the Shagbark Press in Maine

signed at the colophon by the artist

Binding:  Parchment paper–covered limp boards with sewing bands left visible, in original tan linen cloth–covered clamshell case with printed paper spine label.

•  Bound and cased as above, clamshell cases being unusual for the LEC. A clean, crisp copy in excellent condition. Fine copy.  (30564)

printed in both English and Russian

the artist's autobiographical essay

Binding:  By The Fine Bindery, Wellingborough, in quarter brown cloth over patterned paper boards in salmon and rust, featuring a design from a block by the artist, with title gilt to spine.

•  Binding as above. Pristine, in the publisher's matching salmon slipcase.  (30592)

This is thefirst book-form edition of the translation, following its original appearance in Keene's Anthology of Japanese Literature; three hundred copies were set by hand in Garamond and printed on Masa paper by Fredericks and David Beeken.

•  Original hand-stitched wrappers resembling bamboo grain, with paper label on front wrapper, in paper overlay matching the endpapers; outer overlay with minor edge wear and with small annotation (possibly from publisher) on label. A lovely and uncommon production.  (35979)

As described by the title-pages, the volumes are “Illustrated by upwards of three hundred engravings, from sketches by the author. The steel plates executed [by J. Hamilton and others] under the superintendence of J.M. Butler, the wood engravings by Van Ingen & Snyder.” The plates total 20 altogether, including frontispieces.

A limitation statement, in letter-press and signed by Kaufman and Van Vliet, announces that this unnumbered and unlettered copy is specifically for Andrew Hedden.

•  Fine, Janus Press 1981–90, 20.   Bound and housed as above, the smallest bumps to corners, back cover starting to warp at one edge, case pristine. A complex, interesting work of book art in a special copy.  (37128)

•  ESTC T75210. Marbled paper–covered boards, front cover with printed paper label. Half-title lacking. Upper margin of title-page showing small abrasions and traces of affixed paper; title-page and several others stamped by a now-defunct institution.

Includes two poems by Whittier: “My soul and I” and “The wife of Manoah to her husband.”

Binding:  Publisher’s textured brown calf, covers with blind-stamped frame of foliate design; front cover suitably gilt-stamped with central vignette ofJesus and the woman at the well, back cover centrally gilt-stamped with a weary-looking woman harvesting grain (Ruth?). Spine gilt-stamped with foliate (ivy?) design and ornate title; all edges gilt.

Provenance:  19th-century stencilled ownership name of H. Amelia St John (Purdy) (1838–1925) of Yates County, NY.

•  Faxon 622; Thompson 145; Tepper, American Gift Books & Literary Annuals. (Second edition), 167.   Binding as above, gilt designs moderately rubbed, edges and corners worn, spine faded and head of spine pulled. Front free endpaper clipped to remove inscription; ownership stencil to front fly-leaf. Some pages with soiling, light foxing, or brown stains. Mezzotints well accomplished and several quite lovely.  (37280)

Presentation/Provenance: The presentation is on the dedication page and reads: “For Mr. James L. Carhart. With the best sentiments of the author. Eugenia Kellogg. (Mrs. E. B. Holmes). June 2nd 1918. San Francisco.” And the recipient has written in pencil, “Note: Mrs. E. B. Holmes is the widow of Mr. Edwin B. Holmes, a fellow actor with me in the celebrated American comedian, John E. Owens' company, which played at the Vanities Theater, New Orleans, La, the season of 1874-5.”

Carhart secured a second copy of the frontispiece portrait of Kellogg and on the verso has written: “E.B. Holmes was a member of John E. Owens' company, which played at the Vanities Theater, New Orleans, La, the season of 1874-5. Mr. Holmes played old men and character parts — same as I did.”

Binding:  Publisher' green ribbed cloth, stamped in gilt on front cover with the author's name, a shortened version of the title, and the image of Telegraph Hill in the era when it was surmounted by a “castle” — “Poccalito” in his pauper's rags framed between flourishes below this. A very interesting cover.

