Catalog 162, S-U
184. SANDOZ, Mari. The Tom-Walker. NY: Dial Press, 1947. A second printing, but beautifully inscribed by Sandoz: "For Martha Deane: for her appeal, today, that we face reality, and the implications of mankind's obsession with the weapons of self-destruction. Gratefully, Mari Sandoz/ December 9, 1947/ this study of America in three post war periods: Civil War, and World Wars I and II." Sandoz has also written on the front flap: "Theme of book omitted in this blurb. Sorry. MS." "Martha Deane" was the radio persona of Mary Margaret McBride. Front hinge starting; near fine in a near fine dust jacket.
185. SAYLES, John. Thinking in Pictures. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987. The rare hardcover issue of Sayles' nonfiction book about the making of his film Matewan. Sayles' reputation is more as a filmmaker these days than as an author, and this book combines those two talents uniquely. The hardcover issue is by far Sayles' scarcest book; there was a simultaneous paperback. Most hardcover copies were apparently earmarked for the library trade and few bookstores ever stocked the hardcover. Small spot to top edge (not a remainder mark) and tiny indent to upper rear board; else fine in a fine dust jacket.
186. SHAW, Bernard. The Quintessence of Ibsenism. Now Completed to the Death of Ibsen. London: Archibald Constable, 1913. First thus: Shaw's 1891 essay on Ibsen with a new preface for this edition and an additional section incorporating the plays Ibsen wrote after 1891 and before his stroke in 1900. Shaw's original essay was his first important connection to the theater, and his commentary on the social realism of Ibsen's plays, versus the stagnant formalism of most Victorian theater, is a landmark of dramatic theory. Small "first edition" stamp on pastedown; very near fine in a very good, spine and edge-darkened dust jacket with only small corner chips. Scarce in jacket.
187. SHAW, Irwin. Mixed Company. NY: Random House (1950). A volume of collected stories, seven of which appear here in book form for the first time and one of which was previously unpublished altogether. Inscribed by Shaw to John Cheever and his wife: "To John and Mary, with love, Irwin." Shaw, in a Paris Review interview, once called Cheever "my favorite short story writer." A near fine copy in a very good dust jacket made of coarse, fragile "oatmeal" paper. The jacket has several small chips and some dampstaining to the lower rear panel but is remarkably well-preserved given the material. An excellent literary association copy, linking two American masters of the short story form.
188. SHAW, Irwin. The Troubled Air. NY: Random House (1951). His second novel, after the success of The Young Lions. This book was about the rise of McCarthyism in the U.S. and contributed to Shaw's being placed on the Hollywood blacklist and moving to Europe for 25 years. Inscribed by Shaw to John Cheever and his wife: "To John and Mary, in the untroubled suburb - Love, Irwin." Foxing and staining to boards, a very good copy in a very good (possibly supplied), price-clipped dust jacket with shallow chipping to the spine extremities. Again, an excellent literary association copy, and a telling inscription.
189. SINGER, Isaac Bashevis. A Crown of Feathers. NY: FSG (1973). A collection of stories by the Nobel Prize-winning author. Winner of the National Book Award. Fine in a near fine dust jacket with slight edge wear.
190. (Sixties). Brandeis Student Strike Archive. (Waltham): Brandeis University, 1969. A collection of thirteen pieces pertaining to the week of January 12, 1969, when black students at Brandeis took over a building on campus and barricaded themselves in, issuing a list of ten demands to be met by the university, most of them having to do with establishing a black studies program and seeking more black faculty members and greater recruitment of and scholarships for black students. A student newspaper on January 14 reports that white students went on strike in support of the black students, and included in this archive are: several strike bulletins ["In view of the confusion...," "To the University Employees," "Crisis Bulletin 1/15/69," "Fight Racism," "The Demands are Just," "Academic Freedom for Whom?," "I, Sp/4 John Rollins, stand united..." and "Why Don't the President and the Faculty Talk About the Substance of the Black Students' Demands?"]; "Strike Daily One" and "Strike Daily Two," 11" x 17" folded sheets printed on both sides, making four pages, and dated January 15 and 16, respectively; "Brandeis Black Bulletin No. 2," another 11" x 17" folio, dated January 13 -- i.e., after the seizure but before the beginning of the strike; a reprint of an article by Jerry Farber entitled "The Student as Nigger;" the Brandeis newspaper "The Justice" from January 14; and a six-page mimeograph of the "Clarification of Black Student Demands." The Clarification lists the ten original demands and specifies the details of each -- in effect, being a list of not just the ten main demands but another 31 secondary demands. An interesting and detailed look at events of a particularly significant week in the history of Brandeis University, and a glimpse of student activism from a particularly volatile period of the 1960s: unrest among black students at Brandeis had begun in April of the previous year, after the assassination of Martin Luther King, and a number of demands were raised then, for a black studies department, more black students, etc. Frustration with the slow pace of change since April, and a conviction that the university administration was acting in bad faith and deliberately responding slowly, helped trigger the direct action taken by the students in seizing a campus building. The Brandeis action came in the wake of the student takeover of Columbia University in April, 1968; it anticipated, and probably helped inspire, the student takeover at Cornell University in April, 1969. Several items are folded and some have mild edge-sunning, one has an ink squiggle; on the whole the lot is very near fine. For all:
