Rare books from Charles Agvent

Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1941. First Edition. Hardcover. Covers soiled and worn, lacking the dustwrapper. Good in a Fine custom morocco-backed clamshell box. INSCRIBED and SIGNED by the author for George [Davis] "Who is my Best and Campiest Friend-- /And who, also, is the first/person to really take to this book-/You have helped me and/encouraged me in all ways/that were in your power-/And you know that I love you./Carson." Davis, a magazine editor who later married Lotte Lenya, made his house in Brooklyn into something of an artists colony serving as a home at various times for McCullers, W. H. Auden, Benjamin Britten, Paul Bowles, Gypsy Rose Lee, and others. Davis discovered the manuscript for REFLECTIONS, which according to Virginia Spencer Carr in THE LONELY HUNTER: A BIOGRAPHY OF CARSON MCCULLERS, lay dormant in a dresser drawer for almost a year (page 99), and urged McCullers to let his magazine, Harper's Bazaar, publish it. The author's inscription clearly shows her gratitude to Davis for… Read More

New York: Charles L. Webster & Company, 1885. First Edition. Hardcover. Hinges fine; some rubbing to gilt on the spine and a little to the cloth, mostly to the rear cover. Contents lightly foxed. Light wear to spine tips and corners. Very Good or better. Original decorated green cloth. With 174 illustrations by E. W. Kemble. BAL 3415: With first issue points of pages 13, 57, and 143; second issue of title page, frontispiece, and page 155; and fourth issue of page 283. Also with McBride's first issue point on page 143. Recent Twain scholarship convincingly establishes three changes from the printing plates of the first printing of 30,000 copies and later printings: 1) an erroneous page reference "88" on page 13 later changed to "87" (BAL's point 2); 2) the misprint "with the was" on page 57 later corrected to "with the saw" (BAL's point 3); and 3) the misprint "Decided" on page 9 later changed to "Decides" (not noted by BAL). This copy has all three first printing points. Nineteenth century pink… Read More

wraps. Good and possibly unique. A 43-page 7-3/4" x 13-3/4" carbon copy typescript laid loosely into a makeshift folder consisting of a large piece of graph paper with the title THE CHRISTMAS ORATORIO/W. H. AUDEN written in pencil in an unknown hand on the front cover. Not dated. Occasional minor ink corrections also in an unknown hand. There were two early typescripts for the poem, neither typed by Auden. One was double-spaced and the other single-spaced. This version is the latter which is the second of the two typescripts that Auden arranged to be prepared for Benjamin Britten, who he hoped would set the poem to music. Auden seems to have sent two copies to Britten to be sure that one got there during wartime. One is in the Britten-Pears library; this is the other. An interesting typescript differing from the published poem in a number of respects. Choral parts are assigned to the speeches by voice. In Part 3, "The Temptation of St. Joseph," the text for the chorus differs from the published… Read More

New York: Coward-McCann, Inc., (1938). First Edition. Hardcover. A tight, crisp copy in a beautiful dustwrapper with minor wear to the spine tips and a superficial scratch and tiny closed tear on the rear panel. The cloth is mildly sunned at the spine and to the very top edges of both covers with no effect on either the front cover or spine blue paper label. Lovely copy in a brilliant dustwrapper. Hard to improve on this. Fine in a Fine dustwrapper. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and a touchstone of American theater. After reading this play, Albert Einstein wrote a letter to Wilder comparing OUR TOWN to Homer's ODYSSEY and Shakespeare's HAMLET, stating: "That an American of the present day can create with such delicacy and detachment touches the soul like a miracle."

New York: Harper & Brothers, (1911). First Edition. Hardcover. Gilt on spine a little dull, slight rubbing to front cover. Early owner inscription on front free endpaper well below Edison's signature. Near Fine. Publisher's sage green pebble-grain cloth with front cover stamped in blind and lettered in gilt with oval photographic portrait of Edison pasted to center; "Published November, 1911" on the copyright page. Illustrated with 8 photographic plates including a frontispiece portrait of Edison. SIGNED by Thomas Edison with his umbrella signature on the front endpaper.

London: Constable and Company Ltd., 1943 and 1944. First Edition. Letter. Very Good to Near Fine in a custom slipcase. Laurence A246 for the printed book. This collection, all housed in a green cloth chemise within a half green morocco slipcase gilt-lettered on the spine and front cover, consists of seven items related to the book: a single page typed Manuscript Revised Contents Table dated 21 August 1943 with several corrections in Shaw's hand numbering about 30 words; three examples of proof pages for the title page with simple corrections by Shaw including the elimination of "Machiavelli Modernized" from the title (noted by Laurence as being eliminated by Shaw in the final page-proof); and three AUTOGRAPH LETTERS SIGNED by Shaw with his initials (two on postcards and one on both sides of a small sheet of paper), one letter in Pitman's Shorthand (with a typed transcript), all to John Wardrop regarding proofs and the index for the book as well as Shaw's wife's illness. Some excerpts: "I always sign… Read More

New York: H. C. Kinsey & Company, 1938. First Edition. Hardcover. Joints and gutters of book darkened but a superior copy in both condition and association. Near Fine in a close to Fine dustwrapper. A small, slim clothbound volume of 47 pages. Roosevelt's own copy with a bookplate from the publisher on the front endpaper stating, "This is your editorial copy" with a publication date of 3 January 1938. Above the bookplate the First Lady has INSCRIBED and SIGNED the book to her daughter and son-in-law: "For Anna & John/My good critics & best/readers! With love/Eleanor Roosevelt." We have handled many signed books by Eleanor Roosevelt, but this is only the third signed example of this title we have come across and one of the very very few of any of her titles inscribed to a family member.

