Weekly Sale

(Chicago), Workers Press, [ca. 1985]. A 16-page pamphlet addressing systemic racism during the Reagan years, although the specific language here includes the "power structure," "fascism," and "legalized terror." Particular attention is paid to the dilution of the Voting Rights Act, particularly in Alabama, and the indictment of the "Marion 3" by U.S. Attorney Jeff Sessions. Deep cross-out and two stains to front cover; lists of dollar amounts in pencil on rear cover; a good copy in stapled wrappers. No copies found in OCLC. [#035281] $150
$98

Boston, Houghton Mifflin, (1989). The uncorrected proof copy. Edited and with a 14-page introduction by Atwood; with stories by Larry Brown, Madison Smartt Bell, Robert Boswell, Charles Baxter, Harriet Doerr, Linda Hogan, Mark Richards, Bharati Mukherjee, Alice Munro, Mavis Gallant, and others. Scattered light foxing; near fine in wrappers. [#036161] $45
$23

NY, Harper & Brothers, 1846. With 1600 engravings by J.A. Adams, more than 1400 of which are from original designs by J.G. Chapman. Published in 54 issues for subscribers, and then bound, optionally with a picture of the owner's church engraved on the cover. Here offered in two volumes: The Old Testament and The New Testament bound separately, each featuring Trinity Church in New York on the cover. On both volumes, the front cover is detached, and there is staining and foxing, for the most part contained to endpages and prelims. The larger volume has a chip threatening at the crown. Overall, good copies, with the contents quite well-preserved. Weighty: domestic shipping only. [#036356] $600
$420

Manchester, Clarion, 1892. Two issues of the Socialist paper, the "Christmas Number" and the "Summer Number." Bound together (despite being different sizes). The binding is stained and worn and there is foxing to the endpages, but it has done its job protecting the issues, which are near fine. Scarce: one copy of the Summer Number found in OCLC. [#600045] $250
$163

Tucson, Firsts, 2003. 9 issues, of 10 total (#9 is missing; no issue published in July or August). Articles on P.G. Wodehouse, Thornton Wilder, the Limberlost Press, and fraud on eBay (by Ken Lopez). Fine. May require added postage. [#036325] $45
$23

Tucson, Firsts, 1998. 10 issues (#7/8 is one issue; #9 is missing). Cover articles include Kurt Vonnegut, Mark Twain, Ian Fleming, movie source books, etc. Fine. May require added postage. [#036320] $45
$23

(London), Bridgewater Press, (2000). Of a total edition of 138 copies, this is copy VII of 12 Roman-numeraled copies bound in quarter Library Calf, with a signed original drawing by Boyd, tipped in as frontispiece. Signed by the author. Fine. [#914614] $750
$525

(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. [#029350] $60
$30

London, Collins Harvill, 1988. The uncorrected proof copy of a collection of seven stories for which there is no comparable U.S. edition. Five of the stories appeared in Where I'm Calling From -- copyright problems reportedly kept the publisher from reissuing the other stories included in that collection. Tiny, shiny spot to front cover; else fine in wrappers. [#912320] $150
$98

(n.p.), Kitchen Sink, 1970. First printing (no statement of additional printings inside front cover). Near fine. [#036370] $50
$25

Berkeley, Print Mint, 1970. First printing, with the 50 cent price. Edge wear to upper outer front corner; near fine. [#036372] $50
$25

[San Francisco], Apex Novelties, [1968]. Second printing, with no scratch on the front cover Z and no extra yellow around the rear cover headline. Small abrasion to front cover (but below the place where the 3rd printing "tell" appears). A very good copy. Note: Zap #0 was published third in the series. [#036357] $50
$25

NY, Knopf, (1961). Later, but early, printing of one of Dahl's classics. Bound by Book Press, with a 4-line colophon, this is the issue in light blue boards with a darker quarter spine and an SBN on the rear jacket panel. Distinguished by its condition: light foxing to the top edge; slight mustiness; but a near fine copy in a fine dust jacket. [#035570] $350
$228

A small archive (three boxes) of a book that documents two American decades in one of New York City's signature neighborhoods: Stuyvesant Town.

