Catalog 161, S
143. (SALINGER, J.D.). The Kit Book for Soldiers, Sailors and Marines. Chicago: Consolidated Book Publishers (1942 and 1943). The Kit Book, which contains Salinger's first book appearance, the story "The Hang of It." This is the first issue (1942), the state without the head and toe bands. With the later issue mailing box, printed in red, pink and navy, and with 96 cartoons listed rather than the earlier 80. The book has a $1.00 price written on the front flyleaf; the boards are a bit rubbed; and the 2 in the copyright date is barely printed, which is not uncommon. A near fine copy in a near fine mailing box, rubbed along the folds, but not addressed for mailing.
144. (SAUNDERS, George and SMITH, Zadie). The Book of Other People. (NY): Penguin (2007). The first American edition of this anthology of original stories edited by Zadie Smith and with contributions by Smith, Saunders, Dave Eggers, Jonathan Safran Foer, Edwidge Danticat, Aleksandar Hemon, A.M. Homes, Nick Hornby, Jonathan Lethem, A.L. Kennedy, Hari Kunzru, David Mitchell, Colm Toibin, ZZ Packer, Heidi Julavits, Toby Litt, Vendela Vita, and others. For the writers, the assignment was to "make somebody up." The proceeds from the book benefitted 826 New York, part of the chain founded by Dave Eggers to help kids with their writing skills. Only issued in wrappers in the U.S. This copy is signed by George Saunders, Zadie Smith, and Vendela Vita. Saunders has also drawn peace sign with a human form. His 9-page contribution is entitled "Puppy." Fine.
145. SAYLES, John. Union Dues. Boston: Little Brown (1977). Michael Mewshaw's review copy of Sayles's second novel, a coming-of-age book set in the late Sixties during the Vietnam War protests. Nominated for the National Book Award. Sayles, the winner of a MacArthur "Genius Award," became better-known as an acclaimed film director than as a writer, at least until his 2012 novel A Moment in the Sun received substantial critical praise and renewed his reputation as an important novelist. Mewshaw, author of Man in Motion and ten other novels plus eight books of nonfiction, used this copy for his review of the book for the New York Times Book Review, and he has drafted his holograph review on the front flyleaf and first blank (388 words, according to his own count), with multiple instances of his marginal notes in the text. He has titled it "Michael Mewshaw for NY Times," and as such it is signed by Mewshaw. A little foxing to the top edge and joints, front board splayed, about near fine in a very good dust jacket, rubbed at the edges. A significant manuscript by an award-winning author, and a review that helped John Sayles gain recognition as a serious writer early in his career.
146. SKVORECKY, Josef and WELLER, Anthony. Correspondence Archive. 1992-2011. Fifty pieces of correspondence from Josef Skvorecky (Czech author of The Engineer of Human Souls, among many others) to his eventual friend, writer and musician Anthony Weller. Includes:
- 23 typed letters signed by Skvorecky; 1 typed note signed; 2 typed postcards signed; 3 autograph notes signed; 3 autograph postcards signed; 5 signed cards; 12 emails;
- one unsigned letter which is together with the unpublished 2007 translation (bound computer printout, double-spaced, rectos only, 280pp.) of the author's novel Encounter in Prague, with Murder.
Much of the correspondence falls in the years 2001-2007, a time frame that included:
- Weller providing an Afterword to a new edition of Skvorecky's The Bass Saxophone [Toronto: L&OD/Key Porter, 2001], a copy of which is included;
- Weller writing an essay, in 2007, on the adaptations of The Bass Saxophone (five-pages, computer printout), also included;
- and Skvorecky soliciting advice from Weller on the adequacy of the above translation of Encounter in Prague, on which Skvorecky's and his wife's (Zdena Salivarova) names are crossed out as authors and replaced by hand with the pen name "Josephine Salivar."
Weller's retained email response is included, as are 14 retained copies of letters from Weller to Skvorecky. Weller and Skvorecky shared a passion for jazz as well as both being writers, so their correspondence -- which at first is quite cordial, almost formal -- eventually developed into a friendship based on intellectual closeness and trust.
Skvorecky is widely considered one of the most important Czech writers of the postwar and Soviet era. Choosing a self-imposed exile to Canada after the failure of the Prague Spring movement in 1968, he founded a press, 68 Publishers, to publish exiled Czech and Slovak writers whose works were banned in communist Czechoslovakia, including Vaclav Havel, the future President of the Czech republic, and Milan Kundera, whose Unbearable Lightness of Being was first published in Czech by 68 Publishers. Skvorecky himself was a Nobel Prize nominee in the 1980s.
The correspondence spans more than 20 years, up to a point two months before Skvorecky's death. The two writers discuss music, writing, publishing, their health, their travels, and a range of other subjects, exchanging CDs and books (not present here), and discussing their own works as well. A revealing look at one of the major writers of the 20th century, writing candidly to a friend, confidant and fellow writer, along with a typescript of an unpublished translation of one of his novels. All items fine.
