About the House

London: André Deutsch, 1959. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine-/Near Fine+. First Impression (no later printings noted) of the author's breakthrough novel, chronicling Jewish life in the 1930s and '40s in the Montreal neighborhood east of Mount Royal Park; filmed in 1974 with Richard Dreyfuss in the title role. Thick crown 8vo (192 x 125mm): 319,[1]pp. Publisher's scarlet cloth, spine stamped in gold; price-clipped dust jacket illustrated by Bernard Blatch. An excellent example, tightly bound (apparently unread) and clean throughout (slightly dusty top-edge); Near Fine or better jacket (crown of spine panel lightly rubbed). Richler's fourth novel, "regarded by critics as technically superior to his earlier novels because of the cinematic rendering of some incidents (indicating the influence of Richler's screenwriting) and the maturation of narrative voice." (Literary Encyclopedia) Following publication of Duddy Kravitz, according to The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature, Richler became "one of… Read More

London: John Lehmann, 1948. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine-/Near Fine+. First Impression of "this quiet masterpiece." (Burgess). Crown 8vo: 256pp. Publisher's navy blue cloth, spine lettered in gold; illustrated dust jacket, priced 9s/6d, by Edward Bawden. About Fine (top edge lightly dust-soiled, spine lettering slightly dulled); Near Fine or better jacket (spine folds rubbed, two short closed tears mended on verso with clear tape, but front panel vibrant). Cronin & Hall 9. Burgess 99. Bliss, p. 189. "The bigger novels—Herzog, Henderson the Rain King, Augie March—are brilliant but a little shrill in comparison with this quiet masterpiece." (Burgess) Baumbach calls it an "exemplary nightmare novel in the Jamesian tradition of the well-made novel." (The Landscape of Nightmare: Studies in the Contemporary American Novel) Yet another example of the value to be found in the graphically superior designs of most UK editions of American authors's works. N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we… Read More

New York: Random House, 1959. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine-/Fine-. First Printing (so stated) of the third (and concluding) novel of the Snopes family saga. 8vo: [12],436pp. Publisher's blue coarsely woven cloth, upper cover and spine ruled in grey and lettered in gold, top edge stained yellow, blue end papers; first-state pictorial dust jacket, price-clipped, but with publisher's code "10/59" on front flap and author's photograph by Ralph R. Thompson on back panel. About Fine, with minor crease to spine toe; about Fine jacket, barely rubbed at spine panel tips. Petersen A52.2b. Man Working 141. Burgess 99, p. 73. Chapter 13 is a revision of "By the People," a short story first published in Mademoiselle. "Turgid and difficult as he is, Faulkner is worth the trouble." (Burgess) N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition, with dust jackets carefully preserved in archival, removable mylar sleeves. All orders are packaged with care and posted promptly.… Read More

New York: New Directions, 1964. First Printing. Hardcover. Fine/Fine-. First Edition (so stated). Square 8vo: [viii],179,[1]pp. Publisher's finely woven beige cloth, spine lettered in black, brown paper-covered boards decorated in blind with PFC stripes, brown laid end papers, brown pictorial dust jacket printed in yellow and black. Fine in a just about Fine jacket, lightly rubbed. Inscribed by Kirstein on the front fly-leaf to Edith Sedwick Gibson (August '67) "talking about Louis [Agassiz] Shaw—Baldpate, p. 157." Shaw, grandson of the Harvard paleontologist, geologist and innovator in the study of Earth's natural history, was a dancer turned psychiatrist who lived in Newton, Mass. Baldpate was a sanitarium in Georgetown, Mass, where Shaw may have practiced. Kirstein's reference to p. 157 remains obscure. Simmonds, Silverstein & Lassalle 12. Best known for his long association with the New York City Ballet, which he founded with George Balanchine, Kirstein was also a distinguished author and… Read More

New York: Boni & Liveright, 1926. First Edition. Decorative Cloth. Fine/Near Fine+. First Printing (no additional printings noted). 8vo: xviii,346pp. Publisher's brown pebbled cloth, spine lettered in gilt within blue title block, upper cover lettered in gilt with vignette of farmhouse and barn, top edge stained black, fore-edge untrimmed, title page printed in blue and black; cream-colored pictorial dust jacket printed in green and black and priced $3.00. Fine, bright copy, virtually As New, in jacket with shallow chipping, touching lettering at base of slightly tanned spine. A rare survival. Sheehy & Lohf 39. A fictionalized memoir constructed of episodes in the childhood of Edgar Moorehead (nicknamed Tar-heel, or Tar, because of his father's North Carolina origin), though fictional location of Tar bears a resemblance to Camden, Ohio, where Anderson was born and spent his first year. An episode from the book later appeared, in revised form, as one of Anderson's finest short stories, "Death in the… Read More

