Science/Technology/Medicine

Literature/Modern Firsts

Americana/History/Travel

Art/Illustrated/Children's

A magnificent set in original wrappers,
complete with 186 stunning pochoir plates

(BARBIER, GEORGE).  Journal des Dames et des Modes

The Journal des Dames et des Modes was an expression "of the most refined Parisian elegance, and illustrated by the most gifted designers and illustrators of the time." -Christina Nuzzi

FIRST EDITION OF ALL 79 ISSUES, WITH 186 HAND-COLORED PLATES by some of the most famous artists of the era. Number 884 (each issue from the same set) of only 1250 sets on Holland paper (out of a total edition of 1279). IN ORIGINAL WRAPPERS IN FINE CONDITION. $28,000.

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One of the most celebrated art books of the century:
signed by Jasper Johns and Samuel Beckett

(JOHNS, JASPER). BECKETT, SAMUEL.  Foirades / Fizzles

SIGNED LIMITED FIRST EDITION, ONE OF ONLY 250 COPIES SIGNED BY JASPER JOHNS AND SAMUEL BECKETT.

Magnificently illustrated with original prints by Johns including: 26 lift ground aquatints and 5 etchings with mixed media, 1 soft-ground etching, and one aquatint; plus 2 color lithographs as endpapers. A FINE COPY. $30,000.

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First issue of Maxwell's Treatise

MAXWELL, JAMES CLERK.  A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism

“Maxwell was the greatest theoretical physicist of the nineteenth century… Einstein’s work on relativity was founded directly upon Maxwell’s electromagnetic theory; it was this that led him to equate Faraday with Galileo and Maxwell with Newton.” -Printing and the Mind of Man, 355

FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE of one of the most influential works in the history of science. A fine copy with interesting provenance. $9000.

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New Vision Photography

GRÄFF, WERNER.  Es kommt der neue Fotograf [Here Comes the New Photographer!]

Published (along with Roh and Tschichold’s Foto-Auge) around the famous Stuttgart “Film und Foto” exhibition of 1929, generally considered the greatest photography exhibition ever held: “not since the great international exhibitions of the 1850s and 1860s had there been such a broad display of the photographic arts, intended not just to show photography but to examine its place in society." -The Photobook

FIRST EDITION IN RARE DUST JACKET of one of the cornerstones of New Vision Photography, illustrated with 148 black and white photographs. $8000.

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"The most famous novel in the English language"

MITCHELL, MARGARET. Gone With the Wind

“As God is my witness, as God is my witness, the Yankees aren't going to lick me. I'm going to live through this, and when it's over, I'm never going to be hungry again. No, nor any of my folks. If I have to steal or kill -- as God is my witness, I'm never going to be hungry again."

FIRST EDITION IN FIRST ISSUE DUST JACKET of Mitchell's Pulitzer-Prize winning epic of Scarlett O'Hara's near-mythic love affair with Rhett Butler, one of the most popular and enduring novels in American literature. $7800.

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"We shall fight on the beaches... we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender"

CHURCHILL, WINSTON. Address by the Prime Minister Mr. Winston Churchill Delivered in the House of Commons, Tuesday, June 4, 1940

"We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender…”

FIRST EDITION of one of the most influential speeches of the century: Winston Churchill's triumphant "we shall not fail" speech of June 4, 1940. $2200.

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Signed and inscribed by Man Ray

MAN RAY. Photographs 1920-1934

FIRST EDITION OF MAN RAY’S FIRST MONOGRAPH, SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY MAN RAY: “For Hana Mackler / man Ray Paris 1962”. With a portrait by Picasso and illustrated throughout with gravure reproductions of Man Ray’s photographs, rayograms, and potraits. With additional portraits of James Joyce, Salvador Dali, Matisse, Le Corvusier, DuChamp, Picasso, Braque, Derain, and many other of the leading artists of the century. Texts by Andre Breton, Paul Eluard, Rrose Selavy, and Tristan Tzara. $17,000.

