Welty, Eudora
One Writer's Beginnings

Imprint: Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1984
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hardback , With Dust Jacket

First Edition / First Printing. Fine in Fine Dust Jacket. 105 pages. The author's autobiography. One of the greatest books of the 20th century. The First Hardcover Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Published in a very small and limited first print run as a hardcover original by a University Press. It became a surprise national bestseller and is one of Eudora Welty's most beloved books. The First Edition is now scarce. It is very beautifully produced with two-toned khaki and cream cloth boards, gilt titles embossed on cover and spine, vintage photographic reproductions, pristine-white archival stock paper, and an austerely elegant DJ design by Marianne Perlak. Presents Eudora Welty's "One Writer's Beginnings". Originally published as part of the legendary William E. Massey, Sr. Lectures In The History of American Civilization. The indispensable story of how she became a writer. One is tempted to say how she became a great writer, but the humility of the title that sets the tone and substance of her account compels one to resist the temptation. The story of a seemingly ordinary, self-effacing, and painfully shy Southern woman who becomes a Living Legend (Welty was also a great photographer, the only American writer so enviably blessed) ensured that these "university lectures" would become an instant classic. "Eudora Welty's earliest box camera suspended a moment forever and taught her that every feeling awaits a gesture. She has recreated a vanished world with the same subtlety and insight that mark her fiction" (Publisher's blurb). "The strands are all here. To the memory, nothing is ever really lost" (Eudora Welty). An absolute "must-have" title for Eudora Welty collectors. This title is a modern classic. This is one of few copies of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing still available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright, a pristine beauty. It is the single most beautiful copy we have ever seen. Please note: Copies available online are subsequent printings or have serious flaws because they have been read over and over again. The Limited Edition commands as much as $750. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A rare copy thus. 16 vintage-photograph plates. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1973 for "The Optimist's Daughter". Recipient of The Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1980 and The French Legion of Honor in 1996 for her body of work. Eudora Welty's Jackson, Mississippi home was declared a National Historic Landmark in 2001, one of very few writers so honored by the United States Government. One of the greatest writers of the 20th century. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER EUDORA WELTY TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 0674639251.

Stock number: 14723. ISBN: 0674639251

$US 80.00

Wenders, Wim (Filmmaker/Subject) & Graf, Alexander (Author)
The Cinema Of Wim Wenders: The Celluloid Highway

Imprint: London, England, Wallflower Press, 2002
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hardback
Inscription: Signed, inscribed or annotated

First Edition / First Printing. Fine in No Dust Jacket, As Issued. 180 pages. Book-length critical account on subject. One of the best books on Wim Wenders ever published in our time. The First Hardcover Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions, particularly the Softcover Edition. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original by a small press andas part of its "Great Film Directors" Series. There is no American Edition. The First Edition is now rare. Presents Alexander Graf's "The Cinema of Wim Wenders: The Celluloid Highway". The definitive guide to the work of a great visionary film and visual artist. "Traces the development of one of the most well-known directors of the New German Cinema. Examines Wim Wenders' career from his early film school productions through his mature works. Analyses the most recent works as well as the themes and preoccupations that unite his oeuvre" (Publisher's blurb). Wenders' films have been profoundly influenced by American films (just as their predecessor, the French Nouvelle Vague/New Wave, was). His films, a lyrical and philosophical riff on the "road movie" genre, depict characters who are perpetually on the move, in their sometimes illuminating, sometimes failed attempts to glimpse their true selves, a sense of place, and ultimately, destiny. It is neither tendentious nor exaggerated to say that Wenders (and his German film director/colleagues, notably Werner Herzog) represents the generation of postwar Germany who sought to redeem themselves and their country through their subversive and noble art. Together with Wim Wenders' own series of great books on the art of film, "Emotion Pictures: Reflections On Cinema" (1989), "The Logic of Images" (1991), and "The Act of Seeing" (1997), this re-appraisal at the turn of the century shows Wenders to be one of the most reflective and perceptive film and visual artists of our time. An absolute "must-have" title for Wim Wenders collectors. This copy is very boldly and beautifully signed in gold pen-marker on the title page by Wim Wenders. It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page. This title is a contemporary classic. As far as we know, this is the only such signed copy of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright, a beauty. Please note: Copies available online have serious flaws, are subsequent printings, or are remainder-marked. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A rare signed copy thus. One of the greatest German artist/filmmakers of our time. A fine collectible copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER WIM WENDERS TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 1903364302.

Stock number: 19994. ISBN: 1903364302

$US 200.00

West, Nathanael
Miss Lonelyhearts: The Collectors' Facsimile Edition

Imprint: New York City, NY, New Directions Books/Collectors Reprints, Inc, 1962
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hardback , With Dust Jacket

First Edition / First Printing. As New in As New Dust Jacket. 215 pages. Facsimile Limited Edition of the author's novel. One of the greatest novels of the 20th century. The first and only appearance of the title in this edition. Precedes and should not be confused with the regular New Directions trade edition. Published in a small and limited print run whose number is not specified. There is no ISBN. The Limited Edition is now rare. An austerely elegant production by Collectors Reprints: Regular-sized volume format. Khaki cloth boards with titles embossed on spine, as issued. The entire production reproduces the 1933 Liveright Publishers First Edition down to the smallest detail: Its actual size, typeface, orange topstain, and pictorial DJ. The only enhancement-addition is the handsome cloth board slipcase with reproductions pasted on both sides. Presents, in a Facsimile Limited Slipcased Edition, Nathanael West's "Miss Lonelyhearts". His masterpiece of nihilism. Considering that the novel almost did not get published and immediately thereafter got caught up in the most disastrous publishing history ever to befall a masterpiece, this Limited Slipcased Edition is a long-overdue restoration for Modern First collectors. Nathan Weinstein was the ultimate paradox of a genius: He despised his Jewish roots so profoundly that he changed/"West-ernized" his name. The epithet, "self-hating Jew", applied to Nathanael West long before it became an ideological term. At the same time, Weinstein-become-West mined those very same roots to create his great art. Writing in eloquent prose, Harold Bloom is one of West's most insightful critic/admirers today. But he is by no means the only one, and in a sense, is merely echoing and consolidating a consensus among critics that had been building for some time. What is admirable about "Miss Lonelyhearts" is, of course, its nihilism. It is literature as uncompromising, powerful expression. "Excels 'The Sun Also Rises', 'The Great Gatsby', and even 'Sanctuary' as the perfected instance of a negative vision in modern American fiction. West's spirit lives again in 'The Crying of Lot 49' and some sequences in 'Gravity's Rainbow', but the sublimity of 'Miss Lonelyhearts' proves to be beyond Pynchon's reach" (Harold Bloom). After sweeping aside the greatest names of modern American literature (F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, and Thomas Pynchon is everybody), Bloom is neither done nor satisfied: "Nothing by Bellow, Malamud, Philip Roth, Mailer, or Ozick can compare to 'Miss Lonelyhearts' as an achievement". That takes care of everybody else. Uncompromising critic indeed. An absolute "must-have" title for Nathanael West collectors. This title is a great book. This is one of few copies of the Facsimile Limited Slipcased Edition still available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright, a pristine beauty. Please note: Every single copy of the First Edition available online is in wretched condition yet commands thousands of dollars. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A rare copy thus. One of the greatest novelists of the 20th century. A fine collectible copy. .

Stock number: 17796.

