London, England: Golconda Fine Art Books, 2018; 2020. Limited First Editions. Stapled Wrappers. Both volumes signed by Alexander Adams. "I have accepted the view that my verse benefits from illustration and that- as an artist- I am well placed to provide that. My verse has appeared in anthologies without illustration, so it seems that the verse is strong enough to function without images. I try to write verse as if..... More
[Item #3641]
Boston, MA: Virginia Adams, Yosemite National Park and Houghton Mifflin Company, 1950. First Edition. Spiral Bound. Signed by Ansel Adams. "My devotion to photography of the natural scene has drawn me to nearly every section of the United States and to Hawaii and Alaska. The desire to apply my photography to wilderness regions beyond the Sierra Nevada was realized for the first time when I was appointed photomuralist for the..... More
[Item #4485]
Long Island City, NY: Osprey Publishing, 2010. First Edition. Hardcover. "The image of the Roman legionary is as familiar today as it was to the citizens- and enemies- of the vast Roman Empire two thousand years ago. This book goes beyond the stereotypes found in popular culture to examine the Roman Army from the first armed citizens of the early Republic through the glorious heights of the Imperial legions to..... More
[Item #4219]
Ann Arbor, MI; Columbus, OH: P. Burkovsky; Community Creations, Inc., 1937; Circa 2010. First Printings. Single Sheets. Two wonderful, fascinating map-illustrations of Ann Arbor & its University of Michigan: (1) Illustrated bird's-eye view map of the central campus of UM, titled "University of Michigan Campus in 1937" & with "Copyright April 26, 1937 by P. Bukovsky," "Drawn by P. Bukovsky." With detailed illustration of the campus & its contemporary buildings..... More
[Item #3680]
New York, NY: E.P. Dutton and Company, Inc., 1976. First Edition Thus. Hardcover. "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." (Chapter 1, first sentence, pg. 3) Thus famously begins the novel about the manners & foibles of England's landed gentry during the late 18th-early 19th century by Jane Austen (1775-1817), first published in 1813..... More
[Item #4211]
Memphis, TN: St. Luke's Press, 1983. First Edition. Softcover in Dust Jacket. Inscribed & signed by Marilou Awiakta to Thomas Rain Crowe. "Based on the actual events which happened in 1833 to a Choctaw child, RISING FAWN tells the poignant and triumphant story of a small girl taken, during the Removal, from her Choctaw home and handed over to adoptive parents in Memphis. It is not until Christmas and the..... More
[Item #3629]
Ostheim/Rhon, Germany: Verlag Peter Engstler, 2011; 1999. First German Edition; Original Artwork. Softcover; Single Sheet. Including original collage artwork signed & dated by Mary Beach. A unique pairing of two collectibles by Mary Beach (1919-2006), who along with her husband Claude Pelieu (1934-2002) was at the Paris-based center of cutting-edge cut-up writing & collage art. She was also the mother of Pamela Beach Plymell & therefore the mother-in-law of Legendary..... More
[Item #3530]
Ostheim/Rhon, Germany: Peter Engstler Verlag, 2008. First Printing. Single Sheet. A poster (appx. 16&1/4" x 23&3/8") promoting the publication of a 2008 German edition of Mary Beach's Electric Banana. One of many iterations of this now-classic work influenced & with an introduction by William S. Burroughs, who collaborated with Beach (1919-2006) & her husband Claude Pelieu (1934-2002). WSB is briefly quoted here in German translation. Beach's daughter Pamela Beach Plymell..... More
[Item #3835]
New York, NY: Excelsior Press, 1960. First Edition. Softcover. A very interesting early compilation of Beat Generation & Beat-contemporary (mostly) poets, prose writers & artists, produced during the height of early media hysteria regarding what exactly the word "Beat" meant. "What is beat? Is there a final or definitive definiton?...So crazy-- one must dig this word somehow. I walked along the village limelight and asked an assortment of squalid squares..... More
[Item #4071]
Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1986. First Edition. Hardcover. "Ann Charters first met Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg in 1956 at the second of Ginsberg's legendary readings of his poem "Howl" in Berkeley. Charters, a photographer well known in the Sixties for her portraits of blues musicians, became fast friends with the group of writers and poets who would later be known as the Beat Generation. Especially close..... More
[Item #4087]
New York, NY: Schirmer Books, 1996. First Edition. Hardcover. Signed & dated during year of publication by Fred W. McDarrah & Gloria S. McDarrah. "From fashion and food to literature and music, the Beats heralded a new way of living, and a new mode of recording their lives. There is hardly a part of American culture today that is untouched by their work. Fred and Gloria McDarrah lived and worked..... More
[Item #4117]
New York, NY: George Braziller, 1964. First Edition. Hardcover. "Each one of us wanted to cry out, somehow to express our shock and horror at the assassination of the President. Each one of us tried to say in conversation what we felt, but essentially we were mute. Our gestures were helpless; our impulses somehow to monumentalize those days, to hold them and not let them sink into banality and acceptance-..... More
[Item #3937]
Spartanburg, SC: Holocene Publishing, 2001. First Edition. Softcover. Inscribed & signed (twice) by John Lane to Thomas Rain Crowe. "On October 24, 2000, twelve students and three teachers from Sayre School in Lexington, Kentucky set out into the Red River Gorge for a photography hike. We were led by poet and essayist John Lane and photographer Mark Olencki, both of whom were visiting Sayre as part of the Books Alive..... More
