Uncommonly Good Books Found Here: Biggest Sales by Month for 2010

January 2010

$9,500.00

Holiday Card from Malcolm Little – “Malcolm X"

[c.1940's]. 5-3/4" x 4-3/4". This Christmas card from the noted black activist was written decades before he converted to Islam and became the most outspoken and militant agitator for black civil rights in the early 1960s.  This card has a sleigh scene on the front and a standard Christmas and New Year’s greeting inside. Signed in full as “Malcolm Little," with the additional sentiment, in holograph: “I hope you haven’t forgotten me." Folded once, apparently to fit into a square envelope (not present). Very slight general wear; still near fine. Autograph material by Malcolm X is extremely scarce, particularly such an early example as this, preceding as it does his notoriety.

Sold by: Ken Lopez – Bookseller, ABAA

February 2010

$8,850.00

Franny And Zooey by J.D. Salinger

Franny and Zooey consists of two interconnected stories from the Glass family series, originally published in The New Yorker, in 1955 [Franny] & 1957 [Zooey].  Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1961- Exquisitely signed by Salinger in blue ink on the Title Page. First Edition, Second Printing. A unique example of one of the scarcest signatures of 20th century literature. A very good or better copy in dust jacket showing moderate use.  Custom clamshell case in fine condition. Signed by Author. 1st Edition.

Sold by: TBCL The Book Collector’s Library

March 2010

$7,500.00

The Sun Spirit: A Visionary Phantasy by Ralph Chubb

Fair Oak, near Kingsclere, Hants: Printed and Decorated by the Author, 1931.. Forty-eight leaves, including plates. Folio. Quarter niger morocco and gilt-decorated linen over boards, vellum fore-tips. Small bookplate on pastedown, minor fraying of linen around fore-tips, linen a bit foxed at edges, with a few small spots to morocco, but a very good, internally fine copy. First edition of the first of Chubb’s lithographed books. From an edition of only thirty copies printed on Hollingsworth paper, this is copy #22 of 24 ordinary copies (six copies were handcolored). The text and the illustrative matter were drawn by Chubb and lithographed directly from the stones, and the latter includes full- page plates, smaller vignettes and decorative pieces, along with an illustrated title-page. A portion of the first leaf of text (Chubb’s manifesto) is printed in red. A major work in the field of Uranian literature and publishing. REID 9a. D’ARCH SMITH (LOVE IN EARNEST), pp. 219-232, and 243.

Sold by: William Reese Company – Literature ABAA-ILAB

April 2010

$6,200.00

Moby Dick or, The Whale (3 Volumes) by Herman Melville

Chicago: Lakeside Press, 1930. First edition thus. Very Good +/fair. Rockwell Kent. Limited Edition of 1000. In aluminum slipcase as released, with original cellophane dustjackets. Large Quarto, silver decorations on grey cloth. Spines slightly sunned. All 3 volumes in Very Good+ condition, the only fault being the owner’s pastedown plate on each front endpaper that has caused light foxing on the opposite page. Slipcase has light scratches here and there, some light edge staining where hands have come in contact, a small but deep scratch at the finger recess. The dustjackets are in Fair condition, still intact but yellowed, crinkled with shrinkage, and tattered at the part of the spines where fingers pulled the books from the slipcase. A beautiful and famous edition decorated and illustrated by Rockwell Kent. Profusely illustrated with Kent’s signature engraving style., this edition has become the definitive Moby Dick of the twentieth century.

Sold by: Trouvé Books

May 2010

$7,900.00

Alcoholics Anonymous Big Book by Bill Wilson

Alcoholics Anonymous First Edition, First Printing 1939 (Big Book) One of only 4,630 copies printed. Owned by one of the first 200 in Alcoholics Anonymous “Glenn Robert Wadick" from the Cleveland, Ohio area!NY: Works Publishing Company, April 1939 First owners name “Glenn Robert Wadick 7-39 " (Early AA Member) On the front inside board and “Bernadine Garurck" on first blank page. NO other writing or underlining to book. Gold Gild on front board is 80%. spine is about 10% with a 2 inch separation at top front of spine, bumps and rubs to corners. Book is in GOOD + + condition. Comes with NEW reproduction dust jacket.

