Catalog 119, L
127. LE CARRE, John. Morrab. [Penzance]: [Morrab Library], 1997. Le Carré's speech accepting the presidency of the Morrab Library. Computer printout; thirteen pages; double-spaced on cream paper; one of approximately 50 copies signed by Le Carré. Fine. Included is a photocopied newspaper article describing the evening and a Morrab brochure picturing Le Carré as president. A little-known and uncommon piece of writing by Le Carré.
128. LE CARRE, John. Sarratt and the Draper of Watford. Privately printed, 1999. Le Carré contributes a story to this fundraising effort: sales of the book benefit two local charities. Signed by Le Carré. Fine in a fine dust jacket, the flaps of which serve as coupons to local establishments. Laid in is a list of Sarratt residents.
129. LEE, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. London: Heinemann (1960). An advance copy of the first British edition of her first and only book, which won the Pulitzer Prize and was the basis for an Academy Award-winning movie. Light foxing and cover creasing; still a near fine copy in plain brown printed wrappers. A nice copy of an uncommon issue of this book.
130. LEWIS, Sinclair. The Trail of the Hawk. NY: Harper & Brothers (1915). The third book, second under his own name, by the first American to win the Nobel Prize. Inscribed by the author in the year of publication: "To Joseph Margulis/ with the regards/ of his friend/ Sinclair Lewis/ Aug. 31, 1915." Spine greatly faded; near fine, lacking the dust jacket. Color frontispiece by Norman Rockwell. Uncommon. Of the response to his first five novels, Lewis has said, "all of them dead before the ink was dry. I lacked sense enough to see that, after five failures, I was foolish to continue writing." The comments were made in an autobiographical statement for the Nobel Foundation after Lewis won the Prize in 1930 for his continued writing, including Main Street, Arrowsmith, Babbitt, Elmer Gantry.
131. LEWIS, Sinclair. The Job. NY: Harper & Brothers (1917). The first issue of his third book under his own name and his first attempt, he later said, to write a serious novel. The Job was controversial for its realistic depiction of a woman in the workplace and laid the groundwork for Lewis' great novels of social realism in the 1920s. Offsetting to endpages from dust jacket flaps; near fine in a good dust jacket, spine-sunned and modestly damp-stained with several very small chips and one larger chip affecting the spine title, with some attempts at internal tape-mending. An extremely scarce book in any dust jacket, and an important title in the Lewis canon.
132. LIGHTMAN, Alan. Einstein's Dreams. NY: Pantheon (1993). A novel in which each chapter, each dream of Einstein's, offers a story set against a different pattern of time. Signed by the author. Fine in a fine dust jacket. Lightman's book The Diagnosis was a finalist for the National Book Award.
133. (Little Magazines). Birth 3, Books 1 and 2. (NY): (Birth) (1960). Birth 3 is a two-volume issue entitled "Stimulants: An Exhibition." Book 1 contains Alcohol, Marihuana and Peyote, and an Allen Ginsberg journal excerpt recounting his first peyote trip as well as a portion of his poem "LSD-25"; Book 2 contains Opium, Tobacco, Tea & Coffee, and Various Stimulants and includes an excerpt of a piece on morphine by William S. Burroughs, as well as a reproduction of an anti-marihuana poster "to be placed in R.R. Trains, Buses, Street Cars, Etc." and warning of "Murder! Insanity! Death!" Edited by Tuli Kupferberg who, in addition to being a poet in his own right, was later a member of the influential band The Fugs along with poet Ed Sanders, whose Fuck You! Press was, like Kupferberg's, an important underground publisher of the Beat writers and others. Book 1 has a corner crease on the front cover; very good in stapled wrappers. Book 2 is fine in stapled wrappers.
134. (Little Magazines). Swing, Nos. 1, 3, 4. NY: Swing, 1960-1961. Three issues of this small underground magazine devoted to writings and drawings by children. Edited by Tuli Kupferberg and Sylvia Topp. Fine in stapled wrappers.
135. (Little Magazines). Open Space 8. (San Francisco): Open Space (n.d.)[c. 1964]. An important magazine of the San Francisco poetry underground in the early Sixties. Thirteen issues were published, all in 1964, and contained work by such writers as Michael McClure, Jack Spicer, Ron Loewinsohn, Lawrence Fagin, Charles Olson, Robert Duncan, and others. Cartoon by Jess, parodying the "Dick Tracy" comic strip entitled "Tricky Cad." Small report on the poetry scene by Carol Bergé. 8-1/2" x 11" mimeographed sheets, stapled in upper corner. A near fine copy and very scarce: the mimeograph format limited the print run, and the single staple "binding" would have meant that most copies fell apart with handling or, at best, over time.
136. LOEWINSOHN, Michael. My Green Streetcar. (n.p.): (Grabhorn/Hoyem) (1966). One of 125 copies printed for Don Carpenter as a Christmas greeting. Carpenter, a novelist (his first book, Hard Rain Falling, which took its title from the lyrics of a Bob Dylan song, was published in 1966), was an important figure in the San Francisco literary scene in the Sixties (and beyond). One sheet, folded to make four pages. Fine.
137. LOPEZ, Barry. Desert Reservation. (n.p.): Copper Canyon Press (1980). His first limited edition, a poem done in an edition of 300 numbered copies in wrappers signed by the author. There were 26 lettered copies, also in wrappers, but no hardcover edition of this title. Label removal shadow on rear cover and some creasing to the lower front cover; very good.
