Search Results: Titles starting with U from Captain Ahab's Rare Books

London: John Lane / The Bodley Head, 1937. First English Trade Edition. First Impression. Octavo (21.25cm); green cloth, with titling and Homeric bow stamped in gilt on spine and front cover; mint green topstain; dustjacket; [viii],765,[3]pp. Hint of foxing to front cover, some offsetting from jacket flaps onto endpapers, else clean internally; very Near Fine. Dustjacket is price-clipped, with light wear to crown, and three small closed tears; a bright, Near Fine example. An attractive edition of Joyce's most enduring work, the text reproduced by photo-offset from John Lane's 1936 limited edition, and issued in a reduced-size trade binding. cf.Slocum & Cahoon 23, p.35.

Paris: Éditions Cosmopolites, 1929. First French Edition. Basis for Fritz Lang's 1929 silent film Frau in Mond, adapted for the screen by Thea von Harbou from her 1928 novel Die Frau in Mond. The novel was released in the US and UK in 1930 as By Rocket to the Moon and The Woman in the Moon, respectively. An attractive copy of a scarce edition, published the same year the film was released and preceding both English language translations. OCLC finds 5 copies, of these, only 1 in the U.S. (Harvard). First Impression. Octavo (17cm); tan paper-covered boards, with blue and bronze marbling to covers, titling and decorations stamped in gilt and dark yellow on spine; dustjacket; 253, [1]pp. Faint foxing to text edges, preliminary and terminal leaves, with light tanning to same; Near Fine. Dustjacket priced 3 Frs.50 at upper right corner of front panel; light wear to extremities and joints, shallow loss at spine ends and corner tips (none affecting lettering), with some scattered foxing and faint… Read More

Santa Barbara: Black Sparrow Press, 1983. First Edition. Deluxe Issue, one of 26 lettered copies specially bound and signed by the author, each with an original signed drawing tipped-in (this is copy 'A'). Octavo (23.5cm); illustrated paper-covered boards and patterned cloth backstrip, with title label applied to spine; publisher's original acetate dustjacket; 183,[5]pp. Hint of dust-soil to upper edge of textblock, else Fine in a lightly rubbed, Near Fine dustjacket.

Oakland: Words & Pictures, 1987. First Edition. Artist's book presenting 10 short stories, each of which frames a drawing. Each page is split horizontally, creating a mix-and-match effect with all other stories. OCLC finds 11 copies. One of 500 numbered copies signed by the artist, this being copy no.48. Quarto (28cm); horizontally-split illustrated sheets (rectos only), spiral-bound into printed covers; unpaged. Contents fresh and Fine, with some rubbing and fading to wrapper extremities; Very Good+.

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1967. First American Edition. Sharp copy of the third novel in James's long-running series featuring detective Adam Dalgliesh. "Dalgliesh is called in when the body of a mystery writer is found in a floating dinghy. What gives this story a touch of color is that someone has chopped off the deceased's hands" (Bourgeau, p.160). Hubin, p.216. First Printing. Octavo (21cm); royal blue cloth, with titling and decorations stamped in white on spine and front cover; dustjacket; [10],11-236,[4]pp. Signed by the author on the title page. Fine in a very Near Fine dsutjacket, unclipped (priced $3.95), with a single tiny tear along rear joint, discreetly tape mended on verso.

New York: Harcourt, Brace & Company, 1999. First Printing of this re-issue. Octavo (19.5cm); pictorial boards; dustjacket; [64]pp; illus. Fine in a Fine, unclipped dustjacket (priced $15). New edition of Gorey's first book, initially published in 1953 by Duell, Sloan and Pearce.

N.p.: S.i., 1970. Untitled and (presumed) unpublished poem written in Martinelli's hand. Sheri Martinelli, known to many as the "Queen of the Beats" was a major figure in literature and the arts, friend to a host of major Beat Generation figures, early publisher and long-time correspondant of Charles Bukowski, and for a time, the muse (and reportedly mistress) of Ezra Pound. She edited and published a mimeographed poetry journal, The Anagogic & Paideumic Review, between 1959-1970, though this poem has not appeared an any issue we have handled. The poem, either a fragment of a larger work or something she'd begun and then abandoned, reads: "I am the crucified doorway into time / & memorys (sic) of all women flow through me like a river of personalities / Fatal woman / Desire burning like lava fire / with only men to enflame in swirling liquid." The only manuscript poem by Martinelli we have seen or handled. Provenance on request. 16-line manuscript poem, written in blue ink on 6.5" x 5.5" sheet of… Read More

New York: Random House, 1938. First Trade Edition. First Printing. Octavo (20.75cm); grey cloth, with titling and decorations in red and navy blue on spine and front cover; brick red topstain; dustjacket; [viii],293,[3]pp. A fresh, Fine copy, with the toptain bright and unfaded. Dustjacket is unclipped (priced $2.50), with a barely discernable trace of sunning to spine, and a few tiny edge tears; very Near Fine. A novel set in Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha County, during the latter days of the Civil War, told in seven episodes (which were originally published as stories in The Saturday Evening Post between 1934-36). Petersen A18a; Brodsky & Hamblin 440.