London: John Lehmann, 1948. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine-/Near Fine+. First Impression of "this quiet masterpiece." (Burgess). Crown 8vo: 256pp. Publisher's navy blue cloth, spine lettered in gold; illustrated dust jacket, priced 9s/6d, by Edward Bawden. About Fine (top edge lightly dust-soiled, spine lettering slightly dulled); Near Fine or better jacket (spine folds rubbed, two short closed tears mended on verso with clear tape, but front panel vibrant). Cronin & Hall 9. Burgess 99. Bliss, p. 189. "The bigger novels—Herzog, Henderson the Rain King, Augie March—are brilliant but a little shrill in comparison with this quiet masterpiece." (Burgess) Baumbach calls it an "exemplary nightmare novel in the Jamesian tradition of the well-made novel." (The Landscape of Nightmare: Studies in the Contemporary American Novel) Yet another example of the value to be found in the graphically superior designs of most UK editions of American authors's works. N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we… Read More

New York: Viking Press, 1959. First Printing. Hardcover. Fine/Fine-. First Edition, First State, of the author's fourth (and perhaps most loved) book and one of Modern Library's 100 Best Novels. 8vo; [8], 341pp. Publisher's beige quarter-bound linen, spine lettered in orange, silver, and black, orange cloth-covered boards titled in black, top edge stained yellow; pictorial dust jacket illustrated by Bill Preston and priced $4.50, with three blurbs about "Saul Bellow as a novelist" on back panel. Fine (probably unread), about Fine jacket, minutely rubbed to head of the spine panel. Cronin & Hall 4. "Henderson begins where Jay Gastby would have ended if he could have had all that the green light across the water symbiolized." (Guttman, in The Jewish Writer in America, 1971) N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition, with dust jackets carefully preserved in archival, removable mylar sleeves. All orders are packaged with care and posted promptly.… Read More

London: Longmans, 1960. First Impression. Hardcover. Fine-/Fine-. First British Edition (no further printings noted) of the author's third book and second novel, and her "best attempt at longer fiction." Small 8vo: [10],243,[1]pp. Publisher's tangerine cloth, spine lettered in gold; illustrated dust jacket, priced 16/-. About Fine (dust-soiled top edge) and apparently unread; about Fine jacket (spine panel ends lightly rubbed, pinhead nick to front panel), vivid and bright. A scarce collectible example, one of 3500 copies printed. Yet another example of the value to be found in the graphically superior designs of British editions of American authors's works. . Published eight years after Wise Blood and sharing that book's "interest in reluctant Southern prophets, violence and the grotesque. The title is taken from the Douay translation of Matthew 11:12, which provides the book's epigraph: 'From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it… Read More

New York: Random House, 1959. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine-/Fine-. First Printing (so stated) of the third (and concluding) novel of the Snopes family saga. 8vo: [12],436pp. Publisher's blue coarsely woven cloth, upper cover and spine ruled in grey and lettered in gold, top edge stained yellow, blue end papers; first-state pictorial dust jacket, price-clipped, but with publisher's code "10/59" on front flap and author's photograph by Ralph R. Thompson on back panel. About Fine, with minor crease to spine toe; about Fine jacket, barely rubbed at spine panel tips. Petersen A52.2b. Man Working 141. Burgess 99, p. 73. Chapter 13 is a revision of "By the People," a short story first published in Mademoiselle. "Turgid and difficult as he is, Faulkner is worth the trouble." (Burgess) N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition, with dust jackets carefully preserved in archival, removable mylar sleeves. All orders are packaged with care and posted promptly.… Read More

New York: Doubleday, 1958. First Printing. Hardcover. First Edition (so stated) of the author's second novel. 8vo: 354pp. Publisher's mustard-yellow linen, spine lettered in black, fore-edge untrimmed, illustrated dust jacket priced $3.95. Fine, apparently unread copy, in an about Fine jacket, head of spine panel lightly rubbed. Provenance: Inscribed in blue ink to the front fly-leaf: "Tom Wolfe / His Book." Wolfe and Hoffman were classmates in the 1950s at Washington and Lee University, where both studied creative writer with George Foster. If Wolfe's celebrity is now greater, Hoffman also earned a measure of success, receiving the John Dos Passos Prize For Literature, an O. Henry Prize and the Dashiell Hammett Award. As was ttrue of The Trumpet Unblown, his debut novel, he drew upon his war experiences for Days in the Yellow Leaf (the title is from Byron: "My days are in the yellow leaf; / The flowers and fruits of Love are gone;"). In all, Hoffman published thirteen novels and four books of short… Read More