Rare books from Bookworks MWABA, IOBA

Cambridge: Oxford and Cambridge Travel Club, 1927, 1927. A splendid look at pre-Depression transatlantic travel, this prospectus for two linked August 1927 tours sponsored by the Oxford and Cambridge Travel Club, with comments on the benefits of travel and of joining the club, open to present & past Oxford & Cambridge University men. Itinerary of the 'short trip' included New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington DC, Buffalo, Niagara Falls, Toronto, a week in Canada's Algonquin Park, Ottawa, & Montreal; the 'long trip' (cost, 102 guineas, nearly $9000 in modern terms) headed west from Niagara, going to Sarnia, then through lakes Huron & Superior to Port Arthur, Winnipeg, Jasper National Park (snow skiing, even in summer, possibility of bears), Prince Rupert, along the coast to Vancouver, Victoria, Edmonton, then back to Toronto, Ottawa, & Montreal. Includes some comments on the more notable places to be visited, frontispiece reproducing a full-color painting of the RMS Carmania by C. F. Hopkinson;… Read More

New York/London: B. W. Huebsch / William Heinemann, Ltd., 1925. Leonard's best and best-known work, based in part on his early life and suicide of his young wife; a long narrative poem built of sonnets. INSCRIBED by Leonard to former University Heights neighbors: "For Margaret (Knowlton) and Helen and Gertrude...long years ago the 'Three little sisters from across the hill'...from always their affectionate friend [underscored signature] Madison Wis. Nov. 8, 1925". Laid in is a scarce 8-page prospectus in stapled wraps, offering blurbs & critical praise in several languages, with an order blank on the rear cover. Written in 1913 & originally issued as a very limited edition in 1922; this first published version has a few minor changes and adds four stanzas to part III. Hardcover, full blue cloth, paper spine label. General wear, minor staining, corners bumped, label lightly chipped; price-clipped jacket chipped with loss to spine ends and upper rear panel, corners; minor… Read More

London & New York: John Murray/Lee Keedick, 1913. Amundsen's account of his epic journey, winning the race to the Pole; a cornerstone of any Polar book collection. First American edition. Hardcovers, two volume set, full blue cloth, gilt titling. Light general wear, corners & spine ends slightly bumped & lightly frayed; name inside each volume; minor rippling to the frontispieces & top edges of a few plates; sporadic minor foxing in the gutters; minor split to front hinge of volume 1; extra creasing to maps, one short tear. Text clean; xxxv, blank, 302; x, 438 pages; maps, figures, b/w photo plates - all present as called for.. First American Edition. Hard Cover. Very Good/No Jacket. 7" by 9¼". Set.

New York / London: Harper & Brothers, 1941. First edition (first printing) of this classic by a pioneering journalist. Cowles, born in Vermont in 1910, began writing for the society columns & reporting fashion news for Hearst's Boston & New York papers before going to Spain in 1936 with the intent of become a war correspondent, despite her lack of experience; in Spain, she fell in with with the foreign press contingent including Martha Gellhorn & Ernest Hemingway and became noted for her coverage of both sides of that conflict. Later, she travelled all over Europe, including Britain, Germany, Russia, Ukraine, Italy & Poland before witnessing the fall of France & the Battle of Britain. He she recounts her experiences & observations and in closing, urges that the US join Britain in the fight against Fascism "until we reach a victory so complete that freedom will ring through the ages to come with a strength no man dare challenge." After the war, she remained an author, writing several well-received… Read More

London: Percival Marshall & Co Ltd, 1951. 21 macabre, humorous, & fantastic tales by this well-regarded but now obscure author, comprising his entire known output. Original edition, hardcover in jacket, as pictured; evocative art by "Eisner". Should appeal to fans of Walter De La Mare and John Metcalfe, according to Douglas A. Anderson's foreword in the 2002 reprint. Light wear to book, minor corner bumps, couple of tiny spots of foxing; jacket shows light rubbing, minor creasing, a few small chips, tiny stain to rear panel, some fading to spine; pages lightly tanned. Text clean; ix, blank, 233 pages.. First Edition. Hard Cover. Very Good/Good. Octavo.

Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1960. Soviet science fiction classic, about a surgically-altered youth in Argentina with superhuman diving ability; filmed in the USSR in 1962. Belyaev (his name does not transliterate exactly into English) is considered by many to be the Jules Verne of Russian literature. Very stylish endsheets; small drawings probably by N. Grishin, noted as the "designer". Small hardcover in jacket, as pictured. Undated, but with no mention of the 1962 movie, filmed in 1961; originally published in Russian in 1928. Light wear to book, minor bumping to corners; jacket with several tears & large chips, scuffs. Text clean; [285], [3] pages. . First Edition in English. Hard Cover. Very Good/Good. Illus. by N. Grishin (?). 4¾" by 6¾".

Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997. Study of this medieval Japanese classic of brief 'essays' on various subjects; the author argues that Kenko's text is not an early example of 'zuihitsu' or informal essay, but rather "a deliberate, controlled effort by Kenko to force the reader to confront the impermanent and contingent nature of existence through experiencing the text." Hardcover in jacket, as pictured; first edition (first printing). Light wear to book; hint of fading to jacket spine; near fine, unmarked. Text clean; xxii, [2], 343 pages + 'colophon'; index, character list, lengthy bibliography, notes. . First Edition. Hard Cover. Very Good/Very Good. Octavo.

