Catalog 154, R-T
194. ROBBINS, Tom. Even Cowgirls Get the Blues. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1976. The uncorrected proof copy of his irrepressible second novel. Exuberantly inscribed by the author to his jeweler. One small spot to flyleaf; fine in wrappers. An uncommon issue of one of the high spots of the literature that came out of the counterculture of the 1960s and early 1970s. An uncommon proof, and especially uncommon signed.
195. ROBBINS, Tom. Jitterbug Perfume. NY: Bantam (1984). The uncorrected proof copy. Inscribed by the author to his jeweler. A bit dusty, slightest bump to base; very near fine in wrappers. An uncommon proof, especially signed.
196. ROBBINS, Tom. Skinny Legs and All. NY: Bantam (1990). The uncorrected proof copy of his fifth novel. Inscribed by the author: "To Zen Master ___ ___. Tom Robbins," above a tipped-in photocopy of a photo of Robbins next to a ZEN sign. Small crease and bump to back upper edge; near fine in wrappers. Again, uncommon signed.
197. ROTH, Philip. Correspondence Archive. More than three dozen pieces from Roth to another well-known writer, spanning several decades dating back to the time of the publication of Roth's first book. Excellent content -- both literary and humorous -- from one of the major American writers of the 20th century. To be sold privately. Details and Price on Request
198. "SANTIAGO, Danny." JAMES, Daniel. Famous All Over Town. NY: Simon & Schuster (1983). A first novel, which won praise, as well as the Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Award from the Academy of Arts and Letters, when it was believed that its author was a young Chicano writer, but which caused controversy when it was discovered that its author was actually 73 year-old Daniel James, a white writer who had been blacklisted in the 1950s. This copy has a Compliments of the Author card laid in, on which is typed "To supplement your Chicano studies." The card is signed "Danny Santiago." Because the author was pseudonymous and even his publisher and editor only dealt with him indirectly during the writing of the book, signed copies are truly rare. Spotting to top edge and foredge; near fine in a very near fine dust jacket.
199. SARTON, May. Of Friendship at Christmas. (n.p.): (Self-Published), 1952. A broadside, Sarton's annual Christmas greeting. 8 1/2" x 11", printed in green ink. One tiny edge tear and light corner crease, staple holes to upper corner; near fine.
200. SCHULZ, Bruno. Cinnamon Shops and Other Stories. London: Macgibbon & Kee, 1963. The first English language edition of this posthumously published collection of stories. Owner name front flyleaf, tiny corner bumps; near fine in a very good dust jacket with modest surface soiling to the rear panel and slight wear to the spine extremities. Published in the U.S. as Street of Crocodiles. Scarce.
201. SHAWN, Wallace. The Designated Mourner. NY: Noonday Press (1997). The first Noonday Press edition of this play by the Obie Award-winning actor and writer, son of the legendary New Yorker editor, William Shawn. Inscribed by the author to Pauline Kael. Together with Shawn's interview with Mark Strand in The Paris Review, Vol. 40, No. 148 [NY: Paris Review, 1998]. Laid in is an autograph postcard signed from Shawn to Kael saying the "enclosed interview with Mark Strand not totally unrelated to The Designated Mourner." The first book is fine in wrappers; the second book and the card are near fine. Shawn's father hired Kael at The New Yorker. Books signed or inscribed by Shawn are uncommon.
202. SHREVE, Susan Richards. Warm Springs. Boston/NY: Houghton Mifflin, 2007. A memoir of childhood polio by this highly regarded novelist. Inscribed by the author to another writer. Fine in a very near fine dust jacket with the lamination peeling at one corner.
203. SIMON, Neil. The Heartbreak Kid. NY: Palomar Pictures, 1971. First draft screenplay for this movie based on the Bruce Jay Friedman story "A Change of Plan." Simon was nominated for a Golden Globe and a Writers Guild award for this screenplay; the movie was nominated for two Oscars. Bradbound in near fine studio wrappers rubbed at the edges and folds.
