or, Something Singular. A Comic Burletta in One Act. Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1877. Original green cloth decorated in black. First "Collectible" Edition, being a volume in Osgood's diminutive "Vest-Pocket Series." We say first "collectible" edition of this play first performed in 1837, because the only known copy...
[London: St. Luke's Hospital, 1860.] Original pale pink wrappers. First Edition, second and usual issue -- with the final paragraph in bold (not like the rest of the text), with the wrapper pink (not mauve -- though all are today faded), with the front cover title followed by a comma...
[the very scarce first issue] [London: St. Luke's Hospital, 1860.] Original pale mauve wrappers. First Edition, first issue -- with the final paragraph in the same type as the rest of the text (and not in bold type), with the wrapper mauve (and not pink -- though all are today...
[a "probably unique" binding] being the Occupation of His Scanty Leisure: with a Preface relative to the Author, by Charles Dickens. London: T.C. Newby, 1844. 3 pp ads. Original blind-stamped olive green cloth, spine lettered in gilt. First Edition. Overs was a carpenter who "had shown some literary ability" [Eckel]...
By Boz. With Other Tales and Sketches [by other authors], from Bentley's Miscellany and The Library of Fiction. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea and Blanchard, 1837. Original drab boards with rose cloth spine and printed label. First Edition of this early collection of tales by various authors -- which constitutes one of...
![PICKWICKIAN ILLUSTRATIONS. Twenty Plates by [William] Heath. Charles Dickens](/pictures/thumb/14417.jpg?v=1571425982)
[London:] T[homas]. McLean, Haymarket, 1837. Original decorative blue wrappers decorated in gold, with gold-on-black printed cover label. First Edition of this bound volume of twenty etchings by William Heath, to complement those by Seymour, by Buss and by "Phiz" in the actual serial parts of PICKWICK PAPERS -- and published...
[monthly issues in wrappers] Family Story-Teller; consisting of Tales, Essays, and Sketches of Character, Original and Selected. London: Chapman and Hall, n.d. [1836]. Six issues (including everything Dickens contributed) of the original fourteen, in original printed wrappers. First Appearances of two of Dickens's very earliest stories. Dickens contributed only these...
London: Eveleigh Nash, 1912. 2 pp undated ads. Original dark blue cloth. First Edition of this autobiographical work, which initially appeared serially in Ford Madox Ford's newly-founded "English Review." What is remarkable about Conrad's reminiscences is how clearly he employed fictional techniques worked out with Ford,... wherein the narrative intensity increases...
Three Stories. New York: McClure, Phillips and Company, 1903. 10 pp undated ads. Original blind-stamped dark blue cloth. First American Edition, first printing. These are the three "other stories" that had appeared in TYPHOON AND OTHER STORIES (London 1903); "Typhoon" itself had already been published separately the year before in...
![THE CHILDREN OF THE SEA [C. W. Stoddard copy]. Joseph Conrad](/pictures/thumb/14405.jpg?v=1571251174)
A Tale of the Forecastle. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1897. Original pictorial light blue-grey mottled cloth. First Edition, first issue, of the tale subsequently published as THE NIGGER OF THE "NARCISSUS." Conrad wrote this story with the "Nigger" title, but consented to change the title for the American...
A Story of an Eastern River. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1895. Original dark olive green cloth. First Edition of Joseph Conrad's first book, an edition believed to have consisted of 1000-1250 copies. Conrad, after meeting the real "Olmeijer" in East Borneo in 1887, gradually produced the manuscript of this book...
Or The Skeleton in the Cupboard. London: William Heinemann, (1930). Original blue cloth, with dust jacket. First Edition of perhaps his [Maugham's] best novel, a witty and delicious comedy of literary England in the early decades of the 20th century, told in the first person by a novelist, Ashenden. The pushing...
Brattleboro [Vermont]: published by T[homas]. P. James, 1873. Original brown cloth. First Edition of one of the earliest -- and certainly most curious -- sequels/solutions to Charles Dickens's THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD, published in Vermont only three years after the mystery was left unfinished when Dickens died in June.....
New York: Harper & Brothers, 1870. 2 pp preliminary ads plus 4+4 pp terminal ads dated Oct 1870. Original yellow-brown pictorial wrappers. Early (second) American edition, published in late September, about three weeks after Fields Osgood's edition -- and about three months after Dickens's death in June left this tale...
With Illustrations. Boston: Fields, Osgood, & Co., 1870. Original green cloth. First American Edition, second and usual issue with added material -- of the tale left unfinished at the time of Dickens's death in June 1870. The scarce earlier issue, withOUT the "Uncollected Pieces," was bound only in wrappers; furthermore...
Stories of a Case of Tokay. London: Eveleigh Nash, 1904. Original blue cloth pictorially stamped in white and light green. First Edition of this tale of murder and intrigue in India -- featuring detective Harvey Crook and the theft of the Eye of Deccan, the green diamond belonging to the...
Being some further Chronicles of Martin Hewitt: Investigator. London: Eveleigh Nash, 1903. Original blue cloth pictorially decorated in red, white and black. First Edition of these six "further chronicles" of cases solved by Martin Hewitt, Investigator -- the fourth and final such volume. These are the cases "of Samuel's Diamonds,"...
Illustrated. New and Revised Edition. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1894. 4 pp undated ads. Original light blue cloth decorated in black. "New and Revised" American edition (-- which is to say the second issue of the first American edition). These eleven tales conclude with "The Final Problem," with Sherlock's...
Illustrated. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1894. 6 pp undated ads. Original light blue mottled cloth decorated in black. First American Edition -- which includes one case excluded from the U.K. edition. In 1892, the first twelve Sherlock Holmes cases to have appeared in The Strand Magazine were published, by...
Philadelphia: T.B. Peterson & Brothers, n.d. [1861]. Without original wrappers. First American Edition of THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. "A Message from the Sea" was the All The Year Round Extra Christmas Number at the end of 1860; the pieces that formed THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELLER (so spelled in England) appeared there too...
New-York: Wiley & Putnam, 1846. Original blind-stamped red cloth. First Complete American Edition, issued as No. LXIII in Wiley & Putnam's "Library of Choice Reading" -- available either in wrappers on its own, or bound in red cloth together with Mrs. Jameson's MEMOIRS AND ESSAYS, as here. During 1846 seven...
[in Two Volumes.] Boston: Jenks, Hickling & Swan, 1854. Original blind-stamped dark brown cloth with gilt-decorated spines. Early American edition, just possibly the first complete one. Since Harper published the two volumes of its edition separately in March 1853 and in March 1854 (so dated on the title pages), it...
[the scarce first US edition] [In Two Volumes.] New York: Harper & Brothers, 1853/1854. Original blind-stamped red cloth with gilt-decorated spines. First American Edition, first printing (dated 1853 and 1854, and with a different publisher's address in each volume). As with the three volumes of the English edition, which were...
[Twain's first book] And other Sketches. Edited by John Paul. New-York: C.H. Webb, 1867. Original brown cloth, beveled, with gilt frog in lower left corner of front cover (and in blind on rear cover). First Edition, second printing, of Mark Twain's first book -- a collection of anecdotes and sketches...
[Poker Flats & Roaring Camp] Boston: Fields, Osgood, & Co., 1870. Original green cloth. First Edition. This is Harte's third and best-known book, one which he spent the rest of his life unsuccessfully trying to equal. These tales had originally appeared in the Overland Monthly, of which he was the...
