Invisible Cities by Calvino Italo, Signed (3 results)

Hardcover. Condition: Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. First Edition. Translated by William Weaver. With a laid-in holograph postcard signed by Calvino to scholar Albert Howard Carter. Good in a Very Good Fine jacket, unclipped ($6.50), rubbed at the surface and edges, a few small chips at the head of the spine. Quarter grey buckram with black paper on the boards, bumped and rubbed at the edges and corners. Bound with a forward lean and some reading wear, annotations from Calvino scholar Albert Howard Carter throughout, demonstrating the effort required to puzzle together the order of the book. Calvino's novel in the form of a time traveling conversation between Kublai Khan and Marco Polo. Neblua Award nominee in 1975.

Folio. 13.25 x 14 in. 164 pp., composed of coloured and white Italian Tiziano paper, mould made at the Fabriano mill, featuring Veronese Monotype & handset, as well as Twentieth-Century handset printing types. With 12 photopolymer plates, printed on the mylar with letterpress after artwork executed by Thiebaud, inventively arranged to reveal hidden cities and objects until turned by the reader, with the final sheet simulating hidden etched reproductions of Thiebaud's cakes, gumball machines, tiny cityscapes, and figures while overlaying the rear aluminum plate. Original anodized aluminum 4-ring post-binding, featuring screw-bolt U-posts, allowing leaves to be turned easily, an inventive anodized aluminum cover, notched for the posts, with bolt that slides in to hold the cover in place, title edged into the spine,(very slight divot scoring the upper front cover, slight dimple to a couple leaves, scuffing to lower aluminum plate), still a VG copy, signed by the artist on leaf below photopolymer frontisp., numbered at rear. First Arion Press edition, No. 305 of 400 copies signed & numbered for direct sale of this fabulous collaboration between the Arion Press design team of Andrew Hoyem, and the whimsical artwork of Thiebaud (1920-2021), a noted California artist whose legendary energy and production was prodigious, and whose classes were hugely popular at UC Davis. Calvino's (1923-1985) Invisible Cities was first published in Italy in 1972 as "Le citta invisibili," a surrealistic historical fantasy exploring the complex and exotic 55 fictitious cities visited by Marco Polo as he carries on a conversation with the emperor Kublai Khan describing his ever expanding and vast empire.

hardcover. Condition: Fine copy in metal box. Illus. by Wayne Thiebaud (illustrator). 1st edition. Folio, Limited to 400 numbered copies, signed by the illustrator on the page opposite to the first drawing, Translated from the Italian & introduced by William Weaver. The paper, both colored and white, is Italian Tiziano, mould-made at Fabriano mill. The types are Veronese (Monotype and handset) and Twentieth Century ( handset). The type (on paper) and the photopolymer plates for the drawings (on mylar) were printed by letterpress. The book is bound in an anodized aluminum ring binding with U-posts, allowing the leaves to be turned over in sequence. A back cover supports four U-posts, a lid has four slots through which the U-posts rise, and a locking pin of aluminum rod slips through the hoops securing the lid to the base. The binding was fabricated by Paul Sheet Metal Works in San Francisco. The titling is screen-printed onto a side of the lid. Includes the original cardboard mailing carton.