Catalog 150, E-J
31. FAULKNER, William. The Hamlet. NY: Random House, 1940. A fine copy of the first issue, in a very near fine, price-clipped, first issue dust jacket with the slightest of rubbing, and a short, barely noticeable tear on the rear panel. A beautiful copy of the first volume of the Snopes trilogy, and one that has grown exceptionally uncommon in collectable condition.
32. FAULKNER, William. Intruder in the Dust. NY: Random House, 1948. A novel about murder and the mass mind, the popularity of which was instrumental in gaining Faulkner the Nobel Prize. Basis for the 1949 Clarence Brown film, considered one of the most powerful films about racial prejudice ever made. Haycraft-Queen Cornerstone. Fine in a bright, fine dust jacket, in a custom cloth clamshell case. A superb copy.
33. FAULKNER, William. Collected Stories of William Faulkner. NY: Random House, 1950. In the first issue binding. Fine in a bright, fine dust jacket. A great copy of a book invariably encountered worn.
34. FAULKNER, William. The Town. NY: Random House (1957). The first issue of the second volume of the Snopes Trilogy. Top corners slightly bumped and a little foxing to the endpapers, else fine in a fine dust jacket. Once a relatively common book, exceptionally fresh copies such as this are rapidly becoming a memory.
35. FAULKNER, William. The Mansion. NY: Random House (1959). Fine in a fine dust jacket. A beautiful, flawless copy of the final book in Faulkner's Snopes trilogy. Burgess 99.
36. GARCIA MARQUEZ, Gabriel. One Hundred Years of Solitude. NY: Harper & Row (1970). The first American edition of his masterwork, one of the most important novels of the century, which introduced magical realism to a wide audience and helped bring the boom in Latin American literature to this country. 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. Fine in a very near fine first issue dust jacket, with minute wear at the spine extremities. Extremely scarce in such condition. $6500
37. -. Same title. The uncorrected proof copy of the Colombian Nobel Prize winner's masterwork, his second book published here and first novel. This proof copy is in the very fragile "pad-bound" format, which presumably accounts for its extreme scarcity: pad-bound proofs, because of the way they're constructed, tend to lose their front or rear covers over time; what was undoubtedly a scarce proof to begin with is now exceptionally rare. This proof differs from the published edition by the inclusion of a review of the Spanish language edition of the book. A near fine copy.
38. GIBSON, William. Neuromancer. London: Gollancz, 1984. The first British, and first hardcover edition, of Gibson's first novel, the book that defined the cyberpunk genre and in doing so won the Hugo, the Nebula, and the Philip K. Dick Award -- a literary "triple" which had never before been accomplished. Signed by the author. Gibson has been credited with coining the term "cyberspace" in 1982, to refer to computer-generated realities. Neuromancer was first published in the U.S. as a paperback original. Timothy Leary and William Burroughs reportedly worked on adapting the novel to software, as the first of the "Mind Movies" to go with Leary's "Mind Mirror" software. Fine in a fine dust jacket. A beautiful copy of a landmark book.
39. HARRISON, Jim. Legends of the Fall. (NY): Delacorte (n.d.) [1976]. The very scarce first issue proof of Harrison's collection of three novellas, issued in white wrappers in a small (5 1/2" x 7 1/4") format and tape-bound, a crude format that indicates that few copies were made this way. The best information we have is that only 10 such copies were produced: the regular proof, bound in red wrappers, was a more normal size and a more polished production, with a standard perfectbound format, and is later. A "stopper" for almost all Harrison collections.
40. 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. Signed by the author. A bit of foxing on the front free endpaper but still fine in a very near fine dust jacket with a small amount of foxing at the extremities. No fading to the spine panel, and no rubbing to the rich blue front panel; bright, unfaded orange topstain. Extremely scarce thus. One of the nicest copies we've seen offered in the past several years, and probably the nicest signed copy we've ever seen. Housed in a custom clamshell box. One of the few books to be listed on each of the Modern Library, Radcliffe, Waterstone's and New York Public Library lists of the great books of the 20th century.
41. -. Same title, the advance reading copy. Fine in wrappers with the slightest tanning to the spine. Laid in is the seldom-found printed card with the summary of the book and author biography.
42. HEMINGWAY, Ernest. For Whom the Bell Tolls. NY: Scribner's, 1940. Fine in a fine, first issue dust jacket. A beautiful copy with almost none of the usually aggressive rubbing to the black jacket. A relatively common first edition, but rare in this condition.
43. HEMINGWAY, Ernest. The Old Man and the Sea. NY: Scribner's, 1952. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and one of Hemingway's most beloved books, seen by many as a late-career return to form. The title that cinched the Nobel Prize for the author. Basis for the John Sturges film with Spencer Tracy. A couple of tiny spots on the front board, else fine in a fine dust jacket. A beautiful copy. Burgess 99.
