Search Results: First Editions by nathaniel hawthorne

Boston: Ticknor Reed & Fields, 1853 Illustrated by Hammatt Billings, with a frontispiece and six plates. First edition, first printing, without the Geo. C. Rand imprint on the copyright page, without the publisher's advertisements. Presentation copy, inscribed by Hawthorne to his close friend Henry Bright on front free endpaper: "Mr. H. A. Bright. / With the author's regards." Publisher's bright blue cloth, with boards decorated in blind, spine decorated and lettered in gilt, pale-yellow coated endpapers. Near fine, with light soiling to cloth, light rubbing to spine ends, bright gilt, corners slightly bumped, light soiling to endpapers, bookplates of Henry A. Bright and modern owner to front pastedown, and a small spot of soiling to p. 44 and a few surrounding pages. A tight and attractive unsophisticated copy. The only other inscribed copy of this title that we have seen was one we handled from a private collection that we then sold in 2016. Housed in a custom blue… Read More

Boston: Ticknor, Reed and Fields, 1850. First Edition, First Issue, with ads dated March 1. 1850, no preface and all first edition points noted by Clark, including 'reduplicate for 'repudiate' on page 21. Title-page printed in red and black. 8vo, a rare survival in the publisher’s original Ticknor Style A brown textured cloth, the covers decorated in blind, the spine printed in gilt. Now protected and housed in a folding box of brown cloth covered boards lined with marbled paper, the back with brown leather label lettered and ruled in gilt. iv, 322 pp. A beautifully preserved copy, and a remarkably fine example of what is arguably the author's most important and most revered work, as well as a landmark of American literature. The text very clean and fresh, completely free of foxing or stains, looking to be near as pristine the binding sturdy and strong, the hinges fine and firm, the cloth rich and unfaded with bright gilt, trivial rubbing to the tips and edges. FIRST EDITION, FIRST… Read More

Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1856. First American edition. 2 volumes, 8vos, pale yellow endpapers, original brown cloth paneled and stamped in blind. This first U.S. edition prints Klosterheim in Vol. II, De Quincey's only novel. Presentation copy, inscribed by Nathaniel Hawthorne to his English friend Henry Arthur Bright on the front free endpaper of each volume: "H. A. Bright, / with regards of / Nath' Hawthorne". One of Hawthorne's biographers, Brenda Wineapple, describes Hawthorne's relationship to Bright: "In Liverpool, Hawthorne gained a reputation for refusing invitations although he did develop a close friendship with Henry Arthur Bright, the precocious twenty-two year-old who'd met the author in Concord in the fall of 1852. Then, Hawthorne had hardly talked to him, but once in Liverpool he was grateful for his company and all his kindnesses, great and small. "Bright was the illumination of my dusky little apartment, as often as he made his appearance there!" Hawthorne would write (in Our Old… Read More

Boston: Ticknor, Reed and Fields, 1850. First. hardcover. Very good. A very good first edition in original cloth. 1st issue with "reduplicate" on page 21. Housed in a custom made collector's slipcase.

New York: Wiley & Putnam, 1846. First Edition. Wrappers. Very good. 2 vols. 1st edition of an American bequest to world literature. Original wrappers (copies in cloth are later issues and any contention that they are concurrent is wrong). 1st printing (Clark A15.1.a) with every point, 1st binding, state A of the front covers and spines, and matched backs of Wiley & Putnam ads with 18 titles listed ending with Mosses. Clark lists 5 back covers with no priority, and publishers typically first used the ads most recent to the book, and ours are therefore the tidiest, but in this case the back covers were probably issued randomly and ordering them past question is like 5 people try to divide a Kit-Kat. Small spine chips (the tips are intact), splits to 3 of the 4 joints invisibly closed (tacked back down), vol. I half-title and title short at the blank bottom (as issued), first 2 and last 2 leaves foxed (the rest clean), still, very good. A wonderful set, the nicest one known to us, of the few sets known… Read More

London: Methuen & Co. Ltd, 1920.

Ticknor, Reed and Fields, 1851. 1st Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. A very good first edition, first issue, with battered type on page 149 and with March ads, one of only 1690 copies thus. Housed in a custom-made collector's slipcase.

Ticknor and Fields, 1850. 1st Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. First edition, with March, 1850, list of books in the front. Very good, original boards. Housed in a custom-made collector's clam-shell case.

