Catalog 118, H-K
108. HARRISON, Jim. Warlock. (NY): Delacorte/Lawrence (1981). The limited edition of this novel, one of 250 numbered copies, signed by the author. Clothbound; all edges gilt. Fine in a dusty, else fine slipcase.
109. HEANEY, Seamus. Door into the Dark. London: Faber & Faber (1969). The first edition of the second major collection of poems by this recipient of the 1995 Nobel Prize for Literature. Heaney's first collection, Death of a Naturalist, was published in 1966 and won the Somerset Maugham Award, among others. This title was selected as the Poetry Book Society choice for the year 1969. Signed by the author. Small spot to foredge; else fine in a fine, price-clipped dust jacket.
110. HEANEY, Seamus. Opened Ground. Selected Poems, 1966-1996. (London): Faber and Faber (1998). The limited edition of this selection of the Irish author's poems, spanning his career and also including his Nobel Prize speech. Of a total edition of 325 copies, this is one of 300 numbered copies signed by the author. Fine in a fine slipcase. An attractive volume.
111. HEANEY, Seamus. A Drink of Water. San Francisco: American Ireland Fund, 1998. A broadside poem, printed by Eric Holub at the Hillside Press and issued as Anna Livia Broadsheet 2. Distributed at the American Ireland Fund dinner honoring Heaney. 6 1/2" x 13". Fine, with Heaney's signature in facsimile.
112. HEGI, Ursula. Intrusions. NY: Viking (1981). The first book by the award-winning author of Stones From the River. Warmly inscribed by Hegi -- "For ____ - whose character Duane keeps haunting me -" -- in 1982. Fine in a fine dust jacket. Hegi's novel, Stones From a River, was a PEN/Faulkner Award nominee and was chosen for Oprah Winfrey's book club.
113. HELLER, Joseph. Catch-22. NY: Simon & Schuster, 1961. Heller's first book, a black comedy of World War II and military life whose title has become a part of the language, signifying a contradictory set of instructions or constraints. This book was both the basis for a well-received movie and also one of the novels that helped define the ethos of the 1960s -- funny, irreverent, and critical of established authority and bureaucracy. A fine copy in a very near fine dust jacket with a couple of tiny tears at the crown and housed in a custom clamshell box. A very nice copy of one of the few books to be listed on each of the Modern Library, Radcliffe, Waterstone's and New York Public Library lists of books of the century.
114. HEMON, Aleksandar. The Question of Bruno. (London): Picador (2000). An inventive and highly praised first book, a collection of stories by a writer from Sarajevo, for whom English is a second language. Signed by the author. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
115. HIGGINS, Joanna. A Soldier's Book. Sag Harbor: Permanent Press (1998). Well-received first novel, a Civil War story of a Union prisoner, which had a first printing of only 2400 copies and was reprinted several times very soon after publication. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
116. HOBAN, Russell. The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz. NY: Stein & Day (1973). The first American edition of his first novel for adults, a modern fantasy classic about makers of maps and seekers of lions, both internal and external. One page margin stained; otherwise near fine in a rubbed and edge-torn dust jacket; about very good. An important and wonderful novel by the author of the award-winning Riddley Walker.
117. HOUSTON, Pam. Cowboys Are My Weakness. NY: Norton (1992). Her highly praised first book, a collection of stories, one of which was selected for The Best American Short Stories 1990. The collection won the 1993 Western States Book Award. Signed by the author. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
118. -. Another copy. Slight bump to upper board; still fine in dust jacket.
119. HUDDLE, David. A Dream with No Stump Roots in It. (n.p.): University of Missouri Press, 1975. His first book, a collection of stories that includes the much-anthologized Vietnam story "The Interrogation of Prisoner Bung by Mister Hawkins and Sergeant Tree." The author served in Vietnam as a paratrooper, where he received a Bronze Star. Fine, without dust jacket, as issued.
