Rare books from Allington Antiquarian Books, LLC

Paris: No Publisher Named, 1894-1899. First Edition, First Printing. Hardcover. Very good. A Very Good set of four small volumes (each measuring approximately 6 3/4 inches X 4 1/2 inches), each consisting of notes taken (presumably by a student) at lectures given by Auguste Honoré Longnon at Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes in Paris, one of France's Grands Etablissements, a set of schools considered to be among France's most prestigious research and higher education institutions. The notes are written in blue ink with some of the notes written over pencil notes previously taken, presumably from another class. The Volumes are in Very Good condition with some damage to the spines, are hand-numbered "I", "II", "IV", and "V" and hand-titled "Noms de Lieu" or "Noms de Lieux" (each title meaning "Place Names"). French Historian and Archivist Auguste Honoré Longnon was known for his research in France's… Read More

London, 1879. First Edition, First Printing. No binding. Very good. A Very Good or better illustration of author Bret Harte published in Vanity Fair magazine for July 4, 1879, including the Vanity Fair profile of Harte, being Vanity Fair's "MEN OF THE DAY. No. 191." with evidence of the two pages having been removed from a larger volume which once likely held them. Examples of this original material are surprisingly uncommon to the market. A Very Good or better UNCOMMON piece of Bret Harte literary ephemera.

[None Stated]: [None Stated], [1884]. First Edition. No Binding. Very good. A Very Good RARE ORIGINAL WOODBLOCK POSTER for a stage play featuring Peck's Bad Boy. Civil War Veteran, Politician, and Author George Wilbur Peck (1840-1916), who owned a Wisconsin newspaper known as the "Sun", authored a humorous weekly newspaper column which often featured a character of his own invention named Henry "Hennery" Peck who first appeared in 1882. The character was tremendously popular and became known as "Peck's Bad Boy". Peck went on to write a series of books' featuring Hennery Peck who was known for pulling pranks on members of the town, but most especially on his father, for the pure joy of causing trouble and chaos. Peck began writing these stories, which were turned into books as well, in the early 1880s. 'Peck's Bad Boy' became a household name in the United States and was so popular that he entered the American lexicon with the dictionary definition of "Peck's bad boy" being "one whose bad behavior… Read More

New York: Harper & Brothers, 1890. First Edition, First Printing. Hardcover. Fine/fine. Fine copy of the first edition, first printing, in the Publisher's original decorated cloth with the title label applied to the front board and the title and author label applied to the spine panel (the spine shows some minor sunning, most notably to the spine label due to the dust jacket cut out -- see below, and the boards show some minor corner rubs; multiple pages are unopened, or are only partially opened, on their leading fold, showing the book to have been only partially read -- or possibly entirely unread); in a Very Good + example of the EXCEEDINGLY RARE UNSOPHISTICATED dust jacket -- original to this copy of the book -- with scattered small tears and chips and with the arc over the spine label split on one side and nearly so on the other. The viewer will notice, of course, that the dust jacket is plain as it is from the period when jackets were used not to sell the book but only to keep the book clean… Read More

London: T. Fisher Unwin Ltd. (Ernest Benn Ltd.), 1927. First Edition, First Printing. Hardcover. Fine/fine. A Fine copy of the first edition, first printing (a bit of pushing to the spine ends, offsetting to the free endpapers, bookseller's sticker to the front pastedown's lower right corner), in an Essentially Fine example of the EXCEEDINGLY SCARCE dust jacket (a bit of edge wear, general soiling); a work providing information that allows anyone who uses it to identify the principal types of Eastern rugs, the book having been issued at a time when all but the experts in the field identified all hand-woven floor coverings from the East simply as "Persian", and providing useful information (via the text, an Index, and many illustrations, including 45 Plates. [The illustrations, including the 45 Plates illustrations are primarily in black and white. Four plates in colour are provided with each such colour plate having its own tissue guard printed with useful information on it.] Copies of the first… Read More

