Search Results: Authors starting with R from Michael Laird Rare Books LLC

1899. Very Good. 8vo. [4], 165, [6] pp., every page filled with manuscript. Divided into 6 sections of verse, lyric, drama, and prose, with 11 small vignette drawings of which two are heightened in watercolor. Numerous annotations and revisions in the text. Bound in contemporary roan leather with pewter clasp (back of clasp slightly loose), some rubbing along binding extremities; floral endleaves patterned in green and gold, all edges gilt. Front pastedown with a few illegible letters in ink, apparently backwards (offset from a note loosely inserted?), small negligible ink stain on lower right corner on final 10 leaves and the back endleaves, foxing on pp. 41-48. A fascinating literary manuscript from a known WWI German officer, providing insight into pre-war German nationalism and culture. ALL writings contained herein are apparently unpublished. The manuscript is divided into 6 sections: Historische Gedichte (pp. 1-18), Patriotische Gedichte (19-21), Lyrisch (22-30), Erzahland (31-42),… Read More

London: B. T. Batsford, Ltd, 1989. Hardcover. Very good/Good. xiv, 228 pp. 40 illustrations. Reprint edition; first published 1950. Original cloth, dust-jacket (price clipped, a little worn). Ownership inscription on first blank leaf. Indispensable, still unsurpassed. A work of an almost heroic nature that describes approximately 2,000 French bookbinders and binderies, arranged alphabetically, all with locations and dates of operation, most entries containing valuable biographical information, some of which is available nowhere else.

Paris: Librairie Renouard - H. Laurens, Editeur, 1906. First Edition. Good. Folio (27 x 38 cm; 11 x 14.5 inches). COMPLETE SET of 48 plates of Parisian Art Nouveau leather deigns, 39 of 48 glassine tissue guards are present, most with their glassine pattern overlays (missing tissue guards: Fascicule 1:1, 6:1, 6:4, 7:2, 7:4, 8:2, 8:3, 10:1, 11:4), other tissue guards toned and have expected wear and small tears. Contains 172 early 20th century decorative designs on 202 tooled-leather samples, plus two text pages (a title page and a list of plates, both chipped and creased). Portfolio loose as issued in original chemise of faux alligator-skin cloth covers, stamped in gilt (later brown leather spine), inserted into original hinged wooden box covered with faux alligator-skin patterned paper (some rubbing and abraisions at extremities, but perfectly functional, with both catches and clasps present and working), yellow moire fabric under top lid (removed from bottom board), made by Manufacture Française… Read More

New York: NAACP, 1957. Very good. 8vo. [2], 325-333, [1] pp. Original self-wrappers, stapled as issued. Some toning around the edges but the paper stock is strong and crisp. Written 65 years ago, this little-known article is just as thought-provoking today, as Americans respond to the Black Lives Matter movement and related protests by African-Americans throughout the United States. Our offprint was reprinted by the NAACP with the permission of the author and "The American Scholar" in October 1957. "Red-tagging" relates to the attempt by White supremacists to blame Communism for African American protests; the author explains: "A recurrent theme coming out of the South these days describes desegregation as part of a gigantic Communist scheme to subvert the American way of life. Almost every occurrence of racial friction produces its quota of speeches and editorials labeling Negro protest a Communist inspired or, at the very least, Communist tinged. [...] Why is there such receptiveness to the… Read More

Mexico City, 1941. Fair. Altogether 33 items (plus 14 duplicate pieces of religious ephemera). Includes 5 monographs dating from 1759-1941, various bindings, various conditions (see below). INTRIGUING "COLECCION RELIGIOSA MEXICANA" totalling 33 items (of which 5 are monographs dating from 1759, 1833, 1857, 1933, and 1941), with a goodly quantity of "unfindable" Mexican pilgrims flyers, prayer cards, etc. CONTENTS OF THE COLLECTION: ¶ 1-28 (ephemera): Archive of Mexican religious broadsheets, pilgrims flyers, and prayer cards, various imprints, various dates (20th century). Condition: fair (generally printed on cheap paper). Added: 14 duplicate broadsheets and prayer cards. ¶ 29 (monograph). Martinez de la Parra, Juan. Luz de verdades Catholicas y explicacion de la doctrina christiana. Madrid, Ibarra, 1759. Folio, contemporary calf (rebacked, corners repaired). Lacking gathering a6 (includes title-page), fol. Ss2, and fols. Ss6-8. Final leaves poorly mended. POOR condition. One of the most… Read More

