Search Results: Titles starting with M from Biblioctopus

London: Heinemann, 1967. First Edition. Hardcover. fine/near fine. 1st edition, preceding the American. Her 2nd novel and much her rarest, a fiendish horror that's hardly ever for sale at all, and never for sale this nice (the scary jacket illustration was quickly replaced for Heinemann's 2nd printing). The book has a 3-line gift inscription otherwise it is fine. The 1st printing dustjacket has a single 1/2" edge tear otherwise it is near fine, and this jacket fades easily and soils even easier, but the whites on our jacket are so white that they call the cops on all the other jackets. The Magic Toyshop found some praise from reviewers but sold slowly and it took her a few more books to get a following of readers. Now, 30 years after her death, she remains the principal maker of women's lore. The universities know all about her, and their students hear lectures on her all the time but, so far, her 1st editions have not been eagerly hunted by collectors to the degree they will be, and The Magic… Read More

New York: American Magazine [and] Collier's Weekly, 1932. First Edition. Wrappers. Very good. 3 vols. 1st appearances in print, anywhere, of the only 3 Sam Spade short stories that Hammett ever had published (following his Spade novel The Maltese Falcon, 1930). All 3 are illustrated by Joseph Clement. The first 2 are not scarce, the 3rd is. These magazines precede the 1st printing of the 3 stories in a book edition (The Adventures of Sam Spade and Other Stories, 1944) by 12 years and that was followed by 245 Sam Spade radio shows (30 minutes each) written by anonymous others from 1946-1950. 1) A Man Called Spade, in The American Magazine (not the common book), Vol. 114, No. 1 (July 1932). 2) Too Many Have Lived, in The American Magazine (not the common book), Vol. 114, No. 4 (October 1932). 3) They Can Only Hang You Once, in Collier's Weekly, Vol. 90, No. 21 (November 1932).

Philadelphia: M. Carey & Sons, 1821. First Edition. Boards. Good. 1st American edition. Chip from blank corner of title page, another from blank bottom of last leaf, else a good copy in original printed boards, rebacked.

New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1924. First Edition. Hardcover. fine/near fine. 1st edition of the California epic. Fine in the 1st printing dustjacket without the Grosset and Dunlap logo ("G&D") on the spine, and with Dec. 1924 ads on the verso. The dustjacket has small chips to the corners else it's near fine, and 1st editions of Zorro in the correct jacket are plenty scarce (despite us having 2 of them), and most copies in jacket are in the reprint jacket, and those few that are correct, usually look like they've been tortured by Torquemada and then shot by the Death Star. And copies without a jacket are just a submission to hasty expediency.

New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1924. First Edition. Hardcover. Near fine/very good. 1st edition. Near fine in a 1st printing jacket (having all points as above) with a chip at the base of the front panel, some wear, rubs, and 1 fold strengthened, otherwise very good. Grosset published mostly reprints, but not this one. There was a 1919, abridged version in All-Story Magazine titled The Curse of Capistrano, followed by an expansion of the story (McCulley, Eugene Miller and Douglas Fairbanks using his pen name, Elton Thomas) for the 1920 U. A. film and for our 1924 novel, but reports of a 1920 book edition are a hoax.

London: John Murray, 1819. First Edition. 1st edition, 2nd issue with the imprint of the printer on the verso of page 71 (not page 70). Original brown wrappers, uncut, rebacked, very good. Mazeppa is a fine poem but it is that which is attached at the end that rings most sharply today. It is titled "A Fragment" and truthfully so, but what a fragment. It is the opening chapter of Byron's contribution to the famed ghost story entertainment that produced Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and John Polidori's The Vampyre.

London: Macmillan, 1959. First edition. A little cocked, spine a little faded, and three light tape shadows on the front fly, else very good lacking the dustwrapper. Signed by the author.

Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood & Sons, 1860. First Edition. Near fine. In three volumes. First edition. First state without the preliminary ad leaf in Volume 1. Carter's binding "B", with the "Edmunds & Remnant" binder's ticket. 8vo, 361; 319; 311 pp. Vol. III with undated publisher's ads at rear). Original reddish-brown cloth blind stamped on front and rear panels; gilt lettered spine. Pale yellow endpapers. Some faint rubbing to the extremities and bumped corners, else a near fine copy of a book that is common in worse condition and scarce in comparable condition. Carter BV pp. 110-111. Sadleir 816a. Wolff 2060. Ex-William M. Fitzhugh, Jr. Among the greatest 20th century collections (sold in 1977). 165044xx. Eliot's typical themes are growing up, falling in love, and gaining acceptance, but for Maggie (the heroine), it is stunted grouth with the struggle existing within the constraints of rural society, frustrated love and, mostly, failures at acceptance.

