Catalog 106, B-C
22. BALLARD, J.G. Empire of the Sun. London: Gollancz, 1984. The limited edition of this Booker Prize-winning autobiographical novel, by a contemporary master of postmodern fantasy and science fiction. Basis for the award-winning movie. Of a total edition of 100 copies, this is copy #1, and is signed by the author. Fine in a glassine dustwrapper and slipcase. A little-known limited edition, this being one of the very few times we have seen a copy offered on the market. This copy, being #1, was reserved for the book's editor.
23. (Baseball). MEANY, Tom. Baseball's Greatest Teams. NY: Bantam Books (1950). A review copy of the first Bantam paperback edition. Sixteen great teams from the first half of the 20th century, including the 1908 Cubs, the 1915 Red Sox, the 1921 Giants, the 1927 Yankees, the 1941 Dodgers, and nearly a dozen others. Slight spine slant; else fine in wrappers. Scarce thus: we have seldom seen paperback review copies, with review slips, over the years.
24. BASS, Rick. The Watch. NY: Norton (1989). His first book of fiction, a highly praised collection of short stories. Signed by the author in Yaak in 1992. Bass is considered to be in the front rank of contemporary writers who brings a strong literary sensibility to writings about the natural world and the role of place and geography in the human experience. This book, like his other fiction, was highly praised on its literary merits, bearing none of the stigma that has often been associated with "nature writers" in the past, and thus helping to define a new literary landscape, wherein the sense of connection with the natural world and the sense of human responsibility in the natural world, becomes an element as important as plot and character have traditionally been to fiction. Small sticker removal abrasion front pastedown; else fine in a fine dust jacket.
25. BAXTER, Charles. Through the Safety Net. (n.p.): Viking (1985). The uncorrected proof copy. A well-received collection of stories, which was the author's first book from a major trade publisher, after a couple of poetry chapbooks and a story collection from a university press. Fine in wrappers. In our experience, quite an uncommon proof.
26. BECKETT, Samuel. The Collected Works of Samuel Beckett. NY: Grove Press (1970). A limited edition of 16 uniform volumes issued the year after Beckett won the Nobel Prize for Literature. One of 200 numbered sets, signed by the author on the colophon of Waiting for Godot. Clothbound with gilt stamping. Beckett's works had been published in the U.S. since the early 1950s by Grove Press, a small, maverick publisher that issued works by numerous avant garde writers who tested the limits of contemporary mainstream publishing, including William Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, Henry Miller and others. For one of these avant garde writers to be awarded the most prestigious literary prize in the Western world was an enormous coup for Barney Rosset, the publisher of Grove Press. The uniform set was an attempt to both honor Beckett and also to capitalize on his newly established mainstream credibility, perhaps in hope that some of this recognition would also rub off on Grove. These days, with a signed Waiting for Godot being one of the holy grails of modern literature collecting (in the first edition), the set provides a Beckett collector with both an attractive set of volumes of his major works and also a relatively affordable signed Godot. Each volume bears a small bookplate of the Fountain Lawn Library -- the previous owner's designation for his collection -- on the front pastedown; otherwise the set is fine, in original shipping box, stamped with the contents and with the number of the set ("75") handwritten on the box. For the set:
27. BERRYMAN, John. The Dream Songs. NY: FSG (1969). A review copy of this volume which collects his 1969 National Book Award winner His Toy, His Dream, His Rest and his 1965 Pulitzer Prize winner 77 Dream Songs. Fine in a fine dust jacket, with review slip laid in.
28. BERRYMAN, John. Love and Fame. NY: FSG, 1970. Review copy of this collection of new poems, many of which are autobiographical and deal directly with his life and work. Fine in a very mildly-sunned, near fine dust jacket.
29. BORGES, Jorge Luis. Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius. (Scarborough, Ontario): Porcupine's Quill, 1983. The first separate appearance of this story from Labyrinths, with special illustrations for this volume, including a fold-out map of Broges' mythical land. Fine in wrappers. An attractive edition.