204. (Sixties). Poster for the Human Be-In. San Francisco: Bindwood Press, 1967. Poster announcing "A Gathering of the Tribes for a Human Be-In" and listing some of the participants -- Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Jerry Rubin, Timothy Leary, Dick Gregory, "All SF Rock Groups," etc. along with the pertinent details: "Saturday Jan 14 1-5 P.M., Free, Polo Field, Golden Gate Park." The Human Be-In was conceived as another of the unstructured celebrations of the San Francisco hippie community, in the tradition of the earlier Trips Festival. The presence of a roster of superstar figures was intended to help draw out the largest possible crowd, but the star of the event was intended to be the crowd itself. Indeed, the speakers could not be heard much of the time but no one much cared. The bands played in the afternoon, and included Quicksilver Messenger Service, the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Country Joe and the Fish, and others. After the sound system broke down at one point, it was announced that the generator would hereafter be guarded by the Hell's Angels. The event went smoothly: tens of thousands of people showed up, many smoking pot or tripping on LSD, but the police kept a low profile and didn't arrest any of the people openly smoking pot; a priest from the San Francisco Zen Temple meditated on stage throughout the day. At the end of the day, Gary Snyder blew a conch shell -- a traditional Japanese Buddhist ritual instrument -- and Allen Ginsberg led a Buddhist chant, at which point the crowd drifted apart. The Human Be-In became one of the milestone events of the emerging counterculture and, in retrospect, one of its high points. It succeeded for a time in bridging the gap between the San Francisco hippie culture and the Berkeley-based radical political movement, finding some common ground for the two -- a joining of two disparate, and sometimes divergent, movements that has had repercussions to the present day: today, cultural experimentation and alternative lifestyles go hand in hand with political critique, a trend that was considerably more uncommon prior to this occasion. There were several variant designs for the poster: this one was designed by Stanley Mouse, Alton Kelley and Michael Bowen and was the original poster design -- an image of an Indian swami with a third eye added by Mouse. The image was also used as the cover for issue number 5 of the Oracle, the San Francisco underground newspaper, which took on a decidedly more psychedelic look with this number, timed to coincide with the festival. Reportedly, Mouse wasn't especially happy with the design: he felt that the image of the Hindu holy man had been foisted on him, which helps explain the number of different posters for the event. Purple and gray on white. 14" x 19 3/4". Two tiny marginal spots, trace creasing; very near fine. (Jerry Rubin's last name is misspelled as "Ruben.") A scarce artifact of a significant cultural event.
205. -. Same title, the handbill. 8 1/2" x 11". Fine. Scarce and ephemeral; it would seem that few of these have survived.
206. SMILEY, Jane. The Life of the Body. Minneapolis: Coffee House Press/Espresso Editions, 1990. A story by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author, with six linoleum cut illustrations by Susan Nees. One of 170 numbered copies signed by the author and artist. A couple small faint spots to spine cloth; else fine in boards and publisher's ribbon-tied plexiglass case. An attractive production.
207. SMITH, Ali. Hotel World. NY: Anchor Books (2001). The uncorrected proof copy of the first American edition of her first Booker short-listed novel (of two). Dampstaining to lower edge, thus very good in printed white wrappers (less common than the pictorial advance reading copy). With press release and two-page author interview laid in. Also short-listed for the Orange Prize.
208. SMITH, Ali. It Don't Mean a Thing. (London): Birkbeck University, 2004. The text of Smith's William Matthews Lecture, a riff on language using the words in the sentence "It don't mean a thing." Signed by the author. Fine in stapled wrappers. Two of Smith's novels, Hotel World and The Accidental, have been Booker short-listed; The Accidental won the Whitbread Award.
209. SOUTHERN, Terry and HOFFENBERG, Mason as "KENTON, Maxwell." Candy. Paris: Olympia Press (1958). Candy, pseudonymously published by the Olympia Press in Paris in 1958 as No. 64 in Maurice Girodias's Traveller's Companion series, has been called "the first comic pornographic novel" and, at one time, "the most talked about novel in America." Legal issues, including the attempt to ban the book as obscenity, made it perhaps the most frequently bootlegged title in 20th century American literature, with numerous unauthorized editions coming out during the period that the book was in legal limbo. It was legally published in the U.S. in 1964, eventually selling millions of copies in America alone, in various editions. This is a two-volume edition, in orange wrappers printed in black with inner text printed in blue. An unknown variant edition: although it is indicated as being in The Traveler's Companion Series, it is a smaller format and different color than that series, and there is no record of there having been a two-volume edition published by Olympia. In all likelihood, it is a piracy of the Olympia edition, done in smaller format on thinner paper for ease of smuggling, somewhat similar to the Russian language samizdat editions of Alexandr Solzhenitsyn's works published in the early 1960s. Alternatively, it is possible that this was a set created as a "blue proof" for the Olympia edition: after receiving the manuscript, Girodias requested certain changes in the text, as he feared legal liability. This edition embodies the text as published, and the fact that it is printed in blue suggests the possibility of its being a blue proof -- one of the standard steps in the printing/publishing process in those days. In any case, we have never seen nor heard of another copy in this format, even though Candy is one of the most well-documented novels in all its piracies and variants. The spines are faded, and Part 2 has a diagonal cover crease; both volumes have been used as coasters, but only from the back: rings to rear covers, with slight bleed through to the final page of text on the final volume, which is still completely legible. In all, a very good set.
210. STEWART, Rory. The Places In Between. NY: Harcourt/Harvest (2006). Fifth printing of the U.S. paperback edition of this highly praised memoir of traveling by foot across Afghanistan in 2002, just after the fall of the Taliban. Signed by the author. Fine in wrappers.
