Sumner & Stillman [ABAA]

London and New York: Frederick Warne, (1971). Original white cloth pictorially decorated in color, with matching dust jacket. First Edition, published 28 years after the author / illustrator's death. The Foreword by Leslie Linder explains that Potter wrote this in 1906, and the plan was for it to be a third title in panoramic (or concertina) form -- after FIERCE BAD RABBIT and MISS MOPPET. But the booksellers complained that they were having trouble re-folding those books after people perused them, and SLY OLD CAT was put off numerous times over the subsequent years. It involves a cat who invites a rat to a tea-party -- the latter of whom fears he might be intended as dessert. This is a fine copy in a fine jacket. See Linder p. 434 (SLY OLD CAT was published in the same year as the Linder bibliography).…

First Edition. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1887. 12 pp undated ads. Original blue-violet cloth decorated in brown and gilt. First Edition of this novel in which the spirit of an emotionally-detached doctor, after a sudden and fatal accident, wanders through an afterlife realm -- through "the gates between" life and death. This was the last of the author's three novels about the "Gates," regarding "life" after death, following THE GATES AJAR (1869) and BEYOND THE GATES (1883). Phelps was quite a person, obviously challenging Christian beliefs in the afterlife; the year after this book was published, in her 40s, she married a man 17 years her junior (at which point she added the last name Ward). She urged women not only to burn their corsets but also to become physicians, artists, whatever (she was the first woman to present a lecture series at Boston University). This copy is in Blanck's binding "B" (no priority), the front cover bearing an elaborate fillet of stylized flowers (rather than a butterfly) -- though the volume has light yellow endpapers which are specified for binding "A". Condition is very good-plus (light rubbing at the extremities, spine slightly darkened). Blanck 20927.…

The Theodore Spencer Memorial Lecture. Harvard University. November 21, 1950. London: Faber & Faber, (1951). Original red cloth, with dust jacket. First English Edition, published about six months after the one by the Harvard University Press. This is a fine copy, in a dust jacket that is very good (one unnecessary internal mend, very slight edge-wear, price-clipped). Gallup A57b.…

[1/150 numbered copies] New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1901. [In Two Volumes.] Original pale blue-grey paper-covered boards with white parchment spine and fore-tips. Large-Paper Edition, consisting of 150 copies on Holland paper, this being copy #96. This is a posthumous collection of often-humorous sketches and poems that Field wrote for the Chicago Daily News, in his morning-edition column "Sharps and Flats." The first (trade) edition, from the same plates, came out in December 1900 (and bears that date on the title pages); this limited issue followed in March 1901. This is a remarkably clean, fine set (lacking dust jackets). See Blanck 5784.…

[London:] George Routledge & Sons, n.d.[1890]. Original white pictorial boards with yellow cloth spine. This was the ninth of the fourteen almanacks by Kate Greenaway, in the standard binding of white pictorial boards showing a woman with three children, within a border of leaves. There are 22 pages bearing Greenaway illustrations in color. This is a very good-plus copy (very minor soil, one small chip out of the yellow cloth spine, bookplate). Birmingham G.57.…

London: George Routledge & Sons, n.d.[1885]. Original white morocco-grain boards pictorially decorated in gilt and bordered in dark blue, all edges gilt. This was the fourth of the fourteen Greenaway almanacks, and includes 23 pages bearing her color illustrations. This copy is in the special binding of imitation-morocco white boards, with illustration and lettering in gilt and with border in dark blue. This is a near-fine copy, with very minor cover soil. Birmingham G.52.…

London: George Routledge and Sons, 1873. 6 pp undated ads. Original green cloth stamped in black and gilt, beveled. First Edition (English -- this and the American edition came out simultaneously on September 6, 1873). Quoting from William Dean Howells's review in the November 1873 Atlantic Magazine, In Aftermath, we have somehow a better sense than before of our poet's genius. The perfect serenity of his mental atmosphere widens those clear horizons along which lurks a melancholy light, and lets us perceive how great his range has been and in what an ample spirit he has touched his many themes. This is from Blanck's first "state (printing?)," with "Little cared for his Babes," on page 64. It is a bright copy, fine except for very slight wear at the tips; there is an "Oct. 1873" ownership signature. Blanck 12164.…

