Hardcover
Bible Gallery
New York: Cassell & Company, [1883]. 10 x 13 1/2". Second printing of this titled edition. Brown pebble-grain cloth with gilt and black design on the cover, gilt title on spine, tissue guard for frontispiece is intact, minor edge wear rubbing, top edge of spine is sightly more worn, all edges gilt, binding is tight and illustrations are complete and beautiful, no inscriptions or owner marks, in very good + condition.
Gustave Dore (1832 - 1883) was a french artist, sculptor, illustrator and more who worked primarily with wood engraving. Dore was a very prolific artist and his illustrations are well-known. He had many titles published using his bible illustrations, including The Child's Bible, The Bible Gallery, Bible Stories and Scenes for Young People, etc. For this book, this is the first edition/second printing, derived using the reference book by Malan. This edition is a collection of 100 engravings illustrative of the bible but made for the American market in a smaller and less costly version as well as having a briefer analysis of each design. (Malan p. 243)
Blood Sport
London: Michael Joseph, 1967. Approximately 5 1/2 x 8". Illustrated dust jacket in near fine condition, designed by Broom Lynne, very little edge wear and slight creases as the top of the spine, original price of 25s intact. Blue cloth over boards with crisp gilt titles on spine, clean and tight, in fine condition.
Born Richard Stanley Francis (1920 - 2010), Dick Francis was a British crime writer whose novels were mostly centered on horse racing in England (he was a former steeplechase jockey himself). This book is Dick Francis' 7th book, with Gene Hawkins appearing for the first time as a government security agent. Edgar Award nominee. Adapted into TV film in 1989 with Ian McShane in the protagonist role of David Cleveland.
Bones: A Nameless Detective Mystery
New York: St. Martin's Press, 1985. 5 3/4 x 8 1/4". 196 pp. Illustrated dust jacket with some creasing and wear at the edges, in very good + condition; Black cloth over boards with silver lettering on spine, in near fine condition.
Bill Pronzini, winner of the Best Novel of 1981, awarded by the Private Eye Writers of America for his novel "Hoodwink", Pronzini lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, as does his nameless detective. Bones is a mystery about a dead man's reasons for suicide and end up involving a figid wife, a ruthless lawyer, a bitter ex-wife, and a beligerant taxidermist turned landlord (according to the dust jacket flap). Full of deceit, intrigue and murder, it's an exciting mystery.
Book of Dragons
Van Nuys, CA: Barbara J. Raheb, 1979. 56 pp. Approximately 5/8 x 15/16". LIMITED EDITION of 300 copies, this being #2. Black leather, gilt titles on spine and cover, previous owner's bookplate on front free endpaper, marbled endpapers, signed and numbered on the colophon, in fine condition. (Bradbury, Barbara J. Raheb, 129)
From Volksmarchen der Serben or Folk Tales of the Serbs. Beautifully illustrated.
Book Poems
Berlin: Siegfried Spengler, 2005. 3/4 x 1"; 62 pages. Red cloth over boards, gilt title and decorations on cover and spine, slight loss of gilt on spine, previous owner's bookplate on verson of ffep, pink endpapers, frontispiece, housed in red paper slipcase, in very good plus condition.
A small collection of poems about books by Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886), which include In a Library, A Book, and Unto my Books.
Bradford's History "Of Plimoth Plantation." From the Original Manuscript. With a Report of the Proceedings Incident to the Return of the Manuscript to Massachusetts. (Olive Percival's Copy)
Boston: Wright & Potter Printing Co., 1901. 555 pp. Blue cloth over boards with beveled edges, crisp lettering and decoration on spine, minor wear to spine, signature and bookplate of Olive Percival on front endpapers with some browning likely due to newspaper placed there in the past, two ephemera items from within the pages: a newspaper clipping about the book (date unknown) and a blank letterhead piece of paper from the State of Connecticut Secretarys Office with official seal and note on the back dated 1905, many black and white photographs, a beautiful copy in near fine condition.
The Bradford Manuscript is a history of the Plymouth Colony from its inception to the year 1647 kept by Governor William Bradford of Massachusetts and the background history of the manuscript itself. Ownership bookplate on the front paste-down endpaper and the signature on the first free endpaper belongs to well-known suffragist Olive Percival, who was herself an author and avid book collector.
Burchardus de Bellevaux: Apologia de Barbis
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1935. Dust jacket in very good condition with price of 17s 6d net intact, some discoloration, especially to the spine, some loss near top of spine and minor edge wear. Green cloth over boards with crisp gilt lettering on cover and spine, limited to 350 copies, bookseller label (B.H. Blackwell Ltd., Oxford) on front paste-down endpaper, browning to endpapers, text in Latin, some tanning to page edges due to rough cut, in very good plus condition.
Sub title: A Twelfth Century Treatise on Beards and their Moral and Mystical Significance. Edited by Goldschmidt from the only known Manuscripts at the British Museum, this book also covers the medieval manners and customs of the time.
Burning Bright
New York: The Viking Press, 1950. 159 pp. Approximately 5 x 7 1/2". First edition, first printing. Dust jacket is very good with minor chips and wear and does have the $2.50 price on flap, small closed tear on front top edge of cover. Original tan cloth over boards, red lettering on cover and spine, orange dye on top edges, bookseller's ticket on rear paste-down endpaper, very minor foxing to edges, otherwise in near fine condition. (Goldstone & Payne, A29a)
The form of this book is a "play-novelette", which is a play that is easy to read or a short novel that can be played. Steinbeck used this method experimentally in "Of Mice and Men" and "The Moon is Down" but this book is a more complete attempt at this form. While this book was not critically acclaimed, Steinbeck, as always, is a very vivid writer and bring his four characters to life in this play concerned with the timeless themes of love, jealousy, friendship, and the desire to have a child.
Cape Cod Yesterdays
Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1935. 48 pp. Approximately 6 3/4 x 9 3/4"; LIMITED EDITION of 1075, this being #471 as indicated on the colophon, although the slipcase indicates copy #826, signed by both author and illustrator. Slipcase slightly corner bumped but in near-fine condition with spine label showing title and limitation in excellent shape. Calico cloth covered boards with quarter-bound linen backing, beautiful pictorial endpapers, top edge of all-rag paper is trimmed but other edges are untrimmed, both b/w and full color illustrations by Harold Brett, extra label at rear of book, otherwise in fine condition.
Told from the point of view of remembrances of the departing way of life in Cape Cod. Informal diaglogue brings back the time of general stores, ships that sailed without gasoline engines, travelling by horseback instead of car, fishing, all told with the Cape Cod landscape as a beautiful and scenic background.
Cardography and Card Catalogue
Eugene, OR: Hypatia Press, 1987. 183 pages + Afterward and maps. 5 1/2 x 8 1/2"; LIMITED EDITION, 76 deluxe editions with 56 having hand-tinted tarot cards of the minor arcana tipped in, like this one, being the Lady of Wands. Beige leather slipcase in fine condition; Beige leather over boards with gilt design and lettering on cover and spine, illustrations throughout including beautiful copper tinted gilt endpapers, signed by Orson Scott Card (author), David Hartwell (editor) and Leslie Newcomer (artist) on limitation page, all in fine condition. Includes Catalogue of Card's works, signed by the compiler, Michael R. Collings and Card.
Orson Scott Card (1951 - ) is an American writer, public speaker, and columnist. He is known for many genres but best known for his science fiction and fantasy books, most especially Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead, both of which won Hugo and Nebula Awards.