Rare books from Burnside Rare Books, ABAA

London: Leonard Smithers and Co, 1899. Signed Limited First Edition. Near Fine. Signed limited first edition. [xii], 152 pp. Bound in publisher's original pale lavender cloth with gilt spine lettering and decorations by Charles Shannon. Copy number 82 of 100 large paper copies signed by Oscar Wilde with a flourish. Near Fine with subtle sunning, several barely discernible spots to cloth, short bubble to rear cloth. Typical offsetting to endpapers, and a 5" tear to the rear endpaper. Contents bright and fresh. A beautiful copy. Wilde's masterpiece, which opened to wide acclaim at the St. James's Theatre, London, on February 14, 1895. It was withdrawn after 86 performances following his arrest and imprisonment on charges of gross indecency as a consequence of his failed libel suit against Lord Queensbury, the father of Wilde's homosexual lover, Lord Alfred Douglas. He was outed as gay (a disgrace in Victorian society) and the play was not published in any form until the present edition, following his… Read More

London: Faber and Faber, 1954. First Edition. Near Fine/Very Good. First edition, first printing. An advance presentation copy inscribed by William Golding to his next-door neighbors and dated ten days before publication, reading "To Mr and Mrs Nelles with the author's regards 7/9/54" with his name not signed. Bound in original red cloth with titles in white on spine. Near Fine with slight fading to cloth, bleeding to edges of front paste down and several tiny spots to textblock edge. In a Very Good or better unclipped dust jacket with light bleeding from cloth to blindside, light waviness to front panel, light edge wear, short tear at bottom of front spine joint and two short splits to rear spine joint. An allegorical tale of children stranded on a coral island and their disastrous attempt to govern themselves. It was Golding's first novel, who was a middle-aged school teacher when he wrote it. After reading an unrealistic story of stranded youth, he commented to his wife he could do better. He… Read More

New York: Harper & Brothers, 1947. Second American edition. Near Fine. Second American edition. Signed by Joseph A. Schumpeter and inscribed to a former owner on the front free endpaper. Bound in publisher's original green cloth with spine lettered in gilt and publisher's colophon in blind on the upper board. Near Fine with light wear to spine ends, stain to rear cover, bookseller ticket to front free endpaper. In a Very Good unclipped dust jacket, which is rubbed, lightly browned and edge-worn. The author's best-known, important and perhaps most controversial work. A revision of the 1942 first edition with new material appraising the social changes wrought by WWII.

Berlin: Im Propylaen-Verlag, 1929. First Edition. Near Fine/Very Good. First edition in book form of this iconic novel. A presentation copy signed and inscribed by Erich Maria Remarque on the front free endpaper, "This first edition copy with pleasure to Arthur W. Kelly." Kelly was a British film executive and perhaps Remarque was shopping his novel around for a potential film adaptation. In 1930, the novel was adapted into a critically acclaimed film directed by Lewis Milestone, and was the first talkie war film to win an Oscar. Bound in publisher's original beige cloth lettered in maroon and black. Near Fine with light lean to binding, light toning to edges and spine cloth, light worming primarily to textblock fore-edge and lighter-so on front free endpaper and half-title page, dust-soiling and foxing to top of textblock edge. In a Very Good dust jacket, with toning to and a small interior chip the spine panel, light chipping and wear to the edges and flap folds. A wildly successful novel which… Read More

Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Co, 1966. Early Printings. Very Good. Three volumes, early printings. Signed by Richard P. Feynman with a small doodle on the preface page next to an image of him playing a bongo drum, followed by "Hawat / Muan [?]", perhaps a reference to Frank Herbert's Dune. Bound in publisher's original red cloth stamped in gilt and white. Very Good with fading to spines, light rubbing to cloth and light marking to covers, bumping to corners, former owner names at front, slight foxing to endsheets. UCLA students' bookstore rubber stamp to bottom textblock edge and front free endpaper of volume I. Complete with three exercise books (1964-65), bound in publisher's original stapled wraps. Very Good with rubbing to spines, light wear to covers, former owner name inside front covers and toning to pages. Based on lectures presented before undergraduate students at the California Institute of Technology, during 1961-1963 by Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman, who has sometimes been… Read More

