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Black Manhattan (Association Copy Inscribed to Julius Rosenwald).
James Weldon Johnson. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1930.
Description:
First Printing. Complete including all 14 photographic plates. Sound binding with intact hinges. Clean pages.
Light wear to cover. Sunned spine. Former owner's name inside front cover. Johnson's inscription on this important
dedication copy reads, "For Julius Rosenwald with great admiration and deep regard. James Weldon Johnson / July 10, 1930."
Rosenwald was a co-owner of Sears and Roebuck and one of the most generous philanthropists of his age. His Rosenwald Fund
built 4,977 schools, 217 teachers' homes, and 163 shop buildings for African-American children in 15 states from
Maryland to Texas. Johnson, one of the most influential African-Americans in the first half of the twentieth century,
was a famous author, songwriter (he and his brother wrote "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing" as well as popular songs like
"Under the Bamboo Tree"), educator, lawyer, diplomat, civil rights activist, and a longtime leader in the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). In 1929, Rosenwald began to shift his philanthropic focus
from funding black education projects to funding creativity in the African-American community by providing a series of
large fellowships to black writers, artists, intellectuals, and researchers. Johnson was the first recipient, and he used
his grant to publish Black Manhattan, the first important cultural study of African Americans from their initial arrival
in America to their triumphant achievements in 1920s Harlem.
Price $7000.00
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King Kong.
Delos W. Lovelace. Conceived By Edgar Wallace and Merian C. Cooper. Screenplay by James A. Creelman and Ruth Rose. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1932.
Description:
The first edition of the most coveted photoplay with the exceptionally scarce first generally available dust jacket
showing the double 'by' error. (An earlier jacket was printed without crediting the screenplay authors, but immediately
pulled when the screenwriters threatened a law suit. A more common-though still very scarce-jacket was issued that
corrected the double "by" error.) Issued in conjunction with (and shortly prior to) the release of the classic RKO movie.
Tight binding with sound hinges. Clean pages. Some minor loss of color to the violet topstain of text block. Bright
fresh cover with very light wear. The unrestored and unaltered dust jacket has bright, fresh color with some light edge
wear and no significant chips. However, there is a short, narrow piece missing from the front panel and half of the inside
front flap has been removed. Still, this is one of the nicest first-state examples of this famous photoplay that you are likely to find
Price $4900.00
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Illustrations of the Manners, Customs, and Condition of the North American Indians. With Letters and Notes Written during Eight Years of Travel and Adventure Among the Wildest and Most Remarkable Tribes now Existing.
George Catlin. London: Chatto and Windus, 1876.
Description:
First edition printed in color. Publisher's pictorial binding in red, black, and gold. Two volumes; complete.
Vol 1 - viii introductory pages; 264 text pages. Vol 2 - viii introductory pages; 266 text pages. All 180 colored plates
containing over 300 illustrations are present (plates 152 and 153 are out of sequence). All three maps (including one folding)
are present. See Howes C-241.
Rebacked with original spines laid down. Covers have some minor wear; black and gilt decoration and lettering are in nice shape.
New endpapers. Vol 1 table of contents leaves and folding map have been reinforced with transparent archival tape at
their binding edges. Folding map has been retipped into place. Frontispiece has been slightly trimmed and retipped into place.
Otherwise, pages and plates are clean and bright with only the occasional finger smudge. An attractive set at a reasonable price.
Price $3400.00
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Autographed Typed Letter from Susan B. Anthony on the Stationery of the National American Woman Suffrage Association to
Helen Pillsbury Cogswell, the daughter of Pillsbury Cogswell. Dated 19 December 1898. Includes the letter's envelope.
Susan B. Anthony. Rochester, New York, 1898.
Description:
One page letter, signed "Susan B. Anthony". Letter and envelope are both in very nice shape. The letter has only some light
edge wear, and there is some slight postal soiling to the envelope.
In this letter, Anthony informs Cogswell that she has just received "some of the huge volumes of my biography" and notes that
she will be dispatching a set to her shortly, "in memory of your dear father, mother and husband, and recognition of your own
splendid services to them and to the world." She goes on to note that as they worked together on the book, her biographer,
Mrs. Ida Husted Harper, would frequently say, "I do hope Mr. Pillsbury will live to read what I have said about him."
Unfortunately, Parker Pillsbury died before the first two volumes of Anthony's biography were completed.
Years before, Pillsbury, Anthony, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton had formed what Anthony previously referred to as
"the Revolutionary trio" for their long-time and very close association working on the entwined causes of abolition and
suffrage which they began as Garrisonians in the 1850s. Later in 1868, bitter and furious with the traditional abolitionists
over their refusal to include women's suffrage in what would become the Fifteenth Amendment--something that Stanton described
as being forced to "stand aside and see 'Sambo' walk into the kingdom [of civil rights] first"--the trio began publishing a
weekly periodical, Revolution, which forcefully advocated for women's suffrage as well as addressed a number of related
issues including birth control, divorce, prostitution, and abortion (which, probably to the surprise of many today, they
regarded as infanticide). Pillsbury remained active in the suffrage movement until his death in 1898 at age 88.
Price $3000.00
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The Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm.
The Brothers Grimm. Illustrated by Arthur Rackham. London: Constable & Company, 1909.
Description:
First printing. Complete; 325 pages and 40 colored plates with captioned tissues. Publisher's crimson cloth boards backed
in matching crimson morocco with four gilt decorations after Rackham designs. Additional 55 b/w illustrations throughout.
Sound binding with intact hinges. 1911 gift inscription. An old catalog description has been affixed to an endpaper with a
note of provenance laid in. Clean pages with an occasional light finger smudge. Tiny dot of soiling at the lower margin of
the plate opposite p. 62. Light wear to cover.
Sixty famous tales are in this volume including The Bremen Town Musicians, The Twelve Princesses, The Frog Princess, Rapunzel,
The Valient Tailor, Red Riding Hood, Tom Thumb, Rumplestiltskin, and Hansel and Gretel. A very attractive example of one of
Rackham's best and most popular works.
Price $2500.00
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