Catalog 101, A
2. AI. Killing Floor. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1979. Her second collection, the Lamont Poetry Selection for 1978 of the Academy of American Poets. The hardcover edition, inscribed by the author to African-American writer, Barry Beckham. Near fine in a very near fine, price-clipped dust jacket with a small sticker removal mark on the front panel. A very nice association copy.
3. ALEXIE, Sherman. The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight In Heaven. London: Secker & Warburg (1994). The first British edition of this collection of stories that won a special citation for the PEN/Hemingway Award and the 1994 Lila Wallace Reader's Digest Writers' Award. Stories from this collection were the basis of the film Smoke Signals, which won an award at the Sundance Festival. Issued in self-wrappers in the U.K. This is a mildly rubbed, near fine copy, and is signed by the author.
4. ALGREN, Nelson. The Man with the Golden Arm. Garden City: Doubleday, 1949. His National Book Award-winning novel, basis for the 1955 Otto Preminger film that starred Frank Sinatra. Inscribed by the author on the dedication page in 1978. Edgeworn cloth; about very good in a good, sunned and edge-chipped dust jacket with rubbing to the spine and spine folds and a 3" tear at the lower front flap fold. The first winner of the National Book Award, and a very scarce book to find signed or inscribed.
5. AMIS, Kingsley. The King's English. NY: St. Martin's (1998). The advance reading copy of Amis' posthumously published guide to modern English usage, both a practical guide and a collection of short, often quite humorous, essays on language and its use and abuse. Fine in wrappers.
6. ANDERSON, Kent. Night Dogs. NY: Bantam (1998). The second edition of his highly praised second novel, originally published in 1996 in an edition of 1900 copies. This copy is fine in a fine dust jacket and bears a long, complimentary inscription by Anderson to a well-known poet, which covers most of the front free endpaper. A nice literary association.
7. (Antarctic Poetry). FINKEL, Donald. Endurance. An Antarctic Idyll. NY: Atheneum, 1978. A long poem that takes as its point of departure the 1914 journey of Ernest Shackleton, also the subject of the recently released photo-essay The Endurance. Bound back-to-back with Finkel's Going Under. Each "book" is inscribed by Finkel. Fine in wrappers.
8. (Anthology). Best Magazine Articles: 1967. NY: Crown (1967). Collects John McPhee, Tom Wolfe, Joan Didion, Gore Vidal, William Price Fox, Jr. and Stephen Becker, among others. On the contents page, Becker's attribution has been changed in ink from Harper's to Atlantic Magazine. Near fine in a near fine dust jacket worn at the spine extremities. Fairly early book appearances by a number of the writers, including McPhee, Wolfe and Didion.
9. (Anthology). Afterwords. Novelists on Their Novels. NY: Harper & Row (1969). Fourteen writers write about one of their novels and the process of writing it. Contributors include Reynolds Price, Truman Capote, Norman Mailer, John Fowles, Louis Auchincloss, Anthony Burgess, Wright Morris, Ross Macdonald, William Gass, and others. Constitutes first book appearances by Price and Fowles and first appearances in print by all others except Capote and Mailer, which are reprints. Fine in a near fine, price-clipped dust jacket.
10. -. Another copy. Small stain on front pastedown. Near fine in a very good dust jacket tape-strengthened at the spine extremities.
11. (Anthology). Writers & Issues. (NY): New American Library (1969). A paperback original of this collection of essays on cultural and political themes, most of which had been published in journals and magazines prior to being collected here. Contributors include Saul Bellow, Philip Roth, Norman Mailer, William Styron, Ernest Callenbach, Jane Jacobs, Alice Walker and Ralph Ellison, among others. This copy is inscribed by Ralph Ellison: "For ___ - who made me aware I had an issue in here! Sincerely, Ralph Ellison." Spine creased; acidic pages darkening; near fine in wrappers.
12. (Anthology). Best Little Magazine Fiction 1970. NY: New York University Press, 1970. The scarce hardcover issue of this uncommon volume, edited by Curt Johnson, himself publisher of the "little magazine" December. Featuring Raymond Carver (Stull B2), Joyce Carol Oates, and the first work of fiction by Rick DeMarinis, among others. Fine in a near fine, price-clipped dust jacket.
13. -. Another copy. Spotting to foredge; near fine in a rubbed, very good dust jacket.
