Catalog 113, N-R
263. NERUDA, Pablo. Viajes. Otoño: Sociedad de Escritores de Chile, 1947. The first edition of this collection of two travel narratives by the Chilean poet and Nobel Prize winner. Inscribed by the author in the year of publication. Spine heavily sunned, with a small chip at the crown; else near fine in french-folded wrappers. Still, a nice copy of a small, fragile volume.
264. (NERUDA, Pablo). 3 Spanish American Poets. Albuquerque: Sage Books/Sallow & Critchlow (1942). Poetry by Neruda, Carlos Pellicer and Jorge Carrera Andrade, with a short introduction to the work of each poet. A very early book appearance in this country for Neruda (his first?). Spine splitting and faded; very good in stapled wrappers.
265. NUNN, Kem. Tapping the Source. NY: Delacorte (1984). Nunn's powerful first novel, set in the surfing subculture of Southern California. Nominated for the National Book Award. Signed by the author in 1988. Light corner bumping; else fine (without remainder speckling) in a near fine, price-clipped dust jacket with blurbs by Elmore Leonard and Robert Stone, who compares it to "the best of Raymond Chandler and James Crumley."
266. O'BRIAN, Patrick. Master and Commander. Philadelphia: Lippincott (1969). The true first edition of the first of his acclaimed Jack Aubrey maritime novels, preceding its British publication. Slight sag to text block, foxing to foredge, rubbing to tips; still near fine in a very good, lightly rubbed and price-clipped dust jacket with one edge tear at the upper rear spine fold. O'Brian single-handedly revived the genre of historical maritime novels, with his Aubrey-Marturin novels reaching a level of critical and commercial success unprecedented for the genre.
267. O'BRIEN, Tim. Northern Lights. NY: Delacorte (1975). His second novel, a tale of two brothers in the wilderness of northern Minnesota, one of them a war veteran, the other a veteran of the protests against that war. Signed by the author. A cheaply-made, "perfectbound" book, it is difficult to find in nice condition. Wear and sunning to the board edges; near fine in a fine dust jacket.
268. O'BRIEN, Tim. Going After Cacciato. (NY): Delacorte Press/Seymour Lawrence (1978). His third book, a magical realist novel about a recruit who decides to walk away from the Vietnam war and go to Paris, overland. Winner of the National Book Award. Inscribed by the author: "To ____ ____,/ A fellow 'member' of/ the Americal Club./ Peace,/ Tim O'Brien." Very faint spot to top edge; else fine in a very near fine dust jacket with a couple of tiny edge tears. A very nice copy of the book that secured O'Brien's reputation as the pre-eminent novelist of the American experience in Vietnam.
269. O'BRIEN, Tim. Speaking of Courage. Santa Barbara: Neville, 1980. His first limited edition, a chapter that was excised from Going After Cacciato and later appeared, in altered form, in The Things They Carried. Of a total edition of 326 copies, this is a presentation copy, so printed on the colophon, and inscribed by O'Brien: "To Mom and Dad,/ Love,/ Tim." Clothbound, mildly sunned; near fine. An excellent personal association copy; unique.
270. O'BRIEN, Tim The Things They Carried. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1990. A collection of related stories that share a number of characters as well as the narrator -- a "Tim O'Brien" whose experience bears certain similarities to the author's own, as well as a number of differences. Selected as one of the best books of the year in all categories by the editors of The New York Times Book Review; winner of the Heartland Award, among numerous others, including a National Magazine Award for the title chapter. Not quite a novel in the usual sense but more tightly structured than the usual collection of stories, it is a meditation on war and death, and on the place that storytelling has in bringing these unfathomable experiences within our grasp. Signed by the author. Fine in a fine, first issue dust jacket. One of the key books of the Vietnam experience, which has become a staple on college reading lists on the subject.
271. O'HARA, John. Hope of Heaven. NY: Harcourt, Brace (1938). The fourth book by the author of Appointment in Samarra and Butterfield 8, among others. Near fine in a near fine dust jacket with very light edge wear. A very attractive copy of one of O'Hara's scarcest books.
272. O'HARA, John. Files on Parade. NY: Harcourt, Brace (1939). Another of the author's scarcer titles, and again a very nice copy; fine in a near fine dust jacket.
