Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1881 / 1884 / 1888 / 1892. [Together, four volumes.] Original dark green cloth with facsimile signature in gilt, beveled. First Edition, first printing, of each of Thoreau's "four seasons" edited from his journal by H.G.O. Blake. (It is curious that the four seasons were.....
Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1864. 24 pp ads dated April 1864. Original green zigzag-grain cloth. First Edition of Thoreau's fourth book, which consisted of only 1450 copies (per Borst; Blanck says 1650). Thoreau's three earlier books had been A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS, WALDEN, and (after his.....
[Hawthorne's second book] Boston: American Stationers Co. / John B. Russell, 1837. 4 pp preliminary ads plus 16 pp ads, all undated. Original grey-green coarse-ribbed morocco-grain cloth. First Edition of Hawthorne's second book -- and the first to bear his name on its title page. 1,000 copies were printed, priced.....
New York: F.M. Lupton, March 15, 1890. Original self-wrappers. Early American edition (pirated), of the tale originally published as "The Pavilion on the Links" -- in Cornhill Magazine in 1880, and then in the two-volume NEW ARABIAN NIGHTS in 1882. (By some, including Arthur Conan Doyle, it was considered to.....
With Over 300 Illustrations. London: Chatto & Windus, 1883. 32 pp ads dated December 1883. Original red cloth pictorially decorated in black. First Edition, which was published five days before the American one (and is considerably scarcer: although the number of English copies is not known, we would surmise that.....
London: Macmillan and Co., 1901. 2 pp undated ads. Original red cloth with Ganesha device in gilt. First English Edition of the book that "is acknowledged as Kipling's masterpiece in fiction... The novel is the finest written about the India of the British Empire" [CGEL]. It follows the adventures of.....
included in "Round the Sofa." London: Sampson Low, Son and Co., 1861. 2 pp ads dated July 1861 (last leaf of final gathering). Original blind-stamped green cloth with spine decorated in gilt. First English Edition, so titled, of this collection of six short stories (the title one, at 164 pages.....
San Francisco: W.E. Wood, 1903. Original dark blue-grey cloth pictorially decorated in gilt and purple. First Edition, first issue, of this volume of verse, much of it ironic and/or satirical; some of the poems had appeared in Bierce's 1892 collection, BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER. This copy is in the presumed.....
[the Bancroft / Groves copy] New York and London: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1899. 4 pp undated ads. Original tan cloth pictorially decorated in red, black, blue and gilt. First Edition of this collection of about 240 very brief (less than one page each) fables. "[Bierce's] 1899 publication of FANTASTIC FABLES.....
San Francisco: E.L.G. Steele, 1891. Original grey cloth. First Edition of Bierce's best-known work, a collection of 19 intense supernatural tales. As Bierce points out in his dedicatory note, "Denied existence by the chief publishing houses of the country, this book owes itself to Mr. E.L.G. Steele, merchant, of this.....
Illustrated by Theodor Hampe. Chicago: F.J. Schulte & Company, 1892. 2 pp undated ads. Original mottled light brown cloth stamped in black. First Edition of this tale purportedly derived from an old German manuscript -- a tale involving an illicit relationship between a monk Ambrosius and a local girl Benedicta.....
San Francisco: Henry Keller & Co., 1877. Original green cloth, beveled. First Trade (and generally the first obtainable) Edition of this very early (and very amusing) Bierce piece, which was preceded only by the three 1873-1874 titles written by "Dod Grile." The "dance of death" is none other than the.....
Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1865. 24 pp ads dated Dec 1864. Original blind-stamped violet-blue cloth. First Edition, which consisted of only 2,000 copies (of which some were sent to England where they were issued with a cancel title page) -- printed in December 1864, but not actually published until March.....
Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1863. 1 preliminary page undated ads. Original blind-stamped blue-green cloth with gilt-decorated spine. First Edition, which consisted of only 1558 copies. This posthumous collection of naturalist essays (including "A Winter Walk," "Autumnal Tints," "Night and Moonlight" and "Walking") was Thoreau's third book, preceded only by A......
In Three Volumes. London: Smith, Elder, & Co., 1878. 2 pp undated ads in Vol II. Original brown cloth decorated in black and gilt. First Edition, which consisted of only 1000 copies. This is Hardy's famous tale of Damon Wildeve of Egdon Heath and the two women who love him.....
[first book, written at age 16] Boston: George W. Briggs & Co., 1855. Original blind-stamped medium-brown cloth with front cover pictorial vignette in gilt. First Edition of Louisa May Alcott's first book, actually published at the end of 1854. Illustrated with a total of six plates (including frontispiece), this is.....
Westminster: Archibald Constable and Co., 1902. Original blind-stamped dark blue cloth. First English Edition, published nine days after the two-volume New York one. This is the memorably tragic tale of Millie Theale, an American girl caught up in the social circles of London and Venice. One of Henry James's better-known.....
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1925. Original orange cloth with dark blue cloth spine, with dust jacket. First Edition (trade copy; there were also 225 limited-signed copies). Along with her two Nebraska masterpieces and DEATH COMES FOR THE ARCHBISHOP, this novel is often cited as one of Cather's greatest works.....
A Story of Chicago. New York: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1903. Original red cloth decorated in gilt. First Edition, first printing (with the J.J. Little device and "First Edition" on the copyright page). This was the second volume in Norris's planned trilogy on human suffering and sacrifice, "The Epic of.....
New York: Doubleday & McClure Co., 1899. 4 pp undated ads. Original red cloth decorated in white. First Edition (with the title page in a three-panel single line border, and with "moment." the last word on p. 106; copies of the revised second printing unfortunately get mistaken as first editions).....
(Together, two volumes.) London: Printed for Distribution amongst Private Subscribers Only, 1894/1897. Original blind-stamped green/maroon cloth. These two collections of ribald verse were clandestine publications by the London publisher Leonard Smithers -- who at the turn of the century was the publisher of choice (often the only choice) for writers.....
Decorated by J. Lockwood Kipling, C.I.E. New York: The Century Co., 1894. Original olive green cloth decorated in gilt. First American Edition, published in the same year as the English edition. Many of the illustrations are by John Lockwood Kipling, Rudyard's father. This book and THE SECOND JUNGLE BOOK, along.....
[illustrated by Kate Greenaway] Illustrated by Kate Greenaway. London: Chatto and Windus, n.d. [1886]. Original olive linen with color pictorial covers, all page edges red. First Edition of this 58-page children's fantasy tale that includes 28 color illustrations by Kate Greenaway. There is a very similar American edition, actually printed.....
Garden City NY: Doubleday, Page & Company 1915. Original navy blue cloth decorated in gilt. First Edition (published six months before the London edition) of Conrad's sad tale of Axel Heyst and the evil (for which read "Germanic") Schomberg. Due to the six-month delay of Methuen's edition, with the Great.....
A Tale in Two Parts. London: Methuen & Co., (1914). 8 pp ads dated Autumn 1913 plus 32 pp ads dated July 1913. Original green cloth decorated in gilt. First Edition of the novel that revived Conrad's career, a popular smash after about a decade without one. Conrad had been.....
