Rare books from Johnson Rare Books & Archives

Santa Barbara, California: Black Sparrow Press, 1979. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine. This is Number 82 of 100 copies handbound in boards by Earle Gray, signed by Bukowski, and accompanied by an original silk screen print by the poet. Quintessential Bukoswki, a collection of poems full of lechery and romance. Octavo. Original printed paper-covered boards over a decorative red cloth spine, with a printed paper spine label. A fine copy in the original acetate dust wrapper.

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1990. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. The uncorrected advance proof and the first edition, first printing. The latter is a review copy, with the publisher's slip and promotional material laid in. Each is signed by the author ("Patricia D. Cornwell") on the title page. Cornwell's debut novel and the first book in the Dr. Kay Scarpetta series. Based on a series of real-life stranglings in Richmond, Virginia during the summer of 1987, it received the 1991 Edgar Award for Best First Novel. Octavo, two volumes. The uncorrected advance proof is bound in the original pritned yellow paper wrappers. Tiny ink mark to the spine; else fine. The first edition is tight and nearly pristine, with just the slightest hint of edgewear to the dust jacket. Fine.

New York: The Merriam Company, 1895. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good. The first edition of this important early cocktail book, with dozens of recipes for previously unrecorded drinks, among them the Old-Fashioned, the Widow's Kiss, and Kappeler's own invention: the Hot Locomotive. "Kappeler was for a long time at the head of the drink laboratory connected with the Holland House, which has a reputation for the excellence of its damp delights" (Centralia Enterprise and Tribune), referring to the Holland House Hotel in Manhattan. Octavo: 120 p. with [10] p. advertisements. Original green cloth binding, with gilt titles and decorative burgundy and yellow stamping. Mild wear to the corners and tips; otherwise very good.

New York: Butler Brothers, 1901. Wraps. Very good. George and Edward Butler founded the wholesale mail order company Butler Brothers in Boston in 1877 and opened a Chicago warehouse in 1879. The company focused on providing inexpensive staple goods to independent general stores and supported their growth. This pamphlet provides entrepreneurs the road map for starting their own department store, covering everything from location and naming the store, to setting up of displays, profit margins, and stocking the store with products offered by Butler Brothers. "The reason why a man with a small stock of variety goods can hold his own against concerns that have dollars, where he has dimes, is simple," the brochure states. "Every penny of capital is in quick turning goods." Butler Brothers ultimately moved all operations to Chicago by 1930. "Like Sears and Montgomery Ward, other Chicago companies that had large mail-order operations, Butler Bros. moved into brick-and-mortar retailing during the 1920s. By… Read More

London: John Murray, 1892. Second Edition, Revised - Fourth Thousand. Hardcover. Very Good. First published in 1868, this book began as an expansion of the first two chapters of On the Origin of Species (1859): "Variation under Domestication" and "Variation under Nature," and it developed into one of his largest works; Darwin (1809-82) referred to it as his "big book." The first volume deals with the variations introduced into species as a result of domestication, through changes in climate, diet, breeding, and an absence of predators. He began with an examination of dogs and cats, comparing them with their wild counterparts, and moved on to investigate horses and asses; pigs, cattle, sheep, and goats; domestic rabbits; domestic pigeons; fowl; and finally cultivated plants. The work is a masterpiece of nineteenth-century scientific investigation, and a key text in the development of Darwin's own thought and of the wider discipline of evolutionary biology. Octavo, two volumes: xiv, 473 p. + x, 495… Read More

San Francisco: D.E. Appleton & Co, 1868. First Edition. Wraps. Near fine. First issued in 1854, the imprint is stated as 4th Edition, 18thThousand on the title page, but as 5th Edition, 25th Thousand on the front panel. 16mo: 64 p. Original printed purple paper wrappers. Near fine. A popular Gold Rush songster, with lyrics to several dozen California mining songs, including "The Fools of '49"; "Joaquin the Horse Thief"; "Away Up on the Yuba"; "California As It Is and Was"; "The Lousy Miner"; "The Sonora Filibusters"; "When I Went Off to Prospect"; "California Bloomer"; and "Coming Around the Horn".

Santa Barbara, California: Black Sparrow Press, 1983. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. This is copy W of 126 (26 lettered and 100 numbered) signed by Charles Bukowski, with an original painting by the poet tipped in after the title page. The stories in Hot Water Music dash around the worst parts of town - a motel room stinking of sick, a decrepit apartment housing a perpetually arguing couple, a bar tended by a skeleton - and depict the darkest parts of human existence. It is an important collection that establishes Bukowski's minimalist style and thematic oeuvre. Octavo. Handbound by Earle Gray in tan paper-covered boards over a decorative cloth spine, with a printed paper spine label. Light soiling along the edges. The original acetate dust wrapper is a trifle rubbed, with a minor crease to the rear flap; otherwise very good.

