Catalog 102, N-R
253. NIN, Anaïs. The Novel of the Future. NY: Macmillan (1968). Advance review copy of this "study of the development and technique of the poetic novel," by one of the foremost practitioners of such writing. Nin recapitulates both her own work and also that of such writers as D.H. Lawrence, Henry Miller, Lawrence Durrell, and others, providing in effect a natural history of a particular approach to art and writing, and exploring the underpinnings of her own work. "Courtesy of Antioch Review" stamped under front flap; near fine in a near fine dust jacket.
254. OATES, Joyce Carol. The Edge of Impossibility. (NY): Vanguard (1972). The uncorrected proof copy of this collection of critical essays, her first book of nonfiction. Very near fine in wrappers and signed by the author. Very scarce: proofs from the early Seventies are considerably scarcer than those done after 1978, which was something of a watershed year for collecting proof copies.
255. OATES, Joyce Carol. "Annie Johnson: A Lost New England Artist." (n.p.): (n.p.) (1985). Six page photocopied typescript, submitted in the folder of her agent, to Art & Antiques magazine. Together with two typed letters signed and two typed postcards signed, all to an editor at the magazine and regarding the article. The first card claims, "I know nothing about Annie Johnson--nothing! I think it would be too vague and impressionistic for me to write about her. In any case I couldn't do it for a while." Five months later, Oates submits the piece and sends both a card and a letter to the editor on the same day with suggestions for illustrating the article and for future topics. The final letter concerns mostly last minute language changes and a note on the reading Oates has been doing on women artists. Items are folded for mailing; else fine. The agent's folder has a few creases.
256. OATES, Joyce Carol. "Life, Vigor, Fire: The Watercolors of Winslow Homer." (n.p.): (n.p.) (n.d.)[c. 1986]. Ten page photocopied typescript, submitted in the folder of her agent, to Art & Antiques magazine. Claspbound at the corner; folded about an inch from the bottom; else fine in a near fine folder.
257. OATES, Joyce Carol. "George Bellows." (n.p.): (n.p.) (1987). Eight page ribbon-copy typescript, submitted in the folder of her agent, to Art & Antiques magazine. Together with four revised pages of text, the first of which is titled in pencil by Oates; one typed postcard signed thanking the editor for judicious editing at the galley stage; and one autograph postcard signed exclaiming pleasure at the appearance of the published issue. A total of twelve pages of ribbon-copy typescript and two postcards commenting on the piece. The original typescript is claspbound into the folder and had been folded in half for mailing prior to that; otherwise all items are fine. We have seen little Oates manuscript material appear on the market, and this small archive gives a view of the author's revisions in the final stages before publication.
258. OATES, Joyce Carol. Typed Postcards Signed. June 23, 1987 and October 20, 1990. Written to the editor of Art & Antiques magazine. The first makes a suggestion for an article: "I tend to be interested in contemporary art...in women's work, for instance... What of Cecilia Beaux? I'd love sometime to do a piece on her." The second declines contributing for lack of time, and also, "I'm not that terribly interested in Cecilia Beaux." Both typed on Ontario Review Press postcards. Fine.
259. OATES, Joyce Carol. Typed Postcards Signed. November 13, 1987 and February 23, 1988. Written to the editor of Art & Antiques magazine. In the first card, she compliments him on a recent issue and declines contributing; in the second she informs him of a move to San Antonio and proposes doing an article on the avant-garde there. Both typed on Ontario Review Press postcards; marked from mailing; else fine.
260. OATES, Joyce Carol. Autograph Postcard Signed. October 4, 1988. Written to the editor of Art & Antiques magazine, thanking him for the new issue and saying, in part, "I'm especially taken by the Updike memoir. I do hope to write something for you again soon but at the moment I'm caught up in a novel." On an Ontario Review Press postcard; marked from mailing; else fine.
261. OATES, Joyce Carol. Correspondence. May 23, June 5, and June 25, 1989. Two typed postcards signed and one typed note signed, again to the editor of Art & Antiques magazine. Oates proposes an article about her own book American Appetites, in which the four main characters are "envisioned by the author as (approximations of) works of art: the protagonist is a Durer, his wife a Renoir, her ex-lover a Bruegel, and another woman a Rossetti... I am probably going to be doing the screenplay for the film, if there is a film, thus I'm re-envisioning the story." The note submits the article and adds in postscript her admiration for Alexander Theroux's pieces in the magazine. The last card effectively withdraws the article: "I don't believe I have the art historian's knowledge, and the time, to expand the essay along the lines you so thoughtfully suggest... this was a quick 'inspired' labor of love... If it helps the director and producer of the (possible) film of the novel, perhaps it will have served its purpose." All items fine.