$US 200.00

Weston, Cole (Photographer); Maddow, Ben & Wilson, Charis (Contributors)
Cole Weston: Eighteen Photographs ("cole Weston: 18 Photographs")

Imprint: Salt Lake City, UT, Peregrine Smith, Inc., 1981
Edition: First Edition
Binding: With Dust Jacket
Inscription: Signed, inscribed or annotated

First Edition / First Printing. Fine in Fine Dust Jacket. Unpaginated. Exhibition Catalog. The first and the most beautiful book on the photographic art and achievement of Cole Weston ever produced. The first and only edition. Published in a small and limited print run as a softcover original only. The Exhibition Catalog is now rare. A brilliant production by Cole Weston: Oversize-volume format. Pale gray softcovers with titles on cover and spine, as issued. Photographs by Cole Weston. Essays by Ben Maddow and Charis Wilson. Printed on glossy stock paper in the United States to the highest standards. The reproduction quality is outstanding in every respect. In pictorial DJ with black titles on the cover and spine, as issued. Published on the occasion of the retrospective exhibition of the same name held at The Witkin Gallery New York in March 1981. Presents Cole Weston's "Eighteen Photographs". Some of his finest and most representative color photographs. Edward Weston's fourth and youngest son, Cole Weston spent a considerable part of his life administering his father's Estate while slowly building his own impressive oeuvre. He turned to color (which his father spurned) as far back as the 1940's, and never looked back. "A brilliant photographic printer, Cole was solely empowered by Edward to print his pictures after his death in 1958. A child whose first memory is of floating a toy boat in his father's darkroom sink, Cole has commented that he inherited photography as his family's birthright. From the microcosmic worlds found in tide pools to the grand landscapes of the American West, from ruined abbeys in England to his personal renderings of the nude, he pursued his own pathways in photography. After three decades of printing his father's work, Cole at last set aside this responsibility and turned his energies to his own photography. The photographs in this collection reveal his instinct for structure and form, his great sensitivity to color, and his distinctive vision of the earth's rich beauty" (Ben Maddow). Among the iconic photographs in this catalog are "Farm, New Zealand 1976", "Surf and Headlands, California 1958", "Hunt's Cove, Nova Scotia 1978", "Aspen, Utah 1978", "Yukon River, Alaska 1975", "Nude, Arizona 1979", "Cacti, Southern Utah 1976", "Nude in Window, Arizona 1979", "Summer Grass, Mono Lake 1977", and "Trapper"s Lake, Minnesota 1979". An absolute "must-have" title for Cole Weston collectors. This copy is very prominently and beautifully signed, dated (on the day of the exhibition), and inscribed in black ink-pen on the half-title page by the photographer: "For Carol, Thanks for your help in making my first book come true. Warmest regards, Cole 3/5/81". The recipient, Carol Kismaric, is one of the most important figures in the history of photography: Book designer, historian/scholar, and curator/author. This title is a classic. As far as we know, this is the only such signed, exhibition-day dated, and inscribed copy of the Exhibition Catalog available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright, a pristine beauty. Please note: Copies available online have serious flaws. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A rare signed copy thus. 18 color plates. One of the finest American photographers of the 20th century. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER EDWARD WESTON TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 0879050845.

Stock number: 13124. ISBN: 0879050845

$US 100.00

Weston, Edward
Photography: The "enjoy Your Museum" Pocket Guide

Imprint: Pasadena, CA, Esto Publishing Company, 1934
Edition: First Edition

First Edition / First Printing. Fine in No Dust Jacket, As Issued. 16 pages. Rare Edward Weston and photography collectible item. A fine copy of "Photography: The 'Enjoy Your Museum' Pocket Guide/Booklet. The first and only edition. Published in a small and limited print run as a softcover original only and as part of the now-legendary "Enjoy Your Museum" Series. There is no ISBN. The First Edition is now rare. An austerely elegant production by Esto Publishing: Small-size volume format. The booklet is a pocket book, meant as a handy reference guide to its subject. Gray softcovers with black titles on the cover, as issued. Text by Edward Weston. Photographic reproduction of an Edward Weston tree-root study on title page. Printed on archival stock paper in the United States to the highest standards. Enclosed in protective plastic sheet. Without DJ, as issued. Presents Edward Weston's "Photography". His articulate and persuasive "case" for photography as a serious art form, worthy of comparison with and just as important, distinct from the traditional arts of painting and sculpture. Published in 1934, Weston's pioneering essay remains valid and relevant to this day. "In viewing an exhibition of photographs, one must seek those examples which justify their existence as fine photography by achieving a correlation between meaning and expression, which is free from all irrelevant connotations, all suggestions of other forms of expression" (Edward Weston). The great landscape and portrait photographer painstakingly also makes his case for the difference between art, which everyone can do, and a work of art, which only a select few (such as himself) can. Art is how anyone expresses himself or herself creatively. As such, Weston acknowledges that photography is the most accessible and popular art of our time (which, it is important to note, is even more true in the Age of Instagram, and in ways that Weston could not have anticipated). A work of art is creative expression of high achievement in terms of its virtuosity, seriousness, power, and beauty. The work of art can only be created by a true artist. While attempts have been made throughout the Modern Age to erase the difference between art and a work of art, the distinction stubbornly and durably remains, and Weston was right (in 1934) to make it. An absolute "must-have" collectible, not just memorabilia, item for Edward Weston collectors. This title is a Weston collectible. This is one of very few copies of the pocket guide/booklet still available online and despite its age, remains in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright. Please note: This was an ephemeral production so most copies are gone. There are only two copies available online, one priced at $300, the other at $220. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A rare copy thus. 1 photographic plate. One of the greatest photographers of the 20th century. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER EDWARD WESTON TITLES IN OUR CATALOG).

Stock number: 20714.

$US 100.00

White, Edmund
A Boy's Own Story: The Picador Modern Classics Edition

Imprint: London, England, Picador Books, 1994
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hardback , With Dust Jacket
Inscription: Signed, inscribed or annotated

First Edition / First Printing. Fine in Fine Dust Jacket. 218 pages. The author's third novel. One of the greatest American novels of the 20th century. The 1994 Picador Modern Classics First Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions, particularly the 2004 Modern Library Edition, published ten years later. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only. In terms of sheer production values, this First British Thus is superior to ALL other editions, including the 1982 First Edition. There is NO equivalent American Edition. The First Edition Thus is now rare. Presents, in an impeccable new edition, Edmund White's "A Boy's Own Story". His most beloved novel. The Introductory Essay by Edmund White appears for the very first time and in this edition only. The first volume in a trilogy on gay American life, "A Boy's Own Story" was followed by "The Beautiful Room Is Empty" (1988) and ended with "The Farewell Symphony" (1997). A "coming-out" novel, it has been copied, but never matched much less surpassed, by what are now whole shelves of gay American literature. "White possesses the rare combination of a poetic sense of language and an ironic sense of humor. Unquestionably, the foremost American gay novelist" (Newsweek Magazine). An absolute "must-have" title for Edmund White collectors. This copy is very prominently and beautifully signed in black ink-pen on the title page by Edmund White. It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page. This title is a great book. As far as we know, this is the only such signed copy of the 1994 Picador Modern Classics First Edition Thus/First Printing available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright, a pristine beauty. Please note: Should NOT be confused with the 2004 Modern Library Edition, published ten years later. In terms of sheer production values, this First British Thus is superior to ALL other editions, including the 1982 First Edition. There is NO equivalent American Edition. The Introductory Essay by Edmund White appears for the very first time and in this edition only. A rare signed copy thus. Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1994 for "Genet". Anointed by Vladimir Nabokov as his American successor. One of the finest American writers of our time. A fine collectible copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER EDMUND WHITE TITLES IN OUR CATALOG).

