Catalog 118, A-B
2. ANDERSON, Kent. Sympathy for the Devil. Garden City: Doubleday, 1987. The well-received first novel by the author of the highly acclaimed Night Dogs. A powerful and well-written novel about the Special Forces in Vietnam, with whom the author served, which confronts the violence of the war head-on and explores an individual's capacity for tolerating and committing brutality that in any other context would be unthinkable and inhuman. One of the best novels of the war in its lucid portrayal of the devastating effects of the war on even so elite a group as this and, as such, a powerful antiwar statement without the usual postures and attitudes that are normally associated with an antiwar message. Signed by the author. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
3. ANDERSON, Laurie. United States. NY: Harper & Row (1984). The hardcover issue of the companion book to her eight hour epic performance piece United States I-IV, the multimedia equivalent of the great American novel. Signed by Anderson, the foremost performance artist in the U.S., with a bi-colored lightning-through-fingerprint graphic beneath the signature. Oblong quarto; text block sagging slightly; near fine in a near fine dust jacket with a bit of edge wear. An attractive copy, and an uncommon signature.
4. ANGELOU, Maya. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. NY: Random House (1969). The first book, an autobiography, by this African-American poet who received wide recognition when she delivered the Inaugural poem for Clinton's Presidential inauguration. Owner name on flyleaf, slight crown bump; very near fine in a fine, price-clipped dust jacket. A very nice copy of a book that has become quite scarce in recent years.
5. (Anthology). Great Fiction from the New Esquire Fortnightly. (n.p.): (N.E. Corporation) (1979). A "reassembling" of the best of the first year of Esquire Fortnightly fiction, including Jim Harrison's "Legends of the Fall," William Styron's "Shadrach" and Thomas McGuane's "Resurrection Waltz," along with the work of Arthur Miller, Leonard Michaels and others. Small abrasion to front cover, else near fine in stapled wrappers.
6. (Anthology). Soldiers and Civilians. NY: Bantam, 1986. The uncommon hardcover issue of this collection of twenty stories about war and its influence on our culture and values. Edited by Tom Jenks, and including stories by writers such as Robert Stone, Richard Ford, Andre Dubus, Don DeLillo, Tim O'Brien, Jayne Anne Phillips, T.C. Boyle, John Sayles, Mark Helprin, Ward Just, James Salter, Kathryn Kramer, Rick DeMarinis, Bobbie Ann Mason, Bob Shacochis, Breece D'J Pancake and Tobias Wolff, among others. Fine in a very near fine dust jacket with a strip of edge sunning.
7. (Anthology). Letters to a Bookstore. (NY): Books & Co. (1988). A collection of authors' responses to a request for anecdotes issued by Books & Co., which for a time was one of the foremost literary bookstores in the U.S., on the occasion of its 10th anniversary in business. Includes otherwise unpublished work by Paul Auster, Ethan Canin, Harold Brodkey, Amy Hempel, James Merrill, Fran Lebowitz, Christopher Coe, Cynthia Ozick, and many others including Howard Norman who, six years prior to the publication of The Bird Artist, replies with three pages that cover, in part, the consequences of being a failed bird artist. Fine in wrappers. Not issued for sale and, as far as we know, there was no hardcover edition.
8. (Anthology). The New Gothic. NY: Random House (1991). A collection of Gothic fiction by such writers as Jamaica Kincaid, Anne Rice, John Hawkes, Martin Amis, Jeanette Winterson, Kathy Acker, John Edgar Wideman, William Vollmann, Joyce Carol Oates, and others, including co-editors Bradford Morrow and Patrick McGrath. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
9. -. Same title. The uncorrected proof copy. Fine in wrappers.
10. (Anthology). Fifty Years: A Farrar Straus Giroux Reader. NY: FSG (1996). Collecting the work of nearly 100 FSG authors and signed by contributors Jonathan Franzen, Seamus Heaney, Jamaica Kincaid, John Ashbery, Thom Gunn, C.K. Williams and Edna O'Brien. Also includes work by Michael Cunningham, John McPhee, Derek Walcott, Philip Roth, Oscar Hijuelos, Czeslaw Milosz, Joseph Brodsky, Pablo Neruda, Isaac Bashevis Singer and Nadine Gordimer, among many others. Fine in glassine dustwrapper, with a publisher's complimentary card laid in.
