Rare books from Raptis Rare Books

New York: Random House, 1957. First edition, first issue of Dr. Seuss' classic work. Octavo, original illustrated unlaminated boards. Inscribed by the author, "For Ruth Dr. Seuss." Fine in an excellent dust jacket with light wear. All issue points present: price of 200/200 on the dust jacket, no mention of the "Beginner Books" series on the rear panel, and has four paragraphs of educator's reviews on rear panel. Book contains a single signature and 61 pages with a message on final page before end paper contained in an outline of the cat's hat & head. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box. A very nice example. "A person's a person, no matter how small," Theodor Seuss Geisel, a.k.a. Dr. Seuss, would say. "Children want the same things we want. To laugh, to be challenged, to be entertained and delighted." "The Cat in the Hat was so successful that Random House, publisher of all the Dr. Seuss books since 1937, created a special division, Beginner Books, with the… Read More

New York: The Viking Press, 1973.

London: Bloomsbury, 1997-2007. First editions of the deluxe edition of each book in Rowling's Harry Potter series. Octavo, 7 volumes, illustrated, original decorative cloth as issued. Each volume is signed by J.K. Rowling and were collected in person by the previous owner. The Prisoner of Azkaban is inscribed. In fine condition. No dust jackets were issued for these volumes. Scarce and desirable.

New York: Random House, 1985. "Blood Meridian seems to me the authentic American apocalyptic novel, more relevant even in 2000 than it was fifteen years ago. The fulfilled renown of Moby-Dick and of As I Lay Dying is augmented by Blood Meridian, since Cormac McCarthy is the worthy disciple both of Melville and of Faulkner. I venture that no other living American novelist, not even Pynchon, has given us a book as strong and memorable as Blood Meridian" (Harold Bloom). McCarthy can only be compared with our greatest writers, with Melville and Faulkner, and this is his masterpiece" (Michael Herr).

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1946. First American edition of Camus' first novel and masterpiece. Octavo, original beige cloth. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the half-title page, "A Vincent Sheean pour le remercier de savoir si bien parler de Stendhal Sympathiquement Albert Camus." The recipient, Vincent Sheean was an American journalist and novelist. Sheean's most famous work was Personal History, which won one of the inaugural National Book Awards: the Most Distinguished Biography of 1935. Film producer Walter Wanger acquired the political memoir and made it the basis for his 1940 film production Foreign Correspondent, directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Sheean wrote the narration for the feature-length documentary Crisis (1939) directed by Alexander Hammid and Herbert Kline. He translated Eve Curie's biography of her mother, Madame Curie (1939), into English. Sheean wrote Oscar Hammerstein I: Life and Exploits of an Impresario (1955) as well as a controversial biography of Dorothy Thompson… Read More

New York: Harper & Brothers, 1851. First edition, first issue binding, with the circular Harper's device of Melville's masterpiece. Octavo, original purple-brown cloth (BAL's A grain), covers stamped in blind with the publisher's circular device at the center within a heavy blind rule frame, original orange-coated endpapers. Of the 2,951 copies printed, 125 were review copies. About 1,500 sold in 11 days, but then sales slowed to less than 300 the next year. After two years copies of the first edition were still available, and almost 300 were destroyed in the 1853 fire of Harper's warehouse. In near fine condition with some of the usual light foxing and light shelfwear to the spine tips. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box. A completely unrestored example of this cornerstone. A superior example.

New York: Random House, 1985. First edition of this work which describes the scientific nature of comets, as well as their varying roles and perceptions throughout history. Quarto, original cloth, illustrated throughout. The dedication copy of this work. Inscribed on the dedication page by both Sagan and Anne Druyan, "4 November 1985 And we men it! With our love to you and Kel Annie + Carl." The recipient was Shirley Arden, who was the executive secretary to Sagan and close friends of the authors. The dedication page reads, "To Shirley Arden, for more than a decade of friendship and hard work well done. With our love and admiration." Fine in a near fine dust jacket. Jacket illustration by John Lomberg; design by Robert Aulicino. Comet begins with a breathtaking journey through space astride a comet. Pulitzer Prize-winning astronomer Carl Sagan, author of Cosmos and Contact, and writer Ann Druyan explore the origin, nature, and future of comets, and the exotic myths and portents attached to them. The… Read More

London: William Heinemann, 1913. First edition in English of Dostoevsky's classic novel. Octavo, original red cloth. Translated into English by Constance Garnett. In near fine condition. With a two-page letter signed and entirely in the hand of the translator, Constance Garnett, laid in. Dated May 23, 1929 and sent from The Cearne, Edenbridge Kent, the letter reads, "Dear Mr. Wright I wonder whether you have set off yet for the West Indies? I think you must almost regret going in this lovely spring weather. At last I have two Irish stamps which I enclose. Have you seen the coins? They are very charming. I had a very welcome letter from Mrs. Anderson & I am hoping to persuade her to come down for a day or two to see the woods and garden - which has this year surpassed my dreams! The apple blossoms and the tulips & the forgetmenots which flow in lakes of blue over my orchard make up a lovely picture. The talks we had at Pardigon about Turgenev encourage me to send you a copy of my husband's… Read More

