Browse the latest catalogs, newsletters, and e-lists of rare books, fine bindings, incunabula, print ephemera, and much more from the members of the ABAA below. (Also includes podcasts, blog posts, and other digital formats.)
*New* indicates any catalogs brought to our attention since mid-February 2024.
Bridgeport, CT, 30 January 1877. A two-page letter on the front and verso of a 5-1/8" x 8" sheet with a blue ink stamp of Barnum addressed to an unknown recipient regarding employment and SIGNED as "P. T. Barnum."
In part: "You are declining the American tour…. My respected father-in-law is I fear rather too timid. My son-in-law … filled the position of traveling Treasurer 4 or 5 years without inquiry, and hundreds are doing the same every year. We think it is a most healthy calling. It is lively, busy & exciting, but not sickening nor killing. My partners would only have allowed $25 per week & I should have paid the other $15 from my own pocket for the sake of having you see if the business would suit you, and also see if an opening could be made for you whereby you could gain an independence. The disappointment to me is not at all serious on my account—more so on yours. But it is all for the best no doubt. I still think I shall have a permanent place of amusement in New York City, where you can have a situation & a chance to own an interest which will be sure to be valuable. We will talk it up when we meet.”
Philadelphia: Published by Richard Clark, 42 Moyamensing Road, 1853. Lith. of Friend & Aub 80 Walnut St.; Wagner & McGuigan’s Lith Steam Press. Hand-colored lithograph, mounted on linen, 40” x 32.5” and attached to wooden rods. CONDITION: Good, dampstain to upper-left corner between “H. Ames’ Iron Works” and “Residence of Judge Burrall,” minimal dampstaining to upper portion near vignettes, some wear to upper edges of sheet, silk selvage perished.
A scarce and handsome wall map of the Northwestern Connecticut iron-boom town of Canaan, with mines, ironworks, and sawmills shown along the Housatonic Railroad.
(12), 171, (1)pp., 15 engraved plates (9 folding). Text figs. Title-page vignette. Lrg. 8vo. Contemporary calf, newly rebacked. Henry Maundrell was the Levant Company's chaplain of Aleppo from 1696 to 1701. This work contains the first description of Baalbek by an Englishman. Oxford (Printed at the Theatre, for A. Peisley...and W. Meadows), 1740.
Mexico : Unknown, n.d. [c.1950's]. Octavo. 19cm. Publisher's decorated card wraps. 144pp. Strong and bright, with some light wear to extremities and spine ends, dramatic sunning to the rear panel where another book has cast a pale "shadow" whilst the rest of the panel has toned to tan, nevertheless a very good attractive copy. Internally clean, Libreria Latina of 253 Broadway, Los Angeles, label to half title. Paper stock cheap and browned but strong.
It promises the secrets of Albert the Great, "never published until today", along with instruction in cartomancy and use of "The Spanish Deck", but is also packed to the gills with charms and protections against a variety of maleflictions, curses, and troubles of the heart and mind. The role of these esoteric and ephemeral pamphlets is a complex one, touching upon the ability to claim wisdom and knowledge to oneself in an environment that isn't overly eager to teach you, and where knowledge is quite definitely power; access to treatments and remedies that might not be the ones everyone else has access to, but they are yours; and also possibly the manifestation of hope that advancement can be learned from alternative sources than the ones denied you by mainstream society. Much like lottery tickets, self help courses in hypnotism, and online Amazon reselling schemes, these little books offer a slim chance at survival and success that is vital to communities denied access to pathways of improvement open to others.
[Birmingham, Alabama]: Rev. C.H. Oliver 1963. Original 33½ rpm vinyl record album. Off-white outer sleeve printed in black with six paragraphs of liner notes by Rev. C.H. Oliver on rear. The album itself has a red label printed in silver on both sides crediting Oliver for the recording and listing a code (“BIRM-1963 A/B”) on each side. Outer sleeve with some corner creasing, some edgewear including a touch of splitting at the topedge and small scrape at the lower right front corner from a removed price sticker, about very good with the record fine and bright; the inner sleeve is new and supplied.