Stock number: 22253.

$US 150.00

White, Edmund
Caracole

Imprint: New York City, NY, E. P. Dutton, 1985
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hardback , With Dust Jacket
Inscription: Signed, inscribed or annotated

First Edition / First Printing. Fine in Fine Dust Jacket. 342 pages. The author's fourth novel. Now considered a contemporary classic. The First Hardcover Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only. The First Edition is now scarce. Presents Edmund White's "Caracole". His second historical romance. A fantasy, set in an imaginary time and a place that is a brilliant and analogous conflation of Venice, Paris, and Rio de Janeiro, the novel tells the story of Gabriel as he is introduced to the masculine rites of adulthood: Sex, social intrigue, and political power. Inspired by Choderlos de Laclos' classic, "Les Liaisons Dangereuses", it remains Edmund White's most controversial novel. Like "Dangerous Liaisons", "Caracole" is about the subtle, chess-like mind games that people play, the human being (an innocent boy or girl) turned into hunter's delicious prey. The spoiler is, as always, true love. The novel famously ended White's friendship with Susan Sontag, one of his earliest and most passionate supporters, because she appears in the novel as "Mathilda", the greatest intellectual of her time, with her son, the journalist David Rieff thrown in, as "Daniel", a tragic failure who lives in his mother's shadow. Thinly veiled, it is a vindictive, wounding, and savage characterization of Sontag, publicly formidable but privately thin-skinned and emotionally vulnerable after all. Truman Capote waited until Katherine Anne Porter was safely dead before mercilessly skewering her in "Answered Prayers", as the notoriously predatory, nymphomaniacal power player of the American literary establishment everyone knew her to be. The impatient Edmund White evidently could not wait long enough. He once said that there is a very fine line between love and hate because they are the two deepest (and therefore, most irrational) emotions. Also, we can hate only those whom we have truly loved. The rest is cold contempt. The fragile yet genuine bond between many male homosexual writers and their older female patrons is surely a subject for a book in itself. Written in Edmund White's effortless, supple, and immaculate prose: "A seduction through language, a masque without masks. Brings back to startling life a dormant strain in serious American writing: The idea of The Romantic" (Cynthia Ozick). An absolute "must-have" title for Edmund White collectors. This copy is very prominently and beautifully signed in black pen on the half-title page by Edmund White. It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page. This title is a contemporary classic. This is one of few such signed copies of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing still available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright, a pristine beauty. Please note: Copies available online have serious flaws, are subsequent printings, or are remainder-marked. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A scarce signed copy thus. Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1994 for "Genet". Anointed by Vladimir Nabokov as his American successor. One of the finest American writers of our time. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER EDMUND WHITE TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 0525242813.

Stock number: 16017. ISBN: 0525242813

$US 50.00

White, Minor (Photographer); Bunnell, Peter C. (Contributor) & Lyons, Nathan (Editor)
Eye Mind Spirit: The Enduring Legacy Of Minor White

Imprint: New York City, NY, Howard Greenberg Gallery, 2008
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hardback

First Edition / First Printing. As New in No Dust Jacket, As Issued. 80 pages. Exhibition Catalog. Memorial collection of photographs. One of the finest Catalogs on the photographic art of Minor White of our time. Limited Edition of 1500 numbered copies. The first and only edition. Published as a hardcover original only. The Limited Edition is now rare. An austerely elegant production by Joan Lyons: Oversize-volume format. Red cloth boards with photographic reproduction pasted in front and gilt titles embossed on the cover and spine, as issued. Photographs by Minor White. Edited with an Essay by Nathan Lyons. Essays by Peter C. Bunnell and Howard Greenberg. Printed in duotone on 100# Job Parilux Silk Text stock paper in the United States to the highest standards. In publisher's original shrinkwrap. Without DJ, as issued. Published on the occasion of the exhibition of the same name, which celebrated the centenary year of Minor White's birth, held at the Howard Greenberg Gallery New York from September 12 through October 18, 2008. Presents, in a Limited Edition format, Minor White's "Eye Mind Spirit". A memorial tribute to his ground-breaking and sublime achievement, celebrated in plates of ravishing beauty. The accompanying essays succinctly sum up the photographer's life and achievement. "Features seminal works spanning his entire career. White's contribution to photography was formidable. In addition to being a master craftsman, he was also a highly influential writer, critic, curator, editor, and teacher. During the 1950's and 1960's, White's house in Rochester, New York served as an important meeting place for a number of photographers as well as the editorial offices of Aperture Magazine, which White founded in 1952 with Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange, Barbara Morgan, and Beaumont and Nancy Newhall" (Publisher's blurb). "The hallmark of a Minor White photograph is always apparent. It is rooted in a tension between what is depicted - the reality of the moment in light - and what the image might signify. One can understand this and recognize that such intent requires a special consciousness" (Peter C. Bunnell). Minor White had very high expectations and standards for photography: A heightened aesthetic awareness, poetic vision, and ultimately, transcendent mysticism. These were not only eloquently articulated in his manifesto-essays, they were fully realized in his great photographs. An absolute "must-have" title for Minor White collectors. This copy is one of the Limited Edition, indicated as such on the Back Limitation Page. This title is now collectible. This is one of few copies of the Limited Edition still available online, is still in the publisher's original shrinkwrap, and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright, a pristine beauty. Please note: Copies available online have serious flaws or are remainder-marked. But because copies are rare, they still command between $300 and $700. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A rare copy thus. 55 duotone plates. One of the greatest photographers of the 20th century. A fine collectible copy. . ISBN 0974886300.

Stock number: 15612. ISBN: 0974886300

$US 150.00

White, Edmund (Author) & Genet, Jean (Subject)
Genet: A Biography

Imprint: New York City, NY, Alfred A. Knopf, 1993
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hardback , With Dust Jacket
Inscription: Signed, inscribed or annotated

First Edition / First Printing. Fine in Fine Dust Jacket. 728 pages. Massive and definitive biography on subject. The best book on Genet in English ever written thus far. The first appearance of the title in the United States. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only. The First Edition is now scarce. Presents Edmund White's "Genet: A Biography". Exhaustive biography of the great French Modernist writer. White has written a meticulous (hence its daunting length) and lucid account, a welcome antidote to Jean-Paul Sartre's unreadable "biography", "Saint Genet". According to many dependable critics, there is no other 20th-century writer whose prose style is as commanding, as authoritative, and as original as Jean Genet's, with the exception of Marcel Proust and Franz Kafka. That Genet was largely self-taught makes his achievement all the more astonishing. It is just as fascinating that he and Proust, the unsurpassed French literary artists of the 20th century, should both be homosexual. As such, "Genet" is also biography-as-autobiography: Edmund White, also homosexual and profoundly influenced by Genet, examines this cultural phenomenon, its continuity in the constellation of such writers as Andre Gide, Jean Cocteau, Michel Tournier, the philosopher Michel Foucault, and the culture critic Roland Barthes, all seminal figures, all gay. Every Edmund White book is, deep down, a fable. "Genet" is no exception. Every fable, as Michael Ondaatje has remarked about White, is marked by a melancholy beauty. Genet's life story is pure melancholy. An absolute "must-have" title for Edmund White and Jean Genet collectors. This copy is very prominently, neatly, and beautifully signed in blue ink-pen on the title page by Edmund White. It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page. This title is a late-modern classic. This is one of few such signed copies of the First American Edition/First Printing still available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright, a pristine beauty. Please note: At the time of the book's publication, Edmund White was based in Paris, suffering from AIDS, and believed he would never return to America. He was one of the first prominent figures to be diagnosed with the illness, and after more than twenty-five years, remains one of its longest-living survivors (through a cocktail regimen). Signed copies from the period will be difficult to find. Copies available online have serious flaws ("Very Good"). This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A rare signed copy thus. Lavishly illustrated with archival photographs. Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1994 for "Genet". Anointed by Vladimir Nabokov as his American successor. One of the finest American writers of our time. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER EDMUND WHITE TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 0394571711.

