Neil Pearson Rare Books
Showing all 25 results
The Ghost
HARRIS, Robert 8vo, Original black boards, lettered in gilt to spine and with figures in gilt to front panel. Original slipcase. Still in unopened original shrink wrap. Fine and unopened in shrink-wrapped slipcase. First edition. One of 500 copies SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR TO LIMITATION PAGE. A fine, unopened copy (and still shrink-wrapped, which renders us unable to tell you which number this copy is).-
- $76
The Politics of Homosexuality
Gay Rights] MILLIGAN, Don 18pp. pamphlet. Original printed paper wrappers. Small inked US price (50c) to rear panel, otherwise a near fine copy. First edition. Don Milligan, a lifelong joiner and leaver of countless groups on the revolutionary Left, here argues for the abolition of marriage and the establishing of communes as the path to gay equality: 'Even when homosexuals do 'marry' each other they unwittingly turn marriage into a charade. Gay marriages performed by the Metropolitan Community Church in the USA are a grisly parody of heterosexual ceremonies. Far from making homosexuality acceptable, they demonstrate the absurdity of marriage and challenge the assumptions that the institution rests upon.' Wrong again, Don. A well preserved copy.-
- $15
The Confessions Of Josef Baisz
JACOBSON, Dan 8vo, pp. 204. Original grey boards, lettered in black to spine. Printed dustwrapper. Very slight offsetting to endpapers, but a near fine copy in a near fine dustwrapper with just a little wear to spine ends. First edition, INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR IN THE YEAR OF PUBLICATION: 'For John & Miriam, with love, Dan. September 1977.' The recipients were the literary critics John and Miriam Gross. Both Jacobson and John Gross wrote much admired memoirs of growing up in their respective Jewish communities, Heshel's Kingdom (1998) and A Common Thread (2000).-
- $57
Gay Rights: A Libertarian Approach
Gay Rights] RAICO, Ralph 12pp. pamphlet. Original green paper wrappers, lettered in white on green to front panel, and black on white to rear. A little wear to corners, rear panel lightly age-toned, but a well preserved copy. Early reissue. First published by the Chicago Libertarian Association in 1975. In line with their socially liberal and fiscally conservative philosophy, this Libertarian Party pamphlet argues for the repeal of all laws controlling or prohibiting homosexuality. Raico, a lifelong libertarian activist, was a history professor at Buffalo State College.-
- $25
Jacques-Louis David : A Personal Interpretation
Brookner, Anita 8vo pamphlet, pp. 23. Original pale green stiff paper wrappers, lettered in dark green to front and rear panels. A little crumpling to foot of spine, small blemish to front panel over price, but a very well preserved copy. First edition, preceding the author's first novel by seven years. Before becoming a pre-eminent novelist at the age of fifty-three, Dr. Anita Brookner was an eminent art historian. This, her monograph on David, is dedicated to Anthony Blunt, who supervised Brookner's doctorate on the French painter Jean-Baptiste Greuze, published in 1972. Very scarce.-
- $121
Sisters Under The Skin
PARKINSON, Norman 4to, unpaginated. Original maroon boards, lettered in silver to spine. Photographic dustwrapper. A near fine copy in a near fine dustwrapper with just a little general edgewear. Full page colour and b&w photographs by Parkinson throughout. First edition. A portfolio of women's portraits shot by Parkinson, with accompanying text by Edna O'Brien, David Frost, Paul McCartney, David Bailey, Cecil Beaton, Laurie Lee, Patrick White and many others.-
- $57
Bottoms Up
