Nature Writing, C
128. CARRIGHAR, Sally. One Day at Teton Marsh. NY: Knopf, 1947. Her second book, tales of the creatures of Teton Marsh, Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Signed by the author. Illustrated by George and Patricia Mattson. Near fine in a very good, edge-chipped, spine-faded and price-clipped dust jacket.
129. CARSON, Rachel. The Sea Around Us. NY: Oxford University Press, 1951. Her second book, winner of the National Book Award and the John Burroughs Medal and the book that would have served as Carson's legacy had she not relegated the title to a footnote by writing Silent Spring. Light corner bumping and rubbing to boards; very good in a very good, spine-tanned dust jacket with several edge tears. The jacket is apparently a later issue, with review excerpts and mention of the 1952 National Book Award. An attractive copy of an important book which, because it was a bestseller and freed the author from financial worry, enabled her to do the research into pesticides and their effects throughout the 1950s that resulted in the publication of Silent Spring in 1962.
130. -. Same title, a review copy of the revised reissue (NY: Oxford, 1961). With a new preface by Carson that is for the most part a protest against ocean dumping of nuclear waste, and an appendix that updates the book, chapter by chapter, based on advances in oceanography in the decade since the book's original publication. Near fine in a near fine dust jacket, with review slip and photo laid in.
131. -. Same title. NY: Limited Editions Club, 1980. One of 2000 copies signed by Alfred Eisenstaedt, the photographer for this edition. A fine copy in a worn and ill-fitting glassine dustwrapper, in a near fine slipcase, lacking the spine label.
132. CARSON, Rachel. Under the Sea Wind. NY: Oxford University Press, 1952. A reissue of Carson's first book, originally published in the fall of 1941, with this edition incorporating revisions and corrections to the original edition. Bookplate front pastedown, stain on half-title; near fine in a good dust jacket with a large chip at the spine crown. Essentially, a good reading copy of an important book.
133. CARSON, Rachel. The Edge of the Sea. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1955. Carson's third book, a National Book Award finalist in 1956. Crease to front flyleaf, faint sunning to spine cloth; near fine in a very good dust jacket with light edge chipping, a couple edge tears, and a thin tear at the front gutter. An attractive copy of a book that was reprinted a number of times very soon after publication.
134. -. Another copy. Minor foxing to the cloth and page edges; about near fine in a very good, spine-faded and price-clipped dust jacket with two edge tears and some foxing.
135. CARSON, Rachel. Silent Spring. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962. The most important book ever published on environmental issues: Silent Spring single-handedly caused the banning of the pesticide DDT by documenting its deleterious side effects on the natural food chain, and in so doing its author engendered the consciousness that, today, has become a reflexive and pervasive concern. Carson was inspired to write the book by a letter from a friend imploring her to find someone in Washington who could have an influence on stopping the spraying of pesticides in her area, which were killing the local songbirds; because of Carson's renown for her earlier books on the sea, her friend imagined that Carson might well have sway that an ordinary citizen wouldn't. Carson initially wrote to E.B. White at The New Yorker, suggesting to him that this would be a suitable subject for an article in that magazine. White responded that he agreed but didn't have the time, suggesting that she write it herself. Carson imagined it to be a brief article that she would finish in a matter of months. As her research progressed, she realized that each time she uncovered some new fact or anecdote, the story got larger and more complex -- and also potentially more threatening to the chemical industry. Carson realized that the book was going to have to have an unshakable foundation in scientific fact, and that with that basis she would also have to write a passionate and persuasive argument. Controversy was inevitable even before the book's publication: chemical industry spokesmen routinely denied her requests for information; biologists who offered information and help requested anonymity, for fear of losing their jobs. When portions of the book were published in a three-part series in The New Yorker, the reaction of the industry was swift and furious -- a huge public relations campaign extolling the benefits of chemical use in society, combined with threats to withdraw advertising from any magazines or newspapers that favorably reviewed the book. The controversy, however, only generated more interest, and more sales. Silent Spring was chosen as a Main Selection of the Book of the Month Club. President Kennedy ordered the Science Advisory Committee to study the effects of pesticides; and Congressman John V. Lindsay -- later the Mayor of New York City and a Presidential candidate -- entered the first third of the New Yorker article into the Congressional Record. By the end of the year, over 40 bills had been introduced to regulate pesticide use in various states, mostly as a result of Silent Spring. Throughout the writing of the book, Carson waged a personal battle against cancer; she died in 1964. This copy has trace shelfwear to the cloth at the base of the spine and is otherwise fine in a near fine dust jacket with light rubbing on the spine and a small hole at the front spine fold. A bright copy, much nicer than usual, as the unlaminated dust jacket tends to rub quite easily.
