GENERAL READING GOOD USED BOOKS
[This is a Mainly-20th-Century General Reading & Reference File]
Part I - Authors A-K  |  Part II - Authors L-Z

“Hai-Kai”

•  Inscribed by the author on p. viii. Limited to 2000 copies of which this is copy # 1117. Profusely illustrated with drawings and photographs.

•  Publisher's green cloth, with an attractive design on the front cover. Very light rubbing over joints, and soiling to front cover. Pages clean. Very good. (5895)

J. Masefield's Letters

•  First edition.

•  Publisher's cloth. Very good condition, in a very good dust jacket.

Reading Copy

•  First edition. "Criterion Miscellany -- No. 11."

•  Roberts A52. Publisher's cloth. Lacks d/j. Text loosening from binding. Nick on spine. Dusty. (5556)

Medical Education

•  First edition. The author, a professor of clinical medicine at the NYU School of Medicine, "takes a critical look at the evolution of medical education and physician training," and its effects on current clinical medicine.

•  Publisher's cloth. Very good condition, in a very good dust jacket.

Ceramics

•  Sixth edition. Illustrated with color & black-and-white photos and drawings.

•  Publisher's cloth. Very good condition, no dust jacket.

In Italian

•  Poetry in Italian, with introduction in English.

•  Very good in maroon publisher's cloth, framed in blind, front cover and spine with gilt-stamped title; very minor edge and corner wear. All edges gilt. Silk bookmark present. (3105)

Lyon, Marguerite. Hurrah for Arkansas! From razorbacks to diamonds. Indianapolis: Bobbs–Merrill, 1947. 8vo.
$12.50

•  Illustrated. With the year 2000 behind us, this woman's energetic 1947 exploration of the state of Arkansas seems to describe an American time much more distant than the specific locality she was introducing to outsiders—outsiders then (as now) given to ridiculous stereotypes of the place she came to love. Schoolcraft, she feels, is one who has a lot of bad hillbilly jokes to answer for!

•  In tattered dust jacket. Owner's name and address rubber–stamped on half–title.

[Lytton, Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer–Lytton, 1st baron]. Leila; or the Siege of Grenada. By the author of "Pelham,"... complete in one volume. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1838. 8vo.
$75.00

•  Pirated first American edition. In the same year editions appeared in Cincinnati (!) and Philadelphia.

•  Publisher's cloth, waterstained, cloth with a few tears; shows wear. Paper spine label. Some foxing.

•  First edition. A story about a young man unfairly locked up in an insane asylum for seven years for throwing his mother's lover into a swimming pool. Upon his release, he sets out on a journey across America "to catch up with the life he has missed."

•  Publisher's cloth. Very good condition, in a very good dust jacket.

His First Novel

•  First trade edition, first issue. The first novel of the former co-anchor of PBS's "MacNeil/Lehrer Newshour," Robert MacNeil.

•  Publisher's cloth. Very good condition, in a good dust jacket; short tear at the top front panel of dust jacket.

Sailing Around

•  First edition. With photographs and maps.

•  Publisher's cloth. Very good condition, in a good dust jacket; some nicks along the lower edge of the jacket's near panel and head of the spine.

Martin, Helen R[eimensnyder]. Martha of the Mennonite country. Garden City & New York: Doubleday, Page, & Company, 1915. 8vo. [3 (1 blank)], frontis., [4 (1 blank)], 3–318, [2 (1 blank)] pp.
$25.00

•  Born and raised in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Helen Martin succeeds in depicting the customs of the Pennsylvania Dutch in rich and accurate detail. The binding is signed by the designer with his/her monogram (not deciphered).

•  Publisher's green cloth, front covers stamped with a farm house and lettered in gilt. Spine extremities tender and a little soiling to gilt on spine. Pencilling on front free endpaper.

(Morgan, David). Morgan, Aubrey Niel. David Morgan 1833–1919: The life and times of a master draper in South Wales. South Wales & elsewhere: The Starling Press, 1977. 8vo. Illus.
$15.00

•  First edition. Illustrated with photographs.

•  Publisher's cloth. Fore-edges of text spotted. Very good condition, in a very good dust jacket.

