Rare books from Riverrun Books & Manuscripts

Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1888. First edition. Some minor white paint residue along board edges (not visible when shelved), light toning to foot of vol.6 spine, otherwise very clean and fresh. 4 (of 6) volumes, folio (16 x 11 1/4 inches). Title printed in red and black. Plates, including fine chromolithograps. Each volume present is complete as issued. Modern quarter plium morocco over cloth, the spines in six compartments with five raised bands, gilt-lettered in two, a richly gilt arabesque in the remaining. A fine though partial set, the plates in very fine condition with colors fresh and bright, heightened with gum arabic. 'THE MOST IMPORTANT GENERAL SURVEY ON COSTUME' (Colas). Racinet's is the most famous of the 19th-century books on dress, and the first fashion book to use color lithography. It is a wide-ranging survey of costume through time, an encyclopaedic work in the tradition of the costume books that began to appear from the 16th-century in the wake of the age of exploration. Publication… Read More

Boston: Fields, Osgood & Co, 1870. Harte's inscription faint (dark ink on dark endpaper), slightly leaned, discoloration along spine, light wear at extremities, generally a very good copy. 8vo. 239 pages. Publisher's blind-stamped terra-cotta cloth, gilt-lettered on spine, dark brown endpapers; quarter morocco slipcase. Provenance: F. P. Mason (1898 inscription on title). FIRST EDITION, A RARE PRESENTATION COPY, INSCRIBED BY HARTE on the front free endpaper: "Bret Harte / Cleveland, Ohio / Nov. 10 '73." Inscribed copies of Harte's seminal California work are scarce, with only two appearing at auction in the past fifty years (the Crocker and Doheny copies). 'The Luck of Roaring Camp' launched Harte's literary career, and contains the author's three most famous tales - the title story, "M'liss," and "The Outcasts of Poker Flat". This is the true first edition: There were two editions dated 1870, the second expanded to contain the story "Brown of Calaveras." BAL 7246; Baird-Greenwood 1104; Grolier… Read More

Philadelphia: Published for the Author by Haswell, Barrington, and Haswell, 1839. Joints split but threads holding, leather dry; some occasional pale foxing. 12mo (17 x 10.5 cm). 156 pages. 12 lithographed plates after P. S. Duval. Original red roan-backed printed boards dated 1840. FIRST EDITION, in boards unrecorded by BAL or Heartman & Canny. The upper board on this copy notes that it is for the second edition and is dated 1840. BAL 16131; Heartman & Canny, pp. 41-44; Norman 1720.

London: The London Chronicle, 1760. Comprising: Vol. VIII, nos 514, 517, 520, 525, and 529. Each 8 pages, small folio (11 x 8 inches). Disbound. Includes the ad for the pamphlet, "This day published...," April 17, 1760; review and excerpts from the pamphlet, praising it highly, April 24; two lengthy letters attacking the pamphlet, with footnotes by the Chronicle editor defending it, May 6 and May 15, 1760. Early publications and reviews of Franklin's works are scarce. The pamphlet was the rare ‘Canada pamphlet'. Franklin anticipates a British victory in the French and Indian wars, and debates which territory is more important for Great Britain to retain: Canada or sugar-rich Guadelope. ‘In recent years Franklin's authorship has been re-established in the minds of all but a few doubters, though, as Franklin himself seems to have acknowledged, he received some help from his friend and ally [Richard] Jackson' (The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, 1966, 9: 53). Together with the advocacy of the… Read More

Northampton, MA: Apiary Press, 1965. A few very small creases to wrapper. Oblong. 14 leaves, including blanks. Plain boards, with printed paper wrapper mounted as dust jacket. One of only 25 copies of this very scarce apprentice-work by Ronald Gordon, later of The Oliphant Press. While a student at Amherst, Ronald Gordon studied printing and bookmaking with Baskin and Harold McGrath. Gordon interned at Baskin's Gehenna Press, and as part of his apprenticeship made several books under the Apiary Press imprint, Smith College's student publications imprint. Soon after graduating, Gordon established The Oliphant Press as a private press in New York City. Very scarce: OCLC/WorldCat locates only three copies (Smith College, Amherst College, and Princeton University).