Berlin: Hermann Freises, 1912 and 1914. First Edition, First Printing. Hardcover. Fine/fine. A Fine set of this First German Edition of Rembrandt's Drawings: issued in two volumes, Volume I presents 56 tipped-in illustrations and Volume II presents 176 tipped-in illustrations. The text is in German. Each Volume is in Near Fine condition (with Volume I's spine somewhat toned and showing oxidation to the gilt spine lettering and with each volume showing some scattered foxing to the cloth). Each Volume wears its RARE ORIGINAL DUST JACKET in Fine condition and each Volume is housed in its RARE ORIGINAL SLIPCASE. The slipcase to Volume I is open (as made) to one side for insertion and removal of its Volume, bears its original applied label, and shows a crack where the front panel meets the spine panel which crack runs from the lower corner for approximately 65% of its height and a crack to the rear which runs a much shorter distance. The slipcase to Volume II surrounds the entire volume and has a… Read More

Cherbourg, France: Mitchell Jamieson, August, 1944. ORIGINAL WORLD WAR II ART. Framed Art. Fine. An ORIGINAL WORK OF ART by Mitchell Jamieson showing Cherbourg, France (location of a critical Port) shortly after its capture by Allied Forces, being a part of the D Day invasion at Normandy, SIGNED AND DATED BY MITCHELL JAMIESON as part of a short presentation inscription by Jamieson, ALSO CAPTIONED, DATED AND INITIALED BY JAMIESON as the artist, all below the primary scene depicted in the painting. The image shows some Allied soldiers (presumably American), several military vehicles, several non-military individuals - one with a bicycle (presumably French citizens then residing in Cherbourg) and a dog. The inscription reads as follows: "Cherbourg - August 1944 // For Jack Long in appreciation and with every good wish Mitchell Jamieson". The work looks to have been titled: "Cathedral ______________ [not legible]". Thereunder is written "Watching explosion // Cherbourg August 44 // MJ". The background… Read More

Boston: Houghton Mifflin and Company, 1889. First Edition, First Printing. Hardcover. Fine/fine. Fine, Superior, tight (and apparently unread) copy of the first edition, first printing, of this collection of African-American stories by a female author, with illustrations by E. W. Kemble [who also illustrated Twain's "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn", Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin", and other books] in a Fine example of the Rare Dust Jacket. During her life and in her social circle, a woman working as a writer was seen as inappropriate. Consequently, Dana published under the pen name Olive A. Wadsworth which stood for "Only A. Woman". As this work was published posthumously, it was published under her given name, making it the first of her works so published. [The story "Our Phil" and the "Other Stories" in this book first appeared in the Atlantic Monthly under her pen name.] The book is in Fine, Superior, condition with hardly any wear, and comes in an excellent example of the RARE DUST… Read More

London: Printed and Published by Emily Faithfull and Co., Victoria Press, (for the employment of Women). 1861., 1861, 1861. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good +. A Very Good + copy of "The Victoria Regia" printed and published by Emily Faithfull and Co.'s Victoria Press, in the Publisher's original green cloth with the front board decorated in gilt and the spine lettered and decorated in gilt, TOGETHER WITH AN ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT LETTER SIGNED BY EMILY FAITHFULL on the recto of a small piece of headed stationary bearing the address of "52, BRYANSTON STREET. // HYDE PARK. W." The closed page block's edges are also in gilt. The volume shows general wear with some rubbing through (as shown in the images). The page block gilt is a bit dulled by age and the binding's gilt remains in the best condition of any copy we ever have seen. Within, the leaves are in nice condition and show scattered foxing, and the volume is partially over-opened in one place as shown in one of the images provided. The… Read More

New York: Bretano's; Doubleday; and F. Tennyson Neely, [1898 and 1899]. First Editions. Original Cloth and Original Wrappers. Very good +. TEMPORARILY DISCOUNTED. WAS $1,250. NOW $375. A Very Good copy of the TRUE FIRST AMERICAN Separate EDITION (a piracy) [1898] meeting all of the detailed bibliographic requirements of that edition, together with a Near Fine copy of the slightly later First Authorized American separate edition, the first having been published by Bretano's and the first Authorized separate edition published by Dana Estes and Company in 1898. The true first separate edition (which shows a closed tear to the outer margin of one page) precedes the first authorized one and is, in our experience, is -- by quite a bit -- the scarcer of the two. This copy is the first of multiple undated editions of the tale published by Bretano's (of which we have seen several for sale with the same outer appearance but which are not the true first separate American edition), -- with this… Read More