CARROLL, Jock Small 8vo, pp. 210. Original green stiff paper wrappers, lettered in black to front and rear panels and spine. New price printed faintly to rear panel. Ownership signature to ffep. (see below), binding a little loose, and with wear to spine ends. First edition. CANADIAN PUBLISHER STUART KEATE'S COPY, WITH HIS OWNERSHIP SIGNATURE TO FRONT FREE ENDPAPER. WITH A REVIEW OF THE BOOK BY 'TITUS CANBY' LAID IN, PUBLISHED IN THE MAY 1962 ISSUE OF INFINITY. Jock Carroll [1919-1995] was a Canadian photo-journalist and war correspondent. This, his only work of fiction, was inspired by a photo shoot on the set of Niagara (1953) with Marilyn Monroe. His friend Stuart Keate [1913-1987] was a Canadian newspaper publisher and President of The Canadian Press. Laid in to the book is an offprint from the May 1962 issue of Infinity, house journal of the American Society of Magazine Photographers. The offprint is a review of the book by one 'Titus Canby' -- almost certainly a pseudonym used by Carroll to push his own book: 'Titus Canby' was a character in an American comic strip called Bringing Up Father which was widely syndicated across continental America at the time. Also, the review is an absolute rave. Kearney 5.86.1-
- $318
Passions Evil : Translated into English by Audiart
Erotica] [trans. WAINHOUSE, Austryn] [attrib. de MUSSET, Alfred] 8vo, pp. 120, 1p. publisher's advertisements bound in at rear. Original stiff paper wrappers encased in a blue dustwrapper, printed in black to panels and spine. Half-title loose, corners worn, spine of dustwrapper split at head of spine but held tightly in place by wrappers, wear to spine ends and edges. Faint pencil markings to front panel: a cross and the word 'Gamiani' (the source text). First edition. No. 375 of 750 copies, the number hand written (as in all numbered copies) to limitation page. A translation by regular Olympia author Austryn Wainhouse of Gamiani, working under the pseudonym Audiat. irst published anonymously in Paris (with a false attribution to Bruxelles on its title page) in 1833, and usually attributed to Alfred de Musset. There is no apostrophe in the title on the front wrapper or spine, but one appears -- Passions' -- on both the half-title and title page. Neither seems right, and may be two different mistakes made by French-speaking typesetters. A scarce Olympia title, and often unnumbered when copies do surface. Either demand outstripped the enumerator's ability to keep up when the book was first published, or he simply got bored, but numbered copies are noticeably thinner on the ground -- even Olympia's bibliographer Patrick Kearney was unable to lay his hands on a copy. Kearney 1.7-
- $375
Winter Pollen : Occasional Prose
ed. SCAMMELL, William] HUGHES, Ted 8vo, pp. 481. Original blue three-quarter boards, lettered in silver to black spine. Illustrated endpapers. Photographic dustwrapper with author's portrait to front panel. A fine copy in a fine dustwrapper. First US edition, preceded by the UK (Faber) edition of the previous year. A fine copy.-
- $57
Out Of Sickness
PAIGNTON, John [pseud. BARRINGTON, John S.] 8vo, pp. 267. Original red boards, lettered in black on spine. Illustrated dustwrapper. Offsetting to endpapers, but a near fine copy in a very good dustwrapper with a chip to centre of spine (not affecting text), faded at spine, otherwise a near fine copy. Illustration to dustwrapper by the author. First and only edition of this autobiographical story of a failed romeo turned homosexual hustler, set during the Blitz -- 'The author spent ten years living this novel, and five years writing it', proclaims the blurb. 'John Paignton' was the pseudonym of John S. Barrington. Barrington never published another novel, but in the late 1950s became better known as self-publisher, editor, and photographer-in-chief of magazines such as Man-ifique!, featuring attractive young men in their pants, looking into the middle distance. Out Of Sickness was the only novel published by this imprint, which only issued a handful of titles, among them an illustrated work by Barrington, published under his own name, called Art And Anatomy, and Neville Woodbury's own meisterwerk, A Guide To Designing Windows. Very scarce in the dustwrapper.-
- $191
Three Little Milly-Molly-Mandy Plays
