A BOOK OF ESCAPES and Hurried Journeys
by Buchan, John
1923. With Illustrations. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1923. Original tan-grey cloth pictorially decorated in black, green, and red. First American Edition. This is a retelling of a dozen true historical events that involved "escapes and hurried journeys" all over the world (Scotland, South Africa, Turkestan, Australia...), illustrated with eight plates by A.S. Forrest. The book was subsequently reprinted as a text-book, with additional questions and exercises not by Buchan. This is a handsomely bound book:... Read More
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POEMS SCOTS AND ENGLISH
by Buchan, John
1917. London and Edinburgh: T.C. & E.C. Jack, 1917. Original dark violet cloth. First Edition of John Buchan's first volume of verse (there were also fifty numbered/signed copies). Like his countryman Robert Louis Stevenson's UNDERWOODS of thirty years earlier, the verses in this volume are half in Scots and half in English. The book is dedicated to the author's brother Alastair -- "Lieutenant, Royal Scots Fusiliers, who fell at Arras on Easter Monday [April 9th] 1917"; this book... Read More
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SIR QUIXOTE OF THE MOORS
by Buchan, John
1895. Being some Account of an Episode in the Life of the Sieur de Rohaine. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1895. 4 pp undated ads. Original black cloth decorated in red, green, pink and yellow. First Edition of John Buchan's first book, taking place in the Galloway Hills at the time of the Covenanters. The first-person narrative presents the story of Jean de Rohaine, a French gentleman who, after falling into despair, finds himself wandering the inhospitable Scottish Highlands.... Read More
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THE HOUSE OF THE FOUR WINDS
by Buchan, John
1935. London: Hodder and Stoughton, (1935). Original green cloth, with dust jacket. First English Edition, published two days after the American. This is the third and last mystery featuring Dickson McCunn (the two previous ones had been HUNTINGTOWER (1922) and CASTLE GAY (1930). This suspenseful tale takes place in the imaginary European nation of Evallonia; McCunn encounters (among others) "the man with the elephant." This is a fine, bright copy; the pictorial dust jacket is near- fine, remarkably... Read More
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SCHOLAR GIPSIES
by Buchan, John
1896. London: John Lane / New York: Macmillan & Co., 1896. 16 pp ads dated 1896. Original light brown cloth decorated in dark brown, with dark brown cloth spine elaborately decorated in gilt. First Edition of Buchan's second book, a volume of sixteen essays, preceded only by his SIR QUIXOTE OF THE MOORS of 1895. Buchan notes in his "Prefatory" that these pieces "were all written in youth, when a man's thoughts run on many diverse things with... Read More
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POEMS ASCRIBED TO ROBERT BURNS, The Ayrshire Bard
by Burns, Robert
1801. Not Contained in Any Edition of His Works Hitherto Published. Glasgow, Printed by Chapman & Lang, for Thomas Stewart, Bookseller and Stationer, 1801. Early but not original green morocco-grain cloth. First Edition of this early collection of 29 poems "not... hitherto published," spread over 94 pages. The word "ascribed" is key, because, in the preliminary three-page "Advertisement," it is noted that the poems are "presented to the Public without any _positive_ affirmation of their authenticity on the... Read More
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POEMS, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect. The Third Edition
by Burns, Robert
1787. [original boards, leaves uncut] London: Printed for A. Strahan; T. Cadell in The Strand; and W. Creech, Edinburgh, 1787. Original blue-grey paper-covered boards with cream paper spine and printed label, page edges uncut. "The London edition," which is to say the third edition overall (so stated, unlike the prior two) -- following the rare Kilmarnock edition of 1786 and Wm. Creech's Edinburgh edition of earlier in 1787. Egerer goes to great length to explain why this edition,... Read More
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A CRITIQUE ON THE POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS
by (Burns, Robert) [Gleig, George]
1812. Illustrated by Engravings. Edinburgh: Printed by John Brown, for Bell & Bradfute, Edinburgh, W. Anderson, Stirling, and Thomas Hamilton, London, 1812. Original drab paper-covered boards with plain green cloth spine. First Edition of the first "critique" of the poems of Robert Burns, which though anonymous was written by George Gleig (1753-1840), Bishop of Brechin and Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church. This was the first, and for a long time the only book exclusively concerned with Burns's... Read More
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A ROGUE'S TRAGEDY
by Capes, Bernard
