Search Results: Authors starting with K from Peter Harrington

The Hague: Chez P. Gosse, & J. Neaulme,, 1729. The chief source of Western knowledge of Japan First edition in French, the second overall following the English edition of 1727, of this encyclopaedic description of Japan's flora and fauna, religion and customs, and government and industries. Kaempfer's account framed European understanding of Japan for over a century, and it was considered so definitive that later experts such as Isaac Titsingh saw no need to compose their own. Born in Westphalia, Kaempfer (1651-1716) graduated in 1676 with a doctorate in languages, history, and medicine from Cracow. In 1681 he moved to Upsala and two years later was chosen to accompany Ludwig Fabritius's embassy from Charles XII to Russia and Persia. At Esfahan, he decided not to return with the rest of the party, but instead obtained employment with the Dutch East India Company and headed south for Bandar Abbas, where for two years he was the surgeon at the Dutch factory. In 1688 he set sail for the east and, on 24… Read More

Leipzig: Kurt Wolff,, 1916. A true birth, covered with filth and slime First edition in book form, first printing, of Kafka's The Judgement, here in the scarce case-bound issue and in exceptional condition. The story originally appeared in Max Brod's periodical Arkadia: Ein Jahrbuch für Dichtkunst, in 1913. Written in a single night in 1912 through which, as Kafka related, "the story evolved as a true birth, covered with filth and slime", Das Urteil was one of the author's personal favourites. Octavo. Original parchment-backed black boards, spine lettered in black, front cover with lettering and publisher's insignia in gilt. Housed in a custom black card slipcase. Illustrated bookplate of Werner Rübe. A near-fine copy, with the merest rubbing to tips only, sound and fresh within. Dietz 31; Raabe 146.4; Wilpert/Gühring 4.

Leipzig: Kurt Wolff Verlag,, 1915. He found himself transformed in his bed First edition, first printing, in the fragile wrappers, and first issue without censor's stamp, of Kafka's Metamorphosis, narrating the tale of a man who wakes up to find himself a monstrous insect. Poorly received on publication, it is since firmly established as one of the iconic works of 20th-century German literature, and a defining work for the author. The book was issued in both boards and wrappers. After a year or so of unimpressive sales, the unsold copies were stamped on the title pages with the official stamp of the German censors. Only copies without this stamp, as here, can be said to be of the first issue. Octavo. Original cream wrappers printed in red and black with an illustration by Ottomar Starke, early manuscript label to spine, front wrapper dated 1916 as issued, red endpapers. Housed in a black cloth flat-back box by the Chelsea Bindery. Neat ownership label of Simon Traston to front free endpaper verso.… Read More

Berlin: Verlag die Schmiede,, 1924. His final short-story collection First edition, first printing, scarce cloth issue, of this collection of four short stories, the last to be finished by the author, published a few months after his death. There was also an issue in patterned paper boards. The stories are marked by Kafka's illness. His friend Robert Klopstock remembered the author in his last days: "When he finished the correction, which must have been a considerable, not only mental effort, but a kind of shocking spiritual re-encounter for him, the tears rolled down his face for a long time". In addition to the title piece, the collection includes includes "Ersted Lied", "Eine kleine Frau", and "Josefine die Sängerin oder Das Volk der Mäuse". Herman Hesse wrote that "Erstes Lied" revealed Kafka as "a secret master and king of the German language". The binding was designed by the German-American artist George Salter, who devised similar bindings for Kafka's other posthumous publications. Octavo.… Read More

London: Victor Gollancz Ltd,, 1937. First edition in English, first impression, one of an estimated 1,000 copies sold. The Muirs were instrumental in introducing Kafka to the anglophone world, and it is their rendering of The Trial's opening line, "Someone must have been telling lies about Joseph K.", that is widely quoted as one of the great first lines in literature. Edwin Muir's reassurance to Gollancz, who was concerned that there was no British audience for the 'kafkaesque', was later fully vindicated: "I feel K. will certainly have a future in this country and become the centre of a literary cult... I look upon [Kafka] as the greatest writer of modern times" (cited in Hodges, p. 101). The edition includes an epilogue by Kafka's literary executor, Max Brod. The Muir translations remain in print today. This novel was first published as Der Prozess (1925). Octavo. Original blue cloth, spine lettered in dark blue. Book block square, spine faded and bumped at foot, foxing to edges and outer leaves,… Read More

