Nature Writing, D-E
152. -. Another copy. Light foxing to top edge; near fine in like dust jacket with some surface soiling on the front panel. A nice copy of a scarce and fragile book, bound in thin, flexible cloth boards that are easily susceptible to wear.
153. DILLARD, Annie. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. NY: Harper's Magazine Press (1974). Her second book and first book of prose. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction although, according to a 1999 article in Poets & Writers, the author has said that the incredibly effective opening passages are fictitious. A Book of the Month Club selection, reprinted many times in hardcover, and a bestseller in paperback -- the book became a contemporary classic on college campuses in the Seventies for its combination of eco-sensitive nature writing and the fact that it was written by a woman, a rarity at that time in this field. This is the correct first edition, with a number line in the rear that ends in "1" and the "$7.95" price on the dust jacket. Fine in a lightly spine-tanned jacket, and signed by the author.
154. -. Another copy. Inscribed by the author to Buckminster Fuller in the year of publication: "For Bucky Fuller/ who is working the/ rocky end of this/ same green vineyard / with admiration/ and cheers/ Annie Dillard/ Hollins, Virginia/ May 7, 1974." An excellent association copy: Fuller was an inventor, designer and futurist, and one of the century's most original minds, looking into problems of human shelter, environmental pollution, and how to use technology to accomplish more without depleting the earth's resources long before such concerns were widespread or fashionable. His first book, Nine Chains to the Moon, published in 1938, laid out his basic ideas for a "comprehensive anticipatory design science," which involved recycling of resources, comprehensive global planning, and the elimination of scarcity as the basic element contributing to wretched human conditions throughout the world. He coined the term "Spaceship Earth" which, while a more mechanical metaphor perhaps than others that have been introduced since to convey the sense of the interrelatedness and interdependency of the earth and its populations, nonetheless was the first popular expression to so clearly present that idea for general consumption. Boards bowed, cloth a bit edge-sunned; a very good copy in a good, edgeworn dust jacket with a small open tear at the rear flap fold and Fuller's "literature" label on the lower spine.
155. -. Another copy. Inscribed by the author. Slight bump to a few page edges, else fine in a slightly spine-tanned dust jacket.
156. -. Another copy. Trace sunning at the edges of the cloth; else fine in a price-clipped and spine-tanned dust jacket with slight chipping to the spine extremities; about near fine.
157. DILLARD, Annie. Holy the Firm. NY: Harper & Row (1977). A small book of poetic meditations. Also inscribed by Dillard to Buckminster Fuller, in the month of publication: "For Bucky/ with love/ from Annie/ 'ideas, by the/ single handful'/ Sept 11, 1977/ Bellingham, Washington." Tiny nick to one lower corner; still a fine copy in a near fine dust jacket with an address written on the front flap and Fuller's "literature" label across the lower spine. A wonderful association copy, and indicative of the growing closeness between Dillard and Fuller between the time of her inscription (above) in Tinker Creek and this one.
158. DILLARD, Annie. Living By Fiction. NY: Harper & Row (1982). The uncorrected proof copy of this book of reflections on writers and writing that discusses, in small part, what field of study can interpret the world, "landscape and culture together -- in terms of human meaning?" A single, extended essay, rather than a collection of independent pieces. "Press copy" written on front cover; fine in wrappers.
159. DILLARD, Annie. Teaching a Stone to Talk. NY: Harper & Row (1982). The uncorrected proof copy of a collection of essays in which she brings her Tinker Creek sensibilities further afield. Fine in wrappers.
160. DILLARD, Annie. An American Childhood. NY: Harper & Row, 1987. A memoir of growing up in Pittsburgh, in which Dillard recounts reading The Field Book of Ponds and Streams and planning to contact its author to query where she might find a pond or a stream. "When everything else has gone from my brain -- the President's name, the state capitals, the neighborhoods where I lived, and then my own name and what it was on earth I sought, and then at length the faces of my friends, and finally the faces of my family -- when all this has dissolved, what will be left, I believe, is topology: the dreaming memory of land as it lay this way and that." This is the first issue of the uncorrected proof, shot from typescript sheets and reproducing editorial notations and some holograph changes. Front cover and first few pages creased and wrinkled at bottom; very good in salmon wrappers. Quite a bit scarcer than the second issue proof, which was typeset.
161. -. Same title, the second issue proof, in cream-colored wrappers, and with typeset text. Fine.
162. -. Same title, the uncorrected proof copy of the first British edition (London: Picador/Pan, 1988). Very near fine in wrappers.
163. DILLARD, Annie. The Living. (NY): HarperCollins (1992). The advance reading copy of her first novel, set in the Pacific Northwest of the nineteenth century. Fine in wrappers.
164. -. Same title, the trade edition. Fine in a fine dust jacket and signed by the author on the half-title page.
165. DILLARD, Annie. The Annie Dillard Reader. (NY): HarperCollins (1994). Excerpts from her earlier books, including a revised version of Holy the Firm, plus selected new work. Fine in a fine dust jacket and signed by the author.