Oliver recorded this mass meeting at the 16th Street Baptist Church on May 3, 1963, the second day of the historic Children’s Crusade. What began with children being arrested for staging a school walk-out was quickly escalated by police the next day through the use of fire hoses and police dogs. The result were unforgettable images and video of police cruelty that galvanized national support for the Civil Rights Movement and allowed President Kennedy to mobilize the National Guard. This recording captures the raw emotional responses of Dr. King and Rev. Abernathy as they addressed parishioners on what proved to be the most substantial day of the Birmingham Campaign, as Oliver explains in the liner notes: “There were nightly mass meetings for some 75 days straight, attended by hundreds and sometimes thousands of people, many coming from all parts of the country. Of all the meetings, none reached the height of enthusiasm as did the one on this recording. Had it not been for one tape recorder in operation, a great moment in history would have passed without posterity having the benefit of hearing it as is was.” While later editions were made, this first pressing is exceedingly rare, with OCLC locating just two copies of this historical recording.
Photographs by Brassaï. Paris: Édition “Arts et Métiers Graphiques, [1933]. First edition. Small 4to., [12] pp. text, plus 62 full-page b&w photogravure plates. Photo-illustrated stiff wrappers, spiral bound. A few shallow creases to the wrappers; otherwise, a near fine copy. Housed in a clamshell box of black linen with title label on the upper cover and spine.
“Brassai’s nocturnal vision of Paris is so well known, and his book Paris de Nuit has been so influential - Paris de Nuit is also a ravishing book object in a purely physical sense. The printing represents arguably the most luscious gravure ever seen, the blacks being so rich and deep that after handling the book one expects to find sooty deposits all over one’s fingers.” Parr and Badger, Volume 1, p. 134.
Hollywood, CA: Heavy Industry Publications, 1978. First Edition. 12mo; publisher's photo-illustrated card wraps; unpaginated; chiefly halftone photographic illus. throughout. Publisher's promotional card included. Slight curling towards fore-edge of wrappers and promotional card, binding otherwise sound and pages unmarked. A Near Fine copy of this scarce photo-novel, featuring Shelley Chamberlain, Suzanne Chandler, and Susan Haller.
Offered by Capitol Hill Books and found in "E-List 24."
1 vols. Image 11-1/2 x 8 inches, matted to 17-1/2 x 14 inches. Color Printed Brochure by Fashion Artist Reynaldo Luza.
Reynaldo Luza (1893-1978), pre-eminent fashion artist, was born in Lima, Peru. He began training as an architect at the University of Louvain, Belgium, but returned to Peru at the outbreak of World War I, where he changed his studies from architecture to art. In 1918 he came to the United States, where he earned his living by contributing drawings to several fashion publications, principally VOGUE, HARPERS BAZAAR, and VANITY FAIR. In 1921 he joined HARPERS BAZAAR as the principal fashion artist, a position he was to hold for 27 years. He divided his time between New York, Paris and London, working closely with all of the leading fashion designers of the times--Poiret, Patou, Lelong, Paquin, Douillet, Doucet, Cheruit, Worth, Drecoll, Callot Soeurs, Redfern, Martial et Amand, Premet, Reboux, Chanel, Vionnet, Molyneaux, Schiaparelli, Hartnell, Steibel, and Balenciaga, among others.
In 1940 Luza made New York his principal base, where, over the next few years, he continued his activities at Harpers as well as creating fabric and furniture designs, and the costumes for the movie “The Bridge of San Luis Rey”. Among other distinctions, he received several honorary appointments from the government of Peru, including that of Artistic Director of the Paris Exposition of 1938 and the New York World's Fair of 1939-40; he also did the interior design of the new Lima airport.
In 1950 Luza returned to Peru, where he began a second career as a portrait painter, exhibiting his work over the next few years in Paris, New York, and Washington, D.C.
OCCASIONAL LIST 22: A Miscellany: Original Art Work; Small Archive of Major English Watercolourist; Interesting Theatrical Pieces; Manuscript Material, Etc., Etc. -- available on request from fgrare@fgrarebooks.com...
Has the following lists available: California, Texas, Kansas, Missouri, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Oregon, Louisiana, Colorado, Ohio and New York. Will email to interested parties. Contact info@ginsbook.com to request...
Binding designed by John Leighton. Brown cloth over beveled boards, elaborate gilt designs to front panel and spine; all edges gilt; brown clay-coated endpapers, 7-1/4” tall, 312 pp. Engraved frontispiece and over a hundred engraved illustrations within the text; printed by the Dalziel Brothers, one of the most influential wood engraving companies of Victorian England. Light wear to corners and spine ends, gilt bright and cloth is clean.
