Athena Rare Books
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ATHENA RARE BOOKS CATALOG 6 Including Literature, Music, Science, History, Medicine, Psychology, Language, Women & Philosophy ATHENA RARE BOOKS 424 Riverside Drive, Fairfield CT 06824 USA phone: 203-254-2727 - fax: 203-254-3518 CATALOG 6 TABLE of CONTENTS Literature: pg. 1 Science: pg. 3 Medicine: pg. 6 Language: pg. 8 Music: pg. 3 History: pg. 5 Psychology: pg. 7 Women: pg. 9 Philosophy: pg. 12 LITERATURE “She Walks in Beauty Like the Night” – First Edition, Second Issue BYRON, Lord [George Gordon]. Hebrew Melodies, John Murray, London, 1815. 1 blank leaf + half-title + TP + 1 leaf = Prefacatory Note + [i]-[ii] = Contents + half title + [3]-53 + [55]-[56] = Advertisements + half-title for binding with other pamphlets, Octavo. First Edition, Second Issue. (Wise, Vol. 1., p. 104) $450 The second issue – without the announcement for Jacqueline in the ads and with the extended form of the ad for Campbell’s Selected Beauties. Containing the first edition of one of Byron’s most famous poems, She Walks in Beauty: She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies… Along with one of his most stirring poems , The Destruction of Semnacherib: The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold… Modern maroon cloth with no lettering whatsoever on the outside. First blank leaf has been lightly creased but otherwise this is a lovely, uncut copy of one of Byron’s most desirable titles. “Two Roads Diverged in a Yellow Woods” – First Edition, First Printing FROST, Robert. Mountain Interval, Henry Holt and Company, New York, 1916. 1 blank leaf + half-title + TP + 1 leaf = Dedication page + [7]-99 + 1 blank leaf, Octavo. First Edition, First Issue. $750 With the first edition printing of Frost’s classic: Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth... 2 First issue with the repeated lines on page 88 and “Come” for “Gone” on page 93. Also includes Birches. One of 4000 copies in the edition. Mountain Interval was Frost's first book to be published originally in the United States, his two earlier titles having first appeared in England. Original dark green cloth with bright gilt lettering to front cover and spine. No dust jacket. Very small tear at bottom of spine. Minimal pencil markings to Index page. Otherwise, a very pretty copy of this Frost classic. Magnificent Copy of Longfellow’s Courtship of Miles Standish – with Publisher’s Handwritten Note LONGFELLOW , Henry Wadsworth. The Courtship of Miles Standish and Other Poems , Ticknor and Fields, Boston, 1858. 1 blank leaf + TP + [iii]-iv = Contents + half title + [7]-215 + [1]-[12] = Publisher’ advertisements + 1 blank leaf, small Octavo. First Edition, First Issue. $900 With the inserted ads for the Waverly Novels in the front and the first issue ads in the back dated October. With a signed autograph note from J. R. Osgood, the publisher, laid in: “Boston / 15th Oct 1858 / Rev C. W. Thoman (?) / Dear Sir: / Herewith we / send prepaid, Mr. Long / fellow’s “Courtship of / Miles Standish”. / Very Truly / Ticknor & Fields / J. R. Osgood”. The third of Longfellow’s long narrative poems on American themes (the other two being Evangeline in 1847 and The Song of Hiawatha in 1855). Original brown, embossed covers with gilt lettering on the spine. This copy could almost be described “as new” – rarely does one find as well-preserved a copy as this from the mid-nineteenth century. The covers are bright and shiny, the spine lettering is as fresh as the day it was applied and the text is immaculate. In a quarter-leather slipcase box. A fine copy. INSCRIBED First Edition by Edna St. Vincent Millay MILLAY, Edna St. Vincent. Conversation at Midnight, Harper and Brothers, New York and London, 1937. 1 blank leaves + half-title + INSCRIBED numbering page + edition page + TP + dedication page + ix-xx + half-title + 1-177 + 3 blank leaves, tall Octavo. First Edition $200 INSCRIBED by the Author. Number 335 of 579 signed copies on Worthy Charta paper (36 copies also printed on Japan Vellum). An extended poetic conversation between seven men. The original manuscript for this work was lost in a Sanibel, FL hotel fire the year before and the author was forced to recreate the entire work from scratch. Original blue boards with linen spine and paper label with title, author’s and publisher’s name. The front board has be “nicked” in one spot (1" long). With the original slip case with hand-numbered label. Text is completely uncut. Overall, a lovely copy of this engaging work by Millay. An Anti-Fascist Collection from Edna St. Vincent Millay – Published Just Before WWII MILLAY, Edna St. Vincent. Huntsman, What Quarry? , Harper and Brothers, New York and London, 1939. 