191. (Sixties). Diggers Handbill. (n.p.: n.p., n.d.). "Emmett Grogan/ is/ back!/ so what/ the diggers." The Diggers were a counterculture group based in San Francisco that grew out of the San Francisco arts scene and the civil rights and peace movements of the mid-1960s. Emmett Grogan was one of the founders of the anarchistic group, along with a number of members of the San Francisco Mime Troupe including the actor Peter Coyote, among others. The Diggers were highly critical of the self-promotion of some of the counterculture figures of the day, and Grogan used to give his name out for others to use. That being said, Grogan was nonetheless charismatic enough, and canny enough, that he became something of a superstar in his own right, within the movement. This handbill can be read either way, as a reiteration of the group's commitment to egalitarianism and even anonymity, or as a rebuke to Grogan's tendency for self-aggrandizement. 8 1/2" x 11". Printed in black on peach; three-hole punched in left margin. Fine.
192. (Sixties) Earth Flag. (n.p.): World Equality (WE), Inc., 1969. The first edition, first corrected issue of the Earth Flag created by John McConnell, founder of Earth Day. This original design, in two colors only, was based on the supposed first picture of Earth, taken by Apollo 10. In the first issue, the printer reversed the blue and white, which were then corrected. This is the second issue (first corrected), of the original design which showed only blue earth and clouds, no land masses -- a deliberate choice, as McConnell did not want to support any one people's, or region's, claim to importance or autonomy from the whole. Later flags used another, less cloudy, Apollo photograph, which did show land masses. An early artifact of not just the environmental movement but a movement toward world peace and social justice, to be linked to environmental causes. Approximately 18" x 11 1/2". Flown; threadbare and worn through at several oceans and outer edge; in fair condition, but a rare '60s artifact.
193. SKLOOT, Rebecca. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. NY: Crown (2009). The advance reading copy (marked "Uncorrected Proof") of Skloot's biography of Henrietta Lacks and her descendants, which in broad definition includes the HeLa cell line, the first human cells to survive in perpetuity outside of a human body, and which were taken from the dying Lacks in the 1950s without her or her family's knowledge or consent, and used to create both miracles (cures) and money (though not for the Lackses, an impoverished black family in Maryland). Originally to be published by W.H. Freeman, who was bought out by Henry Holt in 2003; Holt reportedly wanted less of the Lacks family in the narrative, so Skloot pulled out and the title was auctioned to Crown. This advance copy is dated 2009; the book was published in 2010; the first printing sold out in a day, and Crown reprinted the book three times in two days. A surprising bestseller; the paperback issue remains on the New York Times bestseller list. Small textual variations between this version and the published version, enough to account for two extra pages of text in the advance version. Scarce in any advance format. Oprah is reportedly producing a film version for HBO; and the HeLa genome was recently sequenced and published (an agreement for which was reportedly reached with the family after-the-fact). Fine in wrappers.
194. SONTAG, Susan. The Volcano Lover. NY: FSG, 1992. The advance reading copy of this novel of ideas couched in the form of a historical romance. The prepublication copies of this book contain significant differences from the final published text. Signed by the author with the admonition "There are changes on every page!!!" Fine in wrappers.
195. SONTAG, Susan and LEIBOVITZ, Annie. Women. NY: Random House (1999). A professional collaboration between the longtime companions, with photographs by Leibovitz and text by Sontag. Inscribed separately by both Sontag and Leibovitz, "to Joyce." Sontag, a winner of the National Book Award for fiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award for nonfiction; a MacArthur Fellow; and a Commandeur de l'Ordre des Artes y des Lettres, among other honors, died in 2004. This joint project by two of the most respected figures in their respective fields is scarce signed by both. Fine in a near fine dust jacket with a hint of edge wear and very mild damp rippling near the crown that is visible mostly on the verso.