London: Martin Secker,, 1930. Kafka's first full-length work translated into English First edition, first impression, of Kafka's first major appearance in English, providing the foundation for his great international standing. Perhaps due to the British public's unfamiliarity with the 'kafkaesque', initial sales "were appalling, though the book won recognition of Kafka's genius" (Hodges, p. 101). It is estimated that a mere 500 copies were sold. The Muir translations remain in print today. In his introductory note, Edwin Muir states that "Franz Kafka's name, so far as I can discover, is almost unknown to English readers" (p. v), having previously appeared only in disparate translations of his short stories. "It is because the Muirs toiled to communicate the incommunicable that Kafka, even in English, stands indisputably among the few truly indelible writers of the 20th century - those writers who have no literary progeny, who are sui generis and cannot be echoed or envied" (Bernofsky). The volume… Read More

Berlin: Verlag Die Schmiede,, 1925. First edition, first printing, scarce, especially so in collectible condition, as here. The novel was one of three works (the others being Das Schloss and Amerika) unfinished at the time of Kafka's death in 1924. Though the author had instructed his friend Max Brod to destroy the manuscripts, Brod ignored his wishes and edited the works for publication. The covers were designed by the German-American artist George Salter, who later illustrated the first US edition of the novel's English translation in 1937. Octavo. Original green cloth, blue paper labels to spine and front cover printed in dark red, top edge yellow. Spine and extremities sunned, as often, light wear to head of spine, contents clean: a very good copy.

Leipzig: Kurt Wolff,, 1919. In the deluxe binding First edition, first impression, in the deluxe binding. One of 1,000 copies of Kafka's short story set in an unnamed penal colony which he wrote in October 1914. The "relatively long time span between composition and first publication is due in part to Kafka's dissatisfaction with the original conclusion of the story", however, "Kafka revised the end of the text in November 1918" (Gray et al., p. 134). In November 1916 Kafka presented a version of the text "at a public reading - something to which Kafka rarely agreed - at the Goltz Gallery in Munich" (ibid., p. 134). The work was first translated into English by Eugene Jolas in 1941; published in the Partisan Review as In the Penal Colony. Octavo. Contemporary dark brown half roan, spine lettered in gilt, marbled boards, cream endpapers, white silk page marker, top edge gilt, others uncut. Housed in a custom slipcase. Text in German. Printed in blue and black. Light wear to extremities, the binding… Read More

Leipzig: Kurt Wolff,, 1916. Beautifully preserved in the fragile original wrappers First edition in book form, first printing, of Kafka's The Judgement, one of the author's favourite of his own stories. The story was written in a single night in 1912, through which, as the author remembered, "the story evolved as a true birth, covered with filth and slime". It was originally serialized in Max Brod's periodical Arkadia: Ein Jahrbuch für Dichtkunst, in 1913. Octavo. Original black wrappers, wire-stitched as issued, blue paper label to front wrapper printed in black. Discreet ink stamp to title page. Wrappers lightly creased at foot, tiny marks to front cover and edges, else a fresh, near-fine copy. Dietz 31; Raabe 146.4; Wilpert/Gühring 4.

New York: Pantheon Books,, 1943. Praised by Albert Einstein First edition, first printing. The Jewish historian and essayist Kahler (1885-1970) fled Nazi Germany in 1933. Despite the war and rise of fascism, Man the Measure offers an optimistic account of history as progress, charting the development of human institutions and improvement in moral conditions. Albert Einstein praised the book: "I will not feel that I have finished this book before having pondered every line it" (jacket). Octavo. Original black cloth, spine lettered in gilt on blue ground. With dust jacket. Very lightly shaken, very good in good jacket, rear fold split, other smaller splits to folds and chips at extremities.

