The Scarlet Letter, a Romance WITH Autograph letter signed to Donald Grant Mitchell
First edition of the Scarlet Letter. Henry James hailed The Scarlet Letter as the finest piece of imaginative writing yet put forth in the country It is beautiful, admirable, extraordinary. [Tipped in at the front:] A long reflective letter written by Hawthorne to popular American essayist and novelist Donald Grant Mitchell, best known by his pen name Ik Marvel. His best-selling Reveries of a Bachelor (1850) was reportedly one of Emily Dickinsons favorite books. Hawthornes letter follows a wartime visit to Washington with publisher, friend, and advisor William Ticknor. While there he saw the war first-hand, meeting President Lincoln and visiting the Manassas battlefield. He also posed for portraits, including photographs at Mathew Bradys studio and a painting by Emanuel Leutze. He tells Mitchell, in part: I think the enclosed photograph [not present] is the least objectionable of half a dozen from which I selectedall of them being stern, hard, ungenial, and more over, somewhat grayer than the original. The sun has a spite at me, because I have shunned him and lived mostly in the shade. I passed through New Haven the other evening, and would gladly have stopt, had I known you were there. For myself, I have made some additions to a little old cottage, and am settled here, I suppose, for lifethough with many regretful and longing looks across the sea. If our country crumbles quite to pieces, we shall all be at liberty to choose another. Hawthorne goes on, I have been trying to make my way into another Romance, but realities are too strong for me, and I meet with no good success. Why has your pen been idle for so long? Hoping, against hope, that we shall soon see happier times. The Romance Hawthorne mentions proved to be his final one, for he died in 1864. The manuscript of the unfinished Dolliver Romance was poignantly placed upon his coffin at his funeral. The novel was finally published in 1876. This is a splendid pair comprising the first edition of The Scarlet Letter and a fine letter by Hawthorne reflecting on his place in the world and his literary legacy.
More from 19th Century Rare Book & Photograph Shop
Autograph manuscript signed from Urania including excerpts from the original manuscript
Two pages. With a fair copy of another portion or Urania: A Rhymed Lesson, one page, written in 1893. Beautifully presented in blue morocco gilt with two engraved portraits and a printed copy of the complete poem. A portion of the original manuscript for Urania. These two pages (paginated 5 and 6) are evidently from the original working manuscript. They feature several manuscript corrections. The passage begins with the lines O could such mockery reach our soul indeed and ends Full to thine ear it bears the Father s word. Holmes first read this long narrative poem before the Mercantile Library Association on 14 October 1846; it was subsequently published in Boston. The North American Review declared it a very lively and beautiful poem. That long laudatory review observed, There are golden hours of leisure even in the practice of a successful physician, and these at least may be consecrated to more ambitious uses. Autograph manuscript signed, the Black-Scholes-Merton formula
One page. Stockholm Grand Hotel stationery. Fine. In this outstanding financial manuscript, Merton writes the celebrated Black-Scholes (or Black-Scholes-Merton) formula for derivatives pricing, the basis for many of the great fortunes in finance. Mertons collaborator Myron Scholes characterized the formula as an equation that prices options on common stock and provides a methodology to value options on securities generally. It can be used to measure risk and transfer risk. Merton and Scholes shared the 1997 Nobel Prize in Economics for a new method to determine the value of derivatives (Black was not eligible, having died in 1995). Such rapid and widespread application of a theoretical result was new to economics, the prize committee wrote. Nowadays, thousands of traders and investors use the formula every day, allowing businesses and individuals to hedge risks in an unprecedented way. Merton wrote this manuscript while he was in Stockholm for the Nobel Prize ceremony. The insights of this model laid the foundation of modern trading in options and other derivatives. It thus has been the basis for the rise of numerous great fortunes in recent years. BlackScholes underpinned massive economic growth so that the international financial system was trading derivatives valued at one quadrillion dollars per year by 2007, with the BlackScholes equation being the mathematical justification for the trading (Ian Stewart, In Pursuit of the Unknown: 17 Equations That Changed the World). We find no other manuscripts of this landmark formula in the auction records or in the market. This manuscript, written when Merton received the Nobel Prize, is worthy of any great collection in economics and finance. Anthony Berger. Abraham Lincoln, seated portrait.
