The Hi-Lead

Sterling's A Wine of Wizardry, 1909. Inscribed twice.

"The fuss made over this fool poem ("W. of W.") almost made me renounce verse-making forever."

Sterling, George. A Wine of Wizardry and Other Poems

San Francisco: A. M. Robertson, 1909. First edition. 137 pages.

A nicely inscribed copy of this book containing what was, perhaps, Sterling's most well-known poem in his day, "A Wine of Wizardry." The poem first appeared in Cosmopolitan magazine in 1907, accompanied by a hyperbolic note of praise from Ambrose Bierce, "Not in our lifetime has our literature had any new thing of equal length containing so much poetry and so little else." The title poem is a mystical, allusion-laden ode to the wonder of drinking wine and watching the sunset on San Francisco Bay. The poem and Bierce's praise invoked considerable controversy and several parodies.

The San Francisco Examiner, in its editorial pages, took a dim view of the work, "five lines from "A Wine of Wizardry" would drive a man to beat a cripple, and ten lines would send him to the bottom of the river."

This copy wass inscribed in 1923, in Hollywood, three years before Sterling took his own life, and the poet alludes to the controversy: "The fuss made over this fool poem ("W. of W.") almost made me renounce verse-making forever. Ever your friend, George. Hollywood, Oct. 10, 1923." This copy is inscribed a second time on the half-title, "For George. R. Hyde from George A. Sterling." As is usually the case with signed copies of this title, the author also corrected a typographic error on p. 47.

$250

Thoughts on Space Travel

 

Clarke, Arthur C.

Interplanetary Flight: An Introduction to Astronautics

London: Temple Press, (1950). First edition. Small 8vo. 164 pages.

First edition of the first book by the author of 2001: A Space Odyssey, inscribed to a noted rocket scientist: "To Fred, with all best wishes and many happy memories of London, 1951 / Arthur Clarke." 

$2,000

[Scan of inscription follows after the jump]

Autograph Quotation by Nehru

Nehru, Jawaharlal.

Autograph Quotation Signed.

1945. Autograph quotation signed by the first prime minister of India, before Independence. The quote is from Nehru's autobiography, Toward Freedom:

"There are no supermen or philosopher-kings; there are only frail human beings who cannot help thinking that their own personal good or the advancement of their own ideas is identical to the public good."

Signed in full and dated Nov 27, 1945, prior to his taking office as the first elected leader of independent India. Fine, but for an old crease and three small tack holes (not affecting text). There is an ink spot on the verso (back), which is just visible from the front.

SOLD

Double signed Raymond Carver

Carver, Raymond.

At Night the Salmon Move.

Santa Barbara: Capra Press, 1976. First edition. A nice twice-signed association copy of Carver's third collection of poems, including "You Don't Know What Love Is (an Evening with Charles Bukowski)" and the title poem.

$600

Inscribed Aaron Copland

Copland, Aaron

Our New Music: Leading Composers in Europe and America.

New York: Whittlesey House, 1941.

First edition. One of America's greatest composers explains the then-new style of music to a general audience. This copy is inscribed, "For Miss Dennison ' Aaron Copland / May 1943," and is somewhat uncommon thus.

$350

Signed, limited by the coiner of Shangri-La

Hilton, James.

Ceiling Unlimited.

Burbank, California: Lockheed Vega, 1943.

First edition. Cloth spine, paper-covered boards, paper label on front cover. This is copy 84 out of an edition of 100 signed and numbered copies.

$300

Autograph musical quotation from a modern composer

[Music] [Jan Cikker].

 Banská Bystrica.

Martin: Osveta, (1974).

First edition thus. A nicely illustrated promotional book for a mid-sized medieval town in central Slovakia, with an introduction by native son Jan Cikker. Cikker has inscribed the book with a musical phrase.

$50

Talbot Mundy Channels Baudelaire?

[Mundy, Talbot]

Baudelaire: A Study. by Arthur Symons.

New York: E. P. Dutton & Company, 1920.

First American edition. British fantasy and adventure novelist Talbot Mundy's copy of Symon's book on Baudelaire. Mundy's bookplate is on the front paste-down, facing an old black-and-white photograph with the handwritten caption (in an unknown hand, possibly Mundy's), "Baudelaire's tomb. Photo by Elsa Barker." Barker was best-known for channeling the dead and for her book, "Last Letters from a Living Dead Man," which purported to be communications from the afterlife. 

SOLD

Inscribed Reinhold Niebuhr

Niebuhr, Reinhold.

The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness A Vindication of Democracy and a Critique of Its Traditional Defence.

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1944.

First edition. This book is the source of one of his most well-known aphorisms: "Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary." This copy is inscribed to Edward Ohrenstein, a minister who, at the time the book was published, was dean of the Pacific Unitarian School for the Ministry (now the Thomas Starr King School), in Berkeley. 

SOLD

Signed by Octavio Paz and artist Enrique Chagoya

Beckett, Samuel, Octavio Paz, Eliot Weinberger, and Enrique Chagoya.

The Bread of Days / El pan de los días: Once poetas mexicanos / Eleven Mexican Poets.

Covelo: Yolla Bolly Press, (1994). First edition. Translated by Samuel Beckett; notes on the poets by Octavio Paz; commentaries by Eliot Weinberger and Octavio Paz; and twelve etchings by Enrique Chagoya.

$2,500

Inscribed by Charles Schulz

[Schulz, Charles M.]

Johnson, Rheta Grimsley.

Good Grief: The Story of Charles M. Schulz.

New York: Pharos Books, 1989. First edition. Published to coincide with the fortieth anniversary of the Peanuts comic strip, this authorized biography was, for many years, the best source of information on the shy cartoonist's life. It has only recently been supplanted by Schulz and Peanuts, the acclaimed biography by David Michaelis. This copy is inscribed by Schulz, "For Al and Kitty—best wishes, Charles M. Schulz."

SOLD

Signed by a member of the Algonquin Round Table

Woollcott, Alexander.

Woollcott's Second Reader.

New York: Viking Press, 1937.

First edition, limp leather issue. A 1056-page anthology of Woollcott's essays and criticism. Woollcott was a member of the Algonquin Round Table and in this book he expounds on Wharton, Beerbohm, Lawrence, Cather, Maugham, Hemingway, Stevenson, and many other writers. Signed.
SOLD