Catalog 111, A
2. ABBEY, Edward. The Fool's Progress. NY: Holt (1988). His last novel to be published before he died. Inscribed by Abbey in the month after publication: "To ___ & ____/ -- carry on!/ Edward Abbey/ Santa Fe/ 11/26/88." Very slight bowing to boards; else fine in a fine dust jacket. Abbey died in March, 1989, and there was a very small window of time during which he could sign copies of this title. This inscription, with its exhortation to "carry on!," is classic Abbey.
3. ALEXIE, Sherman. Indian Killer. NY: Atlantic Monthly Press (1996). A novel that became his breakthrough book, in terms of commercial success, with an announced first printing of 75,000 copies. Signed by the author. One light corner bump, else fine in like dust jacket.
4. AMIS, Kingsley. That Uncertain Feeling. NY: Harcourt Brace (1956). The first American edition of his second book, "a new comedy of marital misbehavior." Near fine in a good dust jacket, splitting along two folds and significantly chipped at the lower rear panel.
5. (Anthology). Conversations with American Writers. NY: Knopf, 1985. The uncorrected proof copy of this collection of interviews by Charles Ruas with writers such as Robert Stone, Eudora Welty, William Burroughs, Toni Morrison, Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, Joseph Heller, Susan Sontag, E.L. Doctorow, and others. Fine in slightly spine-faded blue wrappers.
6. (Anthology). Lord John 10. Northridge: Lord John Press, 1988. An impressive anthology celebrating ten years of the Press's existence, collecting pieces by twenty-six contributors written expressly for this volume. Including, and signed by, John Updike, Raymond Carver, James Crumley, Ray Bradbury, William Everson, Jim Harrison, Tess Gallagher, Joyce Carol Oates, James Purdy, Derek Walcott, former President Gerald Ford, and many others. This is the deluxe edition, one of 75 copies quarterbound in leather. A tiny bit of shelfwear to the corners of the spine, otherwise fine, without dust jacket, as issued.
7. (Anthology). The Faber Book of Contemporary Canadian Short Stories. London: Faber and Faber (1990). Edited and with an introduction by Michael Ondaatje. With work by Alice Munro, Mavis Gallant, Wallace Stegner, Rohinton Mistry, Clark Blaise, Margaret Atwood, Guy Vanderhaeghe, Elizabeth Smart, Carol Shields, Bharati Mukherjee and many others. Concavity to spine from the weight of the text block; very near fine in like dust jacket.
8. (Anthology). Prize Stories 2000. NY: Anchor Books (2000). The uncorrected proof copy of the year's collection of O. Henry winners, selected by Michael Cunningham, George Saunders and Pam Houston. Each of the editors introduces a story by one of the top three prize winners: John Edgar Wideman, Beth Lordan and Mary Gordon. Other authors include Nathan Englander, Allan Gurganus, Andrea Barrett and Raymond Carver, among others. Front cover slightly splayed from publicity material: else fine in wrappers.
9. (Anthology). The Book of 20th Century Essays. NY: Fromm International (2000). Edited by Ian Hamilton. Advance reading copy of this collection featuring Virginia Woolf, F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Thurber, Mary McCarthy, Graham Greene, V.S. Naipaul, E.B. White, James Baldwin, Norman Mailer, Philip Roth, Joan Didion, Martin Amis, John Updike and many others. Fine in wrappers.
10. (Anthology). The Best American Essays of the Century. Boston/NY: Houghton Mifflin, 2000. Edited by Joyce Carol Oates. The advance reading copy of a collection of work by Twain, Hemingway, Thurber, Stein, Fitzgerald, Perelman, Baldwin, Sontag, Nabokov, E.B. White, John Muir, Mary McCarthy, Rachel Carson, Loren Eiseley, Donald Hall, N. Scott Momaday, Michael Herr, Maya Angelou, John McPhee, Joan Didion, Saul Bellow, Annie Dillard, John Updike, Oates herself, and many others. Near fine in wrappers.
11. (Anthology). Snapshots. 20th Century Mother-Daughter Fiction. Boston: Godine (2000). Edited by Joyce Carol Oates. The uncorrected proof copy of this collection of stories. Authors include Lorrie Moore, Jamaica Kincaid, Gloria Naylor, Julia Alvarez, Ursula Le Guin, Margaret Atwood, Alice Walker, Oates herself, and others. Fine in wrappers.
