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Catalog 132, E-G

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75. ELIOT, T.S. The Sacred Wood. London: Methuen (1920). Essays on poetry and criticism. An early book by Eliot, Gallup A5, preceding The Waste Land by two years. Minor foxing to endpapers and page edges; shallow crease to front board; spine dulled; a very good copy, without dust jacket. $375

76. -. Same title, the second edition. London: Methuen (1928). Gallup A5c. Includes a four-page preface not in the original edition. Owner name front flyleaf; modest foxing to text; still about near fine in a very good, spine-tanned dust jacket which appears to have been previously folded. Very scarce, especially in jacket.

77. ELIOT, T.S. Four Quartets. London: Faber & Faber (1944). The first British edition of this important collection, the individual poems of which were originally published separately in England in 1941-42 and then collected in the U.S. in 1943 -- in an edition that was, because of a printing error, mostly destroyed. These were the first of Eliot's poems to reach a wide audience and are considered the culminating expression of his religious sensibility: they were written during the dark, early years of World War II and reflect, in four short, accessible poems that draw heavily on English history, on large philosophical questions of time and permanence. Owner name on front pastedown; a bit of fading to the cloth, but none of the usual bowing to the boards; near fine in a spine-tanned dust jacket with several tiny closed tears and edge chips; about near fine. A very nice copy of a cheaply made wartime book, produced under the severe restrictions on paper use that were in effect in England during the Second World War. A Connolly 100 title.

78. (ELKIN, Stanley). The Best American Short Stories 1980. [Boston]: [Houghton Mifflin] [1980]. Unbound 8 1/2" x 11" sheets of this collection edited by Elkin and with stories by John Updike, John Sayles, Donald Barthelme, Grace Paley, Peter Taylor, Mavis Gallant, Elizabeth Hardwick and others. Elkin's introduction bears copyeditor's marks throughout. Minor edge wear to a few pages; else fine.

79. ELLISON, Ralph. Invisible Man. NY: Random House (1952). His first book, winner of the National Book Award and one of the most celebrated African-American novels of all time. In a poll conducted in 1965, 200 critics, authors and editors judged Invisible Man to be "the most distinguished single work" published in the previous 20 years. Trace foxing to the upper cloth edge; still a fine copy in a near fine, modestly rubbed dust jacket with very shallow chipping at the spine extremities. A high spot of 20th century American literature -- both a classic of African-American fiction and a book that transcends such a racial identification to stand as a literary landmark on its own terms. A very attractive copy.

80. FAULKNER, William. The Hamlet. NY: Random House, 1940. The first book in the Snopes trilogy, a Yoknapatawpha County sequence which is considered one of Faulkner's great accomplishments. By far the scarcest of the Snopes novels, the other two of which were written in the 1950s, after he had won the Nobel Prize, and had first printings much larger than this title did. A near fine copy in a bright pictorial first issue dust jacket with some chipping at the extremities of the spine and some rubbing mid-spine, and a small piece missing from the rear panel.

81. FAULKNER, William. Intruder in the Dust. NY: Random House (1948). By most accounts, this novel -- which deals with the legacy of black-white relations in the South -- was the book that cinched Faulkner's Nobel Prize, which he won in 1949. Gilt completely intact, which is very uncommon for this title; a bit of offsetting to the front free endpaper and front jacket flap; still a fine copy in a very close to fine dust jacket. A beautiful copy of a Haycraft-Queen Cornerstone title.

82. FAULKNER, William. Collected Stories of William Faulkner. NY: Random House (1950). The first issue of this collection, with "The Collected Stories of William Faulkner" stamped on the spine, a blue background behind the title on the title page and blue top stain. Includes stories from Faulkner's early collections, which at the time had been long unavailable, and also seventeen previously uncollected stories. Bit of a shadow from the binder's glue in the front joint; still a fine copy in a near fine, faintly spine-tanned dust jacket with two edge tears at the rear flap fold and a couple very small corner chips. A very nice copy of an important collection which, because of its bulk and the thin paper jacket, is usually found quite worn. Winner of the National Book Award, and published the year after Faulkner won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

83. FITZGERALD, F. Scott. This Side of Paradise. NY: Scribner, 1920. His first book, an autobiographical novel of youthful ideals and disillusion that helped define the jazz age and perfectly captured the tenor of postwar America, becoming both a critical success and a huge bestseller, going through fourteen printings in the first two years. Virtually overnight, Fitzgerald became both a celebrity and extremely wealthy -- a commercial success that he never duplicated with another of his books, and which he never quite lived up to thereafter, nor recovered from. The first printing was only 3000 copies, by far the smallest first printing of any of Fitzgerald's volumes of fiction. A bit of browning to the endpapers, as is usual for this title, but still a very near fine copy, with the spine gilt still bright, lacking the exceedingly rare dust jacket. One of the nicest copies we've seen.

