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London: William Heinemann, 1909. Signed limited first edition, number 425 of 1000 copies, of Arthur Rackham's illustrated version of this German tale, first published in 1811. Celebrated for his depictions of fairy creatures, Rackham is ideally suited for this tale of a water spirit seeking a soul: "below sparkle, stately and solemn, many noble ruins, washed by the loving waters which win from them delicate moss-flowers and entwining clusters of sea-grass. Those who dwell there are very fair." Rackham's wave designs, in particular, lend a Japanese woodblock-inspired Art Nouveau element to the work, as in the image of Undine sinking into the Danube. A near-fine example of the best of the Golden Age of Illustration. Quarto, measuring 11.5 x 9 inches: viii, 136. Original full vellum, front board lettered and decorated in gilt with vignette by Rackham, spine elaborately ornamented in gilt, top edge gilt, other edges uncut, stiff brown endpapers. Half-title, with limitation signed by Rackham on verso.…
Read More A Week by Libedinsky, Iury [Libedinsky, Yuri]; Ransome, Arthur (translator) - 1923
by Libedinsky, Iury [Libedinsky, Yuri]; Ransome, Arthur (translator)
![A Week by Libedinsky, Iury [Libedinsky, Yuri]; Ransome, Arthur (translator) - 1923](https://d3525k1ryd2155.cloudfront.net/h/374/808/1423808374.0.m.jpg)
A Week
by Libedinsky, Iury [Libedinsky, Yuri]; Ransome, Arthur (translator)
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New York: B.W. Huebsch, 1923. First American edition of Bolshevik writer Libedinsky's first novel, first published in Russian in 1922, an account of one week in a remote Siberian village torn apart by the Revolution. Facing famine, Communist leaders order the villagers into the forest to chop wood for fuel, creating an opening for a counterrevolutionary revolt. The violent aftermath is reflected through the eyes of a dozen characters, both Reds and Whites, and the unlucky villagers caught in the middle: "The Easter bell-ringing floated over the town, and the sound of it was interwoven with the tapping of the machine-gun. . . . She got up with difficulty." A Week was the first proletarian novel to find a wide readership outside Russia. Translator Arthur Ransome attributes the novel's success to its documentary quality: "Libedinsky aimed so simply . . . his was so clearly an attempt to see rather than an attempt to describe." A Week would be withdrawn from Soviet libraries after Libedinsky's expulsion from the Communist Party for Trotskyism in 1938, and reprinted only in censored editions. A near-fine copy, in the scarce original dust jacket. Single volume, measuring 7.25 x 5 inches: 247, [1]. Original blue cloth stamped in black, top edge stained yellow, original unclipped typographic dust jacket priced at $1.50 on the spine. Introduction by translator Arthur Ransome. Capwell's Books (Oakland, California) bookseller ticket to lower pastedown. Pinpoint foxing to edges and endpapers; light shelfwear to jacket, with one short closed tear.
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Bookseller
Honey & Wax Booksellers
(US)
- Book Condition Used
- Quantity Available 1
- Publisher B.W. Huebsch
- Place of Publication New York
- Date Published 1923
- Keywords literature, fiction, Russian, translation
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Undine
by De La Motte Fouqué, Friedrich; Rackham, Arthur (illustrator); Courtney, W.L. (translator)
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- first
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- Used
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Brooklyn, New York, United States
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CA$2,759.20
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CA$2,759.20
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Orlando Furioso di Lodovico Ariosto
by Ariosto, Lodovico; Cipriani, Gian Battista (illustrator); Moreau, Jean-Michel (illustrator); Eisen, Charles-Dominique-Joseph (illustrator); Cochin, Charles-Nicolas (illustrator); Monnet, Charles (illustrator); Greuze, Jean-Baptiste (illustrator)
- Used
- Condition
- Used
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- Unknown
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- 1
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Brooklyn, New York, United States
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CA$3,035.12
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Birmingham: Baskerville, 1773. First edition of the Baskerville Ariosto, octavo issue, with forty-six engraved plates. Set during the Saracen invasion of France, Orlando Furioso (1516-1532) follows the adventures of Charlemagne's high-strung knight Orlando, who goes mad for love. Ariosto's comic epic was hugely influential, going on to inspire works as various as The Faerie Queene, Much Ado About Nothing, Don Quixote, and Don Juan. Gaskell 48. Text in Italian. A very good set, in handsome contemporary bindings. Four octavo volumes: [34], lviii, 362, [2]; [2], 450, [2]; [2], 446, [2]; [2], 446 [2]. Contemporary full tree calf, Greek key border and floral cornerpieces in gilt to boards, raised bands, spine compartments ruled and patterned in gilt, red and black morocco spine labels lettered in gilt, gilt dentelles, marbled endpapers. Copperplate frontispiece of Ariosto and forty-six engraved plates. Associati and Errata bound before Vita in Volume I (all present). Bookplates of Francis Broderip and…
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CA$3,035.12
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Sketch...Book. Le Non-Obéissant: The Disobedient: Der Ungehorsame
by Honegger-Lavater, Warja; [Burgauer, Curt and Erna]
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- first
- Condition
- Used
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- 1
