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Catalog 108, A

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1. ABBEY, Edward. Desert Solitaire. New York: McGraw-Hill (1968). Abbey's first book of nonfiction, which has over the years attained the status of a classic of nature writing, comparable to Rachel Carson's Silent Spring or Aldo Leopold's A Sand County Almanac. Subtitled "A Season in the Wilderness" but actually an account that spans several seasons, this book gives the first and clearest indication of Abbey's love for the natural beauty of the Southwest and his contempt for those who would, out of greed or simple ignorance, despoil it. Inscribed by the author: "To Kirk/ - all the best!/ Ed Abbey/ SLC/ 11/28/68." A fine copy in a very near fine dust jacket with mild tanning to the spine lettering and one tiny gutter nick. A beautiful copy of what may be Abbey's most lasting contribution to the literature of place, and very scarce signed or inscribed. While we would like to say that contemporary inscriptions are especially scarce, Abbey was aware of the book collecting convention that values contemporary inscriptions over later ones and was known to mis-date his inscriptions to confound future collectors and booksellers, and it is not possible at this point to confirm whether he was doing such a thing with this copy or not. Still, an attractive copy of what is probably Abbey's most famous, and arguably his most enduring, book.

2. ACHEBE, Chinua. Home and Exile. (NY): Oxford University Press, 2000. The uncorrected proof copy of this new book by the Nigerian author of Things Fall Apart, among others. Three autobiographical narratives that began as lectures. Fine in wrappers.

3. ALEXIE, Sherman. The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight In Heaven. NY: Atlantic Monthly Press (1993). The advance reading copy of his first collection of stories to be published by a major trade publisher; winner of a special citation for the PEN/Hemingway Award as well as the winner of 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. Alexie was chosen as one of Granta magazine's 20 Best Young American Authors; he was also selected to The New Yorker 20. Fine in wrappers and signed by the author in 1995.

4. -. Same title, the first British edition. London: Secker & Warburg (1994). Issued in self-wrappers in the U.K. This is a fine copy and is signed by the author.

5. ALGREN, Nelson. The Man with the Golden Arm. Garden City: Doubleday, 1949. The first winner of the National Book Award. Inscribed by the author to Mary Jane Ward, author of The Snake Pit, a powerful novel about a woman's treatment in a mental institution, which was one of the bestselling novels of 1946 and was made into an award-winning movie two years later. A fine copy, bearing Ward's bookplate on the front flyleaf, in a very good dust jacket with a few small edge chips. Algren's novel was itself made into a movie in 1956, for which Frank Sinatra received an Oscar nomination. An excellent association copy, linking Algren's best-known work, a dark tale of drug addiction and the drug culture, with the author of a ground-breaking novel of a woman's fight with mental illness and the oppressive institutions that treated her illness -- a direct precursor to such novels as Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar. An uncommon book signed; rare as an association copy of this order.

6. AMIS, Kingsley. The Russian Girl. (n.p.): Viking (1994). The uncorrected proof copy of the first American edition. A comic novel by the author of Lucky Jim and the Booker Prize-winning The Old Devils, and one of the last books published in his lifetime (he died in 1995). Amis was the father of novelist Martin Amis and, along with Alan Sillitoe (The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner), was labelled one of the "angry young men" who helped change British literature in the 1950s. Fine in wrappers.

7. (Anthology). City Lights Anthology. (San Francisco): City Lights Books (1974). Collects Allen Ginsberg, Diane di Prima, Charles Bukowski, Jack Kerouac, Gary Snyder, Richard Brautigan, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Robert Creeley and many others. Kerouac's contribution consists of several poems from a large volume in preparation at the time, the publication of which was held up almost 20 years. This volume represents the poems' first book appearances. Owner name inside cover; sticker removal abrasion rear panel; near fine in wrappers.

8. (Anthology). The Best American Mystery Stories of the Century. Boston/NY: Houghton Mifflin, 1999. The advance reading copy of this collection edited and introduced by Tony Hillerman. Fifty-five stories by authors such as Dashiell Hammet, James M. Cain, Raymond Chandler, John Steinbeck, Willa Cather, William Faulkner, Joyce Carol Oates, Shirley Jackson, Flannery O'Connor, Stephen King, James Crumley and Dennis Lehane. Faint corner crease; fine in wrappers.