Philadelphia: Richard Folwell [III]; William Ross [IV], 1796. Some browning and occasional spotting. The third and fourth volumes of the collected laws of the United States. Together two volumes, 8vo. Contemporary calf (rebacked). FIRST EDITIONS, comprising the "first collected laws of the United States and including the acts of Congress still in force passed by the first four Congresses... This set is also important as a collection of early American treaties, with the appendices including the treaties of the United States with foreign powers and Indian tribes" (Reese). According to Reese "the official printings of these treaties are rare in the extreme" therefore these collected editions constitute the earliest available printings. ESTC W20624; Evans 329763; Reese Federal Hundred 63 (Vols. I-III).

London: Lyons & Burford, 1991. Some light spotting to sheet edges, previous owner's near address label on title and endleaves, cloth fresh and bright, binding strong, light shelfwear to jacket. 4to. 273 pages. Profusely illustrated. Original cloth; dust jacket. Revised and augmented edition. Dust jacket notes: "Trout Biology may be the most important book for a trout fisherman's library: for no other book offers such a comprehensive biological portrait of the fisherman's quarry. This is the definitive natural history of trout and salmon, thoughtfully updated and revised and completely reset. Trout Biology presents the life history, characteristics, behavior patterns, and place in the ecosystem of the salmonids. The chapters on behavior are of course of special interest to anglers, with their authoritative treatment of social and territorial behavior, feeding habits, food-color choice, reactions to cover and light, learning and memory, sounds and sound perception, and methods of movement. As Tom… Read More

Damiani, 2019. New. Oblong folio. 180 pages. Pictorial boards. In original publisher's box with matted signed photograph and signed certificate from the publisher. One of 20 copies with an original signed photograph. The hardback edition of Main Street, by Pulitzer Prize-winning, former New York Times photographer Edward Keating (born 1956), sold out immediately. "Main Street: The Lost Dream of Route 66 comprises 84 photographs taken by Keating along Route 66 from 2000 to 2011. Also known as the Mother Road, Route 66 was the only direct road to California until the 1950s--when the interstate highway system created a bypass that shut off its lifeblood, forcing thousands of shops and motels into bankruptcy over the next 50 years. Between the twin pressures of harmful trade treaties and lower wages abroad, the national economy had changed as well, and entire industries began to dry up, sending countless jobs to Asia and south of the border. Western-bound job seekers now bumped shoulders with Mexican… Read More

Damiani, 2019. New. Oblong folio. 180 pages. Pictorial boards. In original publisher's box with matted signed photograph and signed certificate from the publisher. One of 20 copies with an original signed photograph. The hardback edition of Main Street, by Pulitzer Prize-winning, former New York Times photographer Edward Keating (born 1956), sold out immediately. "Main Street: The Lost Dream of Route 66 comprises 84 photographs taken by Keating along Route 66 from 2000 to 2011. Also known as the Mother Road, Route 66 was the only direct road to California until the 1950s--when the interstate highway system created a bypass that shut off its lifeblood, forcing thousands of shops and motels into bankruptcy over the next 50 years. Between the twin pressures of harmful trade treaties and lower wages abroad, the national economy had changed as well, and entire industries began to dry up, sending countless jobs to Asia and south of the border. Western-bound job seekers now bumped shoulders with Mexican… Read More

London, 1939. From the Bart Auerbach Collection. 28 pages, 8vo, and 4 holograph preliminary pages and manuscript cover. Greenish-blue wrappers. John Gawsworth (1912-1970) had an active career as a literary editor, bibliographer, lecturer, archivist, and most of all, poet. He also served in the RAF in various European, North African, and Indian stations during World War II. He also achieved some celebrity as the second King of Redonda, though his later years were clouded by acute alcoholism and attendant poverty. Nevertheless, his career was prodigiously productive, with a long series of volumes of his poems appearing in print from 1933 onwards. As a young writer he moved in London literary circles championing traditional verse as opposed to the ascendant Modernism (a fact that led to his inclusion in the 1936 anthology Edwardian Poets). The first of the preliminaries notes, in Gawsworth's hand: "The Original MS of 'New Poems', the volume for which The Academic Committee of the Royal Society of… Read More

New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1962. From the Bart Auerbach Collection. Slightest wear to jacket at top of spine and fore-corner tips, light spotting on front, upper corner of front inside flap price clipped, essentially a fine copy. 8vo, Original black cloth, lettered in red; pictorial dust jacket. First edition, first printing of the author's Hugo Award winning alternative history novel. "It is probably Dick's best work, and the most memorable alternative world tale, or fantasia of historical possibility, ever written" - Pringle, 'Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels, 37; Currey, p. 157. Small rubber stamp of the Wissners Library on front pastedown. With D36 code on p. 239. (BA).

