Rare books from Carpe Diem Fine Books

Hartford: American Publishing Company, 1880. 1st. Hardcover. 8vo. 631pp + [1]pp pubisher's advertisement. State B of portrait frontispiece; 2nd state of regular frontispiece; and state B of sheets. Double frontispiece portrait of Twain & Titian's Moses with tissue guard. Plates; in-text illustrations. Publisher's sheep with black leather title label to spine. A very good plus to near fine copy (light fading to spine and wear to extremities; joints at spine head barely starting to split; gilt along board edges mostly rubbed; 2" leather snag to upper rear board professionally restored; decorative owner bookplate). Significantly fewer copies were bound in sheep than in cloth, scarce thus. Twain's third travel book documenting a month-long tramp in Europe during the summer of 1878 with his friend, Reverend Joseph Twitchell (named Harris in the book). As the author advised, it was a book "written by one loafer for a brother loafer to read." (BAL 3386).

New York: Brentanos, 1928. 1st. Hardcover. First Edition, Limited to 2500 copies. 8vo. 269 pp. Woodcut illustrations by the author. A beautiful copy, fine in fine dustjacket, as new. Leon Underwood (1890-1975) was a noted British sculptor, painter, draughtsman and engraver as well as a writer and illustrator, scholar, teacher, philosopher and stained glass and furniture craftsman. "The Siamese Cat," his only novel, "...is in reality a fairy tale in which the daily hopes and fears incident in the life of an idealist supplant the magic wands, invisible cloaks, and dragons of legend." For children anywhere from 7 to 77 years young.

New York and London: George D. Sproul, 1902. 1st. Leather bound. First Edition Thus; Autograph Variorum Edition. Introduction by Percy Fitzgerald and SIGNED by him; Bibliographhical Note by F. G. Kitton and SIGNED by him; three original copper-engraved frontispieces SIGNED by the illustrator, Harry Furniss (volumes I, III, and V). Large 8vo. Various paginations. Reproductions of the hundreds of illustrations by the various Pickwick artists, with printed tissue guards. Bound by Whitman Bennett in full red morocco wtih gilt lettering, geometric ruling to covers & spine and "CD" initials surrounded by wreaths to spines; marbled endpapers; TEG; deckled fore and bottom edges; elaborate gilt dentelles. Light rubbing along joints; some wear to spine heads with slight loss of leather; small loss to spine tail of Vol. 4; minor rubbing to spines; small scraping to upper board edges; overall uniform in color; a very good to near fine set. The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (also known as The Pickwick… Read More

Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978. 1st. A brief, but particularly emotional inscription from the author to Stanford University President J. Wallace Sterling, appears on the front flyleaf. "For Wally - / who was there, / With warm regard, / Nate/May 1978." Dr. Pusey was the former President of Harvard University. Octavo; [x], 204pp. A Fine copy in like dust jacket (with a short closed tear to upper rear edge) of the First Edition wtih a unique association. Drs. Pusey and Sterling, as Presidents of arguably the two most influential academic institutions in the country, each were directly confronted with the student protest movement in the late 1960's and the end of innocence. At Stanford, demonstrators occupied the Old Student Union Building vowing to remain until their demands were met. Dr. Sterling ultimately accepted a faculty committee's recommendations for leniency ‘with serious misgivings.' Soon, at Harvard, protesters, led by the radical Students for a Democratic Society, took over… Read More

London: Printed by J. M'Creery and Sold by J. Edwards, 1795. First Edition. Leather bound. Two volumes. Vol.I: Frontispiece engraved portrait with tissue guard, [2], [1], (ii- xxvi), 320 pp; 136 pp Appendix. Vol. II: [3], 4-312; BOUND With 'Poesie Del Magnifico Lorenzo de Medici, Tratte da Testi a Penna Della Libreria Mediceo-Laurenziana, E Finora Inedite, 1795, [5], 6-111, [1] pp Description of the Plates; [1] 2-11 Index; [1] pp Errata. Engravings by Matthew Houghton (1768-1821), with tissue guards. Contemporary black morocco with gilt ruling, decoration & lettering; AEG; gilt decoration along board edges; gilt dentelles; marbled endpapers; silk ribbon markers. A near fine set with minor wear to extremities; light shelf wear; wear to spine ends. A lovely set of Roscoe's classic biography about Lorenzo de'Medici which earned him a reputation among his contemporary historians and which has been translated into several languages.