262. (O'BRIEN, Tim). Magazine Appearances. 1984-1994. Five stories by O'Brien: two in Esquire (August 1986, October 1987), both excerpts from The Things They Carried, which wasn't published until 1990; an excerpt from In the Lake of the Woods in The Atlantic in 1992, two years prior to publication; "Ambush" in Boston Magazine, April 1993; and "The Vietnam in Me" in The New York Times Magazine, October 1994. Together with an article on O'Brien in Boston Magazine, October 1994 and reviews of In the Lake of the Woods in The New York Times Book Review, October 1994 and the U of T [Toronto] Bookstore Review, Autumn 1994. All items near fine or better.
263. O'CONNOR, Flannery. A Good Man is Hard to Find. NY: Harcourt Brace (1955). O'Connor's most widely celebrated work, the collection of stories that created her reputation as a master of the form and which redefined the notion of Southern gothic. Nominated for the National Book Award. O'Connor has been called a master of the grotesque while at the same time being considered a deeply religious writer: for her, the suffering and pain of life were only potentially redeemable and black humor was more likely to be the form that relief and transcendence took than God-given grace. Printed in an edition of 2500 copies. Board edges worn; a near fine copy in a very good, spine-faded and price-clipped dust jacket with an internally tape-repaired edge tear.
264. O'CONNOR, Frank. The Mirror in the Roadway. NY: Knopf, 1956. A study of the modern novel by the Irish short story writer. With the ownership signature of Malcolm Cowley. Near fine in a spine-faded, edge-chipped dust jacket; about very good. An important critic's copy of a book of criticism by a major writer of fiction.
265. ONDAATJE, Michael. Running in the Family. (Toronto): McClelland & Stewart (1982). An advance reading excerpt shot from the uncorrected proofs of the correct first edition of this memoir of the author's youth in Sri Lanka and his family's history there. Stapled wrappers. Fine. Uncommon.
266. ONDAATJE, Michael. In the Skin of a Lion. NY: Knopf, 1987. The first American edition of this highly praised novel. This copy has a note laid in on Knopf stationery to Raymond Carver: "Dear Ray/ I thought you'd enjoy/ this" and signed by a Knopf editor. Near fine in a near fine dust jacket
267. ORWELL, George. Nineteen Eighty-Four. NY: Harcourt Brace (1949). The first American edition of his classic dystopia, a chilling extrapolation of the political tendencies in postwar Great Britain and one of the most influential works of the century--whose very title became a synonym for an oppressive police state, and which introduced to the language and the political vernacular such words and phrases as "thought police," "newspeak," "doublethink," and "Big Brother is watching you." One of Pringle's hundred best science fiction novels and also a Burgess 99 and Connolly 100 title, and also chosen as one of the novels of the century by the Modern Library, Radcliffe, Waterstones and the New York Public Library. One of the defining books of the modern era. A fine copy in a very slightly spine-tanned red dust jacket. A beautiful copy of a modern classic.
268. OZICK, Cynthia. "Vote for Puttermesser for Mayor." (n.p.): Knopf, 1997. A broadside excerpt from her National Book Award nominee The Puttermesser Papers, designed as a campaign handbill. Approximately 8 1/2 " x 14 1/2", matted to 14 1/4" x 20 1/2". Inscribed by Ozick "with GREAT gratitude for a delightful brainstorm." The paper coating has prevented Ozick's pen from quite taking; the words in the inscription are spotty and faint. Else fine.
269. PORTIS, Charles. Masters of Atlantis. NY: Knopf, 1985. The uncorrected proof copy of this novel by the author of Norwood and A Dog of the South. Fine in wrappers with "P.C" (Press Copy) written on the front cover.
270. POWERS, J.F. Prince of Darkness and Other Stories. Garden City: Doubleday, 1947. His uncommon first book, a collection of stories, one of which won an O. Henry Award in 1944. Powers' novel, The Presence of Grace, was a National Book Award finalist in 1957 and his Morte d'Urban won the award in 1963. Near fine in a near fine dust jacket rubbed along the extremities and folds and with a small chip at the base of the spine. A very attractive copy of an uncommon first book.
271. PRICE, Reynolds. The Promise of Rest. NY: Scribner (1995). The advance reading copy of the third book in his sequence that began with The Surface of Earth and continued with The Source of Light. Fine in wrappers.
272. PROSE, Francine. The Glorious Ones. NY: Atheneum, 1974. Her second book. Fine in a near fine, price-clipped dust jacket with a tiny gutter nick on the front cover and a crease on the front flap.
