Catalog 131, S-T
267. SHAW, Irwin. Short Stories: Five Decades. NY: Delacorte Press (1978). A massive collection of 63 stories spanning his entire career, by the author of such novels as The Young Lions and Rich Man, Poor Man. Inscribed by the author in 1979: "Herewith, to my/ beloved, water-logged/ Parrishes, a dry book -/ Jim." Robert Parrish directed the 1963 film "In the French Style" based on the two Shaw stories "In the French Style" and "A Year to Learn the Language." Both are included in this collection. When Shaw died he was cremated, but had left no instructions as to what was to be done with the ashes. Parrish offered to take possession of them, and kept them on a shelf in his garage, a tale recounted by Parrish's wife to Shaw's biographer. Paperclip marks to a couple pages; boards a bit splayed. Near fine in a near fine dust jacket. A nice association.
268. SIMMONS, Charles. Salt Water. San Francisco: Chronicle Books (1998). A novel by the author of Wrinkles and The Belles Lettres Papers, among others. Inscribed by the author: "8/7/98/ For Pauline [Kael]/ with love/ Cheers/ [unsigned]." Fine in a near fine dust jacket.
269. SMILEY, Jane. Moo. NY: Knopf, 1995. Her first novel after winning the Pulitzer Prize for A Thousand Acres. Signed by the author. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
270. SPENCER, Scott. The Magic Room. NY: Harmony Books (1987). A children's book by Spencer, whose novel A Ship Made of Paper was nominated for the National Book Award. Illustrations by his then-wife, Coco Dupuy. Warmly inscribed by Dupuy and signed beneath by Spencer as "Scott." Fine in a very near fine dust jacket.
271. SPENDER, Stephen. Collected Poems, 1928-1953. NY: Random House (1955). A collection by one of the preeminent British men of letters of the 20th century. Inscribed by the author to another poet, with the author's address written below the inscription. Recipient's handmade bookplate front flyleaf; white-out front pastedown beneath the text of the jacket flap, which has been clipped and pasted in. Hinges tender; a very good copy, lacking the full jacket.
272. STAFFORD, William. Stories That Could Be True. NY: Harper & Row (1977). A collection of poems by the National Book Award-winning author. Inscribed by the author to another poet in February, 1978. Recipient's handmade bookplate front flyleaf; a near fine copy, with the main dust jacket sections clipped and attached to the boards and pastedowns. A good literary association copy, and a unique and idiosyncratic volume.
273. (STEADMAN, Ralph). KERR, Gordon. You Can't Get to East Kilbride from Here: Poems 1968-2003. (n.p.): Steam Press, 2003. A limited edition of poems by Kerr, extensively illustrated Ralph Steadman. One of 50 numbered copies signed by Kerr and Steadman. Halfbound in mohair Ashai cloths. Fine, without dust jacket, as issued.
274. -. Same title. One of 10 lettered copies signed by Kerr and Steadman and housed in a clamshell box with the silkscreen print "An Evening with Ted Hughes" signed by Steadman. Silkscreen printing by Petro III Graphics. Fine.
275. STEGNER, Wallace. Crossing to Safety. Franklin Center: Franklin Library, 1987. The last novel by the author of The Big Rock Candy Mountain, among others, in a writing career that spanned nearly 60 years. Stegner was the acknowledged dean of Western American writers, and one of the key voices in defining a literature of place, which has been the defining motif of American writing of the West for a generation, and has brought environmental concerns and cultural histories into the realm of literature. This is the limited first edition, preceding the trade edition. Leatherbound, all edges gilt, with a silk ribbon marker bound in. Signed by the author. With a special introduction by Stegner for this edition. Fine.
276. (STEGNER, Wallace). The Best American Short Stories 1943. Boston: Houghton Mifflin (1943). Later printing of this collection of stories that includes Stegner's "Chip Off the Old Block," in addition to work by Faulkner, Welty, Thurber, Cheever, and Irwin Shaw, among others. Signed by Stegner at his contribution. A very near fine copy in a fair dust jacket split at the front flap fold, chipped at mid spine, and with extensive internal tape repairs. A cheaply produced wartime book, seldom found in good condition.