Stock number: 20550. ISBN: 0394571711

$US 70.00

White, Edmund
Inside A Pearl: My Years In Paris

Imprint: New York City, NY, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hardback , With Dust Jacket
Inscription: Signed, inscribed or annotated

First Edition / First Printing. Fine in Fine Dust Jacket. 260 pages. Book-length account on subject. One of Edmund White's finest achievements. The First Hardcover Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only. The First Edition is now scarce. Presents Edmund White's "Inside A Pearl: My Years In Paris". Yet another full-fledged book on the most-written-about, most tourist-invaded, and most photographed city of them all? Absolutely yes. This is the author's third book on Paris, preceded by "Our Paris: Sketches From Memory" (1995) and "The Flaneur: A Stroll Through The Paradoxes of Paris" (2001). Because for White, the allure of Paris remains inescapable and inexhaustible. She is like a kaleidoscope that he is able to see from so many different, illuminating angles. "When Edmund White moved to Paris in 1983, leaving New York City in the midst of the AIDS crisis, he was forty-three years old, couldn't speak French, and only knew two people in the entire city. But in middle age, he discovered the anxieties and pleasures of mastering a new culture. When he left fifteen years later to take a teaching position in the United States, he was fluent enough to broadcast on French radio and TV, and in his work as a journalist, he made the acquaintance of everyone from Yves Saint Laurent to Catherine Deneuve to Michel Foucault. He also developed a close friendship with an older woman, Marie-Claude, through which he had come to understand French life and culture in a deeper way. The book's title evokes the Parisian landscape in the eternal mists and the half-light, the serenity of the city compared to the New York White had known. White fell headily in love with the city and its culture: Both intoxicated and intellectually stimulated. He became the definitive biographer of Jean Genet; he wrote lives of Marcel Proust and Arthur Rimbaud; and he became a recipient of the French Order of Arts and Letters. A memoir which gossips and ruminates, and offers a brilliant examination of a city and a culture eternally imbued with an aura of enchantment" (Publisher's blurb). An absolute "must-have" title for Edmund White collectors. This copy is very prominently and beautifully signed in black ink-pen on the title page by Edmund White. It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page. This title is a contemporary classic. As far as we know, this is the only such signed copy of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright, a pristine beauty. Please note: Copies available online have serious flaws, are subsequent printings, or are remainder-marked. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A rare signed copy thus. Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1994 for "Genet". Anointed by Vladimir Nabokov as his American successor. One of the finest American writers of our time. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER EDMUND WHITE TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 1608195821.

Stock number: 19730. ISBN: 1608195821

$US 100.00

White, Edmund (Editor); Angelou, Maya; Berendt, John; Gooch, Brad; Solomon, Andrew & Others
Loss Within Loss: Artists In The Age Of Aids

Imprint: Madison, WI, The University Of Wisconsin Press, 2001
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hardback , With Dust Jacket

First Edition / First Printing. Fine in Fine Dust Jacket. 305 pages. Collection of memorial-essays. One of the finest literary collections of our time. The First Hardcover Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Published in a small and limited first print run as hardcover original only by a University Press. Published in conjunction with The Estate Project for Artists With AIDS, a national organization that preserves works created by artists living with HIV or are lost to AIDS. The First Edition is now scarce. Presents "Loss Within Loss: Artists In The Age of AIDS". As edited by Edmund White, the great American novelist and essayist, one of the least well-known, most moving, and most powerful collections on its subject. "When an artist dies we face two great losses: The person and the work he did not live to do. A moving collaboration by some of America's most eloquent writers, who supply wry, raging, sorrowful, and buoyant accounts of artist-friends and lovers struck down by AIDS. Includes Maya Angelou, Alan Gurganus, Brad Gooch, John Berendt, Craig Lucas, Robert Rosenblum, and eighteen others. Many of the subjects of the essays were already prominent: James Merrill, Paul Monette, David Wojnarowicz. Many others died young before they were able to fulfill the promise of their lives and art. Spans all of the arts and includes portraits of choreographers, painters, poets, actors, playwrights, sculptors, editors, composers, and architects. Stands as a powerful reminder of the devastating impact of the AIDS epidemic on the arts, and as the first real survey of that devastation. Though often intensely sad, an invigorating, sometimes even exuberant, testimony to the sheer joy of being an artist" (Publisher's blurb). The writers and artists paying tribute to their dead artist-predecessors in this book are all brilliant if not already great. The writers and artists, all dead of AIDS, are even greater. An absolute "must-have" title for Modern First and contemporary literature collectors. This title is a great collection. This is one of few copies of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing still available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright, a pristine beauty. Please note: Copies available online have serious flaws, are subsequent printings, or are remainder-marked. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A scarce copy thus. Some of the greatest American writers and artists of our time. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER EDMUND WHITE TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 0299170705.

Stock number: 20536. ISBN: 0299170705

$US 30.00

White, Edmund (Author) & Sorin, Hubert (Artist)
Our Paris: Sketches From Memory

Imprint: New York City, NY, Alfred A. Knopf, 1995
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hardback , With Dust Jacket
Inscription: Signed, inscribed or annotated

First Edition / First Printing. Fine in Fine Dust Jacket. 122 pages. Book-length account on subject. One of Edmund White's most beautifully conceived and realized books. The First Hardcover Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only. "Autographed Copy" white sticker pasted in front. The First Edition is now scarce. An austerely production by Alfred A. Knopf: Small-size volume format. Red hard boards with metallic-silver titles embossed on cover and spine, as issued. Text by Edmund White. Illustrations by Hubert Sorin. In ribbed pictorial DJ, which utilizes one of Hubert Sorin's sketches, and titles on the cover and spine, as issued. Presents Edmund White's "Our Paris: Sketches From Memory". One of the most autobiographical and most moving valentines from Edmund White for his adoptive and legendary city. It is the author's first book on Paris, followed by "The Flaneur: A Stroll Through The Paradoxes of Paris" (2001) and "Inside A Pearl: My Years In Paris" (2014). The author lived in Paris for the better part of his adult life (and at the peak of his creative powers) as an expatriate American, following in the footsteps of predecessors in Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein, among countless other iconic figures. The book is illustrated with witty and delightful sketches of the city by the immensely talented Hubert Sorin, an accomplished architect and artist, who was the author's lover/husband until he died of AIDS in 1994. As Edmund White revealed in subsequent interviews, this gem of a book was a collaborative act of love. He wrote about his romance and marriage (in effect if not in legal fact) with Sorin (who left his French wife to live with White) in his masterly and elegiac novel, "The Married Man", where the eponymous character is really two people: Hubert Sorin and Edmund White. Written in White's effortless, supple prose, which serves him well in this graceful celebration of life's most civilized pleasures, the greatest being Paris itself. "One of the three or four most virtuosic living writers of sentences in the English language" (Dave Eggers). An absolute "must-have" title for Edmund White collectors. This Autographed Copy is very prominently and beautifully signed in black pen on the title page by Edmund White. It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page. This title is a contemporary classic. This is one of few such signed copies of the First American Edition/First Printing still available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright, a pristine beauty. Please note: At the time of the book's publication, Edmund White was based in Paris, suffering from AIDS, and believed he would never return to America. He was one of the first prominent figures to be diagnosed with the illness, and after more than twenty-five years, remains one of its longest-living survivors (through a cocktail regimen). Signed copies from the period will be difficult to find. A rare signed copy thus. 30 black-and-white plates. Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1994 for "Genet". Anointed by Vladimir Nabokov as his American successor. One of the finest American writers of our time. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER EDMUND WHITE TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 0679441662.

