Rare books from Heldfond Book Gallery, ABAA-ILAB

July 1938 - November 1940. Approx. 150 pages. Square 8vo. Titled blue cloth over boards. Ruled pages as per contemporary log type. Various official stamps to internals. Manuscript in holograph.  The keeper of this precision crafted log remains excruciatingly hidden in his 150 page memoir of war. The reader should not expect to find him anywhere but in the hard tack data and details he so fastidiously records. He was a young man at a tremendous moment. One of many who became known as " the few ". His log breaks history down to numbers and aircraft types and operational duties. The machinery of the Battle of Britain squeezed into columns. He remains anonymous to us - like the wizard behind the curtain. What we know of Sgt. Stedman begins in January 1938 with his first training flights in Tiger Moths. Precisely detailed in wonderful hand, he records months of continued training with specific detail given to Exercise and Duty Results. Quite notable is the progression of planes mastered… Read More

Published for Headquarters, Army Air Force- Office of Assistant Chief of Air Staff, Training. October 1944. Bound in colour imprinted, pin perforated wrappers. 4to. Classified "Restricted" and marked as such on each page. Profusely illustrated throughout by colour and monochrome photographs, drawings, schematics, diagrams, foldout charts, etc. Exhaustive in both scope and illustration, this manual details every system comprising the B-24 including: Fuselage, engines, electrical systems, armaments, empennage, etc. An impressive piece of military history. Edges of covers chipped. Covers lightly soiled. Repaired Spine strip heavily chipped with several tiny portions lacking (not impacting tightness of binding). Several small numbers in red pencil to front cover. A Very Good, tight, well preserved copy.

New York. Charles Scribner's Sons. 1887. Bound in pictorial decorated, gilt titled green cloth. 12mo. The First Edition. Includes an ALS by the author to "Mr. W.M. Burnettlaid-on to the front free end sheet. Written in a bold hand in ink upon a single sheet (4.25" x 7") bearing the imprint "Jekyll Island Club, Brunswick, Georgia". Letter reads, "My dear Mr. Burnett: I not only comply with your request with pleasure, but thank you for a great favor you have done me. Your pleasant words the other day made a green spot in what was a dry and tedious journey and I have born them in kindly rememberance ever since. Yours very sincerely Thomas Nelson Page. Slight lean to volume. Covers very mildly worn. Corners gently bumped. Bookplate to flyleaf. Some very occasional and incidental internal soiling. Letter presents evidence of offset due to insufficient blotting at time of composition. A Very Good copy of the authors first book, with a Very Good crisp and most legible… Read More

New York. Limited Editions Club. 2005. Bound in full crimson cloth over boards. Gilt-titled grain morocco label inset to front cover. Encased in like covered Solander box with gilt-titled grain morocco label inset to spine. Elephant Folio. 17" x 22". This Edition Limited to 300 numbered copies of which this is #24. Signed by Benny Andrews to Colophon. Illustrated with six original colour etchings by Benny Andrews, hand printed on BFK Rives by Peter Pettengill Everything That Rises Must Converge is a collection of short stories written by Flannery O'Connor during her final illness. The title of the collection and of the short story is taken from a passage from the work of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. The collection was published posthumously in 1965.Just one year before her death in 1963, Flannery O’Connor won her second O. Henry Award for ‘‘Everything That Rises Must Converge,’’ a powerful depiction of a troubled mother-son relationship. In 1965 the… Read More

New York. George D. Sproul Company. 1902. Lavishly bound in Publisher's Deluxe custom, 3/4 burgundy crushed morocco and marbled boards. Gilt-tooled spine compartments with fleural motifs.Gilt-tooled raised bands. Marbled endsheets. t.e.g. 8vo. 5.5" x *.25". The Monticello Edition. This Edition Limited to only 1000 numbered sets of which this is #330. Illustrated throughout with delightful, tissue-guarded monochrome plates Editied by renowned Poe scholar James A. Harrison, the Monticello Edition of Poe's Works is one of the scarcest of early compilations, with no complete set appearing at auction in more than thirty years.The 17 Volumes are comprised of: Tales, Poems, Biography, Literary Criticism, Essays, Miscellanies, Literati, Autography, Marginalia, Eureka and Letters. Spines delicately and evenly sunned with first 2 volumes slightly less so. A number of volumes uncut. A Fine, greatly appealing, very rare set.

London. William Pickering. 1825. Sumptuously bound in period Full scarlet crushed levant morocco. Blind rules to front and rear covers with gilt tooled harp device. Ornate gilt tooled fleural and harp motifs to spines. Gilt titles. Elaborate gilt tooled inner-dentelles. Elaborate gilt-tooled edges. aeg. Octoavo. (182 x 111mm), The very rare and significant 'Wreath Edition', containing the attributed works and Samuel Johnson's classic preface. Illustrated with a Frontis engraving. Some mild soiling to various covers. A Fine, crisp very appealing set. Jaggard p. 516; Lowndes 3, 2266.

Verona. Editiones Officinae Bodoni. 1952. Bound in half gilt ruled Vellum and paper covered boards. Gilt titles to spine. t.e.g. 4to. 7.5" x 11.5 This Edition, has been pinted in Griffo type on the hand-press in 225 numbered copies on hand-made Fabrino paper, of which this is number 93. Illustrated with Woodcuts by Bartolommeo Di Giovanni for a lost Quattrocentro Edition, which were used to illustrate various later texts and now been reesembled and recut by Fritz Kredel. Very mild usual foxing to fore-edge. Very slight foxing to front and rear pastedowns. A Very Fine crisp copy.

Berlin. Frensel Und Engelbrecher. 1931-1934. Bound in pictorial wrappers. 4to. 9.25" x 12.25 Profusely illustrated throughout by chromolithographs, colour and monochrome plates - many tipped-in, illustrations en texte, drawings,die cuts, etc. reproducing period advertising from a myriad of international sources. " Gebrauchsgraphik, Monatschrift zur Förderung künst-lerischer Reklame (Commercial Graphics, Monthly Magazine for Promoting Art in Advertising), which was published in Berlin from 1924 until 1944, was the leading voice of the Avant-Garde influence on the European Commercial Art and Advertising industries before World War II. In the thirties, all roads led through Berlin, and Gebrauchsgraphik spotlighted all of the aesthetic trends fermenting in Europe -- Art Deco and Surrealism from Paris, Constructivism from Moscow, Futurist Fascism from Rome, De Stijl and Dutch typography from Amsterdam, and of course the spreading influence of the Dessau Bauhaus. A journal that was… Read More

New York. Charles Scribner's sons. 1939 Bound in pictorial gilt decorated and titled aqua cloth. Top edge gilded. Housed in title- labeled chemise and original slipcase. Thick 8vo. This Edition is Limited to 750 copies. Signed by Rawlings and Wyeth to Limitation Page. Of the 770 copies issued in the total run of this Signed,Limited Edition, only 520 were bound in Aqua cloth and accompanied by like Chemise and Slipcase, as is this copy. The remaining 250 copies were issued in dark blue cloth and matching slipcase and were published at a later time. Illustrated with 16 full page coloured plate by N.C. Wyeth, two of which are charcoal and wash full page illustrations executed specifically for this Limited Edition.Also includes a facsimile of a hand-written letter by Wyeth during a trip to Florida with Rawlings. The Yearling was the best-selling novel in America for the year 1938 and won the 1939 Pulitzer Prize. Rawlings's editor was Max Perkins, who also worked with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest… Read More

Chicago. C.J. Howard. 1927. Collection is contained in original imprinted cardboard C.J. Howard packaging box. 7"x4.75" when closed (horizontal folding card).7"x9.5" when opened. Each card presents a striking Art Deco multicolored lithograph and various coloured borders and decorations printed upon folded heavy card stock. Early in the 1920s Charles Mather, who worked for his family’s Chicago printing house, the Mather Company, took an idea brought to him by one of the firm’s salesmen, Charles Howard Rosenfeld. What Rosenfeld proposed was a series of posters whose focus was to give workers incentive to work better and to work harder. Mather called these prints, “Constructive Organization Posters.” These posters were made to be placed on office and factory walls and were expected to inspire workers to do their best. Mather sold his posters by subscription and produced more than 300 varieties between 1923 and 1929.In 1925 Rosenfeld and another employee… Read More

