New York: John Lane Company | London: John Lane, The Bodley Head, 1916. Original orange-brown cloth decorated in black and gilt. First Edition of Sherwood Anderson's first (and most autobiographical) novel -- a rags-to-riches-to-unhappiness tale of an Ohio newsboy, complete with alcoholic father and martyr mother who in trying to.....
London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1911. Original very dark blue cloth with paper spine label. First Edition of Rupert Brooke's first book, which consisted of only 500 copies; Frank Sidgwick, a fellow Rugby graduate, had agreed to publish it but only at Brooke's financial risk. POEMS was preceded only by several.....
[original boards, leaves uncut] The Third Edition. London: Printed for A. Strahan; T. Cadell in The Strand; and W. Creech, Edinburgh, 1787. Original blue-grey paper-covered boards with cream paper spine and printed label, page edges uncut. "The London edition," which is to say the third edition overall (so stated, unlike.....
With Selections from his Journals and Correspondence. By His Son. [in Two Volumes.] London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1848. 32 pp Vol I ads dated April 29, 1848. Original blind-stamped dark purple-brown cloth. First Edition of Wilkie Collins's first book -- a memoir of his father the landscape and.....
A Story of an Eastern River. New York: Macmillan and Co., 1895. 3 pp undated ads. Original black cloth. First American Edition of Conrad's first book, with a text that varies considerably from the English edition (because it was typeset from uncorrected proofs). We find the American edition to be.....
A Story of an Eastern River. Second Edition. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1896. Original dark green cloth. First Edition, early printing -- of Conrad's first book. Though labeled "Second Edition" on the title page, this is actually a reprint of the first edition; all copies of this printing seem to.....
New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1891. 8 pp undated ads. Original yellow printed wrappers. First Edition of Davis's first book (other than an 1884 wrappered piece written while he was a student at Lehigh). It was his newspaper story "Gallegher" that earned Davis the newspaper writer immediate fame; three of.....
illustrative of Every-Day Life and Every-Day People. Being a Continuation of "Watkins Tottle, and Other Sketches." Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Blanchard, 1837. Original drab boards with rose cloth spine and printed label. First American Edition, consisting of 1,250 copies issued in February 1837. These are the twelve pieces that had.....
illustrative of Every-Day Life and Every-Day People. With Twenty Illustrations by George Cruikshank. New Edition, Complete. Philadelphia: Lea & Blanchard, 1841. Original blind-stamped dark brown cloth with gilt spine vignette. First American Combined (and first American Illustrated) Edition -- later (1841) printing. The first and second series of SKETCHES BY.....
In: THE LIBRARY OF FICTION, or Family Story Teller; consisting of Original Tales, Essays, and Sketches of Character. With Fourteen Illustrations [in each volume]. Vol. I [& II]. London: Chapman and Hall, 1836/1837. Bound in contemporary half calf with marbled boards. First Edition in book form. Chapman & Hall's monthly.....
By Boz. To which is added The Pantomime of Life, by the same author. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Blanchard, 1837. Bound in full mottled calf with raised bands on the spine. First Edition so collected. In January 1837, Carey Lea & Blanchard published a "Library of Fiction" anthology volume titled.....
and What People Thought of Him. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1894. 2 pp undated ads. Original red cloth decorated in black and gilt. First Edition of the author's first novel, based on his own abortive efforts to enter politics in his hometown of Brooklyn. The semi-realistic PETER STIRLING is.....
[first book, "From the Author"] By John Sinjohn. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1897. Original olive green cloth decorated in gilt. First Edition of John Galsworthy's first book, a collection of ten tales. Only 500 copies were printed -- on a commission basis, with Galsworthy paying for the printing; in order.....
A Novel. With an Etching by H. Macbeth-Raeburn and a Map of Wessex. (London and New York: Harper & Brothers, 1898.) Original dark green cloth with monogram device in gilt. "Wessex Novels" edition, American issue. DESPERATE REMEDIES was Hardy's first novel, first published in 1871 in three volumes; here it.....
A Novel. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1874. Endpaper ads dated June 5th, 1875. Original cream cloth decorated in black. First American Edition of Hardy's first book, being a volume in the "Leisure Hour Series" of Henry Holt. Though this was his first book published in England (anonymously, in.....
[a handsome copy] The FolkLore of the Old Plantation. With Illustrations by Frederick S. Church and James H. Moser. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1881. 8 pp undated ads. Original green cloth pictorially decorated in black and gilt. First Edition, first printing, of Joel Chandler Harris's first and most.....
Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1876. Original blind-stamped green cloth with gilt-decorated spine. Second Edition of Hawthorne's first book FANSHAWE (the first had been in 1828), plus the first appearance in book form of the other pieces -- the five "biographical sketches." This title was published as a twin.....
Stories. Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1884. Original dark royal blue cloth decorated in black. First Edition of Hearn's first book (other than an 1882 translation of Gautier). This was Hearn's attempt to reconstruct "fantastically beautiful stories from the exotic literature which fascinated him" [OCAL]. Born in the Ionian Islands.....
Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1875. Original terra-cotta cloth, beveled. First Edition of Henry James's first book, which consisted of only 1,500 copies. This is a collection of six tales that had appeared in American periodicals (mostly the Atlantic Monthly) over the preceding years. In 1873 James's father wrote.....
With Four Illustrations by the late James McBryde. London: Edward Arnold, 1904. 16 pp ads dated Nov 1904. Original oatmeal burlap with yapped fore-edge. First Edition of M.R. James's first book, consisting of eight tales of the supernatural. James was Provost of King's College, Cambridge, where he also directed the.....
[his first and scarcest novel] Reprinted, with corrections and additions, from Fraser's Magazine. London: John W. Parker, 1851. 8 pp undated ads. Original blind-stamped rose-brown wavy-grain cloth. First Edition of Charles Kingsley's first-written (and today his scarcest) novel. It first appeared serially in Fraser's Magazine during the latter half of.....
A Novel. New York: Duffield & Company, 1911. Original light blue-grey cloth decorated in white and black and with lettering in white. First Edition of D.H. Lawrence's first book, which he began in 1906 (at age 20) and rewrote several times; it is the tale of a love triangle, between.....
during a Four Months' Residence in a Valley of the Marquesas; the Revised Edition, with a Sequel. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1876. 7 pp undated ads (primarily for OMOO). Original blind-stamped green cloth. "The Revised Edition, with a Sequel," later Harper printing. TYPEE was Melville's first book, first published.....
![THE ORDEAL OF RICHARD FEVEREL [signed by Meredith]. George Meredith](/pictures/thumb/11317.jpg?v=1564065591)
[signed by Meredith] A History of Father and Son. In Three Volumes. London: Chapman and Hall, 1859. Original blind-stamped greenish-brown cloth. First Edition of Meredith's first full-length novel (preceded only by a volume of verse and two single-volume burlesques). FEVEREL is the tough tale of a father's "system" of raising.....
![POEMS [inscribed by Meredith]. George Meredith](/pictures/thumb/11316.jpg?v=1564065591)
[inscribed by Meredith] London: John W. Parker and Son, n.d.[1851]. Original blind-stamped purple cloth. First Edition of George Meredith's first book, a volume of verse published when he was only 23 (and including many poems written at the age of 18 and earlier). Meredith had just married the widowed daughter.....