Corinne Demas is a novelist and author of young adult books who grew up in Stuyvesant Town as one of the first generation to live in the development, which opened in 1947. In 2000, Demas published a memoir of her childhood and adolescence entitled "Eleven Stories High: Growing Up in Stuyvesant Town, 1948-1968." SUNY Press issued the book, and this archive chronicles its creation and publication and the response it engendered, as well as the issues surrounding Stuyvesant Town.

Stuyvesant Town was conceived as a carefully planned postwar middle class neighborhood in central Manhattan. Prospective tenants were closely screened and their income verified. The number of applicants for the 11,000 apartments comprising Stuyvesant Town, and the slightly more upscale Peter Cooper Village, totaled more than 100,000. ST-PCV was an experiment in urban planning – a gated community in the heart of the city, privately owned, with private roads, and a private security force – and also an experiment in social engineering: blacks were excluded in its early years and the income requirements kept out the poor. The apartment buildings clustered around a central oval with a fountain; traffic was limited; there were no schools or shops. The development was designed to be a safe haven from the rest of the city, and in that it eventually succeeded: by the 1980s it was deemed the safest neighborhood in New York City.

Many of the early residents were young families, often from working class backgrounds, many of them immigrants or the children of immigrants. Stuyvesant Town represented a step up the social ladder, into the middle class, with higher incomes, better education for the children, less onerous working conditions for the fathers, and mothers who could stay at home as housewives. Much of what we still associate with the term "middle class" was established, defined, and nurtured in the early postwar years in Stuyvesant Town, as was a significant portion of what we call "the American Dream" – the belief that one's children's future should be brighter than their parents', their education greater, their opportunities more, and that this should continue indefinitely.

Demas' book documents the first generation's years in Stuyvesant Town. From the author's website:

Eleven Stories High is a memoir of my middle class New York childhood, and the particular perceptions of a girl growing up in a housing project where the apartments and buildings are identical and you're prohibited from walking on the grass. It is an exploration of the concept of "home," how a place like Stuyvesant Town—impersonal, symmetrical, utilitarian—shapes a childhood. Eleven Stories High is organized by subject (rather than chronology), and examines aspects of my life in Stuyvesant Town from the time I was a toddler till I was a teenager at all-girls Hunter High School. I talk about elevators, telephones, subways, and parakeets.

Chapter topics include Hunter Elementary School and the education of the supposedly "intellectually gifted child," being a Gentile in a Jewish world, the secret community of Greeks in America, and the contrast between "the country" (Mt. Kisco, New York) and the vast sterility of Stuyvesant Town where an earthworm was an exotic, a butterfly a miracle.

I write about my grandfather (who was head of the Dead Letter Department for the U.S. Post Office in New York), my father (an unconventional dentist) and his encounters with armed robbers, and my mother, who performed all the tasks of a traditional Fifties housewife in addition to being a biology teacher at Stuyvesant High School (where she taught the boys I met at school dances everything they knew about reproduction).

This book is particularly concerned with the changing roles and expectations of women between my mother's generation and mine.

This archive contains Demas' scrapbook of her school years (featuring a note signed by Eleanor Roosevelt); multiple manuscript drafts of the memoir (both hard copies and digital copies); and publication material and related correspondence (with two publishers). In addition: when Eleven Stories High was published, Demas became an inadvertent spokesperson for Stuyvesant Town, and her comments on various ST-related matters – having to do with real estate values in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the gentrification of ST-PCV, the decline of the middle class, and the contrast with the values instilled by her upbringing in this "accidental utopia," as she called it – appeared in the New York Times as an article, an op-ed piece, and a letter to the editor. The archive contains her writings for the Times on these subjects as well as a sizable amount of the correspondence it generated. Moreover, the book itself generated several large files of correspondence: included here are hundreds of pages of readers sharing their responses to the book and their own recollections of Stuyvesant Town. The book is a memoir but the archive is, in effect, a social history.

