Rare books from Lorne Bair Rare Books

New York: International Publishers, 1935. First American Edition. 12mo. Cloth boards; dustjacket; 246p. Clean, tight copy in lightly dusted jacket; Very Good or better. Serafimovich's best-known work, a novel of the Russian Revolution based on the real-life exploits of E.I. Kovtiukh and the Taman Army. Considered a classic of early Soviet literature, Iron Flood was reissued in a variety of formats in English throughout the 40s and 50s; the first edition is somewhat scarce.

London: Bradbury and Evans, 1848. First UK Edition. Mixed issue, with "Mr. Pitt" on p.453 line 31, but lacking the suppressed woodcut of Marquis of Steyne, the rustic type heading on p.1, and with the engraved title page dated 1848. This copy bound without the four ad leaves. Includes engraved half-title and ad leaf for The Great Hoggarty Diamond. Octavo (23cm); publisher's original green cloth, titled in gilt on spine, and decoratively stamped in blind on panels and spine; [i-vii], viii-xvi, [1]-624pp; illus. Spine ends expertly reinforced with matching cloth underlaid, rubbing to the lower board edges, with some board exposure at the cornertips. Faint, scattered foxing to text, but still quite fresh. Spine gilt is notably bright and legible, with the cloth bright and unrubbed; Very Good+. VAN DUZER 231.

Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1943. First Edition. First Printing. Octavo; second issue green cloth, with titles stamped in gilt on spine and front panel; 754pp. A few faint smudges to panels, minor wear along endges and spine ends, faint stain to lower edge of text closed to spine, touch of offsetting to pastedowns, with the paper along rear hinge neatly re-glued; withal, a solid, Very Good copy, with the binding still sound and the gilt still bright and legible. Arguably Rand's finest and most influential novel, basis for the 1949 King Vidor film starring Gary Cooper and Patrician Neal.

Easthampton, MA: Adastra Press, 1985. First Edition. First Printing, one of 220 copies. Slim octavo; cream-colored wrappers, letterpress printed in red and brown on front cover; [20pp]. Signed by Jones beneath his printed name on the title page, with the following inscription to biographer and essayist Deborah Baker: "For Deb, With lots of love, and only the slightest hint of despair. Always, Richard. 2-26-86." Light storage warp to lower right corners, else Near Fine.

Moscow: State Publishing House of the RSFSR, 1930. Five folio issues (42cm); printed card wrappers, stapled; 48; 32; 32; 48; 48pp; illus; text is in English and German. Issue No.1 stated "Second Edition", remaining issues in the First Edition. All issues signed in pencil by previous owner at lower right corner of front wrapper (Kurt V. Müeller), with light overall wear and dustiness to wrappers, oxidation to staples, and slight mustiness; faint, shallow staining to gutters of 2 issues and right margins of 1 issue; nos.4 and 5-6 (double issue) each with a small chip to rear wrappers; overall and unrestored, Very Good+ run. The first six issues of this landmark Soviet art magazine, issued from 1930 to 1941 to celebrate the achievements of the first two Five Year Plans and (through various foreign-language editions) to propagandize the stark contrast between the vibrant Soviet economy during this period and the stagnation of Western economies under capitalism. "All the visual strategies of the… Read More

[New York: G.W. Carleton & Co, 1878]. First Edition. Octavo (18.5cm.); original brown pictorial cloth embossed in black, decorative spine in black and gilt with the mysterious "American News Co." at spine foot; 258pp.; illus. title page. Spine a bit cocked, shallow losses to ends; additional rubbing to extremities; soiling to textblock throughout. About Very Good. First serialized in the New York Weekly, June 30 through September 15, 1873. Publisher taken from advertisement facing title page. "The imprint of the American News Co. on the spine is a mystery, for it is evident that Carleton published the book through an arrangement with Street & Smith" (BENNETT 192).

London: Chapman and Hall, 1865. First Edition. 2 volumes; octavo (23cm.); original burgundy blind-tooled cloth, decorative gilt spines; xi,[1],320,36;vii,[1],309,[3],3pp.; frontis. & 38 plates. Both volumes recased with new endpapers to match original yellow glazed endpapers, half titles preserved; cover blind-tooling neary imperceptible, extremities a bit rubbed and faded, spine crowns reinforced to match (though affecting gilt ruling); Vol. I plates uniformly dampstained, apparently before binding. Still, a Very Good, sound set. GIMBEL A150; SMITH 15.

New York: Pantheon, 1954. First, Limited Edition. Tall octavo. Tan, rough linen boards, stamped in maroon and gilt; publisher's slipcase; [45]pp.; illus in text. Number 394 of 500 hand-numbered copies, signed by the artist and printed at the Spiral Press. Faint scratch to lettering on spine, else a Fine, unworn copy in a lightly rubbed, Very Good slipcase.