44. HUXLEY, Aldous. Brave New World. London: Chatto & Windus 1932. Huxley's masterpiece, a bleak and despairing vision of future society. Fine in a fine dust jacket with a faint crease on the front flap. A lovely copy, easily the nicest we've seen. Increasingly rare in collectable condition, and especially so as immaculate as this one is. Connolly 100.
45. IRVING, John. Setting Free the Bears. NY: Random House (1968). The first book by the author of such bestsellers as The World According to Garp and A Prayer for Owen Meany, among others. Unlike his later books which, after Garp, sold literally hundreds of thousand of copies -- millions, if one includes the paperback sales -- this book sold slightly over 6000 copies in two printings. Signed by the author. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
46. IRVING, John. The World According to Garp. NY: Dutton (1978). His fourth novel, and his breakthrough book, which went into numerous printings, became a multi-million copy bestseller and a National Book Award winner in its paperback release. Basis for the well-received movie. The first printing of Garp was 35,000 copies -- far larger than any of Irving's previous novels but far short of any of the books that came later: his next novel, The Hotel New Hampshire, had a 100,000 copy first printing and since then all his books have had first printings well into six figures. Inscribed by the author over two pages. On the verso of the front flyleaf: "For Hugh Moorhead/ John Irving." On the facing half title: "The meaning of life? 'We are all terminal cases' [the closing words of the novel], but I find that no surprise and no cause for cynicism or depression. It's all the more reason to live purposefully and well." Moorhead was a Philosophy professor at Northeastern Illinois University who wrote to 250 authors to ask them what they thought the meaning of life was, and then published their answers in a depressing book that suggested nobody had much of a clue. Shallow dents to board edges; near fine in a very near fine dust jacket with just a touch of rubbing. By far the best inscription we have seen in a copy of Garp, and probably in any John Irving book. Irving is famously reluctant to sign books these days; this inscription would seem to date from an earlier time, when the press of celebrity had not yet stolen the joy of connecting with his readers in this way.
47. IRVING, John. The Cider House Rules. (n.p.): (n.p.), (n.d.). Printer copy of Irving's Academy Award-winning screenplay from his novel of the same name. Clean copy, 3-hole punched and bradbound with the title written on spine. Slight creasing to cover; else fine. This copy is signed by Michael Caine, who won an Oscar of his own for the role of Larch. Never published in this format, this copy came from the library of Michael Caine; we have never seen another one offered for sale. A unique item, of exceptional provenance.
48. IRVING, John. A Widow for One Year. (Amsterdam): Anthos (1998). The first Dutch edition and the first trade edition, preceded only by the limited advance issue of the British edition. Apparently, like the main character in the novel -- an American novelist with an affinity for Amsterdam, who arranges to have the first edition of her new book published in the Netherlands prior to its issuance in her home country -- Irving requested this publication sequence. The reason for an advance English edition preceding the Dutch edition reportedly had to do with the fact that the Dutch books were printed in England, and the advance English copies were released while the printed books were enroute to the Netherlands. Scarce: it can be assumed that the publication of an English-language edition in a non-English speaking country with a population 1/20th that of the U.S. would be done in very small numbers. Fine in a fine dust jacket. Signed by the author. It's been years since we've seen one of these offered for sale, and that copy wasn't signed. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
49. ISHIGURO, Kazuo. A Pale View of Hills. (London): Faber & Faber (1982). His acclaimed first novel, a view of postwar Nagasaki, Japan -- the author's birthplace -- through the eyes of a middle-aged Japanese woman now living in England. Signed by the author. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
50. JACKSON, Shirley. The Lottery or The Adventures of James Harris. NY: Farrar, Straus, 1949. A collection of short fiction, well-crafted tales of psychological horror, including the justly-celebrated and much-anthologized title story which, when it was initially printed in The New Yorker, caused a furor and elicited more letters than any story up to that time. Fine in a fine dust jacket. A pretty nearly perfect copy of the author's most sought after title.
51. JACKSON, Shirley. The Haunting of Hill House. NY: Viking, 1959. Basis for the chilling Robert Wise film The Haunting, as well as the recent Jan de Bont remake with Liam Neeson and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Fine in a fine dust jacket with the slightest of wear. A superb copy of this modern horror classic.
52. JOYCE, James. Ulysses. NY: Random House, 1934. The first American edition. Fine in a fine dust jacket with the slightest of soiling (and with the Reichel jacket point, considered by many to be the first issue). Housed in a custom cloth chemise and slipcase with a slightly worn leather spine label. A beautiful copy of an increasingly scarce edition of one of the most important novels of the 20th Century, particularly in this condition. Connolly 100.