Holbein, Hans; Thomas Frognall Dibdin
HOLBEIN’S DANCE OF DEATH / HOLBEIN’S BIBLE CUTS
Henry G. Bohn, London: 1858
Attractive Victorian-era book reproducing Holbein's images as wood engravings for two of his popular series. Holbein's Dance of Death, designed in the 1520s and first printed from Lutzelberger's woodblocks in 1538, enjoyed decades of sustained popularity among the morbid Protestants of northern Europe, with the theme's popularity only increasing as waves of imitators produced their own editions and copies. His Bible cuts, first printed in the same year, were allegedly an effort on the part of the publisher to commit to print images of "subjects connected with holy writ" rather than the more lascivious images of classical Goddesses, that would "only injure the mind by error, or poison it by depravity" (Dibdin). A lovely edition of Victorian antiquarianism. 7'' x 4.5''. Full contemporary red goatskin ruled and ornamented in gilt, raised bands. Blind-tooled dentelles, all edges gilt, marbled endpapers. Illustrated in black and white. DANCE OF DEATH with dissertation by Francis Douce. Text in English with additional content in Latin, Spanish, French, and Italian. xii, 475, [1] pages. Some light edgewear, moreso to joints, spine slightly toned. Touch of foxing to endpapers, faint creasing to first couple leaves. Shows well.
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LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA
García Marquez, Gabriel Signed limited first English edition of García Marquez's ode to the persistence of romantic memory. Gorgeously designed edition of the author's acclaimed novel, first published in Spanish in 1985. The English translation was praised by Thomas Pynchon to the utmost reaches of superlative adjectives, and was the recipient of less frenzied but still glowing compliments from Michiko Kakutani. García Marquez's theme - romantic love that never fades, vows never broken; or, seen another way, the nightmare impossibility of permanently dismissing a determined suitor - struck Pynchon as "revolutionary," though his judgment that working in "love's vernacular" is a "daring step for any writer" may raise eyebrows among those familiar with genres and modes of writing in which these themes and treatments have never fallen out of fashion. García Marquez himself once said, with perhaps greater perception, that the revolutionary part of writing consists simply of doing it well: and he did. A beautiful copy of this signed limited US edition, which preceded the UK edition by several months. 9.25'' x 6.25''. Original quarter pink cloth with black cloth boards, gilt-stamped spine. In original decorative black lace-printed mylar protective jacket. With original yellow and black slipcase. Bright pink endpapers, fore-edge machine deckle. Translated from the Spanish by Edith Grossman. [10], 348, [4] pages. Signed by Garcia Marquez at colophon and numbered 107 of 350 signed and numbered copies of the first edition. Bright, sharp, clean, and tight overall. Fine in fine jacket and slipcase.- $5,000
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TRACK OF THE CAT
First printing of the first book in the Anna Pigeon series of mysteries revolving around United States national parks. Anna Pigeon's experiences as a park ranger stem in part from the author's own experiences - Barr was working as a seasonal park ranger at Mesa Verde National Park when she wrote the novel. A terrific copy. 8.25'' x 5.25''. Original half black paper, green paper boards, gilt-lettered spine. In original unclipped ($19.95) orange pictorial dust jacket designed by Honi Werner. 238 pages. Light bump to spine foot. STORE FRONT: The Disappearing Face of New York
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Parmigianino; Béguin, Sylvie; Di Giampaolo, Mario; Vaccaro, Mary First edition of this in depth study of the Italian Old Master with full page reproductions of his Mannerist work on various high quality paper stocks - including paintings, murals, and frescos. 12.75'' x 9.25''. Original light blue boards. In original color pictorial dust jacket, (no price, as issued). Light blue endpapers. Illustrated throughout in color and in black-and-white. 297, [3] pages. Jacket with light edgewear, tiny bit of rubbing. Book with minor shelfwear, small spot to rear pastedown. Interior fresh. CLYFFORD STILL: Paintings 1944 – 1960