New York: Oxford University Press, 1953. Essays and excerpts from Leopold's journals, put together by his son; includes canoe/deer hunting trips to Canada & Mexico, a plea for less anatomy & more practical field studies for students of biology, et cetera, including powerful material written before & while Leopold was developing his theory of the 'land ethic'. First edition, first printing. Hardcover in jacket, as pictured. Light wear to book, corners slightly bumped; jacket shows light rubbing, a few chips, two short tears 'mended' internally with now-browned tape; $3.00 price intact; gift note on free endsheet. Text clean; xiii, blank, 173 pages; elegant illustrations within the text by Charles W. Schwartz.. First Edition. Hard Cover. Very Good/Good. Illus. by Charles W. Schwartz. 5¾" by 8½".

Madison: Democrat Printing Co., 1896. Scarce guide for potential immigrants to northern Wisconsin, then only 48 years a state; replete with photos of hardy if dour rural folk and their prodigious cabbages (p. 99), heaps of potatoes (p. 93), neck-high peas (p. 83), houses, barns, and other glories of limitless possibility - if you could clear the stumps. There is a section on land & soil types, success stories, also a little on charcoal, logging, boats, railroads, sheep, cattle, other industries. The author was Dean of the College of Agriculture at the University of Wisconsin; the book was given upon request to the Secretary, State Board of Immigration, Rhinelander. This copy has an illustrated cover with a (perished) leather spine, as pictured; it was also issued in plain green cloth. Fair: the covers (front, with a few leaves attached, rear, by itself) detached, much wear & rubbing, inner hinge 'repaired' with thick blue tape, to no avail. Text clean; [8], 192 pages, many b/w photos (nearly every… Read More

Brooklyn: A. Spooner & Co., 1846. Scarce first edition of this early tract on American grape growing & wine-making. Vermont-born, Spooner was a printer & editor in Long Island before establishing himself in Brooklyn around 1811, where he was active in building up the city; he was also involved in local politics and a Colonel in the county militia. After some failures in land speculation, he returned his attention to publishing. Here he relates his experiences in growing grapes, mostly of the Isabella and Catawba varieties, and of making wine, along with other information on grape varieties & cultivation. Spooner was well-enough known for his work with the Isabella variety, then popular in Long Island (and for a half-century or so, until superseded by the Concord), that he was asked for an article for The Cultivator, an Albany paper, which Spooner reprinted in his own paper in 1838. With demand for the information persisting, he published this small book on his experiences. Spooner died… Read More

New York: Sign o' the Lanthorn, 1898. Collection of short stories & poems by members of a New York literary club, of whom the best-remembered are the young Stephen Crane and his some-time publisher, Irving Bacheller. The group met regularly to hear each other's writings, of which, according to Wertheim's Stephen Crane Encyclopedia (quoting Bacheller), "Only negative criticism was permitted, and "the highest tribute that a story could receive was complete silence."" This book is apparently the club's only publication, and about half of it is Crane's short story 'The Wise Men', of a foot race in Mexico, also published that year in his collection 'The Open Boat'; (BAL II, p. 337). Number 61 of the edition of 125, this SIGNED by Crane after his contribution, as are five of the other six pieces included, all except that of Hawkins, purporting to reproduce a poem by a six-year-old (with 'klecksograph' illustrations reminiscent of Rorschach… Read More

Toledo: Willys-Overland Export Corporation, 1958. Service manual for these innovative but uncommon light trucks. Mostly scorned by the American public, they found more favor as industrial & government vehicles around the world. Paperback, as pictured. Light wear, some rubbing, minor creases, some internal foxing extending to page edges. Text clean; 210 pages, many tables, diagrams, b/w photos. . First Edition. Paperback. Good. 8½" by 11".

Accokeek, MD: Sun-Stone: The Private Press of Lenore Thomas, 1969. Poem on the creative process & spirituality of a sculptor. Born in Chicago in 1909, Lenore Thomas, though she studied at the Chicago Art Institute, was a largely self-taught sculptor, creating large-scale public works for New Deal programs. Living in Maryland in the 1940s, she married Robert Ware Straus; both were involved in social justice issues and Lenore was investigated by HUAC in the 1950s. Later she moved to Maine, where she taught, continued to sculpt, and became active with a zen community until her death in 1988. This, her second book, was made entirely by the artist (except the binding), including two copper-plate engravings printed with hand-set type, fifteen engravings reproduced as half-tones overprinted with color woodblocks and a tipped-in half-tone plate of a sculpture she erected in the Lofoten Islands of Norway in 1967. This is number 541 of 600 printed (there was a smaller edition with a more elaborate binding,… Read More

New York: Macmillan Company, 1922. Reissue of this fantastic/philosophic classic, rooted in Irish folklore and here greenly illustrated for the first time by Wilfred Jones, with marginal drawings on many pages & six three-color plates. Bleiler, Checklist of Science-Fiction & Supernatural Fiction, p. 186 (first edition). Jones (1888-1968) began his career illustrating magazines, mentored by Will Bradley; this was his second book commission after (of course) a Rubaiyat. Hardcover in jacket, as pictured. Light wear to book; jacket badly chipped & creased, $2.50 price intact. Text clean; [6], 298 pages; six color plates, marginal illustrations, illustrated endsheets. . First Illustrated Edition. Hard Cover. Very Good/Fair. Illus. by Wilfred Jones. Octavo.

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978. Third and fifth titles in Krementz's groundbreaking & affirming series documenting skilled, talented & dedicated girls in sports. Each is a stated first edition (first printing), noting no later printings. Hardcovers in jackets, as pictured. Light wear to books; minor edge fading & bumps; Skater has a gift note; minor chipping & short tears to jackets; minor creasing to pages. Gymnasy is dated 1979, ISBN 0394508335. . First Edition. Hard Cover. Very Good/Good. Illus. by Jill Krementz. Quarto.