MODERN FIRSTS from Fine Editions Ltd

Lugd. Batavorum [Leiden]: Apud Franciscum Hackium, 1650. Full Calf. Near Fine+. Early issue of the first Latin edition of Browne's first and most celebrated work, a spiritual testament and meditative essay originally not intended for publication. 12mo (128 x 73mm): 235,[5]pp, with engraved title page after a design by William Marshall of a figure falling headlong into the… Read more about this item

New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine-. First Printing of this important debut, awarded both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. Selected and introduced by Dudley Fitts. Slim crown 8vo (203 x 124mm): xiii,[1],62,[2]pp. Publisher's coarsely woven plum-colored cloth (also issued in decorative wrappers), spine lettered in black; illustrated dust jacket priced $3.00.… Read more about this item

New York: Random House, 1976. First Printing. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. First Edition (so stated) of Salter's lyrical fourth novel, perhaps his masterpiece. Demy 8vo (212 x 140mm): [8],3-308,[2]pp. Publisher's olive green paper-covered boards stamped in gold with Salter's monogram, cream-colored linen spine lettered in lime-green and gold, untrimmed fore-edge; pictorial dust jacket priced $7.95. Signed by Salter on the… Read more about this item

London: Archibald Constable, 1907. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. A superb unopened First Impression collecting these three plays, the first commissioned by W. B. Yeats. Crown 8vo (176 x 119mm): lix,[3],293,[3]pp. Publisher's olive-green vertically ribbed cloth, spine lettered in gilt; top edge gilt, others uncut; dun-colored dust jacket lettered in black and priced 6/-. An unopened, virtually flawless copy… Read more about this item

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons [from 1880], 1887. First Edition. Pictorial Cloth. Fine-. Seldom seen Second Printing (no copy appears in auction records) of this cornerstone of baseball literature. Binding and text duplicate the first printing, excepting date on title page and advertisements (eight pages vs. six in first printing). Crown 8vo (178 x 112mm): viii,[2],188,[8]pp, with tissue-guarded… Read more about this item

London: Hamish Hamilton, 1955. First Impression. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. First British Edition of this classic account of the perhaps greatest speculative boom in history, setting the stage for the Great Depression. Demy 8vo (212 x 134mm): 186pp, with frontispiece reproduced from The New Yorker Magazine. Publisher's blue cloth, spine stamped in gilt. Neat manuscript ex-libris in red ink to… Read more about this item

Groombridge & Sons, 5, Paternoster Row, 1855. Original Cloth. Fine-. Scarce First Edition of Hibberd's first book, with extensive tables of annuals and perennials. Foolscap 8vo (142 x 91mm): 172,20pp. Publisher's olive-green pebbled grain cloth paneled in blind and lettered and decorated with vine motif in gilt. Handsome bookseller's and binder's tickets to front (Fry, Chelmsford) and rear… Read more about this item

New York: Boni & Liveright, 1922. First Edition. Hardcover. Near Fine+. First Printing, First State (with "Shit!" uncensored on final line of p. 219), of the poet's first novel, an account of his imprisonment in a French military detention center during the First World War. Crown 8vo (199 x 135mm): [2],viii,,9-271,[1]pp. Publisher's coarse tan cloth, spine and front… Read more about this item

Cambridge & London: Macmillan, 1861. First Edition. Original Cloth. Fine. Scarce First Impression of this spectacularly successful anthology, collecting the best-loved English poems from the sixteenth to the early nineteenth centuries (from Shakespeare to Shelley, with a heavy dose of the Romantics), establishing a canon of the "best" poems in English literature. Only 2,000 copies of the first… Read more about this item

London: Edward Moxon, 1852. First Edition thus. Decorative Cloth. Fine. A superb example of this new edition, the first edited by Coleridge's second son and daughter. Foolscap 8vo (172 x 104mm): [8],xxvii,[1],388pp, with engraved portrait frontispiece after W. Holl, half title, and preliminary advertisements dated January 1852. Original dark blue pebbled cloth (also issued in claret cloth), elaborately… Read more about this item