136. -. Another copy. Again with trace shelfwear to the spine cloth, plus an owner gift inscription; otherwise a fine copy in a near fine dust jacket with modest edgewear.
137. -. Same title, the original dust jacket art. The original work of Lois and Louis Darling, who designed the jacket (as well as providing the drawings for the text) and Samuel Bryant, who is credited with the lettering. Included here is a color mock-up of the front cover and spine (9" x 8 1/2", with the two parts joined by tape and the whole mounted to a larger black paper backing). Together with a 15" x 18" ink drawing of the front cover and spine, with the coloring indicated in pencil and the blurb ("The author of The Sea Around Us and The Edge of the Sea questions our attempt to control the natural world around us") superimposed on a mounted card. This drawing differs from the original by some subtleties in lettering, including the publisher's name now being in upper and lower case. Also together with a penciled proof sheet of the lettering for Carson's last name and a proof copy of the printed dust jacket with several penciled instructions and crop marks. With the publisher's envelope. Carson's working title for this book was Man Against the Earth; "Silent Spring" was to be a chapter title. This grouping represents a step in the process that turned a phrase into a title and a title into a warning that awakened a complacent world. For all:
138. -. Same title. The uncorrected proof copy, with over 50 instances of variations from the published text, some substantial, although in many cases it is the smaller changes that most reveal the intent of the revisions. Paragraphs have been deleted (and others added) between this state and the published version; one chapter title has been changed. In several instances, brand names of chemicals were removed. In one case, an identifying advertising slogan was deleted; in another, the sum of money involved in a matter of litigation was omitted. Some of Carson's conjectures (and those of her sources) were dropped or softened; probable but unsubstantiated cause-and-effect connections between chemical exposure and illness were left out or reworded. Throughout the rewrite that had to have taken place between these sheets and the finished book, qualifying phrases were added and incendiary remarks were deleted: Carson was making her work more cautious and less assailable, ensuring that her text would survive the attacks that would follow. The publication date of the final book is given here as 10/8/62; actual publication was in September. We have dated this proof at approximately late April, 1962. On April 5, Carson wrote to Dorothy Freeman (in a letter published in the 1994 collection Always, Rachel): "Miss Phillips called today (H.M. editor) and said text will go to printer today or tomorrow. Galleys in 2 or 3 weeks then!" The next three sentences of the letter speak volumes about the state of health and mind in which Carson made the final changes to Silent Spring: "It is wonderful not to be going to hosp. for a few days. But the effects of radiation linger on so I'm not quite able to forget. I wish we had your goldfinches." The first public appearance of the text of Silent Spring was in a three-part series in The New Yorker in June of 1962. Examination of that text reveals it to be an intermediate stage between this proof and the finished book: in many cases, the changes had been made, and the serialization is closer to the text of the book than to the proof; in most cases the passages that Carson altered were not passages that were excerpted in The New Yorker, leaving the proof to stand as a rare example of the earlier version. The preliminary pages of the proof are out of order, and the appendix is not included. One page corner is turned. Printed on rectos only and ringbound in tall, cardstock covers that are modestly sunned and edgeworn; near fine. An important proof, revealing the process of honing and shaping an influential modern classic, and the only example we have ever seen, or heard of, of an earlier version of the text being extant in any printed form.
139. -. Same title, the New Yorker appearance and the first published appearance of this work. (NY: New Yorker Magazine, June 16, 23 and 30, 1962.) Three issues, each with a slight vertical fold in the middle; near fine. For the three:
140. -. Same title, the first British edition (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1963). This edition adds an introduction by Lord Shackleton and a preface by Julian Huxley. A fine copy in a near fine, heavily spine-faded and price-clipped dust jacket. Given the book's enormous popularity, and controversy, in the U.S., it is surprising how seldom copies of the U.K. first appear.
141. CARSON, Rachel. The Rocky Coast. NY: McCall Publishing (1971). A chapter that first appeared in The Edge of the Sea, published here with photographs by Charles Pratt. Quarto. Fine in a near fine dust jacket with light rubbing at the extremities and corners.