BRISLEY, Joyce Lankester Small 8vo, pp. 64. Original tan coarse grain illustrated wrappers, lettered in black to front panel. School library stamp dated 22 June 1938 to half-title, three very small and unobtrusive spots to front panel. A near fine copy. Illustrations throughout by the author. First edition, softbound issue. A spectacular copy, with even the school stamp to the half-title of Cheam Common Council Infants School, Worcester Park, adding to its charms, dated as it is 22 June 1938.-
- $164
The Living Thoughts of Kierkegaard presented by W.H. Auden
AUDEN, W.H.] Small 8vo, pp. 225. Original red boards, lettered in gilt to spine. Illustrated endpapers. No dustwrapper, as issued. Small ownership signature to ffep., gilt to spine a little dulled, otherwise a near fine copy. First edition, preceding its UK counterpart by three years.-
- $79
Happy Birthday J.R.R. Tolkein
contrib. AUDEN, W.H.] ed. PLOTZ, Richard Magazine format, pp. 27. Original illustrated glossy paper wrappers. A little light creasing, corners bumped, but a very well preserved copy. Wrapper illustration by Ann Kruger. First edition. Vol. III No. 1 of the Tolkein Journal, this issue celebrating Tolkein's seventy-fifth birthday. Contributors include W.H. Auden, who reviewed The Fellowship of the Ring for the New York Times, and who here provides an essay, Good and Evil in The Lord of the Rings. The essay was republished in Critical Quarterly the following year. Bloomfield & Mendelson C699-
- $39
A Certain World : A Commonplace Book by W.H. Auden
AUDEN, W.H. Tall 8vo, pp. 330. Original yellow stiff paper wrappers, lettered in black to front panel. Projected publication dates and prices inked to front panel, evidence of tape removal to lower edges of wrappers (possibly original wrapping having been removed enabling the volume to be read). Wrappers a little sunned and marked, (oversized) leading edge of front wrapper inevitably creased and a little worn; contents clean and bright. Proof copy, with 'MAY 28, 1970 $8.95' inked to front wrapper and deleted, and with 'JUNE 26, 1970 $7.95' written above the deletion. A wonderful collection of writings from the entire world canon, and in all forms and lengths, drawn from Auden's formidably wide reading, and drawing a moving self-portrait of a man who was three years from death. Uncommon in this form, with handwritten indicators of its slightly fraught production history.-
- $98
The Harvard Advocate
AUDEN, W.H.] ed. KERR, Gilbert Small 4to, pp. 73. Original tan stiff paper wrappers, lettered in black to both panels, photographic portrait of Auden to front panel. Slight creasing near staples, but a near fine copy. Photographic portrait of Auden to front wrapper by Elsa Dorfman, and at p.8 by Jill Krementz. First edition of this Festschrift to Auden, who had died two years prior to its publication. With contributions from Tennessee Williams, Stephen Spender, William Empson, Henry Moore (a drawing) and Hannah Arendt.-
- $46
As I Walked Out One Evening
AUDEN, W.H. 8vo, pp. 147. Original pale blue stiff paper wrappers, lettered in black to both panels and spine. Small crease to lower corner of rear panel, otherwise a fine copy. Uncorrected proof of this collection of Auden's lighter verse, selected by Auden's bibliographer Edward Mendelson.-
- $26
The Chunkies At The Seaside
illus. PRESTON, Chloë] BYRON, May Square 8vo, unpaginated. Original pictorial boards, lettered in white to front panel and in black to spine. Illustrated endpapers. Offsetting to endpapers, corners lightly bumped, unobtrusive contemporary (Christmas 1917) gift inscription to ffep., but a near fine copy. Drawn by Chloë Preston. First edition.-
- $256
The Trouble With Toby : Trial Recording