The classic Brady $5 bill photograph. This celebrated portrait, the basis for the five-dollar bill engraving used for most of the 20th century, is one of seven poses taken by Anthony Berger at Mathew Bradys Washington, D. C. studio on February 9, 1864. The most prolific photographer of Lincoln, Brady himself did not actually operate his cameras during the war years, instead training and employing men like Alexander Gardner and his successor Anthony Berger, who took this picture, to operate the camera. Lincolns son Robert Todd Lincoln declared this famous portrait to be the most satisfactory likeness of Abraham Lincoln. Oval albumen print (8 x 6 in.), original printed mount, trimmed at bottom removing caption, signed BRADY & CO. PHOTOGRAPHERS. Browning and offsetting to mount, light toning to image. Very good. Matted and framed. The Holy Bible, Conteyning the Old Testament, and the New: Newly Translated (KING JAMES BIBLE)
The Great She Bible, the authorized version or King James Bible, one of the greatest monuments of English literature. This edition is known as the She Bible for the reading She went into the citie in Ruth 3:15. In this copy he error Judas for Jesus in Matthew 26:36 is corrected with a pasted-on slip. Fry styles this the first edition, second issue, though it is more properly the second edition. The general title is usually dated 1613, though the NT title bears the date 1611. Probably the greater part of the book was printed in 1611, but the publication, for some reason or other, was delayed till 1613. . . . Smith suggests [the delay resulted from] an accident in the printing-office which destroyed a large number of sheets (Herbert). One of the masterpieces of the English language, the King James Bible is surely the greatest literary work ever created by committee. In the preface, Miles Smith, one of the dozens of translators, commented on the importance of the work: Translation it is that openeth the window, to let in the light; that breaketh the shell, that we may eat the kernel; that putteth aside the curtain, that we may look into the most Holy place; that removeth the cover of the well, that we may come by the water. Folio. Contemporary calf over oak boards, brass fittings, rebacked and expertly restored. Some staining and edge wear with preliminaries restored, rare engraved map of the Holy Land, supplied. A very good copy of one of the most sought-after books in the English language, rarely seen complete and in the classic period binding of calf over oak boards. Complete copies of this Bible in early bindings are among the most sought-after books in the English language. Printing and the Mind of Man 114. Herbert 319. Buildings of [the] Fair Heirs in San Francisco. Original photographs of the pre-earthquake real estate holdings of the heirs of James Graham Fair
A real estate tycoons San Francisco: this album documents approximately forty downtown San Francisco real estate holdings of the heirs of real estate, silver, and railroad magnate James Graham Fair. This album belonged to Fairs daughter Virginia Graham Fair Vanderbilt, first wife of William K. Vanderbilt II. Most of the 39 original photographs are mounted with colored street maps locating the properties. The properties are mainly on San Franciscos major downtown streets including Market, Mission, Pacific, Post, Sutter, and Kearny. This album provides a stunning visual record of San Francisco just before the 1906 earthquake and fires destroyed eighty percent of the city. The properties range from single-story wooden commercial structures to massive stone buildings occupying entire city blocks. Buildings include hotels, banks, saloons, residences, burlesque halls, theaters, a shooting gallery, cigar shops, groceries, and a billiard factory, often with poster-covered and paint-decorated facades. The scenes are typically filled with business signs, pedestrians, carriages, and wagons. Original photographs depicting San Francisco just before the 1906 earthquake are rare in the market. This album provides an irreplaceable visual record of the city just before the disaster. Searches of WorldCat and Google turn up no other examples of Buildings of Fair Heirs in San Francisco, the title given on the binding. Provenance: Virginia Birdie Fair Vanderbilt (1875-1935). The properties documented in the album were presumably originally purchased by James Graham Fair (1831-1894). Fair made his first fortune in the Comstock Lode and then became a major figure in California real estate and railroads. His daughter Virginia Graham Fair married William K. Vanderbilt II in 1899, and this album remained in the family for more than a century. 39 gelatin silver prints (most approx. 6 x 8 in., with two panoramic views, 3 ¾ x 11 in.), each mounted on card with a manuscript map locating the property. Typed index mounted at front. Contemporary oblong album (approx. 14 x 16 in.) bound in black leather, gilt-lettered Buildings of Fair Heirs in San Francisco. Rebacked. Some fading. The Naked and the Dead
Original black cloth, black dust jacket. Owner s inscription dated 1948 on front endpaper. Rear endpaper browned. Fine, in a superbly preserved dust jacket. First edition of Norman Mailer s landmark first novel. This is the first printing, with the Rinehart colophon on copyright page, and in the first issue dust jacket without reviews on rear flap. The Naked and the Dead has been called the best war novel to emerge from the United States (Anthony Burgess). Norman Mailer, who loomed over American letters longer and larger than any writer of his generation burst on the scene in 1948 with The Naked and the Dead (New York Times). The book remained on the Times best seller list for more than a year. Mailer s electrifying debut conveys, with great accuracy and power, the agony of the American troops in the Pacific campaign. It remains Mailer s best (Burgess). This is a splendid copy in the famously fragile dust jacket. Modern Library 100 Best Novels 51. Burgess, Anthony. Ninety-Nine Novels: The Best in English since 1939 A Personal Choice. De Architectura
First illustrated edition of Vitruvius s Ten Books on Architecture, a landmark in the history of architecture. This is the only work on architecture to survive from antiquity. It was Vitruvius (ca. 90-20 BC) who famously declared that a structure must be durable, useful, and beautiful. His terms for order, arrangement, proportion, and fitness for purpose have guided architects for centuries. Vitruvius served in the campaigns of Julius Caesar, and he was involved in the restoration of Roman aqueducts. In ancient Rome, architecture encompassed not just the design of buildings but also civil and mechanical engineering, construction, military engineering, and urban planning. In the early fifteenth century Vitruvius was rediscovered, and its publication proved to be one of the key events of the Italian Renaissance. The Vitruvian text became for Renaissance architecture what biblical studies had been for theology (Millard). Vitruvius s Ten Books on Architecture exerted incalculable influence on the Renaissance mind, shaping the thoughts and works of Leonardo da Vinci, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Alberti, Raphael, and others. The ideally proportioned Vitruvian Man, conceived by Vitruvius and famously drawn by Leonardo, is the outstretched human body inscribed within the circle and the square. This magnificent edition, printed by Tacuino in 1511, is one of the great illustrated books of the Renaissance. It contains fine woodcuts illustrating in great detail the principles of Vitruvius, helping to usher in a golden age of Italian architecture. The editor, Fra Giovanni Giocondo, dedicated the work to Pope Julius II. Gioconda was a Veronese architect who collaborated with Raphael and Sangallo on St. Peter s after the death of Bramante in 1514. His lavish edition of Vitruvius provided a reliable text [unlike the previous non-illustrated editions], contained an alphabetic index, and above all contributed to the understanding of the work by the inclusion of 140 woodcuts (Kruft, History of Architectural Theory). Provenance: bookplate of Gianni Boccoli, illustrating a 1567 armillary sphere by Gemma Frisius. Folio. 123 leaves, without the final blank. 136 woodcut illustrations and diagrams in the text. Eighteenth-century calf gilt, boards elaborately tooled in gilt, spine ends restored, recased preserving endpapers bearing CG and clover watermark, a paper Mozart is known to have used. Some soiling, staining, and wear, especially at beginning and end, worming, mostly marginal, a few old repairs. A very good, unpressed copy. Photographs of the Holy Land and Egypt comprising: [I:] Sinai and Palestine; [II:] Lower Egypt, Thebes, and the Pyramids; [III:] Upper Egypt and Ethiopia; [IV:] Egypt, Sinai and Palestine. Supplementary Volume.