273. ONDAATJE, Michael. Anil's Ghost. NY: Knopf, 2000. The uncorrected proof copy of the first American edition. This is the first state, approximately 6 1/4" x 9 1/4" and without the cover art bound in. Fine in wrappers.
274. PARKER, T. Jefferson. Laguna Heat. NY: St. Martin's (1985). The author's first book, a mystery published to considerable acclaim. Inscribed by the author to film critic Pauline Kael in 1986. With a typed letter signed thanking Kael for her encouragement and informing her that Pete Hamill is writing the screenplay of Laguna Heat for HBO (the HBO movie starred Jason Robards and Rip Torn). The letter is folded in thirds; the book is fine in a near fine dust jacket.
275. PELECANOS, George P. Right as Rain. Boston: Little Brown (2001). The advance reading copy of his latest novel, which is a departure from his Nick Stephanos novels and introduces a new set of characters. Signed by the author. Fine in wrappers.
Sylvia Plath Artwork
276. PLATH, Sylvia. Artwork. 1941-1942. Three pencil drawings, executed when Plath was eight and nine years old, and shortly after the death of her father, Otto, in 1940. It was at this young age that Plath first retreated into the worlds of both poetry and art: her first poem was published in The Boston Herald in 1941, the same year that a drawing of hers, of a plump lady in a feathered hat, won a dollar prize in another newspaper contest. Plath has claimed that it was her mother's reading Matthew Arnold's "The Forsaken Merman" to her that sparked her poetic imagination, and the first drawing here, "Mer-maid Land," is an underwater scene of a mermaid, fish and castle, with the mermaid shown again, larger, on a fold-over leaf. Signed "Sylvia July 20, 1941." In 1941, Plath was flower girl at her Aunt Dorothy's wedding; in 1942 she performed the same role for her Uncle Frank. The second drawing is of a bride, in profile, in wedding dress, and is signed "Sylvia" and dated "1942" by Plath's mother, Aurelia. The final drawing, of a woman preparing to curtsey, is described on the verso by Plath's mother: "Sylvia drew this to illustrate the costume planned for the Minuet Group in the Pageant given May 1942. Sylvia was in the group." Aurelia (presumably) has also written "Keep" on the front. This drawing is also in pencil, but with the costume colored in orange crayon. The first drawing is approximately 5 1/2" x 5"; the second and third each 4" x 6". The first and third show some foxing (the latter with one closed edge tear); the second some even acidification. For all:
277. PLATH, Sylvia. Ariel. London: Faber & Faber (1965). The first edition of what is widely considered her greatest poetic achievement, a series of powerful, even devastating, poems written during the months leading up to her suicide. Her frank, confessional poetry helped give voice to a later generation of women writers, and she became an artistic icon for the fledgling women's movement a decade after her death. Her posthumous Collected Poems won the 1981 Pulitzer Prize. Light foxing to endpapers, else fine in a fine dust jacket. A beautiful copy.
278. (Pocket Poets). HIRSCHMAN, Jack. Lyripol. (San Francisco): City Lights (1976). A collection of poems by the San Francisco poet and translator, published in City Lights' Pocket Poets series. This copy is inscribed to Pauline Kael by the author (partly in Russian) in the year of publication. Fine in wrappers.
279. (Pocket Poets). UPTON, Charles. Panic Grass. (San Francisco): City Lights Books (1968). Number 24 in the Pocket Poets series. Small sticker shadow front cover; near fine in wrappers.
280. (POUND, Ezra.) GALLUP, Donald. Ezra Pound: A Bibliography. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia (1983). A revised and updated edition of Gallup's 1963 A Bibliography of Ezra Pound. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
281. POWELL, Dawn. The Happy Island. NY: Farrar & Rinehart (1938). A novel of New York café society by this writer who has been rediscovered in recent years and deemed something of a proto-feminist for her fierce independence, marked by a scathing wit and an inclination toward sexual freedom and assertiveness. Upon the publication of this novel, The New York Times wrote: "If we absolutely must have novels about that none too alluring phenomenon known as cafe society, it is as well that Dawn Powell should write them. She has the sardonic wit which is needful for the job; she is quite immune to the glitter in which her giddy worldlings move." This copy is inscribed by the author to actor Henry Morgan, with whom she appeared on radio in the late '30s. In an elaborate and humorous inscription, Powell writes: "To Henry Morgan,/ from his idol/ Dawn Powell/(Mrs. Humphrey Ward)/ Paris, October 4, 1876 [sic]/ 'Would that us two were/ Maying.'" An ironic inscription, it seems, the full import of which we cannot discern, but her reference to herself as the popular Victorian novelist "Mrs. Humphrey Ward" and her spurious date -- 1876 -- both suggest a context more interesting than we have yet determined; and it's hard not to want to speculate as to what "Maying" might mean. Spine cloth faded; near fine, lacking the dust jacket. A great inscription in an uncommon book.
