Basin Range by John Mcphee: Signed (8 results)

Softcover. Condition: Near fine. First edition. Thirteenth printing, 1989. Inscribed on the title page: "For Dan, regards, John McPhee." Uncommon signed in paperback, especially this edition with the original cover and illustrated epoch endpapers. The third book in his quartet of geology books that surveyed America and ultimately won the Pulitzer Prize repackaged asAnnals of the Former World. This one tours Nevada. A very near fine, tight paperback with a few minor scratches to front wrap.…

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. 1st Edition. Association copy. First printing hardcover with an inscription on the half title: "For Murray Murphey, from LeAnna Whitman, and with all best, too, from a friend dating back to early geologic time. John McPhee." That's a fun bit of wit from McPhee, considering the book. LeAnna Whitman is John McPhee s sister-in-law (he is married to Yolanda Whitman), and Murray Murphey was a philosopher and historian at the University of Pennsylvania, where he pioneered and chaired the Department of American Civilization. Murphey and McPhee shared a fellowship year at Cambridge University in 1953-1954, which is likely when and where they became friends the "early geologic time" McPhee references. Murphey grew up in Colorado Springs and no doubt had an appreciation for Western geography and geology. He contributed, for example, an essay on John Wesley Powell's "The Exploration of the Colorado River" to the anthology Landmarks of American Writing--and a first edition hardcover of that anthology (ed. Hennig Cohen, Basic Book 1969) is included with this purchase. This copy of the Basin and Range is in very good condition, its only demerit some foxing to the page block, especially the top face, and some adjacent foxing to the top edges of the boards. The jacket is very good; the cover looks great with some faint sunning to spine and some foxing to top of back flap. No tears or chips. Basin and Range is of course the first installment of what would become McPhee's Pulitzer-prize-winning compilation Annals of the Former World. Signed by Author(s).…

Hardcover. Condition: Fine. dj. First edition. An association copy, inscribed on the half-title page: "for Judy and Bob Belous, who do not need a geologist to tel them where to find exotic terrain. best always, John McPhee." Uncommon signed. Robert Belous was a friend McPhee made in Alaska as he wrote Coming into the Country, thus the inscription refers to the stunning landscape of Alaska. Belous was an important figure with the National Park Service there in the run up to the passage of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA), which Jimmy Carter signed into law in 1980, more than doubling the size of the National Park System. Belous began his career as a freelance wildlife photographer based in Jackson Hole, where he befriended and worked with wilderness leader and icon Margaret Murie. His association with her and the wilderness movement soon tipped him toward Alaska. He joined the NPS's Alaska Task Force in 1972 first as a photographer, then became the "keyman" for the planning of the Cape Krusenstern and Kobuk Valley areas (eventually a National Monument and National Park, respectively, totaling more than 2 million acres), and in 1975 began serving as the Alaska Task Force's public programs and liason officer. In essence, he had an important and varied hand in the preservation of Alaskan lands. See this tribute for more about his career and influence. As liason officer for the NPS in Alaska, he would have been a key source and guide for McPhee in the writing of Coming into the Country, which was published in 1977 amid (and about) the push for the ANILCA. They remained friends over the years (as other inscriptions attest), visiting each other. Belous later worked in Redwood National Parks before ending his career as the superintendent of the Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve in Louisiana. This is the first of McPhee's geology quartet that ultimately won the Pulitzer Prize repackaged as Annals of a Former World. Beige paper boards with a black cloth spine. A fine copy in a very good jacket with wear to top edge, including a couple short tears, and sunning to spine. More about the book: "The first of John McPhee's works in his series on geology and geologists, Basin and Range is a book of journeys through ancient terrains, always in juxtaposition with travels in the modern world-a history of vanished landscapes, enhanced by the histories of people who bring them to light. The title refers to the physiographic province of the United States that reaches from eastern Utah to eastern California, a silent world of austere beauty, of hundreds of discrete high mountain ranges that are green with junipers and often white with snow. The terrain becomes the setting for a lyrical evocation of the science of geology, with important digressions into the plate-tectonics revolution and the history of the geologic time scale.". Signed.…

dj. 1st Edition. Fine (covers nice; contents clean & tight); nice (but spine sunned, as usual, & price-clipped) d/j. 8vo., cloth & boards in dust jacket; 216 pages First Edition, first printing. Signed presentation from McPhee on the title page: "For John Pember, all best, John McPhee." Pember was a NJ-based teacher who had a large collection of autograped books. Signed.…

Condition: Near Fine. dj. Second printing. 215, [1]. 8.5" x 5.5" RENO AND SALT LAKE ARE MOVING John McPhee turns his nonfiction chops to geology once more in his first installation to the Pulitzer Prize-winning Annals of the Former World series. Descending from the mountains of Utah into the valleys of California, McPhee explores millions of years of the former world as Reno and Salt Lake City slowly move away from each other. Signed by McPhee on half title. Lightly sunned lower edge, near fine in near fine, price-clipped dust jacket with moderately sunned spine, short closed tear upper edge, in mylar cover. Quarter black cloth in Clarence King dust jacket. Signed.…

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. 2 vols. 8.5 x 5.5", cloth, 216pp; 210pp, extremities lightly bumped and worn, spines sunned else nice copies in a nice pictorial slipcase. EACH BOOK IS LIMITED TO 450 COPIES (#45), EACH SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR. BASIN AND RANGE IS A FIRST PRINTING.

Cloth. Condition: Fine. Signed Limited Edition. Octavo, [two volumes], [10], 216pp; [12], 210pp. Uniform brown cloth bindings, title stamped in gilt on the spine. Housed in the publisher's pictorial slipcase. Each volume numbered and signed by John McPhee. From a limited edition of 450 copies signed by the author, this being number 27. A fine set. This set includes Book I: Basin and Range and Book II: In Suspect Terrain, the first two volumes in McPhee's geological history of North America. The full Annals Of The Former World was later published in 1998 and won the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction in 1999. The signed limited edition of Annals Of The Former World by John McPhee. (illustrator). Signed.…

Hardcover. Condition: Very good. Hardcover. #111 of 450cc signed by McPhee in each volume. Slipcase just slightly rubbed, two tiny spots of wear to the cloth on the spine of volue one, else a very good set.