Eureka, CA: Mad River Press, 1978. First Edition. 8vo. xii, 128; x, 182 pp. Compiled, edited, and introduced by Hedgpeth. Black & white photo-reproductions; maps; illustrations. Sitff illustrated wrappers. A fine set. Part I is titled "Ed Ricketts and John Steinbeck Explore the Pacific Coast;" Part 2 is titled "Breaking Through, Being From the Papers of Edward F. Ricketts." A collection of excerpts Ricketts' personal journals and Steinbeck's unpublished writings about Ricketts.

New York: Viking Press, 1941. Second Printing Before Publication. SIGNED by Steinbeck on title page. Large 8vo. 143pp. 136 black & white photo-illustrations. The text and photographs are from Herbert Kline's production of "The Forgotten Village", a documentary film released in Autumn 1941. Original cream buckram stamped in green; top edges stained green in colored pictorial dustjacket. Very good (foxing to covers; offsetting inside covers) in very good dustjacket (wear to extremities with chips to spine ends; darkening to rear cover). The novelist who wrote "The Grapes of Wrath" and the director who produced "Crisis and Lights Out" in Europe combined their superb talents to tell the story of the coming of modern medicine to the natives of Mexico. There have been several notable examples of this pen-camera method of narration, but "The Forgotten Village" is unique among them in that the text was written before a single picture was shot. The book and the movie from which it was made have, thus, a… Read More

London: Bickers and Son, 1872. A New Edition. Complete in 8 volumes. Large 8vo. Various paginations. Frontispiece portrait with tissue guard. Edited by James P. Brown. Uniformly bound by Andy Grieve (Edinburgh bookbinder) in full tree calf with gilt lettered red and black leather title labels to spines; gilt decoration to spines; gilt ruling; TEG; marbled endpapers. Minor wear; light rubbing along some joints; small Glasgow bookseller label inside front boards; a near fine and lovely set. Tobias George Smollett (1721 - 1771) was a Scottish poet and author. He was best known for his picaresque novels, such as The Adventures of Roderick Random (1748), The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle (1751) and The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (1771), which influenced later novelists, including Charles Dickens.

San Francisco: Sierra Club, 1965. First Edition. Large 4to. 160 pp. Edited by David Brower. Photographs by Ansel Adams, Morley Baer, Wynn Bullock, Steve Crouch, William E. Garnett, Philip Hyde, Eliot Porter, Cole Weston, Edward Weston, Don Worth, Cedric Wright, and others. Twenty-eight illustrations lithographed in color, fifty-one printed in gravure. Red cloth with gilt lettering in color illustrated dustjacket. Faint foxing to ffep, minor wear to extremeties, else a fine copy in fine dustjacket (short tape ghost to front and rear flap edges). "It is only a little planet, but how beautiful it is" is the opening line for this beautiful ode to the natural beauty of the Big Sur Coastline, photographed by highly regard West Coast photographers combined with Jeffers exquisite poetry.

Koln; London: Taschen, 2009. First Limited Collector's Edition, Number 268 of 1500 sets. SIGNED by Hugh Hefner and includes a 7 x 7 cm piece of Hef's famous red silk pajamas, worn by the gret man himself. Complete in six volumes plus a facsimile edition of Playboy #1 from 1953 featuring Marilyn Monroe, in Plexiglas slipcase. 4to. 3506 pp. Text in English with German, French, and Spanish translations. Indices. A wealth of never-before-seen ephemera from Hefner's personal archives includes original artwork, cartoons and correspondence, and 700 pages of autobiographical text about his youth, military service, early career as a cartoonist, numerous girlfriends, and eventual success with Playboy. A vast selection of personal photos—many previously unseen—include behind-the-scenes shots from the Playboy Mansion, Playboy Clubs, and the Big Bunny jet. Features 59 of the hottest Centerfolds in full size, and all 312 covers from the magazine's first 25 years presenting a comprehensive overview of artwork… Read More

