We hope this won't be a long running theme but it is hard to know much of anything these days. To help stave off boredom, please look through this selection of books that we think will resonate in these strange times. Perhaps we might help make your time in quarantine just a little bit brighter.
Oxford: Printed at The Shakespeare Head Press and published for the Press by Basil Blackwell, 1934-1935. No. 132 of 325 copies. A handsomely bound copy of this modern fine press edition of the Decameron. Read More about Boccaccio's Decameron.The Modell of Wit, Mirth, Eloquence and Conversation framed in Ten Dayes of...
Price: $2,000
London: John Murray, 1816. First edition, (presumed) first state with recto of E8 (p. 61) blank and with both Murray’s list of Byron’s poems and the imprint on p. 62. Souvenir of Geneva. “There are seven pillars of Gothic mold, / In Chillon’s dungeons deep and old” Byron's very free..... Read More about The Prisoner of Chillon, and Other Poems
Price: $1,250
London: Printed for the author by W. Bulmer and Co. Shakespeare Press, 1817. First edition, with half-titles and errata. Bound by Charles Smith. Dibdin's lavish work in an ornate binding by Charles Smith, one of the more active and competent binders in London of the 1810s-'30s, with his "13 Church..... Read More about The Bibliographical Decameron; Or Ten Days' Pleasant Discourse upon Illuminated Manuscripts and...
Price: $3,000
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991. First edition, limited edition of 50 SIGNED copies (38 in half leather and 12 in full), this being one of two (?) author's copies, lettered ("AC2") on the limitation page. Author's Copy. The longest of Disch’s Supernatural Minnesota novels. Billy Michaels grows up to..... Read More about The M.D. A Horror Story
Price: $300
New York: Random House, [1938]. First edition. Read More about The Unvanquished
Price: $2,000
New York: The New American Library, [1966]. First edition. Author’s First Book, Inscribed. Inscribed by the author on the title page, “For G— P— with best wishes, William Gass”. Read More about Omensetter's Luck
Price: $550
New York: Villard Books, 1987. Second edition. Read More about Learned Pigs & Fireproof Women: Unique, Eccentric and Amazing Entertainers Ricky Jay
Price: $350
London: Printed for G. Kearsley, Fleet Street; Bell and Bradfute, Edinburgh; and Brash and Reid, Glasgow, by W. Glendinning, 1801. First English edition. The first English edition of this quite unusual and very entertaining compendium of conundrums, problems, parlor tricks, and "interesting facts" — it is actually much more fun..... Read More about Select Amusements in Philosophy and Mathematics; Proper for Agreeably Exercising the Minds of...
Price: $1,350
Paris: [D. Jouaust for] Librairie des Bibliophiles, 1877. Copy number 1 of 20 printed on China paper (of an edition of 210 total). Copy Number One on China Paper. Read More about Voyage Autour de ma Chambre Suivi de l’Expédition Nocturne … Préface par Jules Clarétie
Price: $1,250
New York: Viking Press, 1954. First edition, number 172 of 400 copies autographed by the Translator. Signed. Read More about The Fables of La Fontaine Translated by Marianne Moore
Price: $250
[Trenton]: Published by D. Fenton, 1811. First edition. Remarkable picaresque history, with many travels through the South between 1800 and 1808. Born in Germany in 1781, Oehler claimed he arrived in Baltimore in 1800 as a bound tailor; escaped to become a dancing master in Alexandria and then a fencing..... Read More about The Life Adventures and Unparalleled Sufferings of Andrew Oehler: Containing an Account of His...
Price: $2,000
Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1966. First Edition. First edition. An attractive copy of Pynchon's second novel. Read More about The Crying of Lot 49
Price: $900
New York: Knopf, 1981. First American edition, preceding the British edition. Read More about Midnight's Children
Price: $1,000
New York: House of Field, Inc, [1940]. First American edition. Inscribed. Inscribed, “To Col. Don Rockwell, with appreciation of his exploring — Grace Thompson Seton. /5/2/40.” Rockwell wrote an introductory note to the illustrations, "The Author Behind the Lens" (pp. 303-4). Read More about Poison Arrows. A Strange Journey with an Opium Dreamer through Annam, Cambodia, Siam, and the...
Price: $300
London: London Stereoscopic & Photo Company, Limited 106 and 108 Regent Street, [n.d., 1888]. First edition. Caribou, wild sheep, and bear hunting, trapping, ice-fishing, and outdoor life in the Rocky Mountains in Kootway, British Columbia, by J. Turner-Turner, author of Three Years Hunting and Trapping (1888), whose wife accompanied him..... Read More about Life in the Backwoods. From Original Photographs
Price: $3,000