Little else has been written about Stuyvesant Town. The 2013 book Other People's Money by Charles Bagli focused on Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village as the center of the greatest real estate deal ever made – and, at the height of the Great Recession, ever to fail. But little has been written about the community itself, which helped give rise to the idea of gated communities around the country, helped to define what it meant to be in the middle class at that time, especially in an urban area, and embodied so many elements of both the positive and negative aspects of "the American Dream." Demas' memoir touches on issues of class, race, religion and gender.

A full inventory is available on request.

[#033849] $9,500
$7,125

NY, Harper & Row, (1977). Holy the Firm was Dillard's third book, following a book of poetry and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. It is a short book of poetic meditations that took her 14 months to write, while she was living on Lummi Island, off of Bellingham, Washington. At one point, Dillard decided to write about whatever happened during a three-day period, and on the second day, an airplane crashed on the island, causing her to meditate on the problem of pain, and how a just and merciful God would allow natural evil to occur in the world. These meditations on pain, God, and evil continued to resonate throughout her work, particularly in her award-winning volume For the Time Being, published in 1999, more than 20 years after this book. This copy is signed by Dillard. Not an uncommon book, but signed copies appear infrequently, and those typically because she has signed them for someone known to her. Near fine in a very good, price-clipped dust jacket with a couple small stains and small, open edge tears. [#036413] $300
$195

NY, Norton, (1991). The uncorrected proof copy of his first book, a collection of stories. Signed by the author. Spine-sunned; near fine in wrappers. [#912476] $200
$130

(n.p.), McSweeney's, (2000). An ink drawing by Eggers of a malformed human, captioned "Things have changed since then, executed on the previously blank dust jacket of Timothy McSweeney's Issue No. 5. Signed (initialed) by Eggers. With an additional ink drawing by Eggers on the flyleaf, of an amoeba shape, captioned, "At one time they were all like this." Eggers has been selling his captioned paintings and prints of captioned animals to benefit ScholarMatch (which he also founded), an organization that funds college educations. Additionally signed by Ben Greenman. Issue No. 5 was the first hardcover issue of Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, and it was issued in three variant bindings and four variant dust jackets. This is the Ted Koppel binding with the previously blank white front. Two tiny spots to foredge and small lower board nicks; near fine in a very good, mildly dusty jacket with a couple of closed tears. [#032951] $850
$595

NY, Grove, (2002). The advance reading copy of the second book by the author of the highly praised Lord of the Barnyard, who committed suicide in May, 2005. This copy is signed by Egolf. Fine in wrappers. [#914920] $250
$163

(NY), Aperture, (1979). A volume in Aperture's History of Photography series. This copy is inscribed by the screenwriter Lloyd Fonvielle, who provides the introduction, to film critic Pauline Kael, in 1981. The introduction comprises the entire text of the volume, other than the appendices; the rest of the book reproduces Evans's photographs, without caption. Light foxing to prelims; near fine in boards, without dust jacket, as issued. [#035974] $350
$228

Derry/Ridgewood, Babcock & Koontz, (1987). Ford's first limited edition and the first and only separate appearance of this story, which was originally published in Esquire and later collected in Rock Springs. Of a total edition of 240 copies, this is copy "IV" of 40 hardcover, Roman-numeraled copies signed by the author. Fine. [#914963] $350
$228

Somerset, Chicken House, (2003). Signed by the author. Fine in a fine dust jacket. [#915006] $150
$98