Carmel, CA, 1920. An uncommon collection of 21 original photographs by Slevin (each 5 x 7") - 18 are indicated by a stamp "Photo by L. S. Slevin Carmel, Cal" on verso, in the plate, or blindstamp below the image. There are an additional 3 photographs of the same era and quality but no photographer indicated. 14 of the photographs show various buildings and old adobes in Carmel and Monterey and 7 photographs show Montery's iconic Cypress trees in coastal settings. Pencil notations on the verso of most of the buildings indicating location & names, including the Underwood apartments on downtown Alvarado Street, dated '90; Colton Hall; Forest Theater in Carmel; Abrego Adobe; De Soto Adobe; Old Blockhouse forts; Gen. Halleck & Sherman House noting the cannon; House of Four Winds; Larkin House; Alvarado Adobe; Basque House (most likely Alvarado Adobe); Hotel Del Monte's Roman Plunge and more. Lightly faded over time; near fine. Louis S. Slevin (1878 - 1945) arrived in Carmel in 1903 and built a store on… Read More

Monterey, CA: Jo Mora Publications, 1945. Color pictographic map. Image size 24 3/8" x 18 1/4". A fine copy; colors are strong and bright. This California carte is the last map drawn by Jo Mora. The Del Monte Canning Co. commissioned the map for promotional give-aways. As a means to save money, they used somewhat thin paper for the first run and some of the colors (blues and green) did not take as strongly as others. Within a short period of time, they switched to a heavier paper resulting in the colors keeping their strength and brightness. This map is on the heavier paper with the darker greens and blues. As with all Jo Mora cartes, it is packed with historical information and details, creatively and colorfully illustrated. He added details to this version, such as the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges that were not around in 1927 for his first, larger map. (Grandeau & Shorts Cartes 11; Gilmore M17).

Boston: Press of Emery and Hughes, 1887. First Edition. Both copies are from the family of Robert Lockhart of Co. C First Maine Cavalry, with their pencil notations indicating passage from grandfather to father and grandfather to grandson. Copy 1: Large 8vo. 735, [1] pp. 69 photographic plates comprising 307 portraits of comrades and scenes of camp and field, showing the faces of comrades as they looked in the service, with the old uniform, equipments, horses, camp scenes, etc. Roster of the Regiment; List of Casualties; Battle Flag; Index to Roster; Index to Illustrations. Publisher's prospectus [4] pp and a single-sheet publisher's printed notice, laid in. Three-quarter brown morocco over brown pebbled cloth with gilt illustration and lettering; marbled page edges. Hinges professionally resinforced; wear to extremities; spine darkened; a very good copy Copy 2: Large 8vo. 732, [1] pp. 9 photographic plates of portraits and scenes of camp and field. Roster; List of Casualties; Index to Roster.… Read More

~ 24" x 24" humorous oil painting on canvas of bandleader Ben Bernie ("The Old Maestro") and Harry Cohn (President of Columbia Pictures) flanking a map of the state of Florida below which Cohn has written "To (sic) bad I only hear the good things about you - Ben - Harry Cohn" Bernie was a popular bandleader of the 1920s and 30s known for his sense of humor and trademark expression, "Yowsah! Yowsah! Yowsah!" Harry Cohn was known for his autocratic and intimidating management style, and asking for and expecting sex from female stars in exchange for employment (the Harvey Weinstein of his day). The lot includes newspaper and radio gossip columnist Walter Winchell's March 8, 1937 check payable to Bernie, as well as sheet music for 3 songs ('Y' Got Me Baby,' 'Lonesome in the Moonlight' and 'Mrs. Astor's Horse') bearing Bernie's image, the 8 1/2" x 11' 30pp 'The Royal Palm Review of 1940 Musical Hits' and a 10" x 14" card promoting 'Ben Bernie's Blue Ribbon Malt Orchestra' (sponsor of his radio series).… Read More

Published by Glacier Park Company, 1910. Oblong 4to (10 1/4" x 13 1/4"). 12 leaves of hand-colored plates, after photographs by T.J. Hileman. Stiff cream softcover with striking graphic design & lettering on front cover; blue silk string tie with white tassells. A fine copy in somewhat worn & torn publisher's envelope. Views include: Two Medicine Lake, Mount Rockwell; Going-to-the-Sun Mountain, St. Mary Lake; St. Mary Lake from Going-to-the-Sun Chalets; Swiftcurrent Falls; Iceberg Lake; Josephine Lake, Grinnell Glacier and Gould Mountain; Many Glacier Region; Bear Grass, The Garden Wall and Gould Mountin in the background; Going-To-The-Sun Highway, Logan Pass in distance; Heavens Peak and Mount Cannon from Going-To-The-Sun Highway;The Garden Wall from Going-To-The-Sun Highway; and Lake McDonald.