277. STEINBECK, John. The Winter of Our Discontent. NY: Viking, 1961. The limited edition of Steinbeck's last novel, published the year before he won the Nobel Prize for Literature. One of 500 copies printed for friends of the author and publishers, this copy being inscribed by Steinbeck to his publisher, Harold Kleinert Guinzburg, co-founder of the Viking Press: "For H.K.G./ with Ks/ from/ John Steinbeck." Guinzburg founded the Viking Press in 1925, using a Rockwell Kent design of a Viking ship as the company logo, to suggest the young company would be adventurous and explore new writers and writing. Among the early novelists they published were James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence and James Weldon Johnson. In 1935 Pascal Covici joined Viking as an editor, bringing with him John Steinbeck. Viking went on to publish all of Steinbeck's books from that time forward, including his classic The Grapes of Wrath in 1939, which won the Pulitzer Prize. Several at Viking were nervous about elements of the novel, and suggested certain changes be made. Guinzburg, however, loved the book and said he did not want to see a single word changed, and the book was published as is, with a first printing of 50,000 copies, an unprecedented number for Steinbeck and indeed for any literary author in the years just after the Depression. The book was a huge success, and made Steinbeck a fortune as well as affirming his status in the American literary pantheon. Steinbeck remained loyal to Kleinert throughout his life, never looking elsewhere for a publisher even when some suggested that he might do better elsewhere. Their relationship lasted nearly thirty years, up until Guinzburg's death later in the year that this book was published. A wonderful association copy, and perhaps the best possible copy of this limited edition "for friends of the author and publishers" -- i.e., from author to publisher. Fine in a very near fine dust jacket and the original acetate dustwrapper, with the words "Limited Edition" printed in red on the front panel.
278. STONE, Robert. A Flag for Sunrise. NY: Knopf, 1981. His third novel, which many consider his best book, a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and winner of the L.A. Times Award for best novel of the year. A dark tale of a small Central American country in upheaval, and the lives of a group of Americans whose different backgrounds and connections to the action intersect alarmingly and tragically. Signed by the author. Light foxing to page edges; else fine in a fine dust jacket.
279. STONE, Robert. Children of Light. London: Deutsch (1986). The true first edition of his fourth novel, preceding the American edition by one week, and printed in an edition of only 4500 copies, vs. 40,000 (announced) for the American edition. A dark Hollywood novel, with themes from Kate Chopin's The Awakening and King Lear and one of the most hard-hitting, Hollywood novels since Nathanael West's The Day of the Locust. Signed by the author. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
280. (STONE, Robert). Legacy of Light. NY: Knopf, 1987. More than 200 Polaroid photographs by 58 photographers, with accompanying essays by Stone, Gretel Ehrlich, Diane Johnson and Richard Howard. This copy is inscribed by Robert Stone. Large quarto; fine in a near fine, spine- and edge-sunned dust jacket.
281. STOPPARD, Tom. Arcadia. London: Faber & Faber (1993). A near fine copy of the issue in wrappers of this play by the prolific author of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, among many others.
282. STOUMEN, Lou. Ordinary Miracles. Los Angeles: Hand Press (1981). A book of Stoumen's photographs, inscribed by the author to film critic Pauline Kael. Near fine in a near fine dust jacket. Laid in are exhibition announcements for two Stoumen shows, one at Friends of Photography in Carmel in 1977 and the other at G. Ray Hawkins Gallery in New York in 1978. Each of these is folded; near fine. In addition to his still photography, Stoumen made over 100 films over the years, making the inscription to Kael particularly notable.
283. SWOFFORD, Anthony. Jarhead. NY: Scribner (2003). The author's first book, a highly praised memoir of the first Gulf War, which was immediately hailed as a classic of contemporary war literature, on a par with Michael Herr's Dispatches, and became a surprise bestseller. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
284. TATE, James. The Lost Pilot. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967. His first regularly published book, a volume in the Yale Series of Younger Poets. Tate is one of the leading poets in the U.S. today, having won both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize as well as the Wallace Stevens Award and the Tanning Prize, among many others. Inscribed by the author to another writer in 1979. This is a fine copy of the issue in wrappers.
