Search Results: Authors starting with B from Honey & Wax Booksellers

London and New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1929. First American edition, and first English translation, of Isaac Babel's Cossack stories, based on his military service during the 1920 Russian invasion of Poland. Born into a struggling Jewish merchant family in Odessa, Babel was an observer and outsider all his life, a target of religious prejudice and political suspicion. With Maxim Gorky's encouragement, he began to publish fiction shortly before the revolution. In 1920, Babel was assigned to Budyonny's cavalry during the Russo-Polish War, a brutal experience that inspired the stories of Red Cavalry: "a monstrous and inconceivable Russia tramped on either side of the carriages in bast shoes, like a multitude of bugs swarming in clothes. . . . it jumped on the steps of our train and fell back, knocked down by the butt-ends of our rifles; it snorted and scrabbled and flowed on in silence. At the twelfth verst, when I had no potatoes left I flung Trotsky's leaflets at them." Babel's stories were widely… Read More

London: C.F. Kell for Leonard Smithers, 1896. Original advertising "posterette" featuring Aubrey Beardsley's final cover design for The Savoy. A lavish quarterly devoted to literature, art, and criticism (mostly of Victorian behaviors), The Savoy was founded in 1896 by the libertine book dealer and publisher Leonard Smithers. Known for his decadent illustrations for Salomé and The Yellow Book, Beardsley was an inspired choice as designer. Due to a combination of societal backlash and a bloated budget, The Savoy ceased publication after only eight issues. This image appeared on the cover of the final single issue. It was reprinted shortly thereafter on this advertising "posterette" (as Beardsley termed it) to promote the complete three-volume set of The Savoy. An iconic image of the period. Color-lithographed poster, sight size 10.5 x 8.25 inches, framed to 18 x 15 inches. Signed with A/B monogram in lower left corner of image. A few faint creases.

London: Oxford University Press, 1959. First edition, publisher's presentation copy, of this midcentury collection of American men (and only men) of letters, signed by contributor Robert Penn Warren. Editor Harold Beaver construes "American" broadly, "not interpreting the word by place of birth or parentage only, but also by passport and length of residence," a decision that allows him to include W.H. Auden's essay on Henry James. Warren's contribution surveys the whole of William Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha fiction: "he writes of two Souths: he reports one South and he creates another." Other essayists include R.P. Blackmur, Cleanth Brooks, Van Wyck Brooks, Richard Chase, Malcolm Cowley, Horace Gregory, Irving Howe, Alfred Kazin, Harry Levin, F.O. Matthiessen, H.L. Mencken, Ezra Pound, Philip Rahv, I.A. Richards, Allen Tate, Lionel Trilling, Austin Warren, Edmund Wilson, Yvor Winters, and Morten Dauwen Zabel. A fine copy of a literary time capsule, published at the height of the New Criticism. Pocket… Read More

New York: Grove Press, 1957. First American edition of Samuel Beckett's first novel, originally published in London in 1938. Although best remembered for his groundbreaking work for the stage, Beckett first developed his bleakly comic vision of the human experience in his fiction: "Murphy never wore a hat, the memories it awoke of the caul were too poignant, especially when he had to take it off." This first American edition was published by Barney Rosset's Grove Press shortly after the American premiere of Waiting for Godot, in a dust jacket designed by painter Francine Felsenthal. A near-fine copy. Single volume, measuring 8 x 5.5 inches: [4], 282, [2]. Original cream textured cloth, spine lettered in brown, original unclipped pictorial dust jacket printed in black and grey. Grove Press rubber stamp to copyright page. Spine and edges of jacket toned, with 2.5-inch split at lower flap fold; edges of cloth boards toned.

(Johannesburg): Gryphon Poets, 1972. First edition of the first book by South African Beat poet Sinclair Beiles to be published in his home country, featuring vibrant original woodcuts by Cecil Skotnes. Beiles played a key role in a number of important Beat publications. In the 1950s, he befriended Brion Gysin and William S. Burroughs in Tangier, taking walks with Gysin to assuage the artist's paranoia, and helping Burroughs edit Naked Lunch, which Beiles would later publish as senior editor at the Olympia Press. While staying at the notorious Beat Hotel in Paris, Beiles, Gysin, Burroughs, and Gregory Corso created Minutes To Go (1960), the first book to use the "cut-up" poetic technique which Gysin and Burroughs would make famous. After many years abroad, Beiles returned to Johannesburg in the early 1970s. The exuberant poems collected in Tales reflect his skewed, apocalyptic take on both sex and technology, as in "The Cuckholding Computer:" "Nothing could be more astuter / than that damned computer… Read More