Boston. Roberts Brothers. 1885-1890. Bound in High Victorian, gilt titled, pictorial decorated cloth over boards.Blind embossed branch design to covers. Gilt Title panels with elaborate gilt and red fleurettes to spines.Decorative endsheets in green cloth, 2 in brown cloth. 12mo. (4.5"x6.5) Later Printings. Illustrated throughout with full page monochrome plates after engravings. A set of 7 Alcott novels in very attractive Victorian bindings. The set is comprised of: Little Women, Little Men (2 copies),Rose In Bloom, Jack and Jill,Old-Fashioned Girl,Jo's Boys. Laid down on the front paste-down of Little Women is a white card, cut to cover proportion, which bears Alcott's signature ( L.M. Alcott) in ink. Beneath her signature,Alcott has inscribed the names of the novel's characters -"Meg Jo Beth Amy Teddy & Jo". A very rare and unique inscription by one of America's most notable authors. All books are in Very Good condition with tight bindings which present various… Read More

New York. Doubleday, Page and Company. 1910. Bound in half Vellum and paper covered boards.Gilt titled morocco labels to spine. Deckled edges. Top edge gilded. Thick 4to. 7.5" x 10". This Edition is printed upon special Hand Made paper and Limited to 125 numbered copies of which this is #54. Signed boldly in ink by Kipling to the Limitation Page. Illustrated with 17 full page captioned and tissue guarded tipped in colour plates and monochrome drawings by W. Heath Robinson. A splendid compendium of Kipling's verse enhanced by the illustrative prowess of Robinson's plates. Covers moderately soiled. Usual darkening to Vellum along front join.Spine a bit rubbed with small stain to Title Label.A Very Good, extremely crisp copy with brilliantly luminescent Robinson plates.

New York. Halcyon House. 1940. Bound in gilt titled green cloth over boards. Thick 8vo. 5.75" x 5.5 The Third Printing.This copy presents Frost's 4 line poem "Immigrants" inscribed boldly in ink and initialed by Frost on bound-in Front Free Endsheet. Additionally, this copy is inscribed,dated and signed in ink by Frost on bound-in title Page. Illustrated with a photographic Frontis of Robert Frost. Robert Lee Frost (1874 – 1963) was, arguably the most important but,certainly the most popular American poet of the 20th century."Although his work is principally associated with the life and landscape of New England, and though he was a poet of traditional verse forms and metrics who remained steadfastly aloof from the poetic movements and fashions of his time, Frost was anything but a mere regional poet. The author of searching and often dark meditations on universal themes, he was a quintessentially modern poet in his adherence to language as it is actually spoken, in… Read More

London. Jer. Batley at The Dove. 1725-1726. Bound in full period calfskin. Elaborate gilt ruled spine compartments with gilt-tooled fleural motifs. Red and green morocco labels.All edges marbled. 8v0. 5"x8". The First Edition in English - the First Edition having been published in Madrid 1601-1615. Here, translated into English by Capt. John Stevens. Illustrated by 3 folding engraved maps,12 folding engraved plates and 2 single,full page engravings. Lacking the third single full page plate of 5 small portraits (Vol.5). Renowned primary account of the early Spanish conquest of the New World. "A grand chorus of writers, from Nicholas Antonio down to Thomas W. Field, unite in their testimony as to the fidelity of this Prince of Historians. He was successively employed as historiographer by Philip II, III, and IV, and having access to every available source of information, made free use of many original documents which had never before been printed, and which no longer exist in MS. His… Read More

Washington D. C. Headquarters-U.S. Army Air Forces. 1944. Punch and clipbound in stylized titled coloured pictorial wrappers. Thin 4to. Classified "Restricted" and marked as such on each page. The December 1944, Original "Brown Cover" issue. Profusely illustrated with photographs, drawings, maps, diagrams, charts, etc. During its time, the Lockheed P-38 Lightning was considered the most sophisticated aircraft Lockheed had ever built. In February 1937, the U.S. Army Air Corps released Specification X-608, a daunting requirement that called for speed, range, and climb capabilities impossible to achieve at that time with a single-engine aircraft. In Burbank, California, a Lockheed design team led by Hall Hibbard, and assisted by a young engineer named Clarence "Kelly" Johnson, immediately began a series of designs that would culminate in the contract-winning XP-38. Jim Gerschler became project engineer on the aircraft.The XP-38 (it was many months before it was… Read More