Plays aboutSouthern Life

•  First trade edition, first issue. First performed in Savannah, Georgia, in 1985. Taken word for word from the letters of the Charles Colcock Jones family, the dramas combine the family's story with an examination of life in the antebellum South.

•  Publisher's cloth. Very good condition, in a very good condition.

Picture History ofThe Big Apple

•  First edition. Illustrations on nearly every page.

•  Publisher's cloth. Cloth sunned. Good copy, no dust jacket.

Irish History

•  First American edition, later issue. This book is about the relations between the Irish Catholics and Protestants and also "between the two political entities created by those relations."

•  Publisher's cloth. Spine sunned. Good-plus condition.

First Paperback Edition (1943)

•  First paperback edition, probably first printing. No. 31 from the New Avon Library series. List of new titles (nos. 23-31) printed on inside of back cover. Three pages of advertisements in the back.

•  Original wrappers. Very light rubbing to spine and at edges. Rear cover with a single 2" crease, some wrinkles on spine. Mildly age-toned. Very good. (7181)

O'Neill, Eugene. Days without end. New York: Random House, ©1934. 8vo. 157 pp.
$27.50

•  First trade edition, first issue.

•  Publisher's cloth; no dust jacket.

•  First trade edition.

•  Original cloth; no dust jacket; front hinge starting.

•  First trade edition.

•  Publisher's cloth; no dust jacket; owner's name in ink on front free endpaper.

•  First trade edition.

•  Original cloth; no dust jacket; covers discolored, rear one seriously.

•  First trade edition.

•  Publisher's cloth; no dust jacket; rubber stamp on front free endpaper; spine sunned; covers spotted.

•  First trade edition.

•  Original cloth; no dust jacket.

Middle Ground between“Beach Reading” & Proust

No, you don't get all these books.
That's an image of one of Olmert's illustrations!

•  First edition of a quintessential “coffee table book” about books. As an indication, the color plate illustrations include Johann Schönsperger's 1491 printing of Aesop's Fables; a decorative border print of Chaucer and Cupid by Eric Gill from the 1927 Golden Cockerel Press publication of Troilus and Criseyde; a carpet page from the “Lindisfarne Gospels” (ca. 698); a variety of printers' marks of the 15th and 16th centuries featuring those of Johann Froben, Nicolaus Jenson, Christophe Plantin, William Caxton, Aldus Manutius, and Geoffroy Tory.

Much to learn and (re)discover in this book.

•  Publisher's white cloth with red cloth spine, in a white cloth slipcase with an inset full-color reproduction of an historiated Renaissance initial of a king writing in a book. Fine condition.  (22365)

“The Vast Antiquity of Our Species”

•  “Being a glance at Man in his natural-history relations.” First U.S. edition, following the Edinburgh first of the preceding year. The title-page is printed in black and red.

•  Publisher's cloth, spine with gilt-stamped title; small discolored spot on spine from now-absent label. Front pastedown with institutional rubber-stamp (no other markings). (19153)

“ETC., ETC.” Indeed

•  “With a full account of the sieges of Metz in 1444 and 1552; the capture of Strasburg in 1681, etc., etc.”

•  NSTC 0012071.   In original printed wrappers. Spine chipped; light staining to wrappers. Ex–historical society copy: rubber-stamps, including ones on front wrapper and title-page. Inked ownership inscription on front wrapper. Eight entirely charming leaves of advertisements bound in at end, of which the last has been excised (and this has been priced accordingly). (6456)

Spenser Susan Hawk Trouble

•  First trade edition, first printing.

•  Fine copy in fine dust jacket, the flaps unclipped and retaining original price and month/year printing code.

Peterson, Roger Tory. A field guide to the birds. Illustrations by the author. Boston and Cambridge: Hougton Mifflin Company (Riverside Press), 1947. Small 8vo.
$30.00

•  Second revised and enlarged edition. Covers North American birds east of the Rocky Mountains. With color drawings.

•  Publisher's cloth. Very good condition, no dust jacket.

Phillips, Wendell. Speeches, lectures, and letters. Boston: James Redpath, 1863. 8vo.
$30.00

•  Fifth edition.

•  Publisher's cloth. Top of the spine pulled; stains on covers and shaken. Fair condition. Top edges gilt.

Yes, That Pinkerton

•  First edition was 1880. Front cover with gilt–stamped eye and the legend, " WE NEVER SLEEP."