New York / Bogata: Harper & Row, Alfred A. Knopf, Henry Holt, The Limited Editions Club, Grupo Editorial Norma, 2005. First American Edition. Fine/Fine. A fantastic collection of sixteen first editions, all signed by Nobel Laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez and all inscribed by him to the same recipient, Richard Mattie. A painstaking exercise in book collecting, undertaken by the resourceful Mattie over a period spanning from 1997 to 2005 with the assistance of a number of contacts in Mexico who had a close connection to the author by which the signatures were obtained. The collection is accompanied by a 1-inch thick folder, titled by Mattie "The Gabriel Garcia Marquez File 1997-2005", in which he has meticulously documented this nearly decade-long collecting venture, preserving every letter, fax, postal receipt, wire and emails (printed out in full). A remarkable collection. All sixteen books are first American editions, with the exception of Vivir para cotarla which is the true first edition in… Read More

London: Chapman & Hall, 1843. First edition. First edition, first printing. "Stave I" on page [1] and every single textual point uncorrected as per Calhoun and Heaney. Todd's first impression, first issue with 15mm between wreath and left blindstamping, unbroken "D." Title page printed in preferred red and blue, dated 1843 in Roman numerals; half title and verso of title page printed in blue. Smith II.4. [viii], 166, [2] pp. with hand-colored steel engraved frontispiece and three steel engraved plates within text. Bound in publisher's brown ribbed cloth with elaborate gilt and blind stamping, all edges gilt, variant green endpapers. Near Fine with crisp stamping, hint of toning to spine, hairline crack in front gutter but binding sturdy, a few light spots of foxing to text at front, typical offsetting to endpapers. Bright internally. Tissue guards present. Housed in a custom chemise. An excellent copy of the classic Christmas story, rare in the original cloth.Written by Dickens during a period when… Read More

Paris: L'auteur, H. Nicolle (impr. des freres Mame), 1812. First edition. First edition. Complete in four volumes, including all 288 colored plates, four frontispieces, and half titles. Bound in contemporary boards, sympathetically rebacked recently with gilt stamping, morocco labels, touch-ups to corners. Large folios, measuring 17.5" x 23" x 2", with wide margins. Text in French and English. Near Fine, sturdily bound and contents generally bright. Former owner's bookplates to paste downs as well as non-circulating library bookplates and deaccession stamps; limited perforation to margins of around three to four pages per volumes (always in margins of plates when applicable), small ink numbers written on first page of text. Limited foxing. Tissue guards present in Vol. I only, occasionally creased and foxed. Two plates in Vol. I have heavy foxing. A few tiny wormholes to last few dozen pages of Vol. II, mostly marginal. A lavishly illustrated look at India by a Flemish author and artist: its people,… Read More

St. Petersburg, Russia: Pateleevyi Brothers, 1881. First edition. First edition in book form. Two volumes, rare with the half-titles present. 509; 699 pp. Text in the original Russian. Near-contemporary quarter calf, pebble-grain black cloth sides, spines with gilt lettering in Cyrillic, initials to foot of spines. Very Good, a little rubbing to extremities; joints and inner hinges repaired at some point; old faint dampstains to first and last few pages; contents foxed, a little wavy, and a bit musty. Corner of Vol. I p. 289 torn off with loss to a few characters, laid in. Vol. II with former owner's inscriptions in cursive Cyrillic, reproducing some printed lines of half-titles and title page, contemporary inscription giving Dostoevsky's vital dates, first name, and patronymic, to title page, partially trimmed by binder's knife. A solid, complete set.A true masterpiece of world literature. This was the author's swan song; he died the same year it was published. Published in serial form in The… Read More

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1928. First Edition. Near Fine/Near Fine. First edition, first printing. Bound in publisher's orange cloth ruled in dark blue and lettered in gilt. Near Fine with light fading to spine cloth, light crease to top corner of rear board, gilt on spine is oxidized and top edge is a little dust-soiled. Foxing to textblock edge. In a Near Fine unclipped dust jacket, spine toned and lightly soiled, a thumb-nail chip and crimping to the crown, a short tear to the top end of the front flap fold, and several small nicks along the spine joints. The most obviously autobiographical of Larsen's two novels, Quicksand is the story of a bi-racial young woman who sets out on a mission to to find the people among whom she will feel she belongs. In a letter to close personal friend Carl van Vechten, Larsen referred to the emotional experiences of the novel as "the awful truth", as she herself struggled with finding a sense of belonging between the worlds of her Danish mother and African… Read More