12. (Anthology). The Best American Short Stories 2000. Boston/NY: Houghton Mifflin, 2000. Edited and introduced by E.L. Doctorow. The advance reading copy. With stories by Raymond Carver, Amy Bloom, Nathan Englander, Ha Jin, Jhumpa Lahiri, Walter Mosley, Annie Proulx and others. Fine in wrappers.
13. (Anthology). The Best American Mystery Stories 2000. Boston/NY: Houghton Mifflin, 1999/(2000). Edited and introduced by Donald Westlake. The advance reading copy. With work by Dennis Lehane, Robert Girardi, Shel Silverstein, Brad Watson and Tom Franklin, among others. Fine in wrappers.
14. (Anthology). The Body Electric. NY: Norton (2000). The uncorrected proof copy of this anthology of poetry selected from 25 years of The American Poetry Review. Introduced by Harold Bloom and featuring work by Ai, Julia Alvarez, John Ashbery, Charles Bukowski, Carolyn Forché, Allen Ginsberg, Jorie Graham, Donald Hall, Joy Harjo, Jim Harrison, Robert Hass, Seamus Heaney, Susan Howe, Denise Levertov, Philip Levine, Charles Olson, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Charles Simic, W.D. Snodgrass, Gary Snyder, James Tate, and many others. Fine.
15. (Anthology). Still Wild. NY: Simon & Schuster (2000). The uncorrected proof copy of a collection of short fiction of the American West from 1950-2000, edited and with an introduction by Larry McMurtry. With work by Richard Ford, Rick Bass, Raymond Carver, Leslie Marmon Silko, Wallace Stegner, Annie Proulx, Tom McGuane, Jack Kerouac, and others. Fine in wrappers.
16. ASHBERY, John. Your Name Here. NY: FSG (2000). The uncorrected proof copy of the latest collection of poems by one of the most honored American poets of all time -- winner of the Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Award, a MacArthur Foundation "genius" award, a Guggenheim Fellowship and many more. Fine in wrappers.
17. ASHBERY, John. Other Traditions. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000. The text of Ashbery's six Charles Eliot Norton Lectures, each focusing on a poet whose work Ashbery reads when he needs to write: Thomas Lovell Beddoes, Raymond Roussel, John Wheelright, Laura Riding and David Schubert. This is the advance reading copy. Fine in wrappers.
18. AUCHINCLOSS, Louis. The House of the Prophet. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1980. A review copy of this novel by a prolific writer who is perhaps the most accomplished chronicler of the upper echelons of American society since Edith Wharton. Fine in a near fine, mildly spine-faded dust jacket with one tiny, closed edge tear.
19. AUCHINCLOSS, Louis. Her Infinite Variety. Boston/NY: Houghton Mifflin, 2000. The uncorrected proof copy of his most recent novel -- his fifty-sixth book. Fine in wrappers.
20. AUCHINCLOSS, Louis. Woodrow Wilson. (n.p.): Viking (2000). The uncorrected proof copy of this volume in the Penguin Lives Biography series. Fine in wrappers.
21. AUSTER, Paul. Facing the Music. (Barrytown): Station Hill (1980). A small collection of poetry printed in an edition of 1000 copies -- his fifth book, and the last collection of poems he wrote before turning full-time to prose writing. Fine in stapled wrappers.
22. AUSTER, Paul. The Invention of Solitude. NY: Sun (1982). His first full-length work of prose, an experiment in autobiography, only published in wrappers. Mild rubbing; near fine.
23. AUSTER, Paul. The Art of Hunger. (London): Menard Press, 1982. The first edition of a collection of essays written between 1970 and 1979. Not published in the U.S. until a decade later (see below). A scarce edition. Inscribed by the author. Faint corner crease and some light edge foxing; near fine in wrappers.
24. -. Same title. Los Angeles: Sun & Moon Press (1992). The limited edition of this collection of essays, interviews and prefaces, expanded from the Menard Press collection of a decade earlier. One of 300 numbered copies signed by the author. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
25. AUSTER, Paul. Disappearances. Woodstock: Overlook Press (1988). A selection of Auster's poetry, from his small press publications of the 1970s. Inscribed by the author in the month of publication: "For ____/ Old words between new covers./ In friendship -/ Paul." Bump to spine base, else fine in a fine dust jacket.
26. AUSTER, Paul. Leviathan. (NY): Viking (1992). A highly praised novel of ideas by the author of the New York Trilogy. Signed by the author. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
27. AUSTER, Paul. Mr. Vertigo. (NY): Viking (1994). A novel. Signed by the author. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
28. 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 baseball card game he invented; and the complete text of his pseudonymously published baseball novel, Squeeze Play. Signed by the author. Fine in wrappers.