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American literature
SALINGER, J. D. The Catcher in the Rye.Boston : 1951
First edition. Salinger's work is widely recognized as the great American post-war coming-of-age novel and is perhaps the definitive story of teenage angst. Celebrated by both critics and generations of adolescents, it has also faced much censorship, becoming the most restricted title in American high schools and libraries from 1962 to...Learn More
MITCHELL, Margaret. Gone With the Wind.New York : 1936
First edition, in the first issue dust jacket. Mitchell's sole published novel met with immediate acclaim and record-breaking sales, winning her the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. The film adaptation, starring Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable, followed in 1939.
Due to their enduring but not uncontroversial popularity, both the...Learn More
RACKHAM, Arthur (illus.); IRVING, Washington. Rip Van Winkle.London : 1905
First Rackham edition. The illustrations immediately established Rackham as the leading illustrator of lavishly produced gift books in the Edwardian era. In March 1905 the original watercolours were exhibited at Leicester Galleries, attracting the attention of J. M. Barrie, who then commissioned Rackham's next book, Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens...Learn More
LEE, Harper. Go Set a Watchman.London : 2015
First edition, signed limited issue, number 78 of 100 copies signed by the author and bound thus. Go Set a Watchman was Lee's highly anticipated second work, publicised as a sequel to Lee's seminal novel To Kill a Mockingbird, which was published in 1960. The text of Go Set a Watchman is known to have been written before that of To Kill a...Learn More
HEMINGWAY, Ernest. For Whom the Bell Tolls.New York : 1940
First edition. Published just after the end of the Spanish Civil War, For Whom the Bell Tolls is loosely based on Hemingway's experiences reporting on the conflict for the North American Newspaper Alliance. The 1943 film adaptation, starring Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman, was nominated for nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture.Learn More
REMINGTON, Frederic - Peter H. Hassrick & Melissa J. Webster (eds). Frederic Remington. A Catalogue Raisonne of Paintings, Watercolors and Drawings.Cody, Wy : 1996
First edition, first printing, deluxe issue, number 246 of 250 copies signed by both editors on the title page of the first volume. Frederic Sackrider Remington (1861-1909) was an American artist and writer who specialized in depictions of the Old American West.Learn More
CUMMINGS, E. E. 95 Poems.New York : [1958]
First edition, signed limited issue, number 49 of 300 copies signed by the author, of which 280 were for sale. The collection includes "i carry your heart with me..." and many of Cummings's best poems. The signed limited issue precedes the trade issue of the same year.
95 Poems, "a serene volume of verse, extolled the wonders of the...Learn More
WALLACE, David Foster. The Broom of the System.New York : 1987
First edition, hardback issue. The novel, Wallace's first, has its origins as his undergraduate thesis at Amherst College, inspired by a remark from an ex-girlfriend. "She said that she would rather be a character in a piece of fiction than a real person. I got to wondering just what the difference was" (quoted in Max). He published the book two...Learn More
FITZGERALD, F. Scott. Tender is the Night.New York : 1934
First edition, in the first issue dust jacket, with T. S. Eliot's review printed on the front flap. Fitzgerald considered it to be his masterpiece. The plot mirrors Fitzgerald's own struggles with alcohol and mental illness, which worsened as Fitzgerald worked on it.
It was originally serialized by Scribner's Magazine between January and...Learn More
STEINBECK, John. The Pearl.New York : 1947
First edition in book form, with the first issue dust jacket. This retelling of a Mexican folk tale was adapted in the same year into a film by Emilio Fernández, with the screenplay also by Steinbeck.
The first issue dust jacket is distinguished by the photograph of Steinbeck looking to his left on the rear panel, as here. The story was...Learn More
KING, Stephen. Carrie.New York : 1974
First edition of King's debut novel, which sold four million copies and was adapted into the film starring Sissy Spacek all within two years of publication.
Originally intended as a short story for Cavalier magazine, Carrie was famously written by King on a portable typewriter that belonged to his wife, Tabitha, while he was living in a...Learn More
MITCHELL, Margaret. Gone With the Wind.New York : 1936
First edition, signed by the author and by 14 cast members of the classic 1939 film, with each cast member identifying their role. It is additionally signed by Daniel Mayer Selznick, who was the son of the film's director David O. Selznick. The younger Selznick's production company created the documentary The Making of a Legend: Gone With the Wind...Learn More
RIPLEY, Robert L. Believe It or Not!London : [1929]
First British edition of the first Believe It Or Not! in book form, rare in the jacket. It was published six months after the US edition, where "the response was immediate, widespread, and uniformly laudatory" and led to Ripley signing with William Randolph Hearst for national distribution (Thompson, p. 155).
"Believe It or Not" first...Learn More
WILLIAMS, Tennessee. A Streetcar Named Desire.New York : 1947
First edition of the playwright's most popular and enduring work. The play premiered on Broadway on 3 December 1947 and won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama the following year. It was adapted into a celebrated film in 1951, directed by Elia Kazan and starring Marlon Brando, Vivien Leigh, Karl Malden, and Kim Hunter.Learn More
BURROUGHS, William S. Queer.New York : 1985
First edition. Queer was composed between 1951 and 1953 as a partial extension to Junkie (1953). Its publication was delayed for decades due to its controversial portrayal of the homosexual underground of the 1940s. In 2024 Luca Guadagnino adapted the novel into a film starring Daniel Craig.
The novel was partly inspired by the death of...Learn More
LORDE, Audre. The Black Unicorn.New York : 1978
First edition, review copy with the slip laid-in, of Lorde's "finest poetic work" (Britannica).
The Black Unicorn is Lorde's personal fashioning of a Pan-Africanism that centres her own identity as a black lesbian. Whereas for some of her male contemporaries African cosmologies offered a repertoire of bold male warrior gods, for Lorde they...Learn More
FERLINGHETTI, Lawrence. Pictures of the Gone World.San Francisco : 1955
First edition of Ferlinghetti's first book of poems, published as volume Number One in the Pocket Poets series in a run of 500 copies.Learn More
PEARCE, Donn. Cool Hand Luke.New York : 1965
First hardback edition, inscribed by the author on the title page, "To Brad Crandall - thanks for the lunch, Donn Pearce". Cool Hand Luke inspired the 1967 film starring Paul Newman.
The recipient was the American broadcaster Bradley Crandall (1927-1991), best-known for his show on WNBC in New York, which ran from 1964 to 1971.Learn More
HEMINGWAY, Ernest. The Old Man and the Sea.New York : 1952
First edition, in a strikingly bright example of the first issue dust jacket illustrating the Cuban fishing village Cojímar. Hemingway's final work of fiction won the 1953 Pulitzer Prize and was cited for his receipt of the 1954 Nobel Prize in Literature. The first issue dust jacket omits mention of these awards and has flaps printed in brown.Learn More
KEROUAC, Jack. On the Road.New York : 1957
First edition of the defining work of Beat literature, Kerouac's masterpiece and the work which propelled him from an obscure writer to "King of the Beats".Learn More
