Titles starting with A from Argonaut Book Shop

New York: E.P. Dutton, 1955 First American edition. Dark green cloth, gilt-lettered spine. Spine faded, else a fine copy. A history of Himalayan mountaineering. Covers the mountains and their approaches; early history to 1885; later history (1885 to 1918), 1918-1928, 1929-1939, and 1939-1953, An appendix covers Himalayan and Karakoram peaks over 25,000 feet, the determination of Himalayan heights, a chronological summary, and a bibliography.. ... more information

New York: Pantheon Books, 1972 First American edition. Translated from the Swedish by Thomas Teal. Purple cloth, lettered in gilt. Light rubbing to dust jacket. A fine copy. Part of the Martin Beck series of crime novels.. ... more information

San Francisco: Cameron and Company, 1986 First edition. Text by Herb Caen. Oblong 4to. 160pp. Illustrated with a multitude of color and black & white photographs. Tan cloth. A very fine, as new copy with pictorial dust jacket. "A new collection of nostalgic and contemporary aerial photographs of the Bay Area." Covers the Bay and the Bridges, the City, the East Bay, the South Bay, and the North Bay. Similar to the photographer's earlier works a decade earlier, this wonderful visual producti... more information

Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1928 2 volumes. Complete. Pp. xxvii, [2], 607 + vii, [3], 741. Eighteen plates and portraits, extensive notes, index. Dark blue cloth, gilt. A fine set. The classic comprehensive biography of Abraham Lincoln up to 1858. The last chapter covers the period of Lincoln's nomination and election, 1861.. First Trade Edition. ... more information

New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1939 First trade edition (after the deluxe edition) of the definitive historical biography of Lincoln and winner of the Pulitzer prize. 4 volumes. Pp. xxi, 660 + xii, 655 + xiii, 673 + xii, 515. Illustrated with 414 half-tone photographs, and 249 cuts of cartoons, facsimile letters, documents, etc. Extensive index. Original gray-blue cloth, gilt. A fine set. After the War Years was published, reviewers from all over the world called Sandburg's work a classic. Despite... more information

Chicago: The Lakeside Press, 1950 Reprinted from the 1868 edition. Edited by Milo Milton Quaife. 12mo. liii, 354pp. Folding map, 2 portraits, 2 plans, text illustrations. Index. Maroon cloth, gilt. A fine copy. Includes an excellent historical introduction by Quaife. "A tale of remarkable courage of an isolated detachment of soldiery, and of shocking blundering and inefficiency on the part of the higher command" (Quaife). A personal account of the experiences of an officer's wife on the plains... more information

Ashland: The Oregon Book Society, 1976 First edition by this publisher, limited to 350 copies. Numerous black & white illustrations, pictorial endpapers. Green cloth, decorated and lettered in gilt. A very fine copy with dust jacket.. ... more information

San Francisco: The Book Club of California, 1941 One of 350 copies printed by the Grabhorn Press. Introduction by Edith M. Coulter. Quarto. 81pp. 4 plates reproducing water colors by William Smyth, and a reproduction of a manuscript map by the author. Handset type, French handmade paper. Half vellum over red cloth, gilt. Very light rubbing to edges near corners, else a fine copy. Reprinted from the California portion of the first (1831) edition of, "A Narrative of a Voyage to the Pacific and Bering'... more information

Birmingham: The Classics of Medicine Library, 1981 Special edition. Privately printed. Quarto. With a foreword and biography by Frank McDowell. Illustrated, including color and black & white engravings by Charles Turner. Includes English translation of the foreword to the German edition. Bound in red leather, extensive gilt decoration on covers and spine. All edges gilt. Marbled endpapers. Red silk ribbon bookmark. A very fine copy. Facsimile of the original 1816 edition.. ... more information

Philadelphia: H. C. Carey and I. Lea, 1823 First edition. 2 volumes. Pp. [4], 5, [3], 503 + [6], 442, xcviii. Lacking atlas volume. Later three-quarter leather, marbled boards, spines gilt. Scattered light foxing, minor age-toning, contemporary owner's name. A very good, attractive set. This notable government expedition (commanded by Major Stephen H. Long) supplemented earlier discoveries of Pike and Lewis and Clark, and eventually pronounced the "plains region as nothing but a desert, incapable o... more information