•  Publisher's cloth, a bit soiled and a little worn.

Inscribed (NOT! by Plato)

•  First edition. Inscribed by the translator/commentator.

•  Publisher's cloth. Very good condition, in a very good dust jacket.

Inscribed . . . 

•  Privately printed. Inscribed by the author.

•  Perforation binding with printed covers as issued.

A Study ofEskimo Life

•  Later edition. First published in 1941. The author, a French aristocrat, recounts his travels in the Arctic wilderness and his life among the Eskimos, still untouched by modern civilization. With drawings and photographs.

•  Paperback. Very good condition.

English Literature between the Wars

Pritchard, William H. Seeing through everything

•  "An introduction to the period and a summary of its principal literary art."

•  Excellent condition. Small tear in dust jacket.

Q's EditionExpanded

•  Chronologically arranged verse collection, originally printed in 1900 and here expanded in scope.

•  Very good in simply gilt-stamped publisher's cloth, clean and bright, spine very slightly faded. Front corners bumped. (3087)

Robinson, Edwin Arlington.  The glory of the nightingales. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1930. 8vo. 83 pp.
$45.00

•  First trade edition.

•  Publisher's green cloth, light spotting, spine slightly sunned.

MUSIC HISTORY

•  Later printing. An equal treatment of all musical periods from ancient times to 1948.

•  Publisher's cloth. Good-plus condition.

•  In the "English Men of Letters" series edited by John Morley.

•  Publisher's cloth, lightly soiled. Lacks front free endpaper. Interior clean.

Kuomintang China — The Soongs

•  Book Club edition. This is the story of the Soong family and their in-laws, among whom were Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek, and their rise to great power and wealth in pre-Communist China. A genealogical tree is provided on the endpapers.

•  Publisher's cloth. Very good condition, in a good dust jacket. Jacket creased and with short tears.

Shaw, [George] Bernard. Back to Methuselah. A metabiological pentateuch. London: Constable, 1922. 8vo.
$50.00

•  The first English edition; preceded by the New York edition, which Shaw condemned for its numerous misprints.

•  Laurence, Bernard Shaw: A Bibliography, A161. Publisher's green cloth. Incipient foxing at fore-edges. Residue of sticky substance on back cover.

Shaw, [George] Bernard. Back to Methuselah. A metabiological pentateuch. London: Constable, 1922. 8vo.
$18.00

•  The second English edition, containing a considerable number of alterations.

•  Laurence, Bernard Shaw: A Bibliography, A161. Publisher's green cloth. Incipient foxing at fore-edges.

•  First published in German in 1908, and in English in 1911. This claims to be the "Seventh Impression."

•  Laurence, Bernard Shaw: A Bibliography, A108 (for first edition in English). Publisher's green cloth. Incipient foxing at fore-edges.

For a SERIOUSLY IRISH “shelf,”  click here.

Camelot

•  Second edition.

•  Publisher's cloth. Good-plus condition. Gift inscription on the title-page.

“Easy” Einstein?

•  “A discussion of the more intelligible features of the theory of relativity.” Early printing, following the first edition of 1920.

•  Publisher's tan cloth, front cover and spine stamped in black; binding a bit sprung with light wear to lower edges. Pages age-toned but clean. (16724)

Virginia Settlement Stories

•  First edition of this anthology. Illustrations reproduced from contemporary drawings. Attractive typography with archaic spellings.

•  Publisher's cloth. Very good condition, in a very good dust jacket.

Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr I. The gulag archipelago 1918–1956. An experiment in literary investigation I–II. Translated from the Russian by Thomas P. Whitney. New York and elsewhere: Harper & Row, 1973, 1974. 8vo.
$20.00

•  Book Club edition.

•  Publisher's cloth. Very good condition, in a good dust jacket.

•  History Book Club edition with an indication on the verso of the title-page of its being the first U.S. trade edition, first issue.

•  Publisher's cloth. Small coffee stain on inside of front flap. This offering includes a clipping of a June 1978 Washington Post book review. Very good condition, in a very good dust jacket.

His Lyrics

•  Woodcut title-page, head- and tailpieces in the art nouveau style; engraved portrait of Spenser as the frontispiece.