NY, Holt Rinehart Winston, (1965). The uncorrected proof copy (divided into two volumes), of this collection of field studies of monkeys and apes, edited by Irven DeVore of Harvard University. Includes (in the "second half"), "Chimpanzees of the Gombe Stream Reserve," a nearly 50-page report by Goodall, on observations she made between June 1960 and December 1962, covering topics such as locomotion, communication, group structure, socialization, mating, nesting, grooming, feeding, tool use, and of course, tool-making. Goodall, despite lacking formal education at the time, had arranged a meeting with anthropologist Louis Leakey in 1957, and (after deflecting his advances) she became his assistant/secretary. In 1960, after Leakey had sent Goodall to London for a crash course in primates, he sent her to Tanzania to study chimps. (Tanzania, unwilling to allow Goodall to travel alone, required that she have a companion: Goodall brought her mother.) By year's end, Goodall had observed chimps not only using tools for feeding, but creating tools for this purpose, causing Leakey to write to her in a telegram: "Now, we must redefine man, redefine tool, or accept chimpanzees as humans." As best as we can tell, this revelatory work is Goodall's first book appearance. Two volumes (stamped "first half" and "second half") in tall, comb-bound green wrappers. The proof does not include Goodall's images. Business card of an editor at Holt, Rinehart and Winston stapled to the front cover of the first volume; each volume is near fine. Goodall's pioneering work on the Gombe chimpanzees continues to this day: it is the longest continuous study of any animal in their natural habitat in history. [#035126] $750
$525

Toronto, Playwrights Canada, (1990). Inscribed by the author to Pauline Kael in the month of publication: "Pauline -With many, many thanks. All the best, XO/ Don Hannah/ July, 1990." This is the third play by the award-winning Canadian playwright, who had been a film reviewer before writing for the theater. Upper spine bumped, still near fine in wrappers. [#034551] $45
$23

Manuscript poem entitled "Subjunctive Tense," but eventually published, with significant changes, as "If We Could Be Brought" (first line). Signed by Ignatow. Undated. Lower corner stain, not affecting text; very good. [#035886] $150
$98

Yellow Springs, Antioch College Union, 1961. The first (only?) issue of this magazine of literature and the arts. This copy is inscribed to Pauline Kael by Herbert Feinstein at his contribution, about Satyaji Ray's film The World of Apu. Kael has written "Feinstein on Apu" on the rear cover. Lower front cover corner crease; some rubbing and handling; very good in stapled wrappers. [#036223] $300
$195

Garden City, Doubleday, 1975. A book on "Personal Morality Today" by a Catholic priest. Inscribed by the author to Pauline Kael, "who has a great sense of life." Slightly musty; near fine in a spine-faded, thus very good, dust jacket. [#034559] $50
$25

(Prague), Odeon, (1979). A Czech edition. A little edge-toning; near fine in a very good, rubbed dust jacket with light edge creasing. [#023513] $40
$20

Baltimore, Cemetery Dance Publications, 2001. The lettered limited edition of this "guide to the worlds of Stephen King," written by Stanley Wiater, Christopher Golden, and Hank Wagner. Of 52 copies, this is designated "PC" and as an "Author's Copy," and is from Wiater's library. Signed by Wiater, Golden and Wagner. White leather stamped in black, with silk ribbon marker; fine in a fine dust jacket and fine dark blue leather tray case. [#034608] $650
$455

(n.p.), Well-Defended Press, 1990. A spoof on corporate reports, with contributions by a number of Canadian writers including Kinsella, Ann Knight, Spider Robinson, and others. Kinsella contributes "An excerpt from my essay, Treacherous Snivelling and Other Dangerous Trends in Contemporary U.S. Poetry." Also includes a poem (in Latin) by "Silas Ermineskin," a Kinsella alter-ego and one of the central characters in a number of Kinsella's highly praised Indian stories. Ermineskin's contribution is signed by "Ermineskin," somewhat illegibly. Also signed by Kinsella, Knight, Robinson and five others, presumably all the contributors, although the use of pseudonyms on the contributions makes it impossible to determine, from internal evidence alone, if this is the case. Folded sheets, with plain card-stock covers: apparently a home-made production by someone with a copier, a laser printer, and the friendship of a number of Canadian literary figures. Although the limitation is not stated, and the production methods did not preclude creation of more copies, we are told that there were 30 copies done. 24 pages, folded sheets in cardstock covers. OCLC locates only one copy, in the Canadian national archives. Fine. [#029934] $750
$525