Pittsburgh: Kennedy & Co. Trade card (chromolithograph) printed on both sides. Highly curious image depicting two girls kissing. "Are you troubled with aches or pains of any kind? It cures like magic all aches and pains. Sold by the agent who present you with this chromo." The concoction reportedly consisted of ether, chloroform, camphor, oil of peppermint and red pepper.

New York: Vantage Press, 1977. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. 8vo. 85, [1] pp. With 43 black and white macabre plates by the author. Original black cloth, original dust wrapper illustrated by the author. ¶ First and only appearance of these curious quatrains (ballad stanzas and clerihews) written by an otherwise unknown American author. Our copy is inscribed by the author "Lu, Find the cloak lost in dreams / for t'is the only vehicle left not in ruin / Rene." The poetry herein reminds us at times of the musings of Leonard Cohen (sic!). The work is illustrated throughout with full page line drawings of skeletons in surrealist settings: "The skeletal structures in this book, when viewed as attitudes rather than people themselves illustrate the effects of a future arrived -- only to find confusion on all fronts" (from the author's statement). A strange and wonderful book, quite unknown. Scarce: no copy of this book is currently on the market. ¶ The NYPL catalog describes the book as containing:… Read More

Elmira, NY or Auburn NY, 1900. Wooden blook (4.75 x 6.25"). A hand-made wooden box in the shape of a 12mo book with a compartment carved from the interior and lined with blue velvet. In very good condition with a 1" x 3" section of varnish removed on the front board; scattered scratches to the surface that seem to be heavier on the rear board where the box was laid; wear and oxidation to the metallic gold used on the fore edges. AN EXCELLENT WOODEN BOOK WITH A SECRET COMPARTMENT, the gift of one male prison guard to another, featuring many qualities of American Folk Art. The term "Blook" was coined by Mindell Dubansky of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; it is the contraction of the words "Book Look," and refers to an everyday object that looks like a book. Our blook is decorated with Tole paintings in green, white, gold, orange and burgundy. The front of the blook has a decorative shield with "To | Walter Long | 1900" in script within a central cross; the shield is surrounded by wreath of flowers… Read More

Strasbourg and Zurich: P.-H. Heitz, 1948. First Edition. Very good. Thick 8vo. 13, [2], 926 pp. Original printed wrappers, a little shelf-worn, edges mostly uncut (text with some toning throughout as is true in all copies). NOT ex-library! Francois Ritter remains the unsurpassed authority on early Strasbourg printing and humanism, and this is his masterpiece. ¶ The Strasbourg Municipal Library was basically burned to the ground in 1870, and thousands of incunables (many unique), precious medieval manuscripts, and irreplaceable archives were incinerated. Former librarian Rod. Reuss (1870-1895) made great progress in rebuilding the library. A worthy testament to said progress, and to the efforts of several generations of Strasbourg citizens, is the present catalogue, in which are recorded and very capably described ca. 2,300 books printed in the 15th and 16th century held by the Strasbourg Municipal Library. For obvious reasons, the present work is indispensable for all students and scholars of… Read More

Amsterdam: Reinier Leers, 1681. First Edition. Very good. [4], 5-43, [1] pp. (age toned, paper stock a little weak, some fraying to outer edges, lower gutter margin with evidence of dampstaining - SEE IMAGES). Preceded by two early binder's blanks (outer edge fraying, browned and brittle): blank fol. 1 (recto and verso) has pencil annotations for an index to the 1681 edition of Rochefort's "Histoire naturelle et morale des iles Antilles de l'Amerique" (likewise published by Leers), as does the final unnumbered page [44]. Recent neat quarter morocco over marbled boards (unobtrusive stain on front board). Front flyleaf inscribed in ink by former owner John Poindexter Landers. EXTREMELY EARLY EMIGRANTS' GUIDE TO AMERICA. First edition of the important Supplement to Rochefort's "Histoire naturelle et morale des iles Antilles de l'Amerique" from which it was also sold separately (Alden-Landis). It contains essential practical information for potential emigrants to Virginia, Pennsylvania, the Carolinas,… Read More

