Literature

London: Faber & Faber Limited, 1933 In Very Good Condition, with a Dust Jacket in Good Condition. 235pp bound in original green cloth, top edges gilt, with illustrated dust jacket, protected in a mylar cover. Slight age darkening to covers & pages, dust jacket shows darkening with edge chips & small piece missing on upper spine of dust jacket. Small "Blackwells" sticker inside cover, last page uncut. BINDING & HINGES TIGHT. Includes: Publisher's original advertising card, Blackwell's Sales Invoice and a Customs Slip - all laid in.

1921. 1921 Benchley, Robert OF ALL THINGS NY: Henry Holt and Company, 1921 234pp, illus b/w drawings throughout text Author's first book 8vo Blue cloth stamped in black and yellow foxing on pastedown pages, small spot on rear cover, fine bright hardcover with only minimal rubbing on spine edges.

New York: D. Appleton & Co, 1852. Large Octavo. A new and revised edition illustrated with fine steel engravings, in three volumes specially bound in full red morocco, elaborately decorated in gilt, inner gilt dentelles, all edges gilt, with gift inscription.... given as a gift to Emma Duprey on her 25th birthday dated 1850...some foxing to plates otherwise a beautiful and fine set.

MODERN LIBRARY #136 base DJ Spine, 1927. HBDJ, 1927, 1st edition, Early ISSUE, VG/GOOD, with Preface to 1st & 2nd REVISED edition Follows Copyright pg, Back & Verso of DJ mentions 268 titles & 95 cents & Pre Zipcode Coupon, Flex Board binding w/ Dust Jacket. Overall: VERY GOOD in GOOD DJ with small chip out of back top edge affect word Because; has name and date on orange/white endpapers & small Ink markout; else Clean interior; Tight binding; THICK Red flex board binding has fading along spine; DJ lists 268 of titles inside; 95 cent price intact inner flap; has minor wear at corners; minor edge wear; small piece missing top back edge; tanning along spine. RED TOPSTAIN NICE. 1st Edition. Hardcover. Very Good/Good.

1758 Thomas More UTOPIA Socialism Politics Dystopian Marxism + Warner Memoir"[how can anyone] be silly enough to think himself better than other people, because his clothes are made of finer woolen thread than theirs. After all, those fine clothes were once worn by a sheep, and they never turned it into anything better than a sheep." ― Thomas More, Utopia Thomas More was one of the most important Catholic philosophers of the late 15th-century. He is remembered for his work 'Utopia', a famous book depicting a fictional island society with its own social, religious, and political customs. 'Utopia' and More's other works were highly influential to Anabaptists, communism, and social Marxism. Many aspects of 'Utopia' describe life in a monastery, yet still, More seems to be criticizing European society – which he considered to have many problems. More, a devout Catholic, writes of controversial topics which those on the island of Utopia practiced such as divorce, euthanasia, married priests, and female… Read More

New York: Dodd Mead & Co., 1897. Near Fine, light soiling at end pages, slight spine lean, SCARCE in dust jacket, Very Good Minus, 2" chip at base of spine, smaller chips, old tape mends, the number "9" in blue ink front of jacket. The jacket and cover designs initialed A.M., reportedly for the American Art Nouveau designer Alice Morse. Illustrated by Frederick C. Gordon. Dated 1895 copyright page, 1897 title page. A well-regarded novel about a Scottish doctor. First Edition Thus. Decorative Cloth. Near Fine/Very Good Minus. 16mo - over 5¾" - 6¾" tall.

London: Printed for G. Robinson, and J. Bew, in Pater-Noster-Row, 1776. First edition of this epistolary novel, published two years after the posthumous appearance of Lord Chesterfield's Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman. In that controversial bestseller, Chesterfield advises his son to cultivate an open, inviting manner while steadily advancing his own interests: "take great care that the first impressions you give of yourself may be not only favorable, but pleasing, engaging, nay, seducing." Samuel Johnson remarked that Chesterfield's letters "teach the morals of a whore and the manners of a dancing-master." Philip Sedley, the apt young hero of Pupil of Pleasure, takes "the divine Letters" as his gospel, moving to the spa town of Buxton to practice his pleasing, engaging, and seducing: "what our Garrick is to Shakespeare, I am resolved to be to Chesterfield - the living comment upon the dead text." But what begins as a comic novel, featuring a naïve… Read More

Strawberry-Hill: R. and J. Dodsley, 1757. First Edition. First Edition. 4to. Bound in fine 19th Century full tan polished calf, two raised bands with brown morocco lettering-piece on wide center panel on spine, gilt stamped designs on top and bottom panels of spine, attractive gilt stamped dentelles, bright turquoise endsheets (original to binding), stamp-signed by Riviere. Half-title; engraved device on title-page. FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE, with "Ilissus" on p.8 and the comma after "Swarm" on p.16. The first book printed at Horace Walpole's Strawberry-Hill Press. Cover levant and clean fresh, wear along spine margin, small discreet repair to inner blank margin of the first few leaves, barely noticeable). Quite a nice presentation indeed.