Basil: Ludovici Regis, 1621. Third Latin Edition. Hardcover. Very Good in a serviceable binding. Folio (8" x 12-1/2") bound in library buckram; irregularly paginated: [10], 502, [58] pages. Illustrated with 270 woodcuts, many full and half page, some signed with the monogram "RMD," and generally attributed to Hans Rudolf Manuel Deutsch (fl.1525-1572) or, less commonly, Blasius Weffring. Previously published in 1556 and 1561, this edition seems scarcer than either of the previous. PRINTING & THE MIND OF MAN 79: "The first systematic treatise on mining and metallurgy and one of the first technological books of modern times." Herbert Hoover, who first translated this book into English, described this title in his autobiography as "the first important attempt to assemble systematically in print the world-knowledge on mining, metallurgy, and industrial chemistry. It was the great textbook of those industries for two centuries and had dominated thought and practice all that time. In many mining regions… Read More

London: George Virtue, 1836. First Edition. hardcover. Most plates free from foxing, a few with moderate to heavy foxing. Some rubbing to the leather but bindings solid and rather attractive. Very Good. Two quarto (8-1/4" x 11") volumes bound in plum embossed cloth with polished green calf leather spines and corners, matching morocco spine labels. Illustrated with engraved title pages in each volume, 106 steel-engraved plates after Bartlett, and a folding lithograph map of Switzerland.

New York: Limited Editions Club, 1993. Hardcover. Fine in a Fine clamshell box, as issued. Balthus. Folio (12-3/4" x 16-1/2") bound in goatskin leather dyed grey-green to evoke the Yorkshire moors and housed in a cloth slipcase with leather spine label. Illustrated with 15 drawings by the artist Balthus which were begun in 1933 when he was 25 for an edition of WUTHERING HEIGHTS that did not materialize. Balthus, in his eighties, agreed to have the entire suite presented for the first time if the publication was strictly limited. The drawings were turned into lithographs and printed on fine Japanese paper and then mounted on mould-made paper from France uniquely watermarked with the coat of arms of Balthus's family: Klossowski de Rola. Copy #5 of only 300 copies SIGNED by the artist and with an afterword by him as well. Monthly Letter laid in.

Reno, NV: Jack Bacon & Co., 1996. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine without dustwrapper, as issued. Bound in half black leather and blue marbled boards. Illustrated with photographs. The story of the Lear Jet written by the widow of the founder in a personal, autobiographical manner. Of a total edition of 5000 copies, there were 26 lettered and signed copies and 20 Presentation copies given to the signers. This is Copy Z of the 26 lettered copies. It is SIGNED by the author, Moya Lear, with a pasted in signature of William Lear on a special page, and on the half-title page it is SIGNED by the first two men to walk on the moon, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, President Gerald Ford, and test pilots Clay Long and Hank Beaird, who was the first Lear Jet pilot. In addition to creating the Lear Jet, William Lear also developed in 1930 the first working car radio, the rights which he sold to a company later called Motorola. An impressive collection of autographs, Armstrong is especially scarce in books. Laid… Read More

New York: Random House, [1966]. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine in the original Fine mylar dustwrapper and a close to Fine slipcase with the gold spine label intact. Capote's touching tribute to his beloved distant cousin and caretaker, Miss Sook Faulk. "As for me, I could leave the world with today in my eyes." Copy #439 of 600 SIGNED by the author on the limitation page.

New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, (1931). First Edition. Hardcover. Very Good in a soiled, edgeworn, near Good dustwrapper, the front flap detached but present. Fifth Printing. Complete in one volume, illustrated. Superbly INSCRIBED and SIGNED by Steffens, filling the front pastedown, to wealthy Boston surgeon and socialite, Dr. Le Roi Goddard Crandon, and his wife, Mina "Margery" Crandon, perhaps the most famous psychic medium of her time who claimed that she channeled her dead brother, Walter Stinson. In addition, a typescript of a letter from Steffens is pasted on the front endpaper opposite the inscription which transcribes Steffens's somewhat difficult handwriting. The inscription reads in full: "To L. R. G. and Margery Crandon, & to/Walter, my old friends:/You, Crandon, you know all of this, you are/of some of it, as I am a part of your unwritten/Life, & of Margery's, & Walter's. That I may/say, may I not? And surely I may sat that/we, all four of us old friends -- we have looked/& looked… Read More

Framed Autograph. But for a small nick or two to the frame, Fine. Bold SIGNATURE of Earhart attractively matted and framed to an overall size of 11-3/4" x 16-1/2".

Washington DC: Jacob Gideon, 1818. First Edition. Hardcover. Text evenly darkened with some foxing and staining. Old rebacking with a newer front board, front hinge a tad tender but firm. Very Good. Bound in contemporary sheep leather with a gilt-lettered black morocco spine label; 671 pages. The First Edition of this classic in which the authors of each essay were identified by name. Comprises 85 political essays, most written by Hamilton, all but the last 8 of which were first published in newspapers in New York in an effort to convince New York to approve the ratification of the Federalist Constitution. Also contains much additional material including the preface by Jacob Gideon as well as anonymous Hamilton letters written as "Pacificus" and the responses and corrections prepared by Madison to the McLean edition of 1810. Owner signature on the title page dated 1872 of James B[lack] Groome, Governor of Maryland from 1874 to 1876 and a member of the United States Senate representing Maryland from… Read More