Catalog 158, P-S
166. PELECANOS, George P. Hell to Pay. Boston: Little Brown (2002). The second of his novels to feature Derek Strange and Terry Quinn. Inscribed by the author "to a faithful fellow Greek-American from another fellow Greek-American, descendant of Sparta, the military city state of Ancient Greece." Fine in a fine dust jacket.
167. PELECANOS, George. Dust Jacket for Soul Circus. (n.p.): Dennis McMillan/Little Brown, 2003. Special limited edition dust jacket for the Little Brown first edition, re-purposed when the Dennis McMillan edition, for which the jacket was intended, never materialized. One of 500 numbered copies signed by the designer Michael Kellner, the photographed subject Gary Phillips and, although not called for, this copy is also signed by Pelecanos. 9 1/2" x 22 1/4". Rolled, else fine.
168. PELECANOS, George. Drama City. Tucson: Dennis McMillan, 2005. One of 200 numbered copies signed by the author. Fine in a fine dust jacket and publisher's slipcase.
169. PERROTTA, Tom. The Leftovers. NY: St. Martin's (2011). The advance reading copy. Despite a stated 300,000 copy printing of the first edition, advance copies are uncommon, perhaps an indication of the new methods of book promotion being used by publishers, involving social media more than free prepublication copies of forthcoming books. A couple tiny dents to spine; still very near fine in wrappers.
170. (Poets' Follies). Handbill, 1956. San Francisco: Adrian Wilson Steam Press, 1956. A handbill announcing the second year of the Poets' Follies, a literary cabaret founded by Weldon Kees and presented by Michael Grieg at Center Stage, and featuring poets, jazz musicians, artists, actors, dancers and comics in an intermingling of the arts that was typical of the San Francisco bohemian scene in the 1950s. The Poets' Follies had premiered in 1955 to substantial critical attention and praise, a welcome change for Kees who had left New York disenchanted with the arts scene there and whose poetry was less satisfying to him than his experimental work in other media, including film and music. Still, even after the success of the Follies, Kees disappeared, apparently a suicide. A second edition of the Follies was slated for 1956 and included a film based on Hart Crane's The Bridge, done by Kees and William Heick, as well as other performances in a variety of forms and media. 6 3/4" x 19 3/4". Splitting along one fold; very good. A scarce, ephemeral piece from the moment when San Francisco was the literary and artistic hub of the emerging Beat and avant garde movements in the arts in the U.S.
171. (Poets' Follies). Handbill, 1958. [San Francisco]: (n.p.), 1958. A handbill announcing the fourth year of the Poets' Follies, for one night only, at the Seven Arts Center, and featuring Bob Helm and the City Lights Jazz Band, Kenneth Rexroth, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and many others. With an autograph letter signed by Charles Richards of the City Lights Jazz Band on verso, claiming responsibility for the Follies' existence, by virtue of the City Lights Jazz Band being built around the Charles Richards Band; by virtue of his being an uncredited co-producer; and by virtue of his being responsible for Rexroth's showing up despite negative feelings toward the other producer. 8 1/2" x 11". Folded in thirds; near fine. A scarce ephemeral piece, with an interesting bit of history, or at least one version of it, appended in the form of the letter.
172. PORTER, Katherine Anne. Pale Horse, Pale Rider. NY: Harcourt Brace (1939). Collects the title novella as well as Noon Wine and Old Mortality. Inscribed by the author: "For Janet Heywood at Bennington from Katherine Anne Porter/ April 28 1939." With the recipient's signed bookplate front pastedown; spine cloth faded and foxed; a very good copy in a very good, spine-faded, price-clipped, and edgeworn dust jacket. Porter won the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award in the 1960s, and was one of the most celebrated American women writers of her time.
173. PRAGER, Emily. Clea & Zeus Divorce. NY: Vintage (1987). Her second book, first novel, published as a softcover original in the Vintage Contemporaries series. Signed by the author. Fine in wrappers.