Bolinas, CA: Tombouctou Books, 1988. First Edition. First Printing, cloth issue. Octavo (21cm); black cloth, with titles stamped in gilt on spine and front cover; [10],11-86,[6]pp. Upper corners gently tapped (though still sharp), tiny scuff to upper front board edge, else Near Fine. "In these seven new stories Paul Bowles ranges widely in time, in form, and in geographic space - from Massachusetts to Morocco, from 1932 to the 1970s. Portraits and contemporary scenes mix conventional narration with experimental monologues, and the volume concludes with a tale presented as six letters written to a bitter, dying man" (from rear wrapper of the paperback issue).

Bolinas, CA: Tombouctou Books, 1988. First Edition. First Printing, wrappered issue. Octavo (20.25cm); pictorial card wrappers; [10],11-86,[6]pp. Trivial wear to extremities, else a Fine, unread copy. "In these seven new stories Paul Bowles ranges widely in time, in form, and in geographic space - from Massachusetts to Morocco, from 1932 to the 1970s. Portraits and contemporary scenes mix conventional narration with experimental monologues, and the volume concludes with a tale presented as six letters written to a bitter, dying man" (from rear wrapper).

New York: Simon & Schuster, 1966. First Edition. Quarto (29.5cm); publisher's long galley sheets (rectos), trimmed, hole-punched, and string-tied at left margin into unprinted blue paper covers, with holograph title and publication information in blue grease pencil to front cover. Some wear, toning, and creasing to wrappers, along with a few preliminary and terminal leaves; Very Good+. Bowles's fourth novel, centered around an American couple who goes on a tour of Central America and end up being trapped by a criminal with sinister motives. An uncommon format (particularly signed), likely produced in small numbers. Miller A14a.

New York: Ecco Press, 1982. First Ecco Press Edition. First Printing. Octavo (20cm); pictorial card wrappers; 223,[3]pp. Light wear to extremities, with two very faint, tiny splash marks to right edge of front endpaper; Near Fine. Bowles's fourth novel, centered around an American couple who goes on a tour of Central America and end up being trapped by a criminal with sinister motives.

[New York: S.i., 1972. Smith's working typescript for this early poetry chapbook - one of two published the same year Smith's book Seventh Heaven was published by Telegraph Books - containing a poem Smith first wrote in 1970. Published and distributed by The Gotham Book Mart, where during her early years in New York Smith often supplemented her income by scouting rare books on the side. A single poem, narrated by someone on a scaffold waiting to die, while watching the execution of a queen and her 30 ladies in waiting, who are all forced to dig their own graves. A wonderful survival; Smith material of this vintage, and significance, is exceedingly uncommon. Bifolium (21.75cm); original typescript on both sides of a single sheet of white bond (measuring 8.5" x 11"), folded once vertically to create a [4]pp pamphlet, closely mirroring the final layout of the text. With extensive holograph corrections and a few small drawings in two hands - Smith's (in red felt-tipped marker and blue ballpoint pen) and… Read More

Philadelphia: The John C. Winston Company, 1914. First Edition. An early Freeman mystery featuring Humphrey Challoner, a specialist in criminal anthropology, who after the murder of his wife dedicates his life to the apprehension and punishment of criminals (and by "apprehension and punishment" I mean he murders them, shrinks their heads, and displays them as trophies in his private museum). The American Edition precedes the UK edition, published under the title A Savant's Vendetta, by six years. Scarce in dustjacket. Hubin, p.153. First Printing. Octavo (20cm); red cloth, with titling and decorations stamped in gilt on spine and front cover; dustjacket; [4],5-296pp, with frontispiece and three inserted plates illustrated by H. Weston Taylor. Spine ends gently nudged, hint of dustiness and a few tiny foxed spots to text edges, with contemporary owners name and a tiny stain to front endpaper, and a tiny date rubber-stamped to verso of frontispiece (Feb, 1918); Near Fine, with the pictorial elements… Read More