[Item #3752]
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000. First American Edition. Hardcover. "The combination of superb and thoughtfully-arranged illustrations, definitive text, and up-to-date illustration maps, all in a single volume, has already established the pocket-sized version of this guide...as the most essential reference to European bird identification. This sumptuous large-format edition with entirely redesigned text is intended to complement the field guide and permit greater appreciation of the extraordinarily beautiful artwork. The..... More
[Item #4214]
Seattle, WA: Double Elephant Folio & Quarto Co., Inc., 1969. First Edition Thus. Softcover. A very large (appx. 11&1/3" x 13&2/3") folio with very high-quality facsimile reproductions of engraved illustrations by the iconic British artist, poet & printer William Blake. As explained in colophon, "This book has been printed by photo-offset lithography from the original edition of 1804. It is number three in the Double Elephant- San Vito Press series..... More
[Item #3601]
Zurich, Switzerland: Vittorio Santoro, 1995. First Edition. Hardcover. "A query often put to me by journalists unable to invent better questions is: which one of all my stories do I like best. A meaningless question. Still, I reply, always giving the same title: 'The Time of Friendship.' It has neither personalized malevolent thought nor any violent behavior. The violent action is supplied by the approaching war. One is aware of..... More
[Item #3933]
Paris, France: Henri Screpel, 1977. First Edition Thus. Hardcover. "For this is indeed Bruegel's message to our time; above the wailing of death wandering in our lives there may prevail, if only we can discover them, the secret harmonies that encompass life's road...The journey is long, but the mountain tells us- with Bruegel- that he will point us the way to the land of genuine magic." (from "Introduction to Bruegel"..... More
[Item #3947]
Toronto, Ontario, Canada: ECW Press, 1997. First Edition. Softcover. "The BUK book offers a unique look at a phenomenon: Charles Bukowski- BUK- the battered and scarred postal clerk, odd jobs man, and lowly factotum, became the best-known "underground" writer in the English language. Jean Genet called him "the best poet in America." His work- raw, crude, heartwarming, and hilarious- has inspired imitators, emulators, sycophants, and detractors. Until now, everything written..... More
[Item #4264]
London, England: Michael Horovitz, 1975. First Printing. Softcover. This double-double number of the UK literary journal edited & published by Michael Horovitz brims with mostly original contributions by a wide mixture of the most well- & unknown cutting-edge literary figures (& some artists & musicians for good measure) from the time of (or recently deceased at) its publication during 1975 to now & beyond, compiled over many years since the..... More
[Item #4292]
Cambridge, MA: Richard Cambridge, 1997. First Edition. Stapled Wrappers. Inscribed & signed by Richard Cambridge to Thomas Rain Crowe. "How was I to know you would be there,/ at the beginning of the path,/ a circle of light I must pass through?" ("The Circle of Light," first stanza) A chapbook with the above-referenced poem in eight parts & images that inspired it by Richard Cambridge, a prolific poet-performer well known..... More
[Item #3699]
New York, NY: New York Graphic Society/ Little, Brown and Company Inc., 1986. First Edition. Hardcover. "Stonehenge, Devil's Arrows, Cuchulainn's Stone, Glen Druid...for millennia the Celtic megaliths have stood, their names dark with legend, their meaning only partially deciphered. The brooding presence of these monumental structures still challenges all we presume to know of earth, man, and spirit. Twenty years ago, Paul Caponigro set out to accomplish, through the silver..... More
[Item #4254]
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada: Lone Pine Publishing, 1991. First Edition. Softcover. Inscribed & signed by Robert Chelmick to Thomas Rain Crowe. "In the process of attempting to enter the world space of these colorful insects, Bob Chelmick experiences "delicious moments" when "the normal level of visual experience gives way to deeper value." His text describes the falling away of self- the shrinking of ego that comes from regarding moths and butterflies..... More
[Item #3727]
London, England: NdA Press, 1980. First Edition Thus. Softcover. Inscribed & signed by Natalie d'Arbeloff to Thomas Rain Crowe. "This book is a facsimile reproduction of a handmade livre d'artiste published in England in 1974 in an edition of only 75 copies. Natalie d'Arbeloff, who produced that limited edition and illustrated it with her deep-etched color plates, also printed its text by hand...Her motive in undertaking such a...task...was to give..... More
[Item #3695]
San Francisco, CA: Features, 1970. First Edition. Stapled Sheets; Single Sheets. An early graphic production by Tom Clark (1941-2018), the great poet, editor & biographer who epitomizes our category of "The Prolific & Underappreciated." A classically produced late Mimeo Revolution production with images of a car going through the stages of washing at a typical American car wash facility. The very sparse text consists of bland captions below some of..... More
[Item #3592]
Los Angeles, CA: The Werkman Press, 1987. Limited First Edition. Sewn Wrappers. Signed by Tom Clark. "His supposition is he's moving on foot through woods/ The breeze is hot it grips like slow paralysis/ Its source and direction are not apparent/ The leaves undulate like serpents" (first stanza) A chapbook with the title poem by Tom Clark (1941-2018), the inspired & prolific American poet, editor, novelist, biographer & artist. The..... More
[Item #3908]