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One of Faulkner's finest

FAULKNER, WILLIAM. Light in August

"Light in August is vintage Faulkner: Faulkner at his most luxuriant and, arguably, at his most characteristic." -Ryūichi Yamaguchi

FIRST EDITION. Light in August, "Faulkner's grave meditation on race, violence and all the fraught legacies of the South, is the first in which he confronted head-on the poisons of racism... The force of Faulkner's genius is in entirely in play" (Time Magazine All-Time 100 novels). $6500.

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Signed and inscribed by Winogrand

WINOGRAND, GARRY. Women are Beautiful

"His deceptively casual framing and subject matter influenced a whole generation of American photographers, including Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, and William Eggleston.” –American National Biography

FIRST EDITION, SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY WINOGRAND on the half-title: “To Lights best intern / Garry Winogrand”. The preferred hardcover issue of the first edition. $3300.

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The foundation for the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics

BOHR, NIELS.  The Quantum Postulate and the Recent Development of Atomic Theory

"It is hard to overestimate was Bohr has done... The principle of complementarity... is possibly one of the greatest discoveries in the scientific history of mankind, with ramifications on many other levels of science." -Josef Jauch

FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH IN ORIGINAL WRAPPERS of Bohr’s statement of his ‘complementarity’ principle, the basis of what became known as the ‘Copenhagen interpretation’ of quantum mechanics. $4800.

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With an original watercolor signed and inscribed by Braque

BRAQUE, GEORGES.  Cahier de Braque 1917-1947 [Notebooks]

“In art there is only one thing that matters: what cannot be explained.” – Braque, Cahier

LIMITED FIRST EDITION, WITH AN ADDITIONAL ORIGINAL WATERCOLOR BY BRAQUE. The original watercolor on the front blank is of an artist’s palette and brushes; signed and inscribed next to the watercolor: “Pour Madame Hant / 1952 / G Braque”. One of only 845 copies of this edition. $3900.

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"The Classic American Treatment of the Civil War"

CRANE, STEPHEN. The Red Badge of Courage

"In 'The Red Badge of Courage' [Crane] has surely contrived a masterpiece... I think that his picture of war is more complete than Tolstoi's, more true than Zola's." -Geroge Wyndman, New Review

FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE of one of the most influential works of American literature. $8500.

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Signed twice by Andy Warhol

WARHOL, ANDY.  America

“Everybody has their own America,… a fantasy that they think is out there [but it is] pieced… together from scenes in movies and music and lines from books. And you live in your dream America that you’ve custom-made from art and schmaltz and emotions as much as you live in your real one.” –Warhol

FIRST EDITON, the scarce preferred hard-cover issue, SIGNED TWICE BY ANDY WARHOL: signed on the dust jacket and additionally inscribed: “Brooke / Andy Warhol”. $4500.

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A fine copy

HEMINGWAY, ERNEST.  Winner Take Nothing

"Unlike all other forms of lutte or combat the conditions are that the winner shall take nothing; neither his ease, nor his pleasure, nor any notions of glory; nor, if he win far enough, shall there be any reward within himself."

FIRST EDITION of one of Hemingway's most accomplished collections of short stories. $4600.

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Important modernist work

CATHER, WILLA.  The Professor's House

“The most sensuous of writers, Willa Cather builds her imagined world almost as solidly as our five senses build the universe around us." -Rebecca West

FIRST EDITON of one of Cather's most accomplished and influential novels; a touchstone modernist work. With her stylistic and thematic daring, Cather, in The Professor's House, "places herself in the company of Proust, Lawrence, Eliot, and Virginia Woolf" in her influence on the modern movement (Hermione Lee, Willa Cather: Double Lives). $2000.