A fun and beautiful edition of this classic, the front cover features cameo portraits surrounding a central ship image, interspersed with vines. John Leighton was one of England’s foremost book designers and helped pioneer the pictorial ornamentation style.
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Two full-page richly hand-colored paintings of the mushroom. 24 folding leaves. 8vo (278 x 197 mm.), orig. decorated wrappers, new stitching. [Japan]: copied after 1850.
A near-contemporary manuscript copy of Suigetsu’s Sakikusa ko, published in 1850; this is an early account of the lingzhi or reishi mushroom.
Offered by Jonathan A. Hill, Bookseller and found in "Japanese Mycology."
1953. Ace Books. New York, NY. Paperback. 1st Edition/ 1st Printing. Very Good. Cover Art by Al Rossi. This is a mass market paperback book (PBO). Ace Double Book number D-15, priced at 35cents. The book is in Very Good condition and was issued without a dust jacket. There is light rubbing and edge wear to the spine ends, corners and spine joints. The text pages are clean, with noticeable generalized toning. This is William Burroughs first published book and was published with the encouragement of Allen Ginsberg who not only had regular correspondence with Burroughs throughout the writing but handed the book over to Ace books to help it get published.
"Ace Books renamed the book from Junk to Junkie, possibly because Junk implied the book itself was poor quality, and added the subtitle Confessions of an Unredeemed Drug Addict. Ace took advantage of Burroughs' provocative subject by creating a 'lurid' book cover, but also censored the book's language, removed certain passages, and added editors' notes and disclaimers. To avoid the perception that his company endorsed drug use, Wyn chose to bundle Junkie with a reprint of Narcotics Agent, a 1941 book by Maurice Helbrant chronicling his work in the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. " (from Wikipedia)
St. Helen, Michigan: St. Helen Development Co., 1909 Promotional piece describing the investment opportunities in St. Helen, located in Roscommon County in Northern Michigan. “The land itself is varied in character, some being sandy loam, this being classed by experts as the finest fruit land in the state.” Beans, corn, oats, rye, and apples are some of the crops well suited to the region. The St. Helen Development Company sold more than 80,000 acres of land and helped to build more than 30 miles of roads and over 80 miles of fencing. Pamphlet (8” x 9” folded to 4” x 9”), consisting of 16 panels, folded vertically (as issued) and bound with two staples. Includes 32 photographic illustrations, including a “contemplative” birdseye view of St. Helen across the middle spread, and a map of Michigan on the rear with St. Helen called out.
Illustrated Catalog on Carlos Merida (1891–1984) -- Mexican painter, sculptor, writer and graphic designer -- available by request from mmbooks@comcast.net
Children’s Dance Theater Archive of Carla Blank and Jody Roberts -- Offered jointly with Kate Mitas, Bookseller. Details available on request from maser@detritus.com...
4to (183 x 133 mm.). [xxiv], 90 [10]p. Black Letter type (roman for dedication and section headings, scattered italic), historiated woodcut initials (one of a man plowing), FULL PAGE WOODCUT OF TEN GRAFTING INSTRUMENTS with letterpress captions, SIX TEXT WOODCUTS showing, i.a., grafts, plants and seeds (one repeated), title woodcut of a man grafting (repeated from the text).
Blue paper wrappers, blue morocco backed blue paper chemise (signed Devauchelle, misdated “1569” on the spine) with a blue paper slipcase.
SECOND EDITION of English naturalist Leonard Mascall’s first publication. It is “a major landmark in the development of British arboriculture… the first readily available text on…the care of trees to be published in the English language…. He is an undoubted champion of the professional gardener and arborist…Mascall…displays an awareness of basic arboriculture that is far in advance of other British texts from the sixteenth century” (Johnston).
Emphasizing both practical experience and familiarity with local conditions, Mascall details the planting, cultivating, propagating, grafting and transplanting of trees and vines of all sorts, including pear, fig, peach, apricot, damson, apple, medlar, quince, cherry, mulberry, gooseberry, chestnut, almond, grape and hop. He illustrates the necessary tools — pruning knives, saws, chisels, a mallet and hammer with file — and the most effective grafting methods. He takes up how to improve fruit flavor, prevent infestations of ants, caterpillars, snails and worms and HOW TO MAKE WINES AND CIDERS. Knowledgeable, accomplished and enterprising, Mascall drew on the work of French Benedictine horticulturist David Brossard and unidentified German and/or Dutch sources. He served as kitchen clerk to the Archbishop of Canterbury.