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Brooklyn, New York, United States
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CA$1,724.50
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Basel: Basilius Presse, 1968. Inscribed first edition of Swiss artist Warja Lavater's dynamic panorama charting the development of painting in the West, from the prehistoric cave art of Pech Merle to Jackson Pollock. Originally a designer of corporate logos and trademarks, Lavater had a genius for the symbol, producing inventive artist's books constructed of minimalist graphic codes and keys. The visual narrative of Sketch...Book is a historical one, focused on the disruptive figure of the painter, the "Disobedient," who is represented by two eyes stacked on top of each other: "With his exterior eye he sees, with his interior eye he thinks." As the centuries and millennia rush by, populated by the flowing black dots who represent the Disobedient's contemporaries, we see glimpses of the painter's radical power of sight: Sumerian glyphs, the golden ratio, medieval illuminations, Renaissance perspective, modern abstraction, captured in flashes and fragments. "This story is history, because the visions…
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CA$1,724.50
Murphy
by Beckett, Samuel; Rosset, Barney (publisher); Felsenthal, Francine (designer)
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- Condition
- Used
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- 1
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Brooklyn, New York, United States
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CA$482.86
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New York: Grove Press, 1957. First American edition of Samuel Beckett's first novel, originally published in London in 1938. Although best remembered for his groundbreaking work for the stage, Beckett first developed his bleakly comic vision of the human experience in his fiction: "Murphy never wore a hat, the memories it awoke of the caul were too poignant, especially when he had to take it off." This first American edition was published by Barney Rosset's Grove Press shortly after the American premiere of Waiting for Godot, in a dust jacket designed by painter Francine Felsenthal. A near-fine copy. Single volume, measuring 8 x 5.5 inches: [4], 282, [2]. Original cream textured cloth, spine lettered in brown, original unclipped pictorial dust jacket printed in black and grey. Grove Press rubber stamp to copyright page. Spine and edges of jacket toned, with 2.5-inch split at lower flap fold; edges of cloth boards toned.
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CA$482.86
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The Marble Faun: or, The Romance of Monte Beni
by Hawthorne, Nathaniel
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- first
- Condition
- Used
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- Unknown
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- 1
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Brooklyn, New York, United States
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CA$1,034.70
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Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1860. First edition, mixed issue, of Nathaniel Hawthorne's expatriate romance, inspired by his encounter with the Faun of Praxiteles in Rome. The novel follows three American artists in Italy who become entangled with the enigmatic Donatello, Count of Monte Beni: "There was an indefinable characteristic about Donatello that set him outside of rules." This copy accords, in collation and pagination, with Blanck's first printing. First issue points: the preface precedes the table of contents in Volume I; "on" is uncorrected to "for" on page 225, line 22, of Volume I; no "Conclusion" in Volume II. Second issue points: page ix of Volume I and page 197 of Volume II unsigned. Second state of the publisher's catalog, dated March 1860. BAL 7621. A very good copy of a Gothic classic. Two volumes, measuring 7 x 4.5 inches: xiv, 15-283, [5], 16; 284, [4]. Original full brown ribbed cloth ruled and decorated in blind, spines lettered in gilt, reddish-brown coated endpapers. Publisher's…
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CA$1,034.70
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Mirror for Magistrates (three volumes); WITH: The Palace of Pleasure (three volumes)
by [Shakespeare, William]; Haslewood, Joseph (editor)
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- Condition
- Used
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Brooklyn, New York, United States
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CA$7,587.80
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London: Printed for Lackington, Allen, and Co. Finsbury Square; and Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, Paternoster Row; Reprinted for Robert Triphook, St. James's Street, by Harding and Wright, St. John's Square, 1815. Deluxe large-paper reissues of two classic sixteenth-century source texts, the inspiration for some of the most important Elizabethan and Jacobean plays. Featuring chapters by a number of English poets, Mirror for Magistrates was at first suppressed by the Lord Chancellor in 1555, then published under Elizabeth in 1559, and expanded by new contributors over the decades to come. The anthology offers pointed verse portraits of historic rulers, good and bad, with an eye to instructing those in power; Philip Sidney, in his Defence of Poesy, recommends "Mirrour of Magistrates meetly furnished of beautiful parts." The chapter on "Queene Cordila" served as a key source for Shakespeare's King Lear: "I must assay your friendly faithes to prove: / My daughters, tell mee how you doe mee…
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CA$7,587.80
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Goodbye, Mr. Chips
