BTC Catalog 172.Pdf
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Between the Covers Rare Books, Inc. ~ Catalog 172 ~ First Books & Before 112 Nicholson Rd., Gloucester City NJ 08030 ~ (856) 456-8008 ~ [email protected] Terms of Sale: Images are not to scale. All books are returnable within ten days if returned in the same condition as sent. Books may be reserved by telephone, fax, or email. All items subject to prior sale. Payment should accompany order if you are unknown to us. Customers known to us will be invoiced with payment due in 30 days. Payment schedule may be adjusted for larger purchases. Institutions will be billed to meet their requirements. We accept checks, VISA, MASTERCARD, AMERICAN EXPRESS, DISCOVER, and PayPal. Gift certificates available. Domestic orders from this catalog will be shipped gratis via UPS Ground or USPS Priority Mail; expedited and overseas orders will be sent at cost. All items insured. NJ residents please add 7% sales tax. Member ABAA, ILAB. Artwork by Tom Bloom. © 2011 Between the Covers Rare Books, Inc. www.betweenthecovers.com After 171 catalogs, we’ve finally gotten around to a staple of the same). This is not one of them, nor does it pretend to be. bookselling industry, the “First Books” catalog. But we decided to give Rather, it is an assemblage of current inventory with an eye toward it a new twist... examining the question, “Where does an author’s career begin?” In the The collecting sub-genre of authors’ first books, a time-honored following pages we have tried to juxtapose first books with more obscure tradition, is complicated by taxonomic problems – what constitutes an (and usually very inexpensive), pre-first book material. Other offerings author’s first book is not always so clearly defined. A first novel, or first include numerous examples of advance copies of authors’ first books, book of collected short stories is pretty easy to identify. But should we as well as a selection of first editions of first books, usually inscribed or include pamphlets or bound ephemeral pieces? Should we include a co- otherwise chosen with an eye toward flavoring the catalog. But all this authored first book? Should we include anthology appearances? Should we material shares the same important perspective: at the time of publication include published translations by the author which precede publication of of each of these books, stories, or poems, all these authors were relatively his or her own original work? Should we include commercially published unknown to their reading audience. Most were completely unknown. juvenilia? No matter how confidant you may be in your own definition of The works themselves had to stand on their own merits rather than on “first book,” no matter how resolutely you answered each of the previous their authors’ reputations. This was particularly true for early poems and questions with “yes, certainly” or “no, absolutely not,” there can always be short stories published in magazines, journals, and annual anthologies. In found, with enough looking, instances where the circumstance does not each of these entries is an individual author, sometimes struggling to find fit a previously defined type. a voice, sometimes struggling for the next meal. This is disconcerting. We are human, and it seems as if our brains are One of the reasons we’ve been able to connect so many anthologies and wired to want to know where things begin. Is it too much to ask, “What literary magazines to specific authors and their early appearances is that is the first…?” The fact that there may not be any single “first,” or that for the past few years we have taken the trouble to enter into our database by redefining our parameters we can encounter things that precede the all contributors to these publications, instead of just a few authors. Every defined first, presents a challenge to comfortable collecting. As is often time we were ready to print this catalog, we would think of another author the case, it is in the challenges to comfortable collecting that interesting and a search in our inventory for “anything before his first book” would new paths are forged. invariably find something interesting. Having issued catalogs of literature This catalog makes no pretense toward being comprehensive in any for over a quarter of a century, often featuring different copies of the regard, least of all as a gathering of first books by notable literary authors. same titles over and over again, we have to admit it was getting a little Many distinguished booksellers have in the past issued extensive “First stale. Making new discoveries, whether they are bibliographical or merely Books” catalogs (usually derived from carefully assembled collections of the personal, is what keeps both sides of the book trade, the selling and the buying, continuously interesting. Table of Contents: In consideration of space we do not list every contributor to each item 1) First Books & Before: Some Highlights ....................Items 1- 113 in this catalog, but a search on our website for literary authors will often 2) Literature .......................................................................114 - 555 yield a great deal of material beyond the established “A” items. And, as 3) Mysteries & Detective Fiction .......................................556 - 609 always, all items in our inventory are illustrated in color on our website. 