New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1929. First Edition. Very Good/Near Fine. First edition, first printing of this major contribution to the Harlem Renaissance. Bound in publisher's canary cloth lettered in plum. Very Good with soiling and wear to cloth, cup-ring stains for upper board and fading to the lettering on the spine, pages toned and lightly thumbed. In a supplied unclipped dust jacket, Near Fine or better, with light wear at the extremities, a small corner crease to the front flap and a small closed tear to the rear panel near the bottom edge. Jessie Redmon Fauset was an editor, poet, essayist, novelist, and educator. During the 1920s, she was the literary editor of the NAACP's official magazine The Crisis. Her literary work helped sculpt African-American literature in the 1920s as she focused on portraying a true image of African-American life and history. Her black fictional characters were working professionals which was an inconceivable concept to American society during this time… Read More

New York: Harper & Brothers, 1954. First American Edition. Near Fine/Very Good+. First American edition, first printing with a handwritten inscription by Alice B. Toklas of her legendary "Haschich Fudge" recipe written across one and a quarter blank pages at the rear of the book. Pretty rad indeed. Bound in publisher's original orange cloth boards over green spine cloth stamped in gilt and orange. Near Fine with light soiling to bottom edge in a Very Good+ unclipped dust jacket with wear at the crown and edges, light fading to spine, light tanning and light soiling. The notorious drug-laden recipe was printed in the British edition but omitted from this American edition as it was deemed "too dangerous." Laid in is a signed typed letter dated 11 April 1974, from author Samuel M. Steward, a close friend of both Toklas and Gertrude Stein, written to Ronald R. Randall (who evidently sold the book to John Howell Books) regarding the provenance of the inscribed recipe and how it was obtained: "When [this… Read More

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1905. First Edition. First edition, first printing, first issue without ads at rear. [vi], 533 pp. with frontispiece and seven illustrated plates. Bound in publisher's red ribbed cloth lettered in gilt. Near Fine with slight lean to binding; slight darkening to spine and mottling to cloth. Former owner gift inscription to front paste down and slight perfume odor to pages. In the scarce original dust jacket in impressive condition, light edge wear and spine darkening, Very Good+ with partial splits to the spine joints and a mostly closed tear at the top end of the front spine joint. Generally bright and attractive, putting the example of the jacket reproduced in Garrison to shame. A suppressed issue of the jacket with a line stating "for the first time, the veil has been lifted from New York society" is mentioned by Wharton's biographer R.W.B. Lewis (p. 151); Wharton had the jacket changed and the offending line deleted before the book was formally issued; it was… Read More

Germantown, PA: Printed by Christopher Sower, 1759. First Edition. Near Fine. First edition of this scarce and important colonial-era antislavery pamphlet, and one of the earliest antislavery tracts to be printed in America. 8vo. [ii], 15 pp. Stitched in contemporary plain waste paper wrapper. From the library of James Moon, a prominent Philadelphia Quaker who played a leading role in the long-running Quaker campaign against slavery in the 18th Century. Moon's ownership signature dated 1760 inked on the inside of the front wrapper, the inside of the back wrap, and the title leaf verso. Short-title in manuscript presumably in Moon's hand on the front wrap, and an additional early, small ownership signature there as well ("JHM", possibly another Moon). Near Fine. Some worming, rubbing and fraying to the edges of wraps, the top third of the wrapper is split along spine. The left-most 1/2 inch of text at the bottom eleven lines on page 7 have been neatly underlined in red ink where the letterpress type… Read More

Paris: Charles Gosselin, 1831. First Edition. Near Fine. First edition, first printing, first issue. [8], 404; [4], 536 pp. Bound in modern gilt armorial stamped morocco green leather bindings with marbled endpapers; wood-engraved title vignettes by Tony Johannot. Near Fine with light toning and minor patches of foxing throughout else fine. Victor Hugo's Gothic French masterpiece printed by Gosselin in a run of 1,100 copies on March 16, 1831; this first printing was distributed into four separate issues of 275 copies each, the subsequent three issues being designated as "second edition," "third edition," and "fourth edition" respectively on the title-pages. "This first edition is the rarest of all the works of Victor Hugo; it has had a resounding impact worldwide, and is one of the most difficult titles of the Romantic period to obtain" (Carteret).