Catalog 164, L
107. LANSDALE, Joe R. Jonah Hex: Two-Gun Mojo. NY: DC Comics, August - December, 1993. The complete five part series of this novel in comic book form, each part published once a month from August to December 1993; they were issued in one volume as a book in 1994. These represent Lansdale's first contribution to the series about Hex, a bounty hunter in the Old West; the series began in 1972; in 2010 the character was the basis for a Hollywood movie, Jonah Hex, with Josh Brolin, Megan Fox and John Malkovich, which was nominated for a Razzie, won "Worst Movie" of the year from the Houston Film Critics Society, and was nominated for the Alliance of Women Film Journalists' Hall of Shame Award. Each issue of Lansdale's novel is signed by Lansdale in gold ink on the front cover and is fine in stapled wrappers. An uncommon edition of Lansdale's first over-the-top entry in this science fiction/Western series, and scarce signed.
108. LANSDALE, Joe R. The Lone Ranger and Tonto: "It Crawls," Parts 1-4. NY: Topps Comics, 1994. The complete four part story It Crawls, in four volumes, each signed by Lansdale in gold ink on the front cover. Each issue is fine in stapled wrappers. Scarce in the original parts, especially signed. The story was published in one volume in 1995.
109. LANSDALE, Joe R. Jonah Hex: Riders of the Worm and Such, 5 Volumes. NY: DC Comics, 1995. The complete five part series of his second entry in the "Jonah Hex" series. Each issued is signed by Lansdale in gold ink on the front cover and is fine in stapled wrappers.
110. LANSDALE, Joe R. "as Ray Slater." Texas Night Riders. Burton: Subterranean, 1997. A non-science fiction Western. Copy 346 of 500 copies signed by the author as both Lansdale and Slater and signed by Mark A Nelson who provided the dust jacket art. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
111. LAYMON, Richard. A Writer's Tale. Los Gatos: Deadline Press (1998). The limited edition of his autobiography, which was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award by the Horror Writers Association. Copy 350 of 500 numbered copies signed by the author on a tipped in half-title. Bookplate of another author on the front flyleaf. Fine in a fine dust jacket. With a 1999 unopened card from Laymon to the recipient laid in. Laymon died in 2001 at a relatively young age and his reputation has grown since then as a number of his earlier works have been reissued posthumously.
112. LAYMON, Richard. Dreadful Tales. (London): Headline (2000). The last novel published in Laymon's lifetime; he died on Valentine's Day, 2001. Inscribed by the author to another horror writer on December 2, 2000, "To Stanley/ Great to see you again. Best/ Dick/ Richard Layman." Recipient's bookplate on the front flyleaf. Faint foxing to the top edge, else fine in a fine dust jacket. Very uncommon signed, and a nice association between two horror writers.
113. LEARY, Timothy. Interpersonal Diagnosis of Personality. NY: The Ronald Press (1957). Leary's first book, written while he was Director of Psychology Research at the Kaiser Foundation Hospital in Oakland, California. The book was voted the best book on psychotherapy in 1957 by the American Psychological Association, and was immediately recognized as a landmark: among other things, Leary's book argued that "individual character functions as an inextricable part of a larger social network," an insight that was later crucial in his experiments with the use of psychedelic drugs in psychotherapy and psychological treatment, and also with his non-academic experiments with such drugs. The accolades Leary received after the publication of this book led directly to his being offered a teaching position at Harvard, where he taught from 1959-1963. Leary left academia to pursue an iconoclastic path as an avatar of the counterculture in the 1960s, and as a prominent advocate of the use of psychedelic drugs for insight. This copy is inscribed by Leary to his longtime research assistant, and later lover, Helen Lane. Lane and Leary met in 1947 when she was secretary of the Berkeley chapter of the American Veterans Committee, in which Leary was active. She later moved to the Kaiser Foundation Hospital in Oakland, where she was a research assistant and assisted on the paper written by two other researchers that was a precursor to Leary's book, and eventually became Leary's personal assistant. After Leary's second wife left him, he and Lane began a relationship and the two went to Mexico together. After Leary left California and went to Europe with his two children, she continued to manage his affairs for a time in his absence. A near fine copy in a very good dust jacket with modest edge wear and a few chips at the corners. Seldom found in jacket at all, and equally seldom found signed; this is an excellent association copy between Leary and one of the people closest to him for a number of years at the time he was working on this book and after it was first published.