4) Science-Fiction, Fantasy, & Horror ...............................610 - 633 Pre-Celebrity: ~ Dan Gregory 5) Famous people before they were famous ...........................................................................................634 - 651 1 James AGEE. [College Yearbook]: Harvard Class Album 1932. Cambridge: Harvard University Class of 1932 1932. First and only edition. Folio. 291pp. Embossed leather grained cloth gilt. Spine gilt a little dull but easily readable, near fine. Among the graduating seniors is James Rufus Agee, who is pictured in two group photos on page 170 of the Advocate Board; his senior photo with biographical information and activities appears on page 210. He is also noted as the “Class Odist” on page 199 in the list of Class Officers; and finally, all of page 204 is devoted to his Class Ode. [BTC #344074] 2 —. Permit Me Voyage. New Haven: Yale University Press 1934. First edition. Foreword by Archibald MacLeish. Bookplate of author and longtime Yale English professor William Lyon Phelps on the front pastedown, fine in very good or better, price-clipped dustwrapper with two shallow chips near the crown. An attractive copy of Agee’s fragile first book, a collection of poetry issued in the Yale Series of Younger Poets. [BTC #95821] 5 —. Other Voices, Other Rooms. New York: Random House (1948). First edition. Fine in fine dustwrapper with the white spine- 3 Truman CAPOTE. Story: The Magazine of the lettering completely Short Story – May-June 1945 Vol. XXVI, no. 113. New York: white. Signed by the author. A beautiful, fresh, and bright Story Magazine Inc. 1945. copy of the author’s first book. Although not marked in any Magazine. Very good in wrappers with way, this copy is from the the rear wrap lightly soiled and the spine distinguished modern first sunned. This issue features stories by edition collection of Bruce Truman Capote (preceding his first book Kahn. [BTC #282586] by three years), Dorothy McCleary, and Mel Dinelli. [BTC #74466] 6 — same title. Lon- 4 —. Prairie Schooner. Winter, 1945. (Lincoln: University don: William Heinemann of Nebraska Press) 1945. (1948). Magazine. Wrappers. Very near fine with slight bump to one corner. The Uncorrected proof of the first featured article is the Capote story “Preacher’s Legend,” published when English edition. Printed tan wrappers. A bit cocked, hinges he was 21, and one of several stories that established the young writer as professionally repaired, slight spine erosion, a near very the enfant terrible of the American literary scene. Among the other good copy of a fragile and uncommon issue. [BTC contributors are Hubert Creekmore and Madeleine L’Engle (the same #105545] year as her first book). Scarce. [BTC #278690] 2 7 John CHEEVER. Story: The Magazine of the Short 12 Hart CRANE. The Dial – Story – July 1937. New York: Story Magazine Inc. 1937. June 1922. Vol. LXXII No. 6. New Magazine. Wrappers. Owner name stamp on the title page, a trifle rubbed, else an York: The Dial 1922. especially fresh, very near fine issue. Contains “Summer Remembered’ by Cheever Magazine. Edited by Scofield Thayer. Very (preceding his first book and first book appearance), as well as stories by William good in wrappers with edgewear and a little Saroyan, Eric Knight, and others. [BTC #84085] soiling. Contributors include Hart Crane (before his first book), Hermann Hesse 8 —. Story: The Magazine of the Short (preceding the publication of Demian, his Story – November 1937, Volume XI, Number first book translated into English), D.H. 64. New York: Story Magazine Inc. 1937. Lawrence, Marianne Moore, George Magazine. Wrappers. 108 pp. Near fine with a one- Santayana, William Butler Yeats, Pablo inch tear to the crown and scattered spotting to the Picasso, Conrad Aiken, Ezra Pound, and rear wrap. Text pages are clean and tight. Contains the others. [BTC first appearance of “Homage to Shakespeare” by John #312063] Cheever (preceding his first book), as well as works by John Peale Bishop, Thomas Mann, Jerome Weidman, 13 —. White Buildings. New York: and others. [BTC #344668] Boni and Liveright 1926. First edition, first issue with Allen Tate’s 9 —. New Letters in America 1. New York: name spelled incorrectly on the integral title W.W. Norton (1937). page. Edges of the boards rubbed, a very First edition. Edited by Horace Gregory. One corner slightly bumped, and a tiny tear in good copy in an internally repaired, very the cloth, else a near fine copy lacking the dustwrapper. Includes an early John Cheever good dustwrapper with ½" loss at the crown. story (“Behold a Cloud in the West”), preceding his first book.