Rare books from Underground Books, ABAA

Tokyo: Nippon Geijutsu Shuppansha, 1999. Hardcover. Very good/very good. Hardcover. A very nice run of "Japan's standard in nudity," Sha-Girl, gathering together exceptional photographs of Asian and Caucasian women from prize-winning photographs taken each year from the Annual Kaigo no hana Photographer's Club (KPC) Contest, featuring the work of amateur photographers alongside artists such as Nobuyashi Araki, Jean Pierre Bourgeois, Lucien Clergue, Franco Fontana, Francis Giacobetti, Eikoh Hosoe, Irina Ionesco, Serge Jacques, Stephen Lupino, Michael Moreau, Uwe Ommer, Wladyslaw Pawelec, Shoji Ueda, Angelika Vogel, and many more. 12 X 8 1/4". Various paginations. Text in Japanese, with limited text in English. Pictorial dust jackets show mild edgewear and surface scratching. Small closed tear to spine panel of dust jacket of Sha-Girl '98. Small tears to head of spine of dust jacket of Sha-Girl '94 and Sha-Girl Special Vol. 1. Last five volumes bound in white paper over boards, all previous bound in… Read More

New York: Grove Press, 2020. First Edition. Hardcover. Near fine/near fine. First Edition. Hardcover. Signed by Helen Macdonald to special themed bookplate affixed to front free endpaper. Stated first edition, with full number line indicating first printing. 8 1/2" X 5 3/4". ix, 261pp. A touch of shelfwear to bright dust jacket. Bound in full black paper over boards, with spine backed in black cloth and lettered in silver. A new, unread signed first edition of this collection of essays about the natural world by Helen Macdonald, author of H is for Hawk. ABOUT VESPER FLIGHTS: From the New York Times bestselling author of H is for Hawk and winner of the Samuel Johnson Prize for nonfiction, comes a transcendent collection of essays about the natural world. Animals don't exist in order to teach us things, but that is what they have always done, and most of what they teach us is what we think we know about ourselves. Helen Macdonald's bestselling debut H is for Hawk brought the astonishing story of… Read More

New York: Eleanor Ettinger Inc, 1988. Limited Edition. Loose_leaf. Very good. Limited Edition. Loose_leaf. 27.5" X 22.0" each. This suite of four lithographs includes Swept Away, The Messenger, Spellbound, and The Fan. All four lithographs are signed by George Stavrinos in graphite and hand-numbered A/P 25 of 25 to the lower margins, with blind stamp of Eleanor Ettinger Inc. dated 1988. Each lithograph features 3-5 colors and was pulled at Atelier Ettinger in 1988. These suites were limited to 275 numbered impressions and 25 artist's proofs on papier d'Arches; this suite is one of the 25 artist's proofs. Though lacking the portfolio container the 275 numbered impressions were issued with, this artist's proof suite is accompanied by the original advertising publication from the Eleanor Ettinger Gallery in New York City. The four lithographs and gallery publication have all been rolled and are thus curved; only minor wear to edges and extremities. Old seller's label to inside of gallery publication… Read More

Des Moines: Successful Farming, 1930. Paperback. Good. Paperback. 8 1/2" X 5 3/4". 78pp. Wear to black paper wraps with rubbing, toning, and bumps to covers, corners, and edges. Tear to bottom corner at rear cover. Dust-spotting to edges of text block. Toning to endpapers. Faint musty smell to pages. Pages are free of marks and notation. Binding is sound. An overall solid copy of this work on masters of dairying, including chapters on Stephen Moulton Babcock, Wiliam Dempster Hoard, Clarence Henry Eckles, Carl Gustaf Patrik De Laval, Elmer Verner McCollum, Louis Pasteur, Theophilus Levi Haecker, Gail Borden, William Arnon Henry, and Otto Frederick Hunziker.

London: Printed for T. Hughes and C. Chaple, 1815. Hardcover. Good. Hardcover. This 1815 guide to sleight of hand magic comprises 50 tricks from Victorian conjurer Thomas Ingleby, each with full description and explanation, with tricks including decapitating a rooster and restoring it to life, stopping and starting time on a watch at will, and cutting a card free from a shoulder of mutton which one of the company had previously drawn from a deck. This copy lacks the hand-colored frontispiece, replaced by a high quality color facsimile. Ex libris magician Burton S. Sperber, with his bookplate to rear pastedown: "Those who know don't tell. Those who tell don't know." Burton Sperber (1929-2011) was a mentalist and magic collector, a member of the Magic Castle since 1965, as well as the Inner Magic Circle of the Magic Circle in London, the informal club of mentalists in Los Angeles known as the Delta Group, and the Psychic Entertainers Association. Sperber contributed articles to Magick, was a… Read More

New York: Liveright Publishing Company, 2022. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good +/Very good +. First Edition. Hardcover. Signed by author in ink at front free endpaper. First Edition with full number line indicating first printing. 9 1/2" X 6 1/4". 417pp. Very mild shelf wear to covers, corners, and edges of unclipped dust jacket. Bound in black paper over boards with spine lettered in gilt. Pages are clean and unmarked. Binding is sound. ABOUT THIS BOOK: From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Gulf, a sweeping cultural and natural history of the bald eagle in America. The bald eagle is regal but fearless, a bird you're not inclined to argue with. For centuries, Americans have celebrated it as "majestic" and "noble," yet savaged the living bird behind their national symbol as a malicious predator of livestock and, falsely, a snatcher of babies. Taking us from before the nation's founding through inconceivable resurgences of this enduring all-American species, Jack E. Davis contrasts the… Read More

London: Simkin, Marshall, and Co.; E. and F. N. Spon, 1856. First Edition. Hardcover. Good. First Edition. Hardcover. This 1000-page tome, published in 1865, is considered "The Locksmith's Bible" (though 19th century bankers also called it "The Burglars' Bible" due to its detailed diagrams of locks). Its pages hold a history of locks from before biblical times, accounts of feuds between competing manufacturers, specifications, patents, pricing, testimonials, and so much more, including a chromolithographic plate and nearly 500 figure illustrations throughout. Author George Price was the proprietor of the Cleveland Safe Works in Wolverhampton, born a printer's son and apprentice who pursued other professions, notably as an insurance assessor; it was in this line of work that he became frustrated with the amount of claims he received from customers because their safes were "no stronger than a parrot's cage." It was at this point Price struck out to invent and manufacture truly fire and thief-proof… Read More

London: Head of Zeus Ltd, 2021. First Edition Thus. Hardcover. Very good +/very good +. First Edition Thus. Hardcover. This complete set of Cixin Liu's The Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy comes signed by Cixin Liu to a page specially bound-in by the publisher, joined by Baoshu's novel set in the Three-Body universe, The Redemption of Time, signed by Baoshu and translator Ken Liu. These four volumes are all first edition thus--first printings with full number lines of the signed, limited edition published in 2021 in London by Head of Zeus Ltd (with Redemption of Time published in 2019). This is a highly presentable, complete, signed and limited edition set of Cixin Liu's award-winning series, now a Netflix streaming series written and developed by Game of Thrones' David Benioff and D.B. Weiss with True Blood's Alexander Woo. Each volume is signed by the author to specially bound in Signed and Limited Edition page, signed by Cixin Liu to The Three-Body Problem, The Dark Forest, and Death's End… Read More