Stock number: 20546. ISBN: 0679441662

$US 50.00

White, Edmund
Sacred Monsters

Imprint: New York City, NY, Magnus Books, 2011
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hardback , With Dust Jacket
Inscription: Signed, inscribed or annotated

First Edition / First Printing. Fine in Fine Dust Jacket. 258 pages. Retrospective collection of essays. One of Edmund White's finest achievements. The First Hardcover Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only. The First Edition is now scarce. Presents Edmund White's "Sacred Monsters". A "case-by-case" elaboration and summing-up of his deeply personal aesthetics. Here are twenty-two beautifully written essays on a gamut of modern and contemporary cultural figures. White calls them "sacred monsters", the literal (and felicitous) translation of the French "monstre sacre", someone who is, in his Webster's dictionary-worthy definition, "a venerable or popular celebrity so well-known that he or she is above criticism, a legend who despite eccentricities or faults cannot be measured by ordinary standards; a fixture on the cultural horizon". Another religious term, "icon", is more commonly used today to refer to a human being so transcendent he or she becomes a divinity, a god or goddess, and as Truman Capote, one of the sacred monsters in the book, once famously said, criticizing a sacred monster or icon is like criticizing the Hudson River. White's sacred monsters include John Cheever, Patti Smith, Henry James, Mary Cassatt, Paul Bowles, Andy Warhol, John Singer Sargent, Vladimir Nabokov, Auguste Rodin, Edith Wharton, Christopher Isherwood, Allen Ginsberg, Marguerite Duras, John Rechy, Ford Maddox Ford, David Hockney, Reynolds Price, E. M. Forster, James Abbott McNeil Whistler, and Marcel Proust, among others. White's piece on the Rodin sculpture of the handsome Belgian soldier Auguste Neyt illuminates the deeply personal and homoerotic aesthetics underlying his criticism: "Of course our formalist critics today teach us not to confuse art with life, but when I was an adolescent, Rodin's art - this one sculpture - had replaced life. I wanted somehow to marry him, to live with him for the rest of my life. Since Auguste Neyt had already been dead for half a century, surely my union with him was preposterous, impossible - something that took me out of time and history and propelled me into an ideal world of timeless desire. That conundrum - how to marry a man already dead for half a century when the statue was Rodin's invention and not the soldier, and marriage to any member of the same sex was unthinkable - was my introduction to the ideal and excruciatingly improbable realm of art" (Edmund White). "One of the three or four most virtuosic living writers of sentences in the English language" (Dave Eggers). An absolute "must-have" title for Edmund White collectors. This copy is very prominently and beautifully signed in black ink-pen on the title page by Edmund White. It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page. Laid-in is a pristine copy of the Souvenir Material of the event during which his signature was obtained. This title is a contemporary classic. As far as we know, this is the only such signed copy of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright, a pristine beauty. A rare signed copy thus. Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1994 for "Genet". Anointed by Vladimir Nabokov as his American successor. One of the finest American writers of our time. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER EDMUND WHITE TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 1936833115.

Stock number: 19676. ISBN: 1936833115

$US 100.00

White, Edmund
The Burning Library: Essays

Imprint: New York City, NY, Alfred A. Knopf, 1994
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hardback , With Dust Jacket
Inscription: Signed, inscribed or annotated

First Edition / First Printing. Fine in Fine Dust Jacket. 386 pages. Retrospective collection of essays. One of Edmund White's finest achievements. The First Hardcover Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions, particularly the British Edition. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only. The First Edition is now scarce. Presents Edmund White's "The Burning Library: Essays". His first and, in many ways, still his best retrospective. Six of the pieces appear in this book for the very first time. "Along with his ground-breaking essays that redefine politics, language, identity, and friendship in the light of gay experience and desire, this magisterial collection of 25 years of White's nonfiction writings includes dazzling, subversive appreciations of cultural icons as diverse as Truman Capote and Cormac McCarthy, Robert Mapplethorpe and the singer formerly known as Prince" (Publisher's blurb). "Reviews the work of contemporary writers, American and European, gay and non-gay, such as James Merrill, Christina Stead, Darryl Pinckney, and Marguerite Yourcenar. Together with White's discussions of his own fiction, provides valuable insights into the reading and writing of literature" (Judy Mimken). "One of the three or four most virtuosic living writers of sentences in the English language" (Dave Eggers). An absolute "must-have" title for Edmund White collectors. This copy is very prominently and beautifully signed in black ink-pen on the title page by Edmund White. It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page. Laid-in is a pristine copy of the Souvenir Material of the event during which his signature was obtained. This title is a late-modern classic. This is one of few such signed copies of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing still available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright, a pristine beauty. Please note: Copies available online have serious flaws, are subsequent printings, or are remainder-marked. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A rare signed copy thus. Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1994 for "Genet". Anointed by Vladimir Nabokov as his American successor. One of the finest American writers of our time. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER EDMUND WHITE TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 0679434755.

Stock number: 19692. ISBN: 0679434755

$US 70.00

White, Edmund
The Married Man

Imprint: London, England, Chatto & Windus, 2000
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hardback , With Dust Jacket
Inscription: Signed, inscribed or annotated

First Edition / First Printing. Fine in Fine Dust Jacket. 321 pages. The author's seventh novel. Now considered a contemporary classic. The First Hardcover Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions, particularly the American Edition. The First Edition is now scarce. Presents Edmund White's "The Married Man". His deeply autobiographical novel. It is a thinly veiled memorial-novel about Hubert Sorin, his much younger French lover, with whom he collaborated on a gem of a book called "Our Paris" (1995), and who died of AIDS. Sorin was married when Edmund White met him. He left his wife to live with the author, a romance that became a marriage (in effect if not in legal fact). Shortly afterwards, he became terminally ill. This unexpected turn of events turned White, until then a self-confessed incurably promiscuous gay man, into a fully committed husband and "care-giver". Hence the double meaning of the title. Beautifully written in Edmund White's effortless, supple, and immaculate prose, which serves him well in this graceful and elegiac act of sexual, emotional, and psychological disburdenment and sorrow. In lesser hands, White's love story would have descended into bathos by Page Two. White compels our attention to the very end, a heartbreakingly explosive ending, told in some of the most beautiful passages of late-20th century American literature. "One of the three or four most virtuosic living writers of sentences in the English language" (Dave Eggers). An absolute "must-have" title for Edmund White collectors. This copy is very prominently and beautifully signed and dated (in the month and year of publication) in black ink-pen on the title page by the author: "3/16/00 Edmund White". It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page. This title is a great book. As far as we know, this is the only such signed and publication-month dated copy of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright, a pristine beauty. Please note: At the time of the book's publication, Edmund White was based in Paris, suffering from AIDS, and believed he would never return to America. He was one of the first prominent figures to be diagnosed with the illness, and after more than twenty-five years, remains one of its longest-living survivors (through a cocktail regimen). Signed copies from the period will be difficult to find. A rare signed copy thus. Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1994 for "Genet". Anointed by Vladimir Nabokov as his American successor. One of the finest American writers of our time. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER EDMUND WHITE TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 0375400052.