Boston and New York / Cambridge: Houghton Mifflin / The Riverside Press, 1899. First Trade Edition. Pictorial Cloth. Near Fine+. First Printing of the author's first book, seven interrelated folk tales set in antebellum North Carolina and told "in Negro dialect" by an old gardener. Crown 8vo (175 x 110mm): [4],229,[3]pp. Publisher's finely woven brown pictorial cloth, front… Read more about this item

London and New York: Macmillan, 1886. First Edition. Decorative Cloth. Fine-. First American (and first single-volume) Edition, First Issue (with 1886 title page), of James's only overtly political novel. Crown 8vo (187 x 117mm): [4],596pp. BAL first-state binding: blue-green S cloth, front cover and spine stamped in gilt and black, rear cover stamped in blind, spine lettered in… Read more about this item

Cambridge: W. Heffer & Sons Ltd, 1912. Pictorial Cloth. Near Fine+. Scarce First Edition ("extremely rare") of this classic collection of antiquarian ghost stories dedicated to M. R. James. (Tymn) Crown 8vo (182 x 119mm): [8],187,[1]pp. Original pictorial coarse sky-blue cloth, spine lettered in black, front cover stamped in black and grey with scene of vicar Batchel in… Read more about this item

New York: J. S. Redfield, Clinton Hall, Nassau-Street, 1850. Decorative Cloth. Near Fine+. Three First Editions (second printings of volumes 1 and 2, per BAL; first printing of volume 3) of the first collection of Poe's poetry and prose, edited by N. P. Willis, J. R. Lowell, and R. W. Griswold. Crown 8vo (185 x 113mm): xx,483,[5]; vi,[7]-495,[1];… Read more about this item

Boston: Houghton Mifflin [Riverside Press]??, 1941. First Edition. Hardcover. Near Fine+/Fine-. First Printing of McCullers's second novel, a "hothouse tale of twisted desire and simmering violence." (Terrence Rafferty) Crown 8vo (202 x 129mm): [6],182,[2]pp. Publisher's two-tone grey and beige cloth lettered in yellow and black on front cover and black on spine, fore- and bottom edges rough-trimmed, double-page… Read more about this item

London: Stephen Swift & Co. [from 1911], 1912. First Edition. Decorative Cloth. Fine. A fine, bright Second Impression (per title-page verso) of Mansfield's first book, a collection of sketches of unusual people and events in a German pension. Crown 8vo (187 x 122mm): 251,[1],4,32["Books that compel" advertisements printed in red and black]pp. Publisher's dark green ribbed cloth with… Read more about this item

Leipzig: Heinemann and Balestier, 1900. Vellum. Fine. Later edition of Howells's guide to Florence and Pisa enriched with literary portraits of their most illustrious citizens. Crown 8vo (150 x 109mm): 264pp, with 27 tipped-in full page albumen prints, many by the Florence firm Fratelli Alinari. Full decorated vellum over beveled boards, spine and covers richly gilt, brown leather… Read more about this item

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1936. First Edition. Pictorial Boards. Fine-. First Printing (U.S. issue, with "Scribners" to tail of spine) of the photographer's first book, introduced by Raymond Mortimer. Royal 8vo (235 x 180 mm): 8pp, with 63 full-page captioned gravure plates by Brandt. Publisher's glazed photographically illustrated boards, spine and upper cover lettered in red, photographic… Read more about this item

New York: R. H. Russell, 1900. First Edition. Quarter-Cloth. Near Fine+. First State (RHR monogram on front cover, the R's having short tails) of this photo documentary, several decades after Reconstruction, of African Americans still on plantations in the old South. Royal 8vo (361 x 232mm): [4]pp, with 46 illustrations (many full-page) from photographs. Original cloth-backed light brown… Read more about this item

Bombay: Thacker & Co Ltd, 1914. Stiff Wrappers. Fine-. Scarce album of original photographs of Bombay locales from the dawn of the twentieth century. Oblong crown 8vo (148 x 195mm): [48]pp, with 24 postcard-sized photographs, each titled to lower margin and mounted on heavy brown stock to obverse of each leaf. Publisher's stiff deep beige card covers decorated… Read more about this item