[Rock Creek?]: 1786. Single sheet, laid paper. The document reads: "We whose names are hereunto subscribed do promise & bind ourselves to pay to the Reverend Mr. John Stewart, his order or assigns, the several sums annexed to our [crossed out word "names"] respective names, in consideration for his services..... More
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1960. Black & white frontispiece portrait. Hardcover. Octavo. xxxii, [vi], xi-xii, 17-94 pages, + index. In 1860 Samuel C. Parks asked his friend, Abraham Lincoln, to read and annotate a copy of campaign biography of Lincoln--who had just been nominated as the Republican candidate for president..... More
New York: Columbia University Press, 1943. First edition. Black and white illustrations. Full cloth. Octavo. x, 375 pages. The authors went to original source material in this effort to present an objective analysis of Lincoln's policies in the distribution of public offices, government contracts, and other political favors during his..... More
Yonkers-on-Hudson: World Book Company, 1915. Black and white photographs by Curtis. Hardcover. Octavo. xii, 113 pages. Curtis produced this book as an outline of a motion picture about the Native Americans who inhabited northern British Columbia. In response to surprise that head-hunting existed among North American Indians, Curtis points out..... More
Philadelphia: Printed by A. Bartram, for Thomas Dobson, 1806. First edition. Copperplate engravings. Full leather. Octavo. xvi, 787 pages. This book was the first attempt at a standardized description of drugs and their preparation for medical use in the United States. Dr. Coxe studied in Edinburgh and received his medical..... More
London: (S.n.), 1888. Hardcover. Octavo. 90 pages. The Preface contends that the goal of this work, taken largely from the "very rare work of the Abbe Boileau," is to record for posterity these strange practices that would otherwise not be believed to have been at one time in common practice..... More
Boston: E. P. Woodward & Co., (1867). First edition. Original cloth. Octavo. 131 pages, [5] ads. A rather frank--if overly dire--discussion of masturbation and its heinous effects in both men and women. In his Preface, Dr. Miller decries the lack of open discussion about sexuality in his day. "Children inherit..... More
New York: Rinehart & Company, Inc., (1956). First edition. Illustrated by Lamar Dodd. Full cloth. Octavo. x, 435 pages. The 51st volume in the Rivers of America Series, here is the story of the Santee, which drains the Carolinas east of the Appalachian Mountains. Peopled with rugged individualists of the..... More
New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., (1966). First edition. Full cloth. Octavo. 250 pages. Uncommon biography of the charming and tormented ex-pat writer, William Seabrook. His 1929 book on Haitian voodoo, "The Magic Island," introduced zombies into popular culture. Seabrook once paid an accomplice to steal a chunk of..... More
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1971. First American edition, Review Copy. Full cloth. Octavo. 446 pages. An extraordinary novel set in the midst of political upheaval at the beginning of the Irish War of Independence in the summer of 1919. Was awarded the Lost Man Booker for 1970 in 2010..... More
Boston: Little, Brown and Company, (1983). First printing. Hardcover. Octavo. 178 pages. Collection of 12 stories set in the mountain hollows of West Virginia, by an uncannily observant and tremendously promising young writer. Breece D'J Pancake's bright flame was brief, however, as he took his own life at age 27..... More
New York: Greenberg : Publisher, (1935). First printing. Full cloth. Octavo. 249 pages. A scarce novel of the struggles and successes of immigrants in the United States. More
Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, (1963). First printing, first state. Full cloth. Octavo. 492 pages. Pynchon's innovative first novel, whose appearance in 1963 caused a stir, and had George Plimpton calling Pynchon "a young writer of staggering promise." Pynchon made some final revisions to the text for the subsequent..... More
New York: Simon and Schuster, (1973). First printing. Hardcover. Octavo. 176 pages. Harrison's second novel, featuring a poet who loves only fishing (and girls), a Vietnam vet who loves only violence (and drugs), and beautiful long-legged girl who loves only one of them (at first). This trio of innocents sets..... More
London: R. Carlile, 1819. First edition. Wrappers. Octavo. 28 pages. Richard Carlile was a publisher and political agitator who was charged and ultimately convicted of blasphemy and seditious libel for publishing material that might incite British subjects to hate their government--among these publications being Thomas Paine's "Age of Reason," which..... More
London: Rudolph Ackermann, 1839. First edition. Steel and wood engraved black & white plates and text illustrations. Expertly rebacked original cloth over boards. Octavo. xii, 327 pages. Illustrated treatise on fox-hunting, by the Master of Hounds at the Hertfordshire Hunt Club. More
Pikeville: Pikeville College Press, 1979. First edition. Black & white photographs, facsimile of manuscript. Full cloth. Octavo. [vi], 181 pages. Big Sam McCoy was a nephew of Randolph McCoy, a leader of the famous feud between the Hatfields and McCoys. Big Sam also happened to be present at most of..... More
(Boston): (The Barta Press), [c.1920]. First edition. Black & white photographs. Hardcover. Quarto. 120 pages. Scarce history of this World War I hospital unit, organized at Harvard University in February, 1916 and mobilized in May, 1917. Sailing for France on the Saxonia, the unit arrived at Boulogne, France on May..... More
New York: Columbia Jester, 1932-1933. Cartoons, vintage advertising. Bound volume, full cloth. Quarto, approximately 200 pages. Nice collection of 8 issues of this student publication of Columbia University, bound with the colorful covers intact. 18 year old Herman Wouk appears on the masthead--initially as a lowly member of the associate..... More
Springfield: William C. Hazelton, 1922. 2nd Edition. Photographs. Original cloth. Octavo. [xvi], 138 pages. Contributions by Thomas Dixon, Jr., George L. Hopper, John B. Thompson, Clyde B. Terrell, Dr. Edmund W. Weis, and several others. Stories of waterfowling from the Chesapeake to California, Manitoba to Lousiana. There is a contribution..... More
Takoma Park: Review and Herald Publishings Association, (1898). black & white plates, text illustrations. 1/2 leather. Octavo. xvi, [iv], 19-866 pages. Early edition of one of the most important books by religious pioneer and co-founder of the Seventh Day Adventist church, Ellen G. White. Mrs. White claimed to have received..... More
Philadelphia: Key and Biddle, 1836. 1st Edition. Tables, diagrams. 1/2 leather. Octavo. vii, 216, 174, 16 pages. The first book by this pioneering oceanographer and astronomer. Maury's extensive work charting ocean currents would earn him the nickname "Pathfinder of the Seas." He served in the Confederate Navy during the Civil..... More
Edinburgh: J. Hay and Co., 1818. 1st Edition. 1/2 leather. Duodecimo. cxxix, 244 pages. Robert MacGregor and his brothers were tried for the kidnapping of heiress Jean Key in 1752. Ultimately convicted, Robert was executed by hanging in 1754. This incident is fictionalized and adapted into Robert Louis Stevenson's "Kidnapped."..... More
New York: (Wynkoop & Hallenbeck, Printers), 1893. Original cloth. Octavo. 60 pages. Joseph Edwards had designed the ship-mounted "Edwards Cataract Pump" for hydraulic dredging, and was called upon to deepen the southern entrance to New York Harbor. The work was completed so satisfactorily that Edwards was inundated with requests by..... More
[Boston?]: [1908]. Manuscript. 6.25" x 8" This is an endearing letter from the aged social activist, suffragist, and poet just days before her 89th birthday. Julia Ward Howe is perhaps best known as the writer of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," but was also a prominent abolitionist and women's..... More