174. PRICE, Vincent. Autograph Letter Signed and Autograph Postcard Signed. July and August, 1985. Each written to the editor of Art & Antiques and each discussing the possibility of his writing a piece on collecting Indian art, as well as another idea for an essay "on the good old days of collecting that might be fun, with suggestions on how to collect today." Price's screen credits number near, if not over, one hundred films and include House of Usher, Diary of a Madman, The Ten Commandments, The Fly, and Edward Scissorhands. His legacy as an art collector includes the establishment of the Vincent Price Art Museum at East Los Angeles College, which contains more than 9000 pieces, several thousand from Price's own collection. Less well known, or well remembered, is that the Sears Roebuck catalog featured a Vincent Price Collection of fine art through much of the 1960s. Over 150 words between the two pieces; the letter is folded for mailing, with envelope included; both pieces fine.
175. PRINCE, Richard. Adult Comedy Action Drama. (Zurich-Berlin-New York): (Scalo)(1995). Photographs by the renowned artist. Selected by Andrew Roth as one of the 101 seminal photographic books of the 20th century. Prince's photographs have been described by one writer as being "like projections from inside the vaults of the cultural unconscious." Signed by Prince. Quarto; upper corners tapped; else fine in a fine dust jacket. A nice copy, and scarce signed.
176. PROULX, Annie. The Shipping News. London: Fourth Estate (1994). The first British edition of her second novel, which won both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize, as well as the Irish Times International Fiction Prize. Signed by the author. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
177. PYNCHON, Thomas. V. London: Cape (1963). The first British edition of his first book, winner of the Faulkner Foundation Award for best first novel of the year. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
178. (PYNCHON, Thomas). The Vineland Papers. Normal: Dalkey Archive Press (1994). The hardcover issue: there was a simultaneous issue in wrappers. "Critical Takes on Pynchon's Novel," edited by Donald Greiner, Geoffrey Green and Larry McCaffrey. Vineland was Pynchon's first novel in 17 years, and his first since Gravity's Rainbow, making it one of the most anticipated books in recent American writing, and the subject of considerable controversy as to whether it "lived up to" its predecessor. Here, a number of scholars and critics tackle that and other questions. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
179. (RANKIN, Ian). Rebus's Scotland Calendar 2008. London: Orion, 2007. 12-month wall calendar used as a promotional tie-in to Rebus's Scotland: A Personal Journey, which was published by Orion in 2005 and, like this calendar, featured photos of Edinburgh by Tricia Malley and Ross Gillespie, with text by Rankin from the Rebus books. 10" x 11". Small ripple to title page and January, else fine.
180. ROBINSON, Marilynne. Housekeeping. NY: FSG (1980). Her first book and her only novel until Gilead, which won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize. Housekeeping won the Ernest Hemingway Foundation Award, a Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Award, and was the basis for a well-received movie; it was also named one of the best works of American fiction in a 25-year period in a survey by The New York Times Book Review. Sunning to board edges, as is typical with this title, else a fine copy in a very near fine dust jacket with several small edge tears.
181. ROBINSON, Marilynne. When I Was a Child I Read Books. NY: FSG (2012). The advance reading copy of the fourth work of nonfiction by the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, a collection of essays. Fine in wrappers, with promotional page laid in. Uncommon in an advance issue.
182. ROTH, Philip. Signed Colophon for Zuckerman Unbound. NY: FSG (1981). Colophon only for the limited edition of this novel featuring Nathan Zuckerman, one of Roth's fictional alter egos. The limitation was 350 copies; this is apparently an overrun page, unnumbered but signed by Roth. Fine. A nice way to obtain a Roth signature.
183. ROTH, Philip. The Prague Orgy. London: Cape (1985). The first edition of this novella not separately published in the U.S. until the 1996 paperback edition. It initially appeared as the epilogue to Zuckerman Bound. Signed by the author. Upper corners and lower edge tapped; else fine in a fine dust jacket.
184. ROTH, Philip. I Married a Communist. Boston/NY: Houghton Mifflin, 1998. A novel set in the McCarthy era, and the second book in the trilogy that includes American Pastoral and The Human Stain. Signed by the author. Small push to crown; still fine in a fine dust jacket.
