Catalog 142, N-Q
170. NASH, Ogden. Autograph Note Signed. Undated. July 5 (no year). A short, enthusiastic note responding to a poem the recipient had sent him, in part: "I can't restrain my cheers, so here they are. I am filled with pleasure and admiration by your split-level poem..." Signed "Ogden Nash." Previously folded in half; now mounted to cardstock; near fine.
171. NASON, Leonard. Chevrons. NY: George Doran (1926). A novel of World War I by a veteran who served on the Western front. "A superior portrayal of combat in the infantry and artillery of the AEF [American Expeditionary Force]" - The Western Front Association. Signed by the author. Nason wrote a sequel to this novel, Sergeant Edie, published in 1928, and also wrote the story that the 1934 World War I movie Keep 'Em Rolling, with Walter Huston, was based on, as well as a number of other highly praised works on the war and the AEF. ("Leonard Nason is one of the best and most prolific writers of AEF fiction." - Western Front Association.) Near fine in a very good, price-clipped dust jacket with small edge chips and one internally tape-mended edge tear. Incompletely erased owner signature (of 1926 world heavyweight boxing champion Gene Tunney, who served in the Marines in WWI) on flyleaf.
172. (NIN, Anaïs). The I Ching. (Princeton): Princeton University Press (1968). Later printing of the Wilhelm/Baynes translation of the I Ching, which has a foreword by C.G. Jung. Inscribed by Nin to a former lover at Christmas, 1968. An interesting artifact of the 1960s -- when the I Ching gained popular currency, especially in this translation -- and also of Nin's longstanding Bohemianism, associated early on during her years in Paris in the 1930s, with Eastern religions and mysticism. The book appears unread and unused, however. Fine in a near fine, price-clipped dust jacket with very light edge wear.
173. OATES, Joyce Carol. The Hungry Ghosts. Los Angeles: Black Sparrow, 1974. The simultaneous issue in wrappers of this collection of "seven allusive plays." Inscribed by the author: "For Gail [Godwin] -- (for lighter moments -- ) with very best wishes, Joyce 7/8/74." Faint cup rings and some water wrinkling to front cover; very good. A very nice association copy between two of the most prominent American women writers of the second half of the 20th century.
174. OATES, Joyce Carol. Black Girl/White Girl. (NY): Ecco Press (2006). The advance reading copy of this recent novel by the prolific author. Signed by the author. Fine in wrappers.
175. O'BRIEN, Tim. The Nuclear Age. NY: Knopf, 1985. O'Brien's fourth novel, about a man compelled to dig a bomb shelter in his back yard to protect his family even if it means losing them in the process. Signed by the author with the added phrase from the book, in quotes: "It's love I want. Worship." Remainder stripe; else fine in a near fine, spine-faded dust jacket.
176. O'BRIEN, Tim. The Things They Carried. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1990. The uncorrected proof copy of this 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 and recently named one of the best works of American fiction of the past 25 years in those same pages; also winner of the Heartland Award, among 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. Extremely slight bump; still very near fine in wrappers.
177. -. Same title, an advance reading excerpt featuring a trial dust jacket design. Fine in stapled wrappers.
178. -. Same title. (NY): Penguin (1991). A paperback reprint. Fine in wrappers and signed by the author.
179. -. Same title. (Toronto): McClelland & Stewart (1991). One of O'Brien's own copies of the Canadian paperback reprint. Fine in wrappers and signed by O'Brien, "My Copy."
180. -. Same title. (London): Flamingo (1991). A British reprint edition. Fine in wrappers.
181. -. Same title. (Milan): Leonardo (1990, 1991, 1992). Three Italian editions (Quanto Pesano I Fantasmi). Each is signed by the author. The first edition is fine in a near fine dust jacket; the second edition is fine in a very good dust jacket with dampstaining to the crown; the third edition is fine in a fine dust jacket. For the set:
182. -. Same title, the first Swedish edition, Allt de Bar. (Stockholm): Norstedts (1991). Signed by the author. Fine in a near fine dust jacket dampstained on verso.
183. -. Same title, the first French edition, A Propos de Courage. Paris: Plon (1992). Fine in wrappers and signed by the author.
184. -. Another copy of the first French edition, unsigned. Fine in wrappers.
185. -. Same title, a later French edition -- 1993, the year the title won the Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger, the French award for the best foreign book of the year. Fine in wrappers and signed by the author.
