The Truro Bear and Other Adventures: Poems and Essays
Oliver, Mary First edition, first printing. Signed by Mary Oliver on the title page. [xii], 80, [4] pp. Bound in publisher's red boards with brown cloth backstrip, spine lettered in gilt. Fine in a bright, slightly rubbed dust jacket, else Fine.- $750
- $750
The History of Magic: Including a Clear and Precise Exposition of Its Procedure, Its Rites and Its Mysteries
Levi, Eliphas; Arthur Edward Waite [Translator] First American edition, first printing. xxxvi, 536 pp. with 20 illustrated plates. Bound in publisher's royal blue cloth with gilt stamping and topstain, tissue-guarded frontis of the author. Very Good with cracked hinges that are holding; textblock fallen; light wear at tips; contents bright. In the very rare, fragile dust jacket, chipped along edges with two interior chips to the spine, archival mending tissue repairs along joints of panels re-attaching them; About Good. A major 19th century occult work by the French magician Eliphas Levi (AKA Alphonse Louis Constant), published in French in 1860, but not translated into English until 53 years later with British edition of Rider. This US edition appears to have been printed from British sheets.- $3,000
- $3,000
New and Selected Poems, Volume One
Oliver, Mary Signed by Mary Oliver on the title page. xii, 255, [3] pp. Bound in publisher's wraps. First printing thus. Near Fine with a little shelf wear. This collection features thirty poems published only in this volume as well as selections from the poet's first eight books. Winner of the National Book Award in 1992.- $450
- $450
Dancing Naked in the Mind Field
Mullis, Kary First edition, first printing. Signed by Kary Mullis on the title page, inscribed to a fellow classmate at Dreher High School in Columbia, South Carolina. x, 223 pp. Bound in publisher's black cloth and boards, spine lettered in gilt. Fine in Fine dust jacket, hint of shelf wear. The autobiography of the late Nobel Prize-winning biochemist, which has become very rare signed. He's best known as the inventor of the PCR test, which was front and center during the Covid pandemic. An iconoclast, his hobbies included surfing and taking hallucinogenic drugs.- $2,500
- $2,500
Two newsletters from America for Americans: Intelligence Bulletins Nos. 50 & 153
Cherep-Spiridovich, V. [Pseudonym of Howard Victor von Broenstrupp] Two issues of the newsletter of fascist group America for Americans in different formats and with variations in the title or headline, all very good; issues present are American Tribunal Intelligence Bulletin No. 50 and America for Americans / Ancient & Noble Order of the Blue Lamoo Intelligence Bulletin 153. Very Good, lightly edge, folded horizontally; small chip to No. 50. These were obtained at the time by Maurice Rovner, a Jewish teacher from Buffalo, NY, who joined the mailing lists of various radical political organizations to track their activities (he used the partial synonym of C.T. Rovner for the purposes of this mailing list). He has occasionally added the date of receipt in pen on the first page of No. 50. Russian exile Arthur Cherep-Spiridovich gained notoriety for his antisemitic tract The Secret World Government, or, "The Hidden Hand", as well as for his propagandizing amongst the White Russian community in America. Upon his mysterious death in 1926, his adult "adopted son" Howard Victor von Broenstrupp essentially assumed his identity, created a throne room in a mansion from whence he issued spurious titles of nobility, bankrupted and defrauded the wealthy widow who had been bankrolling him, and eventually began issuing propaganda for Nazi Germany. This sub rosa work came under increasing public scrutiny with the close of the '30s as WWII began in Europe. The author's bizarre chivalric group The Ancient & Noble Order of the Blue Lamoo (alleged to have headquarters in the Black Hills of South Dakota) would be singled out by Martin Dies, chairman of HUAC, and others as a literal espionage network, about which little was ultimately revealed, as historian Kevin Coogan writes in the 2021 book The Spy Who Would Be Czar. No copies of any of these newsletters found in a recent OCLC search. A rare survival from a secretive milieu where heraldric societies, bogus religious orders, espionage, con artistry, and far right politics intersected.- $350
- $350
Hollywood
Bukowski, Charles First edition, limited issue. Copy #191 of a limited 500 signed by Charles Bukowski. 239, [5] pp. Bound in publisher's original paper-covered boards over maroon spine cloth with paper spine label. Near Fine in publisher's unprinted acetate wrappers, which have become cloudy, bubbling along spine. Bukowski's novel of his experiences with the film industry.- $750
- $750
Here To-day and Gone To-morrow
Bromfield, Louis First British edition. 378 pp. Bound in publisher's black cloth with gilt lettering. Near Fine with a little wrinkling to cloth, small bookseller's ticket on paste down, in a beautifully-designed Near Fine foil dust jacket with edge wear, line of rubbing to spine panel, nonetheless in great shape for its fragility. A collection of stories by the American Pulitzer-winning author. He's fallen into obscurity despite his overwhelming popularity and critical acclaim in the 1920s and 1930s. Many of the dust jackets to his books are spectacularly designed in an art deco style; this one is no exception.- $250
- $250
The Possum Hunters: A Story of the Tobacco War in Kentucky
Slade, James William First edition. 376 pp. Bound in publisher's crimson cloth with gilt lettering. About Very Good with dulled gilt, hinges cracked but holding, page gatherings over-opened and textblock fallen, slight creasing to pages towards front. A scarce novel of Kentucky set approximately 15 years in the past. A contemporary reviewer for The Lexington Herald-Leader said of it, "This is a book absorbing and full of meat. [Slade] has created a good strong historical story dealing with our tobacco war, our night riders, and our Society of Equity." Small tobacco growers banded together at the time to fight the monopoly American Tobacco Company; the Possum Hunters were their vigilante wing.- $750
- $750