Boston: Ticknor, Reed and Fields, 1850. First Edition. Near Fine. First edition, only printing with uncorrected errors: "reduplicate," "characterss" and "known of it." Contrary to popular belief, there are no points of issue for this title, but simple variations including two settings of gathering 21 which resulted in minute variations of no relevance in terms of "issue" in a proper sense. Bound in publisher's original brown ribbed cloth decorated in blind with spine lettered in gilt; publisher's ads at front dated March 1, 1850. Near Fine with sharp gilt lettering, lean to binding, light rubbing to cloth, wear to corners and spine ends, pages toned, bookplate of noted writer Eugene Field to front pastedown. A bright and unrestored copy. One of the most widely printed and acclaimed American novels of all time, a historical revisitation of Puritan Massachusetts.

Boston: Ticknor, Reed and Fields, 1850. First edition. Original brown cloth, stamped in gilt and blind. Small area of wear at the base of the spine, corners slightly rubbed, otherwise a fine copy. The gilt is bright, hinges sound, text block clean and fresh. March 1850 catalogue at front, slightly loose. Early ownership signature (Anna B. Greene, Brookfield, May 1850) on title page, chemise and half brown morocco case. BAL 7600.

Ticknor, Reed and Fields, 1850. 1st Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. Octavo, original blind-stamped brown cloth. First edition of Hawthorne's classic, one of only 2500 copies printed. Very good original condition, with earliest ads (March 1, 1850) in the front. Laid in is a vintage photograph of Hawthorne. Housed in a custom-made box.

In original illustrated wrappers.In good condition (vol. I) and near good condition (vol. II). Rebacked (vol. II). Worn covers, cracks on the spine, minor losses on the spine (vol. II), owner's mark on the front cover (vol. I), bookseller's label with new price on the back cover (vol. I), water-stained to the cover and page margin (vol. II), traces of owner's private library stamp on the front cover (vol. II), small stain on the black cover (vol. II). Second Russian edition of The Scarlet Letter. First Russian edition of The Blithedale Romance. The only edition of this translation. This first and only Russian edition of Nathaniel Hawthorne's collected works was interrupted in the second volume. These novels were translated and issued by Iosif Maevskiy (1874-1937), who lived in the US in the early 1900s and communicated with Jack London. He returned to Russia in 1910 and established the publishing house Athenaeum (later Knigoizdatel'stvo I.A. Maevskogo), where the first Russian Jack London's collected… Read More

Boston: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, 1850 First edition, first printing, with "reduplicate" on page 21, publisher's advertisements dated March 1, 1850. Publisher's ribbed brown cloth, decorated in blind, lettered in gilt. Very good, with some fraying to the spine ends, corners bumped and rubbed, spine cracked and holding at pages 16/17, slight lean to the spine, some faint spotting to the endpapers, otherwise very clean pages. A bright and unsophisticated copy. BAL 7600. Housed in a custom red ¼ morocco slipcase with matching chemise. The Scarlet Letter is set in the author's hometown of Salem, Massachusetts, in the early 17th century, just before the onset of the infamous Salem witch trials. The novel features Hester Prynne, an adulteress facing the shame and judgment of her Puritan community. In addition to officially sanctioned public humiliation, Prynne must wear a scarlet "A" pinned to her chest as a symbol of her transgression. After being released from… Read More

Boston: American Stationers Co., 1837. The First Issue of the True First Edition, very scarce and significantly important. With American Stationers Co.'s circular quill imprint on the title-page. 8vo, publisher's original textured brown/black cloth, with the spine lettered in gilt within a gilt frame. While there are known variations to the bindings no priority is given and all first edition copies are first printing, first issue. Now housed in a handsome light brown cloth-covered folding box with two dark brown morocco labels lettered and ruled in gilt. 4 ads, 334, 16 catalogue pp. An unusually handsome and well preserved copy, very scarce as such, the text with far less than the typical foxing that is always present due to the paper stock used, otherwise extremely clean and fresh, the hinges solid and firm, the binding dark and unfaded with bright gilt, very minor wear or rubbing at the tips and extremities, the front blank free-fly with a small amount of loss to the bottom outside corner,… Read More