New York: Charles L. Webster and Company, 1886. Early printing of Twain's masterpiece, inscribed by Mark Twain. Octavo, bound in half buckram by Roycroft with paper labels to the spine, tissue-guarded frontispiece photogravure plate of Gerhardt's bust of Clemens, one hundred and seventy-four illustrations by E. W. Kemble. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the title page, "To Mr. Garth W. Cate: Taking the pledge will not make bad liquor good, but it will improve it. Truly Yours, Mark Twain, Nov. 25/06." With a lengthy letter of provenance dated October 14, 1964 and signed by the recipient which reads in part, "Dear Mr. Jacobs, If I had been younger and could have carried out a study of some of Mark Twain's motives and acts, I never would have parted with my cherished old copy of the first printing of Huckleberry Finn. This was the first book given to me by my father... In 1906-1907 I was a lecture manager for Elbert Hubbard, the Sage of East Aurora, whose quasi-socialist group The… Read More

New York/ Philadelphia: Chilton Books, 1965. First edition, third printing of the author's masterpiece. Octavo, original boards. Boldly signed by Frank Herbert on the title page. Fine in a very good price-clipped dust jacket. Jacket art by John Schoenherr. Uncommon signed. Dune was awarded the first Nebula award for best science fiction novel, shared the Hugo award, and "became one of the most famous of all science fiction novels" (The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction). Set on the desert planet Arrakis, Dune is the story of the boy Paul Atreides, who would become the mysterious man known as Muad'Dib. He would avenge the traitorous plot against his noble family--and would bring to fruition humankind's most ancient and unattainable dream. A stunning blend of adventure and mysticism, environmentalism and politics and formed the basis of what is undoubtedly the grandest epic in science fiction.

Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1978. "I love to burn things up," King says. "It's the werewolf in me, I guess.... The Stand was particularly fulfilling, because there I got a chance to scrub the whole human race, and man, it was fun! ... Much of the compulsive, driven feeling I had while I worked on The Stand came from the vicarious thrill of imagining an entire entrenched social order destroyed in one stroke." "There is much to admire in The Stand: the vivid thumbnail sketches with which King populates a whole landscape with dozens of believable characters; the deep sense of nostalgia for things left behind; the way it subverts our sense of reality by showing us a world we find familiar, then flipping it over to reveal the darkness underneath. Anyone who wants to know, or claims to know, the heart of the American experience needs to read this book" (Fiona Webster). It was the basis for the 1994 American television miniseries. King also wrote the teleplay… Read More

Paris: Shakespeare and Company, 1922. Ulysses was published in Paris by Shakespeare & Company, 1922. It was a struggle for the author to find a publisher, a comic irony considering that Ulysses is "[u]niversally hailed as the most influential work of modern times" (Grolier Joyce 69). Ulysses was an immediate success. The first printing sold out, and "within a year Joyce had become a well-known literary figure. Ulysses was explosive in its impact on the literary world of 1922" (de Grazia, 27). Even so, the book faced difficulties in global reception. It was banned in the U.K. and was prosecuted for the obscenity in the Nausicaa episode (Ellmann, 1982). Joyce's inspiration for the novel began as a young boy reading Charles Lamb's Adventures of Ulysses and writing an essay entitled "My Favorite Hero" after being impressed by the wholeness of the character (Goreman, 1939). The idea for the novel grew from a story in Dubliners in 1906, which Joyce expanded into… Read More

New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1969. First edition of Puzo's definitive novel of the Mafia underworld, signed by him and legendary Academy Award-winning actor Marlon Brando. Octavo, original half black cloth. Boldly signed by both Mario Puzo and Marlon Brando on the front free endpaper. Fine in a near fine dust jacket. Jacket art by S. Neil Fujita. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box made by the Harcourt Bindery. We have never seen another first edition signed by Brando and Puzo. A searing novel of the Mafia underworld, The Godfather introduced readers to the first family of American crime fiction, the Corleones, and the powerful legacy of tradition, blood, and honor that was passed on from father to son. "A voyeur's dream, a skillful fantasy of violent personal power" (New York Times). It was made into the 1972 film directed by Francis Ford Coppola and produced by Albert S. Ruddy, starring Marlon Brando and Al Pacino. It was the highest-grossing film of 1972 and was for… Read More

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1925.

London: George Allen and Unwin, 1954-55. First editions, first states of each title comprising the The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. Octavo, 3 volumes, original red cloth, folding maps at the rear of The Two Towers and The Return of the King. Each volume is signed by J.R.R. Tolkien on the front free endpapers. Each volume is housed in a custom half morocco slipcase. The Fellowship of the Ring lacking the folding map at rear. An exceptional set, most rare and uncommon signed. The Lord of the Rings began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's fantasy novel The Hobbit, but eventually developed into a much larger work. It was written in stages between 1937 and 1949, much of it during World War II in letters to his son, "and finally, having polished it to his own satisfaction, published it as a trilogy from 1954 to 1955, a volume at a time, impatiently awaited by a growing audience. It is considered one of this century’s lasting contributions to that borderland of literature between… Read More