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Special double issue of Verve dedicated to Pablo Picasso

(PICASSO, PABLO).  Verve. Vol VIII, No. 29/30. Vallauris-Mil Neuf Cent Cinquante Quatre. Suite de 180 Dessins de Picasso. 28 Novembre 1953 au 3 Fevrier 1954

"Last winter, from mid-December to the end of January 1954 Picasso was working indefatigably on this series of drawings, which rank among the finest, boldest, most poignantly human of all he has produced in the course of his long and brilliant career..." -Teriade

FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE (French-language), of the special double issue of Verve dedicated to the drawings of Pablo Picasso, focusing on the works composed during his stay at Vallauris in 1954. With 180 plates including 16 color lithographs after Picasso printed by Mourlot. $3200.

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"No individual has had a greater influence upon the Western American art, literature, and history of our country than George Catlin"

CATLIN, GEORGE.  Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Conditions of the North American Indians

"These tribes... to whose lands we have succeeded, and who have no written memorials of their laws, their habits, and their manners, are all passing away to the world of forgetfulness. Their likeness, manners, and customs, are portrayed with more accuracy and truth in this collection by Catlin than in all the other drawings and representations on the face of the earth." -Daniel Webster

FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE of Catlin's monumental work on the North American Indians. $5700.

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Classic work of the Beat Generation

BURROUGHS, WILLIAM. The Naked Lunch

“A book of great beauty and maniacally exquisite insight with a wild and deadly humor… The only American novelist who may conceivably be possessed by genius.” –Norman Mailer

FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE of Burroughs’s masterpiece, one of only 5000 copies printed. $4200.

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"It would be difficult to overestimate the influence"

SANDER, AUGUST.  Antlitz der Zeit: 60 Fotos Deutscher Menschen [Face of Our Time]

"One of the great documentary works of all times... it would be difficult to overestimate the influence of this work on later photography, documentary, and otherwise." -Roth, 101 Books

FIRST EDITION of Sander’s classic, one of the most influential photobooks of the early twentieth-century. $5600.

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Artificial radioactivity

CURIE, IRÈNE; JOLIOT, F.  Un nouveau type de radioactivité

“One of the most important discoveries of the century... The consequences of the discovery of artificial radioactivity are immense" (Segrè, From X-rays to Quarks, 198-199).

FIRST EDITION IN ORIGINAL WRAPPERS announcing the discovery of artificial radioactivity. Curie and Joliot were awarded the 1935 Nobel Prize in chemistry  for "their synthesis of new radioactive elements." $4200.

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Signed and inscribed by Thornton Wilder

WILDER, THORNTON.  The Bridge of San Luis Rey

"Thornton Wilder's Bridge of San Luis Rey is as close to perfect a moral fable as we are ever likely to get in American literature." -Russell Banks

FIRST AMERICAN EDITION, SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY THORNTON WILDER on front free endpaper: "For Ida Freedman / Thornton Wilder". $5000.

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One of only 350 copies with an original photograph

WESTON, EDWARD.  Edward Weston, His Life and Photographs

"My brothers Chan, Neil, Brett, and I believe this book does honor to our father's work. It is the greatest collection of photographs by Edward Weston ever published." –Cole Weston

SIGNED LIMITED DELUXE EDITION, ONE OF 350 COPIES SIGNED BY COLE WESTON WITH AN ORIGINAL SIGNED PHOTOGRAPH BY COLE WESTON FROM EDWARD WESTON'S ORIGINAL NEGATIVE. $4000.

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E=mc²

EINSTEIN, ALBERT.  Ist die Trägheit eines Körpers von seinem Energieinhalt abhängig? [Does The inertia of a body depend upon its energy-content?]

“The mass of a body is a measure of its energy-content..."

FIRST PRINTING of Albert Einstein's groundbreaking 1905 paper, the introduction and derivation of the most famous equation in modern physics: E=mc². $6500.

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Children's classic, in rare dust jacket

SALTEN, FELIX.  Bambi: A Life in the Woods

"Don't follow me any further, Bambi," he began with a calm voice, "my time is up. Now I have to look for a resting place." Bambi tried to speak. "Don't," said the old stag cutting him short, "don't. In the hour which I am approaching we are all alone. Good-by, my son. I loved you dearly."

FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH IN RARE DUST JACKET. Originally published in German in 1923, Bambi was first translated into English by the young Whittaker Chambers and became an immediate success in the English-speaking world. $2400.

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Robert E. Lee appointed "General in Chief"

LEE, ROBERT E. An Act to provide the appointment of a General in Chief of the Armies of the Confederate States. General Orders No. 3; Richmond, February 6, 1865

"Providence raises up the man for the time, and a man for this occasion, we believe, has been raised up in Robert E. Lee, the Washington of the second American Revolution." —The Richmond Dispatch, Feb.7, 1865

OFFICIAL BROADSIDE CONFEDERATE PRINTING with seal on top left corner appointing Robert E. Lee "General in Chief" of the Confederate forces. $8000.

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The first machine to perform calculations at superhuman speed

JEVONS, W. STANLEY.  On the Mechanical Performance of Logical Inference

"To the reader of the preceding paper it will be evident that mechanism is capable of replacing for the most part the action of thought required in the performance of logical deduction... The machine is thus the embodiment of a true symbolic method or Calculus..." 

FIRST EDITION of Jevons's explanation of his "logical piano"; a landmark in computer science. $2300.

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Wilkie Collins's masterpiece

COLLINS, WILKIE.  The Woman in White

"There is no contemporary novelist who could not learn something from Collins in the art of interesting and exciting the reader... The resources of Wilkie Collins are inexhaustible."-T.S. Eliot

RARE FIRST APPEARANCE OF COLLINS'S CLASSIC, published in 40 volumes of All The Year Round. $8700.

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One of only 375 copies, with an original Renoir etching

[RENOIR, PIERRE-AUGUSTE]. VOLLARD, AMBROISE.  La vie et l'oeuvre de Pierre-Auguste Renoir

FIRST EDITION IN ORIGINAL WRAPPERS, with original glassine, one of 375 copies on velin d’arches (from a total edition of 1000). Magnificently illustrated with ONE ORIGINAL ETCHING by Renoir and 51 FULL-PAGE ENGRAVED PLATES after Renoir and numerous illustrations of Renoir’s work throughout the text. RARE. $14,000.

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One of only 170 copies

HEMINGWAY, ERNEST.  in our time

"In the dry compressed little vignettes of In Our Time, [he] has almost invented a form of his own... I am inclined to think that this little book has more artistic dignity than anything else about the period of the war that has yet been written by an American." -Edmund Wilson, 1924

FIRST EDITION, one of only 170 numbered copies, printed on Rives hand-made paper, of Hemingway's second book. With woodcut portrait frontispiece after Henry Strater. $36,500.

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Milestones in the development of the laser, with two major Einstein papers

EINSTEIN, ALBERT; TOWNES, CHARLES H.; SCHAWLOW, A.L.; MAIMAN, T.H.; et al. First editions of the major discoveries in the development of the laser; including two major Einstein papers, one in scarce original wrappers

Includes first editions announcing the theoretical basis for the laser, the maser, the blueprint for the laser, and the first successful laser.

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Essential part of American culture

PUZO, MARIO.  The Godfather

"Behind every great fortune, there is a crime..."

FIRST EDITION. “One of the most successful novels ever—selling some 21 million copies worldwide, spawning three critically and financially successful motion pictures, and placing its characters into the contemporary American cultural mythology” (Britannica). $1650.

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Evocative images of the Jewish ghetto

[VER, MOÏ]. AVOROBEICHIC, MOSHÉ.  Ein Ghetto im Osten - Wilna [A Ghetto in the East]

“His use of the book format as a progression of pictures to be leafed through is unique with regard to the reportage style that was just carving a niche for itself at the time." -Open Book

"Moï Ver remains a singular figure in photobook history..." -The Photobook

FIRST EDITION, illustrated with 65 images of the Jewish ghetto in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius. With preface by poet Zalman Chneour in Hebrew and German. $1900.