84. FITZGERALD, F. Scott. The Beautiful and Damned. NY: Scribner's, 1922. First edition, first issue, of his second novel, third book. Spine gilt has darkened slightly and uniformly to bronze. A near fine copy, in a custom slipcase.

85. FITZGERALD, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. NY: Scribner's, 1925. Fitzgerald's third novel and, by consensus, his masterpiece -- one of the great American novels of the 20th century and the book that immortalized its author and placed him permanently in the American literary pantheon. This is the first issue, with "sick in tired" on page 205. A small amount of faint spotting to the rear cover; small bookstore stamp front endpaper; and a tiny bit of foxing to the top page edges. A very near fine copy, with the spine gilt still bright and clear, the spine extremities crisp and sharp, and the pages white and clean. Lacking the rare dust jacket. Again, one of the nicest copies we've seen.

86. FITZGERALD, F. Scott. Taps at Reveille. NY: Scribner's, 1935. The last of his books published during his lifetime, a collection of stories done in a printing of only 5100 copies. This is the second state, with cancels at pages 349-352. Some offsetting to the rear endpaper but still a fine copy, with the spine gilt still bright and sharp. A very attractive copy.

87. FOOTE, Horton. "Tomorrow." (n.p.): Filmgroup [1972]. Poster for the film Tomorrow, with a screenplay by Foote, based on a William Faulkner short story, and starring Robert Duvall. 27" x 41". Folded in eighths with tiny holes at the intersections of the folds; else fine. Signed by Foote. Faulkner's story first appeared in the Saturday Evening Post on November 23, 1940 and was collected in Knight's Gambit in 1949. It was adapted for television in 1960 before being brought to the big screen by Foote and director Joseph Anthony in what many critics believe is the best screen adaptation ever of a Faulkner work as well as being one of Duvall's best performances.

88. FORD, Richard. The Sportswriter. London: Collins Harvill, 1986. The first British, and first hardcover, edition of his third novel, first published in the U.S. as a paperback original in the Vintage Contemporaries series. Signed by the author. Fine in a fine, price-clipped dust jacket. Probably the scarcest of his hardcover editions. Ford's sequel to this title, Independence Day, won the Pulitzer Prize.

89. FORD, Richard. Great Falls. (n.p.): Evil Companions, 2004. The Evil Companions 2004 Literary Award broadside, an excerpt from Rock Springs. Signed by the author. 11" x 17". Fine.

90. (FORD, Richard). "Ravel: Bolero" in Mussorgsky/Ravel. (n.p.): Penguin Classics (n.d.) c. 1997. Ford provides an essay on Bolero in the liner notes to the London Symphony Orchestra's CD of music by Mussorgsky and Ravel. Fine. An uncommon appearance in print.

91. FOX, Paula. Desperate Characters. NY: Harcourt Brace World (1970). Later printing, but a complimentary copy, sent to John Updike with a 1972 letter from an editor at Harcourt Brace Jovanovich requesting that Updike read galleys of Fox's then-forthcoming novel The Western Coast. A return postcard is included, typed out as though Updike agreed, but it remains unused. Desperate Characters is fine in a fine dust jacket.

92. FRANZEN, Jonathan. The Corrections. NY: FSG (2001). His National Book Award-winner. Franzen created a literary tempest in a teapot when he expressed reservations about his book being selected for Oprah Winfrey's book club. This is the first issue, with pages 430 and 431 transposed, in the first issue dust jacket, without the Oprah seal. Erratum slip laid in; fine in a fine dust jacket.