285. TATE, James. Viper Jazz. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press (1976). The hardcover issue of his sixth collection of poems. Inscribed by the author to another writer: "In disgust -- I know you're going right down/ to the Gotham Book Mart and trade this in/ for some real poetry. Well, fuck it,/ Lots of Luck/ Jim Tate." Upper corners bumped; near fine in a very good dust jacket with minor rubbing and a bit of staining to the rear panel. A nice inscription, and a good literary association.
286. TAYLOR, Peter. In the Miro District. NY: Knopf, 1977. A collection of stories by the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer. Inscribed by the author in Memphis in the month of publication. Fine in a near fine, price-clipped dust jacket with one edge tear.
287. THEROUX, Paul. Half Moon Street. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1984. The uncorrected proof copy of two novellas, "Doctor Slaughter" and "Buried Alive," which was retitled "Doctor DeMarr" in the published version. Minor handling; near fine in wrappers.
288. TILLINGHAST, Richard. Sleep Watch. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press (1983). Second edition of this collection of poems, which was first published in 1969. Signed by the author. With the ownership signature of another poet. Fine in wrappers.
289. TILLINGHAST, Richard. The Knife. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press (1983). Second printing. Inscribed by the author to another poet in 1987. A fine copy of the issue in wrappers.
290. TOLKIEN, J.R.R. The Hobbit. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1938. The first American edition of Tolkien's landmark book, the first of his tales of Middle Earth that redefined the fantasy genre when he later expanded upon the story to produce The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien's tale of the hobbit Bilbo Baggins began as a story he told his younger children, and the book was written and published as a book for children (or what might today be called "young adults"). Tolkien had begun writing the tales that underlay the history of Middle Earth, and The Hobbit, more than 20 years earlier (see items 292 & 293), inventing not only entire mythologies but complete and coherent "lost" languages. Later, he developed the history of Middle Earth more elaborately and wrote the Lord of the Rings sequence, and the tales became darker, more allegorical, and more aimed at a mature audience. This volume has a color frontispiece by the author, and three other color illustrations, as well as a number of black and white drawings. This is the first issue, with bowing hobbit on the title page, and the position of the endpaper maps reversed from their listing in the table of contents. The binding is the scarcest of the several variant bindings, with vertical ribbed beige cloth. Bookplate on the verso of the front flyleaf; faint tape shadows to pastedowns; a very near fine copy in a dust jacket illustrated with a Tolkien drawing, and restored to near fine condition. A very attractive copy of a historic first novel, seldom found in dust jacket. The two issues, or impressions, of the first American edition totaled 5000 copies, and this is the earlier of the two.
291. TOLKIEN, J.R.R. The Lord of the Rings. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1954-55. Unbound page proofs of the first American editions. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1954-55 [1956]. Working copies, from British sheets. Complete for Volume 1, The Fellowship of the Ring, with two extra copies of the first signature, showing corrections and including the holograph correction of the book's most famous line: "One Ring to bring them all and in the shadow bind them," with "shadow" crossed out and "darkness" written in by the editor, in accordance with Tolkien's correction of that line in the British proof copy. On page 333, there is an overriding in Tolkien's hand of a suggested change from "forwards" to "forward." Tolkien comments: "No. The objection to forwards seems to have been a piece of American pedantry in origin." Also included are typescript pages (nonauthorial) for the prelims. Volume 2, The Two Towers, is represented by proofs of the prelims only but includes hand-corrections to the runes bordering two pages, apparently in Tolkien's hand. These corrections are overridden, both with the editorial direction "Ignore" on the page and in the text of a (chipped, partial) handwritten exchange between the publisher and the printer as to whether to make corrections which would require new blocks to be made. Also included are both a galley proof of the synopsis and the slug of the U.S. publisher's name to replace the U.K. publisher's name. Lastly from Volume 2, there is a galley sheet of the copyright page. From Volume 3, The Return of the King, there are approximately 40 proof pages (pp. 257-272 and Appendices pp. 