[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.....
[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.....
![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.....
By Quiz [sic]. Illustrated by Phiz. London: Cassell, Petter, and Galpin; and 596 Broadway, New York, n.d. [1869]. 2 pp undated ads. Original bright green cloth decorated in gilt, black and red, beveled. First American Collected Edition of all three "Sketches" -- two of which actually were written by Charles.....
Dedicated to Young Ladies. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea and Blanchard, 1838. Original dark green cloth with front cover label. First American Edition. Dickens wrote this as a protest against SKETCHES OF YOUNG LADIES, pseudonymously written by "Quiz" (subsequently attributed to Rev. Edward Caswall) the year before. That volume classified these "interesting.....
London: W. Collins Sons & Co., (1917). Original blue-black cloth. First Edition of this unfinished, posthumously-published novel -- about America's Gilded Age, and specifically about two dying millionaires and the corruption in their wake. "It was composed during the summer of 1914... [and] had reached the point where it breaks.....
["Presentation Copy"] London: Methuen & Co., (1911). 32 pp ads dated August 1911. Original green cloth with gilt-decorated spine. First Edition (English), issued simultaneously with the American. According to James himself, "The Outcry" deals with a question sharply brought home of late to the conscience of English Society -- that of.....
["Presentation Copy"] London: Methuen & Co., (1910). 32 pp ads dated Sep 1910. Original rust-brown cloth with spine decorated in gilt. First English Edition (1500 copies published on 13 October 1910, one week after the American) of this collection of five tales. The tales are "The Velvet Glove," "Mora Montravers,".....
Illustrated by W.T. Smedley. New York and London: Harper & Brothers, 1909. Original red cloth. First Separate Edition. JULIA BRIDE's first appearance in book form had been in Vol. XVII of the New York Edition of James's works, published earlier the same year; there was no separate English edition. Per.....