2 blank leaves + half-title + TP + dedication page + vii-ix + [1]-94 + 2 blank leaves, Octavo. First Trade Edition. $110 In Huntsman, What Quarry? Millay includes stirring poems against the brutalities of Fascist Spain, Nazi Germany, and imperialistic Japan. Later events, such as Italy's attacks on Ethiopia and the German-Russian nonaggression treaty, caused the once-pacifist poet to call for preparedness and then to dash off pro-British and pro-French propaganda verse. First edition (so stated; "D-O"). Title page printed in red and black. Quarter bound in blue paper boards over a black cloth spine and corners. A small paper label with title, author's and publisher’s name to the spine. A previous owner's name is neatly inked on the front flyleaf in tiny letters (“Mary Welles (sp?) Todd”). The dust jacket is in very good condition, with the front flap retaining the original publisher's price of $2.00. A very pretty copy. 3 MUSIC Wagner on the Role of Actors and Singers in His New Art Form – Musikdrama – in Original Wraps WAGNER, Richard. Über Schauspieler und Sanger (On Actors and Singers), E. W. Fritzsch, Leipzig, 1872. TP + [1]-86. First Edition. $450 Published in the same year that he laid the foundation stone at Bayreuth, this long essay was part of Wagner’s ongoing promotional campaign for the support of that project. The book was brought out in the same year and by the same publisher who produced Nietzsche’s "The Birth of Tragedy" – during the period when their friendship was at its peak. Wagner's thoughts on the role of music drama underwent transformation. His expression of this change came in 1871, by which time he had completed three-fourths of his Nibelung work and had enjoyed the success of Tristan und Isolde and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (The Master Singers of Nuremberg). In "Über die Bestimmung der Oper" ("The Destiny of Opera"), a paper delivered before the Berlin Royal Academy of Arts -- to which he had been elected as a corresponding member -- Wagner admitted that the music of his music drama had ceased to portray in detail the subtleties and nuances of the dramatic argument. He agreed that music drama was essentially opera but added that it was opera on a more extensive, more elaborate and highly colored level. Now, the singer and his presentation had gained a prominence that was not so readily discernible in earlier conceptions. Wagner echoed these sentiments the following year in an essay entitled "Über Schauspieler und Sänger" ("Actors and Singers"). In these two tracts Wagner stated in essence that his earlier concepts had matured and now reflected something of a compromise between music and drama in and of itself and traditional opera as the world knew it. The artistic result of this alteration of musical character was to be heard and seen within a short time in the still-to-be-completed Götterdämmerung, the last segment of Der Ring des Nibelungen, a section of the total work that is often looked upon today more as opera than as music drama. An uncut copy in original paper covers. The spine is quite worn and chipped, but the edges of the cover are only slightly worn and torn. A good copy. SCIENCE (including Mathematics) Third Book of Francis Bacon’s Seminal Instauration Magna BACON, Francis. Historia Vitae & Mortis. Sive, Titulus Secundus in Historia Naturali & Experimentali ad condendam Philosophiam: Quae est Instaurationis Magnae pars tertia. (The History of Life and Death. With Observations Natural and Experimental for the Prolonging of Life: Being the Third Part of the Great Instauration), Io. Haviland, Londini, 1623. TP + [1]-[3] = preface + 1-410 + 407-454 (repeating 407-410 as called for in Gibson), small Octavo. First Edition. Gibson 147. $3,500 Title framed in double rule, text framed in single rule. With blanks at Aa4 (pp. [369-370]) and Cc6 (pp. [405-406]). A fascinating and influential work that was to constitute the third book of Bacon’s projected “Instauratio Magna,” a multi-part work which, though never completed, had the overall aim of creating a new system of philosophy and extending man’s dominion over nature. This third part of the work was to be devoted to the study of the prolongation of life – a topic that was close to Bacon’s heart as he saw this objective as one of the highest goals of his new, operative science. If achieved, it would make a partial recovery of what mankind had lost with the Fall. Historia Vitae & Mortis contains a collection of materials that are subjected to the scientific 4 method of induction. It is made up of a series of essays devoted to all aspects of the maintenance and prolongation of life, including medicines and herbs, food and drink, sleep and exercise, temperature and climate, occupations, baths and hygiene.