14. (Anthology). One Lord, One Faith, One Cornbread. Garden City: Anchor/Doubleday, 1973. The first collection of pieces from The Free You in book form. The Free You was the magazine of the Mid-Peninsula Free University, one of the earliest experimental universities in the Sixties, near Stanford. Many of the contributors were from the "Perry Lane" crowd that gathered in Palo Alto in the early Sixties and included a number of writers from the Stanford Writing Workshops of Wallace Stegner who were experimenting with LSD and other drugs at the time. Larry McMurtry wrote a novelized account of the scene in his book, All My Friends Are Going to be Strangers. This volume, which was only issued in wrappers, contains one of Robert Stone's scarcest book appearances, "The Man Who Turned On the Here," about Ken Kesey, "on the lam" in Mexico, and is one of the few places these longtime friends are directly linked in print. Other contributors include Richard Brautigan, Wendell Berry, Vic Lovell (the dedicatee of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest), Judith Rascoe (who co-wrote the screenplays for two of Robert Stone's novels) and Kesey himself, who contributes a poem, "Cut the Motherfuckers Loose." Remainder stampings to page edges, spine-creased; still about near fine.
15. (Anthology). Mountain Moving Day. Trumansburg: Crossing Press (1973). An important anthology of poetry by women from the early years of the women's movement, edited by Elaine Gill. This is a review copy of the issue in wrappers. Authors include Erica Jong, Margaret Atwood, Jessica Tarahata Hagedorn, Susan Griffin, Marge Piercy, Carol Berge, and others. This copy is signed by Atwood and inscribed by Jong. Spine mildly sunned and creased; near fine.
16. (Anthology). The New Fiction. Urbana: U. of Illinois Press (1974). A collection of interviews with a number of the most influential writers of a generation: Kurt Vonnegut, Donald Barthelme, John Barth, Joyce Carol Oates, William Gass, John Gardner, Jerzy Kosinski, Susan Sontag, Tom Wolfe, John Hawkes, Ronald Sukenik and Ishmael Reed. Remainder dot bottom edge, a few marginal lines in text; near fine in a very good, rubbed and spine-sunned dust jacket with minor edgewear.
17. (Anthology). Crime on Her Mind: Fifteen Stories of Female Sleuths from the Victorian Era to the Forties. NY: Pantheon Books (1975). The uncorrected proof copy of a collection of stories featuring female detectives, but written by both male and female authors, including William Irish (Cornell Woolrich). Edited and inscribed by Michele Slung. Includes a list of over 100 female detectives from the past 150 years. An interesting look at women in detective fiction prior to the dramatic upsurge in female detectives and female mystery novelists that has taken place in the past 15 years and is so pervasive at this point that it is easy to forget how recent a development this is. Fine in tall wrappers.
18. (Anthology). Bitches and Sad Ladies. NY: Harper's Magazine Press (1975). A collection of thirty-five pieces, most previously published, "by and about women." Authors include Ann Beattie, Joyce Carol Oates, Cynthia Ozick, Gail Godwin, Rosellen Brown, Joy Williams, Hilma Wolitzer, Doris Betts, Andrea Dworkin, Laurie Colwin, Edna O'Brien, Judith Rossner, Beverly Lowry, Anne Sexton, Grace Paley, Toni Cade Bambara, Ursula LeGuin, M.F.K Fisher, and many others. The Beattie and Dworkin pieces are unattributed as having been published elsewhere. This copy is signed by Ann Beattie and Beverly Lowry and inscribed by Hilma Wolitzer. Like the above anthology, this is a key collection of fiction from a moment in time when the place of women in contemporary literature was in substantial flux, and the assumptions that we now take for granted were in the process of being forged. Near fine in a near fine dust jacket.
19. (Anthology). Voices from the Rio Grande. (Albuquerque): (Rio Grande Writers Association) (1976). Selections from the first Rio Grande Writers Conference. This copy is signed by Rudolfo Anaya and inscribed by Stanley Noyes, Gene Frumkin and E.A. Mares. With additional contributions by Joy Harjo, John Nichols and Tony Hillerman, among others. An uncommon publication, with early appearances in print by a number of major writers. Fine in wrappers.