TAYLOR, Ted 32 mimeographed pp., secured with split pin to top left corner. Final page detached from split pin, some sunning to first and final pages, a little edgewear and creasing consistent with its use during production. A very well preserved copy. First edition. PRODUCTION COPY OF THE TRIAL RECORDING, WITH HOLOGRAPH ADDITIONS TO FIRST AND LAST PAGES, AND PENCILLED PROPOSED CUTS TO TEXT. The Trouble With Toby was a BBC Light Programme vehicle for Richard Lyon, star of the radio sitcom Life With The Lyons. According to the handwritten notes to the title page of this script, the trial recording ('pilot', as we'd know it today) took place on 25 June 1957, and the show was transmitted on 18 July -- successfully, as it resulted in a series. Among the regular cast was Andree Melly, well known at the time to radio listeners as a regular in Hancock's Half Hour. Also putting in occasional appearances in a variety of roles was a young Ronnie Barker. A handwritten addition to the scripted credits on the final page of this script lists Hugh Paddick in a guest appearance, and there are occasional pencilled parentheses throughout the script suggesting possible cuts for either pace or running time. A scarce survivor.-
- $518
Forewords and Afterwords
AUDEN, W.H. 8vo, pp. 529. Original cream grain three-quarter boards, Auden's initials in gilt to front panel, lettered in silver to dark blue spine. Printed cream dustwrapper lettered in blue. Top edge blue. A little light edgewear, but a near fine copy. First edition of this selection of forty-six essays by Auden, selected by his bibliographer Edward Mendelson.-
- $46
Globe-Gliding
BROWN, Bob Small 8vo, pp. 151. Original brown stiff paper wrappers, lettered in gilt to front panel. Bookplate of Anthony Hobson to inner front wrapper. Small chip to rear panel and at spine ends, otherwise a very well preserved copy of a poorly made book. First edition of only the second book published by Roving Eye Press. Auctioneer and bibliophile Anthony Hobson's copy, with his bookplate to inner front wrapper. While everyone waited hopefully to be published in Jazz Age Paris, Bob Brown jumped the queue by setting up his own publishing house. Roving Eye Press was one of the smaller expatriate imprints, but it was also one of the more exuberant -- unsurprising, given its proprietor. Bob Brown [1886-1959] was a prolific and very successful jobbing writer who became an enthusiastic convert to Modernism after attending the 1913 International Exhibition of Modern Art in New York, known forever since as the Armory Show. Strongly influenced by his friend Marcel Duchamp, Brown took Duchamp's idea of capturing objects and ideas in an automatic, unthought artistic response, and transposed it into his own medium of words. The result was a series of poems Brown called 'opticals', a stylistic forerunner of the Concrete Poetry movement of the 1950s. Other innovations of Brown's in a bewilderingly wide-ranging career included 'Readies', a sort of automated writing designed to be read on a Reading Machine -- also invented by Bob Brown, who had been inspired to build it while watching the ticker tape machine during a brief but highly successful parallel career on Wall Street. Globe-Gliding is one of Brown's more conventional offerings, a collection of poems inspired by his wide-ranging travels. Like all of Brown's first editions it is very scarce, and this copy is a very well preserved example.-
- $518
The Orators
AUDEN, W.H. 8vo, pp. 85. Original purple three-quarter boards, lettered in gilt to off-white spine. Printed dustwrapper, lettered in purple and black. Top edge black. Very slight toning to endpapers, but a fine, unread copy in a very good dustwrapper, rear panel a little rubbed and marked, and with some wear to spine ends. First separate US edition. Review copy, with review slip laid in. Bloomfield & Mendelson A3d-
- $59
Encaenia
