Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, First Edition, in Dust Jacket, 1951

Wolfe, Tom. The Right Stuff. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1979. First Edition. Signed by the author at the half-title. Octavo. In original cloth boards, titled in red, blue, and...

Hemingway, Ernest. A Farewell to Arms. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1929. First trade edition, first issue. In the original first-state dust jacket and publisher’s black cloth boards. Presented in a new archival ¼ leather and cloth clamshell case, with raised bands, gilt tooling, and titles to the spine. Presented is a first trade edition, first issue of Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms. The book was published by Charles Scribner’s Sons in New York, in September of 1929. This first printing is presented with its original first issue dust jacket. The dust jacket, as designed by Cleonike Damianakes Wilkins, is considered by many to be one of the greatest of the 20th century and rivals even The Great Gatsby in its collectibility. Set during World War I, A Farewell to Arms tells the story of a young American Lieutenant serving as an ambulance driver in Italy struggling through love and war. The story is told through first person narration detailing many aspects of war that would have been very familiar to readers at the time, as the book was published only 11 years after the 1918 armistice. The simple, direct tone his character uses when giving his unromanticized account of the war later defined Hemingway’s writing style. A Farewell to Arms is loosely based on Hemingway’s own experiences. The author briefly served overseas as an ambulance driver in the Italian Army, sustained injuries, and met a nurse who he eventually proposed marriage to but was declined. The novel’s post-war disillusionist subject assigned Hemingway to the “Lost Generation” of Modernist artists. A Farewell to Arms was Hemingway’s most successful publishing venture to date. Charles Scribner's Sons issued seven impressions of the novel in the short time between September and December of 1929, with over 100,000 volumes sold. The novel secured Hemingway’s place as a popular American author and became his first bestselling book. Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) was an American author and journalist. His distinctive writing style, characterized by economy of words and dry understatement, strongly influenced 20th-century fiction, as did his life of adventure and his public image. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the mid-1950s, winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. Hemingway published seven novels, six short story collections, and two non-fiction works during his lifetime; a further three novels, four collections of short stories, and three non-fiction works were published posthumously. Many of his works are now considered classics of American literature. The book’s striking dust jacket design was illustrated by the artist Cleonike Damianakes Wilkins, who worked under the pen name of Cleon. Wilkins was known for her distinctive fusion of Art Deco and Hellenistic styles. She designed the dust jackets for Hemingway’s earlier The Sun Also Rises in 1926 and his later publication In Our Time in 1930, as well as Conrad Aiken’s Great Circle, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s All the Sad Young Men,and Zelda Fitzgerald’s Save Me the Waltz. Wilkins was chosen by Hemingway’s celebrated editor at Scribner’s, Maxwell Perkins. In order to differentiate Hemingway’s tale from other, competing WWI novels on the bookshop shelves, Perkins sought to widen its appeal through the dust jacket. The resulting design was Wilkins’ interpretation of Sandro Botticelli’s epic oil painting “Venus...

Powell, Colin with Joseph E. Persico. My American Journey, New York: Random House, 1995. Stated first edition. Signed by Powell on full title page. In publisher’s boards with origina...

Shepard, Alan, Deke Slayton, Moon Shot: The Inside Story of America's Race to the Moon. Atlanta: Turner Publishing, 1994. First Edition. Signed by Alan Shepard on the full title page...

First Edition, third issue of Dr. Seuss' most famous book, accompanied by a card bearing the AUTHOR's SIGNATURE and a quick SKETCH of his famous "green egg." Seuss, Dr. (Theodor Seuss Geisel, 1904 – 1991) The Cat in the Hat New York: Random House, 1957. First edition, First Printing, Third Issue. Dust jacket. 8vo, 9 x 6 1/2" (230 x 165 mm), (2) + 61 + (1) pp; pictorial end papers, verso of free end paper blank, pictorial title page, copyright page. Binding with glazed pictorial paper cover over boards and title on spine, very light signs of wear at corners and spine ends, binding stitched at 1 inch intervals; upper cover illustrated and lettered with addition of "For beginner readers"; back cover with excerpts from reviews printed in letterpress below illustration of chalkboard reading Educators hail The Cat in the Hat. Printed in red, black, salmon, dark blue and light blue on wove paper, with bold illustrations on every spread; pages a touch yellowed on edges. On the back of the last page of text is a note on the book enclosed within a large outline in blue of Cat in the Hat. The ORIGINAL DUST WRAPPER in near fine condition, with just slight wear on corners and a chip on the bottom of the spine, reproduces the book's cover; front flap bears price on upper right corner, 195/195, indicating this is the second state of the dust jacket. Accompanied by a small drawing of a "green egg" with "Dr. Seuss" autograph in black ink with on a light green index card, 3 x 5 in. (76 x 127 mm). [Younger & Hirsch 7; Greenaway 95] Dr. Seuss was challenged by Houghton Mifflin's Education Division director, William Ellsworth Spaulding, to create a book for young children using the 225 essential words for beginning readers, a book they would not want to put down. Seuss used 223 of the words from the list, plus 13 others. Seuss tricked kids into enjoying learning with his destructive and charismatic house guest. Inspired in part by Krazy Kat and Felix the Cat, but with a wily mind all his own, the Cat in the Hat's humor and naughtiness are engaged in the noble cause of literacy. "Parents," notes biographer Brian Jay Jones, "were more than happy to join Dr. Seuss as fellow revolutionaries. Even if parents didn't necessarily understand the pedagogy, it was easy to see the difference between the staid DICK AND JANE...

AUTHOR: MILNE, A. A. TITLE: The House At Pooh Corner. PUBLISHER: London: Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1928. DESCRIPTION: FIRST EDITION. 1 volume, illustrated by E. H. Shephard. Bound in t...

London: Hodder & Stoughton Limited, 1938. First Edition. 8vo. 7 1/4 x 4 3/4 in. (182 x 121mm); pp. 356 + iii. Grey cloth binding with black lettering, dampstain to the tail of the ...

AUTHOR: CAPOTE, Truman. TITLE: The Grass Harp. PUBLISHER: NY: Random House, 1951. DESCRIPTION: FIRST EDITION PRESENTATION COPY. 1 vol., 8-3/8" x 5-3/8", inscribed on the front bl...