Shanghai: Shanghai Mercury, Ltd,, 1914. First edition, first printing, presentation copy inscribed by the author on the title page, "friendship's offering, W. R. Kahler, 22/7/14". A scarce work, with only four copies recorded on WorldCat, and with an attractive provenance, from the library of the sinologist Keith Stevens. This work, one of several by the journalist William R. Kahler, discusses his trips to different Chinese tourist spots, recording impressions of what he saw, as well as useful historical information on temples, grave sites, and other architectural features. In early 20th-century Shanghai, when most foreign residents kept to the comfortable environs of the treaty ports, such accounts were extremely popular. The material in Chinese Chips was first published in The Union, a Shanghai newspaper of which Kahler was editor. This copy is from the library of the sinologist Keith Stevens (1926-2015), with his decorative bookplate to the front pastedown. Stevens, a British scholar-diplomat, was… Read More

Stuttgart: Kosmos, Gesellschaft der Naturfreunde,, 1922-31. With a vivid, unfaded example of the "Man as Machine" poster First edition of Fritz Kahn's modernist magnum opus, uncommon with all five volumes in first edition, accompanied by a fresh example of the iconic poster "Der Mensch als Industriepalast" in its earliest state, a pioneering example of early information design. Also present are the 12-page explanatory brochure written to accompany the posters and the 3D glasses. Kahn, a German gynaecologist, was "arguably one of the most successful popular science writers internationally between 1920 and 1960" (Borck, p. 495). His heavily illustrated books combined science with the zeitgeist of Weimar Germany: new technologies, rapid industrialisation, and the Bauhaus and Dada movements. Das Leben des Menschen was Kahn's greatest achievement, a copiously illustrated five-volume set on human anatomy and physiology which took nearly a decade to complete. "Prolonged by the inflation crisis of 1923 and… Read More

Tokyo: Rikuya-sha Publishing, Inc.,, 1983. First edition, first printing, inscribed on the half title by the artist "To Mr Sam Haskins, from Y Kamekura". Kamekura's graphic designs include advertising, marketing and logos for many companies, Olympic, sport and art convention posters, typefaces, packaging, book designs etc. Text mainly in Japanese, with some English. Quarto. Original illustrated laminated boards, titles to spine in silver and white. With the publisher's illustrated slipcase. Many full page illustrations throughout. Book fine, slipcase lightly rubbed to corners.

Edinburgh: Printed for William Creech,, 1807 [& 1809, supplement]. First edition of Lord Woodhouselee's account of the life and times of the Scottish enlightenment philosopher Henry Home Kames, containing a large number of letters to and from Kames, including several from David Hume; bound with the 1809 supplement volume, and scarce thus. Woodhouselee came to know Kames in 1767, and often accompanied the him when he went on circuit as a judge. At Kames's suggestion he wrote a supplement to Kames's own Dictionary of Decisions, which appeared in 1778. His biography of Kames remains one of the principal sources for the life of the philosopher. "Besides a luminous account of its proper subject, and of all his writings, it contains a vast fund of literary anecdote, and many notices of eminent persons, of whom there was hardly any other commemoration" (Chambers, p. 364). 2 volumes, quarto (262 x 209 mm). Contemporary half calf, spines lettered in gilt, smooth spines formed in compartments with black bands,… Read More

Edinburgh: Printed for William Creech,, 1807. First edition of Lord Woodhouselee's account of the life and times of the Scottish enlightenment philosopher Henry Home Kames, containing a large number of letters to and from Kames, including several from David Hume. 2 volumes, quarto (267 x 207 mm). Contemporary marbled boards with vellum tips, rebacked in calf with red morocco label, brown speckled edges. Portrait frontispiece in vol. I, 2 engraved leaves of specimens of Kames's handwriting in vol. II. Early notation "Cornwall Library" and shelf marks to front pastedowns, with devices stamped to top edges. Complete with half-titles and instructions to binder. Labels a little chipped, light rubbing to sides, offsetting from frontispiece and contents lightly browned, closed tear not affecting text at foot of vol. II appendix pp. 19/20, repair to another tear foot of pp. 73/4, pp. 73-84 of Appendix in vol. II duplicated. A very good copy.