Port Townsend, Copper Canyon, 1984. The uncommon uncorrected proof copy of these "poems for women." Stapled sheets with a black tape spine. A low-tech production, suggesting very few were done. Kizer won the Pulitzer Prize the following year, for her collection Yin. Fine, with publisher's promotional sheet laid in. [#014851] $95
$48

Boston, Houghton Mifflin, [1937]. A "donation edition" (i.e. advance review copy), "photographically reproduced from uncorrected galley proofs." Like his Pulitzer Prize-winning Laughing Boy, a novel of Indian life, this one concerns a Navajo man who was sent to boarding school as a youth, was Christianized, and returns to his own culture, from which he is now alienated. Owner signature of Cora M. Folsom ("C.M. Folsom," of Hampton University, a historically Black university) on the front cover. Spine is tape-repaired but still fragile. Corners chipped. A good copy in wrappers. [#035018] $75
$38

London, Jonathan Cape, (1978). Inscribed by the author to Robert Stone and his wife, "who (or whom) I love." A hint of cover creasing; near fine in wrappers. [#033801] $60
$30

NY, Exposition Press, (1969). A volume of vanity press poetry by Kelly, distinguished by a front cover blurb by Harper Lee, from a period of time when it was not uncommon for vanity publishers to simply warehouse their print runs for a predetermined length of time and then destroy them, with the majority of copies receiving distribution coming out of the author's allotment. For most vanity press works -- regardless of how many were originally printed -- the number of copies that ever made it into the marketplace probably averages in the low dozens. That fact, combined with the fact that Harper Lee has published so little other than To Kill a Mockingbird, makes this a rare occurrence in print by the author of one of the best-loved American novels of all time. This copy is inscribed by Kelly to Phoebe Lee "with fond best wishes." Kelly was a native of Excel, Alabama, less than 10 miles from Lee's hometown of Monroeville, Alabama. Small spot to front cover; near fine in a mildly rubbed dust jacket with a tear at the upper spine fold. [#027232] $250
$163

NY, St. Martin's, (1997). Inscribed by the author to Robert Stone and his wife, in the year of publication, "dear friends that I miss seeing." Fine in a fine dust jacket. [#033751] $75
$38

NY, McGraw-Hill, (1969). Inscribed by the author: "For ____/ with feelings that cannot speak in ink and cannot help it in tears./ Kenny/ Princeton/ 17 September 1969." A bulky book with a bit of a sag to the text block and vertical creasing to the half-title where the book is inscribed; still near fine in a very good dust jacket with minor edge wear and a bit of dampstaining visible on verso. [#028799] $115
$75

London, Oxford University Press, 1963. Signed by both editors. Musty; near fine in a near fine, price-clipped dust jacket. [#035943] $50
$25

NY, Random House, (1997). The second novel in the trilogy that began with Killing Mr. Watson, based on a series of events in Florida at the turn of the last century and using the novel form to explore the settling and development of that frontier, with an awareness of the ecological implications of that development. Inscribed by Matthiessen to Mike [Geary], with "many thanks again for a great day." For reasons unknown to us, not given to Geary; from Matthiessen's own library. Fine in a fine dust jacket. [#032352] $150
$98

(n.p.), (n.p.), ca. 1969. Vintage Peter Max poster, 30" x 21", with the heavens and earth, angels, a rainbow, and an enlightenment vibe. Undated but includes a photo of Earth that was taken by the Apollo 8 crew in December 1968. Previously folded in 8ths, with extremely fragile folds and small tears at several junctions. A very good copy. Will ship flat: domestic shipping only. [#036242] $300
$195

University Park, Pennsylvania State University Press, (1993). A biography of Melville, this copy from the library of Pauline Kael and inscribed to her (not by the author, who died prior to publication): "For Pauline: A book by a Melvillian to a Melvillian about Melville. I hope you enjoy." Kael once wrote (in regard to the film adaptation of Billy Budd), that Melville is "our greatest writer because he is the American primitive struggling to say more than he knows how to say, struggling to say more than he knows.” Fine in a fine dust jacket, with a review of a 1997 Melville biography laid in, which has one passage marked, presumably by Kael. [#035302] $125
$81