20. (Anthology). Mademoiselle Prize Stories. NY: M. Evans (1976). A collection of the winners of Mademoiselle's annual fiction contest for college students, 1951-1976. The authors are overwhelmingly female and include Sylvia Plath (1952, published while she was an undergraduate at Smith College) and Joyce Carol Oates (1959, while she was a student at Syracuse University). Fine in a short, else fine dust jacket.
21. (Anthology). Here's the Story: Fiction with Heart. Iowa City: The Spirit that Moves Us, 1985. A review copy of a collection of previously unpublished pieces including W.P. Kinsella's baseball story, "Nursie." Also includes work by Sallie Bingham, Pat Carr, others. The review slip was once taped to the front flyleaf, leaving yellow tape ghosts there. Below, the publisher has stamped three lines of information about another publication. Price partially erased from the pastedown; near fine in a rubbed, very good dust jacket with one short gutter tear.
22. (Anthology). TQ20. (Wainscott): Pushcart (1985). A huge anthology which was also published as the Twentieth Anniversary issue of TriQuarterly magazine. This is the scarce hardcover issue, published by the Pushcart Press. Contributors include Saul Bellow, Richard Brautigan, Gabriel García Márquez, Stanley Elkin, Jack Kerouac, Leslie Marmon Silko, Vladimir Nabokov, Raymond Carver, Robert Stone, Thomas McGuane, Joyce Carol Oates, Cynthia Ozick, John Sayles, and many, many others. In our experience, an extremely scarce anthology in the hardcover issue. This copy is signed by Richard Ford, David Quammen, Carlos Fuentes, David Wagoner, Tobias Wolff, Thom Gunn and William Gass. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
23. (Anthology). The Norton Book of Light Verse. NY: Norton (1986). An anthology edited by Russell Baker, and with contributions by John Updike, Allen Ginsberg, Maya Angelou, John Lennon, John Ciardi, Marge Piercy, T.S. Eliot, Peter De Vries, Langston Hughes, Shel Silverstein, May Sarton, Emily Dickinson, James Stephens, Mark Twain and F. Scott Fitzgerald, among many others. Tiny nick to bottom edge of half title; else fine in a fine dust jacket.
24. (Anthology). The New Generation. NY: Anchor/Doubleday, 1987. A review copy of this anthology of previously published fiction from alumni and students of the writing programs at Stanford, Iowa, Johns Hopkins and Columbia universities. Introduced by John Knowles, with work by Bob Shacochis, Dennis McFarland, Ethan Canin, Mona Simpson, Susan Minot, Gish Jen, Laurie Alberts and others. Fine in a near fine dust jacket creased at the lower front panel.
25. (Anthology). The Best American Short Stories 1988. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1988. Contributors include Robert Stone, Raymond Carver, Louise Erdrich, Rick Bass, Tobias Wolff, Richard Bausch, Gish Jen, Mavis Gallant, Brian Kiteley, and others. One of only 600 copies of the hardcover issue of the first edition (there was a simultaneous softcover issue). Faint black streak to spine cloth; very near fine in a very near fine dust jacket, with just a touch of spine-sunning. Signed by Robert Stone on the half-title.
26. -. Same title, the uncorrected proof copy. Light corner creasing; near fine in wrappers, and signed by Robert Stone on the title page.
27. (Anthology). Playboy Stories. (NY): Dutton (1993, 1994). The uncorrected proof copy of this selection of short fiction published by Playboy over a forty year period. (The copyright page gives the publication date as January, 1993; the cover, January, 1994). Included are works by the century's leading practitioners of the form, including: John Cheever, Bernard Malamud, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Shirley Jackson, Andre Dubus, John Updike, John Irving, T.C. Boyle, Joyce Carol Oates, Paul Theroux, Thomas McGuane, Joseph Heller, Jack Kerouac, Vladimir Nabokov, and many others. Fine in wrappers.
28. (Anthology). The Portable Western Reader. (NY): Penguin Books (1997). A collection edited and signed by William Kittredge. Also signed by Sherman Alexie, Barry Lopez and Linda Hogan. Additional contributors include James Welch, Louise Erdrich, Joy Harjo, Wallace Stegner, Ivan Doig, Ken Kesey, Edward Abbey, Richard Ford, Raymond Carver, Gary Snyder, Gretel Ehrlich, Marilynne Robinson, Terry Tempest Williams, Allen Ginsberg and many others. Fine in wrappers.