30. (BOWIE, David). The Man Who Fell to Earth. (n.p.): (n.p.), (n.d.). The bound photocopy screenplay for the film based on the classic Walter Tevis novel and starring David Bowie in his first dramatic role. The film was directed by Nicholas Roeg -- the British filmmaker who, in the early 1970s, had a string of highly praised independent movies, including Walkabout, Don't Look Now, and Performance, which featured Mick Jagger in his acting debut. The screenplay is numbered "101" and is together with an 8" x 10" black and white photograph of Bowie with a bodyguard on stage during an unnamed performance; and also together with a birthday card signed by Bowie to the same bodyguard in 1987. The card is fine; the photo edge-sunned and near fine; the screenplay is claspbound with the front cover detaching; very good. Also included are two 8" x 10" photos of Elizabeth Taylor, with above-mentioned bodyguard. The screenplay bears the bodyguard's signature. For all:
31. BOWLES, Paul. A Hundred Camels in the Courtyard. (Tiburon/Olympia): Cadmus Editions/Dom America (1999). An audiobook. Two CDs of Bowles reading this collection of stories of Moroccan kif-smokers, which was first published in 1962. The collection was issued as an LP recording in 1981, with an essay that then appeared in the 1986 City Lights edition. Re-released here in CD format, with the essay as a printed insert. Fine. List price:
32. BROMFIELD, Louis. Night in Bombay. NY: Harper & Brothers, 1940. The second of his novels set in India, based on the two years the author spent living there. Inscribed by the author in 1942, with an interesting indication of the degree to which these books were autobiographical: "For/ _____ _____ _____ / this personal memoir/ written for myself before I forgot it all/ with best wishes/ Louis Bromfield." Bromfield won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1926 for his novel, Early Autumn. His later books, about his co-operative farm in Ohio, Malabar Farm, are widely considered to be important and seminal works in the conservation movement, as critiques of the agri-business approach to farming, and anticipating the writings of Wendell Berry on these questions. A tiny bit of fraying to the cloth; else fine in a moderately edgeworn, very good dust jacket.
33. BROOKS, Gwendolyn. In the Mecca. NY: Harper & Row (1968). A collection of poems by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Annie Allen, among others. Brooks became the Poetry Consultant to the Library of Congress, the so-called "Poet Laureate" of the U.S., and has been one of the most influential African-American woman writers in the U.S. over a span of nearly 50 years. Signed by the author. Fine in a fine, price-clipped dust jacket.
34. BROWN, Frederic. The Bloody Midnight. NY: Bantam Books (1950). A review copy of the first Bantam paperback edition. Trace rubbing at the folds; still fine in wrappers. A beautiful copy, and extremely scarce as a review copy: we have seldom seen review copies of paperbacks from this era.
35. BURGESS, Anthony. The Right to an Answer. NY: Norton (1961). The first American edition of his fourth novel, and his first book to be published in the U.S., preceding his dystopian classic, A Clockwork Orange, by two years. Small bookplate front pastedown; else fine in a very near fine, price-clipped dust jacket with slight spine fading. An attractive copy of a scarce early book by one of the most important authors of his time.
36. BURGESS, Anthony. The Long Day Wanes. NY: Norton (1964). The first one volume edition of his "Malayan trilogy," and the first U.S. edition of any of the books that comprise it. Burgess's first three novels were published in the U.K. in the 1950s and were: Time for a Tiger, The Enemy in the Blanket and Beds in the East. It was only after the success of A Clockwork Orange that they were published in the U.S., in this one-volume edition that had no corresponding U.K. edition. Small bookplate front pastedown; else fine in a fine dust jacket.
37. BURGESS, Anthony. Urgent Copy. NY: Norton (1968). First American edition of this collection of literary essays, with a foreword by the author. Burgess was prolific during the 1960s and 1970s, publishing nearly three dozen books in two decades. Small bookplate front pastedown; else fine in a near fine dust jacket.
38. BURGESS, Anthony. One Hand Clapping. NY: Knopf, 1972. The first American edition of a novel first published in England in 1961 under the pseudonym "Joseph Kell.". Small bookplate front pastedown; else fine in a dust jacket with a few tiny spots of abrasion on the front panel, but still fine.
39. BURROUGHS, William. My Education: A Book of Dreams. (n.p.): Viking (1995). The advance reading copy of the first novel in seven years by the author of The Naked Lunch and various other classics of Beat and underground literature. One of the last books published in Burroughs' lifetime. Fine in wrappers.