AUDEN, W.H.] [BLUNT, Anthony] contrib. HARDIE, Colin 8vo, unpaginated. Cream stiff paper wrappers, lettered in black to front and rear panels. Note in ink to front wrapper, wrappers a little marked, but a well preserved copy. First edition, with a not in an unknown hand to front wrapper: 'Colin Hardie on Wystan'. The Oxford Encaenia, a ceremony at which honorary degrees are awarded, takes place annually. In 1971, W.H. Auden was made a Doctor of Letters at the ceremony; other beneficiaries at the same event were Edward Heath, Steven Runciman -- and the Soviet agent Anthony Blunt, who by this time had confessed his crimes to the security services in return for immunity from prosecution, but who would not be publicly unmasked until 1979. Classicist Colin Hardie [1906-1998] was Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford from 1936 to 1973 and, according to a note in an unknown hand, wrote the encomium to Auden, printed here in Latin and English, which ends: 'I present to you a Christ Church man, now honorary Student, sometime our Professor of Poetry, yet our poet still though he lives elsewhere and is of Icelandic extraction, steeped in the Sagas from boyhood, an ornament of our language, for admission to the degree of Doctor of Letters honoris causa.' (Anthony Blunt is introduced as 'an outstanding connoisseur and teacher of art history' which is accurate as far as it goes, and 'a true European', which proved to be less so.) Not in Bloomfield & Mendelson. A very well preserved copy.-
- $164
John Ruskin
MILLIGAN, Spike] HARRISON, Frederic 8vo, pp. 216, 4pp. advertisements bound in at rear. Original red boards, lettered in gilt to spine. Top edge gilt. Spine ends split and worn, corners bumped, boards a little rubbed. Two ownership stamps to title page and final page of text. First edition, fourth printing. SPIKE MILLIGAN'S COPY, WITH HIS NOTE TO FRONT FREE ENDPAPER: 'I actually got the original fireplace from his home in 54 Hunter Street, Bloomsbury -- alas, as always in my family this treasure was lost. 1975/6. Spike Milligan'. John Ruskin was born at 54, Hunter Street on 8 February 1819. The street was demolished in the 1960s to make way for the Brunswick Centre development, so presumably the fireplace became available at that time. (Quite how you lose a fireplace, though, only Spike Milligan would be able to explain.)-
- $256
A Keepsake From The New Library
contrib. AUDEN, W.H.; LARKIN, Philip] Square 8vo, unpaginated. Original light brown stiff paper wrappers, lettered in red and black to front panel. A couple of corners very lightly bumped, but a fine copy. First edition. One of 1100 copies, privately printed for the School's Librarian, for distribution to guests at the opening of the new library. Contributing poets comprise W.H. Auden, Edward Braithwaite, Thomas Blackburn, Philip Larkin, Omar S. Pound and Nathaniel Tarn. A splendid copy.-
- $20
William McGonagall: The Truth At Last
illus. SELLERS, Peter] MILLIGAN, Spike and HOBBS, Jack 8vo, pp. 144. Original black boards, lettered in gilt to spine. Yellow illustrated endpapers. Illustrated dustwrapper. A fine copy in a near fine dustwrapper, the spine a little faded and with a single 3mm scuff to its centre. Line drawings throughout by 'Anybody and Peter Sellers'. First edition. PETER SELLERS' COPY, LENGTHILY INSCRIBED TO HIM BY CO-AUTHOR JACK HOBBS: 'To Peter, with much affection from the co-writer, co-publisher and (sometimes) co-interrupter which he didn't mean to be and this copy is the first off the press -- and long may you sail in her! Jack Hobbs April 1976 (see page 6) [inscription continues on p.6] and I was only marginally over the limit -- and I'd had a hard day -- and let's face it -- who hasn't! AND!!! "Can we have dinner before you go to Munich???" [doodled self-portrait with speech bubble] PHONE Walton-on-Thames either 21267 or 21126 J.' (Sellers was due to fly to Bavaria to film the castle sequences for The Pink Panther Strikes Again.) Milligan and Sellers had appeared together in The Great McGonagall [1974], with Milligan in the title role and Sellers as Queen Victoria. Milligan and Hobbs co-authored The Great McGonagall Scrapbook which was published the following year. This title followed in 1976, with two further McGonagall-related titles appearing in 1988 and 1992. Illustrating duties on this volume are shared roughly equally between Sellers and Milligan, with Sellers the distinctively heavier hand (though no less funny), helpfully accompanied by a (printed) signature. A lovely association, and a lovely copy too.-
- $387