This edition is dated after the final line on C3v. Our copy contains two quires (A, N) from the first edition and an apparently unknown setting of type in the outer forme of quire D (the inner forme is from the first edition.
A good copy (minor ink smudges, title soiled and with two short tears — one blank margin brusquely repaired), scattered contemporary annotations, contemporary inscription of Thomas Johnson on the title (trimmed), slightly later signature of Edward G(u)ardiner on the final verso. My thanks to Dr. Aaron Pratt and Mr. Stephen Tabor for their insights.
St. Louis: Trade Promotion Bureau, National Shoe & Leather Finders' Assn., (n. d.), circa 1930. 14 x 11 inches. Broadsides. Heavy white cardstock printed in multiple colors, with each broadside having a different background color and a white border. Light bumping and wear, with loss to lower corner of one broadside, mostly affecting border only; light dampstaining to some borders; dampstaining and soiling to verso of first broadside in the series ("Monday"); light scattered soiling. Good.
Presumably a complete set of these promotional posters, which urge readers to "Watch Your Step" on every day of the week except Sunday. Each accompanying illustration shows a different reason why readers should have their shoes "re-built": to prevent accidents caused by faulty shoe soles; to keep one's feet dry when stepping in puddles; to look fashionable, presentable and reliable; and to prevent injury when stepping on sharp objects.
During the Great Depression -- when we speculate these posters were produced -- thousands of unemployed workers from other sectors of the economy went into the shoe repair business, likely because the cost of entry was low and the need for reliable footwear was constant. However, given their lack of training, the overall quality of shoe repairs plummeted. At the same time, the National Leather & Shoe Finders' Association (NLSFA) found that nearly 75% of Americans opted to replace, rather than repair, their shoes. Faced with this twin calamity, the NLSFA embarked on an ambitious program to identify major areas the shoe repair industry needed to focus on, redecorate existing places of business so they looked more professional, form a guild to ensure quality and consistency throughout the industry, and promote quality and workmanship through advertising and displays. Although the guild eventually fizzled out in the 1940s, the NLSFA remained the premier organization of the industry, and still exists today as the Shoe Service Institute of America. (https://www.ssia.info/awards/history/)
Not located in OCLC or other online resources.
Offered by Kate Mitas, Bookseller and found in "E-list No. 21."
[New York]: 1979. Vintage original lm script, 11 x 8 1⁄2" (28 x 22 cm.), 101 pp. Lacks blank front wrapper, brad bound, small tear to left middle of title page, overall very good+ or better.
[sold with:]
Two analyses of earlier drafts of the script done by a staff member at the Chartoff-Winkler production company, one 10 pp. dated 7/11/78 and one 7 pp. dated 11/14/78.
A very interesting copy of this script, containing 4 pp. of holograph notes most likely in the hand of Nicholas Colasanto, who played maa boss Tommy Como. In these pages he both writes out his lines and makes notes about them. The verso of one of the analyses has a page of MS notes in another, unknown hand. The script is dated 2-1-79 and this draft is noted as by “M.S.” (Martin Scorsese) and “R.D.N.” (Robert De Niro).
Raging Bull is now considered one of the crowning achievements of director Martin Scorsese and the actor most associated with him, Robert De Niro. In addition to Academy Award nominations for Best Picture and Best Director, it won two: Best Actor (De Niro) and Best Editing (Thelma Schoonmaker).
Although this is essentially the movie’s shooting script, there are still major differences between what is on the page and the completed lm. For example, the title sequence of the MS/RDN screenplay opens with “Stone Cold Dead in the Market” by Louis Jordan on the soundtrack, and “CLOSE-UPS of a fighter’s body,” intercut with the titles, only at the end of which “WE CATCH A GLIMPSE of young JAKE LAMOTTA.”
Compare this to the movie’s actual title sequence—the iconic long-shot black-and-white image of De Niro as LaMotta alone in the ring, practicing his boxing moves in slow motion, while on the soundtrack we hear the lyrical Intermezzo from Cavalleria rusticana by Pietro Mascagni. However, Jake’s monologue has been completely rewritten. It’s funnier. Only its closing line remains the same, “That’s Entertainment!” So it goes throughout the remainder of the screenplay and film. The structure remains the same. The essential content of each scene remains the same. But the dialogue, frequently profane, may differ, due to the fact that the actors—particularly De Niro as Jake,and Joe Pesci as Jake’s brother, Joey—were encouraged by Scorsese to improvise during shooting, taking off from what was written on the page.