Pasadena: Upton Sinclair, 1920. Two octavo volumes (18.75cm); maroon cloth, with titles stamped in gilt on spine and front cover; [ii],99,[11]pp. The first copy is inscribed by Eugene Debs to American film actress, screenwriter, and editor Helen Louise Gardner on the front endpaper: "To Helen L. Gardner / With love and greetings, and with deep appreciation for her beautiful character, her lofty spirit, her rare vision, courage, understanding, and her high ideals and noble aspirations - Eugene V. Debs / Terre Haute, Indiana / December, 1924." Gentle sunning to spine, oxidation to gilt, with moderate, scattered soil to covers, light wear to extremities, and heavier wear with resulting board exposure to upper right corner of front cover; mild offset to endpapers from binders glue; Good. Housed in a clamshell case. The second copy is inscribed to Gardner by Ruth Le Prade, opposite the title page: "To Helen Gardner - with cordial greetings / Ruth Le Prade." Spine-sunned, cloth edge-worn and lightly… Read More

New York: William Morrow and Company, 1933. First Edition. First Printing. Octavo (19.5cm); black cloth, with titles stamped in red on spine and front cover; red topstain; [vi],310pp. Modest wear and soil to cloth, a few vertical ridges to spine, some board exposure to upper and lower board edges, with hinges cracked and re-glued at some early date, and some scattered staining to margins; Good to Very Good, lacking the rare dustjacket. The first Perry Mason novel, and one of the great debuts in American crime fiction. "The mainspring of this first of the Perry Mason tales is a blackmail sheet. A woman tries to get Mason to buy its silence. Her husband is murdered, she is suspected, then Perry as well" (Barzun & Taylor 941). A Haycraft-Queen Cornerstone title, and basis for the 1935 William Clemens film of the same name, starring Warren William and Claire Dodd. HUBIN, p.163.

New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1929. First American Edition. First Printing, trade issue, one of 4,000 copies. Octavo (19.5cm); navy blue cloth, with titles stamped in gilt on spine; dustjacket; [vi],199,[3]pp. Spine gently sunned, gilt beginning to oxidize, with two small, faint stains to lower front cover; contents clean; Very Good+. In a later dustjacket designed by Vanessa Bell, priced $2.00 on front flap; modest sunning to spine and panels, moderate overall wear, with numerous tears and attendant creases; losses to spine ends and corners, including a larger loss (affecting some text) at lower left corner of front flap; old tape repairs to spine panel on verso, with both flaps neatly re-attached; a Good example, not without some shelf appeal. An extended essay by Woolf, based on two papers read to the Arts Society at Newnham and the Odtaa at Girton in October, 1928, in which she discusses at length the barriers which hinder women's free expression. "Women - asks Mrs. Woolf - what is the… Read More

Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1913. First Edition. First printing, binding a. Octavo (19cm). Yellow-brown cloth, stamped in brown; plain endpapers; [x],[310]pp; color frontispiece. Straight and sound, lightly rubbed at edges, stamped on spine lightly worn, internally clean: Very Good. Cather's second published novel, and her first great work. The story of a Swedish-American family running a farm in Nebraska, "at once a sophisticated pastoral and a prototype for later feminist novels" (The National Willa Cather Center online). Cather took the title from a poem by Whitman. One of 2,000 copies printed. CRANE A6.A.i. HANNA 637. COAN p.10. .

Cambridge: Charles W. Sever, 1882. First Edition. Quarto (26cm). Stiff tan paper wrappers, printed in color; 25,[3],4pp; 6pp publisher's ads at rear, including a 4-page catalogue; black and white illustrations throughout. Paper repair to spine, minor chips to corners and edges, internally clean: around Very Good. Housed in blue cloth-covered clamshell case, backed in green leather. Owen Wister's extremely uncommon first book, a parody of The Swiss Family Robinson published while he was still a Harvard undergraduate. Wister is best-known as the author of the genre-defining Western novel The Virginian. The current work originally appeared in the Harvard Lampoon, which Wister helped to edit while a student. Scarce, with fewer than 20 copies recorded in OCLC. JOHNSON American First Editions p.547. FPAA IV p.391.

New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1846. First Edition. First printing, American issue, with the Craighead and Smith imprints to the copyright page of both volumes. 12mo (19.5cm). Two volumes bound as one in brown cloth, blindstamped, titled in gilt on spine; cream endpapers printed in red-orange; [vi],207,[1],[vi],211,[1]pp. In custom tan calf and cloth slipcase. Bookplates of Florence and Edward Kaye, and of the Laugher Bache Library, with Laugher Bache's signature at head of title page. Straight and sound; cloth faded at spine, lightly rubbed with a few small stains, internally foxed: just Very Good. A collection of short stories, from the collection of noted book collectors. The two-in-one format of the first edition, which was also issued in paper wrappers and as two volumes in cloth. CLARK A15.1.a1. BAL 7598.

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1929. First Edition. First Printing. Octavo (19.75cm); navy blue cloth, with titles stamped in gilt on spine and front cover; dustjacket; [2],viii,626,[2]pp. Base of spine bumped, crown gently nudged, with some light external wear, and two faint tape ghosts on front endpaper; contents otherwise clean; Very Good+. In the second state dustjacket, unclipped (priced $2.50), gently spine-sunned, modest external wear, with some shallow losses to crown and upper corners (costing a few letters in the title), a few tiny nicks, and several tears, a dozen of which have been neatly and archivally mended on verso; Very Good or better. "The story of Eugene Gant, a Southern boy. Much material on Southern mores and many unforgettable pictures. The boy breaks away from his pathetic family but is nevertheless caught in a web of futility and despair" (Coan, p.67). JOHNSTON A2.1.a; HANNA 3871.