Edinburgh: Printed for John Bell; and John Murray [& Geo. Robinson, for Loose Hints],, 1779 & 1782. Third edition, corrected and expanded by the author, the final and definitive text, of Kames's most important philosophical work, his Essays on the Principles of Morality and Natural Religion; bound with the second edition, likewise enlarged, of his educational treatise Loose Hints Upon Education. First published in 1751, the Essays "produced a furore among the more high-flying members of the Scottish church, and there were some who wished to see the author excommunicated. Kames's friendship with, and support for, David Hume made him a target, although the Essays were not an uncritical endorsement of Hume's views. Kames's fault was to suggest that man had a 'deceitful... feeling of liberty' (Ross, 103) - that all was determined, but that this was not evident to men who made choices as if they were free. At the general assembly of the Church of Scotland in May 1755 Kames escaped censure by name as that… Read More

Berlin: Mit Radierungen von Arthur Kampf,, 1925. Signed by the illustrator, on Van Gelder paper Signed limited edition, number LXXX and LXXXII (respectively) of 150 copies printed on Van Gelder paper and signed by the illustrator Arthur Kampf (a further 500 copies were issued signed and numbered on Johann-Wilhelm-Butten paper). A very attractive edition of both parts of Faust in the original German. 2 volumes, folio (351 x 264 mm). Original blue calf by Georg Froehlich of Berlin based on a design by Marcus Behmer, spines richly gilt, gilt centrepieces to covers within gilt rule, top edges gilt, others uncut. Housed in black card boxes. With 24 full-page plates, each signed by the illustrator. Very light rubbing, first few leaves of part I with short closed tear at head, some light foxing. An excellent copy.

Munich: R. Piper & Co.,, 1912. Towards abstraction First edition, first printing, of Kandinsky's seminal theoretical publication, "one of the most influential art texts of the first decades of the twentieth century" (Tate), which sparked widespread interest in abstract art. Über das Geistige in der Kunst "elucidated Kandinsky's artistic theories and his valuing of expression and spirituality over naturalistic representation. It also introduced his new pictorial categories derived from the field of music - impressions, improvisations, and compositions - which further de-emphasized the importance of recognizable subject matter. On the cover and in ten woodcuts, Kandinsky illustrated his ideas by reducing complex scenes of spiritual battle and redemption to simplified designs of lines and shapes" (MoMA). The work outlines his theories of the artist as a prophet, his arguments for expression and spirituality in the place of naturalistic representation, and the power of art to cause "vibrations of the… Read More

Philadelphia:, Childs & Peterson,, 1856. First edition. "In a brief life of thirty-six years, mostly in ill health, Elisha Kent participated in two Arctic expeditions and by the time of his death in 1857 was regarded as a true American hero and one of the nation's most popular authors... Little went right in the second expedition [but] there were many notable achievements... The discoveries of Kennedy Channel, the Kane Basin, a record north of 80° 10'N, and the sighting of the Humboldt Glacier were important firsts for Kane... The book became enormously popular (135,000 copies sold within three years), being marketed at trade shows and sold door to door, and often compared to the Bible for wide dissemination on America's bedside reading tables" (Books on Ice). 2 volumes, octavo (224 x 138 mm). Attractively bound in recent dark blue morocco, titles and decoration to spine gilt, raised bands, single rule to boards, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. With engraved vignette titles, engraved portrait… Read More

Mainz & Hamburg: bei Gottfried Vollmer,, 1801-05. First edition of these geographical treatises compiled from student transcripts of Kant's lectures at the University of Königsberg in 1778, 1782, and 1793. Vollmer's edition is among the earliest published appearances of material from Kant's geographical lectures. Kant was among the first scholars to include geography on a university curriculum, lecturing on the topic from 1756 to 1796 - virtually his entire academic career. In the view of a contemporary, "in these lectures Kant was all things to all men, and it was perhaps in them that he gained the most useful and powerful influence over the men of his time" (quoted in Chamberlain, p. 39). Scholars have emphasized the connection between Kant's physical geography and his broader critical philosophy - particularly regarding the concept of space. Despite Vollmer's use of student transcripts, Kant complained that his edition was unauthorized and illegitimate. The four volumes of Vollmer's edition were… Read More