Search Results: Fiction from Le Bookiniste, ABAA-ILAB-IOBA

[New York: [Alfred A. Knopf], [1994]. Octavo (8 3/8 x 5 1/2 inches; 212 x 138 mm), 51,[1] pages in photo-illustrated stapled wrappers. With a letter from the publisher.SIGNED by Alice Munro on the title page, number 1362 of an unknown number of copies published to promote "Open Secrets," a collection of Munro's stories. She won the 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature. The book includes a letter from the publisher to booksellers. CONDITION: Light edge wear and rubbing to spine extremities. There's also a light horizontal dent to the top of the lower wrapper and extending through the final six pages. The publisher's letter has edge wear and a nick. Folded in half in an envelope. Near Fine.

Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1996. First Edition, First Printing.
SIGNED by John Edgar Wideman on the title page. The story of a black preacher in 18th-century Philadelphia who searches for a mysterious African woman.
PHYSICAL DETAILS: Octavo, 212 pages.
CONDITION: Fine in a Fine dust jacket. Beautiful copy.

San Francisco: William Windmill's Pressing, 1983. First Edition, First Printing. INSCRIBED on the title page to Nathan May, the editor and publisher of Beatitude #32, the San Francisco magazine of Beat poetry. A short story about chickens, written in stream of consciousness. Scarce in commerce. PHYSICAL DETAILS: Octavo (8 1/2 x 5 1/2 inches; 215 x 140 mm), [2], 7, [1] pages, in stapled wrappers (soft cover). CONDITION: Edge wear, sunning and foxing to wrappers. About Good.

London: Allison & Busby, Ltd. , 1984. First U.K. Edition, First Printing.
SIGNED by John Edgar Wideman on the title page. A collection of stories tracing the fortunes of a black family in Homewood, a black district of Pittsburgh, and the first in Wideman's Homewood trilogy.
Published in the U.K., this is the first hardcover edition, following publication of a paperback edition in the U.S.
PHYSICAL DETAILS: Octavo, 205 pages.
CONDITION: A Fine copy, with a small bump to the spine head, in a Fine dust jacket. A beautiful copy.

San Francisco: Smoking Mirror Press, 1975. First Edition, First Printing. INSCRIBED on the title page to Nathan May, the editor and publisher of Beatitude #32, the San Francisco magazine of Beat poetry. Four "one-page novels," three of which run longer than a page and all of which are written in stream of consciousness. One of 500 copies, scarce signed. PHYSICAL DETAILS: Octavo (8 3/8 x 5 3/8 inches; 212 x 137 mm), [2], 9, [1] pages, in stapled, light green wrappers (soft cover). CONDITION: Edge wear and a few stains to the wrappers. Very Good or better.

New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1990. First American Edition, 1st Printing. Octavo, 183 pages. Fine in a Fine dust jacket. A beautiful copy.  A novel set in postwar Britain, "The Dwarfs" describes the lives and concerns of four young Londoners.

New York: Harper & Row, 1968. First American Edition, 1st Printing. A largely autobiographical novel about political prisoners forced to work at a "research" institute near Moscow. Octavo, xiii, 580 pages. Near Fine, with slight rubbing to the spine ends and board corners, in a Very Good dust jacket. Some edge wear, a small tear at top of rear panel (repaired with tape) with a bit of red at top of panel (presumably from the book's red cloth). 

London: Faber and Faber, 1958. First Edition Thus.
A fragment of an unfinished novel, written ca. 1955, featuring the musings of a neurotic man. Beckett told his bibliographers that the fragment resulted from an attempt to return to fiction in English. "Asked why it ends abruptly, he replied, 'there was just no more to be said.'" (Raymond Federman and John Fletcher, Samuel Beckett: His Works & His Critics, An Essay in Bibliography, 1970.)
Our copy is the first appearance of "From an Abandoned Work" in book form. Trinity News, the student newspaper at the University of Dublin (Beckett's alma mater), first published the fragment in 1956. That was followed by a reprint in the Evergreen Review and a broadcast by the BBC in 1957. Federman and Fletcher 33.
PHYSICAL DETAILS: Octavo (8 1/2 inches / 215 mm tall), 22 pages, in sewn, decorated wrappers (soft cover).
CONDITION: Light sunning to edges. A Near Fine copy.