Boston: American Stationers Co, 1837. First edition. Original cloth over boards. Duodecimo. 334 pages (with 4 pages ads at front, 12 pages ads at back). Mild scattered foxing, some extremity rubs and shallow chips to cloth along board edges. Hinges not cracked but joints have a few splits.. Hawthorne's third publication in book form and the first to bear his name. This collection of 18 stories won immediate recognition for its author, though all had previously appeared in annuals or magazines. Hawthorne himself assembled and edited them for this collection. <br /> <br /> The included story "Mr. Higginbotham's Catastrophe" is very close to being a detective story in the purest sense. Indeed, none other than Edgar Allan Poe, (whose "Murders in the Rue Morgue," published four years later, and often credited with the first modern detective story) called Hawthorne's story "vividly original and managed most dexterously." <br /> <br /> One… Read More

Boston: Ticknor, Reed & Fields, 1851. First. hardcover. fine. 8vo, exquisitely re-bound in full black morocco elaborately decorated in gilt, with equally elaborate red & black leather doublures, red silk moire fly-leaves. Boston: Ticknor, Reed & Fields, 1851. First Edition.<br/> <br/> The original brown cloth covers & spine have been bound in, as well as the ads, dated May, 1851. The binding is unsigned, but masterfully executed.<br/> <br/>

Boston: American Stationers Co., John B. Russell, 1837. First edition. Publisher's circular device on title-page. [4, ads], [5]-334, [2], [16, catalogue] pp. 1 vols. 8vo. Publisher's brown embossed cloth, title stamped in gilt to spine. Light wear and staining to covers, cloth split at rear joint, foxing throughout. In a custom blue morocco pull-of case, gilt, by Stikeman. First edition. Publisher's circular device on title-page. [4, ads], [5]-334, [2], [16, catalogue] pp. 1 vols. 8vo. His Second Book. Hawthorne's second book, and although it was not the dismal failure that Fanshawe had been, it attracted hardly any notice when it was issued thus in 1837. Now, of course, it is one of the most famous collections of short fiction in American literature. Vincent Starrett said of the story "Mr. Higginbotham's Catastrophe": "it comes close to becoming a detective story in the purest sense" and Edgar Allan Poe said the story is "vividly original and managed most dexterously" (see Queen's Quorum, p. 10).… Read More

Boston: American Stationers Co. Very Good. 1837. Hardcover. Nathaniel Hawthorne, Twice-Told Tales, 1st edition in exceptional condition. With the fifth story listed on the contents page as starting on p. 78, although it actually starts on p. 77: thus the first state of the first edition. This copy is exceptionally square and straight in the original binding, with the gilded printing on the spine still easy to read. Hawthorne's breakthrough book, and it is very difficult to find copies in such nice shape. Condition: some mild spotting and discoloration on the exterior cloth, as if from handling. Only very slight occasional foxing and stains, but generally remarkably well preserved. Two older collector's bookplates on inside front board. Most notably from the collection of Frank Brewer Bemis (1861 - 1935). Bemis was a Boston banker bibliophile who amassed one of the finest collections of American and British works, including all four Shakespeare folios. Very slight turning-in at the… Read More

Boston: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, 1850. First edition. Hardcover. Fine. Boston: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, 1850. Fine. 8vo, rebound in full red levant (large grain) morocco gilt with central letter A stamped in gilt on front cover within ruled border, spine gilt in compartments, gilt turn-ins and marbled endpapers, all edges gilt, by Bayntun Riviere; original brown cloth and advertisements dated March 1st bound in rear; the misprint "reduplicate" for "repudiate" at line 20 page 21; cloth slipcase. first edition, first issue. Contents fresh, no foxing. A beautiful book. BAL 7601.

Boston: E.P. Peabody, 1841. First edition. viii, [i], [9]-140 pp. 12mo. Publisher's blue-gray cloth, printed black title label on front cover (gilt titling mostly worn away). Tear to cloth at head of spine, rear free endpaper removed. Peirce family biographical material tipped in at front. Bookplate of Agnes Neustadt. In a custom blue morocco pull-off box by Stikemen. First edition. viii, [i], [9]-140 pp. 12mo. Peirce Family Copies. [Boxed with:] HAWTHORNE, Nathaniel. Famous Old People: Being the Second Epoch of Grandfather's Chair. vii, [i], [9]-158 pp. Boston: E.P. Peabody, 1841. Publisher's light brown cloth, printed black title label on front cover (gilt titling mostly worn away). A few stains to covers, overopened at title-page, foxing rear endpapers removed. Bookplate of Agnes Neustadt. BAL 7591; Clark A7.1. Both volumes with contemporary gift inscriptions to James Mills Peirce (1834-1906), later a mathematician who, like his father Benjamin Peirce, taught at Harvard. The elder Peirce… Read More