This is a splendid set of the best and most extensive collection of Friths photographs of the Holy Land and Egypt. This editions gold-toned photographs are much preferred over the earlier editions for their stronger quality (Gernsheim). Frith made three photographic expeditions to Egypt, Sinai, Ethiopia, and Jerusalem between 1856 and 1860. On the first, he sailed up the Nile to the Second Cataract, recording the main historic monuments between Cairo and Abu Simbel. On the second, he struck eastwards to Palestine, visiting Jerusalem, Damascus and other sites associated with the life of Christ. The final expedition was the most ambitious, combining a second visit to the Holy Land with a deeper southward penetration of the Nile. His photographs of the temple at Soleb, 800 miles south of Cairo, represent a genuinely pioneering achievement . The clarity of his images proved to be of immense value to archaeologists. The photographs are also often powerfully composed, revealing an understanding of the poetic qualities of light that gives them lasting aesthetic value (McKenzie, Grove Art). Upon his return to London, Frith published a selection of his photographs under the title Egypt and Palestine Photographed and Described, in two volumes with 76 photographs. The present set, with 144 photographs, nearly doubled the size of that work. It is preferable in every respect. The earlier work contained a haphazard assortment of images, while this massive four-volume edition is organized based on Friths expeditions, giving them a narrative quality for the first time. Furthermore, many of the images appear here for the first time. Friths publication of multiple images under the same title obscures the fact that much is new here. Most important, the prints in this edition are of much stronger quality than those in the first edition having been gold-toned (Gernsheim). These albums contain some of Friths finest photographs, including the series of panoramic views of Jerusalem, the Sphinx and Great Pyramid of Giza, Karnak, the colossal sculpture at Abu Simbel, the Pool of Hezekiah, the Thebes Entrance to the Great Temple Luxor, The Osiridae Pillars and Great Fallen Colossus, and many others. They encompass spectacular views of Jerusalem (among the earliest images of the ancient city still obtainable), Cairo, the pyramids at Giza, Philae, and other views of now-lost or decayed sites in Egypt, as well as biblical sites in Palestine including the Jerusalem, Dead Sea, Gaza, Damascus, and other areas of what is now the modern state of Israel. Four volumes. Folio. 148 albumen photographs (37 in each volume), each approx. 6½ x 9 inches, mounted. Most signed in the negative. Original green and brown cloth, rebacked in morocco and cloth. Several text leaves with blind stamp, neat shelf numbers on title versos. Scattered foxing rarely affecting images, light edge wear to some leaves, occasional fading to prints. The photographs are generally in outstanding bright condition with rich tones and good contrast. This is a rare set of all four volumes of Friths masterwork. Three-volume sets turn up occasionally, but examples including the fourth (Supplementary) volume are rarely seen in the market. Tanglewood Tales
First American edition, first printing of Hawthornes final childrens book. A spectacular American literary presentation copy inscribed by Nathaniel Hawthorne to Oliver Wendell Holmes: O.W. Holmes from his friend N.H. Holmes wrote about Tanglewood Tales with great enthusiasm in a letter to its publisher, James T. Fields: Hawthornes book has been not devoured, but bolted by my children. I have not yet had a chance at it, but I dont doubt I shall read it with as much gusto as they, when my turn comes. When you write to him, thank him if you please for me, for I suppose he will hardly expect any formal acknowledgment (September 6, 1853). The two were friends for many years. Holmes served as Hawthornes pallbearer in May 1864. The next month he wrote in The Atlantic, Our literature could ill spare the rich ripe autumn of such a life as Hawthornes, but he has left enough to keep his name in remembrance as long as the language in which he shaped his deep imaginations is spoken by human lips. Inscribed copies of Tanglewood Tales are rare at auction, with no other examples appearing since 1974. This volume, inscribed by Hawthorne to Holmes, must be counted as one of the best nineteenth-century American literary presentation copies in private hands. BAL 7614 (first printing, with only Boston Stereotype Foundry on the copyright page). Clark A22.2a. Original green cloth. Spine ends chipped, rear joint repaired. Half morocco case. Provenance: 1. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., inscribed by Nathaniel Hawthorne; 2. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., with his calling card inscribed to his nephew, presenting the book as a Christmas gift: Ned with love Merry Christmas from his uncle Wendell. The Complete Writings