[Palma de Mallorca, Spain]: The Divers Press, 1954. First Edition, First Printing. 16mo (6 3/4 x 5 inches; 172 x 125 mm), 141, [3] pages in French-fold dust jacket (soft cover). SIGNED by Robert Creeley on the title page and featuring 11 stories and a preface. Published by Creeley's own Divers Press while he was living in Mallorca in 1953-54. Striking cover illustration by French painter René Laubiès. CONDITION: Dust jacket soiled and rubbed, top and bottom edges foxed, spine bumped, internally clean and unmarked. About Very Good overall.

A love story set in New York, a departure from the author's usual settings in his native Kentucky. Copies with the original dust jacket are scarce to the market.
PHYSICAL DETAILS: 12mo (7 1/4 x 5 inches; 185 x 125 mm), 281, [1] pages plus advertisements, in green cloth, top edge gilt, beautiful gold medallion to the upper panel, in an illustrated dust jacket.CONDITION: Rubbing to green cloth, upper corner bumped, some fading to spine titles, a few leaves unopened, but otherwise clean, bright, and unmarked. The dust jacket has soiling, a few stains, chips, and tears, with the most prominent tears (1/4 to 1/2-inch) on both ends of the spine, not affecting any text. Very Good or Better in a Fair dust jacket.

Boston/New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1998. First Edition, First Printing.
INSCRIBED by John Edgar Wideman on the title page. The "two cities" are Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, the settings for most of Wideman's novels.
PHYSICAL DETAILS: Octavo, 242 pages.
CONDITION: Fine in a Fine dust jacket.

New York: Atheneum, 1986. First Edition. INSCRIBED by Charles Johnson on the title page: "For Brian, / with my thanks. / Charles / Johnson / 4/22/98." A collection of eight short stories, many of them dealing with Black life. The book was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.
PHYSICAL DETAILS: Octavo (8 1/4 x 5 1/8 inches; 210 x 130 mm), 169, [3] pages, in black and brown boards, pink top stain, titles in gilt to spine, in an unclipped, illustrated dust jacket (hard cover).CONDITION: A few light scuff marks to the boards. Near Fine in a Fine, unclipped dust jacket.

Octavo (8 1/4 x 5 1/2 inches; 209 x 141 mm), 369, [1] pages, in grayish-green cloth, titles in red to spine, in an unclipped dust jacket.
INSCRIBED on the front end paper in the year of publication to American novelist Nelia Gardner White (1894-1957): "To / Nelia Gardner White / in admiration / Bill Shirer / 1954."
It's supposedly fiction but it's very much about McCarthyism, which in the book is called O'Brienism, after an especially gross senator named O'Brien. The book is in the form of a diary in which a foreign correspondent returns to the U.S. and is accused of being a Communist and a spy. Shirer (1904-1993) was, of course, a famous foreign correspondent himself, writing "Berlin Diary" and "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich."
"Mr. Shirer's purpose is to show what happens to a man mentally, emotionally and physically when without justification he is accused of treasonable acts." (John Neff, The New York Times, May 30, 1954, page 66). The reviewer calls the book "highly absorbing [and]… Read More

12mo (7 3/8 x 5 1/4 inches; 190 x 135 mm), 433, [1] pages, in publisher's original black cloth, titles to spine in red, in an illustrated, unclipped dust jacket.
INSCRIBED on the title page to New York antiques dealer Korby Britton: "For Korby Britton, whose interest / in novels published long before her / own time make her almost a kind / of literary antiquarian -- / with best wishes from / Janet Flanner / New York January 1975." (Flanner, or perhaps someone else, wrote "her" over the original "his" and "him.")
A reissue of Flanner's 1926 novel on the Jazz Age in New York, with a short Afterword by the author. Flanner (1892-1978) was, of course, the longtime Paris columnist of The New Yorker, writing under the name Genêt. This is a review copy and includes two copies of the publisher's slip, a news release, and a one-page biography.
The recipient, Korby Britton (d. 2016), operated a New York antiques business with Julie Belafonte, wife of singer and actor Harry Belafonte. Korby's husband, Burt… Read More

