Featured Items
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- Featured items that Ken Sanders Rare Books plans to bring to RMBPF 2019.
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Featured Items
Description:
187pp. Octavo. Orange boards. Jacket blurb affixed to the front pastedown. Top stain faded. Jacket shows some sunning, especially to spine, and some edgewear. Dust
jacket is from another copy.
A solid copy of one of the most important crime novels of the 20th century.
Price $5,000.00
Description:
316pp. Octavo. Beige cloth boards with blue ink. Slight wear to extremities and yellowing of endsheets, bookplates to front and rear pastedowns; very good. Dust jacket is
corner clipped, lightly sunned, and shows minor wear to extremities. Two areas of tape repair to reverse of jacket. Else very good. This copy is from the collection of Jean
Hersholt, with his bookplate on the chemise of the custom slipcase. Jean Hersholt was a Danish-American Hollywood actor, known for his role in "Heidi." He was also
widely recognized for his collection of Anderseniana, which represented possibly the largest collection in America of first
A nice presentation copy of this early Steinbeck novel set above the town of Monterey.
Price $15,000.00
Description:
310pp. Octavo [21 cm] Black boards with white lettering on the backstrip and front board. Red topstain. Housed in a custom-made clamshell of beige cloth. The book has
only a minor lean to the spine. The boards are clean and crisp. In a dust jacket, with very discrete restoration to the spine, and mild toning and foxing to the rear panel and
flaps.
Kerouac's 'On the Road' is one of the most influential and important novels of the Postwar era, and along with Ginsberg's 'Howl' and Burroughs' 'Naked Lunch' form the
Beat holy trinity.
A nice clean copy of this important work. Charters A2a.
Price $4,500.00
Description:
693pp. Octavo [23 cm] Decoratively embossed brown cloth over boards, with a gilt stamped title on the spine. The front hinge has been discreetly repaired, and this copy
lacks the front flyleaf. The pages have periodic light foxing and tide marks (measuring up to 2" deep). The threads are visible in the inside margins of the pages here and
there, but the text block is still very sturdy.
22 single-sided plates and 5 maps, including the large folding map by Charles Preuss, with some splitting to the folds. John Fremont's expeditions of 1842 and 1843-44
were the most spectacular reconnaissance of the American West since Lewis and Clark. Performed under the auspices of the Army Bureau of Topographical Engineers,
the expedition's published reports and maps brought a factor of dependability and trustworthiness that would aid American settlement of the West. Fremont's report was
the most detailed observations of the western territories at the time. The country covered by the report was previously terra incognito--Brigham Young is said to have used
the report as a guide in bringing the Mormon people West. Utah was then part of Mexico and would first become Deseret and then Utah territory. One of the seminal works
for any western or Utah collector. Howes F-372 (Senate Issue). Wagner/Camp 115.2.
Price $2,500.00
Description:
79pp. Duodecimo [19.5 cm] Black cloth over boards. The text block is cracked at the title page. In an attractive dust jacket, with subtle toning, and very light rubbing and
chipping to the edges. Not price-clipped. Aldous Huxley has written his name, along with the notation "2533 Hillegass Berkely [sic] 4," on the front free endpaper. The
following is also noted on the front free endpaper: "Acquired from the estate of Dr. Antonio Brico, March, 1990." Interestingly, Dr. Antonia Brico (1902-1989) was the first
world-famous female conductor of the Twentieth Century, overcoming much sexual bias. A movie about her life, entitled "De Dirigent" ("The Conductor") was released in
2018. Laid into the book, is a lengthy, 7-page letter from Aldous Huxley written in almost stream-of-consciousness-style, on Hotel Durant letterhead [5 1/2" x 8 1/2"], dated
"April 24 - 62," below his name in pen. A note revealing the provenance of the letter is tucked in. The author of the laid in note states, "I believe the book & note were in
reply to an inquiry from Dr. Antonia Brico re: his research into mind-expanding drugs." Huxley opens the letter with the heading "Visionary Experience." He immediately
notes, "'Island' - latest book - 1960. Why are precious stones precious? - Because of scarcity value?" " He goes on to write such things as "Ezekial calls gems 'Stones of
Fire,'" "Many children leave visionary experience... As child grew up vision faded" and "Most people live in drab world don't have visionary experience." Later he opines,
"Child and visionary adult. Other people who have visionary experiences people who are dying people have regarded these experiences as valuable & try to induce them,"
and "Tibetan monks had these experiences because they were cut off from the world." He closes the letter by stating, "Important aspect of human mind- capacity for
creating... We can make use of it in ways which are ethically & spiritually valuable."
An attractive signed copy of Huxley's famous work, with a nice association letter, which strongly emphasizes Huxley's passion for mysticism and visionary experiences.
Price $1,500.00