9. (Anthology). The Eleventh Draft. (NY): HarperCollins (1999). The uncorrected proof copy of a collection of essays on writing by writers who attended or taught at the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Edited by Frank Conroy -- author of the award-winning memoir Stop-Time and a longtime director of the Iowa Writers' Workshop -- and with contributions by T.C. Boyle, Ethan Canin, Chris Offut, Doris Grumbach, Jayne Anne Phillips, Barry Hannah, Elizabeth McCracken, Marilynne Robinson, Susan Power, James Alan McPherson and Charles D'Ambrosio, among others. Fine in wrappers.

10. (Anthology). Writers Harvest 3. (NY): Delta (2000). The uncorrected proof copy of this trade paperback original of a collection of stories donated to support the fight against hunger. Edited and with an introduction by Tobias Wolff. With original contributions by Barry Lopez, Chris Offut, Stewart O'Nan, Joyce Carol Oates and Andre Dubus, among others. Fine in wrappers.

11. (Anthology). Wonderful Town. NY: Random House (2000). The uncorrected proof copy of this collection of New York stories from The New Yorker. Anthologized are J.D. Salinger, John Updike, Lorrie Moore, Woody Allen, Philip Roth, Donald Barthelme, Ann Beattie, John Cheever, Irwin Shaw, Jonathan Franzen, Vladimir Nabokov, Jamaica Kincaid, Saul Bellow, Jeffrey Eugenides, William Maxwell, E.B. White, Bernard Malamud, and others. Fine in wrappers.

12. (Anthology). Life Stories. NY: Random House (2000). The uncorrected proof copy of this collection of profiles from The New Yorker. Includes writing by John McPhee, Truman Capote, Ian Frazier, Joseph Mitchell, Roger Angell, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and many others. Fine in wrappers.

13. ANTRIM, Donald. The Verificationist. NY: Knopf, 2000. The uncorrected proof copy of his new novel. The trade edition of this book contains a glowing blurb by Thomas Pynchon, one of the few Pynchon has done over the years (the proof doesn't have the blurb). Fine in wrappers.

14. (ASHBERY, John). The Hasty Papers. (NY): (Alfred Leslie) 1960. A "one-shot review" in large folio format printed on newsprint. With a play, "The Compromise," by Ashbery; three poems by Joel Oppenheimer, and additional contributions by Kerouac, Ginsberg, Corso, Olson, Derek Walcott, William Carlos Williams, and others. Signed by Ashbery and Oppenheimer. Printed wrappers; pages yellowing; very good. A nice copy of this oversize and thus quite fragile journal.

15. ATWOOD, Margaret. The Trumpets of Summer. (Toronto): (Berandol Music) (1964). An early, ephemeral piece by Atwood -- a libretto for a choral suite for mixed chorus, four soloists, male speaker, and six instruments; commissioned by the CBC for the Shakespeare Quatercentenary. First performed in Montreal on November 29, 1964. Music by John Beckwith; although only the text is printed here. It is unlikely that many of these would have been created, let alone have survived all this time. A scarce, early item, preceding her first novel by five years. Fine in stapled wrappers.

16. AUDEN, W.H. The Enchaféd Flood. NY: Random House (1950). Artist Alfonso Ossario's copy of Auden's essays on the romantic spirit, bearing his ownership signature on the half-title page, along with the date, 1951. Near fine in a very good, slightly spine-tanned dust jacket with a short tear at the upper front spine fold.

17. AUSTER, Paul. Hand to Mouth. A Chronicle of Early Failure. NY: Henry Holt (1997). The advance reading copy of this memoir of Auster's struggles as a young writer. Three appendices, longer than the text of the memoir itself, print three plays by Auster; a card baseball game he invented; and the complete text of his pseudonymously published baseball novel, Squeeze Play. Fine in wrappers.

18. -. Another copy. Fine in wrappers with publicity material stapled inside the front cover.

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