93. FRAZIER, Charles. Cold Mountain. NY: Atlantic Monthly (1997). His first book, a Civil War novel and a publishing phenomenon: after a modest 25,000 copy first printing, the book went into dozens of additional printings, eventually selling more than a million copies in hardcover and winning the National Book Award -- a rare combination of literary and commercial success for any work of fiction, let alone a first novel. Signed by the author. Fine in a fine dust jacket, without the John Berendt blurb attached on a label to the front panel (not exactly an issue point, as some copies had this affixed on publication day, while others didn't).

94. GADDIS, William. J.R. NY: Knopf, 1975. His second novel, and his first to win the National Book Award. Fine in a very near fine dust jacket with slight fading to the red spine lettering.

95. GADDIS, William. A Frolic of His Own. NY: Poseidon Press (1994). His fourth novel and his second National Book Award winner. Fine in a very near fine dust jacket with some thin, faint indentations to the rear panel.

96. GANDHI, M.K. The Story of My Experiments with Truth. Ahmedabad: Navajivan Press, 1927. The first English-language edition of the first volume of Gandhi's autobiography, translated by Mahadev Desai and published the same year as the original edition, in Gujarati. The second volume was not published until two years later. Although there is a tendency in retrospect to view Gandhi's career in terms of his political accomplishments, his autobiography is far more concerned with moral and spiritual matters arising out of his Hindu faith. One area that foreshadows his future political activism is revealed in his sensitivity to the racism prevalent in South Africa, where he spent a number of his formative years. Three years after this book was published, in 1930, Gandhi began his orchestration of a campaign of civil disobedience against the British colonists, which ultimately culminated in independence for India and Pakistan in 1947. A year after the independence, Gandhi was assassinated. A remarkable spiritual autobiography by one of the 20th century's most influential political leaders -- whose path directly inspired that of Martin Luther King in the American civil rights movement in a later decade. Offsetting to endpapers -- apparently from the glue used on the pastedowns -- and uneven sunning to cloth, a fine linen unlike any we have seen in common usage in Western books. Near fine, without dust jacket. An important 20th century document, and quite uncommon in this early edition.

97. GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ, Gabriel. One Hundred Years of Solitude. London: Jonathan Cape (1970). The first British edition of the Nobel Prize winner's masterwork, one of the most important novels of the century, which introduced magical realism to a wide audience and helped initiate the boom in Latin American literature. At the end of the 1970s this book was voted by the editors of The New York Times Book Review to be not only the best book published in the last ten years but the one most likely to still be read and still be important one hundred years hence. With more than a third of a century passed since that prediction, the judgement seems still to be holding true. Tiny corner bumps; else fine in a very good dust jacket with internally tape-repaired edge tears. A high spot of Twentieth Century world literature.

98. GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ, Gabriel. The Solitude of Latin America. [NY: Targ Editions, 1984]. Galleys of García Márquez's Nobel Prize acceptance speech, in which he expounds on the theory that the people and the artists of Latin America "have had to ask but little of imagination, for our crucial problem has been a lack of conventional means to render our lives believable." The lecture was delivered in 1982, was published in Granta in 1983, and was to be published by Targ Editions in 1984 as a limited edition, but only got as far as this galley format. Approximately 4" x 13 1/2". Six sheets, stapled at the top and folded once. Fine. Extremely scarce: it is not known how many galleys were produced, but at most it would have been a small handful, fewer than a half dozen.

99. GASS, William. The Tunnel. NY: Knopf, 1995. His fourth book of fiction, a massive novel that was thirty years in the making. Fine in a fine dust jacket and signed by the author.

100. GILCHRIST, Ellen. Victory Over Japan. Boston: Little Brown (1984). Her National Book Award-winning collection of stories. Fine in a fine dust jacket.

101. GINGRICH, Arnold. Cast Down the Laurel. NY: Knopf, 1935. First book, a novel, by the longtime editor and later publisher of Esquire magazine, whose career included everything from editing Hemingway in the 1930s to sending William Burroughs, Jean Genet and Terry Southern to the Democratic National Convention in 1968, and beyond. Board edges sunned; near fine in a very good, rubbed and spine-tanned dust jacket with several very small edge chips. Blurbs by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jim Tully and others.

102. GLASS, Julia. Three Junes. NY: Pantheon (2002). Her highly praised first novel, after a number of award-winning stories. The first portion of this book won a Faulkner Society award for Best Novella and the novel itself was winner of the National Book Award. Signed by the author. Fine in a fine dust jacket.

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