•  Very good. Green publisher's cloth, spine and front cover amply gilt in the art nouveau style. Edges and joints rubbed, small abrasion to front cover. Pages untrimmed and partially uncut. Top edge gilt. (3142)

Hoax . . .

•  A sound reconstruction of the hoax/forgery with convincing evidence of the perpetrators. Published for $24.95.

•  Very Good condition in VG dust jacket.

WISCONSIN

•  1877–79 edition of what was generally an annual report, commenced in 1855. Topics covered include “Ancient Copper Mines of Lake Superior,” “Indian Wars of Wisconsin,” and “Early Times at Fort Winnebago”; the volume is illustrated with representations of cave designs from La Crosse Valley. Click the images for enlargements.

Provenance: Title-page with affixed presentation slip from the State Historical Society; front free endpaper with affixed envelope flap addressed to the Rev. E.A. Dalrymple of Baltimore, MD.

•  Publisher’s cloth, spine with gilt-stamped title. Binding sturdy but with portion of spine cloth missing, exposing underlying material; corners bumped, extremities very lightly rubbed. Front pastedown with institutional stamp. Pages slightly age-toned, else clean.

Illustrated

•  First edition, second printing, issue A. Illustrated by Reginald B. Birch.

•  BAL 18934. Publisher's decorated cloth, spine sunned.

His Works inONE Thick Volume

•  The lithographic title-page is in red and black with a portrait of Swinburne.

•  Very good. Red textured publisher's cloth, simply gilt. Gilt on spine darkened. Corners and head and foot of spine rubbed. Occasional pencilled underlining. (3154)

Doubleday, Doran's First Book

•  First trade edition. This is the first book printed by the then-newly formed firm of Doubleday, Doran. A limited edition of 500 copies, signed by the author and the publisher's preceded this edition.

•  Tattered dust jacket, missing pieces along top edge.

Taylor, Maxwell D. Responsibility and response. New York, Evanston, & London: Harper & Row, 1967. 8vo.
$22.50

•  First edition. Based on General Maxwell Taylor's 1966 lectures on U.S. military policy delivered at Lehigh University.

•  Publisher's cloth. Cloth has white discoloration, possibly paint or chalk. Good-plus condition.

Ballet — AHANDY Basic Resource

•  First edition, second issue. Contains entries for more than 500 ballets. Each entry includes brief synopses and historical background; choreographic, musical, and scenic credits; the names of the companies which produced them, and information on the premiere performance. Also includes a brief history of ballet, a guide on "How to Look at Ballet," and a glossary of ballet terms. With 101 photographs.

•  Publisher's cloth. Very good condition, in a very good dust jacket; price clipped from front flap of dust jacket.

Much to Learn from This
   “Coffee Table Book”

•  First American edition; with 40 color and 250 b/w illustrations. A great coffee table book about great books and great collectors by a highly respected London-based bookseller of great books and manuscripts.

There is much learning in this text; it is not just a pretty book.

•  Publisher's yellow cloth-covered boards with brown spine. Illustrated dust jacket in full color. Fine condition.  (22342)

Tonge, W. Lawton, M.D., D.P.M. The mending of minds. Psychiatric illness and its treatment: A guide for families and patients. Henley-on-Thames, UK: Darwen Finlayson, 1970. 8vo.
$20.00

•  First edition. What they thought back then.

•  Publisher's cloth. Very good condition, no dust jacket.

"His Cruel & Excessive Suffering"

•  A later American edition. Stereotyped.

•  Speckled sheep, black spine label. Joints and hinges open, one chip to spine. Minor foxing and staining.

MAPS Matter . . . .

•  Later edition. With 6 fold-out and 31 in-text maps; and five genealogical trees.

•  Publisher's cloth. Reading copy, hinges cracked.

A Capital Crimes Mystery Novel

•  First trade edition, second issue. In the Capital Crimes series.

•  Publisher's cloth. Very good condition, in a very good dust jacket.

"Men & Manners" — Oxford, 1926

•  First edition of this social history with numerous illustrations, including full-page.

•  Good in publisher's cloth, front cover with gilt-stamped floral vignette, spine slightly faded and worn at head and foot. Front free endpaper with gift inscription dated 1926. (3089)

Boccaccio on Chestnut Street — English Libretto

•  Libretto in English; front cover with an engraved portrait.

