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Featured items that Whitmore Rare Books plans to bring to RMBPF 2010.
Click on thumbnails to view full-size images.
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Whitmore Rare Books
Dan and Dari Whitmore
784 N. Orange Grove Blvd. Pasadena CA 91104
626-297-7700
www.whitmorerarebooks.com
info@WhitmoreRareBooks.com
Modern First Editions and Literary High Points
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Steinbeck, John
THE GRAPES OF WRATH
New York: Viking Press, 1939. First Edition, Hardcover. Fine/Near Fine.
First Printing. Fine and unread in a Near Fine dust jacket. Book has minor
spotting to top-stain and a few pages with minor foxing. Jacket is minutely
rubbed at a couple of corners, with two tiny closed tears and a touch of
toning to the spine panel. An exceptionally sharp copy. Pulitzer
Prize-winning classic of an Oklahoma family's migration to California during
the Depression, basis for the John Ford film featuring Henry Fonda as Tom
Joad. Ford and Supporting Actress Jane Darwell won Academy Awards; Fonda was
nominated but lost to Robert Donat in Goodbye, Mr. Chips! Steinbeck's
masterpiece and literature's lasting testament to the Great Depression, it
was singled-out in his citation for the Nobel Prize decades later. A
spectacular copy. In a custom quarter-leather clamshell box. [Book #91] $9,500.00
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Defoe, Daniel
THE LIFE AND STRANGE SURPRIZING ADVENTURES OF ROBINSON CRUSOE OF YORK,
MARINER...
London: W. Taylor, 1719. First Edition, Hardcover. Very Good+/FIRST EDITION,
SECOND IMPRESSION, also described as the SECOND EDITION. Octavo (205 mm x
130 mm) , pp. [vi], 364, [iv] (publisher's advertisements). With a
frontispiece of Crusoe dressed in goatskins. Contemporary calf, boards and
spines with double gilt fillets, edges sprinkled red. Joints cracking but
secure, a little rubbed, slight closed marginal paper flaw to extreme upper
inside corner of first three leaves (not affecting printed area) occasional
very slight age-toning or stains; overall a Very Good+ copy with unusually
wide margins, entirely unrestored with the exception of one closed tear to
frontispiece margin. Evidence of bookplate removal from front pastedown.
Conforms to all issue-points listed by Hutchins (Hutchins, p. 74). An
unusual copy to be found in such clean, unrestored condition. Hutchins p.
72. Sometimes considered the first English novel, Robinson Crusoe has been
beloved by readers around the world since it was first published April 25,
1719. This second printing appeared just weeks after the first and is a
reasonably priced alternative to the first (when copies can be found). One
of the most widely read novels of all time; a timeless classic. Offered here
in its attractive, original contemporary-calf binding and almost entirely
unrestored. Housed in a full-leather custom clamshell case. [Book #119] $14,500.00
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Hemingway, Ernest
THE TORRENTS OF SPRING
New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1926. First Edition, Hardcover.
Fine/Fine. First Edition, first printing. One of 1250 copies issued. Fine in
an extraordinarily bright, about Fine dust jacket. Pages 4 and 5 have were
opened a bit roughly, with a touch of loss to the fore-edge of each, else
book is unread. Jacket is unrestored, with an extremely faint crease along
the rear hinge fold, and only the most minute wear. The best copy we have
ever handled of this Hemingway high spot. Hanneman A4a. [Book #144] $16,500.00
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Fante, John
ASK THE DUST (INSCRIBED FIRST EDITION)
New York: Stackpole Sons, 1939. Hardcover. Fine in a Very Good+ dust
jacket. First Edition, First Printing. The extremely scarce first printing
of Fante's magnum opus, Ask the Dust. Book is Fine, tight, square and
seemingly unread. Inscribed by the author in the year of publication,
"Inscribed to | --- --- | with the hope | that she likes | this work - | J
Fante | Los Angeles | Nov. 14, 1939." Likely signed at one of the few
promotional events. The inscribee has written her name on the front
paste-down, otherwise the book is unmarked. The dust jacket is Very Good+,
complete and quite bright on the front and rear panels, but sunned on the
spine. There is also evidence of a small splash to the spine with a few
small water rings, which do not go through to the verso. A few small closed
tears and very mild edge-wear, but in all quite an attractive example of
this scarce first issue jacket, correctly priced at $2.00 and only
mentioning Wait Until Spring, Bandini. Published by Stackpole Sons in 1939,
who then became embroiled in a lawsuit with Adolf Hitler over the
unauthorized printing of Mein Kampf. Stackpole Sons spent the publicity
money for the novel on the lawsuit, muffling public recognition of this work
for many years. It is estimated that fewer than 3,000 copies of the first
printing were sold. Touted as the greatest novel ever written about Los
Angeles by Charles Bukowski among others, it is a largely autobiographical
account of a young Fante coming West. Bukowski also credited Fante with
inspiring his own writing career. [Book #160] $8,750.00
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Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel De [Trans. Thomas Shelton]
THE HISTORY OF DON-QUICHOTE [DON QUIXOTE]
London: Printed for Ed Blount, 1620. First Edition, Hardcover. /First
complete edition in English (second edition of the first part, first edition
of the second) and the first translation period. Translated by Thomas
Shelton. Two small quarto volumes in eights (7 x 5 3/8 inches; 180 x 137 mm.
; from K1 in the second part the size changes to 6 5/8 x 4 1/2 inches; 168 x
120 mm. ). [24], 572, [4]; [16], 504 pp. Engraved title-page in Part One
supplied in facsimile; only printed title for Part Two. Without the initial
blank in Part I and the final blank in Part II. The last printed leaf in the
second part is supplied in both an early manuscript version and in a modern
fine facsimile. Trimmed a little close at the bottom margin from signature M
on in the second part with occasional loss of a catchword. Late 18th century
full calf with green morocco gilt spine label. Small piece of restoration at
the upper front joint. Overall, a clean and tight copy of one of the
masterpieces of world literature. The translator, Shelton, did not use the
original Madrid edition of the First Part of Cervantes' masterpiece, but a
version published in the original Spanish in Brussels in 1607. Shelton's
translation of the First Part of the novel was published while Cervantes was
still alive. On the appearance of the Brussels imprint of the Second Part of
Don Quixote in 1616, the year of Cervantes's death, Shelton translated that
also into English, completing his task in 1620, and printing at the same
time a revised edition of the First Part, Both offered here). Although it
was not until 1892 that a copy of the 1612 edition of the first part was
identified, scholars had for some time recognized that the story of Don
Quixote was familiarly known and popular in England during the decade
preceding 1620. As owners of the 1612 edition of the first part would not
desire copies of the reprint it is not unlikely that Blount caused a smaller
number of copies of the latter to be printed than the first edition of the
second part. At any rate, fewer copies appear to have survived
(Pforzheimer). Published in two volumes a decade apart (in 1605 and 1615) ,
Don Quixote is the most influential work of literature to emerge from the
Spanish Golden Age and the entire Spanish literary canon. As a founding work
of modern Western literature, it regularly appears high on lists of the
greatest works of fiction ever published. Grolier, Langland to Wither, 213.
Pforzheimer 140. Housed in a full-leather custom slipcase. [Book #108] $15,000.00
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