120. HUNTER, Stephen. The Master Sniper. NY: Morrow, 1980. The first novel by the bestselling thriller writer, who is also a film critic for the Washington Post. Several of Hunter's titles involve snipers, including a trilogy about a Vietnam War-era U.S. sniper. This title focuses on a German SS sniper in World War II, and the OSS agent assigned to thwart him. Signed by the author. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
121. HUXLEY, Aldous. Autograph Letter Signed. Dated July 4, 1938. Six pages on three 5" x 8" sheets, written to J. William Lloyd, a well-known writer on religious and spiritual subjects and a noted social critic and utopian, on the subject of "cosmic consciousness." Huxley writes in response to his reading of Eneres, a book of talks by Lloyd on spiritual and philosophical matters, which Lloyd had sent to him. Huxley was living in Los Angeles at the time, where he had moved a year earlier to get away from the looming war in Europe and England, and the threat of totalitarianism that was imminent there. In Los Angeles he pursued his exploration of Eastern mysticism, becoming a member of the Vedanta Society and leading to what is generally considered his most important nonfiction book, The Perennial Philosophy, a study of mysticism through the ages and across cultures which was published in 1944. Huxley became a regular contributor to Vedanta and the West, a publication edited by Christopher Isherwood, and he wrote an introduction for a translation Isherwood did with Swami Prabhavananda of The Bhagavad Gita. In this letter, he praises Lloyd's book but takes issue with him on the nature of spiritual consciousness: "As I understand it, you take the same view as Bucke [author of the seminal work, Cosmic Consciousness, in 1901], who lumped all his recorded phenomena under one head. But I am inclined to believe that this is illegitimate and that there are two fundamentally different experiences which ought not to be called by the same name. Such experiences as Whitman's -- what Herman Melville calls "the all-feeling" [Bucke was one of Whitman's literary executors, and he cites Whitman's experiences extensively in his book] -- are extensions of the ordinary forms of consciousness. Whereas such experiences as "Nirvana" are experiences on an entirely different level of consciousness." He goes on to explain his view in detail, alluding to the "tripartite" nature of Man -- body, soul, and spirit -- and arguing that ordinary "cosmic consciousness" is a soul function whereas Nirvana is a kind of "spiritual consciousness," and cites the Buddhist Eightfold Path to explain that "Right Meditation or Ecstasy... is directed to the world of the 'Spirit' and is accompanied by a turning away from ordinary 'mental' and 'psychic' experiences, even in their most exalted forms. 'Right Ecstasy' occurs on the 'Spiritual Plane' and not on the 'cosmic plane' apprehended by the 'soul.'" He goes on to lament that "all these words are in the highest degree suspect: but one is forced to use them for lack of better ones, & because the available evidence, it seems to me, indicates that they do actually stand for definite and distinct psychological realities..." The letter is signed in full, "Aldous Huxley." Huxley will have realized that Lloyd could follow both his argument and even the disclaimer about the inadequacy of words: one of the talks reprinted in Eneres was on "Untellable Knowledge." A fascinating letter, showing Huxley's full engagement with an attempt to understand the mystical and numinous, which he elaborated more fully in The Perennial Philosophy and later in his two books about his experiments with psychedelic drugs, The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell. It is interesting and notable that Huxley, who is most famous for his dystopian fantasy Brave New World, essentially repudiated the vision of that book after his engagement with Eastern philosophies and mysticism, and his last novel, Island, was a utopian novel of a society founded in the shared experience of religious bliss. Lloyd's most famous books were two utopian novels about a pastoral socialist cooperative, published around the turn of the century. Eneres was the last book published in his lifetime. A fine letter, with important content and an excellent association. Together with the mailing envelope, addressed in Huxley's hand, and a typed copy of Lloyd's response to Huxley, three pages long, taking issue with Huxley's focus on spiritual realities and arguing for a more humanist and secular view of spiritual development. We have never seen a Huxley letter on the market with content as rich as this. Folded for mailing, with one end of the envelope torn off for opening by the recipient, otherwise all are fine.
122. HUXLEY, Aldous. Island. London: Chatto & Windus (1962). The uncorrected proof copy of the last novel by Huxley, the counterpoint to his classic, Brave New World. Huxley began exploring Eastern religions and mysticism in the 1930s, after he had written Brave New World; in the early 1950s he experimented with mescaline and other psychedelic drugs, finding a strong parallel between the drug-induced state and the mystical experiences he had previously only read about. He wrote two short books on his drug experiences -- The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell -- describing the psychedelic experience in terms borrowed from oriental mystical traditions, and attempted in this, his final work of fiction, to use the novel form to articulate a vision of the society that could emerge from a shared experience of spiritual ecstasy. Publication date rubber-stamped on front cover. Spine slanted, lightened and lightly creased; overall near fine in wrappers. Not a particularly uncommon book, but scarce in proof form.
123. IGNATOW, David. The Gentle Weight Lifter. (NY): Morris Gallery, 1955. Unbound, untrimmed sheets of his second book. 500 copies were printed but many copies remained unbound and, like this copy, unnumbered. Although not called for in the edition, this copy is signed by the author. Fine.
124. IRVING, John. The Water-Method Man. NY: Random House (1972). His second book. Light spotting to board edges; very near fine in a very near fine dust jacket with one small wave and a couple tiny dots. All told, a very attractive copy of a book that is quite scarce in nice condition.
125. IRVING, John. A Prayer for Owen Meany. Franklin Center: Franklin Library, 1989. The true first edition of what may be Irving's best-loved book (a substantial claim for a book by the author of The World According to Garp), and the novel from which the movie Simon Birch was adapted. Leatherbound, gilt stamped, with gilt page edges and silk ribbon marker. With a special introduction for this edition that does not appear in the trade edition. Signed by the author. A fine copy.