•  Not in Wright.   Bound as above with cloth and gilt fresh and bright; a clean, obviously always treasured, little volume. Very good condition.  (34675)

•  Disbound and Dispersed 229.   Publisher's blue paper–covered boards with black cloth shelfback, front cover with gilt-stamped printer's vignette and spine with gilt-stamped title. A fresh, clean copy of this elegantly produced homage.  (36841)

Vol. I opens with a rather nice mezzotint portrait of Wirt, engraved by A.B. Walter after Charles B. King; vol. II with an oversized, folding facsimile of a letter from John Adams.

•  BAL 11056; Cohen 2161; Howes K87; Sabin 37415.   Publisher's brown cloth, covers framed in blind-stamped strapwork, spines with gilt-stamped title and blind-stamped decorations; cloth lightly dust-soiled, chipped at corners and spine extremities. Ex–social club library: 19th-century bookplates, call number on endpapers, rubber-stamp on title-pages. Vol. II: one leaf of contents with two short tears. Pages clean.  (29413)

A fictionalized account of the author's life and family and friends, the novel is somewhat conventional but contains the seeds and hints of things that will mature, expand, and dominate in his later writings.

•  Charters A1a for the first edition, first issue; Charters notes the existence of advance reading copies, but does not give them a separate entry, nor speculate about the number bound as here.   Publisher's printed salmon paper wrappers, rear cover with a slim crease to paper (in production?); a fresh, unworn copy. Cryptic pencilled characters (totalling 13) on endpapers and rear endpaper with one very short tear. Housed in a quarter green morocco clamshell box.  (34815)

This isnumbered copy 298 of 750 printed by R. & R. Clark in Edinburgh for the Nonesuch Press, with the four collotype illustrations printed by the Chiswick Press.

Provenance:  Front pastedown with calligraphic bookplate of Norman J. Sondheim, American collector of fine press books.

•  Dreyfus, History of the Nonesuch Press, 75.   Publisher's quarter blue-grey paper with taupe paper–covered sides, spine with printed paper label, in original dust wrapper with black-stamped spine label; binding very slightly cocked with corners rubbed; wrapper sunned with edge chips and short tears, and interior tape reinforcements to two tears at spine and one at back fold. Offsetting from jacket flaps to endpapers; front pastedown with previous owner's pencilled annotations. A clean, solid, andquite pleasant copy.  (33868)

Provenance:  Front pastedown with inked inscription of Ferdinand Manning, dated (despite publication information) 1919.

•  Publisher's navy cloth with gilt lettering to spine, rubbed edges and slightly cocked; without the dust jacket. Pages lightly age-toned. A nice copy.  (37976)

one of 350 copies printed at the University of California Press for the Book Club of California

Provenance:  Front free endpaper with inked gift inscription from historian Carl Wheat, author of Mapping of the Trans-Mississippi West, to Joe Blumenthal (of Spiral Press fame), a “fellow member of WOOFFB.”

•  Publisher's quarter vellum and marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped author/title; minimal shelfwear to outer corners. A fresh, clean copy with an interesting inscription.  (30622)

Binding:  19th-century brown morocco, spine gilt extra with red leather label, daisy-stamped spine compartments, and minute daisy roll along raised bands; covers framed in gilt vinous and foliate roll, board edges gilt-beaded. A completely different gilt daisy and dog-tooth roll adorns the turn-ins; striking marbled endpapers, and all edges gilt.

Provenance:  Very small embossed armorial stamp (featuring three cross crosslets and a mullet in the base) above inked signature of J.J. FitzAdam on front endpaper; most recently in the library of American collector Albert A. Howard, small booklabel (“AHA”) at rear.

•  Kelly, Checklist of Books Published by William Pickering, 1842.6; Keynes, William Pickering (rev. ed.), p. 76; Pickering & Chatto, William Pickering (catalogue 708), 185.   Bound as above; gently rubbed at corners. A few small, scattered specks to interior, otherwise clean; one or two uneven edges from manufacture. Provenance indicia as above. A neatly printed collection beautifully bound.  (38386)

Kingston's “practical hints” for a happy nursery are further illustrated by three unsigned black-and-white plates and several in-text illustrations demonstrating various toys for children. These are accompanied by prayers, and hymns and songs with music.

