A JOURNEY TO THE NORTH POLE. With: THE FIELD OF ICE
by Verne, Jules
1875. [a handsome set] [Together, two volumes.] With 129 | 126 [total 255] Illustrations by Riou. London and New York: George Routledge and Sons, 1875 [actually 1874]. 14 pp undated ads in the latter volume. Original terra-cotta cloth pictorially decorated in black and gilt. First British Edition of the two volumes that together comprise Verne's maritime tale THE VOYAGES AND ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN HATTERAS. Crewmembers sign on for a mysterious voyage to an unknown destination, in a ship... Read More
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FAUST: A Dramatic Poem
by Goethe [Johann Wolfgang von]
1833. Translated into English prose, with remarks on former translations, and notes, by The Translator of Savigny's "Of the Vocation..." [Abraham Hayward]. London: MDCCCXXXIII [1833]. Bound in early (contemporary?) purple watered silk stamped in gilt on the front cover and spine. First Edition in the English language of Goethe's final version of the legend of Faust -- this being a copy of the private issue printed for the translator (considered to have preceded the trade issue). The legend... Read More
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THE WAR IN THE AIR
by Wells, H.G.
1908. And particularly how Mr. Bert Smallways fared while it lasted. With Illustrations by A.C. Michael. London: George Bell and Sons, 1908. 2 pp undated ads. Original blue cloth decorated in gilt. First Edition of this extraordinary tale of a Cockney cycle mechanic who is carried off by a drifting balloon and is then caught up in a surprise German air attack on New York City -- which in turn precipitates the collapse of civilization. Though this book... Read More
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THE HOUSE OF MIRTH
by Wharton, Edith
1905. [read this description!] With Illustrations by A.B. Wenzell. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1905. Original red cloth. First Edition, early but not first printing, of Edith Wharton's first major novel, which had "the most rapid sale of any book ever published by Scribner" at the time. The novel "covers the last seventeen months in the life of Lily Bart, a beautiful and fashionable but also penniless and imprudent young woman in her late twenties. The action... is... Read More
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![THE BOOK OF THE HOMELESS [Large Paper Copy]](https://d3525k1ryd2155.cloudfront.net/h/995/926/1024926995.0.l.jpg)
THE BOOK OF THE HOMELESS [Large Paper Copy]
by Wharton, Edith
1916. (Le Livre des Sans-Foyer). Original Articles in Verse and Prose / Illustrations reproduced from Original Paintings & Drawings. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1916. Original blue-grey paper-covered boards with tan cloth spine. First (and only) Edition, of which this is Copy No. 70 of the 125 numbered large-paper copies printed on Van Gelder paper, signed by D.B. Updike of The Merrymount Press. (In addition to 2000 trade copies, there were 175 large-paper copies -- #s 1-50 on... Read More
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ETHAN FROME
by Wharton, Edith
1911. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1911. 1 preliminary page + 4 pp undated ads. Original red cloth. First Edition of Edith Wharton's best-known book, a grim novella sited on a bleak Massachusetts farm. "As in THE HOUSE OF MIRTH, the central problem is that of the barriers imposed by local convention upon an individual whose happiness depends on rising above them" [OCAL]. This copy's leaves have a gilt top edge, and the word "wearily" is printed properly... Read More
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THE DESCENT OF MAN and Other Stories
by Wharton, Edith
1904. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1904. Original red cloth. First Edition of the author's third collection of short stories. The title story is quite appropriate more than a century later: an eminent scientist decides to have a bit of a joke on the general public by publishing a perfect parody of the kind of pseudo-scientific nonsense that... is just a little bit too believable to make disproving it an easy task. His book a resounding success, and... Read More
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CAMDEN'S COMPLIMENT TO WALT WHITMAN
by (Whitman, Walt)
1889. May 31, 1889. Notes, Addresses, Letters, Telegrams. Edited by Horace L. Traubel. Philadelphia: David McKay, 1889. Original maroon cloth. First Edition of this group of writings, by Whitman and others, upon the occasion of the "Complimentary Dinner" held in his honor in Camden on May 31, 1889 -- his 70th birthday (he would have only two more). The three Whitman pieces making their first appearance here are his own lengthy "Autobiographic Note" (page 4), his brief response... Read More
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LORD ARTHUR SAVILE'S CRIME & Other Stories