282. PYNCHON, Thomas. Gravity's Rainbow. NY: Viking (1973). The uncorrected proof copy of Pynchon's landmark third novel, winner of the National Book Award as well as the William Dean Howells Medal for the best work of fiction by an American over a five-year span. Gravity's Rainbow became the benchmark for postmodern American fiction upon publication and secured its mysterious and reclusive author's place in the postwar American literary pantheon. It is also widely considered the culminating novel of the Sixties -- the one which encapsulates and sums up the postwar events that resulted in the countercultural rejection of mainstream society and the quest for a plausible alternative view not only of contemporary society but of humanity itself. Pynchon's identity and whereabouts have consistently remained mysterious, and his publications have increasingly tended to be well-guarded secrets up to the moment of publication. For a number of years it was reported that no proofs of Gravity's Rainbow had been done, with Viking itself reportedly having confirmed that; however, in the last decade a dozen or so examples of this massive (760 pages) proof have shown up on the market. This copy has been read and bears the reviewer's marks in the text and on the rear cover; the spine is dulled from blue to gray; moderate overall wear; still very good, in a custom clamshell box.
283. RAFFEL, Dawn. In the Year of Long Division. NY: Knopf, 1995. The uncorrected proof copy of this well-received first book. Fine in wrappers. Laid in is an autograph note signed by the author.
284. RICHTER, Conrad. Always Young and Fair. NY: Knopf, 1947, The uncorrected proof copy in the form of bound galleys, printed on rectos only. With a Knopf label on the front cover stating "An 'A' Book to be considered at the next meeting" -- a Book of the Month Club designation, in our experience. Offsetting to the first page; light creasing and handling to the covers; near fine in wrappers. Very scarce: proofs of this sort in this era were produced, at most, in a handful of copies. Richter won the Pulitzer Prize in 1950 for his novel The Town.
285. (ROBBINS, Tom.) "GOMEZ, Slick." Still Life With Woodpecker. (n.p.): (n.p.), (n.d.). An unproduced screenplay of his 1980 novel, written pseudonymously by Robbins, who has altered the ending and given himself a cameo appearance in the script. Signed by the author as both Robbins and Gomez. Photocopied sheets, bradbound in plain black covers. Fine.
286. (RUSHDIE, Salman). Mirrorwork. NY: Henry Holt (1997). The suppressed first issue of the American edition of this compilation of 50 years of Indian writing, edited by Rushdie and Elizabeth West, and with an introduction and one piece by Rushdie. Other writers include Arundhati Roy, Anita Desai, Amitav Ghosh, Rohinton Mistry, Vikram Seth, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Amit Chaudhuri and Satyajit Ray, among many others. Together with the advance reading copy of the same issue. An interesting and extremely scarce item. Reportedly no more than two or three copies of the book are extant, the rest having been destroyed. The advance reading copy contains a number of small points of interest: V.S. Naipaul's name is crossed out from the list of contributors; the spelling of one author's name is corrected by hand, but the correction didn't make it to the printed book; Vikram Seth's piece is changed from "An Unsuitable Boy" to "A Suitable Boy," a correction that did make it to the book. Other small changes indicated in the advance reading copy made it into the book, including changes to Rushdie's introduction. A number of young Indian writers have gained great critical praise in the past few years and this collection was intended to showcase them, as well as their forebears. The publishers decided, however, on seeing the final book that it was unacceptable, in terms of design and production, and scrapped the edition, later redoing it entirely. These two volumes are among the only survivors of the aborted first American edition of this collection. The advance copy has two page corners turned and is otherwise fine in wrappers; the book is spine-creased, near fine in wrappers. For both: