Rare books from Long Brothers Fine and Rare Books, ABAA

Washington D.C.: U.S. General Land Office, 1852. Revised Edition. Single Sheet Map, Framed. Good. Black and white map. Measures 15.75" x 47.5". Lithography by A. Hoen & Co., Baltimore. Old canvas backing. Substantially age-toned, with some slight loss and some breaks at old folds. Near Cape Flattery at the opening to the Strait of Juan de Fuca (here, "Straits") two crude tape repairs have been applied, one 1.5" x 2" and the other a half-inch x 3". Framed in thick mahogany moulding with UV-protection glass. The impetus for the map dates from the 1850 Donation Land Act, allowing a married couple to claim 640 acres in the Oregon Territory. As those claims were to be based upon government surveys, the US government appointed John B. Preston as the first Surveyor General of Oregon Territory. In spring of 1851, Preston arrived in Oregon to begin his monumental task, and issued the first map, albeit inadequate in detail, later that year. After substantially more surveying, this detailed map was published… Read More

Washington City. March 30, 1846. Two-pages of manuscript letter in ink written on [4] pp. single sheet, bifolium, measuring 7 3/4 x 10 inches (15.5 x 10 inches unfolded). Docketed on verso. Small chip to right margin, not affecting text. Old, mellowed fold lines. Ink stamps faded. Letter is marked as received April 28 [1846].Two full pages of holograph text in Pickett's legible hand in which he reports on his recent return voyage from Liverpool to Washington City ("a rough passage") before addressing his optimism that war between the US and England will be avoided "in favor of a fair and equitable adjustment of the Oregon Question."
A vital letter that underscores the precipitous threat of war with England over the boundary dispute, known as "the Oregon Question," separating Oregon Territory and Canada. The obvious border would have been the Columbia River, especially considering the insignificant population of Americans living north of the Columbia, in present-day Washington State: In 1846 the Puget… Read More

Oil on canvas. Painted circa 1902 – 1910. Oval in shape, the painting was designed to fit within the form of a horseshoe, tapering inward at its lower half. Painting measures 37.5" at its widest breadth, 45.5" at its tallest height. Condition: Overall crackling consistent with age. Crimped/mottled areas on left and right margins, a result of storage in a mailing tube from 1974 to 2018. Loss of a section at bottom border measuring 1" x 13.5". In sum, painting is in Very Good condition, with only minor loss. A worthy candidate for light restoration.The history of the Leopold Schmidt's founding of the Olympia Brewing Company is well documented. Attracted to Tumwater, Washington by the quality of artesian water he tasted during exploratory research travels, Schmidt, a Master Brewer whose brewing experiences in Montana were bolstered by his enrollment in brewery training in Worms, Germany, established his Tumwater brewery adjacent to three waterfalls – the Tumwater Falls -- on the Deschutes River. In… Read More

Boston, Mass: W. B. Clarke & Co, 1899. First Edition. Hardcover. Good+. Small 8vo. Pp. [1-7], 8-80. Three-page foreword by Israel Zangwill. Bound in the publisher's red pebble-grain cloth, gilt lettering stamped on spine. Bookseller's tag on rear pastedown (Gotham Book Mart). General wear to extremities of cloth, with corners worn through, spine darkened and with wear to head and tail. Despite those factors, book remains well bound and text block sturdy and bright. Now protected with a clear, archival sleeve. Rare in the first edition. Antin's perceptive piece of juvenilia documenting her family's emigration from Polatsk, Belarus (then Poltzk, in Czarist Russia) via Hamburg by steamship to Boston, where they reunited with their father after an absence of three years, is presented here in a sturdy first edition in the original publisher's cloth. Antin's story is well known: rough handling by German gendarmes, unexpected demands of money, fumigation due to the 1892-94 cholera outbreak, and uneasy… Read More

[Denver]: Henrietta Bromwell. Original Painting. Oil on Canvas, Framed. Painting Fine within a Very Good Ornate Frame. Original oil painting, framed, depicting a disused pioneer cabin amid a forest clearing, blue sky and pink clouds overhead. Exposed painting measures 9.75 x 8 inches; frame measures 14 x 11 inches. Bromwell neglected to sign and date many of her paintings; this work is signed "H. E. Bromwell" and features the "July 25, 192[unintelligible]". On the back of the period frame is the remnant of a store label for Chain & Hardy Book, Stationery and Art Co., Denver, with only the address (1609-1615 Arapahoe St.) and "Art Department" remaining. The painting is in Fine condition, with three small chips to the gilded Victorian frame (please see photos). Born in Illinois, in 1870 Henrietta Elizabeth Bromwell (1859-1946) moved to the Colorado Territory when her father, Henry Pelham Holmes Bromwell joined the territorial legislature. She studied art at the University of Denver and, with Anne… Read More

