Washington: Navy Department, 1919. Navy Department Letterhead plus a single blank sheet. 8" x 10 1/2" A fine 2 paragraph letter in which future President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in his role as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, gently denies a request from a founder of the American Legion for a...... More
New York: John Day Company, (1943). First printing. Cloth over boards. Octavo. xvi, 262 pages. With this book, Rose Wilder Lane helped reignite a passion for classical liberal ideas in America. She is considered one of the "Founding Mothers" of Libertarianism, along with Ayn Rand and Isabel Paterson, each of..... More
New York: Creative Age Press, (1947). First printing. Cloth over boards. Octavo. [iv], 305 pages. Struggles of mulatto Beau Beauchamp in a racially intolerant New Orleans. First novel by this African American author. This copy inscribed and signed by Thomas on preliminary blank leaf. Ref.: Blockson #5367; Whiteman..... More
Philadelphia: Insurance Company of North America, 1937. Color map, illustrations. Single sheet. Approximately 21" x 30" A great looking 1930s pictorial map of circa 1792 Philadelphia. In addition to the map and illustrations of old fire engines there are illustrations of early insurance fire marks, fire company emblems and border..... More
Washington: The Associated Publishers, Inc., (1948). First printing. Black & white frontispiece, plates. Cloth over boards. Octavo. xii, 378 pages. The first definitive biography of Frederick Douglass. Noted African American scholar Benjamin Quarles objectively treats all phases of Douglass's life in this well researched and footnoted study. Includes a Bibliography..... More
Garden City: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1946. First printing. Black & white photographs, illustrations. Cloth over boards. Octavo. xii, 372 pages. Stetson Kennedy's highly critical yet hopeful look at the South and its institutions and traditions. A native Southerner, Kennedy infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan, Sons of Dixie, and the..... More
New York: Rinehart & Co., Inc., (1950). First printing. Hardcover. Octavo. [iv], 245 pages. A poignant novel of plantation life in the South just after the Civil War. By the author of the non-fiction works on Southern customs and folklore, "Cloud-Walking" and "Folks Do Get Born." More
Berea, KY: Berea College Press, 1923. Limited edition, copy #226 of 325. Stapled wrappers. Octavo. [16 pages]. Barton's lecture discusses Lincoln's youth and education in Kentucky. Among other points Barton makes a convincing case that because Lincoln grew up in the mountains of Kentucky he knew about anti-slavery and anti-secession..... More
Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1933. First printing. Stapled wrappers. Octavo. iv, 22 pages. The correspondence, initiated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, which led to the first official U. S. diplomatic recognition of the Soviet Union after the Bolshevik takeover of Russia in the October Revolution of 1917... More
Sauk City: Arkham House, 1946. First American edition, one of 3,000 copies. Cloth over boards. Octavo. xii, 639 pages. William Hope Hodgson produced a large body of work in horror, fantastic fiction, and science fiction in his relatively short life. He was killed in World War I. This collection presents..... More
Sauk City: Arkham House, 1954. First printing, one of 1,200 copies. Cloth over boards. Duodecimo. [ii], 123 pages. A supernatural horror story of a young English boy who falls under the spell of a vampiric being while on a visit to Auvergne, France. The only book published by Arkham House..... More
New York: Grove Press, (1954). First printing. Cloth over boards. Octavo. 174 pages. A collection of related stories about a small West African boy who ends up in the ghost-inhabited wilderness after fleeing armed slave traders. This was Tutuola's second book, following "The Palm Wine Drinkard." More
London: Elkin Mathews, 1905. First printing. Illustrations by S. H. Sime. Hardcover. Octavo. viii, 94 pages. Signed by Dunsany on the front free endpaper. Lord Dunsany's first book. A collection of pioneering fantasy stories linked by an invented pantheon of deities who inhabit Pegāna. Critics view Dunsany's early..... More
Santa Monica: Earth Books, 1977. First issue. Black and white photographs by Lawrence Robbin. Two 33 1/3 records in sleeve. Scarce album of Charles Bukowski recording his poetry in his Hollywood apartment in 1966. The recording, "90 Minutes in Hell" was finally released as this limited edition LP record in..... More
San Francisco: Sore Dove Press, (2006). Limited edition, #6 of 75. Four pieces of original art. Hardcover portfolio with three ribbon ties. Folio. A portfolio of 22 individually letterpress-printed poems by Beat poets such as Diane di Prima, Neeli Cherkovski, Harold Norse, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and others. This is portfolio #6..... More
San Francisco: Sore Dove Press, (2007). Limited edition. Original paintings, color photographs. Hardcover portfolio with three ribbon ties. Folio. A portfolio by Sore Dove Press of San Francisco celebrating Lawrence Ferlinghetti's 2007 poem "Pity the Nation." There are two letterpress copies of the poem in different formats, each signed and..... More
New York: Vantage Press, Inc., (1951). First printing. Cloth over boards. Octavo. 90 pages. An African American woman's semi-autobiographical novel of overcoming discouragement from her mother and oppression from society to achieve her dreams of happiness and success as a writer. Rosebrough was born in Alabama and became..... More
New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, (1962). First printing. Black and white photographs. Cloth hardcover. Octavo. [x], 177 pages. An account of the tragic loss of the school-ship Albatross in a sudden squall on May 2, 1961. Chuck Gieg was one of the teenaged students on board who survived the..... More
Bath: L. Leake and E. Curll, 1741. Engraved frontispiece. Half leather with marbled paper sides. Duodecimo. [viii], xvi, 48 pages. A clever and amusing piece of 18th century libertine literature that describes the female anatomy in terms of topography, geography, commerce, cultivation, etc. Satirizes contemporaneous pamphlets that promoted British Colonies..... More
Salem: Marine Research Society, 1927. First printing. Black and white plates. Cloth over boards. Quarto. xxxviii, 349, [ad] pages. A well-illustrated volume on the Atlantic slave trade, with contributions from a variety of sources. This was Publication Number Fifteen of the Marine Research Society. More
Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, [1960?]. Hardcover. Duodecimo. 285 pages. Alexander Belyaev was Russia's first sci-fi writer, sometimes called the Russian Jules Verne. Here he spins the story of a reclusive doctor on the coast of South America who gives his son shark gills in a life-saving operation. The son..... More
New York: Book Collectors Society, [1948]. Limited edition. Black and white photographs, drawings. Leather over boards. Octavo. xxxii, 349 pages. An amazing document of discovery as G. Rachel Levy helps uncover a group of archaeological sites in Iraq prior to World War II. Importantly, Ms. Levy speculates as to links..... More
London: Printed for W. Strahan; and T. Cadell, 1784. Third edition, with additions. Speckled calf over boards. Octavos. 1) viii, 499; 2) vi, 518, Appendix [5]; and 3) v, [blank], 465, [blank], Index [45], [1 (ad)] pages. An uncommon but particularly interesting and important edition of "Wealth of Nations," whose..... More
New York: William Morrow and Company, 1963. First printing. Hardcover. Octavo. xii, 244 pages. This penetrating study was the first book on jazz by an African American writer, and Jones came to some new and provocative conclusions which are bolstered by both history and sociology. This is the..... More
New York: Macmillan Company, 1903. Limited edition, #44 of 100 copies on large paper. Photographic frontispiece plus 19 black and white plates, all with tissue guards. Leather and marbled paper over boards. Tall Octavo. x, 598 pages. Handsome volume on the natural history and hunting of ducks, geese, swans, rail..... More