First edition of the first comprehensive collection of Whitmans work. This is the rare deluxe issue printed on Japan vellum, number 2 of only 10 such sets, in the magnificent original morocco binding. Bound in is a fine autograph letter signed by Whitman (2pp, Camden, 30 January 1876) to Jeanette Gilder, then literary critic of the New York Herald. After discussing personal matters, the poet writes out for Gilder a letter he has written to the Heralds editor seeking to promote his new book, Two Rivulets. Writing that letter in full, Whitman states: Editor Herald. Would like to have say a four or five column article for the paper embodying the poems, &c. of my new book Two Rivulets, to publish say eight or ten days before their issue by me? making a resume of the book in advance giving the principal pieces, (hitherto unpublished& to be first printed in said article.) If so, I will make out such an article & send you, for your determination. The price would be $200. I have thought that as you like to have things in advance& also to give variety to the papersuch a proposition might be acceptable. If not, no harm done. WW. Whitman left his literary legacy in the hands of the three men who had been among his closest companions and fiercest champions during the last twenty or so years of his life: Horace Traubel, Richard Maurice Bucke, and Thomas Harned. In their zeal to ensure what they saw as Whitmans rightful place in American literature, immediately following Whitmans death they began to publish from among the letters, manuscript notes, prose fragments, and other writings Whitman had left behind. Their efforts culminated ten years after Whitman had died in the first comprehensive collection of Whitmans work: the ten-volume Complete Writings of Walt Whitman, published by G.P. Putnams Sons in 1902, illustrated with manuscript facsimiles and numerous photographs and paintings of the poet. The executors also supplied an authorized biography of Whitman for the first volume, and Oscar Lovell Triggs contributed a bibliography and other critical apparatus for the last volume. See Graham in Walt Whitman Encyclopedia. This magnificent edition of Whitmans works is noteworthy for its importance, limitation, paper, binding, and accompanying letter. A more desirable Whitman set cannot be found. 10 volumes. Ten frontispieces and five plates, each in three states. Publishers certificate of limitation stating that this is set number 2 of 10 printed on Japan vellum. Notarized certificate signed by Jeanette Gilder concerning the accompanying Whitman letter. Magnificent original green morocco gilt with red, white and black floral morocco onlays, t.e.g., others uncut; velvet doublures and linings. Very minimal wear. A stunning set.
Collection of six autograph letters signed with initials to Charles Sumner
LONGFELLOW, HENRY WADSWORTH 6 letters comprising 22 pages, various sizes. Very good condition. An important correspondence between Longfellow and his closest friend, Charles Sumner, the abolitionist senator from Massachusetts. A highlight of the collection is the letter Longfellow wrote immediately after the brutal attack on Sumner by congressman Preston Brooks. Two days after Sumners May 20, 1856 speech condemning southern slaveholders, Brooks repeatedly struck Sumner on the head with a cane on the floor of the Senate. The badly injured Sumner was unable to retake his Senate seat for more than three years. These fascinating letters cover a wide range of literary and personal matters. He reports to Sumner on a dinner given by Lowell to Darley the artist, who is now here making studies for a series of Illustrations for The Scarlet Letter, the success of the Atlantic Monthly, and the latest from Oliver Wendell Holmes (in full blast, at his Breakfast Table). He discusses Emersons speech at the Burns dinner, an inside joke by Lowell in an Atlantic article on Shakepeare, and refers to Emerson, Dana, Norton, Ticknow, James, Palfrey, Felton, Parker, Stowe, Fields, and many others. Longfellows touching letter on the death of the historian William H. Prescott states in part, And so I stand here at my desk by the window, thinking of you, and hoping you will get some other letter from Boston before you do mine, so that I may not be the first to break to you the sad news of Prescotts death! Yes, he is dead! He died of a stroke of paralysis on Friday last We shall see that cheerful, genial, sunny face no more! How much sunshine it will take out of the social life of Boston! This is a superb and wide-ranging correspondence between two giants of the era. Their close friendship lasted until Sumners death in 1874. Longfellow was among the pallbearers at his funeral, together with Ralph Waldo Emerson, John Greenleaf Whittier, and Oliver Wendell Holmes. the greatest voice, on the greatest subject, that has been entered since we became a nation. No matter for insultswe feel them with youno matter for wounds, we also bleed in them! You have torn the mask off the faces of Traitors, and at last the Spirit of the North is aroused. Longfellow to Sumner after the Preston Brooks caning. See Blue, The Poet and the Reformer: Longfellow, Sumner, and the Bonds of Male Friendship, 1837-1874, Journal of the Early Republic, Summer 1995.- $12,000
- $12,000
Autograph manuscript signed Emily, the poem I came to buy a smile today.