Lexington, KY: J. Clarke & Co, 1836. Wear to binding, front free endpaper lacking, some toning to sheets, horizontal tear through some leaves at end. 8vo (176 x 107 mm). Later copy of Holley's frontispiece map inserted (tear along one fold). Original muslin, printed paper spine label. Provenance: William Bollaert (1807-1876), writer, chemist, geographer and ethnologist (signature on title, see below); Edward Everett Ayer, presented to the Newberry Library (bookplate, with Newberry removal label; sold Parke Bernet 4-5 May 1966, lot 442). Second, enlarged edition of Holley's promotion of colonization. The 1836 edition is not merely a re-issue of the 1833 edition of Holley's 'Texas: Observations. Historical, Geographical and Descriptive in a Series of Letters.' It is a significantly expanded issue that includes commentary and documents relating to the Texas Revolution. Of the notable additions, Streeter stated, "As Mrs. Holley says in her Preface and again to the same effect in her Introduction, this… Read More

Written on the printed leaflet titled "Meet Judy Blume," 8 1/2 x 11 7/8 inches, black-and-white photo of Judy Blume on cover, listing Blume's books on the back, issued by Bradbury Press and E. P. Dutton & Co., the inner pages printing Blume's reminiscences on writing that she included as an epilogue in later editions of her book 'Starring Sally J. Freedman As Herself.' Blume has written the text of her letter in the margins of the front and back pages. Some light creasing and soiling, but generally clean. In black ball point pen, Blume writes: "Hi Bookfriends at The Hallen School - Thanks so much for your wonderful letters! I'm glad you're reading & talking about my books. Sorry it's taken me so long to answer but [arrow directing to the back page] I've been away and no longer live at the address to which your letters were sent. I'm finishing a sequel to 'Tales of a 4th Grade Nothing' right now, then hope to write a novel about a teenaged girl. Keep on reading! Love, Judy." She additionally signs in… Read More

Stockholm: P. A. Norstedt & Söner, 1893. Light wear to boards, generally a very well-preserved copy. Folio. Half-title. 61 plates, including photogravures, collotypes & halftones from photographs; lithographs, some color, of maps, pottery, etc.; drawings and diagrams of skulls, etc.; plus frontispiece portrait & map. Original half leather, printed boards. First edition in English, with more plates than in the Swedish original. Translated by D. Lloyd Morgan into English. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper to the Duke of Loubat. Joseph Florimond Loubat (1831-1927) was a French and American bibliophile, antiquarian, sportsman and philanthropist. The author was a member of the illustrious Swedish family of scientists, and he was the first to scientifically study the ancient Pueblo ruins in Mesa Verde. His book is a visually striking and academically rigorous archaeological and anthropological study of the cliff dwellers in New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and Utah,… Read More

Paris: Jean Villette, 1734. 8vo (185 x 120 mm). 51 (of 59) etched plates, including frontispiece and one folding plate (tape repaired). (Lacks 8 plates, one blank margin with large chip, occasional minor soiling.) Contemporary French calf gilt (rebacked preserving original spine, new endpapers). Provenance: Four pages of early manuscript notes on rear endpages. The Edward Tufte copy, with book label Second edition. Although he was a dancer, Rameau is best known as the author of two important treatises. His first, Le maitre a danser, was originally published in 1725 and reissued in 1734. It is today considered one of the most eminent sources for the study and reconstruction of eighteenth-century dance technique. Part one focuses on the appropriate manner of walking, feet positions, and bows, and it describes a large vocabulary of steps. In 1728, English dancing master and writer John Essex (ca 1680-1744) translated Rameau's work into English as The Dancing-Master: or, The Art of Dancing Explained.… Read More