147. [SNYDER, Gary]. Ryosen-An Zendo Practices. Kyoto: The First Zen Institute of America in Japan, 1960. Snyder's third book, published by his Zendo, and intended for the lay people, mostly non-Japanese, who sat in the Zendo. No author given, but written by Snyder. Mimeographed; reportedly around 500 copies were done. 12 pages; a fine copy in stapled wrappers. By all appearances Snyder's scarcest book: one suspects that, unlike his books that were formally published, this was treated by its users as something more akin to a user's manual, to be discarded when no longer necessary or relevant. McNeil A3. OCLC locates only one copy.
148. SNYDER, Gary. Nanao Knows. [San Francisco]: [Four Seasons], 1964. A broadside poem, 9 1/2" x 12 1/2", reproducing Snyder's calligraphy and alluding to Nanao Sakaki, Japanese poet and one of Snyder's mentors, as well as being called "the godfather of Japanese hippies." One of 300 copies sold on the occasion of a reading by Snyder, Lew Welch and Philip Whalen at Longshoreman's Hall in San Francisco on June 12, 1964. McNeil A7. Signed by the author. A fine copy of this early Snyder piece.
149. SONTAG, Susan. AIDS and Its Metaphors. NY: FSG (1989). An extended essay on the disease, updating her earlier volume Illness as Metaphor. Signed by the author. Fine in a near fine, price-clipped dust jacket with creasing to the lower edge of the rear panel.
150. STEINBECK, John. Archive for Charley. 1963. In 1962, Steinbeck published Travels with Charley, his account of a 10,000 mile journey to re-connect with America, driving a truck named Rocinante, after Don Quixote's horse, and accompanied by his 10-year old French poodle, Charley. Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize in 1962, and Travels with Charley reached #1 on the New York Times bestseller list, but this was Charley's final road trip: he died the next spring. This archive contains Steinbeck's signed hand-written draft announcement of Charley's death; five saved letters of condolence; Steinbeck's signed 3-page draft response to one of these letters; and the author's own retained files of promotional material for the book and reviews of the book, as follows:
- On a yellow lined legal sheet dated April 23, 1963, Steinbeck has hand-written an announcement (likely for his assistant Janet Beckman to type) of Charley's death to be sent to Howard Hunter and his wife Edna and to Ted Patrick and Vera: "Just a sad note to tell you that Charley died last Thursday April 18, leaving a large and jagged hole. We all moved to our new apartment but will tell you more when we can." Signed, "Love/ John." Steinbeck provides the address for each recipient and instructs that Patrick's notice also say "We tried to call you at Puchogue." Patrick was an editor at Holiday Magazine, where Travels with Charley was first published, serialized, as "A Quest for America"; in addition, Patrick was the author of the 1964 book The Thinking Dog's Man. Hunter had been Best Man at Steinbeck's second wedding.
- Howard Hunter's reply: "We have wept for Charlie and for you. Good dogs and good men are much too scarce." Hunter has also asked for a dinner date in May, and Steinbeck's response is typed at the bottom: "May 3, 1963/ Dear Howard and Edna: Terribly sorry, we will be in Sag Harbor on the 7th. We will miss you. John and Elaine."
- Patrick's reply, in part: "I have always said when I've lost a dog that I wouldn't get another, I couldn't stand going through it again; but I always have and really never have regretted it."
- A letter of condolence from Nat [Nathaniel Robert] Benchley (brother of Peter Benchley of Jaws fame; son of Nathaniel G. Benchley, friend and neighbor to Steinbeck and author of Side Street, a fictionalized account of their family friendship). Writing on Choate School stationery, Nat Benchley expresses distress about "Charlie" and also includes a copy of his Grapes of Wrath essay question from English class. The margins of this letter contain Steinbeck's dictated response, taken down primarily in shorthand, but thanking Benchley for the test question, saying he shudders to think what he's going...[lost in translation]; telling him he misses Charley as Benchley misses [his family's Boxer] Tuck; and commenting on a good evening spent with Benchley's parents.
- A handwritten letter of sympathy from James McMahon, Jr., mayor of Sag Harbor, Long Island.
- A two-page letter of condolence from Emil Bialic of Ohio who had read of Charley's demise in the Times. Bialic talks of dog names and dog breeding and getting new dogs when old dogs die. Steinbeck's May 15th handwritten response, of more than 650 words over three pages of yellow lined legal paper, goes into the power of names, his process of naming Charley, dogs' personalities resembling their owners', dog breeding, his possible future dog (a White English bull terrier), dog training, the hundred offers of dogs he has received since Charley died, and the dog community ("...dogs and the love of dogs cause people to like each other better"). Steinbeck concludes: "Yours/ (Janet please sign for me)/ Test signature/ John Steinbeck/ (you can do it fine)." As such, signed in full by Steinbeck -- probably, ironically, the only copy thus, as the "original" would appear to have been signed by his secretary. Included is the May 27 carbon typescript of the (apparently, secretarially-typed) response, stapled to Bialic's original letter and Steinbeck's draft, the last page of which has detached from the staple.
- Promotional materials: a 3-page King Features Syndicate press release for Travels with Charley; a 15" x 19" publicity poster picturing Steinbeck, his route map, Charley, and the first page of text of the Chicago Tribune review; a 5-page Book of the Month Club News article.