40. CARR, John Dickson. Till Death Do Us Part. NY: Bantam Books (1950). A review copy of the first Bantam paperback edition. Spine slightly cocked; tiny bump to spine base; else fine in wrappers. A beautiful copy, and extremely scarce as a paperback review copy, the slip giving date of publication, etc.
41. CARROLL, Jim. Forced Entries. (n.p.): Penguin (1987). The uncorrected proof copy of this paperback original. Subtitled "The Downtown Diaries: 1971-1973," this is the sequel to his acclaimed underground classic The Basketball Diaries and chronicles his friendships with Allen Ginsberg and other luminaries of the New York underground arts scene. One small edge tear to the front cover; else fine in wrappers.
42. CARVER, Raymond. Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? NY: McGraw-Hill (1976). A review copy of his first collection of stories, which was nominated for the National Book Award and was the first book to bring him recognition beyond the small circle of literary insiders familiar with his work from the quarterlies and his small press volumes. These stories provoked a trend of "minimalist" writing that, for a time, was the dominant mode in American short fiction. And while Carver's stories never strove for nor attained the kind of "pure" minimalism that others embodied -- and minimalism itself faded into literary obscurity -- Carver reinvigorated the short story form as no other American writer had since Hemingway, with a spare and resolute voice that could not be dismissed. A landmark collection of stories. Near fine in a near fine dust jacket, with review slip and press release laid in. An attractive copy of one of the most important books of the 1970s, and very scarce in an advance issue.
43. CARVER, Raymond. [Title in Japanese]. (Tokyo): (Chuokoron-Sha Inc.) (1983). The first Japanese edition of a selection of eight stories taken from What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?, Furious Seasons, The Random Review 1982 and The New Yorker. Fine in a fine dust jacket, with publisher's wraparound band present.
44. CATHER, Willa. Shadows on the Rock. NY: Knopf, 1931. The limited edition of this novel, written at the peak of Cather's career. Over the past decade, she had published One of Ours (Pulitzer Prize, 1923), A Lost Lady, The Professor's House, My Mortal Enemy and the classic, Death Comes for the Archbishop. This is one of 619 numbered copies signed by the author, bound in marbled paper boards with a leather spine label and silk ribbon marker. Minor foxing to the prelims, mild fading to spine cloth; near fine, lacking the dust jacket and slipcase.
45. CHANDLER, Raymond. Typed Letter Signed. January 27, 1958. In blue type on blue personal stationery. One full page, to Michael Gilbert, Chandler's lawyer and himself a mystery novelist, briefly discussing his will and the disposition of personal letters. Much of the letter is a tangent on having become so "goddam British" in his thinking that he can no longer tolerate American speech. As to his and his wife's personal effects: "I don't like to destroy her diaries because she so often made fun of me in them. I think it would be proper for me to destroy any letters written to me by my intimate lady friends, but not mine to them." Signed, "Yours always, Ray." Folded in fourths for mailing, with several additional, very light creases. Near fine, with several small holograph corrections. A revealing letter, beginning to set some of his affairs in order in the year before his death and revealing an individual more concerned with protecting his friends' privacy than his own.
46. COETZEE, J.M. Waiting for the Barbarians. (n.p.): Penguin (1982). The uncorrected proof copy of the first American edition of this novel by the recent Booker Prize winner. Only published as a paperback in this country, but nonetheless selected as one of the best books of the year by the New York Times Book Review in 1982. A novel of an incipient race war in an unnamed African nation, patterned after the author's native South Africa -- an insightful and chilling book, a bit reminiscent of Kafka. Fine in wrappers.
47. COETZEE, J.M. Life & Times of Michael K. NY: Viking (1984). The uncorrected proof copy of the first American edition of his first Booker Prize-winning novel. Near fine in wrappers.
48. COETZEE, J.M. Doubling the Point. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992. The uncorrected proof copy of this collection of essays and interviews on a variety of subjects, mostly literary. Coetzee talks about Beckett at length, and discusses the manuscript revisions of Beckett's novel, Watt. Other subjects include Kafka, obscentiy and censorship, D. H. Lawrence, South African writers, and more. Presumably a scarce proof: we have not seen it listed often, and books from Harvard University Press are likely to have fewer proof copies printed and issued than books from mainstream trade publishers. Fine in wrappers.