London: Martin Secker, 1920. First Edition. Hardcover. Near fine/very good. A remarkably SCARCE copy of the hard-to-find first edition, first printing / first issue [or mixed first issue and second issue with pages 256 and 268 not tipped in as in the first issue but with the phrase "in the bed" dropped from the end of chapter III as in the second issue [see Roberts and Schwartz] -- also all of the pages appear to integral but the reading of the last line of Chapter III shows that "in the bed" has been dropped-- the presence of which phrase Schwartz states is required for the first state [but see NOTE below] of the English edition in a Very Good SCARCE TO RARE dust jacket dust jacket with evidence of tape still present on the jacket's verso and shadows of which can be seen on the jacket's recto, and two leaves, those hosting pp 141/142 and 143/144 having a tear with loss to their upper leading margins without affecting the text., and being an otherwise Near Fine copy of the first edition, first… Read More

Greensboro, NC: Continental Publishing, 1898, 1917, 1918 [1654]. First Editions [Both Trade and Limited]. Bound and unbound as published. Various Conditions. A Very Good set of books and ephemeral items including: The First Trade Edition, first printing dated 1917, in the Publisher's original orange cloth lettered and decorated in black to both the front board and the spine, with the front board illustration depicting the plate found within at unnumbered page 389, itself depicting Raphel pleading with Lucifer and captioned "Thou erring Morning-star, oh! spare thyself." SIGNED AND INSCRIBED by Charles L. Van Noppen to Sydney Greenbie as follows: "For // Mr. Sydney Greenbie // with the compliments // of // Chas. L. Van Noppen // Greensboro // N.C. // May 21-23" (with the date underscored); FURTHER TOGETHER WITH: A copy of Leonard Van Noppen's lengthy Poem "THE SPHINX" inscribed and signed by Charles Leonard van Noppen at the Poem's end to Sydney Greenbie as follows: "For // Mr. Sydney Greenbie //… Read More

Philadelphia: Porter & Coates, [Undated]. [Edition Unstated]. Hardcover. Very good/very good. A Very Good copy of the undated Alta edition of this famous work issued by Porter & Coates. The binding is in Very Good or better condition and shows minor rubbing to the spine ends and to each board's leading corners. The first (rear) free endpaper shows damage near the gutter. While undated, the front free endpaper bears a presentation inscription dated 1892 (as well as and prior seller's price in pencil). First published in 1857, the tale, set in the 1830s tells of Rugby School, an English boys school, with much of it centered on the author's experiences there, with the Tom Brown character being based on the author's brother, George Hughes. The volume is illustrated by a frontispiece, decorative initial chapter letters, and fancy illustrations at the end of each chapters, was the basis for the a number of television and film productions, and influenced the genre of British school novels. The… Read More

London: [printed by George E. Eyre & William Spottiswoode], 1857 [plus undated ephemera]. First Edition, First Printing. Hardcover. [Varies by item included]. As noted above, this listing includes (i) a notable work of postal information on London and its Post Office Districts, (ii) an original commemorative Irish stamp featuring Anthony Trollope, and (iii) an ORIGINAL SURVEYOR'S CARD SIGNED BY ANTHONY TROLLOPE (who served as a Postal Surveyor in Ireland, the place where he first came to happiness after having a miserable youth during which he had thought about suicide). The book itself is quite uncommon to the market and the Surveyor card [to which someone later added "Novelist" in red ink] is QUITE SCARCE and is ABSOLUTELY RARE WHEN SIGNED BY TROLLOPE................London was first divided into postal districts in 1857-1858, to a plan devised by Sir Rowland Hill in 1856 – a circle of roughly twelve miles radius from the General Post Office in St. Martin’s-le-Grand being split into ten… Read More

New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1989. First Editions. Hardcover. Fine/very good +. A Fine copy of the first edition, first printing in a Fine dust jacket, SIGNED BY TOM CLANCY on the half-title, TOGETHER WITH AN ORIGINAL SIGNED LETTER FROM TOM CLANCY TO THE WIDOW OF JOHN BALL TO WHOM THIS BOOK WAS DEDICATED. The letter is in excellent condition and shows two horizontal folds for mailing and some slight bending to its upper left corner. The book itself is sharp, unfaded, with bright gilt lettering and is without the concavity to the spine that plagues most copies and the dust jacket has only modest bits of loss to the laminate (another matter that we frequently have seen on this dust jacket) and some wear to the extremities at the spine ends and to the edges where the spine turns to each flap. [In spite of such small flaws, this is otherwise easily the nicest example of the dust jacket that we ever have seen. The book's first edition was published both in a silver jacket and in a bronze jacket,… Read More