211. STONE, Robert. A Flag for Sunrise. NY: Knopf, 1981. A review copy of his third novel, a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and winner of the L.A. Times Award for best novel of the year. A dark tale of a small Central American country in upheaval, and the lives of a group of Americans whose different backgrounds and connections to the action intersect alarmingly and tragically. Signed by the author. One page corner turned, a little foxing to spine cloth and page edges; near fine in a very near fine, mildly rubbed black dust jacket. Although there is no explicit indication of it, this was purchased from the author's own library; a letter of provenance indicating that can be provided.
212. -. Another copy. Signed by the author. A bit of foxing to spine cloth; very near fine in a near fine, price-clipped dust jacket. Again, from the author's library.
213. -. Another copy, this being a review copy. Inscribed by the author: "For ____/ with love until we meet again/ Bob S." Cocked, with spotting to top edge; very good in a near fine dust jacket with light wear at the spine ends. Review slip laid in. Not an uncommon book, but uncommon as an advance copy and with a warm, personal inscription.
214. STONE, Robert. Children of Light. NY: Knopf, 1986. The uncorrected proof copy of the first American edition of his fourth novel. This is Stone's Hollywood novel -- an eerie tale of an actor/screenwriter and a psychotic, drug-dependent actress, with echoes of both King Lear and Kate Chopin's The Awakening, both of which are also plot elements. A harsh look at the underside of Hollywood's glamour. Inscribed by Stone to another National Book Award-winning writer and his wife: "For ___ & ___ with admiration and respect -- my deepest esteem/ Robert Stone." Some dustiness and rubbing to covers, with a bit of spine-fading; very good in wrappers, in custom folding chemise and slipcase.
215. STONE, Robert. Outerbridge Reach. NY: Ticknor & Fields, 1992. The first trade edition of Stone's first bestseller. Chosen by the New York Times as one of the dozen best books of the year, covering all categories, and nominated for both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Signed by the author. Foxing to top edge and mild concavity to spine; near fine in a near fine dust jacket foxed on verso. From the author's own library.
216. TAN, Amy. The Joy Luck Club. NY: Putnam (1989). The advance reading copy of her first novel, which was a surprise bestseller and went into over 30 printings in its first year. Made into a well-received film by Wayne Wang in 1993. Tan co-wrote the screenplay, which was nominated for a BAFTA, Writers Guild, and USC Scripter award. Spine-faded; near fine in wrappers.
217. TAYLOR, Peter. Eudora Welty. (n.p.): Stuart Wright, 1984. An offprint from the limited edition Eudora Welty: A Tribute. Taylor recounts his meeting Welty and their subsequent friendship. One of five numbered copies signed by Taylor, this being copy number 2. A scarce item, linking two of the preeminent Southern authors of the 20th century. Fine in wrappers.
218. THOMPSON, Hunter S. Hell's Angels. NY: Random House (1967). His first book. Thompson developed his reporting-by-immersion approach here, spending a year hanging out with the California Angels. His account, written in an immediate and direct, first-person style, conveys, as closely as possible without being a member of the gang, the experience of being with the Angels -- their lives, their cares, their values. This copy is inscribed by the author on the front pastedown: "Sr. Cazador / Jerry - that's Hunter in Spanish. Thanks for the good show/ HST." "Cazador" is indeed the Spanish word for "hunter." We don't know who Jerry is; we'd like to think it was Jerry Garcia, after a Grateful Dead show, since Garcia was the person who solicited the Hell's Angels to act as security at the ill-fated Altamont Speedway rock concert, and "Garcia" is a name that Hunter might be inclined to write in Spanish to. A few small spots of soiling at the foredge; near fine in very good dust jacket. Regardless of the identity of "Jerry," one of the best Thompson inscriptions we've handled.
219. TWAIN, Mark. The Oxford Mark Twain. NY/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. The signed limited edition of this 29-volume set: one of 300 sets printed. These volumes were created as facsimiles of the first editions, at least in their pages, presenting Twain to the contemporary world with the same look that he first appeared in his own time. The publisher did not try to reproduce the elaborately decorated covers, however, reportedly because of the cost involved in doing so. Signed by series editor Shelley Fisher Fishkin and also signed by the 58 people who provided introductions and afterwords to each volume, including Kurt Vonnegut, E.L. Doctorow, Toni Morrison, Arthur Miller, Gore Vidal, Cynthia Ozick, George Plimpton, Ward Just, Erica Jong, Ursula LeGuin, Bobbie Ann Mason, Russell Banks, Frederick Busch, Walter Mosley, Erica Jong, and many others, both literary figures (who provided the introductions) and Twain scholars (who provided the afterwords). The set is fine in fine jackets. A massive production, and beautifully executed, with original contributions by some of the best writers of our time; scarce now.