Paris, Grasset, 1956. Rilke's poetry, inscribed to Doris Dana, Gabriela Mistral's longtime companion and translator, from Marie-Lise Gazarian-Gautier: "A mon amie Doris de la Nina Azul/ avril 1960." "La Nina Azul," Gazarian-Gautier, was a biographer and protege of Mistral. Together with a second printing of the paperback edition of Selected Poems of Gabriela Mistral, which Dana translated. Gabriela Mistral was the first Latin American writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, and only the fifth woman to receive the prize. The pages of the Rilke are uncut and age-toned; else both books are fine in wrappers. An interesting association copy between two of the women closest to the Nobel Prize winner Mistral. [#032895] $250
$163

NY, Macmillan, 1971. Long galley sheets for this autobiographical novel by the exiled South African writer. It follows his book Down Second Avenue and recounts his exile in Nigeria and Kenya, prior to his move to the U.S. This title was banned in South Africa. 100 long galley sheets (approximately 24" x 8"); folded in half. Tears to the cover sheet, else near fine. A very scarce prepublication format: probably no more than a half dozen copies of these galleys were created. [#035668] $125
$81

NY, Knopf, 1966. Inscribed by Margaret "Mardy" Murie, conservationist, naturalist, and recipient of the Audubon Medal, the John Muir Award, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom: "For Joan Wilson/ Every good wish from many more happy trips in 'Wapiti Wilderness'/ Mardy Murie." This book was co-authored with her husband, Olaus, who died prior to publication. Mardy was known as the "Grandmother of the Conservation Movement" and was a mentor to a generation of younger environmentalists. A very near fine copy in a very good, lightly edgeworn, price-clipped dust jacket, close to splitting at the front spine fold. [#035997] $450
$293

NY, David McKay, (1965). His first novel. Some loss to spine lettering and modest handling to boards; near fine in a very near fine dust jacket with one short edge tear on the upper front panel. [#911784] $175
$114

NY, MCD/Farrar Straus Giroux, (2019). Rich's searing recounting of the 1980s -- the decade when we almost stopped climate change, and how it all derailed. Expanded here from a 2018 article in The New York Times Magazine. Signed by the author. Some toning to page edges and a bit of fading to the boards; near fine in a fine dust jacket. Uncommon signed. [#036408] $275
$179

(NY), Ecco/HarperPerennial, (2007/2008). Two copies from the author's own library: a later printing of the hardcover edition (Ecco, 2007) and a first printing of the paperback edition (Harper Perennial, 2008). Both are very near fine. [#033843] $50
$25

NY, Knopf, 1972. Her fourth book, which many consider her scarcest. Signed by the author. Label removal shadow on front board, else very near fine in a very near fine dust jacket with the slightest smudging on the rear panel. [#911151] $1,000
$700

NY, Knopf, (1965). A book of poems, one for each month. This is the third of Updike's books for children done in the Sixties, this being the trade binding (there was also a library binding done). Illustrated by Nancy Ekholm Burkert. Fine in a near fine, price-clipped dust jacket. [#912070] $100
$65

1986. A remembrance by Updike of his friend Lovell Thompson, read at Thompson's memorial service. Two photocopies, each four pages, folded in thirds, stapled, and stamped with Updike's address. Reproduces a couple of holograph corrections and one note of transmittal. One of the copies is signed by Updike. Near fine, and together with a copy of Bookbuilder, January/February 1987, the newsletter of the Bookbuilders of Boston, where the tribute was printed. [#031526] $550
$385

(Warwickshire), Sixth Chamber Press, 1987. A limited edition of this story. Of a total edition of 201 copies, this is copy "N" of 26 lettered copies signed by the author. Quarterbound in leather and marbled paper boards; fine in slipcase. An attractive production, uncommon in the lettered issue. [#911255] $450
$293

