developers. Octavo. Original green cloth binding, with gilt titles. Small address label to the front flyleaf, with a very faint spot to the top edge. Light wear to the corners and tips. Some general rubbing to the dust jacket, with two small scuffs to the spine heel; else crisp, clean, and very good.

New York: Delacorte Press, 1987. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. First edition, first printing. Inscribed by Robert B. Parker on the front flyleaf. Spencer investigates the murder of a news reporter who had been prying into the cocaine trade in the central Massachusetts town of Wheaton. Octavo. A fine, unread copy in a fine dust jacket.

New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1996. Hardcover. Fine. Quarto. Original glossy boards; issued without a dust jacket. A fine copy - as new, still sealed in the original shrink wrap.

Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. Lowe (1879-1969) is recognized today as one of the great contributors to paleography, particularly in the study of scripts before A.D. 800. This representative seclection of his papers is intended to be a companion to his monumental Codices Latini Antiquiores (1934-71) and other books from his pen. Tall octavo: xviii, [2], 347 p. with a frontispiece portrait and 60 plates + x, 349-645 p. with 90 plates. Original dark blue cloth bindings, with gilt titles. Some mild edgewear to the dust jackets, with a bit of rubbing to the rear panels; otherwise a very good set.

Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1933. First edition. Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. A Study of the Region during Pliocene and Pleistocene Times. 43 plates, 21 textual figures, and a color folding map. The first geological survey of the Nile Valley from the upper cataract region to the Mediterranean Sea, presenting the history of Paleolithic man in Egypt before the known predynastic period. Particular emphasis is placed on stone implements, shells, and other fossil remains, as well as the rock pictures carved by both prehistoric and historic man. The University of Chicago Oriental Institute Publications, Volume XVII; Prehistoric Survey of Egypt and Western Asia, Volume II. From the library of Ruth DeEtte Simpson (1918-2000), the California archaeologist best known for her work with Louis Leakey at the Calico Early Man Site, with her initials on the front pastedown. Some very mild bumping along the edges of the boards. Jacket a bit rubbed and edgeworn, with a closed tear to the top of the… Read More

Quartet Books Inc, 1981. First edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. 16 pp. photographs, with five maps. New York First edition. This book sets out the legal bases of the claims of the Palestinian Arabs to self-determination and to establish their statehood in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. From the library of U.S. Ambassador Philip C. Habib, with a presentation card from the Office of the Crown Prince laid in. A renowned career diplomat, Habib (1920-92) was an authority on Southeast Asia, President Ronald Reagan's personal representative to the Middle East, and a special envoy to some of the world's most dangerous flash points. In 1982, Habib was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor. A fine copy in a fine dust jacket.

New York: Rizzoli, 1982. Trade paperback. Near fine. Modern account of the group of English architects, including some of the greatest names of the age, who, as followers of Palladio, in turn helped to shape the course of English architecture during the early seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Oblong quarto. Original pictorial paper wrappers. A crisp and clean copy. Near fine.

New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2005. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. Celebrated Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio (1508-1580) devoted much of his career to the city of Venice. Famous for public buildings he had designed in his native Vicenza and country villas he had built for wealthy patricians there, he arrived in Venice in the mid-1550s confident of establishing a successful new practice. Yet Palladio's Venetian career never matched his lofty expectations. Failing to achieve the position of state architect or to earn the kinds of commissions to which he was accustomed, he found himself working in a category new to his practice: ecclesiastical architecture. It was his stunning churches, however, including San Giorgio Maggiore and Il Redentore, that established Palladio's lasting renown. In this fascinating and beautifully illustrated book, Tracy E. Cooper organizes Palladio's work in Venice according to different types of patrons. She discusses his major monuments as well as… Read More

A group of fourteen glass plate negatives of California desert scenes, which are believed to be the work of National Parks photographer Harry Edmond Roberts (1869-1959), dating to approximately 1914. The 5" x 7" plates are accompanied by modern black and white prints of each of the images. The plates are housed in acid-free folding paper sleeves and stored in a light blue Hollinger box. There are no labels or dates on the glass negatives or the prints. Laid in the box is a photocopied 8 ½" x 11" inch sheet of paper upon which is printed "Desert Scenes by Harry Edmond Roberts circa 1914 (1st photographer of Grants Park 1915-1935 Palm Canyon (Palm Springs) and other desert locations." Several of the images show Joshua trees and other desert scenes. There is one image of unidentified people in a desert canyon and a photograph of ocean waves crashing into rocks. The plates have been numbered on the outer protective sleeves. Most are very good or better, while two are in poor condition. There is some… Read More

A collection of more than 100 promotional pieces, including movie posters, lobby cards, photographs, sound and video recordings, and other various ephemera in several languages for the cult classic Palm Springs Weekend (1963), a campy view of Palm Springs as a spring break destination. Starring Troy Donahue, Stefanie Powers, Robert Conrad, Ty Hardin, and Connie Stevens, the film centers on a group of college students who travel to Palm Springs for Easter weekend. The film was released by Warner Brothers and featured actors who were under full contract with the studio. Troy Donahue told Palm Springs Life that the best thing about the film was that it was being made in Palm Springs: "And I was there to drink and get laid. I remember that a friend of mine and I started at opposite ends of town. Halfway through the movie, we crossed paths. I got everything he got going in his direction, and he got everything I got coming in mine. I mean, the picture was tame compared to the reality." Slightly in… Read More

Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc, 1986. First Edition. Hardcover. Near fine/Near fine. Phillips (1935-2001), founder and songwriter of the group The Mamas and the Papas, recounts his life and career from childhood to stardom to drug busts, in this startling and reflective look at the turbulent, dope-crazed decade of the 1960s and beyond. Octavo: 444 p. with numerous textual photographs and illustrations. Original black paper-covered boards over a burgundy cloth spine, with gilt titles. A crisp, apparently unread copy. Just a hint of edgewear to the dust jacket; else near fine.

New York: The Century Co, 1896. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. A nonsense book written by a big child for little ones, containing pictures in imitation of dolls and animals cut out of paper for the amusement of children, with verses" (The Argonaut, November 23, 1896). Little is known of the author, who was active between 1896 and 1911. Genuinely scarce, the Cotsen Collection at Princeton lacks a physical copy, with only an imperfect digital scan in their holdings. Oblong octavo. Original printed yellow paper-covered boards. Period ink gift inscription to the front flyleaf, with the recipient's name handwritten on the front panel of the dust jacket. Tiny split to the front joint, which is otherwise quite sound. A bit of wear to the corners and tips. The pictorial dust jacket is unevenly toned, with some minor edgewear; else very good.

Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Trade paperback. Fine. Octavo: 295 p. Original paper wrappers. A fine, unread copy.

Koln: Taschen, 2008. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. Eugene Atget roamed the streets with his bulky large format camera, systematically cataloguing turn-of-the-century Old Paris down to the very smallest details. His skilled, wonderfully atmospheric photos of Paris's parks, buildings, streets, store windows, prostitutes, workers, and even door handles are a joy to behold." Quarto: 252 p. A fine copy in a fine dust jacket - as new, still sealed in the original shrink wrap.