11. (Anthology). The Phoenix Bookshop. A Nest of Memories. Candia: John LeBow, 1997. A chapbook of essays on and tributes to the Phoenix Bookshop, in Greenwich Village, and Bob Wilson, who owned the shop beginning in 1962. John LeBow provides the introduction, and Wilson provides a history. Essays by Amiri Baraka, Marshall Clements, Diane DiPrima, Ed Sanders and Michael McClure. Additional tributes (from the 1980s and 1990s) by James Broughton, James Purdy, John Ashbery, Joseph Brodsky, Diane Wakoski, Allen Ginsberg, Denise Levertov and John Wieners. Issued in an edition of 265 copies, this is one of 65 roman-numeraled copies, 50 of which were for sale, signed by Bob Wilson, Diane DiPrima, Michael McClure, Amiri Baraka, John Ashbery, Denise Levertov, James Broughton, Diane Wakoski, John Wieners, Marshall Clements and Ed Sanders. Also included in this edition is a clothbound album of ten photographs from the Phoenix, featuring Allen Ginsberg, Marianne Moore, Diane DiPrima, Robert Duncan, Gregory Corso, Diane Wakoski, Michael McClure, Joseph Brodsky, and others; a copy of the Phoenix catalog #150 from October 1978; and one of 300 copies of the Phoenix Christmas chapbook from 1980, written by Wilson and entitled Michael and the Lions. Several varying pieces of ephemera were laid into each of the lettered copies, and this copy contains the prospectus for John Wieners' Ace of Pentacles and three checks from 1968-1973 made out to and signed on verso by Diane DiPrima, Gregory Corso and Lewis Warsh. Warsh has signed his check over to Anne Waldman; it is also signed by Waldman. All laid into a clamshell box. Fine.
12. (Anthology). The Vintage Contemporaries Reader. NY: Vintage (1998). A commemorative edition featuring excerpts from 26 of the titles published in the first fourteen years of the Vintage Contemporaries series. Authors include Don DeLillo, Richard Ford, Richard Russo, Richard Yates, Raymond Carver, Alice Munro, David Guterson, Thomas McGuane, Nicholson Baker, Mona Simpson, Edwidge Danticat, Andre Dubus, Steven Millhauser and others. "Special Edition with Purchase - Not for Resale" printed on rear cover; fine in wrappers. There was another Vintage Contemporaries Reader issued at the series' inception and previewing the first eight books in the series.
13. BACON, Charlotte. A Private State. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press (1998). The author's first book, winner of the Associated Writers Program 1996 Award in short fiction and the PEN/Hemingway Award. In addition, one of the stories in the collection won the Pirate's Alley/Faulkner Society Award for Best Short Story; one of the mostly regarded debuts of the year. Signed by the author. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
14. BAMBARA, Toni Cade. Raymond's Run. (Mankato): Creative Education, Inc. (1990). The first separate appearance of the story "Raymond's Run" from Gorilla, My Love. Prelims nicked at top edge; else fine in a fine dust jacket.
15. BASBANES, Nicholas. Patience & Fortitude. (NY): HarperCollins (2001). The second book by the author of the highly praised and bestselling A Gentle Madness, an entertaining and informative study of book collecting and book collectors. The present volume continues Basbanes' exploration of this subject. Signed by the author. Fine in a fine dust jacket. Proceeds from the sale of this volume will go -- with thanks to Mr. Basbanes -- to benefit the Benevolent Fund of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America, a non-profit charity fund set up to benefit any bookseller in time of personal need. At the list price:
16. BAYER, William. Peregrine. (NY): (Congdon & Lattès) (1981). The uncorrected proof copy of this novel which won the Edgar Award for Best First Mystery Novel. Fine in wrappers.
17. BEDFORD, Sybille. A Legacy. NY: Simon & Schuster, 1957. Her most famous novel, about the Kaiser's Germany in the years leading up to World War I. Bedford's biographical novel, Jigsaw, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1989. Signed by the author and additionally inscribed: "Peter,/ with much affection,/ Sybille." Also with the ownership signature of Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Jean Stafford. Near fine in a very good, spine-tanned dust jacket with a blended stain across the upper reaches of the spine and rear panel.