1906. London: Methuen & Co., (1906). 40 pp ads dated July 1906 (plus two loosely-inserted Methuen ad slips). Original bright red cloth stamped in gilt. First Edition by this prolific (and at the time very popular) author of many novels, often with elements of the supernatural and mystery -- such as OUR LADY OF DARKNESS, THE SECRET IN THE HILL, THE GREEN PARROT and THE SKELETON KEY. At age 62 his writing career was cut short by the... Read More
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THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS, and What Alice Found There
by Carroll, Lewis
1872. [one of only about five copies] With Fifty Illustrations by John Tenniel. Sixtieth Thousand. London: Macmillan and Co., 1893. 4 pages undated ads. Original red cloth decorated in gilt, all page edges gilt. This is one of only a handful of known copies of the suppressed 1893 "Sixtieth Thousand" printing of Lewis Carroll's well-known sequel to his ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND. Alice again enters a fantasy world, but this time by stepping through a mirror rather than... Read More
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THE HUNTING OF THE SNARK. An Agony, in Eight Fits
by Carroll, Lewis
1876. With Nine Illustrations by Henry Holiday. London: Macmillan and Co., 1876. Original buff cloth pictorially decorated in black, all page edges gilt. First Edition of this poetical nonsense tale, both funny and subtle, that "describes with infinite humour the impossible voyage of an improbable crew to find an inconceivable creature" [WM&G]. The crew consists of a Bellman, a Bonnet-Maker, a Barrister, a Broker, a Billiard-Maker, a Banker, a Butcher, a Baker, a Beaver and (the only one... Read More
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![SHADOWS ON THE ROCK. [1/199 on Japan vellum, signed]](https://d3525k1ryd2155.cloudfront.net/h/363/578/1699578363.0.l.jpg)
SHADOWS ON THE ROCK. [1/199 on Japan vellum, signed]
by Cather, Willa
1931. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1931. Original orange vellum stamped in gilt, edges beveled, with original French-fold cream printed dust jacket. First Edition, limited issue, being #135 of 199 copies signed by Cather, printed on Shidzuoka Japan vellum and bound in orange vellum -- of her historical novel sited in Quebec. (There was also a 619-copy signed issue on handmade paper, plus the trade issue.) With this copy, the limitation leaf and the foot of the dust... Read More
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MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY. By S.S. McClure
by [Cather, Willa Sibert]
1915. With Many Illustrations. New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, [1915]. Original maroon cloth lettered in gilt with pictorial panel on the front cover, with dust jacket. First Edition, second printing (the first to have a dust jacket) -- of the autobiography of the Irish-American investigative publisher Samuel Sidney McClure -- ghost-written by his managing editor, Willa Cather. McClure (1857-1949) emigrated with his widowed mother from County Antrim to a farm in Indiana when he was nine; after... Read More
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ALEXANDER'S BRIDGE
by Cather, Willa Sibert
1912. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1912. 4 pp undated ads. Original purple cloth. First Edition of Willa Cather's first novel, published near the end of Cather's stint as managing editor of McClure's Magazine. It is about world-renowned bridge-builder Bartley Alexander, his mid-life crisis, and a new bridge with a flaw; it takes place in New England, largely in Boston, as it would not be until the following year (with O PIONEERS!) that the author would... Read More
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A NIGHT IN ACADIE
by Chopin, Kate
1897. Chicago: Way & Williams, 1897. Original very dark blue cloth pictorially decorated in green and silver. First Edition of the author's third book, which, like her second book BAYOU FOLK (1894), is a collection of short stories sited in Louisiana bayou country. Katherine O'Flaherty (1850-1904) actually was born and died in St. Louis, but she lived in the New Orleans area for the ten or so years she was married to a Louisiana Creole (ending with his... Read More
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BAYOU FOLK
by Chopin, Kate
1894. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1894. 2 pp undated ads. Original olive green cloth decorated in gilt. First Edition of Kate Chopin's second (but first obtainable) book, a collection of 23 stories and anecdotes of Louisiana local color. A native of St. Louis, Katherine O'Flaherty (1850-1904) married a successful Louisiana Creole named Oscar Chopin, and lived in New Orleans and on a nearby cotton plantation until his death of swamp fever in 1882, when... Read More
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NO NAME. In Three Volumes
by Collins, Wilkie
1862. London: Sampson Low, Son, & Co., 1862. Original blind-stamped pebbled orange cloth with gilt-decorated spines. First Edition of "the most unjustly neglected of all Wilkie Collins's novels" [Robinson]. Written at the peak of Collins's career just after THE WOMAN IN WHITE, Sampson Low paid Collins 3,000 for NO NAME, and then produced 4,000 copies -- all but 400 of which were sold by the afternoon of the first day [Gasson]. The novel centers about the theme of... Read More