DICKINSON, EMILY. In this rare manuscript poem by Emily Dickinson, the speaker solicits a shopkeeper s smile: I came to buy a smile today But just a single smile The smallest one upon your face Will suit me just as well The one that no one else would miss It shone so very small I m pleading at the counter sir Could you afford to sell I ve Diamonds on my fingers You know what Diamonds are? I ve Rubies like the Evening Blood And Topaz like the Star! Twould be a Bargain for a Jew! Say may I have it Sir? The poem showcases the poet s signature use of ballad verse as well as jewel imagery representative of her interest in the natural world and aesthetic presentation (Kelly et al., The Networked Recluse: The Connected World of Emily Dickinson). Dickinson famously published only a handful of poems in her lifetime. Instead she shared her work in letters to mentors, friends, and a few others. She evidently sent this poem to family friend Samuel Bowles, the publisher of the Springfield Republican. Dickinson sent some forty poems to Bowles over the course of their correspondence between 1861 and 1862. None was among the seven uncredited poems printed in the Republican likely without Dickinson s consent during her lifetime. This is one of two extant autograph manuscripts of I Came to buy a smile today. The other, held by Harvard, is not signed, and it does not show Dickinson s expressive punctuation to the same extent as the present manuscript. This poem demonstrates Dickinson s characteristic imaginative use of line breaks and punctuation. Scholars have long emphasized the importance of reading Dickinson s works in their original manuscript form. Printed editions of her poetry lose essential aspects of their meaning when they neglect her unique line arrangements and punctuation. Even with access to digital copies of Dickinson manuscripts, studying digital reproductions can lead us to lose track of [the manuscripts ] status as individual pieces of paper that were marked, folded, corrected, mutilated, sent through the mails, sewn into booklets, or tucked between the pages of a book (Kelly). This is a rare opportunity to acquire a complete Emily Dickinson poem, a centerpiece for any American literature collection. Most of Dickinson s manuscripts have long been in institutional collections, particularly those of Harvard, Amherst, Boston Public Library, and the Jones Library in Amherst. 12mo. 2 pages. Small stain to second page, partial separation at fold. Near fine condition.- $125,000
- $125,000
Autograph manuscript notebook, the working notebook for the verses later published in The Seraphim, and Other Poems.
[BROWNING,] ELIZABETH B. BARRETT. This extraordinary manuscript is Elizabeth Barrett Browning s heavily revised autograph working notebook for The Seraphim, and Other Poems, the book that first brought her fame. This notebook contains drafts of all of the major poems in The Seraphim, published by Saunders and Otley in 1838. This work helped to establish her as one of the most important poets of her day. In addition, the manuscript contains nine other poems that remain unpublished as well as countless otherwise unknown lines not used in the published text. This visually dramatic notebook is crowded with Elizabeth Barrett s manuscript revisions, making it a vital untapped source for the study of the poet s working methods and artistic development. She has filled the notebook s pages with her verse in her minuscule hand. Painstaking revisions reflect the intensity of her process. Many abandoned passages some quite long are known only from the survival of this volume. The Seraphim was the first work that Elizabeth Barrett issued under her name (she took Robert Browning s name when they married in 1846), apart from The Battle of Marathon, printed when she was fourteen. Leading journals gave the work substantial reviews. Barrett went from being essentially unknown to one of the most promising English poets of her generation. She soon became one of the most popular and acclaimed poets in Britain. She laid out her approach to poetry in the preface to the published edition: Poetry is essentially truthfulness and the very incoherences of poetic dreaming are but the struggle and the strife to reach the True in the Unknown. For Barrett these poems represented the first utterances of my individuality, as she wrote to John Kenyon, a wealthy family friend and patron of the arts. Her art became all consuming. As she wrote in the 1838 Preface to The Seraphim, I can never feel more intensely that at this moment the sublime uses of poetry, and the solemn responsibilities of the poet Her poetic inspiration is the highest we can conceive of nothing more august. Her sense of Art is pure in itself. Edgar Allan Poe on Elizabeth Barrett Browning Such a combination of the finest genius and the choicest results of cultivation and wide-ranging studies has never been seen before in any woman. Edinburgh Review on Elizabeth Barrett Manuscripts of this length and quality by major nineteenth-century English and American authors are very rare in the market. It has been a decade since anything remotely comparable to the present manuscript has appeared for sale. The present Elizabeth Barrett Browning manuscript, comprising approximately 4850 lines on 151 pages, is one of the finest nineteenth century literary manuscripts remaining in private hands. Manuscripts of this importance continue to be permanently removed from the market and placed in major institutions. Approximately 4850 lines, ink and pencil, on 159 pages including 8 blanks. 8vo (185 x 115 mm). Barrett s ownership inscription on front pastedown ( E.B.B. 1837 ) and additionally signed with initials by the poet on various pages. Corner of pp. 93 and 94 torn with loss, some foxing, ink stains. Contemporary half green calf and marbled paper-covered boards, worn. Morocco case. This is a rare opportunity to acquire a major manuscript by one of the most important authors of the nineteenth century. The unpublished poems in this manuscript are an important resource in the story of women s literature in the nineteenth century. Virtually all literary manuscripts of this significance from this era have vanished into institutional collections.- $550,000
- $550,000
Photographic portrait inscribed by Whitman with four lines from Salut au Monde!