New York: Rudd & Carleton, 1859. Original blind-stamped brown cloth. First Edition of this very early Aldrich volume, his fourth -- after THE BELLS (1855), DAISY'S NECKLACE (1857) and THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE (1858). The title verse is "the poem of a little life that was but three Aprils long." This copy is in chocolate brown "A" cloth (one of three cloths used, without precedence); it has no ads (some but not all copies have either 5 pp or 10 pp). This is a remarkably fine, bright copy, virtually as new. Blanck 253.…

Illustrated by E. Boyd Smith. Westminster: Archibald Constable & Co., 1899. Original olive green cloth pictorially decorated in black and red. First Edition, English issue, of this collection of fourteen tales -- including a few about Brer Rabbit and friends. This is a children's story book in the same general format as the four books Harris had collaborated on with Oliver Herford a few years earlier, but instead illustrated by E. Boyd Smith (who had just illustrated Harris's TALES OF THE HOME FOLKS). These are Houghton Mifflin sheets, printed in Cambridge Massachusetts, but with a Constable title page for the English market. This is a very good-plus copy (some soil on the blank rear cover, otherwise fine). See Blanck 7142.…

London: George Routledge and Sons, n.d.[1882]. Original glazed pictorial boards with yellow cloth spine. This was the first of Kate Greenaway's fourteen little almanacks -- probably published actually in late 1882. There are 23 pages of charming illustrations in color. This is a very good-plus copy (minor cover soil and rubbing, bookplate on front endpaper). Birmingham G.49.…

Cambridge & Chicago: Stone & Kimball, 1893. Original grey cloth decorated in gilt, beveled. First Edition, which consisted of only 500 copies (so stated). This tale, by the Hoosier who migrated to the Pacific Northwest, takes place in Jerusalem and the Holy Lands at the time of Christ. It is today collected largely as a fine production by the publisher Stone & Kimball. A fine copy. Kramer 6.…

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1898. Original brown cloth blocked in white. First American Edition of this early Hornung collection of eleven imaginative tales, including "The Widow of Piper's Point," "The Magic Cigar" and "A Spin of the Coin." This book came out five years after Hornung married Constance, sister of Arthur Conan Doyle, and one year before Hornung created his most memorable character, Raffles the gentleman cricketer (and crook). Except for one small blemish on the front cover (affecting the title's "U"), this is a fine copy.…

Concluding with The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid. New York and London: Harper & Brothers, (1913). Original dark green cloth with monogram device in gilt. First (American) Edition, published simultaneously with the English one. To quote from Hardy's prefatory note, this is a collection of "for what they may be worth, a dozen minor novels" that had previously appeared only in periodicals -- between 1881 and 1900, before Hardy had forsaken fiction for verse. It constitutes Hardy's last major volume of prose. The American edition, which in our experience is scarcer than the English one, has as a frontispiece a Reinhart illustration from "The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid," where the English edition has a photogravure of Maiden Castle. This is a fine, bright copy (very faint discoloration on the rear cover). Purdy pp 156-7.…

London: Hodder and Stoughton, [1922]. Original light blue cloth lettered in dark blue. First Edition of Buchan's first mystery to feature Dickson McCunn -- a retired Glasgow grocer who hopes to get a little relaxation and exercise with a walking holiday in Galloway. The other two McCunn mysteries would be CASTLE GAY and THE HOUSE OF THE FOUR WINDS. The endpapers are printed with a map of "The Cruives," the Huntingtower House environs. On the title verso of this copy, it does not include "First published August, 1922" above the printer's imprint, possibly indicating a later issue; instead, there is a handwritten inscription "To My Beloved Wife | Edinburgh | Christmas 1922." This is a near-fine copy of this light-colored, cheaply-produced book (spine slightly sunned, lower fore-corner slightly smooshed). An uncommon title. Blanchard A53.…

London and Edinburgh: T.C. & E.C. Jack, 1917. Original dark violet cloth. First Edition of John Buchan's first volume of verse (there were also fifty numbered/signed copies). Like his countryman Robert Louis Stevenson's UNDERWOODS of thirty years earlier, the verses in this volume are half in Scots and half in English. The book is dedicated to the author's brother Alastair -- "Lieutenant, Royal Scots Fusiliers, who fell at Arras on Easter Monday [April 9th] 1917"; this book was published two months later, in June. This is a near-fine copy, with a bumped fore-corner. The front free endpaper bears penciled initials dated July 1917. Blanchard A43.…

Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1868. Original terra-cotta cloth decorated in gilt. First American Edition (published on the same day as the London edition and the Leipzig edition) of these two plays in verse form -- "John Endicott" sited in 1665 Boston and "Giles Corey" in 1692 Salem. This copy is in terra-cotta cloth (one of three colors that were used in addition to several leather bindings), and has the TF pendant device in the supposed second state (with a hollow pendant). As Blanck points out, there were four identical printings dated 1868 (the first almost double the size of the other three combined), though there are at least two instances of type-batter (which this copy does exhibit) that may indicate a copy from late in the first printing or from one of the other three. This is a fine, bright copy. Blanck 12150.…

Authorized Edition. New York: Lovell, Coryell & Company, n.d. [1892]. Original maroon cloth, beveled. First Combined Edition, later issue (with Lovell Coryell, rather than United States Book Co., as the publisher). These two pieces first appeared in 1888 as the second and fourth numbers in the Indian Railway Series, Allahabad; John Lovell issued each in wrappers in 1890 in his "Westminster Series," before combining the two in the present volume (U.S. Book Co. in 1891, Lovell Coryell in 1892). This would be a fine copy were it not for the slight fading of the maroon spine -- almost unavoidable for this color. See Richards A42 note; Stewart 50. This is the George Barr McCutcheon copy, with his bookplate, housed in a morocco-backed slipcase with inner chemise.…

Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1871. Original bright green cloth decorated in gilt, beveled. First Edition. This is actually what Longfellow considered to be Part I of a trilogy, the other two parts of which had already been published. It had to do with Cristendom through the ages -- the Apostolic, Middle and Modern Ages. THE GOLDEN LEGEND (1851) constituted Part II, and THE NEW ENGLAND TRAGEDIES (1868) Part III. This copy is green (one of several colors used); in addition to regular copies such as this, a large paper issue was printed. Though a rather common book, this is an unusually fine, bright copy. Blanck 12157.…

Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin and Company, 1895. Original light green cloth pictorially decorated in gilt, all page edges gilt. First Edition of this collection of juvenile tales and verse, published the year after Celia Thaxter's death, and edited (with a brief Preface by) Sarah Orne Jewett. Of the poems, the last thirteen listed appear here in book form for the first time; the others had appeared in earlier Thaxter books. Near-fine (one small rub on the front cover gilt). Blanck 19927.…

Being Heretofore Uncollected Sketches published in the Golden Era in the Sixties. With Many Drawings by Lloyd Hoff. Collected and Edited, with an Introduction by Franklin Walker. San Francisco: George Fields, 1938. Original green paper-covered boards with black cloth spine and green spine label, with dust jacket. First Edition of this collection of sketches that Twain had written at the outset of his career, for Golden Era in San Francisco during the 1860s. He did not have them collected in book form earlier because he considered many of them too unrefined for his subsequent Eastern readers. This copy is in fine condition; the dust jacket is near-fine (spine slightly faded, a few tiny tears). Blanck 3559. …

Toronto: The Ryerson Press, n.d.[1923]. Original dark green cloth. This is a hybrid copy of the First Canadian Edition (from the second English impression) -- a copy planned for the UK domestic market but redirected (with "The Ryerson Press" binding and with cancel title leaf undated on the verso) to the Canadian market. Per Supino: The second impression was bound both for domestic issue [in dark green cloth] and for the first Canadian issue published by the Ryerson Press [in red cloth, with 1923-dated copyright page]. Due to considerable Canadian demand, a portion of the second impression was also devoted to a second Canadian issue with a cancelled [undated] title leaf [in dark green cloth]. The undated Ryerson copies in green are considerably scarcer than the standard Ryerson dated copies in red. This copy is in very good condition, without dust jacket (if ever so issued): there is a small scar in the spine just below the title panel, plus minor wear at the head of the spine. Supino A24.10.0 (this copy). Provenance: discreet bookplate of Conrad bibliographer David J. Supino. …