Edinburgh: printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, London; and for Archibald Constable and Co., and John Ballantyne, Bookseller to the King, Edinburgh, 1820. First Edition. Boards. Very good. 3 vols. 1st edition. Original boards and labels, rebacked with new endpapers (a fitting match). Soiled and worn else very good, but troublesome to weigh against other sets, because variables won't and constants aren't. Just after publishing Ivanhoe, Scott returned to his Scottish roots for this novel. The monastery of the title is Saint Mary's Cistercian Abbey and the action is mostly within or surrounding it. The time is the Scottish Reformation (16th century) when the religious question had not been settled, but Scott wrote as the detached narrator, and presents its resolution as inevitable. The characters are (as is the custom in historical romance) a gathering (or a compaction) of real and fictional figures, playing out their personal, petty roles, rendered (and contrasted) against the great… Read More

London and New York: Harper, 1901. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine. 1st edition of this group of stories, including the 3 tales that comprised the whole of the American edition (The Monster, The Blue Hotel, and His New Mittens), and adding 4 more (Twelve O'clock, Moonlight on the Snow, Manacled, and An Illusion in Red and White) that were not in the American edition. Fine in a very good dustjacket (ads on the back panel confirm it as the correct jacket) with light edgewear and a horizontal tear at the top of the spine neatly strengthened, but pretty, and integral, and a great rarity. RBH list only one copy in jacket sold at auction and that was 82 years ago. Short stories by a virtuoso, writing at the pivot between the American short fiction masters before him (Irving, Hawthorne, Poe, Melville, and Twain) and laying the ground for his own generation (Bierce, and O. Henry), and the one that followed (Cather, Fitzgerald, and Hemingway). The Monster is set in fictional Whilomville, New York. It tells… Read More

New York: Boni and Liveright, 1927. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/near fine. 1st edition of the Nobel Laureate's 2nd novel. Fine (the yellow lettering is not flaked). 1st printing dustjacket (the 2nd printing cardplayers jacket is much rarer), some rubbing and a 3/8" tear else near fine. Cheaper than any copy close to this fine, and finer than any copy close to this cheap. Mosquitoes is Faulkner before he deserved applause, but it set him up to become what he became. In it he confines a mismatched group on the yacht of a matronly, literary lion hunter and feeds none of their appetites, so we learn that characters wrapped up in themselves make very small packages.

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

Philadelphia: Curtis, 1933. First Edition. Wrappers. Very good. 6 vols. 1st appearance anywhere of Murder on the Orient Express, under its original title, Murder in the Calais Coach, in 6 issues of The Saturday Evening Post from Sep. 30 to Nov. 4, 1933 (illustrated by William Hoople). It precedes British serialization in Grand Magazine (Mar. to May 1934), and both book editions (London, Jan. 1, 1934, and NY, Feb. 28, 1934). Original wrappers, very good and well preserved, and these are fragile paper ephemera so any other set is likely to look like a plush toy washed on hot, and have a murky description ignoring its wounds, like The Black Knight in Monty Python, his arm cut off and gushing blood, saying, "Tis but a scratch.". A rousing Christie showpiece circling an assassination on a moving train that soon becomes snowbound. There is a first-class coach filled with passengers using aliases, false clues, and convincing alibies, but it is a collaborative kabuki dance quickly penetrated by Hercule… Read More

New York: Fountain Press, 1931. First Edition. Very good. 1st edition, limited signed, number 505 of 842 copies. Puiblisher's marbled boards, rubbing to the extremities, bookplate to the front pastedown, damp stain to the lower corner of the page block not touching the text, else very good.

Washington DC: National Geographic Society, 1965. First Edition. Wrappers. near fine. 1st appearance anywhere of Goodall's first published work, pages 272-308 of the August 1963 issue (vol. 124, no. 2). Original wrappers, a near fine copy. 1st appearance anywhere of Goodall's first cover story, pages 802-832 of the December 1965 issue (vol. 128, no. 6). Original wrappers, a near fine copy.

Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1957. First Edition. Wrappers. Very good/very good. 1st edition in the original glassine and printed wrappers, inscribed to writer Marc Bernard: "à Marc Bernard, / en témoignage de / sympathie, / R Barthes." Perforated ‘S.P.'(service de presse) stamp on the rear wrapper and last two pages. Margins toned lightly throughout, wrappers with some stains along the extremities and toning to the spine, else very good, glassine with some wear to the extremities, else very good. Scarce in the glassine. An important group of 22 essay ranging from soaps and detergents, to professional wrestling, to the face of Greta Garbo to Martians. Barthes uses semiotics (how signs and symbols convey meaning within a given cultural or social contex) to analyze popular culture, particularly how we, as the consumer of these cultural phenomena, are influenced to feel and interpret the signs they convey in specific ways.