D. Anthem, Bookseller Archives - Rare Book Insider

D. Anthem, Bookseller

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Memoirs of Josefine Mutzerbacher [Mutzenbacher]: The Story of a Viennese Prostitute as Told By Herself

Memoirs of Josefine Mutzerbacher [Mutzenbacher]: The Story of a Viennese Prostitute as Told By Herself

[Salten, Felix] [New York?]: n.p., 1931. A scarce pirated edition of the first English translation of the controversial erotic novel first published in Vienna in 1906 and generally attributed to Bambi author Felix Salten. The book is told from the perspective of an aging Viennese prostitute who recounts in graphic detail her many sexual escapades. It was banned in Austria from 1913-1971 and was at the center of numerous legal cases. It was also the basis for a number of literary sequels, pornographic film adaptations, theater productions, and scholarly articles. The first English language edition was published in Paris in 1931 by Jack Kahane's Obelisk Press and was quickly pirated in New York City (publisher unknown, but thought to be either Sam Roth or Jake Brussell) and illustrated by Mahlon Blaine. But although our copy has some corresponding points for this edition, ‘Mutzenbacher' is misspelled ‘Mutzerbacher' to both the cover and title page, which is not mentioned in any of the official or unofficial bibliographies (we primarily deferred to Dr. Markus Läng's Felix Salten: A Preliminary Bibliography of His Works in Translation). Although the frontispiece could be by Blaine, there are two other illustrations very different in style signed by LeRoy, and three pornographic photographs. Unfortunately, there are no copies of this edition in WorldCat. A copy was sold at Bonham's in 2006, but it was sold as part of a erotic novel lot and was not described in detail. Cheaply bound and printed in wrappers (8" x 5 ½"), 192 p., illustrations. Light wear to covers, but about near fine.
  • $250
The Conflict in America. A Funeral Discourse Occasioned by the Death of John Brown of Ossawattomie

The Conflict in America. A Funeral Discourse Occasioned by the Death of John Brown of Ossawattomie, Who Entered Into Rest, From the Gallows, Charlestown, Virginia, Dec. 2, 1859. Preached at the Warren St. M. E. Church, Roxbury, Dec. 4

Newhall, Rev. Fales Henry Boston: J. M. Hewes, 1859. A significant and early tribute to abolitionist John Brown in the form of a sermon preached two days after his execution by the sympathetic Methodist Episcopal preacher Fales Henry Newhall (1827-1883) in Roxbury, MA. Newhall recounts Brown's life leading up to the insurrection at Harper's Ferry and compares him throughout with the Biblical figure Samson (Newhall referes to Brown as "Samson of Ossawattomie [sic]). As detailed in Jeremy Schipper and Nyasha Junior's book, Black Samson: The Untold Story of an American Icon, by the 1850s abolitionists were frequently being compared with Samson and his battle against the Philistines and Brown himself used the analogy in letters before his death. Newhall's sermon was one of a number preached in the days and weeks following Brown's execution, an execution Newhall believed symbolized the "mortal conflict between Christianity and American Slavery" (p. [3]). One scholar called it a "fusion of martyrdom and apocalyptic millennialism" (Trodd, p. 310), and it was reprinted in James Redpath's landmark tribute to Brown, Echoes of Harper's Ferry (1860), which collected lectures, speeches, sermons, testimonials, and poems about Brown, as well as his prison letters. Sabin 54993 Lacking original wrappers, evidence of disbinding; string bound text block (8 ½" x 5 ½"), 22 p. Abrasion along the spine, 1" closed tear beginning along the bottom of the first (title) page. References: Trodd, Zoe. "John Brown's Spirit: The Abolitionist Aesthetic of Emancipatory Martyrdom in Early Antilynching Protest Literature." Journal of American studies 49, no. 2 (2015): 305-321; Junior, Nyasha, and Jeremy Schipper. Black Samson : the Untold Story of an American Icon. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020 (see in particular chapter 3, "Samson and the Making of American Martyrs).
  • $2,000
  • $2,000
Declaration by the Provisional National Government

Declaration by the Provisional National Government

[Duggan, Ken] [New York]: Provisional National Government, 1971. A scarce flyer for the short-lived political party founded by independent rightist, conspriacist and Church of Satan member Ken Duggan. Duggan spent much of the 1970s trying to unify extreme right and extreme left individuals and groups against what he perceived to be the true threat to democracy: a cartel of international banking and corporate interests all controlled by the Illuminati and exemplified in NYC by the Rockefeller family. As the PNG's declaration asserts: WHEREAS the government of the Republic of the United States of America has come totally under the control of the money and agents of secret societies and international bankers, AND WHEREAS we are citizens of the United States of America owing our allegiance to that country and tis people and its constitution alone, WE ARE THEREFORE EMPOWERED to declare that this country is occupied by alien forces and the Provisional National Government issues this declaration to its people as the only government which the people can consider their own. Founded in 1970, by 1974 Duggan was complaining of two competing factions within the PNG (which had been renamed Patriotic Nationalist Groups): White Christian Anti-Communists who wanted to "turn America into a White Christian corporate state ruled by a racist theocracy" (letter from Duggan to ---) and American Nationalist Libertarians of which Duggan considered himself. This led to the dissolution of the PNG in 1974. In 1975, Duggan was arrested on an attempted murder charge for shooting an ex-PNG member named George Wilkie. He was sent to Riker's where he proclaimed his innocence. He was found dead in his cell in 1976, an apparent suicide, although his supporters maintained he was murdered. Duggan originally published the declaration in 1970 and the following year it was reprinted by the Grass Roots Defense Committee (this copy), an obscure group with nuanced politics that corresponded with elements of the extreme right (although the pseudonymous figure who ran it was a left-anarchist). The Committee later published Duggan's pamphlet, Secret Society. Mimeographed in black on the recto of an 11" x 8 ½" sheet. A fine copy.
  • $150