Catalog 102, E-G
115. ELKIN, Stanley. A Bad Man. NY: Random House (1967). Elkin's third book, inscribed by the author to Jonathan Carroll in 1973, four years before Carroll's own first book. With a typed note signed laid in, agreeing to appear at Country Day School for $100. Mottling to cloth; about very good in a very good, price-clipped dust jacket. A nice association copy. Four of Elkin's books were National Book Award finalists, and one won the National Book Critics Circle Award.
116. ELLIS, Bret Easton. Less Than Zero. NY: Simon & Schuster (1985). Uncorrected proof copy of this first book which, together with Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City, helped define the literary "Brat Pack" of the 1980s-- considered the representative voices of a new generation. Later made into a movie. Fine in wrappers, with publisher's letter laid in.
117. -. Same title, a review copy of the trade edition. Fine in a fine dust jacket, with two pages of densely written reviewer's notes laid in.
118. ELLIS, Bret Easton. Glamorama. NY: Knopf, 1999. A review copy of the trade edition of his latest novel, together with the advance reading copy, and also together with the uncorrected proof copy. The proof has a bump to the spine base and a small edge tear; near fine. All the other elements are fine. For the set:
119. ELLROY, James. Crime Wave. NY: Vintage Books (1999). The uncorrected proof copy of this collection of crime reporting by the author of the award-winning My Dark Places and L.A. Confidential, among others. Fine in wrappers.
120. ENDE, Michael. The Neverending Story. (n.p.): Doubleday (1983). The first state uncorrected proof of the American edition of this contemporary fantasy classic. Shot from typescript, presumably the translator's, with many holograph changes reproduced. Fine in wrappers.
121. -. Same title, a later state proof, typeset and incorporating the changes made in the above volume. Fine in wrappers. Basis for two movies, so far.
122. EPSTEIN, Leslie. Pinto and Sons. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1990. Inscribed by the author in the month prior to publication. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
123. FAST, Howard. The Immigrant's Daughter. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1985. The uncorrected proof copy. A bit sunned and creased; near fine in wrappers with "Press Copy" written on the cover.
124. FAULKNER, William. Absalom, Absalom! NY: Random House, 1936. One of Faulkner's most important books, which encapsulated the failure of the old South in the doomed ambitions of one dynastic family. Front hinge starting; top stain slightly dull; a near fine copy in a modestly spine-tanned dust jacket with slight chipping at the corners and spine extremities. Still, an attractive copy of this novel by the Nobel Prize-winning author.
125. FAULKNER, William. Go Down, Moses and Other Stories. NY: Random House (1942). First edition, in later binding of maroon cloth, without top stain. Faulkner intended this as a novel, or sequence of related stories, and later editions removed the phrase "and other stories" from the title. Near fine in a very good, price-clipped dust jacket with a couple very small abrasions to the cover and modest edgewear. A nice copy of one of the most important books in the Faulkner canon, which includes perhaps his most frequently anthologized story, "The Bear." The various colored bindings of this title are considerably scarcer than the first issue black binding; Serendipity Books, in cataloguing the Petersen collection, estimated that the first issue was more common than all the later issues combined by a factor of 20 to 1, and identified this maroon binding as "extremely scarce."
126. FAULKNER, William. Intruder in the Dust. NY: Random House (1948). By most accounts, this novel--which deals with the legacy of black-white relations in the South--was the book that cinched the Nobel Prize for him, which he won in 1949. Gilt flaked, corners bumped, boards scuffed; a very good copy in a good, spine- and edge-sunned dust jacket with a long tear on both the front flap fold and the front spine fold.
127. FITZGERALD, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. NY: Scribner's, 1925. Fitzgerald's third novel and, by consensus, his masterpiece--one of the great American novels of the twentieth century. This is the first issue, with "sick in tired" on page 205 and other points. A tight copy with spine gilt clear, but a bit of blended discoloration to rear board and some indentations there as well; thus a very good copy, lacking the rare dust jacket.
128. FORD, Richard. Good Raymond. London: Harvill (1998). The first separate appearance of Ford's tribute to Raymond Carver, first published in The New Yorker. No corresponding U.S. edition. Fine in stapled wrappers.
129. FORSTER, E.M. The Eternal Moment. London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1928. A collection of short stories by the author of A Passage to India, A Room With a View, and others. Signed by the author. Cloth edgeworn and unevenly sun-faded; about very good, without dust jacket. Forster was the only writer to have three titles appear on all three of the major "best 100 novels of the century" lists that came out last year.
130. FRANCIS, Dick. Bonecrack. London: Michael Joseph (1971). The correct first edition of one of the relatively early mystery novels by one of the most highly regarded British mystery novelists, a two-time winner of the Edgar Award and recipient of a lifetime achievement award from the British Crime Writers' Association. All of his novels have a horse-racing background. Tiny bookstore stamp on the verso of the flyleaf; else fine in a fine price-clipped dust jacket.
131. FRANCIS, Dick. Knock Down. London: Michael Joseph (1974). Another mystery with a horse-racing milieu. Fine in a very near fine dust jacket.
132. FRANCIS, Dick. Field of 13. London: Michael Joseph (1998). His most recent mystery. Fine in a fine dust jacket, and signed by the author.
133. FUENTES, Carlos. Terra Nostra. NY: FSG (1976). A review copy of the first American edition of his magnum opus, a massive experimental novel that has been called "the most important novel published in Latin America in the 1970's." Warmly inscribed by the author, covering the entire front free endpaper. Fine in a fine dust jacket with a micro tear at the crown. With review slip, photo and promotional information laid in. One of the key books of modern Latin American literature.