Guy Anderson, 1963. Original Artwork. Painting on Paper, Framed Under Glass. Very Good. Guy Anderson ink, oil and chalk on paper titled Daedalus - Icarus depicting the two mythological figures in ascent and descent, respectively. Exposed paper measures 18.5 x 24.5 inches. Signed by Anderson in pencil, upper left, and with his blindstamp cartouche at lower left. In a period stained wood frame, under glass. Slight soiling to paper, and with a perforation the size of a pea at upper left. (Please see photos.). Guy Anderson (1906 - 1998) was very much a "Seattle" painter even if he did paint peripatetically, using Kenneth Callahan's cabin at Granite Falls (where Anderson himself bought a cabin in the late 1950s), Morris Graves crude shack at Fidalgo Island, or any other hospitality that allowed him to escape the city. By 1959 he moved to the Skagit Valley, and rented a studio at the outskirts of La Conner. This painting was likely executed there, and is consistent with his regular work on paper at the time.

Augsburg: Theophili Gobelij, 1677. First Edition. Half-Leather Binding. Very Good. 4to. Pp. [4, A-04, P2, Q4, R2: [8], 107, [17] followed by four index pages and errata. Engraved frontis. With 12 engraved plates with printed side-notes. Recent half-calf over marbled boards with gilt title on spine. Mild foxing at title and occasionally throughout; text somewhat limp. A very presentable copy, attractively bound. The only edition. Obscure author Johann Matthias Faber (1626-1702), physician to the Duke of Wurttemberg, discusses the cases of a group of children (the youngest age three) who died of nightshade poisoning in 1667. He then describes 13 similar cases and describes and compares the effects of several classes of Solanaceae and Belladonnae and suggests remedies for poisoning. A natural history, citing the observations of Galen and Pliny, includes a terminological discussion with Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, Ethiopic and Persian sources (all rendered in Hebrew type). With a fine occult frontispiece.… Read More

Los Angeles: Jake Zeitlin, 1940. Limited Edition. Hardcover with Dust Jacket. Very Good/Very Good. Alvin Lustig. 8vo. Pp. 28. Lustig decorations in red on the title and p. 7. Light gray laid paper-covered boards, Lustig illustration printed in red and dark gray on the front board, titles in dark gray on the spine: boards and leaves a tad age-toned. In the Lustig illustrated dust jacket printed red and dark gray on light gray laid paper: Spine sunned, age-toned, short, closed tears at the spine head and top edge. Please see photos. Signed by Huxley beneath the colophon. One of "100 copies specially printed for Jake Zeitlin May 1940" at the Ward Ritchie Press. Addressed to educators, an essay on the moral discipline of language use. Lustig's design evoking facets or folds was created with letterpress decorations. In Purity of Aim: The Book Jacket Designs of Alvin Lustig, authors Ned Drew and Paul Sternberger cite the "stark juxtaposition of the author's signature, isolated for greater effect, and an… Read More

Tokyo: The Imperial Japanese Government Railways, 1915. First Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. Text in English. Stout 12mo. Pp. Frontis. color illustration. With 23 maps, many folding; the large folding map covering all of China is housed in a pocket inside the rear board. Laden with black-and-white photos, both in text and dedicated plates. Glossary of words in English, Russian, Chinese and Japanese. Index. Endpaper maps. Bound in cinnamon-colored cloth stamped with gilt lettering on the front cover and spine. Silk bookmark bound in. Light wear. Some maps with short, closed tears or pinholes at fold intersections. With the rubber stamp and blindstamp of one Captain Claude L. Ball, a resident of Sequim, Washington; the blindstamp shows that address, whereas the rubber stamp offers an APO care of the postmaster in San Francisco. Withal, a well preserved presentable copy. A Baedeker of sorts for Asia, but with greater detail and photos than the German counterpart. The series was published in four… Read More

London: (R. & J. Dodsley), 1763. First English Edition. Single Prints Framed. Gwyn. Four plates, hand-colored, uniformly framed. Sheet size measures 19 x 13 inches, with the plate mark measuring 15.50 x 9.50 inches. Printed on laid paper that shows slight evidence of handling; foxing in two prints is moderate at worst. Elegantly framed in walnut moulding with a silver-accent complementing the steel of epees, sabres and, in one image, daggers. Plates are numbered 15, 18, 35 and 42. Frames measure 23 x 17.50 inches. Mounted with acid-free mats under UV-resistant glass. The frames are in sharp condition with no detracting condition factors. Domenico Angelo (1717-1802), born in Livorno, at age 27 moved to Paris to engage in his family's merchant trade. When he moved to England he established himself as a fencing tutor, emphasizing the art of fencing was perhaps more vital to poise and physical development than a tactical asset. As fencing was a popular sport among the British aristocracy, his proficiency… Read More

Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1854. First Edition. Full leather in Leather Clamshell Case. Very Good-. 12mo. Pp. 357. Vignette title page. With the engraved map of Walden Pond opposite p. 307, with imprint appearing clearly. Marbled endpapers. Top edge gilt. Bound, without ads, in late 19th or early-20th century brown morocco, neatly rehinged, with gilt lettering on spine that has five raised bands. Corners worn. An elegant binding, handsomely restored. Housed in a smart clamshell case, quarter brown pebble grain morocco over brown cloth, gilt lettering and blindstamp devices on spine with raised bands. The first printing of the first edition, without the publisher ads, listed as the first citation by Borst (Henry David Thoreau A Descriptive Bibliography). A cornerstone of American literature. BAL 20106; Borst A2.1.a; GROLIER American 100, 63.

London: For J. Wilford, 1733. First Edition. Full Leather. Very Good. Parts I-IV complete, bound in one volume. Tall folio. Marbled endpapers. Bound in 19th-century Cambridge-style paneled calf, gilt dentelles, red spine label. A wide-margined copy with leaves showing only minor imperfections, else clean throughout. "To the Reader" leaf in Part II with subtle, expert repair. Spine somewhat rubbed and boards just a trifle bowed. Provenance: Bookplates of Viscount Mersey, Bignor Park, and Oliver Brett. This copy exhibited at the Festival of Britain Exhibition of Books held at the Victoria and Albert Museum, 1951. First edition, first issue of all four parts of Pope's opus in verse. "Know then Thy-self, presume not God to scan; / The only Science of Mankind is Man." Epistle IISamuel Johnson: "A thousand years may elapse before there shall appear another man with a power of versification equal to that of Pope."Of copies containing all four parts in the first issue, the last to appear at auction was… Read More

London: Printed by W. Strahan for J. & P. Knapton, [et al.], 1755. First Edition. Two vols. in full calf. Very Good. Two volumes. Stout folio. Title pages printed in red and black. Bound in modern full calf with raised bands and brown morocco labels on spines. A few minor marginal tears with subtle, expert repairs. Text generally quite clean. First edition of Johnson's landmark dictionary bound in stately period-style full ornate calf gilt. A writing pen has been place in the foreground of one of the photos to indicate size of the folio volumes. Johnson's achievement introduced principles of lexicography that had been accepted in continental Europe, but remained uncodified in mid-18th century England. In sum, he gave us the King's English. The catalog to the exhibit Printing and the Mind of Man reveals, "Johnson's dictionary to be "the most amazing, enduring, and endearing one-man performance in the filed of lexicography." Further, "Johnson's lucid and often idiosyncratic definitions have kept their… Read More

London: Elkin Mathews & John Lane [The Bodley Head], 1897. First Editions. Uniformly Bound Hardcovers. Very Good/Fine. John Singer Sargent, Aubrey Beardsley, Charles Conder, William Rothenstein, Walter Sickert, Philip Wilson Steer, et al.. Thirteen volumes. 8vo. Profusely illustrated with over 200 plates. Original black-stamped yellow cloth. Bound without advertisements. Spine of Vol. I a tad dulled, front cover a touch rubbed. Withal, original cloth, exceptionally bright, in VG-to-Fine condition. First editions of all thirteen volumes of Beardsley's celebrated art-nouveau quarterly with plates after works by Beardsley, Sargent, Sickert, Rothenstein and may others. With literary contributions from luminaries such as W. B. Yeats, H. G. Wells, Henry James, Anatole France, Kenneth Grahame, et al.The renowned journal was conceived in 1894 by Beardsley and the American novelist Henry Harland, who explained: "In one of the densest and soupiest and yellowest of all London's infernalest fox, Beardsley and I… Read More

Shanghai: Statistical Department of the Inspectorate General of Customs [Sold by Kelly and Walsh], 1948. First editions. Hardcover with dust jackets. Very Good+/Fair and Very Good. 4to. Two vols., both in original bindings. Vol. I: Pp. xxviii; 245. Vol. II: Pp. 246 - 496. Vol. I with 83 plates, fold-out maps, 17 textual illustrations describing plans, rigging, anchors, hulls, rudders, etc. Prefatory note by Lester K. Little, Inspector General of Customs, in Vol. I. Both vols. with b&w photo frontispieces. Glossary. Vol I: Green silk moire with gilt lettering on cover and spine. Vol. II: Cloth matching shade of green in Vol. I, but not moire, as issued. Vol. I with a contemporary gift inscription (1949) on ffep, and light wear to fore-edge of front board. Offsetting to endpapers of both vols. Dust jackets with edge-wear; rear panel and flap of the first volume missing entirely. Both volumes are bright, which attests in part to the efficacy of the dust jackets. That the dust jackets exist in any… Read More