Still, Clyfford; Demetrion, James T; Anfam, David; Benezra, Neal; Adams, Brooks First edition of this exhibition book on one of the fathers of abstract expressionism, focusing on a period of his career wherein his "creativity burst forth and flowered." 11.5'' x 9.75''. Original black paper boards, silver-lettered spine. In original color pictorial jacket, no price (as issued). Black endpapers. Illustrated throughout in black and white and color. 176 pages. Jacket with trace edgewear. Bright and tight. LE DÉSERT DE RETZ: A Late Eighteenth-Century French Folly Garden
Ketcham, Diana First edition of this elegant monograph on the famed French garden, with extensive illustrations of the grounds. Including reproductions of the suite of the 1785 Le Rouge engravings, as well as photographs by Michael Kenna and a survey of historical illustrations. 11'' x 16''. Original blue cloth with grey onlay. Grey endpapers. Illustrated throughout in black and white. Text in French and English. 116 pages. With original exhibit invitation, brochure, and prospectus laid in. One or two barely perceptible spots of soil to leaves, else crisp and bright. PABLO PICASSO: 1881-1973
Picasso, Pablo; Warncke, Carsten-Peter; Walther; Ingo F. First edition of this massive two-volume set covering the iconic artist's life and work, with many vibrant full-page color plates. Two volumes, 12.25'' x 9.25'' each. Original publisher's red cloth with Picasso sketch stamped in white on cover, both. In original color pictorial jackets. With original slipcase. Illustrated throughout in color and black-and-white. 380; 740 pages. Gift inscription to artist and noted photographer William Christenberry to verso of front endpaper. Slipcase with a couple bumps, bit of shelfwear. Jackets with only faint rubbing. Books beautiful. Bright and clean. THREE LIVES
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Forster, E.M. First US edition of Forster's classic discussion of the English-language novel, based on a series of lectures delivered at Trinity College, Cambridge. What is a novel about? -Oh, about 50,000 words. Subject to adjustment for inflation, Forster's answer to the eternal question still stands as one of the better ones. As Virginia Woolf so rightly said in response to ASPECTS OF THE NOVEL, the novel is a subject about which nobody knows anything, but Forster is perceptive, lucid, and intelligent whether in error or out of it. ASPECTS includes Forster's famous distinction between story and plot as well as his great and resolutely anti-historical vision of all novelists at work in a great circular room, the living and the dead alike suspended out of time, concerned not with the "demon of chronology" but with the stifling, airless spaces of the human heart. 7.25'' x 5''. Original maroon cloth. In original tan dust jacket. 250 pages. Light soil to jacket and top edge of text block. Minor chipping and edgewear to jacket; spine toned. Bookseller label to front pastedown. Overall, clean and sound. Near fine in very good plus jacket. THE EVIDENCE OF THINGS NOT SEEN
Baldwin, James First edition of this essay on the Atlanta Child Murders, which a contemporary review at the time called "nothing less than an update on the progress-or lack of it-of the American Dream." Baldwin first began researching the Atlanta Child Murders of 1979-1981 on assignment from Walter Lowe, the first Black editor at PLAYBOY, where an earlier version of this essay was first published and won the magazine's Best Nonfiction award for 1981. Sensitive to his burden of responsibility to victims, survivors, and the truth, Baldwin rejected the creative license employed by Truman Capote and his many lesser true-criminal successors, explaining: "Tolstoy has every right to throw Anna Karenina under the train. [.] But the life of a living human being, no one writes it. You cannot deal with another human being as though he were a fictional creation." Rather, EVIDENCE is a deep examination of the still-unresolved crimes and investigation in the context of the many failures and spoiled promises of a post-Civil-Rights-era South, the broken relations between the police and the Black community of Atlanta, and the fatal corruption of city administrators and the American justice system. 8.25'' x 5.5''. Original quarter black cloth, black paper boards, silver-lettered spine. In original unclipped ($11.95) glossy color typographic dust jacket with photo of Baldwin by J. Phil Samuell on rear panel. Fore-edge machine deckle. xvi, 125, [1] pages. Purple printed review slip, listing publication date as October 28, 1985 and price as $11.95, laid in. Bright, sharp, and sound. b.