138. LOPEZ, Barry. "The stories people tell have a way of taking care of them." (n.p.): Hungry Mind (n.d.). A broadside excerpt from Crow and Weasel. One of 100 copies signed by the author. 10" x 13", attractively printed and with an image of a crow standing on the initial letter. There was an earlier, smaller, unsigned broadside excerpting this passage plus two sentences. Fine.
139. LOPEZ, Barry. Readings & Conversations. (n.p.): Lannan Foundation, 1992. An excerpt from his story "Remembering Orchards," which first appeared in American Short Fiction and was later collected, with several changes in punctuation and one name change, in Light Action in the Caribbean. A single sheet folded to make four pages. Fine. Lopez received a Lannan Literary Award in Nonfiction in 1990.
140. LOWRY, Malcolm. Under the Volcano. NY: Reynal & Hitchcock (1947). An advance review copy of Lowry's classic, one of the great books of twentieth century literature. This tale of a British consul drinking himself to death in the shadow of Mexico's twin volcanoes, Popocatepetl and Ixtaccihuatl, eerily foreshadows Lowry's own death from excessive alcohol consumption a decade later. Under the Volcano was his last book published during his lifetime. Laid in is a letter from a Reynal & Hitchcock sales representative soliciting comment and forwarding a copy of a typed letter signed by Alfred Kazin in which Kazin writes the praise that was quoted in the blurb on the rear panel of the dust jacket. The letters are folded and near fine. Some handling is apparent to the book's cloth; near fine in a dust jacket with prior chips and fold separations, but professionally restored to near fine. A very attractive copy of an important book, and particularly interesting in that it includes a photostatic reproduction of the comment -- by one of the leading American literary critics, Alfred Kazin -- that appears prominently on the book itself.
141. LOWRY, Malcolm. Untitled Holograph Poem/Notes. Undated, but probably circa 1954-57. A single page, approximately 200 words, with several changes and corrections. The first line of holograph reads: "Story or poem combining:" and Lowry goes on to jot down a number of images, which read as though they may hang together poetically, as a deliberate work, or may just be the jottings, connected in the author's mind, of images and ideas to use in future writing. The first image is "The windmill, sails ever motionless, transfixed over Polegate." He goes on to write: "Polegate a Railway 'Graveyard.'/ Polegate Station is becoming a 'graveyard'/ for old railway wagons. Work began last month/ On breaking up a large number of wagons/ -- Some over 50 years old -- , and, says the Stationmaster,/ Mrs. Roberts, it will continue for years." There is poetic rumination on the after-effects of the breaking up of the wagons, and the choice of Polegate as the site; and on the twenty-four local men who have been hired to do the work, and then the point of view shifts to that of a passenger on a train passing through Polegate: "For some weeks passengers fr [sic]/ from Bewick on the Eastbourne line [?] have watched the/ swan with delight, as she/ sat, unblinking, believing herself/ hidden on her nest./ To-day she was seen for/ the first time with her/ young cygnet." Polegate Windmill is a well-known landmark in Eastbourne, Sussex, England, which was built in 1817. Polegate Station is a stop on the Eastbourne line from London. When Lowry left Canada in 1954, he returned to England where he had been born in 1909, and lived in Ripe, Sussex, not far from Polegate. He was working on a number of different manuscripts at the time of his death from an overdose of sleeping pills, and this sheet seems to fall somewhere between being an attempt at a formal poem and being notes for a scene from a larger work. Edge-creased with one short edge tear, not affecting text. Near fine; housed in custom folder, chemise and slipcase. Manuscript material by Lowry is very scarce: much was destroyed in a fire in Canada, and much since has been institutionalized. While his letters turn up occasionally, this is the first fragment we have had of a piece that has obvious literary intent.
142. (LOWRY, Malcolm). The Leys Fortnightly, Vol. 49. Cambridge: Severs, 1925. Lowry's first published appearances, written when he was fifteen years of age and a sophomore in high school. Lowry attended The Leys school in Cambridge, England from 1923-27 and in his second year at the school approached William Henry Balgarnie, one of the Masters at the school and in charge of The Leys Fortnightly, the school's magazine. (Balgarnie was later immortalized as the basis for the title character in James Hilton's Goodbye, Mr. Chips.) Despite the fact that normally only third and fourth year students published in the magazine, Lowry told Balgarnie he had some work that The Fortnightly might want to print. The first piece he submitted was a story entitled "The Light That Failed Not," and Balgarnie read and liked Lowry's piece enough to publish it; it was later voted the best story to appear in The Fortnightly during the year. At his teacher's suggestion, Lowry wrote under the pen-name "CAMEL," [Lowry's initials are C.M.L.], and on the basis of his first story he gained some degree of prestige at the school. He later contributed a poem, "Der Tag," and another story, "Travelling Light" to the magazine; all three pieces are included in this bound volume of all the issues of The Fortnightly published during the 1924-25 school year. Three quarter leather binding, with the school's coat of arms embossed on the front cover. Spine leather weathered; near fine in custom clamshell box. An attractive copy of an exceedingly scarce volume: enrollment at the school was probably on the order of about 300 students at that time, and relatively few of these could have been expected to purchase bound copies of the school magazine; at most a couple of hundred of these would have been produced, if that, and few will have survived the three quarters of a century that have passed since then.