Stock number: 20542. ISBN: 0375400052

$US 70.00

Williams, Bernice
Hallowed Spaces Revisited: Meditations On Architecture

Imprint: Chicago, IL, Blurb, Inc., 2011
Edition: First Edition
Inscription: Signed, inscribed or annotated

First Edition / First Printing. As New in No Dust Jacket, As Issued. 105 pages. Retrospective collection of black-and-white photographs. One of Bernice Williams' finest achievements. The first and only edition. Published in a small and limited print run as a softcover original only. There is no ISBN. The First Edition is now rare. Presents Bernice Williams' "Hallowed Spaces Revisited: Meditations On Architecture". Her lifelong admiration for and commitment to architecture as a painter-sculptor who turned full-time to photography. By Williams' own estimation, this volume represents the most complete sequence of architectural images taken by her thus far. Individually and collectively, they represent a singular approach to architecture: Williams is obsessed with detail, not building design or monumentality. Her work consists primarily of extreme closeup shots, regarding modern architecture as if it were of the same aesthetic value and resource as the ancient Egyptian ruins whose detail-work she once photographed. "Originally I studied painting and sculpture. I took my first photography course primarily out of curiosity. But it soon became my preferred creative medium. From 1998 to 2001, I worked as an artist in Egypt on a project documenting inscriptions on temple walls. During that time, I continued with my photography, primarily concentrating on architectural space: Details of ancient Egyptian monuments and Islamic structures in Cairo. I photograph what captures my eye and imagination. Since I began looking through a lens, I realized that I was searching for beauty with my camera. I will always be totally fascinated by the ability to capture a fleeting magical moment of beauty through the mechanism of light passing through a lens, and then being able to hand over that same moment to someone else" (Bernice Williams). An absolute "must-have" title for Bernice Williams collectors. This copy is very prominently, neatly, and beautifully signed, dated, and inscribed in black pen on the title page by the photographer: "2015 To Martha, With many thanks for all your kindness, Bernice [Williams]". It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page. The recipient, Martha Schneider, who is named, is one of the most important figures in contemporary art and photography. This title is now collectible. As far as we know, this is the only such signed, dated, and inscribed copy of the First Edition/First Printing available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright, a pristine beauty. A rare signed copy thus. Lavishly illustrated with duotone plates. One of the most brilliant American photographers of our time. A fine copy. .

Stock number: 22123.

$US 40.00

Wilsey, Sean
Oh The Glory Of It All

Imprint: New York City, NY, The Penguin Press, 2005
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hardback , With Dust Jacket
Inscription: Signed, inscribed or annotated

First Edition / First Printing. Fine in Fine Dust Jacket. 482 pages. The author's breakthrough debut memoir. One of the most important literary debuts of our time. The First Hardcover Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only. The First Edition is now scarce. Presents Sean Wilsey's "Oh The Glory of It All". Wilsey's hilarious account of how he survived his weird and terrible childhood. Makes him the central character of his worldly-wise memoir. But its most interesting characters are his parents: His mother had appeared in Armistead Maupin's "Tales of The City" as a thinly veiled character. We see her whole here, warts and all, through the eyes of her writer/son. The book contains the most evil parent since Joan "Mommie Dearest" Crawford. Dede banned afternoon TV, monitored Wilsey's phone calls, played endless mind games, told Wilsey what to wear, and gave indispensable advice like, "You should wash your hands first before you use the urinal. Not after. Your penis isn't dirty. But your hands are". She is a larger-than-life drama queen who slept with Frank Sinatra, held salons, hosted a talk show, asked Wilsey to commit suicide with her (after his father finally left her for her best friend), and became a globe-trotting peace activist in order to win the Nobel Peace Prize: "Someone has to win it, Sean. Why not me?". "I couldn't stop reading the damn thing" (Armistead Maupin). Neither will the reader. An absolute "must-have" title for Sean Wilsey collectors. This copy is very prominently and beautifully signed in black pen on the title page by Sean Wilsey. It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page. This title is now collectible. This is one of few such signed copies of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing still available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright, a pristine beauty. Please note: Copies available online have very serious flaws, are subsequent printings, or are remainder-marked. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A scarce signed copy thus. One of the most brilliant American writers of our time. A fine copy. . ISBN 1594200513.

Stock number: 8630. ISBN: 1594200513

$US 30.00

Winterson, Jeanette; Toibin, Colm; Barry, Sebastian; Smith, Alexander McCall; Warner, Marina; Others
Midsummer Nights

Imprint: London, England, Quercus, 2009
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hardback , With Dust Jacket

First Edition / First Printing. As New in As New Dust Jacket. 350 pages. Landmark collection of short stories and tales based on great operas. One of the most beautiful and most inspired literary collaborations of our time. The First Hardcover Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only. The First Edition comes with a red bellyband, which is missing in many copies of the true first and all other subsequent editions. There is no American Edition. The First Edition is now scarce. Published on the occasion of The Glyndebourne Festival's 75th Anniversary in 2009. Presents "Midsummer Nights". A loving tribute to opera, the greatest musical form ever invented by Man, by some of the most esteemed British writers of our time, who happen to committed opera lovers. Critical theorists, pop music, and Broadway aficionados need not apply. In 2009, The Glyndebourne Festival of Opera, the world's greatest summer opera festival (hence the book's title), celebrated its 75th year. Jeanette Winterson brought together fellow writers to contribute original stories inspired by the music that for these writers is The Other Muse. In addition to her considerable editorial duties, the indefatigable Winterson also wrote a piece inspired by Puccini's "La Fanciulla Del West". Her Introduction is followed by, among others, Alexander McCall Smith, story inspired by "Cosi Fan Tutte"; Ali Smith, "Fidelio"; Andrew Motion, "Peter Grimes"; Andrew O'Hagan, "Eugene Onegin"; Anne Enright, "Rusalka" ; Colm Toibin, "The Pearl Fishers"; Jackie Kay, "The Makropoulos Case"; Joanna Trollope, "L'Elisir d'Amore"; John Mortimer, "Cosi Fan Tutte"; Julie Myerson, "The Coronation of Poppaea"; Kate Atkinson, "La Traviata"; Kate Mosse, "Pelleas et Melisande"; Lynne Truss, "The Turn of The Screw"; Marina Warner, "Dido and Aeneas"; Ruth Rendell, "Theodora"; Sebastian Barry, "Natoma"; and Toby Litt, "Don Giovanni". An absolute "must-have" title for Modern First, contemporary literature, and opera lover/collectors. This title is a contemporary classic. This is one of few copies of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing still available online and in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright, a pristine beauty. Please note: The red bellyband, which is missing in many copies of the true first and all other subsequent printings, is completely intact. A scarce copy thus. Some of the world's finest writers of our time on the some of the greatest operas of all time. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER MULTI-SIGNED COPY OF THIS TITLE IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 1847248047.

