Modern literature, including poetry, science fiction, detective, and popular pulp literature.
New York: Gnome Press, [1949]. First edition. Originally published as a serial, under the pseudonym Anson MacDonald, in Astounding in 1941. Read More about Sixth Column. A science fiction novel of a strange intrigue
Price: $500
[N.d., ca. 1898-1901]. Published in Ainslee's Magazine for December 1905; collected in Whirligigs (1910) under the title “Blind Man's Holiday”. A superb and substantial autograph manuscript of an early short story by pharmacist, newspaperman, and author O. Henry (William Sydney Porter, 1862–1910), written while he was in prison. The story..... Read More about A Medley of Moods. Author’s Autograph Manuscript, signed on the first leaf: “By Sydney Porter”
Price: $30,000
New York: Harper & Row, [1971]. Baskin, Leonard. First American edition. Inscribed to the Book Designer. Inscribed rather flirtatiously to the designer of the book, Gloria Adelson: "For the bête noire | of this cover | who | mustn't take no note | of Leonard (Baskin) | only | of..... Read More about Selected Poems 1957-1967
Price: $1,000
New York: Random House, [1968]. First edition of the author's first book. First book. Read More about Setting Free the Bears
Price: $900
New York: A Henry Robbins Book. E.P. Dutton, [1978]. First edition. Made into a movie in 1982. Read More about The World According to Garp
Price: $750
New York: Published by David Longworth, At the Shakspeare-Gallery, 1807-1808. Mixed set: Volume I title page dated 1807 (BAL title page C); vol II title page A; part I is third edition, parts II and III are second edition, parts IV through XX are first editions; frontispiece in part VIII..... Read More about Salmagundi: or The Whim-Whams and Opinions of Launcelot Langstaff, Esq. and Others
Price: $5,000
London: Printed for J. and R. Tonson, et al, 1765. First separate edition. First Separate Edition. The first separate printing of Johnson's Preface to his celebrated edition of Shakespeare. Johnson's "humanely poised preface" (ODNB) is the pinnacle of 18th-century Shakespeare criticism. Adam Smith described it as the "most manly piece..... Read More about Mr. Johnson's Preface to His Edition of Shakespear's Plays
Price: $3,000
London: Bernard Quaritch, Piccadilly, 1868. Second edition. 'And Wilderness is Paradise enow': Second Edition, in Wrappers. The best known of FitzGerald's works, his Rubáiyát of Omar Khayaym was almost entirely overlooked at its first appearance. D. G. Rossetti and Swinburne were among the earliest “believers.” Borges has written of the..... Read More about Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam, the Astronomer-Poet of Persia. Rendered into English Verse [By Edward...
Price: $6,500
London: Henry Colburn, 1816. First edition. Lady Caroline Lamb's notorious and deliriously written roman à clé to exact her revenge on Byron for her seduction and abandonment. When our protagonist Calantha encounters Ruthven Glenarvon (i.,e., Byron), her helplessness is described thus: "The eye of the rattle-snake, it has been said..... Read More about Glenarvon
Price: $2,000
New York, Norfolk, CT, and Wilson, Wyoming: 1966-1973. To Bill Targ. New Directions publisher James Laughlin writes to Putnam's editor and bibliophile William Targ on a variety of publishing and book collecting topics over a span of seven years, including letters of Ezra Pound; inscribed Cocteau editions bought from Jake..... Read More about 2 autograph letters signed, 4 typed letters signed, and 1 typed letter, to William Targ
Price: $1,000
[London: Privately printed for Subscribers], 1929. Deluxe issue of the definitive edition. “This edition is limited to 50 copies”. Unbound sheets, with Autograph Note. Set of the unbound sheets of the deluxe issue of the definitive edition of Pansies, printed on good paper. The edition published by Secker some months..... Read More about Pansies June, 1929
Price: $1,750
London: Cecil Palmer, 1923. The last issue of Graves’ irregular literary miscellany (two issues of The Owl were publsihed by Martin Secker in 1919) Contributors include Thomas Hardy, David Garnett, Max Beerbohm (an unpublished sonnet by Enoch Soames), Pamela Bianco, Siegfried Sassoon, William Nicholson (a caricature), and T. E. Lawrence..... Read More about The Winter Owl
Price: $900
Various places: 1901-1929. An archive of material related to the writing career of Edwin Lefévre (1871-1943), the famed documentarian of Wall Street in the first decades of the 20th century. Lefévre’s first book, Wall Street Stories (1901), was a series of eight lightly fictionalized accounts of Wall Street operators which..... Read More about Archive of publisher correspondence and other material related to the writing career of Edwin...