by Wilde, Oscar
1891. Ricketts, Charles. London: James R. Osgood, McIlvaine and Co., 1891. Original salmon paper-covered flexible boards decorated in dark red. First Edition of this collection of four dark, semi-comic mystery tales. "Lord Arthur Savile's Crime" is an amusing but macabre tale (if there can be such a thing) about a young man who, convinced by Lady Windermere's cheiromantist that he is doomed to commit murder, does his best to do so prior to getting married -- out of... Read More
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AN IDEAL HUSBAND
by [Wilde, Oscar]
1899. Shannon, Charles. By the Author of Lady Windermere's Fan. London: Leonard Smithers and Co., 1899. Original mauve cloth decorated in gilt. First Edition, consisting of 1000 regular copies (so stated; there were also 100 signed copies on Van Gelder paper, plus twelve signed copies on Japan vellum). This was the fourth and last of Wilde's four great comedies of manners -- following LADY WINDERMERE'S FAN (published in 1893), A WOMAN OF NO IMPORTANCE (1894) and THE IMPORTANCE... Read More
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RAVENNA. Newdigate Prize Poem
by Wilde, Oscar
1878. [the fine Bradley Martin copy] Recited in The Theatre, Oxford, June 26, 1878. Oxford: Thos. Shrimpton and Son, 1878. Original grey printed wrappers. First Edition of Oscar Wilde's first book, the Newdigate Prize-winning poem that he wrote while a student at Magdalen College. To quote from Pearson: He [Wilde] left Oxford in a blaze of glory. The subject for the Newdigate Prize Poem that year was Ravenna, and it so happened that he had visited the place... Read More
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![THE YEARS. [with variant jacket]](https://d3525k1ryd2155.cloudfront.net/h/041/011/1685011041.0.l.jpg)
THE YEARS. [with variant jacket]
by Woolf, Virginia
1937. Bell, Vanessa. [a "colonial cloth" copy] London: Published by Leonard and Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press, 1937. Original jade-green cloth, with dust jacket. First Edition of one of Virginia Woolf's longest novels -- and one of the last to be published before her death by suicide. To quote from the dust jacket: Its theme is the passing of the last fifty years, seen through the everyday life of separate individuals. The theme is presented in the... Read More
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GRANITE AND RAINBOW: Essays
by Woolf, Virginia
1958. [with wraparound band] London: The Hogarth Press, 1958. Original blue cloth, with dust jacket and "Book Society" wraparound band. First Edition of this collection of 27 essays -- 13 on "The Art of Fiction" and 14 on "The Art of Biography" -- most of which had appeared as unsigned reviews, now brought to light by VW's biographer and by her bibliographer (as noted by Leonard Woolf in his "Editorial Note"). Authors covered include Sterne, Raleigh, Johnson, Burney,... Read More
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![[Selected Poems in] THE AUGUSTAN BOOKS OF ENGLISH POETRY](https://d3525k1ryd2155.cloudfront.net/h/043/011/1685011043.0.l.jpg)
[Selected Poems in] THE AUGUSTAN BOOKS OF ENGLISH POETRY
by Yeats, W.B.
1931. [twice signed by Lily Yeats] Second Series [Number Four]. [London: Ernest Benn, 1931.] Original reddish-brown wrappers with front cover cut-out revealing "W.B. YEATS" underneath. First Edition, third impression (so stated -- "February 1931"); the first impression had come out in 1927. Humbert Wolfe edited this Second Series (and provided an Introduction here); ultimately this series consisted of at least the 30 numbers shown in this 1931 copy. (The First Series of THE AUGUSTAN BOOKS, edited by Edward... Read More
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WHEELS AND BUTTERFLIES
by Yeats, W.B.
1934. London: Macmillan and Co., 1934. Original bright blue-green cloth, with dust jacket. First Edition, which consisted of 3000 copies -- dedicated to Lady Gregory, co-founder of the Abbey Theatre, who had died in 1932. This volume consists of four plays that had appeared onstage at the Abbey Theatre -- "The Words upon the Window-pane," "Fighting the Waves," "The Resurrection" and "The Cat and the Moon." "Fighting the Waves" appears in book form here for the first time;... Read More
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JOHN SHERMAN, AND DHOYA
by [Yeats, W.B.] Ganconagh [pseudonym]
1891. [Yeats's first book in the US] New York: Cassell Publishing Company, (1891). 2 pp undated ads. Original light lavender linen-grain cloth on flexible boards, lettered in darker lavender. First American Edition of Yeats's third book -- and Yeats's first book to be printed and published in America. Yeats's first two books were MOSADA (Dublin 1886 in wrappers, 14 copies extant), and THE WANDERINGS OF OISIN (Kegan Paul in London 1889, 500 copies). Comprising a novella and a... Read More
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