- Steinbeck's personal file folder of approximately 45 reviews of Travels with Charley: clipped, or sent by a clipping service, or in primitive photocopy form. Originals yellowing; copies fading. Manila file folder neatly labeled. Many of the reviews are laudatory; a few accuse Steinbeck of, in effect, seeing the country from a distance; nearly all have nice things to say about Charley.
In 2010, five decades after Steinbeck's journey, Bill Steigerwald set out, innocently enough, to recreate Steinbeck's journey. Steigerwald discovered the book to be in large part a work of fiction: Steinbeck's wife was with him on 45 of the 75 days; he stayed in hotels, motels and resorts, in a family cottage, and with friends for much if not all of the trip; and Steinbeck's encounters with other Americans are subject to doubt, given that he often wasn't in the location he claimed. This archive remains a testament to one true aspect of Steinbeck's travels: his bond with Charley. All primary items fine but for marginal tears and folds.
151. STEPHENSON, Neal. Reamde. (NY): Morrow/HarperCollins (2011). The advance reading copy of this technothriller by the author of Snow Crash, The Diamond Age, Cryptonomicon, and other award-winning science fiction and fantasy novels. Date on top edge; bookstore stamp on top edge and foredge; corner crease; a very good copy in wrappers. For reasons unknown, an especially uncommon advance reading copy.
152. STONE, Robert. A Flag for Sunrise. NY: Knopf, 1981. 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. Fine in a very near fine dust jacket with a shallow bump to spine base. 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.
153. STONE, Robert. Children of Light. London: Deutsch (1986). The true first edition of his fourth novel, preceding the American edition by one week, and printed in an edition of only 4500 copies, vs. 40,000 (announced) for the American edition. A dark Hollywood novel, with themes from Kate Chopin's The Awakening and King Lear and one of the most hard-hitting Hollywood novels since Nathanael West's The Day of the Locust. Signed by the author. Fine in a very near fine dust jacket with slight edge creasing. From the author's own library.
154. -. Same title, the first American edition. NY: Knopf, 1986. Signed by the author. Slight fading to the board edges; small corner taps; near fine in a near fine dust jacket with a closed tear at the rear gutter and a corner crease to the front flap. Again, from the author's library.
155. STONE, Robert. Damascus Gate. Boston/NY: Houghton Mifflin, 1998. A densely plotted political and metaphysical thriller set in contemporary Jerusalem, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. Stone tackles the religious hatreds, political intrigues and spiritual aspirations and malaise that intersect in one of the most historically significant, and volatile, places on earth. In The New York Times Book Review, author Daphne Merkin commented that nothing she had read prior to going to Jerusalem, with the possible exception of Stone's Damascus Gate, had prepared her for "the country's unlikely mixture of contemporary folly and biblical mystery." Signed by the author. From Stone's own library. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
156. -. Another copy. Signed by the author. Mild mottling to spine cloth; else fine in a lightly rubbed dust jacket. Also from the author's library.
157. STONE, Robert. Bay of Souls. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2003. A short novel set on the fictional Caribbean island of St. Trinity, which resembles Haiti in some respects -- the voodoo-infused culture, the political instability and volatility. Stone chronicles the dissolution of a naive American college professor as he attempts to penetrate and understand the various kinds of darkness he encounters -- political, personal, metaphysical. Signed by the author. One of the author's own personal copies. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
158. STONE, Robert. Prime Green: Remembering the Sixties. (NY): Ecco/HarperCollins (2007). His first book of nonfiction, a memoir focusing primarily on the late 1950s and the 1960s, when Stone was closely involved with Ken Kesey and his Marry Pranksters. Lacking a book by Kesey himself on the subject, this is the best memoir to date of that time and some of its key figures: Stone spends time with Kesey on the lam in Mexico, where Kesey fled after a drug bust, and Neal Cassady is there as well. A slender volume that nonetheless covers a lot of ground during those turbulent years. Signed by the author. Fine in a fine dust jacket. From the author's library.
159. -. Another copy, also signed by Stone and from the author's library. Fine in a very near fine dust jacket with a short, shallow crease at the upper front edge.
160. STRAUB, Peter. Ghost Story. NY: Hill House (1984). A limited edition reissue of this classic horror novel, originally published in 1979, here with illustrations by Stephen Gervais. By consensus one of the best works of horror of the 20th century. This is copy "B" of a stated limitation of 400 numbered copies. Signed by Straub and Gervais on the colophon. Additionally inscribed by Straub and Gervais to horror writer Stanley Wiater on the half title. Straub has written "For Stanley Wiater - who told me everything I could mention. Anyhow, the illustrations are mine. With affection, Peter Straub." Gervais has written: "After all Stan, high school is a microcosm of life! Furtively yours, Steve." Wiater's bookplate on the front flyleaf; near fine in a fine dust jacket and near fine slipcase. A very scarce issue of this attractive and uncommon edition, and a good association copy: Wiater is a three-time winner of the Bram Stoker Award, given by the Horror Writers of America; Straub has won that award six times, among many others.