Forty years after it was written, Raging Bull is still cinema’s denitive analysis of toxic masculinity.
Offered by Walter Reuben, Inc and found in "Catalog 53."
Leipzig, Germany. Illustrite Zeitung (Illustrated Newspaper), Circa 1845. Disbound.
This wood engraving clipped from an unidentified edition of the Illustrite Zeitung (Illustrated Newspaper), known colloquially as the ‘Leipziger,’ is undated, but information on the reverse indicates that it was published by J. J. Weber of Leipzig, Germany. It is titled, Quarantine und Marinehosital fur Einwanderer auf Staten Island, Newyorf (Quarantine Station and Marine Hospital for Immigrants at Staten Island, New York). It is in nice shape with some light toning.
It can be dated as locations of the buildings and dock exactly as shown almost identically match those shown on a map of the grounds, “Marine Hospital Ground, Staten Island . . . made by John Ewein. Dated March 1845 . . . City Surveyor.” The large building in the foreground is “[St. Nicholas] Hospital.” The center building on the hill is the “Yellow Fever Hospital.” The building to the far right is the “Small Pox Hospital.” The small buildings on the “Wharf” and “Pier” are a “Shed” and “Store House.”
Between 1795 and 1798, Yellow Fever killed thousands in New York City, spurring passage of a quarantine law that funded the construction of the New York Marine Hospital on this site. At its peak, the hospital could house 1,500 patients and was treating more than 8,000 per year. Before landing at New York, all vessels were boarded by inspectors, and if they found any trace of disease, everyone was unloaded at the Quarantine. First-class passengers spent their quarantine at the St. Nicholas while lower-class passengers were held in shanties not visible in the wood engraving.
There was considerable local opposition to the hospital, both from land developers who wished to use the grounds for projects and locals who blamed outbreaks of disease on the passengers under quarantine. The tension escalated and in 1856, a local health board prohibited anyone, including staff, from exiting the building by land. On the first of September 1858, the same board passed a resolution declaring the facility to be ”a pest and a nuisance of the most odious character, bringing death and desolation to the very doors of the people [who must abate] this abominable nuisance without delay.” That night a giant mob attacked the hospital, and after evacuating patients and staff from the buildings, burned most of the complex to the ground. The following night, they burned the rest. When later brought to trial, the mob leaders were acquitted, the jury deciding that they had acted in self-defense.
In his semi-autobiographical novel, Redbun: His First Voyage, Herman Mehlville recounts a typical chaotic scene as ships were searched and inspected by health officials and later expresses relief when upon returning to New York harbor as his ship passed the Staten Island complex, apparently unnoticed by port officials, and escaped inspection.
(For more information, see Stephenson’s “"The Quarantine War: the Burning of the New York Marine Hospital in 1858" in the Jan-Feb 2004 issue of Public Health Reports, available online.)
Uncommon. Wood engravings of the Staten Island hospital from illustrated magazines and auctions occasionally appear at auction. The majority are post-attack illustrations showing the ruins or replacement buildings.
Offered by Kurt A. Santfleben, LLC. and found in "Catalog 24-2."
25/25 engraved cards. 98 x 70 mm., blue period cardboard box-case. [Paris: Chez Genets jeune, 1809].
A splendid set of exquisitely etched early nineteenth century alphabet cards by the French miniaturist Joseph François Le Roy, whose name appears at the foot of the first card. Of the greatest rarity, and still preserved in its original, somewhat worn, box.
Paris: 1658. The first edition of the rules of the Congregation of the Mission, the religious society founded by St. Vincent de Paul. Founded in 1625, the society was concerned especially with charitable works and expanded rapidly in Europe and abroad. The edition offered here is the only one published during the saint's lifetime and includes an exhortation by Vincent to this followers. There are several variants of this first edition, some have a different engraved portrait of Vincent, others have a different spelling on the title-page, and still others include an errata sheet at the end (this one does not). 12mo (12 x 6.5cm), [iv], 112pp., [ii]. Engraved title-page, engraved portrait, and engraved plate of Christ. Bound in contemporary calf, some wear to spine.
Offered by Zinos Books and found in "New Arrivals."
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