166. DILLARD, Annie. For the Time Being. NY: Knopf, 1999. The uncorrected proof copy of her most recent book, an extended personal narrative touching on a wide variety of subjects, many of them directly related to natural history, others touching on themes physical and metaphysical. Fine in wrappers, with the dust jacket art stapled inside the front cover.
167. -. Same title, the Knopf limited edition (limitation not stated). Fine in pictorial slipcase, and signed by the author.
168. DOIG, Ivan. This House of Sky. NY: HBJ (1978). The author's first publication for the general book trade, winner of numerous awards, including being voted one of the five best books ever written on Montana. A finalist for the National Book Award. Lower corners very slightly bumped; else fine in a very near fine, mildly spine-faded jacket. An attractive copy.
169. -. Another copy. Short tear in the cloth at hinge, with a tear in the dust jacket there, and light bump to top board edge; still, near fine in a very good, modestly edgeworn and spine-spotted dust jacket.
170. DOIG, Ivan. Winter Brothers. NY: HBJ (1980). The uncorrected proof copy of the second book by the author of This House of Sky, the award-winning memoir/history of his family in Montana. Near fine in tall wrappers.
171. (DOIG, Ivan). The Streets We Have Come Down. Rochelle Park: Hayden Book Co. (1975). Doig serves as the editor and compiler of this collection of writings about the modern city: "some insights into urban life and what it does to us." With work by Loren Eiseley, Lewis Mumford, Joan Didion, James Baldwin, Alvin Toffler, Robert Coates, Henry Roth, James Tate, Tom Wolfe, and many others. Doig contributes the foreword and an essay, "Street of Dreams, Street of Life." This is his second book, following News: A Consumer's Guide, which was co-authored with his wife. A very scarce, early item by one of the most highly praised of contemporary Western writers. Only issued in wrappers, this is a near fine copy.
172. (DOIG, Ivan). Utopian America: Dreams and Realities. Rochelle Park: Hayden (1976). An early book by Doig, a school textbook on American utopias. Doig contributes the introduction as well as introductory pieces to each of the readings, which are excerpted from other, previously published books on the subject by such writers as Wallace Stegner and Henry David Thoreau. This is an ex-school library copy, so marked, and with pencil notations throughout. Good only, in wrappers. Scarce.
173. DUNCAN, David James. The River Why. San Francisco: Sierra Club (1983). The author's first book, a flyfishing novel with an ecological focus that has come to be considered a contemporary classic. Inscribed by the author. Fine in a very near fine, slightly rubbed dust jacket. This title has the distinction of being the first book of fiction to be published by the Sierra Club, a notable departure from tradition, and one that has seldom been repeated but was clearly, in this case, justified.
174. -. Another copy. Fine in near fine jacket with trace rubbing at the spine extremities. A very nice copy.
175. EASTLAKE, William. Go in Beauty. NY: Harper & Brothers (1956). The author's first book, a novel, and the first book in his highly praised New Mexico trilogy. Eastlake was born and raised in New York City but moved to a New Mexico ranch after serving in the Army and later living in Paris, and most of his fiction has been set in the Southwest, with the landscape and the cultures of New Mexico playing an integral part in his fiction. This copy has an owner name and date (1956) on the front pastedown, mostly under the dust jacket flap, and is otherwise near fine in a price-clipped but bright, near fine dust jacket. A very attractive copy of a book that, because of its soft paper jacket and the bright colors in which it is printed, usually shows up worn and faded.
176. -. Another copy. Fine in a very good, spine-tanned and rubbed dust jacket with one small abrasion and several very small edge chips. Signed by Eastlake.
177. EASTLAKE, William. Portrait of an Artist with 26 Horses. NY: Simon & Schuster, 1963. His third novel and the third book in his New Mexico trilogy. Fine in a fine dust jacket. Laid in is a typed note signed to a literary agent, dated August 1975, relating to the sale of foreign rights for one of his books.
178. -. Another copy. Inscribed by the author. Near fine in a very good dust jacket with modest, unobtrusive dampstaining.
179. EHRLICH, Gretel. Geode/Rock Body. Santa Barbara: Capricorn Press, 1970. Her first book, a collection of poems. Of a total edition of 600 copies, this is one of 50 hardbound copies signed by the author. A scarce book by one of the foremost voices of the writing of the "New West," author of The Solace of Open Spaces, among others. This title preceded the publication of Solace by 15 years, and predated her move to Wyoming by six years. Clothbound, with paper label; fine without dust jacket, as issued.
180. -. Same title, the issue in wrappers. Fine.
181. EHRLICH, Gretel. The Solace of Open Spaces. (NY): Viking (1985). Her first book of prose, a collection of related essays on the contemporary West and the natural world, in particular the author's adopted home state of Wyoming. Blurbs by Edward Abbey, Ivan Doig, Annie Dillard, Edward Hoagland and Tracy Kidder. Faint, almost invisible, stain to lower board; near fine in a fine dust jacket. A nice copy of a highly praised book that has become somewhat scarce recently, and which is considered one of the defining books of the new writing of the West.
182. -. Another copy. Signed by the author. Fine in a near fine dust jacket with a short closed gutter tear on the rear panel.