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One of the most influential approaches to quantum theory

BOHM, DAVID.  Suggested Interpretation of the Quantum Theory in Terms of "Hidden" Variables

"In 1952 I saw the impossible done. It was in papers by David Bohm." -John S. Bell

FIRST EDITION of David Bohm's deterministic "hidden variables" approach to quantum theory. $2100.

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Signed by Irving Penn

PENN, IRVING.  A Notebook at Random

"Leafing through these images of his daily obsessions and seductions... is like seeing ideas wind their way through his mind. It is a tantalizing shuffle, not in the least because of the portrait it reveals of the master photographer himself, now 87, still stealing glimpses of the universe and tenderly tripping up time." -Jay Fielden, Vogue

FIRST EDITION, SIGNED BY IRVING PENN. An unconventional retrospective, illustrated throughout with reproductions of Penn's photographs and drawings. $650.

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"The first comprehensive celebration of the entire continental nation"

BRYANT, WILLIAM CULLEN, ed.  Picturesque America

“It is the design of the publication entitled ‘PICTURESQUE AMERICA’ to present full descriptions and elaborate pictorial delineations of the scenery characteristic of all the different parts of our country. The wealth of material for this purpose is almost boundless..."

FIRST BOOK EDITION, in deluxe publisher’s full morocco binding, of the most famous and influential early pictorial representation of the United States. Beautifully illustrated with over 900 wood engravings and fifty steel engravings.

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Autograph letters signed by J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis

TOLKIEN, J.R.R.; LEWIS, C.S.; BURCHFIELD, R.W.  Archive of letters with two related books

Letters and books- including an autograph letter by J.R.R. Tolkien and two autograph letters and an autograph note by C.S. Lewis- from the collection of Robert W. Burchfield.

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With 45 large Modigliani matted plates

(MODIGLIANI, AMADEO).  Forty-Five Drawings

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A beautiful copy

[NEWTON, ISAAC]. PEMBERTON, HENRY.  A View of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophy

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Signed and inscribed by Robert Frost

FROST, ROBERT.  A Boy's Will

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Kimura's Paris

KIMURA, IHEI.  Pari (Paris)

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Signed and inscribed by Marc Chagall

CHAGALL, MARC. The Lithographs of Chagall. Volumes I-VI (complete)

First editionS of all six volumes (English-language issues) of Chagall’s catalogue raisonèe, Signed and inscribed by chagall in volume I. Complete with 28 original lithographs, including original lithograph dust jackets for volumes I-IV.

An interesting association copy: inscribed by Chagall to the highly accomplished Polish-American artist Manfred Schwartz. A superb set in fine condition. $14,500.

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Inscribed by Faraday to Avogadro

FARADAY, MICHAEL.  On a Peculiar Class of Acoustical Figures; and on certain Forms assumed by groups of particles upon vibrating elastic Surfaces

PRESENTATION COPY OF THE FIRST EDITION, OFFPRINT ISSUE, of one of Faraday's important works documenting his quest to understand the nature of electricity. Presentation inscription ("Le Chevalier Avogadro... from the author") on title-page in Faraday’s hand to Count Amadeo Avogadro, Italian physicist and chemist (inscription cropped at fore-margin due to the work being previously bound as part of a pamphlet volume). $5000.

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With 45 large Giacometti plates

(GIACOMETTI, ALBERTO).  Quarantacinque disegni di Alberto Giacometti

FIRST EDITION, ONE OF 1,145 COPIES (out of a total edition of 1245), finely illustrated with 45 large folio reproductions of the artist's drawings (two in color). Folio. Text (in French and Italian) bound (as issued), plates inside original wove paper folder, original tan cloth-covered portfolio box with brown printed artist's signature on the front and text on the spine and original grey cardboard box with white label with printed artist's signature. $2200.

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"A landmark event in American Poetry"

GINSBERG, ALLEN.  Howl and Other Poems

"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness..."

FIRST EDITION, one of only 1000 copies, of one of the most influential works of modern poetry.

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