142. (CARSON, Rachel). GRAHAM, Frank, Jr. Since Silent Spring. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1970. The view from seven years after the initial publication, including chapters on the writing of and the controversy engendered by Silent Spring. Slight spine lean; two pages have offsetting from a newspaper clipping (about alternatives to DDT) laid in, else fine in a very good dust jacket.
143. (CARSON, Rachel). BROOKS, Paul. The House of Life. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1972. A literary biography by Brooks, who was editor-in-chief at Houghton Mifflin during the publication of The Edge of the Sea and Silent Spring, and who became the guardian of Carson's adopted son after her death. The book also includes selections from Carson's own writing, both published and unpublished. Brooks himself was an important writer of natural history: his first book, Roadless Area, won the John Burroughs Medal, and Wallace Stegner wrote of him that "for years there has been no more dedicated, informed, and eloquent spokesman for wilderness country than Paul Brooks." This copy is inscribed by Brooks to E.B. White and his wife: "For Andy and Katherine,/ who have been concerned/ with all this from the/ beginning./ Warmest regards,/ Paul." White was the person Carson contacted at The New Yorker when she first proposed that he write a pesticide article; although he declined and suggested that she write it, his position at The New Yorker helped ensure its publication there, with the resulting wide visibility. In addition, White's words serve as one of the two epigraphs for Silent Spring. In April of 1962, Carson wrote (again in a letter published in the above-mentioned Always, Rachel): "Paul thinks we should use both quotations... The E.B. White is too perfect to pass up, and the Keats helps explain the title." An excellent association copy between two of the writers most closely associated with the publication of Silent Spring. Modest foxing to page edges; else fine in a very good, spine-faded dust jacket with several small edge tears.
144. CHATWIN, Bruce. The Songlines. London: Cape (1987). The uncorrected proof copy of Chatwin's fourth book, and by general consensus his best -- a "novel of ideas," as the publisher puts it, of Australian aborigines, and the questions about man that arise from the vast gulf that separates the culture of contemporary, Western civilized man from that of the wandering tribes of Australia, whose "dream tracks" or "songlines" delineate both a physical and a psychic geography. Mild rubbing to spine; else a very fine copy of a scarce proof.
145. -. Same title. Franklin Center: Franklin Library, 1986. The correct first American edition, published by the Franklin Library for subscribers as part of their Signed First Editions series. An attractively designed book, in black leather stamped in brown and gold, in a pattern suggestive of the Australian aborigines' "songlines" that give the book its title. With a special introduction for this edition, which does not appear anywhere else. Signed by the author. Chatwin's signature is uncommon; reclusive while alive, he died three years after the publication of this book, at the age of 49. Fine.
146. COLE, John N. Striper. A Story of Fish and Man. Boston: Little Brown (1978). A tribute to the striped bass and to the lives of the fishermen for whom the bass provided a way of life. Cole worked on a fishing boat in eastern Long Island for a number of years, and this memoir recounts those times, along with much information about the fish, the history, the industry, and ultimately the decline of the fishing industry on Long Island as a result of over-fishing and pollution. Inscribed by the author in the year of publication, where he has also added "No. 57," apparently a self-made limited edition. Foxing to top edge; else fine in a near fine dust jacket with blurbs by Peter Matthiessen -- who also worked on a fishing boat on eastern Long Island for a time -- Farley Mowat and Robert Redford.
147. CRACE, Jim. Continent. NY: Harper & Row (1987). The uncorrected proof of the first American edition of his first book, a collection of related stories that won the Whitbread Prize, the David Higham Prize for Fiction, and the Guardian Fiction Prize. Crace creates, in this volume, an imaginary continent -- the location in which all the stories take place, and the only link they have with one another. Each of his books has been praised for its effective use of place in giving his characters and stories context and, while each takes place essentially in a wholly invented environment, they engage questions of the interrelatedness of people and society with the landscape with both freshness and a substantial literary artistry. Fine in wrappers.
148. CRACE, Jim. Signals of Distress. NY: FSG (1995). The advance reading copy of the first American edition of his fourth book, an historical novel set off the coast of England in 1830. Creases to front and rear covers; near fine in wrappers.
149. CRACE, Jim. Quarantine. NY: FSG (1998). The uncorrected proof of the first American edition of his fifth novel, a rendering of Jesus' 40 days in the desert, along with a group of eccentric Bedouins. Shortlisted for the Booker Prize and winner of the Whitbread Award. Fine in wrappers.
150. -. Same title, the advance reading copy. Fine in illustrated wrappers, in near fine card-stock slipcase.