London: Archibald Constable and Company, 1904. 16 pp undated ads. Original deep red cloth. First Edition, which consisted of 3,000 copies. This was Gissing's incomplete historical novel, posthumously published. He still had five chapters to write when on 28 December 1903, wracked with double pneumonia, he died in the French Pyrenees. H.G. Wells, who had been summoned and had arrived on Christmas Day, was present at Gissing's death bed, and wrote the original preface for this work; however, the Gissing family objected to it so strongly that one by Frederic Harrison was substituted. (Wells published his in a periodical anyway). Constable made no objection to publishing the novel as it stood. [S&C]. VERANILDA takes place in Ancient Rome, continuing Gissing's fascination with that country (and that era); he spent four months in 1897-1898 preparing for this book. In late 1900 he wrote to his friend Eduard Bertz, "I really think I can make an interesting book. One thing is certain -- I know my period.". This is a very good-plus, perhaps near-fine copy with minor soil and rubbing. Coustillas A26.1a; Collie B1a; Spiers & Coustillas DD9. Provenance: this copy appropriately came to us from Italy, and bears the inscription "To Distinctissima, Signora, Contessa, Marianna Brenzoni, in remembrance of S.S. "Irma" July, 1909 -- from R.W.R."; loosely inserted is the calling card "Mr. R.W. Robins" with "with" and " ' compts." added.…

Garden City NY: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1924. Original decorative boards with black cloth spine and printed labels, with dust jacket. First American Edition of this last of the three "collaborations" between Conrad and Hueffer/Ford (following THE INHERITORS and ROMANCE). (The English edition is by Conrad and "F.M. Hueffer"; the American is by Conrad and "Ford Madox Ford," using his de-Germanized adopted name). The book was actually written in 1906, at a time when their relationship was disintegrating, and it was virtually all Hueffer's work -- it is really nothing more than a "thinly disguised autobiographical memoir by Ford, to which he evidently wanted Conrad to contribute". As Conrad lay dying in 1924, Hueffer asked his permission to publish it with Conrad's preface, to which Conrad reluctantly agreed. Conrad called it "'that idiotic publication,' and he refused to allow it to appear in THE BEST STORIES OF 1924. He was outraged that people were speaking of it as a fresh collaboration, rumors that could have started only with the irrepressible Ford" [quotes from Karl]. This is a fine copy; the dust jacket is near-fine (short tear on the spine, quite minor soil and edge-wear). This American edition is considerably scarcer than the English edition. Smith pp 94-95.…

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1914. Original olive-brown cloth. First American Edition, which consisted of 2000 copies and was published one day after Dent's London edition. Novelists covered by James include Robert Louis Stevenson, Emile Zola, Gustave Flaubert, Honore de Balzac and George Sand. This was one of several James titles that was unfortunately bound for Scribner's in this unattractive olive-brown cloth that is very prone to soil and fading; this, however, is a fine copy with very little fading. Supino 73.2.0; Edel & Laurence A73b. Provenance: the front paste-down bears the bookplate of Theodore Woodman Gore (1847-1923), which bookplate was designed by the renowned American artist Edwin Howland Blashfield.…

London: T. Fisher Unwin, (1923). Original red cloth. First English Edition, first impression, of which this is a copy of the colonial "Overseas Edition" (so printed on the title page). This copy is in very good condition (minor edge-wear, a few droplet-marks, spine lettering dull). Supino A24.7.0 (binding A -- this copy). Provenance: discreet bookplate of the Conrad bibliographer David J. Supino.…

First Edition. An Illustrated Monthly Magazine. Irvington-on-the-Hudson NY: J.B.Walker, October 1899. Original tan wrappers printed in red and blue. First Appearance of Twain's opening salvo in his scathing attack on Mary Baker Eddy and her quickly-growing Christian Science Church. There would be more pieces in subsequent issues of Cosmopolitan, all of which would be collected in Twain's 362-page book in 1907 (beginning with the fictional tale in this issue). In this tale, the narrator falls off a 75-foot cliff in the Austrian Alps, and is carried to an inn where they summon a woman, a doctor from Boston, who happens to be staying nearby. Her initial advice, before seeing him, is to calm down -- she'll stop by the next day, but his body will have probably taken care of itself by then. The genesis of Twain's attacks on Christian Science was the fact that his eldest daughter Susy had shown an interest in "mind cures" and Christian Science, only to die of meningitis at age 24 in 1896. Ironically, his second daughter Clara, who suffered from significant health and nervous issues, had the opposite response -- becoming a faithful member of the Church and even writing a book about her positive experience. Also in this issue is "The Lady in the Box" by Frank R. Stockton -- a supernatural tale (illustrated) about a woman in a cataleptic trance in a coffin-like box, "living" for decades without aging. Additionally present is "What Work Is" by Charlotte Perkins Stetson, the social reform advocate and women's rights pioneer. This issue is in remarkably close-to-fine condition, with only very minor edge-wear. Included near the back are the preliminary leaves for the buyer to bind up the most-recent six issues (Vol. XXVII).…