114. LEE, Harper. Autograph Letter Signed. December 8, 2006. A cordial letter from Lee responding to a letter from a reader of To Kill A Mockingbird, in fact, saying, "You must hold a record of sorts: most times having read Mockingbird to the most descendants!" Lee then informs the recipient she is "about to catch her eldest sister in age: at 95 she still practices law -- in fact, I'm going to mail this on the way to her office." Lee was a spry 80 at the time of this writing. However, the letter is written in a large, downward slanting script, which Lee explains in the final paragraph: "Forgive this scrawl -- I have macular deterroration [sic] [crossed out, replaced with "degeneration"], a ridiculous term coined by young doctors for senile blindness." Approximately 75 words, signed "Sincerely yours, Harper Lee." Folded in thirds for mailing; fine, with hand-addressed mailing envelope, which has an added handwritten label, correcting the street address. By this time the following year, Lee was no longer answering her own reader mail, following presumed further degeneration of vision and also a stroke in July 2007, and as evidenced by a long (included) autograph letter signed by Lee's sister, Alice, [to another recipient] dated in August, 2007 and addressing both Lee's physical limitations and the recipient's questions about the perceived autobiographical aspects of To Kill a Mockingbird: "My sister, Harper Lee, is a victim of macular degeneration and her severely impaired vision can not allow her to read her mail not can she reply in her own handwriting. You may tell your children that the book is fiction; that the author had no particular person in mind by whom she fashioned her characters. Explain to them that the really successful author is able to put into her characters the traits and characteristics that are so universally descriptive that they transcend time and appeal to readers through endless generations." Laid in with this second letter is a slip of paper on which is typed what amounts to a form disclaimer: "Harper Lee no longer gives autographs or signs books. She is almost blind as the result of macular degeneration which has failed to respond to any treatment. She is also suffering paralysis as the result of a stroke." A good letter by Lee, referring to her famous book, and an interesting accompanying letter and ephemeral piece documenting the decline of Lee's health over the year following her letter.
115. (LEE, Harper). "A Letter from Harper Lee" in O. The Oprah Magazine. (n.p.): [Hearst], 2006. A two page letter from Lee about her childhood reading habits, the scarcity of books available to her then, and her ongoing relationship with the printed, as opposed to the digital, book. Lee has published very little in the years since To Kill a Mockingbird came out; this represents one of her longer pieces in print in the last 50+ years. Mailing label removed from the lower front corner of the magazine; else fine.
116. LESSING, Doris. The Grass is Singing. London: Michael Joseph (1950). The first edition of the first book by the 2007 winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. Signed by the author. Spine slightly cocked; with mild sunning to spine and board edges. Bookplate of Robert Lusty, the Deputy Chairman of Michael Joseph publishers, on the front free endpaper, just beneath Lessing's signature. A near fine copy in a near fine dust jacket, complete with the "Daily Graphic/ Book of the Month/ Book Society Recommend" wraparound band. Laid in is a publisher's response card. A nice copy of an uncommon first book, complete with ephemeral material and of distinguished provenance, coming from one of the heads of the publishing company.
117. LEWIS, Sinclair. Dodsworth. NY: Harcourt Brace (1929). Foxing to foredge, spine-dulled and front hinge cracked; a very good copy with a folded, thus very good, first issue (no reviews on the front flap) dust jacket laid in. The jacket is fragile where it has been folded, but it appears to have spent most of its life inside the book and the color is completely fresh and unfaded.
118. (Little Review). The Little Review, Autumn 1921. NY: Little Review, 1921. An issue of the modernist arts journal founded by Margaret Anderson and co-edited by Ezra Pound and Jane Heap that introduced a number of the most influential writers and artists of their time. This is the "Brancusi Number," with label as such laid in, and includes numerous photos of Brancusi artworks. Notably, this issue contains the notice that "As a PROTEST against the suppression of the Little Review containing various installments of the "ULYSSES" of James Joyce, the following artists and writers of international reputation are collaborating in the autumn number of the Little Review: Brancusi, Jean Cocteau, Jean Hugo, Guy Charles Cros, Paul Morand, Francis Picabia, Ezra Pound." Also included in this issue is a full page announcement of the forthcoming (Autumn 1921) book publication of Ulysses by Shakespeare and Company, with an order form specifying the three different issues of the book to be published and their prices. Finally, there is a concluding note to the issue as follows: Under the heading "Ulysses," Jane Heap ("jh") wrote "Before we could recover from our trial for Joyce's 'Ulysses' it was announced for publication in book form. We limp from the field." The Little Review was famously involved in both publishing "Ulysses" in serial form and being prosecuted for that publication on obscenity charges. Front cover separating at the lower front spine fold, else very good in wrappers.