Price: $7,500
Cambridge, Mass: February 15, 1878. Bifolium. "I sat beside [Cruikshank] at dinner at Dickens's, in Devonshire Terrace..." A terrific Longfellow letter. In part: "It gives me very great pleasure to sign the paper that has been sent me. But as I am not a British subject, I think Lord Beaconsfield..... Read More about Autograph letter signed ("Henry W. Longfellow"), to the English novelist Fanny Aikin...
Price: $2,500
[St. John’s Wood, London: 1926]. Published by Spurr & Swift in 1926, in an edition of 265 copies signed by the author. A choice and lengthy Machen holograph manuscript from the middle 1920s, at the apogee of his celebrity, in which he looks back at some of the ideas from..... Read More about Autograph Manuscript, signed (“Arthur Machen”), of the “Prospectus” Introduction to his...
Price: $5,000
![Item #313865 [Typee] Narrative of a Four Months’ Residence Among the Native of a Valley of the...](https://jamescumminsbookseller.cdn.bibliopolis.com/pictures/313865.jpg?width=320&height=427&fit=bounds&auto=webp&v=1690407778)
London: John Murray, 1846. First edition, second state of C2 (p. 19, l. 1 reads “Pomare”). Fine first edition in publisher's cloth of Melville's first book. A fine first edition in publisher's cloth of Melville's first book, preceding the American edition of the same year, which appeared a month later..... Read More about Typee] Narrative of a Four Months’ Residence Among the Native of a Valley of the Marquesas ...
Price: $7,500
Oxford: J. Vincent, 1839. First edition of the author's first book. Presentation Copy. Ruskin’s first book, published while a student at Christ Church, Oxford, the Newdigate Prize poem for 1839. "With J. Ruskin's kind regards" on the title-page. Read More about Salsette and Elephanta: a Prize Poem
Price: $3,500
New York: August 26, 1963. Signed by Salinger, Brazilian rights to Catcher in the Rye. A signed copy of the contract for the Portuguese-language rights of The Catcher in the Rye, made between Salinger and the Brazilian publisher Editora Nacional, twelve years after the book's original publication. Rights are granted..... Read More about Contract signed ("J.D. Salinger"), granting Portuguese-language publishing rights for...
Price: $7,500
New York: February 24, 1961. Signed by Salinger, Portuguese rights to Catcher in the Rye. A signed copy of the contract for the Portuguese-language rights of The Catcher in the Rye, made between Salinger and the Lisbon publisher Livros do Brasil, ten years after the book's original publication. Rights are..... Read More about Contract signed ("J.D. Salinger"), granting Portuguese-language publishing rights for...
Price: $10,000
New York: April 29, 1980. Signed by Salinger, Spanish rights to Catcher in the Rye. A signed copy of the contract for the Spanish-language rights of The Catcher in the Rye, made between Salinger and a Barcelona publisher for a book club edition. The final three provisions of the contract..... Read More about Contract signed ("J.D. Salinger"), granting Spanish-language publishing rights for The...
Price: $10,000
Hammersmith: Kelmscott Press, 1894-95. One of 250 copies. A very nice copy of the magnificent Kelmscott edition of the poems of Shelley. With interesting New York provenance. Signed on the two preliminary blank leaves by: Sam Shernes--- Dudley D. Sicher Samuel J. Bloomingdale (1873-1968), son of Lyman J. Edwin Goldman..... Read More about The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley
Price: $10,000
Various places: Delhi, Baghdad, Asolo, Aden, Cairo, London, Cyrenaica, etc: 1935 to 1979. A substantial archive of unpublished letters of Freya Stark (1893-1993), author and intrepid traveller in the greater Middle East who moved in military and intelligence circles during the war years. Stark wrote a multi-volume autobiography and an..... Read More about Archive of 88 Autograph letters, signed, from Freya Stark, to Lucy Beach, Minnie Gray Granville,...
Price: $22,500
Churchtown, Dundrum, [Dublin]: Cuala Press, 1914. First edition, one of 400 copies. "In these poems Yeats, inlfuenced by his young secretary Pound, breaks away from his early manner and begins to purge his imagery of abstraction and to write more simply and directly …" (Connolly). Read More about Responsibilities: Poems and a Play
Price: $1,500
Churchtown, Dundrum: The Cuala Press, 1919. First edition, one of 400 copies. Read More about Two Plays for Dancers
Price: $1,000