Philadelphia: Carey & Hart, 1839. First edition. Original cloth over boards. Duodecimos. 242 and 228 pages. Frederick Marryat was a British naval officer and pioneering nautical fiction writer. He traveled to America in 1836-1837, and this is the first American edition of his account of that visit. It is an..... More
Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1849. Original cloth over boards. An important publication on baptism from the period of the Second Great Awakening. The Appendix discusses the common reasons and arguments by which infant baptism is urged and defended, and evidence in favor of full immersion as the mode of..... More
New York: Brewer, Warren & Putnam`, 1932. First edition. Frontispiece portrait after the painting by Charles Willson Peale, facsimiles. Hardcover. Octavo. x, 140 pages. An important early biography of John Hanson, a Marylander, who was the first person elected "President of the United States in Congress Assembled," on November 5..... More
Boston: Little, Brown and Company, (1976). First printing. Drawings by Consuelo Hanks. Hardcover. Octavo. xiii, 304 pages. Warner's landmark work on the Atlantic Blue Crab and its primary habitat, the Chesapeake Bay. This was Warner's first book and it won him the Pulitzer Prize in 1977. More
New York: Motor Boating, (1932). First edition. Drawings and photographs by the author. Half leather over marbled boards. Octavo. [i]-xviii,1- 302, xix-xxx pages. A charming, chatty, and wide-ranging little book by a master small boat designer of the early 20th century. In addition to the information in the title, there..... More
London: Sampson Low, Marston & Company, (1913). First British edition. Black and white portrait plates, maps, and battle plans. Coth over boards. Octavo. xxiv, 280 pages. A thorough study of the naval operations of the American Revolution by one of America's most important naval strategists. HATTENDORF A20b. More
[San Francisco]: Soheyl Dahi/Sore Dove Press, 2014. Limited edition, one of 30 copies. Portfolio. 10 1/4" x 12" Here is Ferlinghetti's scathing 1962 letter to TIME in defense of Jack Kerouac and his then-latest-book "Big Sur." TIME had reviewed the book in what Ferlinghetti here calls a "...snide, sneering, condescending..... More
Detroit: The Griswold Press, 1926. Pictorial map. Single sheet. 22 1/2" x 35" McCandlish's famous 1926 Bootlegger's Map satirizing Prohibition. All manner of alcoholic beverages are celebrated through comical drawings and puns of various place names, such as "BAR-Harbor," "Chi-KEG-o," and "Missis-SIP-i." A very attractive copy of this iconic..... More
New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, (2003). First printing of the revised edition. Drawings by Maurice Sendak. Hardcover. Square duodecimo. [viii], 334 pages. A superb selection of 27 stories chosen from Grimm's tales. In addition to several familiar standards there are many that will be new to most readers, such..... More
Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, (1940). First printing. Black and white plates. Cloth over boards. Octavo. 400 pages. Excellent history of the famous 19th century theatrical family whose youngest son, John Wilkes Booth, assassinated Abraham Lincoln in 1865. Well researched, with extensive section of commentary and notes at rear. This copy..... More
New Haven: Connecticut Branch, W. O. N. P. R., 1933. Broadside. 7" x 10 1/4" This is an original handbill from a major women's group soliciting votes to repeal Prohibition in 1933. Women's organizations--particularly the Women's Christian Temperance Union--are strongly associated with passage of the 18th Amendment to the..... More
Baltimore: Printed by W. M. Innes, 1863. Later card covers. Octavo. 48 pages. Interesting and uncommon pamphlet published in Baltimore during the Civil War which is highly critical of Abraham Lincoln, New England, and Abolitionists. The author sees disunion and the Civil War as resulting from self-righteous New Englanders too..... More
New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, (1947). First printing. Hardcover. Octavo. [iv], 314 pages. Accounts of ten prominent murder cases in San Francisco between 1870 and 1936, including those of Theodore Durrant, Codelia Botkin, Emma LeDoux, and Jerome Braun von Selz. A volume in the Regional Murder Series edited by..... More
New York: Robert Carter & Brothers, 1857. First edition. Original cloth over boards. Duodecimo. [xii], 203 pages, plus 12 page publisher catalogue. The first published collection of poetry by Francis Scott Key. "The Star Spangled Banner" is the first poem in the book, appearing on pp. 31-33 after an introductory..... More
Philadelphia: Rodgers Publishing Company, 1897. First printing. Black and white plates. Clover over boards. Octavo. 254 pages. The first biography of the 19th century actress and businesswoman, Laura Keene, written by one who knew her. Keene, of course, is best known in connection with the Lincoln assassination and the play..... More
New York: James Miller, [1860]. Hand colored. Single sheet. Approximately 17 1/4" x 29 1/4" Street map of New York City that was drawn by Humphrey Phelps in 1857. Wards are shaded in different colors. Also included are parts of Brooklyn, Hoboken, and Jersey City. Includes a guide to locate..... More
New York: Rinehart & Company, Inc., (1948). First printing. Black & white photos, data tables. Hardcover. Octavo. xvi, 541 pages. The scarce account of efforts by the Office of Strategic Services to get control of their recruiting of operatives in the middle of World War II. The OSS was founded..... More
New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, (1932). First printing. Cloth over boards. Octavo. xviii, 156 pages. A well-documented study of the negative effects of national Prohibition and the Eighteenth Amendment, written by one who had been an advocate for Prohibition a decade earlier. Tillitt cites data that shows the tremendous..... More
Boston: Beacon Press, [2004] and (2005). First editions thus. Hardcovers. Octavos. xii, 255 pages and [xii], 178 pages. Fantastic collection of work from this master poet of the natural world and the fundamental questions of life and death. Selected by Mary Oliver herself, with volume two containing 42 new poems..... More
Boston: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, 1851. First edition. Original cloth over boards. Duodecimo. 344 pages. Hawthorne's masterful novel of a New England family's ancestral guilt and atonement tinged with supernatural retribution. The setting is the 1668 Turner-Ingersoll Mansion in Salem, Massachusetts, once owned by Hawthorne's relatives. "The House..... More
Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1865. Half leather with marbled paper sides. Duodecimos. Over 1,600 pages. A beautiful edition of Don Quixote, a work widely regarded as the first modern novel. A pinnacle of world literature, on par with the work of Shakespeare--with whom Cervantes was a contemporary. Includes a...... More
New York: Brewer & Warren, 1930. First printing. Black & white chapter heads, cuts. Hardcover. Octavo. xii, 281 pages. Rockwell Kent had just finished illustrating his famous edition of Moby Dick for the Lakeside Press when he set out on a voyage to Greenland with a couple of friends. The..... More
New York: Macmillan Company, 1923. Limited edition. Original cloth over boards. Quarto. x, 175 pages. A comedic Prohibition entertainment set in Ancient Greece. The Preface is by "Samuel Johonson," then dead for 139 years. Copy #426 of a limited edition, signed by Owen Wister on limitation page. Several bold full..... More
[Baton Rouge]: [Army and Navy Publishing Company, Inc.], 1941. Black and white photographs, one color cartoon. Hardcover. Folio. [vi], 89, [26] pages. Uncommon book on this California coastal defense regiment during World War II. Camp McQuaide was located near Watsonville, California, and the site is now occupied by Monterey Bay..... More
[c.1980s?]. Original. Pastel on paper. Single sheet. Approximately 13 1/2" x 17" Untitled original art in pastels by award winning courtroom and journalistic sketch artist, Freda L. Reiter. The scene depicts an active Cuban cigar and rum market. Reiter studied drawing in Mexico City under Diego Rivera. She..... More