San Francisco: The Book Club of California, 1948 One of 500 copies printed by the Grabhorn Press. Reprinted from Beadle's Half-Dime Library (Number 814), February 28, 1893. Quarto. Pp. [8], 56. Title, colophon and 8 text engravings in red and black by Mallette Dean. Red cloth-backed decorative boards, paper label. Some offsetting to endpapers, else a very fine copy. An amusing tale, one of the few Beadle's "Half-Dime Library" novels set in California. One of the Fifty Books of the Year. Al... more information

Hillsborough: L-D Allen Press, 1950 Introductory Notes by Oscar Lewis. One of 200 copies printed by Lewis and Dorothy Allen on all rag paper. 76pp. Chapter head vignettes by Mallette Dean. Decorated boards printed in black, green-blue and vermillion, spine lettered in blue. A very fine copy. Stevenson's autobiographical narrative of his train trip from New York to San Francisco. [Allen: 9].. ... more information

Springfield, Mass.: Samuel Bowles and Co., 1865 First edition. Small octavo. Pp. [2, ads], xx, 452, [2, blank], 6 (ads). Large folding hand-colored frontis map, title page vignette. Original brown cloth, gilt-lettered spine. Minor wear to spine ends and corners. Contemporary owner's penciled signature. A fine copy. Schuyler Colfax was Speaker of the United States House of Representative in 1865 and Bowles was editor of the Massachusetts Springfield Republican. "Samuel Bowles and his party left Atch... more information

Palo Alto, California: Lewis Osborne First book edition. Limited to 1,400 copies. First published in The Century Magazine, 1891. Foreword by George R. Stewart. 56pp. Frontis portrait, illustrations. Bibliography. Blue cloth, gilt. A fine copy in plain gray dust jacket. Virginia Murphy wrote these plaintive recollections for the magazine some forty-five years following the Donner tragedy. Her father was James Reed, an important figure in the event. This copy includes the laid-in folding map showing the overl... more information

New York: Taplinger Publishing Co., Inc., 1965 First American edition. Octavo. 94pp. plus illustrations. Index. Illustrated with 96 black & white photographic illustrations. Red cloth with black and silver on spine. General light shelfwear, very minor fading to top edge. Internally clean and fine. Overall, a near fine copy. . ... more information

Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1998 First edition. xxi, [3], 382pp. Illustrated throughout from photographs and early prints. Extensive notes, bibliography, index. Purple cloth, gilt, over beige boards. A very fine copy with pictorial dust jacket. The first new biography in fifty years. The author traces Farragut's rise to Admiral, his relationship with Capt. David Peter, his foster father, and Adm. David Dixon Porter, his foster brother, his operations in the War of 1812, and especially du... more information

New York: Jonathan Cape and Harrison Smith, (1929) Reprint. 8vo. Illustrated by Zhenya Gay. Tan cloth. Small amount of soiling to front cover, light rubbing to the spine, previous owner's inscription on endpaper. A good copy. 51E. ... more information

Berkeley: Wilder and Ellen Bentley, 1939 One of 450 copies. Printed by Wilder and Ellen Bentley. Hand-tinted illustrations by Hans. Pictorial cloth. Minor soiling on spine and previous owners signature on inner cover, otherwise a fine copy. Signed by the illustrator and by Wilder and Ellen.. Illus. by Hans. ... more information

Albany: Weed-parsons, 1894 First edition. 200pp. Frontis portrait and 10 plates. Rebound in Victorian black moiré cloth, gilt. A fine copy. The author was infected with gold fever, and, in the course of his voyage to California from New York, he also caught Panama fever. Knower arrived in San Francisco in August of 1849 intending to sell prefabricated houses that he had shipped to California. He visited the mines near Coloma and Dutch Bar but the major portion of his recollections are devoted to life... more information

Denver: Old West Publishing Co., 1976 First edition. Pp. viii, 246. 5 color plates, numerous illustrations, 3 large folding maps in rear pocket; appendices, index. Brown cloth lettered in gilt. A fine copy (lacking jacket). Barclay was a pioneer farmer in Canada, a bookkeeper in St. Louis, Superintendent of Bent's Fort, a fur trader and mountain man in Colorado & New Mexico, and the builder of Barclay's Fort on the Santa Fe trail. An important and handsome book, printed by Alfred and Lawton Kenn... more information