186. -. Another copy of the later French edition. Front cover slice; near fine in wrappers and signed by the author.
187. O'HARA, John. I Was an Adventuress. Los Angeles: 20th Century Fox, 1940. The revised shooting final screenplay, dated December 15, 1939, although with 24 pages of colored inserts dating from January and February, 1940. Machine stamped "copy #1," belonging to the producer Darryl F. Zanuck. This was one of the two screenplays that O'Hara worked on from September to December 1939 and shared screenplay credits for, in this case with Karl Tunberg and Don Ettlinger. The movie was produced by Zanuck, and starred Vera Zorina, Erich von Stroheim and Peter Lorre. Quarto; mimeographed pages with blue revision sheets inserted. Near fine in printed studio wrappers. Rare.
188. OLSON, Charles. This. Black Mountain: Black Mountain College, 1952. Folio, issued as Black Mountain Broadside No. 1. Designed by Nicola Cernovich, and produced while Olson was a teacher at the college. 18" x 25". An early piece by Olson, who became one of the most influential writers of his time both because of his own writing--as a poet and a critic, in particular his writings on poetic theory--and because of his position as a teacher at, and later Rector of, Black Mountain, a small, innovative Southern college, which invited a number of the leading figures in the arts to teach or study there and thus became an important avant garde cultural center during the years of its existence. This is a single long poem, on a sheet that is folded in fourths, as issued. The "cover" contains a multi-colored image of a sun or fireball, and the sheet opens vertically to present Olson's poem on a single, long vertical "page" -- 9" x 25". The fireball/mandala is handpainted, so is different on every copy. Olson had published only one book at this point in his career, a study of Melville entitled Call Me Ishmael. In 1952 he traveled to the Yucatan to study the hieroglyphic statuary of the ancient Maya, with a view toward attempting to understand those then-undeciphered writings as a form of concrete poetry. His volume, Mayan Letters, was published the following year, as was the first volume of what came to be his masterwork, the Maximus Poems. A scarce, attractive and fragile early piece by one of the most important writers of his time. Splitting along one fold; near fine.
189. OLSON, Charles. Mayan Letters. (Palma de Mallorca): Divers Press (1954). Olson's letters to Robert Creeley written while Olson was in the Yucatan. Remarkably, this book, in which the letters only hint at the extent to which Olson's experiences and discoveries were shoring up his hypothesis that the escape from "the too-simple westernisms of a 'greek culture'" lay at least partly in a "repossess[ing] ... of the Indian past" of America, is virtually the entire written record of that period, at least insofar as he directly refers to the Mayans and his belief that their sculpture and art provided a kind of "concrete poetry" whose rules were very different from those of Western art, and whose form therefore contained implicit lessons for us, if we could but read them. The last line of the last letter perhaps sums up some of the frustrations he felt: "The trouble is, it is very difficult, to be both a poet and, an historian." A provocative and revealing book by this important member of the avant-garde Black Mountain community. One of approximately 600 copies, published by Creeley's Divers Press, in French-folded wrappers. Signed by Creeley. Fine, and extremely scarce in such condition, let alone with the signature of the publisher, himself a noted poet and a longtime friend of Olson.
190. O'NAN, Stewart and KING, Stephen. Faithful. (NY): Scribner (2004). The two writers' account of the Boston Red Sox championship season of 2004. King and O'Nan, both longtime and long-suffering Red Sox fans, decided at the beginning of the season to collaborate on a book about the Red Sox season. As VIP fans, the two had more access to the players than usual, and their account is lively and engaging; that the Sox broke an 86 year-long "curse" to win the World Series that year couldn't have been better scripted. Signed by O'Nan. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
191. ORWELL, George. Nineteen Eighty-Four. NY: Harcourt Brace (1949). The first American edition of his classic dystopia, a chilling extrapolation of the political tendencies in postwar Great Britain and one of the most influential works of the century -- whose very title became a synonym for an oppressive police state, and which introduced to the language and the political vernacular such words and concepts as "thought police," "newspeak," "doublethink," and "Big Brother." One of Pringle's hundred best science fiction novels, a Burgess 99 and Connolly 100 title, and also chosen as one of the novels of the century by the Modern Library, Radcliffe, Waterstone's and the New York Public Library. Modest foxing to cloth; near fine in a very good, spine-faded red dust jacket with light chipping to the extremities and rubbing to the folds and a tear to the lower rear spine fold and spine. One of the defining books of the modern era.