Sold by: ABookMan LLC

June 2010

$2,500.00

The Military Costume of Turkey by Thomas Charles Wageman

London: published by Thomas M’Lean, Howlett & Brimmer printers, 1818 [plates watermarked 1823]. Folio. (14 1/8 x 10 1/4 inches). Hand-coloured stipple-engraved portrait frontispiece of Antonaki Ramadani by Thomas Charles Wageman, engraved additional title printed in sepia with integral hand-coloured aquatint vignette, 29 hand-coloured aquatint plates. Contemporary red straight-grained morocco, covers elaborately panelled in gilt and blind, expertly rebacked to style with the spine in six compartments with wide raised bands, lettered in the second compartment, the others with repeat overall decoration in gilt, brown sugar-paper endpapers, gilt edges. A good copy of a later issue of the first edition of this well-known work.  The frontispiece is a portrait by Wageman of the dedicatee, “His Excellency Antonaki Ramadani" the Ottoman Ambassador to the British Court “engraved from a likeness … for which his Excellency had the kindness and condescension to sit in his robes" (preface); the remaining plates each concentrate on a single figure in military garb, each with a facing leaf of explanatory text. Abbey Travel II, 373; Blackmer 1125; Colas 2059; Vinet 2338.

Sold by:  Donald Heald Rare Books

July 2010

$18,500.00

Goldfinger by Ian Fleming

Jonathan Cape. London.,1959. FIRST EDITION. 8vo. SIGNED BY IAN FLEMING, on the front free endpaper. Black cloth with Blind stamped skull and gilt eyes on front board and gilt lettering to spine. Colour dustwrapper, designed by Richard Chopping. The inner flap with original price of 15s. net. A fine, tight, clean copy in a fine, bright dustwrapper. A fantastic combination of scarcity and condition. The seventh James Bond book.

Sold by: Paul Foster Books

August 2010

$39,000.00

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

First edition, sixth impression hardcover, very good in good-plus dust jacket. SIGNED and INSCRIBED by HARPER LEE, GREGORY PECK and the movie’s DIRECTOR BOB MULLIGAN. Dust jacket has edge wear and a scuffed area on the front cover where tape was removed. Light soiling to page edges. Other than signatures and inscriptions on front end page, no other marks inside. Please see photo of signatures. Purchase includes a letter of provenance from original owner in Monroeville describing the circumstances of the signings, and a copy of a Christies catalog featuring a photo of the signatures and inscriptions in this book. We believe this is the only triple-signed copy of “To Kill a Mockingbird" in existence.

Sold by: Bienville Books

September 2010

$2,750.00

Degas et son Oeuvre by Edgar Degas, collected by Paul-André Lemoisne

Paris: P. Brame and C.M. De Hauke, 1946-1949. 4 volumes, quarto. (13 x 9 3/4 inches). Half-titles. Printed in black and brown. Portrait frontispiece, numerous heliogravure illustrations, including images of over 1466 works by Degas. Original grey sugar-paper wrappers, card chemises and card slipcases (some discolouration to the spines of the chemises, some repaired damage to the slipcases). A fine set of the catalogue raisonné. Limited edition of 1030 copies, this one of 980 examples on ‘papier Arches filigrané’, this set numbered 646. The first volume consists of a series of illustrated essays on Degas, his life, his influences and his work; volumes two and three are the catalogue raisonné; and the fourth volume is an unillustrated but vital series of indices. Freitag 2165

Sold by: Donald Heald Rare Books

October 2010

$60,000.00

in our time by Ernest Hemingway

Paris: Three Mountains Press. 1924. First. First edition. Binder’s glue stains on the endpapers, as usual, tiny chips at the spinal extremities, slight bowing of the covers, an excellent, very nearly fine copy. Hemingway’s second book, copy 42 of 170 numbered copies. In a custom quarter morocco clamshell case. Hemingway intended this to be his first book (it’s listed on the rear panel of Three Stories & Ten Poems), but publication was held up, allowing Robert McAlmon of Contact to publish Three Stories first.