49. COETZEE, J.M. The Lives of Animals. Princeton: Princeton University Press (1999). The uncorrected proof copy of Coetzee's Tanner Lecture, in which he told a fictional story about an animal rights activist giving a lecture. This work became the first piece of fiction published by the press. With an introduction by Amy Gutmann and commentaries by Marjorie Garber, Peter Singer, Wendy Doniger and Barbara Smuts. Front cover splayed; near fine in wrappers. Uncommon.
50. COLEMAN, Lonnie. Clara. NY: Dutton, 1952. A novel of the South in the first half of the century, by a writer from Georgia. Fine in a dust jacket with one small edge tear at the spine crown; else fine. An attractive copy.
51. (Computers). GLASS, Robert L. Tales of Computing Folk: Hot Dogs & Mixed Nuts. Seattle: Computing Trends (1978). A collection of articles by Glass about "Computer People," which appeared in Computerworld in the 1970s under the pseudonym Miles Benson. Signed by the author. Only issued in softcover; fine in wrappers. Internet incunabula.
52. CONRAD, Joseph, and FORD, Ford Madox (as Ford Madox Hueffer). The Nature of a Crime. NY: Doubleday, 1924. A collaborative story that Conrad and Ford had written years earlier but was not published in book form until the year Conrad died. The two had previously collaborated on the novels The Inheritors (1901) and Romance (1903). Conrad provides an introduction to this volume. Some offsetting to endpapers and foxing to page edges; thus near fine in a fine dust jacket. Laid in is a slip announcing Duckworth's publication of Ford's Joseph Conrad: A Personal Remembrance.
53. (CONRAD, Joseph). BEER, Thomas. Stephen Crane. A Study in American Letters. NY: Knopf, 1923. Conrad provides a 30-plus page introduction to this biography that is chiefly concerned with his friendship with Crane. A newspaper article was once tipped to the rear endpapers; and there is some offsetting and light, small notations there. Still a near fine copy in a dust jacket with a tiny gutter hole and tape shadows on the flaps. With the Alfred A. Knopf prospectus for 1923 laid in, announcing forthcoming books.
54. CRACE, Jim. Continent. NY: Harper & Row (1987). The uncorrected proof copy of the first American edition of his first book, one of the most highly praised debuts of recent years -- winner of the Whitbread First Novel Prize, the Guardian Prize for Fiction, and the David Higham Prize. Fine in wrappers.
55. CRICHTON, Michael. The Lost World. NY: Knopf, 1995. The uncorrected proof copy of this sequel to his massive bestseller, Jurassic Park. On the basis of the success of his earlier novel, and the Steven Spielberg film adaptation of it, this book was given a 2 million copy first printing, guaranteeing that the trade edition, unlike the proof, will never be scarce. Fine in wrappers.
56. CUMMINGS, E.E. Six Nonlectures. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1953. The text of his six Charles Eliot Norton lectures from 1952 and 1953. This copy belonged to Alfred Kazin and is signed by Kazin and dated 1953, with (presumably) his notes on the rear flyleaf and marginal markings in the text. Cummings agreed to do the prestigious lecture series on the condition that he could identify his comments as "nonlectures" and that he be entirely free to talk about whatever he chose -- and he chose to be autobiographical and to focus on "one whole half" of his artistic life, "the writing half." His life as a painter and visual artist, which he considered his other half, was alluded to but left uncommented upon in these talks. Near fine in a good, heavily edge-chipped dust jacket. A nice association copy, linking the preeminent American literary critic of the middle part of the century with the experimental poet whose writings helped expand the range of American poetry in the 20th century.
57. CUMMINGS, E.E. Selected Poems. NY: Liveright (1994). The uncorrected proof copy of a collection published on the centennial of the poet's birth, which includes, for the first time in a volume of his poetry, a selection of his drawings and paintings, and an exploration of their relation to his writing, including the influence of cubism on his early experiments with typographical layout. Near fine in wrappers.
CUMMINGS, E. E. [Artwork]. See rear of catalog.