1983. Original illustration by prolific German artist-illustrator Monika Beisner for her celebrated word puzzle book for children. This beguiling image offers a visual collage of answers to the rhyming riddles that face the illustration in the book. The ginger cat at center represents the correct solution to the riddle: "My first is in chocolate but not in ham, My second's in cake and also in jam, My third at tea-time is easily found, My whole is a friend who's often around. What am I?" This image reflects the hallmarks of Beisner's mature style: surrealistic imagery featuring animals and landscapes, painted with exquisite detail and the luminescence of early illuminated manuscripts. Beisner first found her visual métier in her collaborations with Alison Lurie, The Heavenly Zoo (1979) and Fabulous Beasts (1981), and perfected her artistry in Book of Riddles. A first edition of the book accompanies this painting, which was exhibited and sold at London's Achim Moeller Gallery in 1983. A wonderful… Read More

New York: Lorenz and Ellen Gude, 1964. Summer 1964 number of Ted Berrigan's C: A Journal of Poetry, signed by contributor William S. Burroughs. In 1963, administrators at Columbia University pulled one of Berrigan's poems from The Columbia Review, objecting to his use of the word "fuck." In response, Berrigan and his friend Ron Padgett borrowed an off-campus mimeograph to print their own literary magazine, The Censored Review. That act of protest gave rise to C: A Journal of Poetry, a cornerstone of the Mimeo Revolution in New York City. Between 1963 and 1967, Berrigan published a freewheeling mix of New York School poets, Beat writers, and downtown artists; Andy Warhol's first experiments with silkscreened Polaroids serve as the covers of the September 1963 number. In addition to Berrigan and Padgett, contributors to this Summer 1964 number include John Ashbery, Kenneth Koch, Frank O'Hara, Barbara Guest, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burroughs, who has signed this copy. The issue contains two… Read More

London: Printed for Dan. Brown at the Black Swan and Bible without Temple-bar, and Andr. Bell at the Cross-keys and Bible in Cornhil, 1700. First edition of this verse translation of the Song of Songs by Joseph Stennett (1663-1713), the first important Baptist hymnwriter in England: "Thy Lips, my Spouse, that move with skill, / Drops like the Hony-comb distil. / Hony and Milk's beneath thy Tongue, / Which feeds the Weak as well as strong." In his scholarly preface, Stennett is quick to assure readers that the Hebrew text is not about sexual desire, despite appearances: "some have denied that [Solomon] wrote it by Divine Inspiration; and make his Design to be only that of celebrating his Amours with Pharoah's Daughter, or some other person." The passion of the bridegroom and the bride is to be understood, however, as a divine allegory of Christ's love for his church, the same "mystical Espousals" found in the 45th Psalm, which Stennett also translates here. Wing B2633AC, ESTC R212810. We locate four… Read More

Paris: Marcilly, 1825. Complete set of six illustrated tales for young readers, each featuring a different color in the title: The Red Fish (or goldfish, in English parlance), The Green Monkey, The Yellow Dwarf, The Grey Mouse, The White Rabbit, and The Bluebird. These highly decorative pocket storybooks were a specialty of publisher Marcilly, a luxury stationer known for miniature almanacs and gift books. Text in French; publisher's imprint located in Les Poissons Rouges. OCLC locates four examples, all in France. A bright fine set, doubly housed in the original publisher's box and a custom clamshell. Six twelvemo volumes, measuring 4.5 x 3 inches: 32. Original glazed white paper boards, upper boards elaborately stamped in gilt and titled in blue with hand-colored pictorial onlays. Hand-colored, tissue-guarded frontispiece in each volume. Occasional faint foxing to text. Housed in lightly shelfworn publisher's card box framed in gilt embossed paper, lid with hand-colored pictorial onlay (duplicating… Read More

Milan: Presso il Tip. Editore P. Ripamonti Carpano; Presso Virginio Bontà, 1868. Two nineteenth-century Italian gift annuals, in hand-heightened cartonnage bindings featuring portraits of idealized young women. These illustrated collections of sentimental prose and poetry were popular New Year's gifts, easy to read and designed for display. Published in Milan at the height of the Risorgimento era, these highly decorative literary anthologies represent the sort of book in which the ambitious, romantic Angelica Sedàra, the heroine of Lampedusa's The Leopard, would be likely to seek her reflection. Text in Italian. Near-fine examples. Two cartonnage volumes. Strenna Italiana (1859) measuring 9.5 x 6.5 inches: [8], 182, [2]. Original ivory paper-covered boards with hand-colored pictorial lithographic inlay, boards and spine elaborately stamped in gilt with hand-colored decorations, pale pink endpapers, all edges gilt. Pictorial title page, engraved frontispiece and five full-page tissue-guarded… Read More

[Paris]: Imprimerie de Maulde et Renou, 1844. First and only edition of this miniature quartet of illustrated storybooks. Each diminutive volume contains two instructive and entertaining tales, from the Italian aeronaut Zambeccari's real-life account of a dangerous hot air balloon expedition to inspirational works of short fiction. As the title suggests, these four storybooks were intended, as a set, to occupy an hour of leisure. Text in French. OCLC locates four institutional holdings, all in Europe; the surviving sets reflect a range of binding styles. Not in Bondy, Spielmann, or Welsh. A near-fine example, complete with fragile publisher's slipcase. Four miniature volumes, measuring 3.25 x 2 inches: 24. Original glazed pink, green, cream and blue cartonnage paper boards, each featuring a central engraved pastedown within embossed arabesque borders; variously colored pastedowns. Two tinted lithographs in each volume, with touches of hand-coloring. Lightest rubbing to boards; scattered foxing; short… Read More