by Hilton, James; Pares, Ethel "Bip" (illustrator); [Barrows, Marjorie]
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- Condition
- Used
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- Unknown
- Quantity Available
- 1
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Brooklyn, New York, United States
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CA$2,483.28
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(London): Hodder & Stoughton, 1934. First English edition of James Hilton's tale of the shy schoolmaster Mr. Chipping, who over the course of a long career becomes a legend at Brookfield, "a good school of the second rank." Deeply Victorian in sympathy, "Mr. Chips" rises to the challenge of the First World War, and survives into the 1930s, beloved by generations of boys: "In my mind you never grow up at all. Never." Originally issued as a supplement to The British Weekly in 1933, Goodbye, Mr. Chips was reprinted in The Atlantic in April 1934, followed by book publication in the United States in June and England in October; the nostalgic novel was a runaway bestseller during the Depression, inspiring the Oscar-winning 1939 Hollywood film starring Robert Donat. This first English edition is wonderfully illustrated by Ethel "Bip" Pares, one of England's leading Art Deco book designers. Accompanied by two typed letters written and signed by Hilton, during his stint as a Hollywood screenwriter, to…
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CA$2,483.28
Murphy
by Beckett, Samuel; Rosset, Barney (publisher); Felsenthal, Francine (designer)
- Used
- Condition
- Used
- Binding
- Unknown
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Seller
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Brooklyn, New York, United States
- Item Price
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CA$482.86
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New York: Grove Press, 1957. First American edition of Samuel Beckett's first novel, originally published in London in 1938. Although best remembered for his groundbreaking work for the stage, Beckett first developed his bleakly comic vision of the human experience in his fiction: "Murphy never wore a hat, the memories it awoke of the caul were too poignant, especially when he had to take it off." This first American edition was published by Barney Rosset's Grove Press shortly after the American premiere of Waiting for Godot, in a dust jacket designed by painter Francine Felsenthal. A near-fine copy. Single volume, measuring 8 x 5.5 inches: [4], 282, [2]. Original cream textured cloth, spine lettered in brown, original unclipped pictorial dust jacket printed in black and grey. Grove Press rubber stamp to copyright page. Spine and edges of jacket toned, with 2.5-inch split at lower flap fold; edges of cloth boards toned.
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CA$482.86
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The Princess Casamassima
by James, Henry
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- Condition
- Used
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- Unknown
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- 1
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Brooklyn, New York, United States
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CA$13,106.20
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London: Macmillan, 1886. First edition of Henry James's most overtly political novel, one of 750 copies, first published in the Atlantic Monthly. The Princess Casamassima traces the friendship of a radical London bookbinder and an idle princess with revolutionary sympathies: "By way of defending the aristocracy he said to her that it couldn't be true they were all a bad lot (he used that expression because she had let him know that she liked him to speak in the manner of the people)." The comparatively action-packed plot, which turns on a terrorist assassination attempt, shows the influence of Charles Dickens and Émile Zola on James more clearly than his introspective fiction. Edel & Laurence A29. A near-fine copy of a major novel. Three octavo volumes, measuring 7.5 x 5 inches: iv, 252; iv, 257, [3]; iv, 242, [2]. Original dark blue-green cloth, double-rule border and panel stamped in black and blind, spines lettered in gilt with gilt publisher's device and decorative rules at top and bottom…
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CA$13,106.20
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The Return of the Native
by Hardy, Thomas
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- first
- Condition
- Used
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Brooklyn, New York, United States
- Item Price
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CA$10,760.88
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London: Smith, Elder & Co, 1878. First edition of Thomas Hardy's sixth novel, one of 1000 copies. Set amid the wild landscape of Egdon Heath, the tension between two unhappy couples, pulled together and then apart, produces the mounting sense of dread so characteristic of Hardy's later fiction: "To be conscious that the end of the dream is approaching, and yet has not absolutely come, is one of the most wearisome as well as the most curious situations along the whole course between the beginning of a passion and its end." First issue, with the closing quotation mark around 'A Pair of Blue Eyes' dropped on the title page of Volume I. Purdy, 24-27. A near-fine copy. Three volumes, measuring 7.5 x 5 inches: [6], 303, [1]; [6], 297, [3]; [6], 320. Original brown cloth stamped in black and blind, spines decoratively stamped and lettered in gilt and black; cream-coated endpapers. Frontispiece map, after a drawing by Hardy, facing title page in Volume I; two pages of publisher's advertisements at end of…
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CA$10,760.88