119. (Little Review). The Little Review, Spring 1922. NY: Little Review, 1922. "Picabia Number." Francis Picabia, Gertrude Stein, Jean Cocteau, Sherwood Anderson, Muriel Draper, Guillaume Apollinaire, Tristan Tzara, Louis Gilmore, and others. With a column by jh on a new European literary magazine that threatened an "exposé" of the Dial and the Little Review, among others, and she concludes with a scathing comment: "I don't even appreciate the Dial. It seems to exist very altruistically and unassumingly to indorse in a small way our past efforts by publishing the work of the better-natured of our former contributors to a larger audience. Otherwise it is a safe, sane and decent magazine." She claims sarcastically to "shiver with fear at the exposé of the Little Review. I cross my fingers." Chipping to spine ends, darkening to foredge of covers; very good in wrappers.
120. (Little Review). The Little Review, Autumn 1922. NY: Little Review, 1922. "Stella Number." Francis Picabia, Gertrude Stein, Man Ray, jh, Jean Toomer, Kenneth Burke, Guillaume Apollinaire, and others. Includes a Man Ray photograph of Joseph Stella and Marcel Duchamp as well as a "Rayograaph" by Man Ray entitled "R. Rose Sel a Vie." jh includes an editorial about the success of the book publication of Ulysses, noting that the critical reception of the book calls it a masterpiece yet when it ran in the Little Review there was "scarcely a peep from the now swooning critics except to mock it. Issues were held up by the post office and destroyed, we were tried and fined for sections of the book, but no art sharks attended." An interesting history of the publication and printing of Ulysses in the Little Review follows. Also in this issue is an exchange of letters between jh and Hart Crane about a jh column on the literary magazine Secession in an earlier issue, and sixteen reproductions of Joseph Stella artworks, as well as reproductions of art by Picasso, Georges Bracque and others. Chipping to yapped edges and along the spine; about very good in wrappers.
121. (Little Review). The Little Review, Winter 1922. NY: Little Review, 1922. "Miscellany Number." Margaret Anderson, jh, Andre Bretton, Louis Gilmore, and others. Also includes photographs of artwork by Kandinsky, Léger, and others; a piece by Apollinaire on Juan Gris and the Cubists; an uncredited list of candidates for the electric chair, including John D. Rockefeller Jr., Hoover, Dupont Family, Billy Sunday, The Man Who Invented the Electric Chair, 100 per cent of the Actors, 98 per cent of the painters, etc. Fading and staining to covers, about very good in wrappers.
122. (Little Review). The Little Review, Spring 1923. NY: Little Review, 1923. One of the most celebrated issues of the journal, the "Exiles Number." Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, E.E. Cummings, H.D., Robert McAlmon and others. Includes the first appearance of Hemingway's "In Our Time," a year before its book publication in France; this also predates publication of Hemingway's first book in Paris, Three Stories and Ten Poems. Reproduces art by Léger and Miró, among others. Several pages unopened. Edge staining to edges and text, otherwise very good in wrappers, with partial subscription renewal notice tipped to front cover and an additional reminder tipped to the copyright page.
123. (Little Review). The Little Review, Autumn/Winter 1923-24. NY: Little Review, 1923. Four Rayographs by Man Ray. Pierre Reverdy, Pierre de Massat, Paul Eluard, Tristan Tzara, René Crevel, Mina Loy, Louis Aragon, and others. Artwork by Max Ernst, Hans Arp, Bracque, Modigliani, and others. Edge staining to edges and text, otherwise very good in wrappers.
124. LOWELL, Robert. The Mills of the Kavanaghs. NY: Harcourt Brace (1951). Lowell's third collection of poetry; his second collection, Lord Weary's Castle, won the Pulitzer Prize, and Lowell subsequently became the Poet Laureate of the U.S. He went on to win another Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Award, and a National Book Critics Circle Award. He taught at the Iowa Writers Workshop and later at Boston University where Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton were among his students. In the 1960s he was considered the most important and influential poet of his generation, particularly on the confessional poetry movement. This copy is inscribed by the author to a college classmate and his wife: "For Edgar & Janice [McGuire] with my usual great crisis of mind -- and end of an evening." With the recipient's bookplate just below the inscription. A nice, apparently contemporary, inscription in one of Lowell's early books. A near fine copy in a near fine, slightly spine-faded dust jacket.
125. LOWELL, Robert. The Dolphin. London: Faber & Faber (1973). The first U.K. edition of this collection of poems, which won the 1974 Pulitzer Prize for poetry. This copy is inscribed by the author to Sonia Orwell, the widow of George Orwell, and a longtime friend of Lowell, particularly during the time his second marriage was ending and his third beginning -- she hosted the wedding party for the couple -- when they were living in England. A nice association copy of an award-winning book.