"The Dramatic Works of Moliere Translated into English Prose with Short Introductions and Explanatory Notes by Charles Heron Wall." Three Volumes, Complete Set! Published by George Bell and Sons in 1883.
A fine, three-volume set of the works of Moliere published in the late 19th-century. This 1883 English edition was published in London and features introductory and notes by Charles Wall of Brighton College. Like other complete works of Moliere, this example includes his most famous works such as The Misanthrope, Tartuffe, the Impostor, and Don Juan.
First volume has a B&W illustration of Moliere at the title page.
Books are in Fine/Great condition! Just slight wear/staining on the covers. Corners are bumped a bit. Interiors are in Great condition! Really a lovely set and in Fantastic condition for being over 130 years old!

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1940. Book. Near Fine. Hardcover. 1st Edition. Bound in publishers original cloth binding with titles stamped in black and red. No dust jacket. First edition, later (1940) printing without Scribner's 'Á' on the copyright page. Binding is tight and square, endpapers a bit browned. Top edge dyed, fore-edge untrimmed. Inside clean, no marks or inscriptions. 471 pp. 21,5 x 15 cm. .

Boston - Toronto: Little, Brown and Company, 1964. 1st Edition. Hardcover. Very Good+/Near Fine. Autographed edition limited to 100 copies, this being copy 31, inscribed on the limitation page. Stated First Edition. Bound in full crushed Levant by Harcourt Bindery, Boston; spine with raised bands and gilt lettering. Top edge gilt. Dentelle and marbled endpapers; sewn-in silk ribbon. Printed on mold-made white Arches paper. Designed by Moses F. Carr. Some light soiling on about a dozen pages, otherwise fine. 27 illustrations on plates (eight of them two-page spreads) and a tipped-in color frontispiece. Slipcase in ochre cloth with paper label on back side; one of the top rear corners of slipcase is bumped. 244 pages. Inscribed on the limitation page, ''[This copy is Number] 31 / and is for my friend Hal Daugherty, Jr. / Tom Lea / At El Paso del Norte / Day of San Miguel / anno Di 1964''. Hal M. Daugherty and Tom Lea were both executive officers of the El Paso Museum of Art in the early 1960s.… Read More

Published on behalf of the subscribers by William MacLellan. Glasgow. 1955. FIRST EDITION, first impression. 4to. (11.2 x 8.9 inches). Illustrated with several full page and smaller illustrations by Fergusson, one in green ink, the others all in black. Publishers green cloth with gilt decoration to the front board and spine lettered in gilt. Some faded spots to the spine cloth and some spotting and offsetting to the blank endpapers otherwise a very good bright copy in the original dustwrapper which is decorated and lettered in white on green paper. Some very minor rubbing to the extremities but overall a very good book in a better than very good dustwrapper. First impression, one of about 140 to 150 copies printed and issued to subscribers. A trade issue was published the following year. There is a list of the 135 subscribers printed at the rear of the book. --- A note from Fergusson on the decorations appears before the main text. "The Ogam alphabet was an indigenous script of old Ireland named after… Read More

Copenhagen, Denmark: Politiken, 2011. Softcover. Near Fine. Minor shelf and handling wear to cover, else As New. Photo is of the copy here at Barbed Wire Books.

Nocturnes by Thomas Mann. With Lithographs by Lynd Ward. 1934 Equinox Cooperative Press, #298 of 1000 copies, signed by Mann, 61 pages. Mann was a German Nobel-winning author well known for Death in Venice and Magic Mountain. He was an exiled writer for his opposition to Hitler. Nocturnes consists of three short stories A Gleam, Railway Accident, and A Weary Hour.
Condition: Book in VG condition, some fading to boards, slipcase in fair condition and has split apart.
"Waltz time, tinkling glasses; smoke, steam, hubbub, voices, dance steps. We all know these little weaknesses of ours."

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2021. Signed by Kazuo Ishiguro. First U. S. edition / First printing. Black paper-covered boards. Very fine in a very fine dust jacket. Longlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize. A New York Times Notable Book of the Year 2021. Kazuo Ishiguro is the 2017 Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.