Los Angeles: Designed at Frank Wiggins Trade School, 1929. First Edition. Broadsheet (7" x 9 ½"), with the title and date on the recto and the poem on the verso. Printed on laid, watermarked paper, intended as a bifold. Clean, unmarked, and quite scarce. This poem appears on page 127 of the Ward Ritchie bibliography, the third item in the list of "Books printed by Ward Ritchie before the formation of The Ward Ritchie Press in 1932" and before Ritchie's year abroad in Paris in the atelier of François-Louis Schmeid (1930). Writing much later in Laguna Verde Imprenta about his early attempts at poetry, Ritchie (1905-96) observed, "When I was much younger I was unsure of the value of my literary creations and rather than possibly being subjected to peer ridicule I used a variety of pseudonyms. I was later reminded of these when Occidental College unearthed an undergraduate piece I has written as Davie Dicker. This led to me recall some other I had used - James Beattie Pitwood, Betsey Ann Bristol,… Read More

The Roger Gozdecki Collection of E.E. Cummings includes fine first editions of the poet's primary works, many of them signed, as well as letters, original drawings, and a striking self-portrait. The compete catalogue can be downloaded here: https://mcusercontent.com/90ec68132b3c021c2e6819f62/files/efb04ecd-6b48-f2e4-c217-69ef266902c2/EECUMMINGS.pdf.See this collection at the Rare Books LAX live book fair, October 14-16 at The Proud, just minutes from LAX. For more details and tickets, visit: www.RareBooksLA.com

New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2014. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. Winner of the 2015 Caldecott Medal. "An imaginary friend waits a long time to be imagined by a child and given a special name, and finally does the unimaginable - he sets out on a quest to find his perfect match in the real world." Colorfully illustrated throughout. Quarto. Original pictorial boards. A fine copy in a fine dust jacketSee this book and other children's books at the Seattle Antiquarian Book Fair, October 8-9 at the Seattle Center. For more information and tickets, visit: www.SeattleBookFair.com

Bishop, California: Spotted Dog Press, Inc, 2002. Hardcover. Near fine/Very good. Inscribed on the title page by Sue Kunitomi Embrey, who contributed an introduction to this work. An influential Japanese-American activist from her youth in the Little Tokyo section of Los Angeles to her grim experiences at Manzanar and her postwar struggle to raise awareness of the internment camps, Embrey (1923-2006) played a major role in bringing this dark chapter of American history into the light of congressional acknowledgement and a presidential apology. A new and expanded edition of the book first published by U.S. Camera in 1944 with photographs and text by Ansel Adams. Includes an introduction by Archie Miyatake, the son of photographer and Manzanar internee Toyo Miyatake, who collaborated with Adams on the collaborative exhibit Two Views of Manzanar after the war. Also features contributions by Sue Kunitomi Embrey and William H. Michael. Edited by Wynne Benti. Quarto: 128 p. with numerous photographic… Read More

London: Bradbury and Evans, 1853. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good. The first issue, with the correct points on page 19, 209, and 275, respectively. With an original cheque, handwritten and signed by Charles Dickens, bound in at front. Dated August 30, 1867, the cheque is made payable to Wimbledon School, which each of Dickens' sons attended. A savage, but often comic, indictment of a society that is rotten to the core, Bleak House is one of Dickens's most ambitious novels, with a range that extends from the drawing rooms of the aristocracy to the poorest of London slums. With illustrations by H.K. Browne ("Phiz"). Octavo: xvi, 624 p. with a frontispiece, engraved title page, and 38 plates. In a full brown calf binding by Morrell, with morocco spine labels, five raised bands, elaborate gilt stamping, and ornamental dentelles. The bookplate of noted collector Dr. E. Norman Sabel appears on the front flyleaf. A bit of minor darkening and wear along the extremities; otherwise very good.

Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England: The MIT Press, 1972. First Edition. Hardcover. Near fine/Very good. First edition, first printing with the errata slip laid in. Inscribed by Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour on the front flyleaf, alongside two post-it notes inscribed by Venturi. Folio: xvi, [2], 189 p. with numerous photographs, architectural plans, etc. Original gray cloth binding, lettered in gilt, with a color photograph mounted on the front panel. In the original printed glassine dust jacket, which is a bit edgeworn with a few unobtrusive tape mends. Learning from Las Vegas caused a stir in the architectural world upon its publication, as it was hailed by progressive critics for its bold indictment of Modernism, and by the status quo as blasphemous. A split among young American architects occurred during the 1970s, with Izenour, Venturi, Robert A.M. Stern, Charles Moore, and Allan Greenberg defending the book as "The Greys", and Richard Meier, Peter Eisenman,… Read More

London: W.H. Allen, 1959. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. Signed by Althea Gibson on the title page. Octavo: 175 p. with 10 photographs. Original green cloth binding, with gilt titles. A bit of soiling along the edges, with a faint stain to the top of the front board and mild bumping to the tips. The dust jacket is a bit edgeworn, with some minor lifting of the laminate; otherwise very good. The life story of Althea Gibson (1927-2003), a truant from the rough streets of Harlem, who emerged as the unlikely queen of the highly segregated tennis world in the 1950s. She was the first African American to play and win at Wimbledon and the U.S. Nationals (precursor of the U.S. Open) - a decade before Arthur Ashe. Following her triumph at Wimbledon in the summer of 1957, Gibson was feted with the first ticker-tape parade up Broadway to honor a woman of color. The New York Times columnist William C. Rhoden argued in a 1977 story that Gibson's accomplishments were "revolutionary" for the… Read More

New York: The Century Co, 1907. Hardcover. Very good. Presentation copy, inscribed by John Muir to Alice Spencer Jones on the front flyleaf. Jones (1868-1938) was the niece of hardware millionaire John Daggett Hooker, a friend and patron of Muir's in his later years. Most of his best writing from the period around 1910 was accomplished in the garret of Hooker's home on West Adams Street in Los Angeles. It was during this time that Muir struck up a friendship with Alice Spencer Jones, who he referred to as "Hark-the-Lark". Letters from Jones to Muir are included in the John Muir Papers at the University of Pacific. Muir's first book, consisting of fifteen previously published articles, some dating from as early as 1875, which aside from some very brief detours to the Coast Range and the southern San Gabriels, concern the flora, fauna, and geology of the Sierra Nevada. As recorded here, Muir (1883-1914) theorized that the granite face of the Sierra had been shaped and scoured by glaciers, an idea… Read More