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ANTONINA; or, The Fall of Rome. In Three Volumes
by Collins, W. Wilkie
1850. [first fiction, in original cloth] A Romance of the Fifth Century. London: Richard Bentley, 1850. 2 pp undated ads in Vols II and III, as well as printed endpaper ads in all three volumes. Original cream embossed cloth with blind-stamping on the covers and gilt stamping on the spines. First Edition of Wilkie Collins's first fiction, preceded only by his two-volume "memoir" of his father, the renowned landscape painter. Actually Collins began ANTONINA in 1846, then (after... Read More
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A SET OF SIX
by Conrad, Joseph
1908. London: Methuen & Co., (1908). 40 pp ads dated February 1908. Original dark violet-blue cloth decorated in dark red and gilt. First Edition of this collection of six short stories, which consisted of 2,524 copies (including 595 for the colonies). Conrad described these tales -- "Gaspar Ruiz," "The Informer," "The Brute," "An Anarchist," "The Duel" and "Il Conde" -- as "stories of incident -- action -- not of analysis... stories in which I've tried my best to... Read More
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THE SECRET AGENT. A Simple Tale
by Conrad, Joseph
1907. [the Charlie Watts copy] London: Methuen & Co., (1907). 40 pp ads dated Sept 1907. Original deep red cloth with gilt-decorated spine. First Edition of Conrad's tale of espionage sited in Russia. The idea for the story came from an actual 1890s revolutionary attempt to blow up the Observatory at Greenwich. Conrad initially planned this to be a short story (titled "Verloc"); however, as he "got into" it, he lengthened it into a full-blown novel. He then... Read More
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THE CHILDREN OF THE SEA. A Tale of the Forecastle
by Conrad, Joseph
1897. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1897. Original pictorial light blue-grey mottled cloth. First Edition, first issue, of the tale subsequently published as THE NIGGER OF THE "NARCISSUS." Conrad wrote this story with the "Nigger" title, but consented to change the title for the American edition (which preceded the English); "Dodd, Mead thought the English title might denote a book about a black man that would not interest American readers." Nonetheless, the original title was restored for... Read More
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THE INHERITORS. An Extravagant Story
by Conrad, Joseph and Hueffer, Ford M.
1901. ["To Boys & Christina"] New York: McClure, Phillips & Co., 1901. Original tan cloth pictorially decorated in black, orange and gilt. First Edition, pre-publication state, of the first collaboration between Conrad and Hueffer -- a tale that combines science fiction with political satire, somewhat in the same vein as had recently been popularized by H.G. Wells. This is regarded as Conrad's only science fiction tale -- though the work is largely Hueffer's. The "I" narrator is Etchingham... Read More
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THE RESCUE. A Romance of the Shallows
by Conrad, Joseph
1920. London & Toronto: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1920. Original green cloth lettered and with border in black, with dust jacket. First English Trade Edition (issued after the American edition and also after a 40-copy private issue of the English galley proofs). Begun in 1896, and in effect completing the trilogy begun with ALMAYER'S FOLLY and AN OUTCAST OF THE ISLANDS, "THE RESCUE was Conrad's albatross, the book which hung about his neck from the beginning of his... Read More
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'TWIXT LAND AND SEA
by Conrad, Joseph
1912. Hodder & Stoughton / New York / George H. Doran Company, n.d. [1912]. Original red cloth. First American Edition of this three-tale collection best known for "The Secret Sharer" -- Conrad's most famous short story other than "Heart of Darkness." This was Doran's first and only printing of this book (these were relatively small printings, as Conrad's popularity was then at its nadir). It was produced by Doran in collaboration with the English publisher Hodder & Stoughton... Read More
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A PERSONAL RECORD
by Conrad, Joseph
1912. New York and London: Harper & Brothers, 1912. Original dark blue cloth. First (American) Edition of Conrad's most purely autobiographical work. This American edition was published on January 19, 1912; the English edition, titled SOME REMINISCENCES, was published sometime in January, so precedence is therefore uncertain. Beginning in 1916, all English editions adopted the American title, which had first been suggested by Harper. This copy is in the primary smooth cloth binding, and is in just-about-fine condition... Read More
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