Rare books from Charles Agvent

New York: Limited Editions Club, 1988. hardcover. Fine copy in Near Fine original clamshell box with light wear. Robert Motherwell. Large folio (18-1/2" x 22") bound in full Irish linen. Illustrated with 27 original lithographs by Robert Motherwell ranging in size from 8" square to 14" x 10" and with an original lithograph recessed into the front cover. The lithographs were pulled at Trestle Editions of New York on handmade Japanese paper of various contrasting colors, and hand-mounted upon the same Magnani Italian mould-made paper used for the text. Copy #439 of 750 numbered copies of this massive book SIGNED by the artist and by the Nobel Laureate. One of the poems is a tribute by Paz to Motherwell.

Dallas: Northouse & Northouse, 1981. First Edition. broadsides. Fine in case as issued. A collection of 8 folio broadsides and title page ranging in size from 13" x 17" to 13" x 19" and printed on heavy paper of various colors with all but two of the broadsides illustrated and each individually SIGNED by the author. This is Copy "F" of 26 lettered copies of a total edition of 126. Contributors are John Updike ("Two Sonnets"), Allen Ginsberg ("Capitol Air" - - Ginsberg has also made a single word holograph correction to the text), Linda Pastan ("Mother Eve"), Howard Nemerov ("Landscape with Self-Portrait"), Heather McHugh ("From 20,000 Feet"), William Stafford ("Geography Lesson"), William Heyen ("Mother and Son"), and Scott Davison ("Soft Salvation"). The five printers are The Red Ozier Press, The Meadow Press, The Press of A. Colish, The Press of W. Thomas Taylor, and the Wind River Press. Housed in a plexiglass box especially made for this publication and allowing the portfolio to be hung on a… Read More

New York/London: The Fountain Press/The Hogarth Press, 1929. First Edition. Hardcover. Spine is mildly sunned; gilt strong. Near Fine. This edition preceded the English edition (both trade and signed) by three days. Original cinnamon cloth. One of only 492 copies SIGNED by the author (this copy marked "out of series" instead of numbered and belonged to the Yale University Press printer Carl Rollins) of this important and desirable title, a compelling essay on women and writing that has become a classic feminist text. "A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction," said Woolf, "and that, as you will see, leaves the great problem of the true nature of woman and the true nature of fiction unsolved."

London: Simpkin and Marshal et al., 1834. First Edition. Hardcover. Near Fine in a Fine slipcase. Original brown cloth, recently rebacked retaining nearly all of the original spine; spine label mostly lacking. A Presentation copy INSCRIBED by the author on the front blank: "To/William Wordsworth Esq./with the author's/compliments." In addition this copy is SIGNED by the recipient on the title page: "W Wordsworth/Rydal Mount." In this volume, and in a second that was issued the following year, Ord attempted a history of England in verse. His efforts were not well received. One reviewer in THE GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE claimed "that the author has formed his manner and style too much on that of Lord Byron in exaggeration, impetuosity, and a perpetual straining for effect." A scarce book from Wordsworth's library. Old bookseller description laid in. Housed in a new calf-backed slipcase with cloth chemise.

London: Edward Moxon, 1842. First Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. Original brown cloth with a leaf of ads at the end followed by an additional collective title page and half-title page, allowing the book to form the seventh and final volume of the 1836-7 edition of Wordsworth's POETICAL WORKS. Wordsworth's last collection of new work, and somewhat scarce. This is a Presentation copy INSCRIBED by the poet on the front pastedown: "Herbert Hill/from/the Author/April 1842." Herbert Hill married Robert Southey's daughter, Bertha, in 1839 and was a neighbor of Wordsworth's living with his wife in John Fleming's cottage in Rydal. Hill served as tutor for Matthew Arnold. Both Hill and Wordsworth attended Southey's funeral in March 1843 after which Wordsworth was selected to replace Southey as England's Poet Laureate. Rebacked some time ago with nearly all of the original spine but for the tips retained. An engraved portrait of the author is laid down on the verso of the front free endpaper.

New York: Random House, (1965). First Edition. Hardcover. Covers slightly bowed; tape stains to verso of rear endpaper where newspaper clipping, now loose, was once affixed. Mild soiling and light wear to the dustwrapper which has light tape stains to the corners and slightly darker stains to the inside flaps. Near Fine in a Very Good dustwrapper. INSCRIBED and SIGNED by the author to his lawyer on the first blank: "for that admirable attorney/Elbert Robinson/from his client and friend/Truman Capote." Capote's masterpiece, a trendsetting book that opened a floodgate of "nonfiction" novels that has yet to abate. Made into a movie starring Robert Blake.

London: Smith, Elder, and Co., 1883. Hardcover. There are tears and some chipping to scattered pages, not very many, due to the cheap quality of the paper. Contents Very Good; bindings Fine. Complete in seven volumes. Recently rebound in half polished red calf with matching corners and marbled boards and endpapers, gilt-lettered and decorated spines with five raised bands, top edges gilt; illustrated with plates. The first and fourth volumes are SIGNED by the future president and dated 1885 on the front blanks. The second and third volumes have written on the front blanks in the same, unknown hand Christmas 1885 presentations to Christine Griffin Roosevelt, one from C. K. G. and the other from Aunt Lucie. Christine Roosevelt was the wife of William Emlem Roosevelt, first cousin and frequent advisor to President Roosevelt.