Binding:  Publisher's green cloth, front board with gilt lettering and floral centerpiece within decorative black-stamped border, spine with similar gilt floral decoration and rear board with decorative border in blind.

Provenance:  From the library of Ellery Yale Wood, a collector of children's books and young adult literature, with her name inked on front free endpaper; endpaper also with pencilled signature of E.H. Jay.

•  Thomson, Kate Greenaway: A Catalogue of the Kate Greenaway Collection, 116.   Bound as above, corners bumped and edges rubbed, a little; spine ends remarkably intact, unrubbed and unpulled with all gilt very bright. Inscriptions as above, with additional early signature on front pastedown now effaced. Pages with light soiling to top and fore-edges, and very occasionally a small light spot elsewhere (with a few to title-page and frontispiece); minor foxing to endpapers and publisher's catalogue (only). An attractive copy of Greenaway's book-form debut.  (38014)

The text was designed by Claire Van Vliet, set by hand in Trump Mediaeval, and printed by Van Vliet and Christy Bertelson on Barcham Green Tovil paper at the Janus Press in West Burke, VT.

This isnumbered copy 102 of a total of 170 printed, signed at the colophon by both Kinnell and Jacobi.

•  Fine, The Janus Press 1981–1990, 40/41.   Publisher's natural buckram, spine with printed paper label. A crisp, clean copy.  (35933)

•  Very good, in publisher's cloth. Front free endpaper torn out. Preliminary pages with a few light creases in foremargins probably created from paper clips being fastened to them at one time.  (10711)

•  Stewart 94. Publisher's wrappers, front wrapper lacking, back wrapper torn and chipped. Publisher's slip detached (torn away, affecting four letters) but present. First and last few leaves lightly foxed.  (13989)

The volume is illustrated with20 copper-engraved plates by prominent Philadelphia engraver and publisher Joseph Yeager, including one dainty bird and a number of interesting sea creatures.

•  American Imprints 38398; NSTC 2K6659.   Period-style quarter light grey cloth and light blue paper–covered sides, spine with printed paper label. All edges sprinkled. One leaf creased. Offsetting from plates, among which the last is misnumbered; otherwise, clean.  (30332)

Both editions are reprintings of the London, Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1881 edition, which also is little held.

The work is printed in syllabic characters, with headings in English. The hymns are without the music.

•  None of the editions are listed in Banks; or Evans; or Newberry Library, Ayer Indians.   Publisher's green cloth, stamped in black; light discoloration of fore-edges of the closed volume. Very good.  (37012)

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 17875; Welch 739; Rosenbach, Children, 395; German Language Printing in the U.S. 1690; Pomeroy, Anderson, 289.   Publisher's stone-pattern marbled-covered boards.A very nice copy; remarkably, beautifully clean.  (36378)

Kleist's life was a troubled one financially, psychologically, and creatively. The Encyclopaedia Britannica (11th ed.) characterizes him as “by far the most important North German dramatist of the Romantic movement, and no other of the Romanticists approaches him in the energy with which he expresses patriotic indignation.”

Searches of NUC and WorldCat locate only two copies in U.S. libraries, but we know of a third.

•  Later 19th-century blue-green marbled paper–covered boards; foxing and browning as typical of the paper with but a few odd spots additionally, and perhaps six leaves with a stain as from a spill, extending across text but not hampering reading. Very readable in both senses; a decent, solid copy of an important work of German literature.  (33011)

The Fortsas hoax is legendary for having fooled many renowned collectors and dealers near the mid-point of the 19th century (1840, to be precise) into travelling to the small town of Biche, Belgium, for an auction ofnonexistent unique books that were bibliographically unknown!

•  Publisher's quarter off-white cloth and rose-colored paper over boards, with map endpapers. Top edge gilt.   (36339)

Knight, who was devoted to books and to literature from the time he was a small child, was a much-admired printer and publisher, as well as an author, reformer, and would-be educator: Many of his publishing endeavors were aimed at improving and enlightening the working class.