192. PATCHEN, Kenneth. To Say If You Love Someone. Prairie City: Decker Press (1948). An unrecorded variant of this uncommon title. Gray cloth with the same design as that of the apparently first issue yellow cloth, in a blue dust jacket with gold and black lettering, a price of $1 and the words "THE ARCHIVE of Duke University" in place of "Louis Untermeyer" on the dust jacket copy. According to Morgan, Decker printed about 200 copies of this title, about 20 of which were the first issue, although Morgan doesn't account for the variants described here. Shortly after printing this book, Decker disappeared and his car was found abandoned, a mystery that was never solved. Fine in a mildly sunned; else fine dust jacket. $2000
193. -. Same title. Another variant edition. Gray cloth with the same design as that of the apparently first issue yellow cloth, in a purple and pink floral dust jacket with red and blue lettering, a $2 "Gift Edition" price, and different jacket copy. Near fine in a very good dust jacket rubbed along the folds.
194. PERCY, Walker and WELTY, Eudora. Novel Writing in an Apocalyptic Time. New Orleans: Faust Publishing, 1986. A talk by Percy inaugurating the Eudora Welty Chair of Southern Studies at Millsaps College, covering the topic of how one writes despite "the general derangement of the time." Of a total edition of 400 copies, this is one of 300 numbered copies signed by Percy and by Welty, who provides an afterword. Fine without dust jacket, as issued.
195. PERKINS, Maxwell. Typed Letter Signed. 1941. Two-page TLS dated July 9 and addressed to Homer Watt, Thomas Wolfe's boss when Wolfe worked at New York University in the 1920s. Perkins was Wolfe's editor at Scribner's and reportedly played a large role in organizing Wolfe's rambling writings and shaping them into his books. After Wolfe died, Perkins was responsible for handling his literary estate. This letter gives Watt permission to use some of Wolfe's letters to him in an article Watt was planning to write on Wolfe as an instructor during his time at NYU. As his literary executor, Perkins was responsible for controlling copyright, and he appears almost embarrassed to have to give Watt permission to use letters that Wolfe wrote to Watt and that Watt himself owns. He also recommends to Watt that, if possible, "it would be most desirable for these letters to go to Mr. Wisdom" and that "he would be willing to pay very well for them." Shortly after Wolfe died, Wisdom had purchased from Perkins all of Wolfe's manuscripts and correspondence, a collection that later went to Harvard University. In the letter, Perkins writes "I had hoped he [Wisdom] would leave all this to the Harvard Library, where Tom's most important manuscript, 'Look Homeward, Angel' now is. He would not quite make that promise, but that may well be the outcome." He also mentions John Terry's work gathering together material for a biography of Wolfe. Terry published Wolfe's letters to his mother in 1943. Wisdom gave the collection to Harvard in 1947, and Perkins was in the process of working on an Introduction to the Collection at its accession in 1947 when he died. An excellent letter by a legendary editor, with good content -- literary, biographical, and historical. Stapled in upper corner; fine.
196. PETERSON, Sidney. A Fly in the Pigment. Sausalito: Contact Editions, 1961. The only novel by the avante-garde filmmaker, an experimental novel issued by a small publishing house that was an outgrowth of the San Francisco Beat scene. Inscribed by Peterson "with affection" to a reader who had read the novel four times. Near fine in wrappers; no indication of there having been a hardcover edition.
197. PHILLIPS, Jayne Anne. Shelter. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1994. Her second novel, fourth volume of fiction, which received an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. Signed by the author. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
198. POUND, Ezra. Guide to Kulcher. (Norfolk): New Directions (1952). Advance review copy of this volume, which reprints an edition first published in 1938, along with about 20 pages of new material and a long, previously unpublished Pound "blurb" on the rear panel of the dust jacket. One corner bumped; otherwise near fine in a near fine, lightly rubbed dust jacket. A very nice copy. Uncommon.
199. (PROULX, Annie). SAVAGE, Thomas. The Power of the Dog. Boston: Little, Brown (2001). The uncorrected proof copy of the re-issue of Savage's 1967 novel, whose cast includes a repressed homosexual Montana ranch hand. This edition has a 23-page afterword by Proulx, author of the 1997 story "Brokeback Mountain." Signed by Proulx at her contribution. Fine in wrappers.
200. 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. Tiny tear near the spine base; spine a bit sunned, creased and handled; still a very good copy in wrappers.