389-416). Page 258 has an agreement ("yes") apparently in Tolkien's hand to a suggested change to italicizing a word. Volume 1 is fine; the assorted pages of the latter two volumes are near fine. The bibliography of Tolkien's most famous work is enormously complex, and the textual changes that were introduced at various times are legion. This set of proofs is notable for several reasons: first, the hand-correction of the book's most famous line, which both serves as the epigraph for the entire work and is also the line that was inscribed, in ancient runes, on the ring that is at the center of the story. Second, Tolkien was very precise about the runes that he created, which appear at various points in the text and also provide the decorations for the title pages of all three volumes. In the British first printing of the first volume of the trilogy, there were "typos" in two of the runes on the title page, and those runes are here hand-corrected, as they appeared (in type) in later British editions. Finally, and perhaps most importantly for the subsequent history of the book, the copyright page of the third volume is included here, which lists the publication and copyright dates as 1955, which is what they were in England. However, the U.S. edition did not come out until 1956, and these dates were removed from the copyright page. Presumably the intention would have been to replace them with the right date, but what happened in fact was that copyright notice was left off the American edition of the third volume altogether. This lack of copyright protection was what allowed an American paperback publisher to issue an unauthorized edition of the trilogy in paperback in the U.S. in the early 1960s -- the first time the trilogy had been published in paperback, and the first time it was available at low cost to a wide readership. The unauthorized edition sold millions of copies, eventually resulting in an authorized paperback edition, which sold millions more and made Tolkien, much to his chagrin, a household name. A rare state of a fantasy classic and Waterstone's #1 book of the last century. Because the American editions were shot from British sheets, after the first volume there were no proofs produced of the American editions, only the proofs of the pages that needed to be changed for the U.S. edition, such as the title pages and copyright pages. Thus, these proofs are as complete a set as there ever was, as best we can determine, and represent a unique item -- i.e., these seem to be the copies used by the publishers for setting the books in type. Housed in custom folding chemises and slipcase.
292. TOLKIEN, J.R.R. The Book of Lost Tales Part II. London: Allen & Unwin (1984). The second volume in the posthumously published series, "The History of Middle Earth," edited by Tolkien's son Christopher, and tracing the origins of the Middle Earth of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, including the legends and tales that provide the unspoken underpinnings of those books -- alluded to, shared by the characters as a common heritage, but never explicitly dwelt on in the text of those books. Includes "The Tale of Tinúviel," "The Fall of Gondolin," "The Tale of Eärendel," among others. Tolkien wrote these tales beginning in 1917, nearly forty years before The Lord of the Rings was published. This is the correct first edition, which had a first printing estimated by the bibliographer at 7500 copies. Fine in a fine (unclipped, no price sticker) dust jacket.
293. TOLKIEN, J.R.R. The Lays of Beleriand. London: Allen & Unwin (1985). The third volume in the series. Spine very slightly cocked, otherwise fine in a fine dust jacket. The first printing was 6000 copies and, like the other books in the series, it has gone back to press numerous times over the years.
294. TOMLINSON, H.M. The Sea and the Jungle. London: Duckworth, 1930. The limited edition of Tomlinson's first book, originally published in 1912, one of 515 numbered copies with woodcuts by Clare Leighton and a foreword by Tomlinson for this edition. Signed by the author. Spine cloth faded; faint dampstaining to upper front board; a very good copy, without dust jacket.
295. TYLER, Anne. Breathing Lessons. Franklin Center: Franklin Library, 1988. The true first edition of this Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. Bound in leather, stamped in gold and silver, with gilt page edges and a silk ribbon marker bound in. Signed by the author. With a special introduction by Tyler for this edition in which she draws parallels between disaster movies and family life. Fine.
296. TYLER, Anne. A Patchwork Planet. Franklin Center: Franklin Library, 1998. The limited edition. Leatherbound, all edges gilt, and with a silk ribbon marker bound in. With a special, though brief, introduction by Tyler for this edition, regarding the challenge of writing from the point of view of a young male. Signed by the author. Fine.