New York: HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 2000. First Edition, First Printing. Octavo (8 1/2 x 5 5/8 inches; 215 x145 mm), 178 pages, in quarter cloth over boards, titles in gilt to spine, in an unclipped, illustrated dust jacket. INSCRIBED by Doris Lessing on the title page. A novel in which 18-year-old Ben is victimized by a variety of people in London, Nice, and Rio. A sequel to "The Fifth Child." CONDITION: A few minuscule dots to bottom edge, internally clean, bright, and unmarked. Near Fine in a Near Fine dust jacket that has light edge wear and a bit of scuffing to the panels.

New York: The Free Press, 1997. First Edition, First Printing. Octavo (8 3/4 x 5 1/2 inches; 220 x 140 mm), 194, [2] pages, red quarter cloth over black boards, titles in gilt to spine, in an unclipped, illustrated dust jacket (hard cover). INSCRIBED by David Mamet on the title page. A review copy with publisher's letter laid in. David Mamet's novel based on a true event: the 1914 trial and lynching of a Jewish factory owner who was wrongfully accused of the rape and murder of a Southern girl. Mamet explores the interior world of the factory owner and invokes the haunting fear of anyone who could be wrongfully accused and victimized by the legal system. CONDITION: Fine in a Near Fine dust jacket that has a bit of scuffing to the lower panel.

London: Reinhardt Books in Association With Viking, 1990.. First Edition, First Printing. A collection of 12 short stories. One of the stories, "A Branch of the Service," is published here for the first time; most of the others have never appeared in book form. With a preface by the author. PHYSICAL DETAILS: Octavo (8 x 5 5/8 inches; 205 x 135 mm), vii, [1],149, [1] pages in green cloth, gilt titles to spine, in a printed dust jacket (hard cover). CONDITION: Near Fine, with slight paper loss to half title (probably a production error), not affecting any text. The unclipped dust jacket is Near Fine, with a tiny black mark near the bottom of the lower panel.

Small Octavo, 7 1/2 x 5 inches (192 x 130 mm), 203, [5] pages, including an errata leaf, bound in the original pink wrappers (soft cover).
The first novel by Jean Cocteau (1889-1963), a largely autobiographical novel about first love. One of 500 copies on Vélin Pur Fil Lafuma paper from a total edition of 575 copies; this is No. 535. Text in French.
This volume carries the ownership signature of French literature scholar Helen R. Reese (d. 1974) on the flyleaf. Reese earned a doctorate in French Language and Literature from Johns Hopkins, conducted research in France, and taught at Wilson College in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.
CONDITION: Some toning, soiling, and edge wear to wrappers, with faint writing to upper wrapper. Spine a bit darkened and with a lean. Offsetting to flyleaf and to pages 26-27 from a bookmark. A fragile book, about Very Good.

London: Ernest Benn Limited, 1927. First Edition, First Printing. 12mo (7 3/8 x 5 inches; 187 x 128 mm), 288 pages, in publisher's cloth, titles to spine, in an unclipped dust jacket.A novel of wealth, romance, and.....Fascism. CONDITION: Slight rubbing to boards, bump to lower board, offsetting to paste downs, top edge a bit dusty, light foxing to fore edge and bottom edge. The dust jacket has moderate soiling as well as some chips to the spine and lower panel. A Very Good copy.

Octavo (8 1/2 x 5 3/4 inches; 218 x 147 mm), 376 pages, in cream-colored cloth, titles to spine, in an unclipped dust jacket.
INSCRIBED by Robert Penn Warren on the front free end paper. A stranger walks into a woman's life in Tennessee, followed by a murder, a trial, and more. An unsettling novel by Robert Penn Warren (1905-1989), author of All the King's Men.
CONDITION: Moderate rubbing and fading to titles along the spine. Near Fine in a Very Good dust jacket that has several nicks, closed tears, soiling, and a light mark-through of the price on the front flap.