Rare books from Dividing Line Books

London: Faber and Faber, 1983. 1st Edition . Hardcover. Fine/Very Good. First edition. Oblong octavo (9.75" x 10.5"); 128pp.; blue textured-paper boards, in dust jacket. Signed by both Hughes and Keen on the title page, and inscribed at length on the ffep by English fly fishing expert Dermot Wilson. Edges of boards faintly dust soiled, else about fine in a very good plus, price-clipped jacket, moderately toned and with some light crumpling along the top edges. Hughes and Keen met in 1976 at the suggestion of Hughes' second wife Carol, and quickly bonded over their shared love of fishing. Though conceived as a collaborative project soon after, according to Hughes scholar Ann Skea, the publication of "River" was delayed by several years as their agent worked to find a publisher willing to commit to high-quality color reproductions. Faber eventually brought the book out in an edition of 2,500 hardcover and 15,000 paperback copies, with Hughes' poems on the verso and… Read More

Edinburgh: Canongate, 1985. Hardcover. Near Fine/Fine. First thus; limited "definitive" edition. No. 195 of one thousand copies signed and numbered by Gray on the front free endpaper. Octavo (9.5 x 6.5 in.), 560pp., black textured paper boards, gilt-stamped on boards and spine, in dust jacket. Gray's first book, over which he labored intermittently for more than two decades before finally seeing it through to publication in 1981. Something of a cult classic, though increasingly recognized as not only Gray's masterpiece but one of the 20th century's most impressive feats of the imagination. A near fine copy, with a ½ x ¼ in. oval moisture stain to textblock top, light wear at heel of spine, and a smudge of shelf soiling to the bottom tip of textblock. Unclipped "£15" jacket also near fine, with just mild sunning to spine. Quite handsome.

NY: Ballantine Books, 1953. 1st Edition . Soft cover. Very Good. First paperback printing, issued simultaneously with the hardcover. Signed by Clarke in his customary blue ballpoint pen on the title page. Mass-market paperback (7 x 4.25 in.), 214pp. Very good condition, with no serious structural issues, but with the following minor cosmetic imperfections (all visible in photos): light crease to front hinge, several soft creases to covers, wear and surface flaking along rear hinge. Textblock somewhat toned. Spine slightly scalloped with a couple of very light creases; binding remains strong and secure. A reasonably presentable copy of this first issue version of Clarke's fifth novel, one of the landmark works of modern science fiction. Covert art by Richard Powers.

NY: W. W. Norton & Company, 1993. 1st Edition . Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. First edition. Octavo (9.25 x 6 in.); 869pp., indexed; burgundy cloth boards, in dust jacket. Signed at their contributions by 22 of the 67 collected authors, in order: Frederik Pohl, Samuel R. Delany, Robert Silverberg, Gene Wolfe, Joe Haldeman, John Varley, Edward Bryant, Gregory Benford, William Gibson, Greg Bear, Octavia E. Butler, Kim Stanley Robinson, Karen Joy Fowler (who has also signed the title page beneath her "consultant" credit), John Crowley, Pat Cadigan, Nancy Kress, James Patrick Kelly, Orson Scott Card, Connie Willis, Eileen Gunn, Lisa Goldstein, and John Kessel. Light shelfwear, a tiny bit of fraying to cloth at bottom tips, a few minor spots of soiling to textblock edges. Unclipped ("$27.50") jacket lightly crumpled at spine ends and along top of rear panel, with a 1/2" closed tear at the top of the rear flap hinge. A very good (+) copy in like jacket of this ambitious… Read More

London: The Science Fiction Book Club, 2958. Hardcover. Near Fine/Very Good. First British book club edition of Bester's landmark science fiction novel (published in the United States as "The Stars My Destination"), following by two years the Sidgwick & Jackson first. First book club edition. Small octavo (7.5 x 5 in.); 231pp; blue textured-paper boards, in dust jacket. Mild sunning at spine ends, light toning to textblock. Jacket spine panel toned, 2" closed tear at base of spine, and with a shallow band of loss at head, extending ~1.5" onto front panel. Near fine in a very good (-) jacket.