•  NSTC 2K7731. On Knight, see: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online. On binding cloth, see: Krupp, Bookcloth, style Wav3.   Publisher's textured brown cloth, covers blind-stamped with muse motif and title, spines with gilt-stamped title and blind-stamped decorations; lightly worn overall with some fading, vol. II spine head with traces of a strip of cloth tape. Ex–social club library: 19th-century bookplate, call number on endpaper, pressure-stamp on title-page, no other markings. Paper slightly embrittled (more so in second volume), with a few short edge tears. Externally ordinary; internally worthwhile.  (26860)

The work was first published in London in 1844, with an informative introduction by its editor, Harriet Martineau; this Boston printing, including that contextualizing introduction, isthe first U.S. appearance of a significant and uncommon expression of the thoughts and dreams of women laborers in the early 19th-century American factory system.

Provenance:  Bookplate of the Wilmington Institute Free Library (originally incorporated in 1754).

•  Goldsmiths'-Kress 34077; Sabin 49192.   Publisher's straight-grained brown cloth, covers framed in triple blind fillets surrounding central blind-stamped foliate medallions, spine with gilt-stamped title and foliate motifs; extremities rubbed, spine with paper hand-inked shelving label and with affixed letter “S” partially obscuring title. Front pastedown with bookplate as noted; back free endpaper with affixed library slip noting the book was “not for circulation,” with offsetting to back pastedown. Last text page with early inked initials and with pencilled purchase note. Scattered mild foxing. A nice example of this pioneering collection, in its original publisher's binding, andonce held by a public library designed to support exactly the kind of working-class self-improvement on which the volume focuses.  (38169)

The original author's name appears in innumerable variations according to various transcribers' nationalities; Count Georg Wilhelm von Kniphausen (or Knyphausen) of Nienort (or Nienoort) was also known as George Willem (or Guillaume), Comte van Kniphausen, etc.

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 28892.   Contemporary treed sheep, recently rebacked with complementary mottled calf, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label; original leather showing expectable rubbing/cracking. Title-page with institutional pressure- and rubber-stamp; no other marks. One leaf with old burn damage (the ash from a pipe??) to lower inner portion, margins repaired, loss of a few letters without obscuring sense; one leaf with closed tear from outer margin and no loss; one leaf with a corner taken, just touching text without loss; upper corners dust-soiled, and pages generally age-toned, with no brittleness or other “issues.”  (27242)

•  Sewn in original stiff wrappers with printed label on front, some glue action. Very good condition. (36847)

•  Recent marbled paper–covered boards, front cover with gilt-stamped red leather title-label (a little darkened). Three leaves with offsetting from now-absent laid-in item. Some upper corners bumped; one leaf with repairs to inner margin, touching but not obscuring text. Endpapers and some edges with a little soiling; generally, quite clean.  (25365)

The paper is of an extremely high quality, and near-vellum-like in its feel; the title-page and several others are given touches of red; every page bears a beautiful border of swooping vines printed in blue.

•  Bradbury 32.   Publisher's limp vellum, spine with blue-stamped title; slightly (and unsurprisingly) sprung. A clean, crisp copy.  (35731)

Binding: Also designed by Angelo, this is accomplished in red- and blue-stamped tan cloth and incorporates a “wallet-like flap” following traditional Arabic Qu'ran binding style. Volume housed in publisher's blue cloth-covered clamshell slipcase (with a drop-down front element), box bearing a rectangular stencilled label of gilt applied on the cloth so “The Koran” is left set forth in the underlying blue.

This is numbered copy 972 of 1500 printed by A. Colish, signed at the colophon by Angelo. The appropriate LEC newsletter is laid in.

•  Bibliography of the Fine Books Published by the Limited Editions Club, 284.   Binding and box as above; volume pristine, slipcase showing mild shelfwear with small scuff to gilt title. A lovely copy.  (30158)

This is numbered copy 110 of 500 printed andsigned at the colophon by the artist.

•  Publisher's blue linen–covered boards, front cover with gilt-stamped vignette, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label, in striped paste paper–covered slipcase; volume crisp and clean.  (35259)