S.l. (probably Santa Barbara, CA), 1936. Unbound. Very good. Large 4to. (8 1/2 x 11"). Unpaginated: 23 chapters + Epilogue, each individually paginated. Typewritten on "Superior Manifold - Esleeck Mfg Co." Preserved in a protective cloth case. This appears to be the only significant Cameron Rogers manuscript still in private ownership (the University of Oregon has ten of them, for which see below). It is an early typescript of the novel "Manila Galleon," composed while the author's working title was "That Year's Galleon." The novel, a work of historical fiction, explores the Manila-Acapulco gallion trade, and is set in the Philippines in 1621. Among the characters are: Don Alonzo Fajardo y Tenza, the Governor; his disturbingly beautiful wife Dona Catalina Maria Sembrano; Don Juan de la Mesa y Suero, the captain of the Spanish galleon La Nuestra Senora de la Vida which sails from Manila to Acapulco. The work was published in 1936 by D. Appleton-Century Company, New York (consisting of 232 pages).… Read More

New York: Cassel, 1885. First Edition. Very good. 16mo. [2], 190 pp. Original publisher's brown gilt- and silver embossed decorated cloth, a.e.g. A bright copy in excellent condition, almost flawless. When does a ranching story have nothing to do with ranching? This book "is without either story or ranch; it is about some dilettantish people who go out to a Kansas sheep farm, talk Chopin, and wash their fingers in finger-bowls" (Dobie, p. 116). Also discussed are various types of silver spoons, cameras, violins, portieres, billiards, Oriental carpets, and so forth. While unnamed, herein is described the author's own family of "tenderfeet," i.e. Easterners who decide to experience sheep ranching in Kansas on a ten-thousand acre, ten-thousand sheep ranch, "not only twelve miles from a lemon, but a thousand miles from a strawberry" (Wright 4668). A contemporary reviewer describes the narrative as "a true story, the outcome of the author's own experience on a Kansas sheep ranch, and it is as fresh and… Read More

Philadelphia: Published by Johnson & Warner, No. 147, Market-Street, Brown & Merritt, printers, 24, Church-alley), 1821. Very good. Square 12mo. 16 pp. With 8 plates including frontispiece (dated 1821) which has been mounted inside front wrapper as per most copies (one plate loose; final page partially pasted onto the inside of lower cover; plates browned as is always the case on account of the inferior paper stock). Original salmon stiff wrappers. ¶ First American Edition, second issue, ONE OF THE FIRST BOOKS PRINTED IN AMERICA WITH ILLUSTRATIONS OF DOGS. The poem makes oblique references to the Dog Tax proposed in Britain in 1796. As a Pro-Union diatribe against government oppression, "The Council of Dogs" is hardly suitable for children. First published in London by Harris in 1808, its bitter satire much darker than most "childrens books" of the time. Unlike the typical whimsical chapbook illustrations that intermix human and animal parts, the pictures in "The Council of Dogs" are carefully… Read More

Washington DC: Library of Congress, 1961. First Edition. Tall 8vo. 123 pp., with 13 plates. Original light-brown cloth (front cover a little stained, spine somewhat darkened). NOT ex-library! ONE OF THE EARLIEST PUBLISHED READING LISTS. Rosenwald, the great benefactor of the Library of Congress, here compares two copies of the "Libro delli Comandamenti di Dio," perhaps the oldest recommended reading list, printed in Florence in 1494. Naturally both copies belonged to Rosenwald. ¶ The title of the present work, "The 19th Book - Tesoro de Poveri," comes from the fact that the number of "recommended" books varied between the two copies; in the first there were 18, in the second there were 19. The name of the 19th book is the "Elthesauro de poueri in medicicina" or "Tesoro de poveri." Rosenwald gives transcriptions of the original texts, translations into English, appendices and useful notes. ¶ From the famed Bibliotheca Bibliographica Breslaueriana (sale at Christies NY, 2005, lot 1255) and with… Read More