Whitman, Walt A rare portrait with a Leaves of Grass quotation in Whitmans hand. The photogenic and self-promoting poet sat for (and gave away) many photographs, but very rarely did he inscribe them with his verse. Here he writes lines from his poem Salut au Monde!his calling card to the world, as well as one of his most successful compositions. Whitman writes beneath this portrait the very lines that Folsom and Allen call a prophetic exclamation of Whitmans desire for an international audience (Walt Whitman & the World, p. 1): My spirit has passed in compassion and determination around the whole earth, I have lookd for equals & lovers, and found them ready for me in all lands; I think some divine rapport has equalized me with them. Salut au Monde! is Whitmans calling card to the world, as well as one of his most successful compositions. With its closeups and panoramic visions of the earth, the poem extends and internationalizes the outward progression of the first person seer in Song of Myself. It begins the journey motif in what James E. Miller has classified as the Song Section (Song of the Open Road, Song of the Rolling Earth, etc.) of Leaves of Grass. From American brotherhood to a universal unity, Whitmans ongoing poetic aspiration is toward an internationality of poems and poets, binding the lands of the earth closer than all treaties and diplomacy (Zapata-Whelan, Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia). The poem was first published in the second edition of Leaves of Grass (1856) under the title Poem of Salutation. The poet amended the work slightly and retitled it Salut au Monde! for the third edition of Leaves of Grass (1860). A splendid Whitman portrait with a rare and deeply personal Leaves of Grass inscription. This is the only Whitman portrait inscribed with a Leaves of Grass poem that we have been able to locate. Photomechanical print from a photograph made in Toronto in 1880. 5 ½ x 3 ½ in. image size. Fine, ornate gilt frame. Fine condition. Folsom, Notes on Photographs, 1880s, no. 8.- $75,000
- $75,000
I Love You America
ALI, MUHAMMAD 13 1/2 x 19 1/2 in. Acrylic on canvas, with small fabric American flag mounted at right. Signed and dated by the artist, Muhammad Ali Feb 1-19-79. Framed. Muhammad Ali was the embodiment of the revolution in American race relations in the second half of the 20th century. This painting captures the realization of his dreams. Here Ali celebrates America in a vibrant red, white, and blue painting incorporating an American flag. Alis enormous and complicated impact on American culture is manifest in this painting reflecting his love of country and his fight for justice and equal rights. The complex story of Muhammad Ali and America was one of confrontation, controversy and redemption. The young boxer Cassius Clay represented the United States in the 1960 Rome Olympics where he won a gold medal. On his return he declared, To make America the greatest is my goal / So I beat the Russian and I beat the Pole / And for the USA won the medal of gold After defeating Sonny Liston for the heavyweight title, he announced that he had joined the Nation of Islam and adopted the name Muhammad Ali. Alis outspoken support of Black activism and his refusal as a conscientious objector to serve in the military in the Vietnam War made him a widely reviled figure. When Ali was convicted in 1967 for his failure to serve, he was sentenced to five years in prison. Boxing commissions denied Ali the right to box, costing him the prime of his career. He spent those years speaking out for racial justice on college campuses and in the press. Finally in 1970 the decision was overturned by the Supreme Court. In this evocative work of Outsider Art, Ali addresses the country that first sentenced him to prison and later came to embrace him and his messages of activism, justice, and peace. The American flag has attracted artists for more than two hundred years, from Emanuel Leutzes Washington Crossing the Delaware to Jasper Johnss Flag paintings to Faith Ringgolds The Flag is Bleeding. Alis painting has characteristics of outsider art, but the boxers long interest in painting had its origins in his fathers career as a professional sign painter and amateur artist. In the early 1960s Ali became a close friend of the artist LeRoy Neiman, finding their energy and style mutually resonant. Their collaboration, which helped ignite Alis interest in art-making, was included in 2017 show about the two at the New York Historical Society. This is the Muhammad Ali who inspires us today the man who believes real success comes when we rise after we fall; who has shown us that through undying faith and steadfast love, each of us can make this world a better place. He is and always will be the champ. Barack Obama I am America. I am the part you wont recognize. But get used to me black, confident, cocky; my name, not yours; my religion, not yours; my goals, my own. Get used to me. Muhammad Ali Alis principled stands and his calls for social justice inspired a generation, helped to transform America, and brought him worldwide love and respect. This painting by Muhammad Ali is a wonderful relic of a dominant figure of American cultural history and a defining movement in twentieth century America. Provenance: Rodney Hilton Brown, publisher of Muhammad Alis limited edition silkscreen prints, 1978.- $275,000
- $275,000
Common Sense; Addressed to the Inhabitants of America . . . the third edition [bound with:] Large Additions to Common Sense
PAINE, THOMAS FIRST EDITION, FIRST PRINTING sheets of Common Sense, here with the third edition title page and prefatory leaf. Richard Gimbels definitive study identifies points in every gathering distinguishing the three editions that Bell printed in early 1776. This copy of Common Sense contains all of the points of the first printing, save the two-leaf gathering [A]2 (title and preface). Bound in at the end is Paines Large Additions to Common Sense, which Bell pirated from a competitor and offered separately for one shilling to buyers of Common Sense. Paines Common Sense, published anonymously in January 1776, was the first vigorous attack on King George and the first public appeal for an American Republic. It is not too much to say that the Declaration of Independence of July 4, 1776, was due more to Paines Common Sense than to any other single piece of writing (Streeter). Born in England in 1737, Paine moved to London in 1774 where he met Benjamin Franklin, who encouraged him to emigrate to America. Franklin provided Paine with letters of introduction to his son William Franklin, royal governor of New Jersey, and his son-in-law Richard Bache, an influential merchant in Philadelphia. Paine arrived in America in November 1774, an unemployed 37-year old immigrant. Through Franklins influence, the brilliant but unpolished Paine gained access to many leading American intellectuals and soon became editor of the Pennsylvania Magazine. Within one year of his arrival, Paine was working on early drafts of Common Sense, which was published on January 10, 1776. The pamphlet, which immediately became the most talked-about publication in America, made Paine a the leading voice of revolution. Common Sense is brilliant in its simplicity and contains many of the most memorable phrases of the revolutionary period. Paine wrote, in America the law is King. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be King; and there ought to be no other. A government of our own is our natural right it is infinitely wiser and safer, to form a constitution of our own in a cool deliberate manner, while we have it in our power, than to trust such an interesting event to time and chance. It was the most brilliant pamphlet written during the American Revolution, and one of the most brilliant pamphlets ever written in the English language (Bernard Bailyn). The immediate success and impact of Common Sense was nothing short of astonishing. Common Sense went through twenty-five editions and reached literally hundreds of thousands of readers in the single year 1776 The pamphlets astonishing impact stemmed from the fact that it appeared at precisely the moment when Americans were ready to accept Paines destruction of arguments favoring conciliation and his appeal to latent republicanism, to the material interests of the colonists and to the widespread hopes for the future of the New World. By doing all this in a new style of writing and a new political language, Paine broke the ice that was slowly congealing the revolutionary movement (Foner, Tom Paine and Revolutionary America). Together with the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and The Federalist, Common Sense is one of the fundamental documents of the birth of our nation. The most recent census of Common Sense locates seventeen complete first editions. Only two of these remain in private hands, and neither is likely to appear for sale. The present volume, containing the first edition sheets, is the most desirable available copy of Common Sense, perhaps the most influential book in American history. Two volumes in one. Disbound, original stabholes visible. K1 detached with blank lower margin torn. Some staining, foxing and wear, old inscription on verso of title. Half morocco case. Gimbel, Thomas Paine. A Bibliographical Checklist of Common Sense (New Haven, 1956).- $250,000
- $250,000
AMIRI BARAKA. (LEROI JONES)
BARBOZA, ANTHONY (BARAKA, AMIRI) (LEROI JONES) Gelatin silver print. 14 x 14 in. image on 16 x 20 in. sheet. Light wear. Signed by Barboza and titled Imamu Baraka poet 76 by the photographer. This is a splendid Anthony Barboza portrait of Amiri Baraka. Barakas illustrious and controversial 50-year career, in which he first achieved fame as Leroi Jones, encompassed poetry, drama, fiction, criticism, and activism. Critic Arnold Rampersad counted Baraka with Phillis Wheatley, Frederick Douglass, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright, and Ralph Ellison as one of the eight figures who have significantly affected the course of African-American literary culture. Anthony Barboza (b. 1944) is perhaps most famous for his portraits of musicians, dancers, and writers and for his photojournalist, fashion, and editorial spreads in countless magazines. His work has been exhibited in many solo and group shows and is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, Cornell University, the Brooklyn Museum, the Schomburg Center NYPL, and the National Portrait Gallery, among others. Barbozas photographs are the subject of a major new monograph, Eyes Dreaming: Photography by Anthony Barboza (Getty Museum). This is a splendid portrait linking two of the great African American artists of the second half of the twentieth century. When I do a portrait, Im doing a photograph of how that person feels to me; how I feel about the person, not how they look. I find that in order for the portraits to work, they have to make a mental connection as well as an emotional one. When they do that, I know I have itAnthony Barboza- $4,200
- $4,200
Pocket Book of Baby and Child Care [Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care]
SPOCK, BENJAMIN ONE OF THE BOOKS OF THE CENTURY. Spocks book helped to revolutionize child-rearing in post-war America. Within one year of its first publication the book sold 750,000 copies, and it has since sold more than 50 million copies in ten editions and more than 40 languages. When it appeared in 1946, the advice in Dr. Spocks now classic book was a dramatic break from the prevailing expert opinion. Rather than force a baby into a strict behavioral schedule, Spock, who had training in both pediatrics and psychiatry, encouraged parents to use their own judgment and common sense (NYPL Books of the Century). The New York Times noted that babies do not arrive with owners manuals But for three generations of American parents, the next best thing was Baby and Child Care Dr. Benjamin Spock breathed humanity and common sense into child-rearing. Spocks critics believed that his permissive approach to parenting had helped to create a generation of self-centered narcissiststhe baby boomers and the counterculture of the 1960s. Spocks book was first issued by Duell, Sloan and Pearce in May 1946 as the Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care. That hardcover edition was intended to capture the notice of reviewers and the medical community. But the main publishing effort was the Pocket Books paperback titled The Pocket Book of Baby and Child Care. That textually identical edition, first published a few weeks later at 25 cents to maximize sales and reach, became a runaway bestseller. This typescript, which uses the Pocket Books title, concludes with the toilet training section. The published edition continues with sections on older children beginning at age one. This corrected typescript shows countless substantial differences from the published edition. Comparison of this typescript with the published text reveals that Spock added and removed many passages and entire sections of the book. This is the only extant manuscript of the first edition of Spocks Baby and Child Care. Spocks voluminous papers, held by Syracuse University, include multiple boxes relating to the second and later editions, but the first edition is not represented there. New York Public Library Books of the Century 95. Guardian 100 Best Nonfiction Books of All Time 33. Library of C Original ribbon typescript, with manuscript corrections, of the first edition of one of the best-selling and most influential books of the 20th century. INQUIRE FOR MORE DETAILS.- $35,000