185. RUSSELL, Karen. Swamplandia! NY: Knopf, 2011. The advance reading copy of her second book, first novel, named one of the top ten books of the year by the New York Times. Signed by the author. Fine in wrappers. Uncommon in the advance issue, particularly signed.
186. (SALLIS, James). QUENEAU, Raymond. Saint Glinglin. Normal: Dalkey Archive (1993). The first English language edition of Queneau's novel, translated and with a 5-page introduction by Sallis. Inscribed by Sallis to another writer, "with affection." Sallis is most well-known for his series of hard-boiled detective novels featuring Lew Griffin and for the book that was the basis for the well-received film Drive, but he has also written other novels, poetry, criticism, biographies and done translations. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
187. (Sherlockiana). CAMPBELL, Patrick J. Tides of the Wight. (Shelburne): Battered Silicon Dispatch Book, 1999. Inscribed by the author in 2000: "How nice to have the Goose Club here." One slight lower corner tap; else fine in a fine dust jacket.
188. SMITH, Lee and ADAMS, Shelby Lee. Appalachian Portraits. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi (1993). The hardcover trade issue of this volume of photographs by Adams, with narrative by Smith. Issued as part of the Author and Artist Series. Fine in a near fine, spine and edge-sunned dust jacket. An impressive book, and uncommon in the hardcover issue.
189. STEPHENSON, Neal. The Baroque Cycle: Quicksilver, The Confusion, The System of the World. (NY): Morrow (2003-2004). The limited editions of the three titles in the award-winning Baroque Cycle trilogy, which re-imagines European history at the end of the 17th and beginning of the 18th centuries, including the development of science and technology and much pertaining to alchemy. Each volume is one of 1000 numbered copies signed by the author. Fine copies in fine slipcases and publisher's original shipping cartons. A beautiful set and an elaborate production, especially for a mainstream American publisher.
190. STONE, Robert. Outerbridge Reach. NY: Ticknor & Fields, 1992. The advance reading copy 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. Fine in wrappers.
191. (STONE, Robert). LOPEZ, Ken and CHANEY, Bev. Robert Stone. A Bibliography 1960-1992. Hadley: Numinous Press, 1992. A first bibliography of Robert Stone, describing in detail the American and British editions of his "A" items up through Outerbridge Reach, along with an extensive listing of his appearances in others' books, in periodicals, in translation, etc. Illustrated with photographs, and including a critical introduction, as well as a previously unpublished piece by Robert Stone: the transcript of an impromptu talk that Stone gave at the Library of Congress for the tenth anniversary of the PEN Faulkner Award in 1989, about his exposure at a young age to the effects of writing, experienced upon reading Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Stone, who won the National Book Award for his novel Dog Soldiers, is widely considered one of the most important American novelists to emerge from the era of the Vietnam war and the Sixties counterculture, and the short list of his published novels to date does not give an accurate indication of his pervasive influence on contemporary American literature. By tracing the secondary appearances (the bibliography includes over 240 entries), one begins to appreciate the scope of his writing and the points at which his voice has been one of those that defines our current situation and gives us the terms with which to understand it. Fine in a fine dust jacket. Can be signed by Ken Lopez, if desired.
192. -. Same title. The limited edition. One of 150 numbered copies, signed by Robert Stone. With a marbled paper dust jacket created expressly for this edition by Light of Day Bindery in Northampton, MA, and printed letterpress by Wild Carrot Press. Again, can be signed by Ken Lopez, if desired.
193. (STONE, Robert). HERR, Michael. Dispatches. NY: Knopf/Everyman's Library (2009). First thus, with a five-page introduction by Stone and signed by Robert Stone. Also has an introductory chronology of Herr's life and times that doesn't appear in the original edition. Dispatches is the most acclaimed work of the Vietnam War and was the only book to be reprinted in its entirety in the Library of America's Reporting Vietnam: American Journalism 1969-1975. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
194. SUKENICK, Ronald. Up. NY: Dial Press (1968). The advance reading copy of the first novel by this innovative writer, publisher and educator who was, among other things, a co-founder of the Fiction Collective. Bound from untrimmed sheets of the first printing. Inscribed by the author. Near fine in self-wrappers.