•  Good in original printed paper wrappers, faintly waterstained; pages with small edge tears and chips. (2485)

Americans "Abroad"

•  Intelligent (and intelligible) literary criticism.

•  Publisher's cloth. Short tears and chips to edges of dust jacket; price clipped. Near fine; dust jacket good.

A Gift, Perhaps?

•  Collected love poems from the great names of English literature, gathered in sections with themes like "Love's Tragedies," "Love and Nature," "Chivalric Love," and "Love with Many Lyres." The engraved title-page vignette shows three cupids at play.

•  Blue publisher's cloth, spine with simple gilt-stamped rules and title, front cover with gilt-stamped "GTS" device (for the Golden Treasury Series). With an 1896 gift inscription on half-title. Pages gently age-toned. (5538)

"Y1900"

•  Marvelous collection of observations, remembrances, and photographs of the "threshold of a new world," produced by the witty Dame Rebecca West. West, whose works include The Return of the Soldier, The Fountain Overflows, and Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, was eight years old in that fateful year; her own childhood memories mingle in this work with brief but insightful overviews of significant European and American events in numerous fields.

•  Dust jacket slightly yellowed, especially to inside flap edges, with crease to back cover and price clipped; light wear. Hardcover volume clean. Newspaper review clipped to back free endpaper. Appealing.

Historian, & Man of Letters

•  First edition.

•  Paperback. Very good condition.

Astronomy — Inscribed

•  Second edition, revised. Inscribed by the author. With lots of black-and-white photographs and drawings.

•  Publisher's cloth. Very good condition, no dust jacket.

A Great"Gilded Age" Architect

•  First trade edition, first issue. Biography of late 19th century architect Stanford White whose works, from the neoclassical Knickerbocker Trust Company and the Pantheon-inspired Gould Library to Madison Square Garden, transformed the landscape of the northeastern United States.

•  Publisher's cloth. Very good condition, in a very good dust jacket.

White, William Allen. The autobiography of William Allen White. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1946. 8vo. 669 pp.
$10.00

•  Book club edition. Black and white photos. A "Mid-American" life, still an interesting one.

•  Publisher's cloth in original dust jacket; soiled and worn with tears. Shaken.

Wilson, Edward O. On human nature. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, © 1978. 8vo.
$20.00

•  Third printing. The central themes of the book are "Is human behavior controlled by the species' biological heritage? Does this heritage limit human destiny?"

•  Very good condition, in a very good dust jacket.

EMBROIDERY 

•  Book Club edition. Profusely illustrated with color and black-and-white photographs, and stitch diagrams.

•  Publisher's cloth. Very good condition, in a very good dust jacket.

The Court in a Critical Era
    But then, what era isn't?

•  First edition, third printing of this study of the Supreme Court and its justices, 1969–75.

•  Very good. Blue publisher's cloth, spine gilt lettered. Original dust jacket, somewhat rubbed. (3100)

"TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE"

•  First edition. In the Folger Shakespeare Library's series of Tudor and Stuart documents. Three manuals to better conduct, written during the 16th and 17th centuries.

•  Publisher's cloth. Very good condition, in a very good dust jacket.

Unintended Consequences

•  First edition, first issue. The author's reflections on the "unlearned lessons" of the 20th century: The reasons why statesmen, even after achieving their objectives, "so often failed miserably because they had overlooked the side-effects of that kind of success."

•  Publisher's cloth. Offsetting on endpapers from a newspaper obituary (of the author) having been laid in. Very good condition, in a very good dust jacket.

With an INTRODUCTION BY the Poet

•  First U.S. edition, with an interesting introductory essay by Yeats.

•  Good in publisher's cloth, spine gilt-stamped; slightly cocked, with small discoloration to front cover. Upper edges gilt. (3125)

What It's Like to Be One . . .

•  First edition. Illustrated by Nicholas A. Rosato. A light-hearted look into what it's like to work in wildlife law enforcement in Pennsylvania. This book tells it like it is and is a must-read for anyone who enjoys the outdoors.

•  Publisher's light-blue cloth, stamped in silver. Fine, in a near fine dust jacket. (5880)

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The Philadelphia Rare Books & Manuscripts Company