Garden City, Doubleday/Anchor, 1970. "Poems of the Space Age," edited by the poet Robert Van Dias and inscribed by him to Robert Bly, with best wishes, in Brooklyn, in February, 1971. Mild creasing to spine and foxing to foredge; general handling apparent to covers; very good. A Doubleday Anchor paperback original. [#036118] $50
$25

NY, The New Press, (2010). A former editor of the Utne Reader explains "how to save the economy, the environment, the internet, democracy, our communities, and everything else that belongs to all of us" by way of acknowledging shared ownership and shared responsibility. Dozens of short articles written by more than two dozen authors, with illustrations and a resource guide, and featuring an introduction by Bill McKibben. Inscribed by Walljasper, with the exhortation "Viva la Commons!" Fine in wrappers. [#034650] $100
$65

1986-1987. A collection of letters from Waters, mostly to his literary agent, Joan Daves, as well as related ancillary materials showing Waters at work in the after-market for his writing, with opportunities for later editions and film versions. Waters wrote primarily about the American Southwest, in particular the Native American experience. His father was part Cheyenne. The first typed letter signed is from Waters to his agent, Joan Daves, dated August 24, 1986 and concerns Lesley Ann Warren's interest in optioning the film rights to The Woman at Otowi Crossing and the contract for publication of a hardcover, illustrated edition of The Man Who Killed the Deer. It is stapled to a copy of the contract, with numerous marginal corrections and a retained copy of Daves' reply, agreeing with Waters that the intended publisher (Gibbs Smith) had overreached in the contract. An included exchange between Daves and Gibbs Smith posits a simpler agreement, while a retained carbon shows Daves reaching out to Ohio University Press to confirm they had no claim to hardcover rights. The second typed letter signed is from Waters to Keith Sabin, in Daves' absence, and is dated September 29, 1986 and describes the purchasing history of Flight from Fiesta and the current unwelcome "blitz" he, Waters, is undergoing from Ritz Productions regarding theatrical rights. Waters encloses an initialed copy of the letter he wrote to Ritz Productions redirecting their overtures to Daves upon her return from Europe. Both of these letters are stapled together with retained copies of both Sabin's and Daves' replies, as well as a retained copy of an earlier letter from Sabin to Waters saying they had been approached by Ritz and the initial contact letter from Ritz with an unsigned agreement for Right of First Refusal. Also included is a letter from Fiesta publisher Clark Kimball to Daves recommending the production company. The fourth typed letter signed, from Waters to Daves, dated April 29, 1987, again describes the publishing history of Flight from Fiesta and informs Daves that the publisher, Clark Kimball, has been approached by CBS-Columbia regarding film rights, and he includes Kimball's letter. Attached are the retained copies of letters from Daves to both Waters and Kimball, admonishing all that Kimball has no role in film rights for the title, and a later letter from Kimball acquiesces. The fifth typed letter signed, from Waters to Daves (August 3, 1987), delineates an additional inquiry regarding a film option for Flight from Fiesta and several leads on optioning The Woman at Otowi Crossing should Lesley Ann Warren's option expire. Waters takes Daves to task for not responding to offers already presented, for not keeping him informed, and for being about to depart for Europe leaving him without representation: "I don't like to end our agent-client relationship after so many years, but if the overload of work at this crucial time is too much for you, I don't see any alternative." A copy of a letter to Waters at about this point from Alton Walpole shows one of the interested parties facing obstacles bringing Otowi Crossing to the screen. Also, a letter to Daves from The University of Nevada thanks Daves for sending financials on Ohio University Press's Frank Waters: A Retrospective Anthology (included), but bemoans how infrequent the agent's communiques have become. However, the Daves-Waters agent-client relationship was ongoing in October: in the sixth typed letter signed in this archive, Waters informs Daves of yet another inquiry for Flight from Fiesta and asks her advice about payment on an opportunity he has to write the text for a book of photographs to be published by Arizona Highways (likely Eternal Desert, published in 1990). As mentioned, many of the letters are stapled; most are folded for mailing; in some instances they bear the agency's routing marks or highlighting. The lot as a whole is near fine. [#031770] $1,250
$938