- $35,000
Aristoteles Master-piece, or, The Secrets of Generation displayed in all the parts thereof [Aristotle’s Masterpiece]
[Aristotle] First edition of Aristotles Masterpiece, the most popular book about womens bodies, sex, pregnancy, and childbirth in Britain and America from its first appearance in 1684 up to at least the 1870s (Treasures, Library Company of Philadelphia). Aristotles Masterpieceneither by Aristotle nor a masterpieceis the first sex manual written in English (Norman). The work documents theories and practices of human reproduction during the early modern period. This first edition was assembled in part from excerpts of existing midwifery books, primarily Levinus Lemniuss The Secret Miracles of Nature (1658) and Jacob Rueffs The Expert Midwife (1658). The books pseudo-Aristotle attribution both lent it an aura of credibility and hinted at the sexual nature of its contents. After the publication of a book called Aristotles Problems in 1595, which included a few explicit discussions of sex, the name Aristotle came to euphemistically indicate sexual knowledge to an early modern audience. Unlike medical texts on similar subjects, the book was intended for a vernacular readership and was widely disseminated in Britain and America. It was eventually published in hundreds of editions in at least three versions, each appropriating and combining text from existing works. On average, an edition of the Masterpiece was published every year for 250 years. It was still for sale in Londons Soho sex shops as late as the 1930s. The books title pagepromising a word of Advice to both Sexes in the Act of Copulationspeaks to the sexual knowledge offered within. Aristotles Masterpiece emphasizes both male and female partners enjoyment of the act. The books attention to pleasure was essential to its focus on procreative sex within marriage. Underpinning the Masterpiece is the theory that a woman must cast forth her Seed to commix with the Man (which imploys a willingness in her to be a Copartner in the Act) in order to conceive. With female and male partners playing an equally active role in casting forth their seed, both partners arousal and enjoyment was crucial to reproduction. Thus, womens sexual appetite was accepted as a natural part of life, and the onset of menstruation credited with [inciting] their Minds and Imaginations to Venery. This first edition concludes with a word of advice to both sexes in the time of copulation, imparting to its readers a final lesson on the importance of foreplay: [A husband] must entertain [his wife] with all kind of dalliance, wanton behaviour, and allurements to Venery but if he perceive her to be slow and more cold, he must cherish, embrace, and tickle her that she may take fire and be in flames to venery, for so at length the womb will strive and wax fervent with a desire of casting forth its own seed. This is an especially appealing example of a landmark book in the history of womens health, reproduction, and sex. The first edition of 1684 is known in three variant settings, all printed by J. How, priority unknown. ESTC records only the incomplete British Library copy (lacking the plates comprising the final gathering I) of our setting, which has line 11 of title ending both, line 18 of title ends Ge-, and the first line of the imprint ending sold, signature B5 is under the nt Bl of effluent Blood and on p.190 the fifth line from bottom begins with a capital Q. Provenance: William Sweet [? scuffed] His book 1740 February the 21, ownership inscription on the verso of frontispiece. Wing A3697fA. ESTC R504793. 12mo. Contemporary sheep, some wear. Woodcut frontispiece and 6 woodcuts of monstrous births (including repeat of frontispiece). Final gathering well thumbed and dog-eared with short tears at fore-edge with minor losses. A very appealing, honest copy.- $75,000
- $75,000
Collection of four letters to William Chester Tait.
DARWIN, CHARLES This fascinating series of letters reflects Charles Darwins wide-ranging scientific research, his boundless curiosity, and his encouragement of a young naturalist. In January 1869 Darwin received a letter from Charles Chester Tait, a British amateur botanist living in Portugal. Tait wrote glowingly to Darwin about his books, especially On the Origin of Species (1859) and his recently published Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication (1868). The young Tait then shared his observations on tailless dogs in Portugal. He observed that the tails of pointers are often docked and wonders if this might account for the occasional birth of tailless dogs, relating to the theory of pangenesis advanced in Darwins latest book. This inquiry launched a yearlong correspondence. This collection of four letters makes up one-half of Darwins side of the correspondence. In Darwins initial letter of February 2, he replies to Taits inquiry writing, With respect to the tailless dogs, there would be I fear much difficulty in determining how far the unknown causes, which occasionally lead in other countries dogs to be born without tails, have acted more energetically in Lisbon; & how far the result has followed from the cutting off of the tail; but if you could render your case highly probable it would be very interesting. Darwin then turns to a remarkable carnivorous plant native to Portugal, Drosophyllum lusitanicum, also known as the dewy pine. The plant attracts insects and becomes encrusted with and absorbs their corpses. Darwin had asked J. D. Hooker and others to obtain the plant for him but to no avail. He asks Tait to send me a living young plant of the rare Drosophyllum Lusitanicum, which grown is sandy places in Portugal, I have long wished to try a series of experiments on this plant. Darwin concludes his letter with the poignant observation, With your taste for natural history, you must feel very isolated, and I can fully sympathize with you. After the voyage of the Beagle, Darwin spent most of his scientific life at home, gathering data from personal observation there and through his vast network of correspondents. Four letters totaling 13 pages, one entirely written and signed by Charles Darwin, the others signed by Darwin with the body written by his daughter Emma, and one with a long postscript in Darwins hand. Original folds. Very good condition.- $60,000
- $60,000