Stock number: 17797. ISBN: 1847248047

$US 30.00

Winterson, Jeanette
Sexing The Cherry

Imprint: London, England, Bloomsbury Publishing, 1989
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hardback , With Dust Jacket
Inscription: Signed, inscribed or annotated

First Edition / First Printing. Fine in Fine Dust Jacket. 167 pages. The author's third novel. One of the most important novels of our time. The First Hardcover Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions, particularly the American Edition. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only. The First Edition is now scarce. Presents Jeanette Winterson's "Sexing The Cherry". Her prodigious, second masterpiece, after "Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit" (1987). "Lyrical prose that penetrates to the heart of things without any apparent effort. She knows how to speak the plain truth and, at the same time, satisfy our longing for the fabulous" (The Washington Post). As a prose stylist, Winterson has had few peers. The acerbic Gore Vidal famously (and rightly) hailed her as the most exciting young writer in the English language to emerge in the last quarter of the 20th century, fulsome praise that is all the more noteworthy considering Vidal famously disliked everybody else. The novel's poignant query: "Why is the measure of love its loss?" (Jeanette Winterson). An absolute "must-have" title for Jeanette Winterson collectors. This copy is very prominently and beautifully signed in black ink-pen on the title page by Jeanette Winterson. It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page. This title is a contemporary classic. This is one of few such signed copies of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing still available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright, a pristine beauty. Please note: Copies available online have serious flaws: Tanning, rubbing, creasing, "shelfwear", previous owner's signature, you name it. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A rare signed copy thus. One of the most brilliant British novelists of our time. A fine collectible copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER JEANETTE WINTERSON TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 0747504644.

Stock number: 20599. ISBN: 0747504644

$US 150.00

Witkin, Joel-Peter
Joel-peter Witkin: The Twelvetrees Press Monograph

Imprint: Pasadena, CA, Twelvetrees Press, 1985
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hardback , With Dust Jacket

First Edition / First Printing. Fine in Fine Dust Jacket. 124 pages. The artist/photographer's breakthrough debut collection. One of the finest art photography books of the 20th century. The First Limited Edition of 4000 copies. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. The First Limited Edition is now rare. An austerely elegant production by Joel-Peter Witkin and Jack Woody: Oversize-volume format. Black cloth boards with titles embossed on spine, as issued. Photographs and text by Joel-Peter Witkin. Original drawings by the artist/photographer reproduced as endpapers. Printed on pristine-white, thick uncoated stock paper in Lausanne, Switzerland to the highest standards. In stark black DJ with white titles on the cover and spine, as issued. Presents "Joel-Peter Witkin". The very first book on the now-much-published artist/photographer. The lapidary and singular art of Witkin, in what remains one of the most beautiful books ever: All of the photographs are stunningly reproduced on the right-hand page with their corresponding titles printed en face. Many of the images are now iconic, and have been reproduced in numerous subsequent books on Witkin. The vertiginous line between Arbus-ian voyeurism and Blakean mysticism that his work treads makes Witkin's work among the best ever taken by an American artist/photographer, very faraway, to be sure, from someone like Garry Winogrand, but also tragically grand in the way it is rooted in and captures our pain. "Between the advent of pain which is Birth, and the apotheosis which is Death, there is convalescence which is Life" (Joel-Peter Witkin). An absolute "must-have" title for Joel-Peter Witkin collectors. This title is a great art photography book. This is one of few copies of the First Limited Edition/First Printing still available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright, a pristine beauty. Please note: Copies available online command hundreds of dollars even if they have serious flaws. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A rare copy thus. 44 duotone plates, 3 drawing reproductions. One of the most brilliant American artist/photographers of our time. A fine collectible copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER JOEL-PETER WITKIN TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 0942642155.

Stock number: 21514. ISBN: 0942642155

$US 150.00

Wolff, Tobias
Our Story Begins: New And Selected Stories

Imprint: New York City, NY, Alfred A. Knopf, 2008
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hardback , With Dust Jacket
Inscription: Signed, inscribed or annotated

First Edition / First Printing. Fine in Fine Dust Jacket. 380 pages. The author's fourth collection of short stories. One of the most important literary events of our time. The First Hardcover Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Published in a small and limited print run as a hardcover original only. The First Edition is now scarce. Presents Tobias Wolff's "Our Story Begins: New And Selected Stories". Ten new pieces and twenty-one of his best stories from his three previous collections. "A volume that belongs on everybody's shelf along with Hemingway's 'In Our Time', Salinger's 'Nine Stories', and the collected works of Flannery O'Connor, Raymond Carver, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, William Trevor, and Alice Munro. Wolff conjures stories that etch in your memory, which is to say, they become a part of you. This makes him, in my book, a very great writer indeed" (Marianne Wiggins). Apart from the fact that the new stories appear in book form for the first time, Tobias Wolff has made significant revisions to many of the classic stories. Wolff writes that he has never viewed any of his works as sacred texts. He has re-written what he considered "clumsy" passages and removed whole "superfluous" sections in many of the most beloved earlier pieces, making a comparison between the originals and their revised versions in this volume a rewarding and illuminating experience. A perfectionist to the core, it is appropriate that Wolff should call his fourth collection a beginning. An absolute "must-have" title for Tobias Wolff collectors. This copy is very prominently and beautifully signed in black ink-pen on the title page by Tobias Wolff. It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page, as copies from the publisher are. This title is a great book. This is one of few such signed copies of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing still available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright, a pristine beauty. Please note: Copies available online have serious flaws, are subsequent printings, or are remainder-marked. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A scarce signed copy thus. Winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award in 1985 for "The Barracks Thief". One of the most influential and important American writers of our time. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER TOBIAS WOLFF TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 1400044596.

Stock number: 13223. ISBN: 1400044596

$US 100.00

Wolke, Jay (Photographer) & Pacyga, Dominic (Contributor)
Along The Divide: Photographs Of The Dan Ryan Expressway

Imprint: Santa Fe, New Mexico, Center For American Places, 2004
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hardback , With Dust Jacket
Inscription: Signed, inscribed or annotated

First Edition / First Printing. Fine in Fine Dust Jacket. 88 pages. Retrospective collection of color photographs. One of the most important photography books on its subject ever published. The First Hardcover Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions, particularly the Reissued Edition. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only. The book is beautifully produced, with mustard cloth boards, essay by Dominic Pacyga, and stunning color photographs by Jay Wolke that are reproduced on pristine-white, thick coated stock paper to the highest standards. In pictorial DJ with titles on the cover and spine, as issued. Presents Jay Wolke's "Along The Divide: Photographs of The Dan Ryan Expressway". Gritty and indelible. "Cutting across Chicago's South Side in a broad swath of concrete, steel, and overpasses, the Dan Ryan Expressway is one of America's busiest, and perhaps most chaotic, highways. Yet underneath the cacophony of its ten lanes lies an intriguing world of urban ecology and human networks. Unearths an ecosystem unto itself that weaves human and industrial elements into an essential feature of Chicago's identity. Between 1981 and 1985, Wolke shot thousands of photographs along the Dan Ryan during the day and night, traveling up and down the expressway in an effort to accurately capture it. In the twenty years since the photographs were taken, Wolke has organized his pictures into a complex and fascinating portrait of this iconic highway, which he characterizes as an 'arterial organism' with its own cycles and flows, causes and effects. The book is a dynamic narrative that explores the Dan Ryan's enormous influence over the people who drive on it, the neighborhoods lined alongside it, and the industrial environs it weaves through. Examines where the highway fits within the trope of the American road and explores how it became a massive expression of the urban lexicon" (Publisher's blurb). "As chilling as 'Blade Runner'. Unfortunately, this is not a dystopian vision set in a distant, fictional future. This is Chicago. This is America now. The automobile has utterly changed the landscape and our lives. Jay Wolke has found a powerful way to record this historic transformation in this unique, important photographic achievement" (Joel Sternfeld). An absolute "must-have" title for Jay Wolke and Chicago collectors. This copy is very prominently and beautifully signed and inscribed in black pen on the front free endpaper by the photographer: "For Martha, With greatest regards, Jay". It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page. The recipient, Martha Schneider, who is named, is an important figure in the art photography world. This title is a contemporary photography classic. As far as we know, this is the only such signed and inscribed copy of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright, a pristine beauty. Please note: Copies available online are subsequent printings. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A rare signed copy thus. Lavishly illustrated with color plates. One of the most brilliant American photographers of our time. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER JAY WOLKE TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 1930066287.