273. PUIG, Manuel. Betrayed by Rita Hayworth. NY: Dutton, 1971. The first American edition of this Argentine author's first book. Fine in a fine dust jacket with trace wear to the crown.
274. RICH, Adrienne. A Wild Patience Has Taken Me This Far. NY: Norton (1982). The uncorrected proof copy of this collection of poems from 1978-1981. Rich won the National Book Award for poetry in 1974 for her collection, Diving Into the Wreck. Fine in wrappers.
275. ROBINSON, Lynda S. Murder at the God's Gate. NY: Walker & Co. (1995). A mystery set in ancient Egypt, a sequel to her novel Murder in the Place of Anubis. Fine in a fine dust jacket, and signed by the author. With a "Signed by the Author" sticker on the front panel.
276. ROBINSON, Marilynne. Housekeeping. NY: Farrar, Straus & Giroux (1980)[actually 1981]. The uncorrected proof copy of her first book and only work of fiction. A subtle story of keeping what matters and escaping from the weight of the rest. Winner of the Ernest Hemingway Foundation Award and a Richard and Hilda Rosenthal Award. Made into a moving film with Christine Lahti. Fine in wrappers, with a folded copy of the dust jacket.
277. -. Same title, early draft pages. Five sheets total: one page in holograph; two pages of typescript; two matching photocopied pages, one of which bears revisions. The holograph page is the first paragraph of the two typescript pages, which bear copyediting marks, and these pages sketch out the event of the novel's opening. The photocopied pages are a draft of an event from much later in the published book. Loose sheets on varied paper; slight edgewear; near fine.
278. ROBINSON, Marilynne. Autograph Letter Signed. Undated (1988). Written from England, where she was working on her second book, Mother Country, about the nuclear industry there and, by extension, elsewhere. The letter is a portrait of the pubs and the inhabitants: "...cosy little places with the plastic flowers in the fireplace & the technicolor picture of the Royal Wedding over the bar and the lampstands which are porcelain spaniels rampant with barometers in their bellies... The proles...have terrified the establishment by acquiring VCR's at a rate unapproached in the world and giving themselves over to the contemplation of 'nasties'... Maybe it's all true, but I think it's largely guilty fear... fear compounded by prejudice... Ordinary people here have...no highly developed fault except docility; but their docility in combination with the fecklessness of their 'elite' is appalling in its consequences." A single sheet, written on both sides, with good content. One corner chip, not affecting text; else fine. Folded for mailing, with envelope included.
279. ROTH, Philip. Goodbye, Columbus. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1959. The author's first book, a collection of short fiction including the title novella--which was the basis for a well-received movie in the Sixties--and five short stories. Winner of the Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship Award, an award also bestowed on first or early books by such writers as Robert Penn Warren, Robert Stone, Elizabeth Bishop, Edward Hoagland, Ann Petry and, more recently, Ethan Canin and David Payne. Roth has been perhaps the most decorated American writer of the 1990s, with his books having won the National Book Award, the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the PEN/Faulkner Award. This copy's been nibbled on the front edge of the rear board; otherwise near fine in a good dust jacket with many small flaws (sunning, spotting, edgewear, rubbing), but no one large enough to prevent it from being a presentable copy. A modestly priced, but still reasonably attractive copy of Roth's scarce first book.
280. ROTH, Philip. The Professor of Desire. (n.p.): (FSG) (1977). Printer's sample pages. One sheet, folded in half, printing the text of pp. 101-103. Four sections of text have been cut and pasted over corresponding sections of text and, though retained, have fallen off, leaving glue residue. Their function is confusing, as the text of the "revisions" exactly corresponds to the printed sections. Else fine.
281. ROTH, Philip. Colophon for Zuckerman Unbound. NY: FSG (1981). The colophon for the limited edition. The limitation was 350 copies; this is apparently an overrun page, unnumbered but signed by Roth. Fine.
282. ROTH, Philip. Zuckerman Bound. NY: FSG (1985). The uncorrected proof copy of the Zuckerman trilogy: The Ghost Writer, Zuckerman Unbound and The Anatomy Lesson. With a previously unpublished epilogue. Fine in wrappers. Zuckerman Bound is one of Roth's scarcest trade editions, very few copies of the full collection having been printed. The proof is considerably scarcer.
283. -. Same title, but this being the proof of the epilogue only--the only separate publication of the epilogue. Fine in wrappers.
284. RUBINO, Jane. Death of a DJ. (Aurora): Write Way Publishing (1995). The author's first mystery, published with a small first printing by a small press, and winner of an Edgar Award. Signed by the author. Fine in a fine dust jacket.