Johnson, Irving; Johnson, Electa

Westward Bound in the Schooner Yankee with: Ephemera

New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 1936. First Edition. Hardcover. Inscribed & signed by Irving Johnson. The famous account of one among many round-the-world sailing cruises by Captain Irving Johnson (1905-1991) & his wife Electa "Exy" Johnson (1909-2004), rivetingly written by the world-renowned husband-&-wife adventurers themselves. With captioned historical photographs of the voyage at frontispiece & interspersed throughout; & chapter-motif illustrations by Roland Wentzel. Hardcover without scarce dust jacket, first edition as stated on copyright page. On the shorter title page, Irving Johnson has hand-written & signed: "To Bob Farlow/ Big blocks & small ropes/ to you./ Sincerely/ (signed) Irving Johnson." Also found & included are two most interesting pieces of ephemera: A developed (or scanned) photograph of Richard Dwyer (b. 1936, like this volume), the legendary figure ice-skater, holding his framed Guinness World Records certificate honoring his longest-ever career (62 years as of 2012) in that field; & the business card of Jonathan Smaller's venerable Yesterday's Muse bookseller in Webster, NY., both in very fine condition with only faint waving, creasing to Dwyer photo. We presume Smaller was a previous seller, & the photograph of Dwyer has "...Scanned Image...06/15/12" printed on otherwise blank verso. A most collectible copy of this seafaring classic, enriched with Capt. Johnson's sailorly inscription & (esp. Dwyer-related) ephemera. Book in relatively good-to-near-fine condition with moderate rubbing, browning & faint scratching to light green-colored cloth front, back covers & esp. spine; mild wear, fading at edges & corners of same incl. very slight fraying; moderate dulling of dark blue-colored lettering, graphics at spine (but almost completely intact); sailboat illustration on front cover quite bright & intact; moderate browning & rubbing to side & lower edges of text block (the former untrimmed as issued); moderate browning & more pronounced rubbing, fading & light scratching to dyed(?) upper edge of same. Interior near-fine with moderate browning to illustrated (with map of voyage) front & rear paste-downs & endpapers; stamp of former owner (neither of Farber, certainly another previous owner, nor Dwyer, probably so) at blank upper margin of shorter title page; mild browning mostly to blank margins of page leaves. An extra handling fee will be added for shipping due to the weight of this item. Good- Near Fine. [Item #4951]

Price: $150.00