Stock number: 19797. ISBN: 1930066287

$US 50.00

Wolke, Jay (Photographer) & Bamberger, Tom & Valtorta, Roberta (Contributors)
Architecture Of Resignation: Photographs From The Mezzogiorno

Imprint: Chicago, IL, Center For American Places, 2011
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hardback , With Dust Jacket

First Edition / First Printing. As New in As New Dust Jacket. 84 pages. Retrospective collection of color photographs on subject. One of the most beautiful landscape photography books of our time. The First Hardcover Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other susbequent editions. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only. The book is brilliantly produced, with brown cloth boards, gilt titles on cover and spine, full-page color photographic plates by Jay Wolke, and illuminating Essays by Tom Bamberger and Roberta Valtorta. Printed on pristine-white, thick coated stock paper in Singapore to the highest standards. In pictorial DJ with titles on the cover and spine, as issued. Presents Jay Wolke's "Architecture of Resignation: Photographs From The Mezzogiorno". Evocative photographs of a historic landscape as a palimpsest of centuries of history. "From 2000 to 2007, Jay Wolke photographed in the South of Italy to capture the complexity of a region that is colloquially known as 'Il mezzogiorno'. What he found in this historic and often troubled landscape was an elaborate set of physical, social, and political forces manifested in an extraordinary tapestry of visual information. Both referential and suggestive, Wolke's pictures reveal the marks of a long line of invaders, conquerors, and occupiers from the Greeks to the Spanish to the Camorra. Architectural and structural adaptations and 'resignations' are evident in every scene and serve as the photographer's focus. Although the landscape is marred by layers of dysfunction and greed, we cannot help but view it through the lens of the timeless belief in the 'bel paese': The Beautiful Country" (Publisher's blurb). An absolute "must-have" title for Jay Wolke collectors. This title is a contemporary art photography classic. This is one of few copies of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing still available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright, a pristine beauty. Please note: Copies available online command as much as $100. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A scarce copy thus. Lavishly illustrated with color plates. One of the most brilliant American photographers of our time. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER JAY WOLKE TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 1935195131.

Stock number: 20339. ISBN: 1935195131

$US 40.00

Wood, Tom (Photographer) & Holborn, Mark (Contributor)
All Zones Off Peak

Imprint: Stockport, England, Dewi Lewis Publishing, 1998
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hardback , With Dust Jacket
Inscription: Signed, inscribed or annotated

First Edition / First Printing. Fine in Fine Dust Jacket. Unpaginated. The photographer's breakthrough second collection. One of the best photography books of our time. The First Hardcover Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only with the support of the Arts Council of England. The First Edition is now rare. A brilliant production by Tom Wood and Mark Holborn: Oversize-volume format. Blue linen cloth boards with titles embossed on cover and gilt titles embossed on spine, as issued. Photographs by Tom Wood. Afterword by Mark Holborn. Printed on pristine-white, thick coated stock paper in the United Kingdom to the highest standards. In pictorial DJ with orange titles on the cover and spine, as issued. Published on the occasion of the worldwide travelling exhibition: The photographs have been exhibited at Galerie du Jour Paris, Aperture Foundation New York, the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), the International Center of Photography (ICP) New York, and numerous venues in the United Kingdom. Presents Tom Wood's "All Zones Off Peak". Black-and-white and color photographs taken by Tom Wood over a fifteen-year period, between 1979 and 1994. "Starting from the premise that he would photograph Liverpool and the people of Merseyside from the top of a bus, Tom Wood has shot over 3, 000 rolls of film, developing and refining his theme. The photographs are both visually stunning and dramatically revealing in their content. The result is a body of work of immense power already recognised as one of the most impressive achievements of recent British photography" (Publisher's blurb). The title comes from the fact that Wood bought bus tickets for "off-peak" hours, entitling him to travel to all areas within the Merseyside Region and in the course of time, becoming a photographic badge or ID for him and his singular project. Tom Wood pursued (and refined) his interest further with "Bus Odyssey", published more than a decade later, in 2001. The two books have been compared by admirers to the greatest works in the same vein: Walker Evans' "Many Are Called", Bruce Davidson's "Subway", and Robert Frank's "The Americans". "Informed in a most complex and compelling way. I cannot think of a more engaging body of contemporary work" (Chris Killip). An absolute "must-have" title for Tom Wood collectors. This copy is very prominently, neatly, and beautifully signed in green ink-pen on the title page by Tom Wood. It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page. This title is a great photography book. As far as we know, this is the only such signed copy of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright, a pristine beauty. A rare signed copy thus. 39 color, 30 black-and-white plates. Tom Wood's "All Zones Off Peak" was selected as one of the greatest photography books in "The Photobook". One of the most brilliant photographers of our time. A fine collectible copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER TOM WOOD TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 1899235868.

Stock number: 11217. ISBN: 1899235868

$US 250.00

Wood, John
The Photographic Arts

Imprint: Iowa City, IA, University Of Iowa Press, 1997
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hardback , With Dust Jacket

First Edition / First Printing. Fine in Fine Dust Jacket. 191 pages. Landmark monograph on subject. One of the most important photography books ever published in our time. The First Hardcover Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only by a University Press. The First Edition is now scarce. A brilliant production by Richard Hendel: Oversize-volume format. Brown cloth boards with metallic-silver titles embossed on spine, as issued. Photographs by some of the greatest photographers of all time. Text by John Wood, one of the finest photography expert/scholars of our time. Notes to the Plates and extensive Bibliography appended at the end. Printed on pristine-white, thick uncoated stock paper to the highest standards. In pictorial DJ with titles on the cover and spine, as issued. Presents John Wood's "The Photographic Arts". A masterly and indispensable account. "This volume of essays deals with aspects of photography that have been neglected by John Wood's fellow historians. Although he has authored four previous books on the daguerreotype, he addresses oversights of his own, and discusses the subject from a different vantage than that employed by his colleagues. In his essay on European Pictorialism, he appraises the work of several undeservedly obscure masters of the craft, and disputes the nature of Alfred Stieglitz's legacy. Included in this seminal work are essays on the American daguerreotype, contemporary daguerreotypy, the American autochrome, the art of the cyanotype, and American symbolism in photography. Wood's fresh use of the diaries and journals of gold field miners and his penetrating vision of the near-extermination of indigenous peoples, "the American holocaust", enable him to contrast between the reality and the mythology manifested in the faces of the photographed participants. His equally ingenious view of the primary myth to which most of this work refers, the Grail Quest, leads him to some striking conclusions in the context of visions of spirituality and desire" (Publisher's blurb). An absolute "must-have" title for John Wood and photography book collectors. This title is a contemporary photography classic. This is one of few copies of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing still available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright, a pristine beauty. Please note: Copies available online have serious flaws, are subsequent printings, or are remainder-marked. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A scarce copy thus. 103 plates. Some of the greatest photographs the world will ever see. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER JOHN WOOD TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 0877455732.

Stock number: 9413. ISBN: 0877455732

$US 50.00