134. GADDIS, William. J.R. NY: Knopf, 1975. A review copy of the author's second novel, winner of the National Book Award. Fine in a very near fine dust jacket with an edge-sunned front flap and one crease there. With review slip laid in.
135. GALLAGHER, Tess. A Concert of Tenses. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press (1986). The issue in wrappers. Signed and additionally inscribed by Gallagher to Raymond Carver's daughter, Christine, in the year of publication. Spine-faded; otherwise near fine. Raymond Carver, Gallagher's husband, was the dedicatee of the book.
136. GALLAGHER, Tess. Amplitude. St. Paul: Graywolf Press (1987). Signed and additionally inscribed by Gallagher to Raymond Carver's daughter, Christine, on August 5, 1988, just after Carver's death: "Given at a time when we/ both need solace, your father/ now in another amplitude, this/ book for him, for you." One checkmark in the contents, another in the acknowledgements; near fine in an intact but soiled dust jacket; good only.
137. GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ, Gabriel. "El Olor de la Guayaba." Bogota: Oveja Negra (1982). First edition, Colombian issue. The Nobel Prize winner reminisces with his longtime friend, Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza, discussing his views on literature, fame, politics, his friendship with Fidel Castro, and more. No comparable U.S. edition of this title exists. Inscribed by the author in 1992. Because of García Márquez's reluctance to come to the U.S.--he was prohibited for a time because of his left-leaning political sympathies--books signed by him are quite uncommon in this country. In Latin America, his celebrity is comparable to that of Michael Jordan, and gaining access to the author for the purpose of book signing is extremely difficult. Near fine in wrappers, with no indication of there having been a hardcover edition.
138. GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ, Gabriel. El General en su Laberinto. Mexico City: Diana (1989). First Mexican trade edition, probably issued simultaneously with the Colombian edition, as has been the usual case with García Márquez's Latin American editions. Fine in wrappers and warmly inscribed by the author ("from your great friend") in the year of publication. Signed copies of García Márquez's major novels are quite uncommon.
139. GINSBERG, Allen. Howl and Other Poems. San Francisco: City Lights (1956). The first issue of the first trade edition of Ginsberg's first book regularly published book, printed in an edition of 1000 copies and since reprinted dozens of times with the total number of copies printed in the hundreds of thousands. "Howl" has been called the most important American poem since Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass." This copy is inscribed by the author to his friend, poet Guy Wernham, on the copyright page: "For Beautiful Guy Wernham/ who despairing out of his drunken/ window watched me write this/ in my bathrobe at 1010 Montgomery/ Street Summer 1955 in San Francisco,/ lest we all die anyway, Love Allen." The first draft of Howl contained explicit reference to Wernham: "...who rapidly translated the Songs of Maldoror and threw himself/ on the mercy of Alcoholics Anonymous" (Miles, Howl: Original Draft Facsimile, p.23). Wernham's translation of Lautreamont's Maldoror was published by New Directions in 1947. In this version of Howl, the inscription to Wernham has a paraphrased appearance in the text: "who sang out of their windows in despair." Minor sunning to the spine and foxing to the covers; a near fine copy in wrappers of a work that defined the new poetic aesthetic that came to be associated with the Beat movement. In an embossed custom folding box.
140. -. Another copy. Signed four times by Ginsberg and inscribed twice by Gregory Corso as Ginsberg. Corso allegedly peddled "inscribed" association copies of Ginsberg's books to New York booksellers, Ginsberg's signature bringing a higher price than his own. Corso has twice inscribed this copy to himself in "1956." Ginsberg has annotated these "inscriptions" with "This is Gregory Corso's fake hand" and "This is Gregory Corso's natural hand" and has signed each annotation. Ginsberg has also signed this copy, with an added three sunflowers and a sun. Above his own signature, he has written "This is Allen Ginsberg's hand" and signed this. All of Ginsberg's contributions are dated 1977. A bit of browning to the spine and spotting to front cover and foredge; a very good copy in stapled wrappers of the work that defined the new poetic aesthetic that came to be associated with the Beat movement, and an interesting glimpse behind-the-scenes of the Corso-Ginsberg relationship, one of the key friendships of the Beat period.
141. GOODMAN, Allegra. Kaaterskill Falls. (NY): Dial (1998). Her well-received third book, first novel, a finalist the National Book Award. Fine in a fine dust jacket, and signed by the author.
142. GORDIMER, Nadine. July's People. London: Cape (1981). The first British edition of this short novel positing a race war in South Africa, written during the era of apartheid by the South African Nobel Prize winner, a longtime activist and critic of the white regime's racist policies. Fine in a spine-faded, near fine dust jacket.
143. GORDIMER, Nadine. A Sport of Nature. London: Cape (1987). Another novel set in southern Africa by the Nobel Prize winner. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
144. -. Same title, the first American edition (NY: Knopf, 1987). Mottling to cloth; near fine in a fine dust jacket and signed by the author.
145. GREENE, Graham. Brighton Rock. London: Heinemann (1938). The uncorrected proof copy of this early novel, the first by Greene to have an explicitly Catholic theme. Bound in plain beige wrappers and printed on proofing paper from the plates of the trade edition. Proof label partially removed from front cover; creasing to the rear cover; and the wrapper eroding from the spine. Otherwise a tight, near fine copy of a fragile item, in a custom clamshell case. Proof copies from this era are practically unknown, as they were not produced in the quantities that later became the norm. A Haycreaft-Queen Cornerstone book and a Waterstones book of the century.