Canterbury: Printed for private circulation by H.J. Goulden, 1922. Original pale turquoise printed wrappers. First Edition, second and usual printing. This was Conrad's tribute to the Dover Patrol, which during World War I had provided safe passage to the Continent for British troops, and generally protected Channel traffic. As with the companion volume issued by Goulden, JOHN GALSWORTHY, there were two distinct printings of this piece. The first printing, which is believed to have consisted of only 75 copies, has no title page and is stapled (and is printed on Chatham Mills watermarked paper). Conrad objected to the copies originally run off because there was no title page except the outside printed wrapper. So, to please the author, a title page and fore-title were added, the type re-imposed for gathering in quires of ten leaves, and a new printing made [sewn not stapled]. Copies from the second printing of both pamphlets are much more common than copies from the first printings [Cagle]. This is a very good-plus copy, with minor edgewear, a vertical crease (perhaps from original mailing?), and the inevitable fading of the pale turquoise wrappers; the leaves are still unopened. Supino B1.27.1; Cagle A56b.…

First Edition. London: Chatto & Windus, 1912. Original very dark blue cloth on beveled boards. First Separate Edition of RLS's piece on the history of the Stevenson family in Scotland. This book is sought by collectors of books on lighthouses, since the Stevenson family had been pre-eminent in the construction engineering of such buildings. More than half of the volume is devoted to the amazing project of building the lighthouse on Bell Rock (a treacherous North Sea reef that is submerged under sixteen feet of water at high tide) -- erected between 1807 and 1811 under the leadership of engineer Robert Stevenson, and today the world's oldest sea-washed lighthouse. It is widely considered one of the Seven Wonders of the Industrial World because its dovetailed masonry and Roman-cement construction have withstood brutal seas for over two centuries without needing a single stone replaced [Banijay]. This was first published in Vol XVIII of the Edinburgh Edition of Stevenson's works in 1896, just 18 months after RLS's death in Samoa. This copy is in the primary binding of very dark blue buckram, with beveled board edges and a gilt top edge of the leaves. Spine very slightly faded, but otherwise fine. Beinecke 696; Princeton 82.…

Garden City NY & Toronto: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1921. Original navy-blue cloth decorated in gilt. First American Edition, first printing (which is to say, in the standard navy-blue cloth binding). This is a collection of many of the pieces that had been published in 25-copy private issues (by Clement Shorter and by T.J. Wise) during the preceding two years. The title of the American edition includes the word "AND," where the English edition has an ampersand. Although the number of American copies printed is unknown, it is quite a scarce edition; its only reprints in early years were as a "Deep Sea" flexible-leather volume and for collected editions of Conrad's works, such as the "Sun-Dial," the "Canterbury," and the "Kent." This is a fine, bright copy. Supino A23.7.0 (including this very copy); Cagle A51b(1). Provenance: discreet bookplate of the Conrad bibliographer David J. Supino (also, loosely inserted in this copy is a card with his penciled notes regarding the collation).…

Garden City NY: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1915. Original blue limp leather decorated in gilt. First Edition, second printing, issued about 30 days after the first. (The first printing was in navy blue cloth, and this much-scarcer second, priced a bit higher, was in this "Deep Sea" format of blue limp leather.) This is a good-to-very good copy (some wear, especially at the edges of the spine). Supino A19.2.0 (this copy); Cagle A19a(2) ("no copy located"). Provenance: small flyleaf blind-stamp of Lindmark's Book Shop of Poughkeepsie NY -- which in 1963 made international news when the State of NY evicted the business (for a highway bypass), and 131,000 books were stacked on the sidewalk (to be taken by people, to be rained on, and ultimately to be incinerated); paste-down bookplate of Dorothy [Neal] and [Luther] Harris Hiscock (1893-1975) of New York State; front free endpaper verso bookplate of the Conrad bibliographer David J. Supino (loosely inserted are his notes regarding collation etc.).…