1983 - 1990. Letters. Folds from mailing. Near Fine. Superb archive of seven letters from the author of ANGELA'S ASHES to R'Lene Dahlberg, fellow teacher at Stuyvesant High School, friend, wife of author Edward Dahlberg, and muse. Mostly chatty correspondence, all but two pages handwritten by McCourt, complete with hand-addressed envelopes and mostly written in New York City. In one letter McCourt describes being at Rockaway Beach with his daughter Maggie who is searching for her lost hamster with a friend: "The little bugger won't come out. I've tempted him with everything from carrots to watercress. I've made assorted seductive noises. I've exposed mineself. I've even promised him a night out with a hamsteress. To no avail. Maggie & Clare are less interested in hamsters than in boys. It's all boys now. Boys, boys, boys. I'll break her face. She checks herself out in the mirror by the hour. I told her cut it out. She [sic] wearing out the mirror. Also, I'm getting an education in teeny bop mating… Read More

London: Moses Pitt, 1686. First Edition in English. Hardcover. Minor soiling and wear, Near Fine. Folio (7-3/4" x 12-1/8") bound in later calf leather recently and sympathetically rebacked with a gilt-decorated spine preserving the original morocco spine label; [xviii], 264, 331-417, [9], 154, [6] pages. Complete with the frontispiece portrait of the author, an additional engraved title-page, a folding engraved map of the Black Sea and surrounding countries, and 16 plates, 11 of which are folding, along with a couple of engravings in the text. Published in English and French concurrently in 1686 as Part I of the Travels. Three other volumes, with the general title page VOYAGES DE MONS. LE CHEVALIER CHARDIN were published in Amsterdam in 1711. The last volume, announced by Chardin in his preface to this edition, was never published. THE CORONATION OF SOLYMAN III. THE PRESENT KING OF PERSIA, at the end of this volume, is a translation of Chardin's LE COURONNEMENT DE SOLEIMAN TROISIÈME, first… Read More

London & New York: William Heinemann Ltd. & Doubleday, Page & Co., [1926]. First Edition. Hardcover. Contents are bright and fresh. The vellum spine is slightly darkened with a small stain at the top; the boards are soiled with a few small stains on the rear. Overall Very Good. Arthur Rackham. Quarto (9-1/4" x 12-3/4") bound in the original vellum-backed gilt-decorated white boards. Illustrated with 21 color plates, including 1 not in the trade edition, and several black and white devices, printed on hand-made paper. Copy #227 of 260 (of a total of 520) of the English issue SIGNED by the illustrator on the limitation page.

First Edition. Hardcover. Fine and rare, beautifully bound. Folio (8-1/4" x 11-3/4") consisting of 53 pages numbered to 54 (one page contains two numbers) on lined yellow paper with a few additions at the end on white paper pasted to the yellow pages with a calligraphic title page facing a photographic reproduction of Miller. Bound in 3/4 maroon morocco leather and marbled boards housed in a slipcase of full burgundy morocco leather. Though some of the phrases, such as the title, are used in other of Miller's works, this long narrative poem appears to be unpublished. The poem begins: "In the morning of the world;/Ere the holy stars were born--/Early morning of the world;/O, that wondrous, wondrous morn!" We have at this point not read much else because our lives are short and Miller's handwriting is trying, but we are fairly confident that the text deals at least in part with the Alaskan Gold Rush of the 1890s as Miller visited the Klondike during that time returning to California after six months,… Read More

New York: Limited Editions Club, 1993. Hardcover. Fine, lacking the cotton sleeve and teak boards, but in a specially made Fine red clamshell box with a gilt-lettered morocco spine label. Heinrich Harrer. Quarto (9" x 13"), bound in pure Bure white silk imported from India with a Tibetan good luck charm blindstamped in the center of the front cover. With a special introduction by the Dalai Lama for whom Harrer became the unofficial secular tutor when the Tibetan spiritual guide was fourteen. Copy #88 of 300 numbered copies SIGNED by Harrer who also contributes six photogravures produced from his original negatives. A map of Harrer's Tibetan journeys is laid in loosely, as issued, as well as the Monthly Letter.

New York: Columbia University Press, 1951. First Edition. Hardcover. Some uneven sunning to the covers. Near Fine, lacking the dustwrapper. SIGNED by the author on the front free endpaper and scarce as such.

New York: Limited Editions Club, 1993. Hardcover. Fine with the maroon cotton sleeve, black cloth ties, and teak boards. Heinrich Harrer. Quarto (9" x 13"), bound in pure Bure white silk imported from India with a Tibetan good luck charm blindstamped in the center of the front cover. With a special introduction by the Dalai Lama for whom Harrer became the unofficial secular tutor when the Tibetan spiritual guide was fourteen. Copy #270 of 300 numbered copies SIGNED by Harrer who also contributes six photogravures produced from his original negatives. A map of Harrer's Tibetan journeys is laid in loosely, as issued.

New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, (1943). First Edition. Hardcover. A bright, clean copy with tears to two pages professionally and neatly repaired. About Fine in a close to Fine dustwrapper with minor, professional repairs. Antoine de SAINT-EXUPERY. First issue of this modern classic in salmon cloth with paragraph containing printing information and dustwrapper with Fourth Avenue address. The American edition appeared before the French or English editions. THE LITTLE PRINCE is both the most-read and most-translated book in the French language and was voted the best book of the 20th century in France.