126. (IRVING, John). "For Fitch, Retired" in Year of Dog, Vol. 1, No. 1. (n.p.): Year of Dog Press, 1972. A very early Irving appearance, a poem, in one of 650 copies of this attractively printed and bound anthology. Signed by printers and designers Georgia Gojmerac and Kelly Lee. Robert Bly also contributes, among many others. Fine in a fine dust jacket that is adhered to the rear board, possibly by design.
127. KENEALLY, Thomas. Schindler's Ark. London: Hodder & Stoughton (1982). The true first edition of the book that became Schindler's List when published in the U.S. and which was the basis for the Academy Award-winning Spielberg film. Winner of the Booker Prize. Keneally is Australian and his books are usually published there first; in this case, however, the U.K. edition precedes even the Australian edition. This title had more than a decade to disappear before the film came out and renewed interest in it. Although we don't have any figures for the print run of the first edition, it came at a point in Keneally's career when he would likely have been considered by his publisher a "mid-list" author -- one whose books would be well-received and reach a small, cultured audience, but had little commercial potential. Normally publishers cut back both the print runs and the advertising budgets for authors who seem to have proven to have limited commercial appeal, a self-reinforcing process that often ends up creating the situation that an author's scarcest books are those from the middle or latter part of his or her career -- the novelist Patrick O'Brian, with his Aubrey-Maturin series of novels, is a notable example of this phenomenon. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
128. (KESEY, Ken). "You Asked For It. The Current Report." Pleasant Valley: Intrepid Trips, 1971. A broadside flyer, 11" x 17", printed on both sides. A little-known "A" item by Kesey, apparently issued as a newsletter for those wanting to keep up with the counterculture icon after he retreated from the limelight and moved back to Oregon and lived on a dairy farm. Intrepid Trips, Inc. was the company Kesey founded in 1964 with the royalties from his writing, which he used to purchase the famous Prankster bus, Furthur, in which he and the Merry Pranksters made their famous cross-country trip that gave birth to the psychedelic movement and the counterculture of the 1960s. This flyer, in collage form, appears to have been intended to be an occasional, but ongoing, project; however, we know of no other one having been issued: instead, in 1974, Kesey started Spit in the Ocean, an occasional publication of "Intrepid Trips Information Service." This ephemeral production is extremely scarce: we have never seen another one offered for sale. One light diagonal crease, else fine.
129. KILMER, Joyce. Autograph Letter Signed. August 18, 1914. A one-page letter to the poet Edwin Markham soliciting the blurb that was used on the front cover of Trees and Other Poems. Markham had edited the 1910 collection The Younger Choir in which two of Kilmer's poems appeared. He had also, according to this letter, more recently praised the poems "Martin," "Trees," and "To a Young Poet who Killed Himself." Kilmer also inquires after Markham's health and sends respects to Markham's wife. Written on New York Times stationery and signed in full by Kilmer. Folded in sixths for mailing; a bit of corner creasing at the top edge; near fine. A nice literary association.
130. KILMER, Joyce. Trees and Other Poems. NY: George H. Doran (1914). The first edition, first issue, of his first book. This copy is inscribed by his mother, Annie Kilburn Kilmer, the dedicatee of the book: "To Maurice, from his Fraternity Mother/ Annie Kilburn Kilmer/ New Brunswick, 24th March, 1915." Additionally, she has added her comments to the table of contents; the recipient has made several annotations to the text. Front hinge cracked, beginning to affect the front joint; a very good copy in a very good, lightly dust-soiled and edgeworn jacket. In a custom full leather clamshell case. Laid in is a holograph poem entitled "Spring in France," written on American Expeditionary Force stationery. Kilmer served with the 42nd Rainbow Division of the A.E.F. and was stationed in France from November 1917 until he was killed in action in July of 1918, but the poem appears to be in the handwriting of the recipient, Maurice.
131. KING, Stephen. Carrie. Garden City: Doubleday, 1974. His first novel, the beginning of a career that reinvigorated the horror genre, led the author to become the best-selling American author of all time, and resulted in gaining him a degree of celebrity and name-recognition usually reserved for film stars and athletes. Also the basis for one of the defining movies of the '70s. Very slight splaying to boards; else fine in a very good, mildly sunned dust jacket with two short edge tears, one internally mended, and several small spots bearing the misguided but not egregious application of color. Laid in is a typed postcard signed from 1981 in which King agrees to sign a book (although the book itself is unsigned). Usual postal markings; cancel stamp over but not obscuring signature; else fine.
132. KINGSOLVER, Barbara. The Bean Trees. NY: Harper & Row (1988). Her first novel, which combines a strong sense of place, warm humor and an active social conscience. Signed by the author. Fine in a fine dust jacket.