Santa Barbara: Black Sparrow Press, 1983. Hardcover. Fine/Near Fine. First edition thus. One of 500 cloth trade copies. Octavo (9.25 x 6.5 in.); 265pp; printed paper boards backed with maroon cloth, in original acetate jacket (not pictured). Fine, with a few spots of nearly imperceptible foxing to textblock top. Near fine jacket lightly rubbed, with a short split at top front corner. A sharp copy of this reprint edition of Fante's first novel, originally published in 1938.

NY: Basic Books, 1961. 1st Edition . Hardcover. Near Fine/Very Good. Inscribed copy of this first collected edition of Fuchs' enduring novels about life in Depression-era Brooklyn, "Summer in Williamsburg," "Homage to Blenholt," and "Low Company," originally published in 1934, 1936, and 1937, respectively. Fuchs has lovingly inscribed this copy to Susan Foster, a long-time personal assistant to film and literary mega-agent Irving Paul Lazar, and later Frank Sinatra. The nature of Fuchs and Foster's acquaintance is unknown, though it seems safe to assume that they might have met during Fuchs' long tenure as a Hollywood scriptwriter. His inscription, "From one Brighton Beachcomber to another," also leaves open the possibility that the two had known each other growing up in Brooklyn. Inscribed by Fuchs and signed as "Dan" on the front free endpaper. Octavo (5.75 x 8.25 in.); vii, 380, 301, 314pp.; red cloth boards, gold lettering on spine,… Read More

London: Studio Vista Limited, 1970. Hardcover. Near Fine/Fine. First edition of this biography and musicological analysis of the Mississippi guitarist Charley Patton (1891-1934), known as the "Father of the Delta Blues" for the enormous influence he exerted on succeeding generations of blues musicians. Fahey (1939-2001) was himself an enormously influential steel-string guitar player, generally recognized as the progenitor of the "American Primitive" fingerstyle genre, whose technical lexicon drew heavily on the country blues model. Charley Patton was originally written as Fahey's 1966 master's thesis in folklore at UCLA, and includes transcriptions and textual analyses of all of Patton's extant songs. The book is rooted in Fahey's deep appreciation for the Delta blues tradition, and stands as one of the more impressive examples of an American musician reflecting on the history and lore of their craft. Small octavo (5 x 8 in.); 112pp., with selected discography… Read More

Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1979. 1st Edition . Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. Inscribed first edition of this 1979 collection of essays, mesostics, and other procedurally generated writings by the avant-garde American composer. The title work is a text-score in which chance operations are used to systematically deconstruct the journals of Henry David Thoreau--a tactic born of Cage's interest in "demilitarizing" language by making it less understandable. Other pieces include a long anecdotal poem relating to Cage's macrobiotic diet, and the "The Future of Music," which was essentially the last of Cage's nonfiction works written in a traditional essay format. Quarto (8.25 x 9.5 in.); ix, 187pp.; black cloth boards, white spine titles, in dust jacket. Neatly signed and inscribed ("For Jo") by Cage, in red felt-tip pen, on the half-title page. Light foxing to edges of textblock and sporadically to interior; boards lightly shelfworn; mild musty… Read More

NY: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1969. 1st Edition . Hardcover. Very Good/Fine. A rare signed example of this compelling work of cryptozoology by the Argentinian master: an alphabetical compendium of 120 imaginary beasts culled from various literary and world-historical sources. As in many of his best-known works, Borges here takes an existing literary form--the medieval bestiary--and imbues it with new dimension through a variety of quintessentially Borgesian tactics. These include satire, tonal experiments, and the inclusion of entries that push at the limits of what we might consider fantastical beasts ("An Animal Imagined by Kafka," "Animals in the Form of Spheres," etc.). The result is uniquely hybrid text, as much a work about cultural history and the boundaries of the human imagination as it is about imaginary beings themselves. First English-language edition, following Spanish-language editions of 1957 and 1967. Here newly revised and enlarged by Borges and the translator,… Read More