18. BELL, Madison Smartt. The Washington Square Ensemble. NY: Viking (1983). The first book by this Tennessee native, a graduate of the renowned Hollins College writing program. This novel was characterized by one prominent New York editor as the most accomplished first novel he had read since Thomas Pynchon's V. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
19. BIRKERTS, Sven. The Gutenberg Elegies. The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age. Boston/London: Faber and Faber (1994). Nonfiction: an analysis of the "intellectual emergency" the author sees as a result of our contemporary tendency to embrace new technologies at the expense of the printed word. Signed by the author. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
20. (Book Collecting). AHEARN, Allen and Patricia. Collected Books: The Guide to Values, 2002 Edition. NY: Putnam (2001). The latest edition of the standard guide to book values by the authors of Book Collecting. This volume updates their 1991 and 1998 Collected Books, with values for more than 20,000 books and a section for identifying first editions. The Ahearns have put together the most useful single-volume reference books in the book trade. The listings in this guide include not only estimated prices but details regarding issue points where applicable. This is probably the only book that virtually every dealer in the U.S. owns a copy of and is indispensable, both for dealers who must assess a wide range of material and for collectors who focus in one or a few areas. Just the changes in values since the last edition was published in 1998 are an invaluable reference and can easily repay the cost of the book. An essential guide. Signed by the authors. Fine in a fine dust jacket. List price:
21. BOWLES, Paul. The Delicate Prey and Other Stories. (NY): Random House (1950). The second book published in the U.S. by the author of The Sheltering Sky, and his first collection of stories, the form which many consider to be his greatest strength. Tiny nick to cloth at spine base; a near fine copy in a very good, spine-faded and price-clipped dust jacket.
22. BOWLES, Paul. The Spider's House. NY: Random House (1955). His third novel, about a group of Westerners adrift in the alien culture of Morocco, a subject he explored several times to great effect, and which helped inspire the expatriate travels of the generations that came of age in the 1950s, 60s and after. Owner signature on front flyleaf and top stain faded; otherwise a fine copy in a very good, rubbed dust jacket.
23. BOWLES, Paul. Their Heads Are Green and Their Hands Are Blue. NY: Random House (1963). Nonfiction, the first of his numerous books of travel writing. Bowles brought an avant-garde outsider's sensibility to travel writing and in so doing turned the genre on its head, freeing it of much of its colonialist past, and opening the way for such later writers as Peter Matthiessen, Bruce Chatwin and Alex Shoumatoff to explore "alien" cultures without condescension -- indeed, often with a respect for tribal societies that recognizes values and capacities that surpass the writer's own culture's. Modest foredge foxing; near fine in a very good dust jacket with abrasions to the spine and wormholes to the folds.
24. BOYLE, T. Coraghessan. Descent of Man. Boston: Little, Brown (1979). His first book, a highly praised collection of stories. Signed by the author. Fine in a fine dust jacket with trace rubbing at the extreme edges, as is almost always the case with this title. A very nice copy.
25. BROWN, Larry. Facing the Music. Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books, 1988. His first book, a collection of stories. Brown, from Mississippi, was the first writer to twice win the Southern Book Award, the major literary award given out by the Southern Book Critics Circle. Signed by the author. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
26. BURROUGHS, Edgar Rice. Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle. Chicago: A.C. McClurg, 1928. A good copy, handled but sound and with some shelf wear to the lower edges of the cloth covers, in a supplied dust jacket that has been visibly repaired and restored to wholeness. Overall, an attractive copy.
27. BURROUGHS, William. The Soft Machine. London: Calder & Boyars (1968). The first British edition and first thus, revised and expanded from the American edition of 1966, which was revised and expanded from the Paris edition of 1961. One of the scarcest of Burroughs' trade editions. Signed by the author. Fine in a near fine dust jacket that is rubbed at the folds and spine extremities.
28. BUTLER, Robert Olen. The Alleys of Eden. NY: Horizon (1981). His first book, a highly praised novel of the ending and aftermath of the Vietnam war -- themes that have continued to run through his writing since. Although Butler's early books were universally praised by reviewers, they enjoyed little commercial success, in part because the first three were published by a small publisher on the brink of bankruptcy. He later won the Pulitzer Prize for his collection A Good Scent From a Strange Mountain, stories that share the Vietnam and post-Vietnam themes of this book. Fine in a fine dust jacket. A beautiful copy of a book whose unlaminated dust jacket is susceptible to rubbing and wear.