183. EHRLICH, Gretel. Heart Mountain. (n.p.): Viking (1988). The uncorrected proof copy of her first novel, set in Wyoming during the Second World War and dealing with Japanese-Americans held at an internment camp -- which for a time was the largest "city" in the state -- their encounters with the local residents, and the conflicts that ensue between this dislocated community and the residents whose ethos is based on both a fierce individuality and the freedom of movement, not to mention solitude, that normally accompanies the open spaces of the West. Near fine in wrappers.
184. EHRLICH, Gretel. Islands, the Universe, Home. (NY): Viking (1991). A collection of reflections and personal essays, her first such collection after the success of The Solace of Open Spaces. Fine in a fine, price-clipped dust jacket and signed by the author.
185. EHRLICH, Gretel. Wyoming Stories. [Santa Barbara]: Capra Press (1986). Corrected galley sheets for this collection of related stories that was published as part of a Capra Back-to-Back volume with City Stories by Edward Hoagland. Thirty-five pages, 8 1/2" x 14". Printed on rectos only, with Ehrlich's holograph corrections on nearly every page (over 70 in all) and signed by her: "Read by Gretel Ehrlich 2/5/86." Light edgewear to first (contents) page; else fine. Ehrlich's changes range from punctuation and spacing to whole phrases and sentences changed or deleted. A nice view of a work-in-progress, with the author's earlier versions of the text visible throughout.
186. EHRLICH, Gretel. A Match to the Heart. NY: Pantheon (1994). A victim of nature book: Ehrlich's personal account of the experience and aftermath of being struck by lightning. This is the uncorrected proof copy. There was a widely distributed advance reading copy but this proof, in plain yellow printed wrappers, is considerably more uncommon. Fine in wrappers.
187. EISELEY, Loren. The Immense Journey. NY: Random House (1957). The first book by this naturalist and poet, a precursor to the literary natural history written in recent years by such authors as Peter Matthiessen, Wendell Berry and Barry Lopez. Near fine in a dust jacket with light wear at the top of the spine and the top edge of the front panel. An attractive copy of a scarce and extremely influential book.
188. EISELEY, Loren. The Firmament of Time. NY: Atheneum, 1960. An extended essay on man's view of himself and of nature. A rare combination of lucid literature and sound science. Some sunning to cloth; near fine in a fair dust jacket with large chips, tears and fading.
189. -. Same title, the first British edition. London: Victor Gollancz (1960). Small adhesion under front flap, else fine in a near fine dust jacket. A very nice copy of an uncommon edition of one of Eiseley's early books.
190. EISELEY, Loren. The Mind as Nature. NY: Harper & Row (1962). A small volume in the John Dewey Lectureship series, which examines how Man's mind reflects the "creative forces and tensions of the universe" -- a subject matter well suited to the author's dual talents as scientist and poet. This is one of the less common Eiseley books from this period, perhaps because it was originally a lecture given at the annual meeting of the National Society of College Teachers of Education, and not intended, or written, as a book for general trade release. Gift inscription under front flap; else fine in a fine, price-clipped dust jacket with an ink price added.
191. EISELEY, Loren. Notes of an Alchemist. NY: Scribner (1972). Poetry by Eiseley, with a typed letter signed by Eiseley laid in, offering his appreciation for a reader's comments and reminiscing about southern California, where the reader lives. Evidence of the removal of a small label from the front flyleaf and pencil notations in the text; otherwise near fine in a near fine dust jacket internally tape-strengthened at the spine crown. The letter is folded in thirds for mailing, else fine; an envelope is taped to the rear pastedown. Eiseley was never, in any sense, a celebrity author, and books signed by him or autograph material of any kind is quite uncommon.
192. EISELEY, Loren. The Innocent Assassins. NY: Scribner (1973). Poetry, with a typed letter signed by Eiseley laid in, thanking the recipient for sharing a review of and a reading from the book with her local Audubon club. Eiseley also shares thoughts on the feeding of cardinals and reasons for not owning a boa constrictor. The book has the owner label of the recipient on the front flyleaf and pencil notations in the text; otherwise near fine in a near fine dust jacket internally tape-strengthened at the spine crown. The letter is folded in thirds for mailing, else fine; an envelope is taped to the rear pastedown.
193. EISELEY, Loren. Darwin and the Mysterious Mr. X. NY: Dutton (1979). Posthumously published history and analysis of Darwin's theory of evolution. Eiseley's second book, Darwin's Century, also looked at Darwin's impact on modern thought. Owner gift inscription front endpaper and museum store label on rear free endpaper; near fine in a fine, price-clipped dust jacket.
194. EMERSON, Ralph Waldo. May-Day and Other Pieces. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1867. A collection of poems, which reprints the contents of Emerson's first book, Nature. The leading American Transcendentalist and a friend of Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne and others, Emerson argued that human thought and action proceed from Nature, a radical departure from established tradition and, as such, one of the philosophical underpinnings of modern scientific understanding. This title was printed in an edition of 2000 copies. Penciled owner name and date (Christmas, 1869) on the front flyleaf; very near fine, and presumably issued without dust jacket. An extremely attractive copy of a book that contains perhaps the most seminal American writing on Nature from its century.