Italy, 1825. Album of dynamic original drawings chronicling the Napoleonic era, with an emphasis on the Italian campaigns. Events depicted include sieges and battles (Mantua, Lodi, Trebbia, Marengo); the signing of treaties (Campo Formio, Tolentino); the deaths of generals (Duphot, Joubert); and the royalist attempt to assassinate Napoleon with a "macchina infernale." Later scenes include the battles of Wagram, Ligny, and Waterloo, and Napoleon's exile to St. Helena. The drawings vary in their level of finish: some precise and detailed, others with a more fluid line, but all united by a shared style and graphic weight. An optimistic early bookseller's note identifies the drawings as the work of Jacques-Louis David, which is certainly not true, but the unknown Italian artist was clearly inspired by neoclassical French history painting. "Fine dalla giornata di Marengo" expands a detail of a battle scene by Carle Vernet (1758-1836), and "Napoleone all' Isola de Lobau" echoes a painting of Charles… Read More

Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, 1872. Popular edition of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's ambitious exploration of female artistry, first published in London in 1856, in a hand-painted vellum binding. The story of the aspiring writer Aurora Leigh established Browning's own place in the literary canon: "The world of books is still the world." The iconography of this striking binding, with its foliate designs and rampant lion, reflects Aurora's Florentine origins. The binder's ticket is that of Giulio Giannini, who specialized in attractive souvenirs of Italy for arts-minded English tourists. His firm, still active today, did a brisk trade in "Florentine Style" bindings on English-language classics set in Italy: Hawthorne's The Marble Faun, Eliot's Romola, Howells's Tuscan Cities, and, of course, Aurora Leigh. A fine copy of Browning's landmark verse novel, in a unique hand-painted binding by Giannini. Single volume, measuring 6.25 x 4.5 inches: [9], 10-334, [4]. Contemporary vellum hand-painted in gilt,… Read More

New York: Abbeville Press, 1982. First American edition of this historical survey of the bed in theory and practice, "a wealth of general bed-lore" by Clockwork Orange author Anthony Burgess. "We may divine that kings and queens did not sleep any better on their ornate machines than peasants on their mud floors (Shakespeare is always going on about this), but the elaboration of a bed had nothing to do with somniference. It was all a matter of symbolism . . . the kingly bed anticipated the kingly tomb, and even hinted at the possibility of resurrection." Lavishly illustrated with photographs of famous beds, including those of Mary Tudor, George Washington, and Napoleon Bonaparte, and beds painted by the likes of Raphael, Goya, Delacroix, and Van Gogh, with a reproduction of Toulouse-Lautrec's "In Bed" on the dust jacket. A crisp fine copy. Single volume, measuring 9.5 x 6.5 inches: 96. Original full brown textured cloth, spine lettered in dark brown, original unclipped color pictorial dust jacket.… Read More

London: Printed for the Proprietor, and Sold by James Carpenter and Son, Old Bond Street, 1826. First edition of this introduction to chiaroscuro by Scottish painter John Burnet, whose popular treatises on art theory and practice would be reprinted on both sides of the Atlantic for nearly a century. This work follows the success of Burnet's 1822 Practical Hints on Composition in Painting. In this second treatise, Burnet takes up the handling of light by painters including Tintoretto, Veronese, Titian, Van Dyck, Rubens, and especially Rembrandt: "The most learned arrangements of light and shade may astonish; but there is a charm in the chiaroscuro of nature which carries irresistable sway." Much of the appeal of Burnet's work lies in his original engravings: the eight plates in this volume represent an ambitious picture gallery of almost forty Old Master paintings, each accompanied by a discussion of the artist's talent and technique. A very good copy. Quarto, measuring 11 x 8.5 inches: vi, [2], 45,… Read More

London: Printed for the Booksellers, 1890. Second extant edition of Don Leon, an early English defense of homosexuality purported to be a lost poem by Lord Byron. At least partially composed after Byron's death, likely in the 1830s, a version of the poem was in print before 1853, when it is cited in Notes and Queries. No example of that first printing survives. The first extant edition is William Dugdale's London edition of 1866, printed in an unsuccessful attempt to blackmail Byron's family. This piracy, printed by Charles Carrington around 1890, is a facsimile of the Dugdale, distinguishable by the "rare editions" advertised on the verso of the jacket, which include a translation of the Satyricon spuriously attributed to Oscar Wilde. While Byron is not the author (or at least the sole author) of Don Leon, his sexual history provides the pretext for the poem's argument for tolerance of homosexuality: "Methought there must be yet some people found, / Where Cupid's wings were free, his hands unbound /… Read More