Sold by: Between the Covers- Rare Books, Inc. ABAA

November 2010

$15,000.00

(Part One)

A Handful of Cards for all Lovers of the Works of Charles Dickens by KYD

A Unique Set – Fifty Dickensian “Playing Cards” by Kyd (pseudonym of Joseph Clayton Clarke). Fifty-one original pen, ink and watercolor drawings (image size: 3 1/8 x 2 1/2 inches; 91 x 65 mm.) on separate sheets watermarked “Reeves Greyhound Water Colour Paper England", (leaf size 10 3/8 x 6 7/8 inches (264 x 174 mm). Each drawing is signed by “Kyd” within a colored wash border and includes captions identifying the characters and novels; each “playing card” contains portraits of four different Dickensian characters (thus representing 200 characters in all), each represented as the Ace, King, Queen, or Jack of a given suit. Bound for Chas. J. Sawyer ca. 1925 in full green crushed levant morocco. Gilt ruled borders. Five raised bands with black rules. Six gilt ruled and lettered compartments. Gilt lettering to upper cover. In the original leather edged slipcase. Spine sunned by a degree. Otherwise, fine. A lovely and singular item of Dickensiana, one of only three known sets, each unique from the others. Suffice it to say, exceedingly scarce.

Sold by: David Brass Rare Books, Inc

November 2010

$12,500.00

(Part Two)

Hell’s Angels by Hunter S. Thompson

London: Allen Lane/Penguin. 1967. The first British edition of Thompson’s first book, which he wrote after spending a year hanging out with (and getting beaten up by) members of the famous motorcycle gang. One of the first examples of the participatory “gonzo" journalism that Thompson perfected. Signed by the author (“H.S. Thompson"), with his rubber stamp “Sexually Explicit Material" above the signature. With a full-page multi-color drawing of Thompson by Ralph Steadman, with the caption “Don’t Draw Hunter, Aspen Chapter [of the Hell's Angels]." A near fine copy in a very good, rubbed dust jacket with wear to the crown and a creased tear at the upper rear spine fold. Much scarcer than the American edition: we suspect the hardcovers represent some sort of edition for libraries or a trial publication and not an edition that was distributed to the book trade in general. In custom clamshell case.  First Edition. Hardcover.

Sold by: Ken Lopez – Bookseller, ABAA

December 2010

$15,000.00

An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith

London: for A. Strahan and T. Cadell, 1786. Fourth edition. Three volumes. Bound in contemporary full brown calf, 5 raised bands lined in gilt, red spine labels, red speckled edges. An excellent set with some very light wear and minor chipping to the spine ends, early ownership signature to title pages. The fourth edition includes a new preface never before printed, issued only 10 years after the 1776 first edition and during Smith’s lifetime. Five editions of The Wealth of Nations were published during Smith’s lifetime: 1776, 1778, 1784, 1786, and 1789 and all five have become very scarce. Numerous editions appeared after Smith’s death in 1790. The fourth edition published in 1786 had only slight differences with the third edition, and Smith states in the book’s Advertisement, “I have made no alterations of any kind." Printing and the Mind of Man states, it “begins with the thought that labour is the source from which a nation derives what is necessary to it. The improvement of the division of labour is the measure of productivity. Labour represents the three essential elements that constitute income: wages, profit and rent. Smith further explains that “stock" values encompass all that man owns either for his own consumption or the return that it brings him. The Wealth of Nations concludes with a history of economic development and some prophetic speculations on the limits of economic control. Where the political aspects of human rights had taken two centuries to explore, Smith’s achievement was to bring the study of economic aspects to the same point in a single work.". Fourth Edition. Full-Leather. Very Good.

Sold by: B & B Rare Books, Ltd., ABAA