London: Victor Gollancz, 1980. 1st Edition . Hardcover. Fine/Fine. Exquisite first edition of this important work of Soviet science fiction, signed by both of the Strugatsky brothers. A symbolically complex novel whose parallel narratives deal with intertwined themes of (bureaucratic) order and (natural) chaos on an alien world dominated by a seemingly endless forest. In an essay included as afterword to the 2018 translation published by University of Chicago Press, Boris Strugatsky acknowledged this as the brothers' "most complete and important work." Nonetheless, the work had a troubled early history, with its suggestive ambiguities earning the ire of censors in Russia, where for decades it could only be found in heavily expurgated forms. Samizdat copies, meanwhile, made their way to the West, allowing for translations of the complete text such as this one by Alan Meyers. First British (and first hardcover) edition. Signed by both Arkady and Boris Strugatsky on the front free… Read More

NY: Poseidon Press, 1994. 1st Edition . Hardcover. Near Fine/Fine. Signed first printing of Gaddis' fourth novel, winner of the 1994 National Book Award for Fiction. Signed by Gaddis on the title page. First edition. Octavo (9.5 x 6.75 in.); 586pp.; brown boards with blue-quarter cloth spine, in dust jacket. Near fine (light shelfwear, bumping to spine ends and top of front board) in a fine unclipped jacket mildly crumped at base of spine.

Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1976. 1st Edition . Hardcover. Fine/Very Good. Signed and inscribed second printing (in first edition jacket) of Maclean's collection of semi-autobiographical short fiction, a now-classic of Western literature and fly fishing, whose title novella formed the basis for the 1992 Robert Redford-directed film of the same name. Maclean's inscription, on the front endpaper, reads: "University of Chicago, / April 15, 1979. / To Bobby: / With deep affection and best wishes. / Norman". Although we can only guess at the identity of the inscribee--perhaps a former colleague at the University of Chicago, or a friend at the Press--Maclean's warm inscription and use of first name only suggests that the two were quite close. Octavo (5.75 x 8.75 in.); xiv, 217pp.; blue cloth boards, silver spine lettering. Second printing, as designated by number line and corrected ISBN on copyright page (but with the uncorrected misprinting of "always" as… Read More

NY: Covici Friede, 1928. 1st Edition . Hardcover. Near Fine. Signed, limited edition of this quintessential Jazz Age narrative poem by an early New Yorker editor and author of another of the era's signature poems, The Wild Party (1926). Written in terse rhyming couplets, The Set-Up concerns an aging Black boxer, Pansy Jones, who is coerced into throwing a fight against a lesser opponent. Double-crossed by his manager, Jones revolts and wins the fight, only to be chased to his presumed death on the New York subway tracks. March was reportedly inspired to write the poem after a viewing of Negro Boxer, a 1927 painting by James Chapin. The Set-Up became a best- seller on publication, going through numerous early printings, and was later adapted into the 1949 Robert Wise film noir of the same name, although Wise chose to eliminate the poem's racial commentary by making the main character white. This limited first edition, handsomely illustrated by Alexander King, is signed and hand-numbered by… Read More

London: The Hogarth Press, 1983. 1st Edition . Hardcover. Near Fine/Near Fine. Reproduction of the original manuscript of Woolf's landmark modernist novel, as meticulously transcribed and edited by Susan Dick. An invaluable addition to Woolf studies, and a thrilling peek into one of the 20th century's great literary minds at work. First British edition, following the Canadian edition of 1982, and also printed by the University of Toronto Press. Octavo, 10 x 6.75 in. 429pp. total (introduction and appendix paginated continuously to 63pp. on either side of the independently paginated manuscript). Green and blue decorative cloth boards in matching dust jacket. Half-inch split to cloth at base of front hinge, small push-tear to cloth at base of front board. Else near fine in a near fine jacket, mildly crumpled at spine ends and with toning to flaps. Scarce.