196. (SONTAG, Susan). ARTAUD, Antonin. Original Jacket Photo for Antonin Artaud: Selected Writings. [NY: FSG, 1976]. Original photograph used for the front of the dust jacket of this book edited by Sontag. 8" x 10" black and white glossy, with title and dimensions to which it will be cut in the margins. Editor's overlay with instructions. Near fine. Unique publishing ephemera.
197. (STEGNER, Wallace). The Great Lakes Review, Summer 1975. (Chicago): (Northeastern Illinois University)(1975). An interview with Stegner, running more than 20 pages, from the period between his Pulitzer Prize winning Angle of Repose (1971) and his National Book Award winning The Spectator Bird (1976). Also includes a Jim Harrison excerpt from Letters to Yesenin. Foxed; very good in wrappers.
198. STEINBECK, John. Autograph Draft Letter Regarding his Nobel Acceptance Speech. c. 1963/1964. Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962 and delivered his acceptance speech in Stockholm on December 10, 1962, two months after the Cuban missile crisis. Steinbeck, with a nod to Alfred Nobel, weapons maker and inventor of dynamite, used his acceptance speech to address the responsibilities of the makers of literature in a time of a "forward surge in our knowledge and manipulation of certain dangerous factors in the physical world" when "we have usurped many of the powers we once ascribed to God...Having taken Godlike power, we must seek in ourselves for the responsibility and the wisdom we once prayed some deity might have." This draft letter, written to a Mr. Macy, concerns the translation of the Nobel speech into Russian (specifically the suitability of using Russian for the satellite countries such as Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary; the possibility of a bilingual edition); the potential benefit of distributing copies to foreign service personnel for them to distribute to "young intellectuals"; and the "enormous answering work" of responding to letters received after his Nobel Prize. Approximately 225 words, handwritten on one yellow-lined legal sheet, likely, as was his custom, given to his secretary to type and therefore unsigned, leaving off at "Yours." A letter showing not only Steinbeck's involvement in the distribution of his work, but particularly in the distribution of it in a part of the world both in which he had traveled and about which he had written (A Russian Journal, 1948); where he would travel again in 1963 as part of a cultural exchange program; and which he had addressed, without naming, in his speech.
199. (STONE, Robert). CRANE, Stephen. The Red Badge of Courage. (NY): Vintage/ Library of America (1990). A short, moving introduction by Stone to this edition of Crane's classic, which succinctly places Crane's achievement in its proper context, as an extraordinary feat of the imagination, of literature, and of courage rather than, as it is often viewed, a novel that is notable primarily for its strictly realistic description of the horrors of the American Civil War, which Crane, of course, was too young to have experienced first hand. Signed by Stone. Only issued in wrappers. Fine.
200. SWIST, Wally. Blessing and Homage. (n.p.): Timberline Press, 2012. A fine press volume of poetry by this poet who is well known for his haiku and is a noted authority on the poet Robert Francis, who was a friend and mentor. Of a total edition of 120 copies, this is one of only 4 copies bound in boards on handmade cotton and linen rag paper. Fine in saddle-stitched boards, with colophon laid in. A beautiful production and a tiny limitation.
201. THOMPSON, Hunter. Songs of the Doomed. Gonzo Papers Vol. 3. NY: Summit Books (1990). "More Notes on the Death of the American Dream." Inscribed by the author at Owl Farm, August 17, 1992: "To Jeannette - thanx for the grapefruit. - the fat is in the fire. Good luck. HST/Hunter." Foxing to edge of text block, else fine in a fine dust jacket. A nice inscription, suggestive of an interesting context.
202. TOWER, Wells. Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned. NY: FSG (2009). The advance reading copy of the debut story collection by Tower, who has won two Pushcart Prizes and was named one of the New Yorker's top 20 writers under 40. Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned was named to GQ's 21st Century "New Canon," in the company of books by writers such as Cormac McCarthy, Jonathan Franzen, Denis Johnson, Junot Diaz, David Mitchell, Kevin Powers, and George Saunders. Fine in wrappers. Very uncommon prepublication issue.
203. UPDIKE, John. Of the Farm. NY: Knopf, 1965. A short novel, set in southeastern Pennsylvania, where Updike grew up. Inscribed by Updike to fellow author Nicholas Delbanco and his family: "For Nick, Ellen [sic], Francesca, etc. John." Mild sunning to board edges, near fine in a very good dust jacket with shallow edge chipping.
204. UPDIKE, John. The Poorhouse Fair. NY: Knopf, 1977. First thus, with a new introduction by the author. Inscribed by Updike to fellow author Nicholas Delbanco and his wife, Elena: "For Ellen [sic] & Nick, I'm so pleased you have this edition/ John/ 4/29/78." A strip of sunning to spine crown, else fine in a very near fine dust jacket with sunning to the spine lettering.